Direct Response Copywriting

There is a great deal of direct response copywriting in the world today.  Direct response copywriting can take several different forms.  It could encompass a direct-mail campaign as well as direct response ads.  Within this article today on direct response copywriting, we will look at what this entails and where you can find more information about direct response copywriting.

To learn more about direct response copywriting, you should look at one of the masters: Dan Kennedy.  He has written many books which you should look into.  Dan has done many different areas of copywriting but direct response copywriting is one of his specialties.

When you talk about direct response advertising, there is a great deal of competition.  Many companies employ direct response copywriting so you must make sure that you have different ways for your advertising to stand up.  When you are doing direct response copywriting, you should make sure that you are writing to your prospects as you would write to a friend.  This will be slightly formal but informal in the sense that you are writing to the person in a conversational tone.  You do not need to stick to a certain length of space within your writing but rather write until what you need to say has been said.

Direct response copywriting is a complex subject so you should read more about this subject because a formula has been developed that you can use.  There is no reason to reinvent the wheel when you're copywriting because that involves more work on your part and people have taken the time and effort to test the different parts of the letter to maximize the current formula and wring out the most sales possible with a direct response copywriting campaign.  There are three main parts usually to a direct response letter.  These are the headline, the offer, and the postscript.  The headline is the most read part of your sales letter so you must make sure to grab your prospects' attention immediately. If you do not grab their attention, you'll find that your direct response copywriting letter is at the bottom of the trashcan along with many other junk letters.  The second most important part of the letter is the postscript.  This is where you will be giving an incentive for someone to respond immediately to what you have to offer.  With the offer, you want to make sure that this explains in great detail what a person will receive if they take you up on your offer.  The postscript will offer further incentives so that the person will respond immediately.

Hopefully this article on direct response copywriting has benefited you.  The key behind direct response copywriting is that you want the person to immediately respond to the offer that you have presented.  Good copywriting is done by following the formulas that have been established.  By focusing upon the three main parts such as the headline, the offer, and the postscript, you will be setting yourself up to have a high success rate.  Direct response copywriting can be very effective and produce great sales for you or your clients if you do it correctly so be sure to continue to learn more about the subject.

Copywriting as a Job

Within this article today we will look at what copywriting as a job has to offer. 

There is a great deal of benefits if you have copywriting as a job.  The salary for a copy writer is much higher than the average wage in the United States.  According to the magazine Advertising Age, the average salary for a copywriter in the United States is right around $60,000 when you include bonuses and that was for the year 2005.  You can imagine that the income will be higher now, given that there has been inflation in the last two years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics comes up with a similar but slightly lower number, right around $57,000 for a copywriter.

Copywriting does have a great deal more flexibility than many jobs.  You do not need to worry about keeping set hours usually because the focus is upon you writing good copy.  This could allow you to live a full life in some ways because you can plan some events around the fact that you can make up more time in hours on certain days if something comes up.  This is something that many jobs such as banks or restaurants are not able to do.

Copywriting as a job also offers a great workplace environment.  Many copywriters work within an advertising agency, which can be a great place to work.  You often have many other creative people and there you can bounce ideas off of one another and these people often have high energy which you can feed off of.  This can be a great group of people to work with because you will often find that you are challenged due to the intelligence and creativity of this group of people.  There are many different sizes of advertising agencies see you could decide to work for a smaller advertising agency if you like a close-knit group of people or you could work for a larger advertising agency if you want more competition.  This could be structured according to how your mindset and makeup are.  There is a great deal of flexibility within your workplace environment as demonstrated here.

Writing good copy can be very challenging so you will find that this job will never grow boring.  If you work at an advertising agency, you often will have many different types of clients so the work that you do every day can change.  This is good because you'll get a great variety of different things they would never get bored.

Copywriting as a job offers great benefits to you no matter how you look at it.  You are able to make very good money, considering that the average wage is right around $60,000.  If you are able to establish yourself as a master copywriter, you can obviously earn a great deal more money than the average salary.  The workplace environment often will be crackling with creative energy and the flexibility that you will have from the job is more than most other jobs can offer.

Copywriting Assignments

There are numerous methods for you to acquire copywriting assignments.  Within this article day, will focus on different websites where you can acquire copywriting assignments as well as how to acquire clients who will bring you copywriting assignments.

There are many different online freelance marketplaces where you can acquire copywriting science.  There are three particular websites which stand head and shoulders above most others.  The first of these is www.guru.com. This is the biggest online freelance marketplace. He second of these three websites is www.elance.com. A third of these three websites is www.findafreelancer.com.  Each of these websites has a search agent which can e-mail jobs based upon the desired search criteria which you would like.  The third website is the European version of the first two.  It is the smallest of the three but is still a significant source of good copywriting work.  Most of the websites do usually charge a subscription fee, whether it be monthly or quarterly.  This can be a great investment because you will have access to copywriting assignments that you would not normally have seen.

There are many other ways to acquire copywriting assignments other than using online freelance marketplaces.  This is a place where you can use your creativity in selling yourself.  Many companies in need of copywriting work will not normally look online first.  They may go towards local contacts and sources that they have because they feel more comfortable using someone who they can physically meet with.  You can take advantage of these needs by cultivating contacts within your region.  Look into joining your Chamber of Commerce as well as other civic groups.  Be sure to bring business cards with you and have a thirty second speech explaining what you do so that people remember what you do and who you are.  Do not work at directly selling yourself to them at first but rather make the connection and allow them to come to you.  People are more willing to do business with you when they actually know you rather then just a face on a website or an anonymous bid to a project that they post.

Another key when acquiring copywriting assignments is to make sure that you have a website.  Many copywriters and professionals do not have a website and this can give you a competitive advantage.  You can publish some of your past assignments on the Internet so that if people are interested, they can look at your website.  You do not have to worry about e-mailing them any information and they will contact you if they're interested.  If you work on getting your site indexed, people searching the Internet for copywriting could also stumble across your website and provide in other source of leads for you.

When looking for copywriting assignments, the key is that you must sell yourself and think creatively outside of the box.  If you set yourself up well, you will find that you will be inundated with work by consistently prospecting for new business using some of the techniques explained above.

Copywriting Lyrics

Within this article on copywriting lyrics, we will look at this particular field a little more closely.

Copywriting takes on a similar form no matter what niche you are writing for.  This is exactly true when copywriting lyrics. When you are working at copywriting lyrics, you are writing a message to a certain audience.  To do this, you must understand the way  that your audience thinks and acts and what sort of message is going to appeal to them.  Many people write songs every year but these are not played on the radio because it is not something meets with the audience's thoughts and feelings.  People who are good at copywriting lyrics know what their audience wants and gives it to them.

You will be working to get a message across but you also are working to provide instant recognition of a song.  A good example of this would be Beyonce's new song, "Irreplaceable."  In this song, one of the main lyrics within there is "To the left, to the left."  If you are to hear this on the radio without knowing what the song sounds like, this provides instant recognition of the song.  This helps build the knowledge and awareness of the particular singer of the song.

Copywriting lyrics does not necessarily have to be just about the sales.  The ability to put words together in a manner that move people is a talent that very few people have.  Words have the ability to carry you to different places or to bring you down and this is what music can do every day.  When you are copywriting lyrics, you are sending a message to people if they are truly listened to the entire song.  Often we cannot remember the entire words to the song so that is where the hook or the chorus can come in.

Any time you are copywriting, you are working to persuade an audience in one form or another.  Copywriting lyrics is very similar to writing articles in a newspaper because you're putting across a certain message.  When you're writing lyrics, you are speaking from the perspective of a particular person and trying to get a certain message across to an audience.  This audience will be moved hopefully in that they will like the song as well as think about purchasing the album.  These are two critical steps that go in tandem with each other.

Hopefully this article on copywriting lyrics has given you some insight into the subject.  Copywriting lyrics is meant to achieve the same purpose as any other form of copywriting: build an awareness of a particular singer.  It is hard for someone to remember the words to an entire song but most people can remember a short phrase or statement from a song.  This can be a great way to help an artist's sales.  Remember that copywriting can have several different focuses with the writing.  This is not something that is normally focused on but a message can be used in different manners.

Copywriting Demand

Within this article on copywriting demand, we will look at how much work there is out there for someone who wants to do freelance copywriting as well as the demand for copywriters as a profession.

Copywriting demand will always be strong. Demand will always be strong whether the economy is strong or weak. In past decades, it was easy to get away with a strong product and some marketing. With the emergence of globalization, there is a greater deal of competition in all markets and the way to stand apart is through marketing. For many consumers, the only way to be able to discern the differences between competing products is through the marketing. This ensures that copywriters are needed. Any good company which wants to send a consistent message to a target audience will always be employing copywriters. Some companies not looking ahead to the future may cut their advertising budget when they hit weak sales but that is not a smart move. If a recession comes along, demand may go down by a small margin for copywriters but it would pick right back up when the economy turned around.

There is always need for copywriters so no matter what happens within the country, companies will want to make sure that they have copywriters to work for them. There is a growing demand for copywriters in one particular forum and that would be on the Internet. With the Web up past four billion web pages, the demand for search engine copywriting has continued to increase. It is harder to get your web site indexed and search engine copywriting give you a better chance of being indexed. To do this, the search engine copywriters must write well to ensure that two audiences, the people searching and the search bots, are appeased so this provides more opportunities.

If you are looking into copywriting, there are a great many opportunities within this field. You can work for an advertising agency or you can decide to work for yourself. Many jobs are available all over the country for copywriters and you will find that this copywriting demand will stay at about the same pace and continue to grow with the pace of the economy.  If you go out to the website, www.monster.com, you will find that there are currently more than 500 jobs are available for copywriters. This is just a small piece of the job market.  There are many other ways that you can find copywriting jobs currently at this time. This should give you an idea of how there is demand for copywriters.

Hopefully this article on copywriting demand will help you out. If you are a copywriter, you should find that no matter the condition of the economy, you will always find work. Even when the economy is in a recession, some companies' sales are increasing and they may have a need for more copywriting work. With the demand of the whole market, you should always find yourself needed by someone. Good luck in finding a copywriting job but you will find that this is something that will often not be needed because of copywriting demand.

Copywriting Jobs

There are a great deal of copywriting jobs out there today.  Within this article today, we will look at the future of copywriting jobs as well as where you can find more information.

The number of copywriting job is enormous. As of February 10, 2007, if you did a keyword search of "copywriting", there were 509 open jobs. This is only a small part of the market and you could find many other copywriting jobs on other websites as well. With the evolution of the Internet, there are more and more jobs available to write good web content among other things on the Internet.  Often many copywriting jobs can be found where you will find a plethora of advertising agencies and a good example of this would be in New York.  Within your area, there will be a good number of smaller marketing agencies where you may be able to find work as a copywriter.  The number of opportunities for a copywriter is very high and this is a great feel to work in.

Copywriting salaries usually range from $41,000 a year up to $56,000 a year or more.  From this website, 41,000 represented what the 25th percentile are making on average within the field whereas the people earning 56,000 a year were in the top 75%.  This is a rough gauge on what you could potentially make if you decide to take a copywriting job.

To look just be on the realm of grabbing a job as a copywriter, you could also look at doing some freelance copywriting.  If you're not happy with the amount of money that you could make within the copywriting field, you could look at supplementing this on the side by bidding for projects at either of these two following websites: www.elance.com or www.directfreelance.com. On either of these two websites, you are able to bid on projects that are listed as well as set up a profile to showcase your best work.  You can create search criteria so that jobs that meet what you want can be e-mailed to you.  This is a great way to supplement your income.

Copywriting jobs are out there for the taking.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, copywriting jobs will grow in line with the general economy over the next decade.  This means that you will see probably about average growth for the industry but you could see a great deal more growth if you focus on Internet copywriting.  This is a very flexible industry in which you have potentially a greater chance at dictating your terms and conditions and how you would like to work.  This is something that you can look into when you start talking with a potential employer.  Do not underestimate also the opportunity to work as a freelancer because you could command higher rates and this would increase the amount of flexibility you would have within your life.

Copywriting Rates

Within this article on copywriting rates, we'll look at how much you can make both employed as a copywriter as well as what type of copywriting rates you can charge if you are a freelancer.

If you are employed as a copywriter, you can make a small amount or large amount of money depending on your expertise and how you sell yourself.  The average writer in 2005 earned roughly around $60,000 including bonuses, according to Advertising Age.  This was quoted at the following website: http://www.collegeboard.com.

As far as copywriting rates go when you are a freelancer, this is a hard question to answer.  Some people charge on a per project basis while others charged on a per hour basis. Here are some facts from a study done back in 2005 so adjust these figures slightly for the purposes of this article.  If you like to learn more about copywriting rates up front, here is the link for that: http://www.excessvoice.com/copyfees.htm. If you write a sales letter that is supposed to generate leads, most freelancers charged somewhere between $1000 and $2000.

If you were to charge for writing a website home page, this often would bring in between $300 and $400 for you. Copywriting is a very good profession as about two out of every five people earned somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000 a year in gross income.  Be sure that you take advantage of purchasing these survey results because it could allow you to earn a great deal more money.  You could find that you are grossly undercharging your services in this could provide an immediate boost to your income without having to do any more work.

The figures that were quoted here were based upon the median of copywriters surveyed so if you have specific knowledge and experience that others do not and this can be quantified, you could charge a higher price than what the market could bear.  This would allow you to have a greater gross income. Taking the time to learn more by your field and develop experience within a particular niche can give you a competitive attitude which would allow you to charge more for your services.
Hopefully this article on copywriting writing rates has given you some knowledge on what kind of rates you could charge.  If you want more information on particular activities that you currently engaged in, look up the survey which is listed under the link provided above.

All of the rates that were listed in here were the median rates remember.  This is the critical point that is being re-emphasized in this paragraph because it should give you an idea of what you could potentially charge.  Rates within markets can always change so you must make sure that you're keeping up with what others are charging so that you make sure you are not shortchanging your self.  The rate that you charge for services is contingent upon what the market is willing to pay as well as how well you sell yourself.

Copywriting Procedures

Within this article on copywriting procedures, we will look at how to structure your copywriting when working for a client.  There has been a great deal of copywriting done through the years and it is not necessary to reinvent the wheel every time you want to write copy.  We will specifically be focused upon the sales letter because this could have the greatest impact for you, especially if you decide to do SEO copywriting.

One particular school of thought speaks to making your website one large online sales letter.  Continuing in this train of thought, this could present a great opportunity for you. You could write for both off-line businesses as well as for online business using the format of a sales letter.

Within a sales letter, there are three main components that will make a difference whether or not your product will sell.  The first component is the headline.  If you do not grab your prospects' attention right away, you will have wasted your time in developing the rest of the copy.  The second component of a sales letter is the offer.  This part is important as you must be explicit with the offer to give the prospect what he or she now wants.  It must be something that will entice the prospect to take action upon the completion of reading the letter.  The final component of a sales letter is the postscript.  This is the second most read portion of a sales letter after the headline.  When you are writing this, this is the extra incentive that you will be using to motivate your prospects to take advantage of the offer that you presented right away. When you are focusing upon writing a sales letter, you should take each particular step of the sales letter in order.  You do not sit down and just writes a sales letter completely through but rather take it step by step.  This entails writing the headline followed by writing the offer and then followed by writing the postscript.  Following these copywriting procedures will ensure that you will have set yourself up for great success.

If you do not have a great deal of experience within copywriting, make sure to follow the examples of copywriting procedures set up by some of the foremost experts.  One of the key authors who you should look into is Dan Kennedy.  He has written some great books over the years and is a great resource for you to use.

Hopefully this article on copywriting procedures will help you in becoming a better copywriter.  The key behind successful copywriting is to use the formulas that have been developed while putting your own spin on what you're writing.  Copywriting procedures are important because people have developed these in a certain method to be successful for a reason.  There is no need to reinvent the wheel because this will only be frustrating for you in the long run as you'll find that you have less sales while putting in more effort.  By taking the time to follow operating procedures, you'll set yourself up to maximize potential sales when developing a sales letter.

Copywriting Tips

Within this article today on copywriting tips, we'll look at how you can acquire more clients as well as improve your writing skills.

Improving these two skills will allow you to have a meteoric rise in the income that you bring in.  Many copywriters are very strong in their profession but are not very good at procuring clients.  If you are able to sell yourself to potential clients, you'll never find yourself short of work.  The ability to sell yourself is what will set you apart from all the other freelance copywriters out there.  You must make sure that you have a portfolio of your best work.  Within this portfolio, you'll want to have a letter explaining your qualifications along with samples of your writing as well as testimonials from your previous jobs.  If you are able to e-mail this to your potential clients, this will help set you apart.  They can see the professional work you have done in the past as well as the client base that you currently work with.  If you are able to reference Fortune 500 companies  you have worked with, this will continue to improve your credibility. If you are just starting out in the copywriting field, delete the potential references and replace this with more work that you have done in the past. If you have worked for an advertising agency and are beginning to freelance, make sure to include some the work that you have done at the advertising agency.

 Two possible ways that you can acquire clients are to post at different contracting websites such as elance.com or directfreelance.com. You can also research companies who you can potentially see if they need work.  If you spend time reading the business section every day, cut out articles that might be within your particular field and keep them in a centralized location.  This could be a potential source of leads for you depending upon how the companies are doing and if it is in a predicament where your skills may be needed

If you want to learn more about writing great copy, look into learning more about Dan Kennedy.  He is one of the world's foremost experts on direct selling and reading through his book will give you some insights into how to write great copy.  The book that you want to specifically pick up is called "The Ultimate Sales Letter." This book breaks down the Kennedy system of writing great copy.  By taking the time to read through this, you'll be able to see what he has done to be so successful and he takes the time to look through different examples that you can see what works with in many of these advertisements.

Hopefully this article today on copywriting tips has proven to be beneficial to you.  Stephen King was once quoted in Time magazine that writing is similar to working out.  When you work out and lift weights, within a period of time, you'll find yourself becoming much stronger and more muscular.  The same can be applied to copywriting.  If you continue to develop your skills and write habitually every day, you'll find yourself becoming a better writer over the course of time.  The key behind copywriting tips is that you must apply them.

Copywriting Tips and Tricks

Within this article on copywriting tips and tricks, we will look at how you can take a sales letter and maximize its usage in eight different ways.  This comes directly from a book written by Dan S. Kennedy, titled The Ultimate Sales Letter. This book comes highly recommended as he is one of the foremost experts on copywriting with in the world today.

Copywriters have a very interesting niche in that you can use your own writing to help you develop leads.  If you find that you had many inconsistent advertising methods, think about developing a sales letter to help bring in qualified leads.  If you develop a successful sales letter, you can send this out in quantities which you pre-determine.  The beauty of this is that you can quantify the amount of work that you want to do in a given month and mail out that many sales letters.  After having used a consistent sales letter for a certain period of time, you will know what the response rate is and this will allow you to know how much business you should potentially get from mailing a certain number of letters.  This can make sure that you always have clients coming into the door when you want them to.  It can also help you better pattern the business after your life and lifestyle so that you can pick up the pace when you have extra time and slow things down when other parts of your life become busier.

If you have quite a few clients who are telemarketers or you would like to start developing telemarketers as potential clients, you may want to look into developing a sales letter for one of these companies.  Telemarketing has become much more expensive and more inconsistent these days due to new laws and it is an industry with very high turnover.  Developing a sales letter to send to qualified prospects in the beginning can make telemarketing more effective for these companies and potentially reduce turnover.  If you are able to quantify the savings in training employees as well as in better sales, you will find yourself called upon by many telemarketing companies because you will have put yourself in their shoes and can understand the business struggles that they go through.

The final way that we will use a sales letter and one way in which you could increase your business is to focus upon dentists and doctors office.  Often these professionals are consistently looking for new clients and this could be a way to help them out.  You could use a sales letter to help stimulate referrals.

These were just a few of the ideas that came from this great book.  If you are looking at copywriting and have been in the field for awhile, this article can be very valuable because it can offer new places to look for business.  Hopefully this article on copywriting tips and checks will benefit you with more dollars in your bank account.

Copywriting Vancouver

If you are looking at copywriting in Vancouver, remember that you have great opportunities in front of you for several different reasons.  With the growth of the Internet and the development of online freelance markets, you are able to work on projects from all over the world.  You are not limited to companies that are located strictly in Vancouver.  This article on copywriting in Vancouver will focus on the different freelance online markets that you can use as well as certain opportunities that you may have with in your local area.

There are several online freelance markets which you will want to look into for possible work.  The first one which you should look into it is: www.elance.com. This website is great because it has an established base of customers as well as new customers looking for work every week.  Within their website, it was listed that more than 100,000 potential customers visit the website every week.  This is a great deal of business which you may not be privy to if you do not join the website.  You can have particular projects e-mailed to you when they're posted and you're also able to post a profile to showcase the best work that you have done.

The second website which you should look into is: www.directfreelance.com. This website does not receive as much traffic as the website profiled in the first paragraph but you'll find that it is also a valuable resource for you.  It has the same capabilities in that you can have jobs that meet your criteria e-mailed to you when they are posted. These two websites should spotlight for you the ease with which you can work in Asia or in Vancouver without having to worry about your particular local market.

Vancouver is also a great place where you can work.  In Vancouver, there are local job boards which you can use to post your particular skills or look for local projects.  The first one is www2.vcn.bc.ca/directory?catid=25. The second one is http://vancouver.craigslist.org/. The beauty of working in Vancouver in looking for Vancouver projects is that if someone feels uncomfortable using the Internet to employ a copywriter, you are able to meet with that particular individual and sell yourself.  If you look on these two websites, use that as a competitive advantage to set yourself apart from your competition which may not be in your direct area.  Copywriting is such a competitive field that you will need to take advantage of whatever resources you have available and the fact that you live where the client lives can be a huge selling point.

Hopefully copywriting in Vancouver has given you a better idea of how you can work around the world as well as within your locale.  Remember that you can bid on projects from any part of world and how you present yourself in the work that you are able to do will often be what sets you apart from the competition.  No matter what type of job you bid on, be sure to find some sort of selling point that will allow you to set yourself apart from the competition.  This could be the local factor if a potential client lives in Vancouver or it could be something else. Good luck in finding jobs within copywriting in Vancouver.

Copywriting Tutorials and Lessons

Copywriting is a field which you can learn through practice and education.  If you find that you're a good writer, the only nuance is that you must learn is how to write in a way that sells.  Within this article today on copywriting tutorials and lessons, we will look at a couple of different books which you can look into it as well as tutorials and lessons on the Internet.

Copywriting will not be easy to learn and it is a lifelong subject which you will continue to improve at if you work at the subject.  To paraphrase a quotation from Stephen King, he said that copywriting, really writing in general, is a subject that you continue to improve on.  It would be similar to lifting weights for 10 years.  You will develop muscles.  If you write every day for a certain period of time, you will develop writing skills to the point where you become a very good writer.  If you focus on copywriting and write everyday, you will become a very good copywriter.

The first book which would like to point you towards in copywriting tutorials and lessons would be the book The Copywriter's Handbook. This is a great book for you to look at because it will give you an introduction into copywriting as well as learning what it will take to write the different types of advertisements.  Copywriting is a very broad field in that what you write could be anything from direct mail to Web content to public relations materials.

Another book which you should look into is simply called Copywriting. This book is a little different in that it explains both what it takes to the copywriter as well as how you need to develop ideas and structure copy.  This is a more fundamental book that focuses on what you need to do as opposed to explaining the different types of advertising like the first book did.

If you cannot find these books within your local library, take a look at the following websites which can provide copywriting tutorials and lessons.  One website which we would like profile is: http://www.sherus.com/business/copywriting/. Another website which you can look for copywriting tutorials and lessons is: http://www.adcopywriting.com/Tutorials_List.htm. This is a website which has a great deal of information as well and has elicited positive testimonials from different people.  If you look online, you can find a great deal of websites which will offer you free tutorials on how to write good copy.  This is probably the most critical skill when you are looking to start a website because your written words are going to be the engine which drives your online sales.  You can have all the flashy graphics and animation that you want, but if there's no content, people will only spend a certain limited amount of time on your website.  It is the people who write good content who have the greatest success.

Hopefully this article on copywriting tutorials and lessons is something which can help you.  Come rating is a skill which takes persistence and a desire to continue learning due to the sheer volume of information on the subject.  This can make it exciting because you can always learn something new that can help you improve your writing and make more money.