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.