Как стать рерайтером/копирайтером с нуля? С чего начинать, и где проверить качество начальных работ, прежде чем брать первые заказы?
Очень важно определиться, кем именно вы собираетесь становиться все же: копирайтером или рерайтером? Это ведь не разные направления одной профессии, как, скажем, студент меда выбирает: стать ему хирургом или анестезиологом.
Здесь все очень по-другому. Если неправильно выбрать, то просто сломаете себя и свою карьеру. Плюс, получите в итоге нервные срывы и прочие прелести профессии.
Почему нельзя становиться рерайтером? Потому что это в конце концов превратит вас из творческого человека в придаток к сервисам по проверке уникальности, водности и прочим. В робота. Рерайтер — не творит. У него нет авторского голоса, нет собственной позиции. Он попросту паразитирует на чужих текстах, меняя там слова и предложения до нужной уникальности.
По сути, рерайтер как пишущий человек вообще не состоялся и не развивается. Скажу больше, такие люди деградируют. Со временем они настолько привыкают к тому, что уже есть тексты, где уже все сказано за них, что не способны сами что-то создавать.
Рерайтеры, опять же потому, что не творят и не испытывают вполне естественного прилива радости от созидания чего-то своего, очень быстро погружаются в депрессии, перегорают и начинают тихо ненавидеть профессиию.
Я таких людей видел сотни за свою карьеру, ни из одного рерайтера не выросло серьезного автора. Это тупиковый путь, это путь потери навыков и деградации. Намного более подробно и более серьезно я говорил об этом в своей книге «Копирайтер, расти». Советую изучить, она спасла карьеры массы людей.
Почему важно стать копирайтером?
Потому-что это совершенно иные рамки и горизонты профессии. Рерайтер ничему не учится, потому что переставлять буквы и абзацы — не самое сложное из дел, там все за месяц освоишь.
Копирайтер же пишет самостоятельныке авторские тексты. Там уже нужно самому уметь подать материал, завлечь читателя, раскрыть суть, продать, убедить и так далее. Словом, это уже серьезная взрослая позиция мастера.
А поскольку такие вложения в знания и развитие окупаются, хорошие копирайтеры постоянно прогрессируют. И дело даже не в том, что в копирайтинге совсем другие заработки. Хотя это так и есть.
Дело в том, что от копирайтинга автор получает силы, копирайтинг не скучный, копирайтинг — это уже творчество. А творить — всегда интересней. Я, например, в копирайтинге уже 10 лет, но меня будоражит до сих пор от каждой статьи. Мне нравится писать и получать результат. Словом, это уже путь роста и серьезного успеха.
И куда вы повернете: в копирайтинг или рерайтинг, очень важно понять сразу. Иначе потом можете ОЧЕНЬ жалеть.
Содержание
Как стать копирайтером с нуля: пошаговый план
Новички часто спрашивают: «Как стать копирайтером, если нет профильного образования?» И вообще, можно ли освоить копирайтинг, чтобы зарабатывать с его помощью деньги если ты, скажем, не филолог и не лингвист? Отвечаю: копирайтинг к филологии имеет такое же отношение как брейк-данс к балету, то есть буквы общие, но суть совершенно разная. И, да, любой человек может стать копирайтером с нуля, если будет знать основы, с чего начать. Правда, здесь не все так просто, как рассказывают в интернете, поэтому мы сейчас с Вами будем расставлять все точки над «ё». А чтобы было проще — представим все в виде пошаговой инструкции.
Многие люди хотят стать копирайтерами, совершенно не понимая, что это такое, и что их ждет. То есть как: они представляют примерно, что это удаленная работа, когда, мол, сиди дома или еще где-нибудь, пиши себе тексты в интернете и получай за это деньги. На биржах или еще где. Вроде ничего сложного, если в школе по сочинениям были пятерки, да? А вот и нет. И это первая вещь, которую нужно понять и принять. Сами тексты никому не нужны. Это просто безликая масса тысяч знаков, связанных в слова и предложения. Платят за нее деньги только тогда, когда в этом есть хоть какой-то коммерческий смысл. Поэтому…
Шаг 1. Понять, что такое копирайтинг на самом деле
99% людей не знают, что такое копирайтинг и считают, что это написание текстов или статей за деньги на биржах. Это чушь несусветная, и если Вы давно читаете этот блог, то знаете, почему. Мы подробно этот вопрос разбирали в этих материалах:
Если нет времени или желания читать большие материалы, то вот короткий видеоурок.
Теперь о биржах. Настоящие копирайтеры никогда на них не работают. Более того, те люди, которые там работают, практически навсегда лишают себя возможности войти в настоящий копирайтинг. О том, почему, я подробно написал в этих двух статьях.
Если после прочтения всех этих публикаций Вам все еще интересно стать копирайтером, то переходим к следующему шагу.
Шаг 2. Забыть про биржи раз и навсегда
Из материалов по ссылкам Вы уже знаете, что копирайтинг бывает дешевым и дорогим. Дешевый — это когда сутки на пролет нужно генерировать бесполезную текстовую массу за копейки. От такой работы нет ни корысти, ни радости — только выгорание, разочарование и подрыв здоровья. В 99% случаев.
В дорогом копирайтинге все куда интереснее, прибыльнее и приятнее, но есть нюанс: нужно многому научиться. Это отдельная ниша со своими законами, принципами, подводными камнями.
Шаг 3. Понять, что классическое образование не поможет
Высшего образования по копирайтингу нет. Ему не учат ни в школе, ни в институтах. Равно как не учат зарабатывать деньги. Это надо понять и принять. И в первую очередь потому что классическое образование на постсоветском пространстве направлено на заучивание, а не на прикладное решение задач.
Если у человека есть высшее филологическое образование, то для копирайтинга это, скорее, минус, потому что филологи слишком цепляются за текст и упускают из виду общую систему. Единственное, что помогает — это высшее техническое образование, потому что в нем прививается системный подход. Но у технарей другая беда — они в большинстве своем не умеют писать для людей. Для машин — да, для таких же технарей — да. Но не для простых обывателей.
Чтобы стать настоящим копирайтером нужно уметь видеть систему, решать задачи и работать сразу в трех областях.
Психология, потому что любой текст копирайтера — это работа с аудиторией, живыми людьми и их ценностями.
Маркетинг, потому что в большинстве случаев копирайтер решает коммерческие задачи.
Тексты, как носитель информации. Но даже здесь тексты в копирайтинге не пишутся с чистого листа — им предшествует анализ, а потом на базе анализа создаются прототипы — макеты будущих страниц, статей и т.д.
Шаг 4. Выбрать направление
Копирайтинг — довольно широкая область, и многие копирайтеры выбирают свою специализацию. Это можно сравнить с медициной: есть врач общей практики, а есть хирург, офтальмолог или ЛОР. Посмотрите на рисунок ниже — на нем основные направления, которые пользуются популярностью в Рунете. Есть, конечно, и другие, типа чат-ботов, текстов для социальных сетей, но это, скорее, экзотика.
Основные направления копирайтинга в Рунете.
Давайте вкратце пробежимся по каждому из направлений.
Прототипы. Это макеты будущих текстов с заглушками под изображения, кнопки и другие интерактивные элементы. Если Вы не знаете, с чего начать — начните с них. Прототипы развивают не только навыки копирайтинга, но и маркетинговое, и структурное, и пространственное мышление.
Коммерческие предложения — это тексты, которые используются для активных продаж в B2B-сегменте. О том, как их писать, подробно написано здесь.
Email-маркетинг.
Отдельное сложное, но прибыльное направление по настройке и ведению электронных рассылок, которое многие копирайтеры выбирают своей смежной специализацией.
Рекламные объявления для публичных досок типа Avito, OLX и др. Одно из самых простых и потому популярных среди новичков направлений. Подробнее о том, как составлять такие объявления — тут.
Скрипты — речевые конструкции, что и как говорить менеджерам по продажам. Сложное, но дорогое направление. Подробнее о нем — в этой статье.
Контент-маркетинг — статьи и другие публикации на базе стратегии. Многие копирайтеры также любят это направление, потому что с его помощью можно зарабатывать деньги без заказчиков. Подробности в этой большой статье.
К слову, о контент-маркетинге и статьях. На YouTube я как раз выложил второй свой курс, о том, как освоить статьи и зарабатывать на них без бирж, посмотрите.
Общим для всех ниш будет системный подход и базовый маркетинговый анализ. Далее, когда Вы выбрали направление, самое время переходить к пятому шагу.
Шаг 5. Практиковать решение задач
Копирайтинг — это не теория, это постоянная практика решения задач и набивание руки. Поэтому чтобы стать хорошим копирайтером, нужно потратить не одну тысячу часов, разрабатывая тексты по выбранному направлению.
Говорят, чтобы стать экспертом в отрасли, нужно посвятить практике в ней не менее 10 000 часов. Не знаю, наработал я свои часы или нет, стал экспертом или нет, но в одном уверен точно — это правда.
Обратите внимание: практика — это всегда разработка текстов по условиям исходных данных. Самообразование, просмотр курсов и чтение книг практикой не являются. Это теория. Она, конечно, тоже нужна и важна, но ее после усвоения нужно обязательно закреплять. К слову, в теоретическом плане могу порекомендовать неплохую книгу-курс от Вашего покорного слуги. В ней собрана вся необходимая база. Полный обзор книги — здесь.
Книга-курс «Копирайтинг с нуля» Даниила Шардакова
Практика несет для Вас еще одну ценность. Когда Вы постоянно решаете задачи, у Вас автоматически появляется портфолио. И, главное: для этого Вам вовсе не нужны клиенты. О том, как правильно создавать портфолио и размещать его в интернете, даже если у Вас нет своего сайта, я написал в этой подробной инструкции.
Шаг 6. Начать зарабатывать
Спустя примерно 3-4 тысячи часов практики можно уже начинать браться за коммерческие заказы. При основательном подходе к этому моменту должно быть достаточно знаний и навыков для решения типовых задач копирайтера.
Если Вы хотите начать зарабатывать копирайтингом как можно скорее, то придется окунуться в омут с головой и начать двигаться по пирамиде Дилтса. Я подробно написал о ней в этой статье. Или можете посмотреть короткое видео на эту же тему.
Многие начинающие копирайтеры допускают ошибку: начинают активно общаться в сообществах и на форумах копирайтеров. Посмотрев видео, Вы поймете, в чем эта ошибка заключается.
Если Вы не хотите работать с клиентами, то можете выбрать альтернативное направление. Например, начать вести свой блог, чтобы зарабатываете на нем параллельно вместе с развитием навыков. И это очень важный момент: хорошие копирайтеры никогда не работают только на клиентов. Потому что клиенты — это, конечно, хорошо, но они приходят и уходят. Если работать на заказчиков всю жизнь — это все равно что наполнять бездонную бочку. Чтобы прокормиться хватит, но никто не вечен, и ближе к пенсии хочется чего-то спокойного и своего. Желательно не только для души, но и с пассивным доходом.
Вот почему, если Вы всерьез настроены стать копирайтером, старайтесь думать на перспективу, и не только о заказчиках, но и в первую очередь о себе. Сможете позаботиться о себе и заработать для себя денег без заказчиков — сможете сделать то же самое и для них. От этого Ваша ценность только возрастет.
Трудно ли стать копирайтером, и с чего начать
Копирайтинг — это такое же направление как программирование или юриспруденция. Здесь есть свои тонкости и нюансы, вещи, которые нужно знать и уметь. Это и не сложно, и не легко. Но важно понимать, что для освоения копирайтинга нужно время и силы. С наскока освоить его вряд ли получится. Только если пойти на биржи, но мы с Вами уже выяснили, что биржи — это не наш вариант, верно?
Вас сейчас может волновать еще один вопрос: а с чего, собственно, начать. Начните с этой статьи. А если чувствуете страх и неуверенность, то знаете, это нормально. Справиться с ними Вам помогут эти 12 методик.
На этом все. Любой марафон начинается с первого шага, а пошаговый алгоритм у Вас уже есть. Начните, и у Вас все получится!
А если вдруг возникнут вопросы — задайте их в комментариях.
Искренне Ваш, Даниил Шардаков.
С чего начать в копирайтинге? План роста автора от Петра Панды
Сегодня в Рунете можно найти миллион инструкций формата “копирайтинг: с чего начать”. Беда только одна: 99% из них написаны людьми, которые сами не представляют себе четкой картины.
Согласитесь, давать советы может только тот, кто чего-то реально достиг и состоялся. В противном случае цена таким рекомендациям мизерна.
Меня тоже нередко спрашивают о том, что нужно делать копирайтеру в начале карьеры. Сначала я пытался отвечать каждому, потом решил написать эту статью.
К ней я буду теперь отправлять всех начинающих авторов. Начинайте с алгоритма ниже. Он реально работает.
Немного о старте в копирайтинге
Давайте договоримся заранее: это не рекламная заметка. Вернее, реклама здесь есть, но обойтись без нее не получится. Если ты уже описал все этапы становления копирайтера от начала пути в своих книгах и на своих курсах, то о них и буду упоминать.
Если я рассказываю о том, с чего начать в копирайтинге и что-то вам советую, то это дельные советы. Если говорю, что это будет сложно, то поверьте, что будет реально сложно. Но выполнимо.
Тем, кому нравятся красивые байки инфокурсов формата “$ 1 000 в копирайтинге со второго месяца для всех“, я советую сначала потратить на них деньги, разочароваться, а потом вернуться к моим рекомендациям и уже начинать карьеру копирайтера правильно.
Почему мои советы начинающим копирайтерам работают?
Я сам был новичком, я знаю всю эту “кухню”. У меня тоже голова шла кругом от обилия информации и красивых картинок, которые рисуют “успешные инфокоучи”. Часто ошибался, много делал не так, читал массу второсортной ерунды. Порой хотелось опустить руки.
И все же я был настырный, а потому дошел. И провел уже по этому пути не один десяток авторов.
Что изменится, когда вы начнете рост в копирайтинге по моим советам?
Вы перестанете метаться и поймете, куда и как расти дальше.
Вы будете знать уже не только как начать, но и как двигать дальше вашу карьеру.
Вы обретете реальные знания и понимание профессии.
Вы увидите реальные пути отстройки от других.
Вы попросту станете мудрее и сильнее в профессии.
Готовы пахать, пахать и пахать на свое будущее? На всякий случай задумайтесь еще раз … . Готовы ли точно? В копирайтинге ведь для начинающих нет легких денег, это очень сложная профессия, требующая массы нервов, сил и времени. Все остальное
Все-таки готовы? Отлично. Тогда поехали!
Шаг 1. Прочитайте книгу «Копирайтинг: по зову Сети»
Это моя первая книга о росте в копирайтинге. По сути, это автобиографические правила. В ней я собрал основные страхи, проблемы и открытия, с которыми встретился по пути наверх. После нее вы получите ответы на следующие вопросы:
С чего начинать в копирайтинге и как развиваться.
Где искать заказы на тексты.
Почему одни площадки лучше других.
На что обращать внимание при работе.
Какие проблемы возникают у фрилансеров.
Что нужно и не нужно делать начинающему копирайтеру.
Книга достаточно полезна, но она именно для начинающих копирайтеров. Для того, чтобы полностью закрепить теорию и разобраться с нюансами, вам нужно будет шагать дальше.
Читать полную версию книги “Копирайтинг: по зову Сети”
Шаг 2. Прочитайте книгу «Копирайтер, расти!»
Это моя вторая книга о копирайтинге, и первая – вышедшая уже в серьезном издательстве. А еще она сделала мне имя. Сегодня печатная версия – раритет, несмотря на то, что «растишку» перепечатывали. Так что если повезет где-то купить бумажную версию – будет круто.
UPD. В 2020 году выйдет обновленная версия книги “Копирайтер, расти!”.
Книга расширяет ваши горизонты после первого шага и отвечает на следующие вопросы:
Как работать с текстом.
Как создавать структуру статьи.
Как бороться с потерями времени.
Как научиться справляться с критикой.
Как правильно отдыхать.
Как правильно подавать заявки и где искать клиентов.
Как писать быстро и интересно.
И еще масса прочей вкуснятины.
После прочтения книги “Копирайтер, расти!” вы уже сможете почувствовать себя не карасиком среди щук, а самостоятельной щучкой.
Вы уже будете планировать развитие в копирайтинге “на перспективу”. Научитесь. Освоитесь. Укрепитесь.
Шаг 3. Электронные книги проекта “Панда-копирайтинг”
Специально для начинающих (и не только) копирайтеров мы создали серию книг по росту в профессии. Если первые два шага касались больше подготовительной части работы копирайтером, то в этих книгах уже больше практики.
Так, вы узнаете, как правильно структурировать текст, что делать с абзацами, как проводить оптимизацию и многое другое.
Вот список книг для обучения:
Рост в копирайтинге.
SEO-копирайтинг.
49 уроков по русскому языку.
Часть информации перекликается с прошлыми книгами, но это не критично. Впрочем, даже по росту есть редкие фишки, которых нет в других книгах. Если не совсем представляете, с чего именно начать в копирайтинге именно в разрезе технических моментов, обязательно скачайте и изучите.
А уж по русскому языку и SEO-копирайтингу информация будет для вас новой и полезной. Этот шаг важен, чтобы вы почувствовали себя уже причастным к профессии, а не «случайным прохожим».
Книги отлично подходят тем, кто пока не определился: стоит ли вообще начинать карьеру копирайтера или же это “не ваше”.
Кстати, мы предлагаем их обычно за подписку, но вам, как начинающему, прямая ссылка:). Все бесплатно.
Шаг 4: Прочитайте книгу «Тексты, которым верят»
Господа, перед вами мясо копирайтинга! Эта книга только с 2017 по 2020 год перепечатывалась 5 раз, а на авторские гонорары от нее я мог бы давно купить машину. Она очень ценная. И для читателей тоже : )
После нее вы будете уже не копирайтером-новичком, а человеком, освоившим новый стиль. Профи без всяких там кавычек и «но». Станете писать не хуже опытных копирайтеров. А часто – лучше.
После нее, даже не имея навыков копирайтинга, вы сможете начать писать убедительные и интересные тексты. Для этого я создал целый стиль «убедительно-позитивный копирайтинг» и дал все нужные инструкции для его применения. Там даже примеры есть – как надо и как не надо писать. Обязательно освойте.
Читать ознакомительный фрагмент “Тексты, которым верят”
Шаг 5. Общение на форуме копирайтеров ForCop
Почему я считаю этот пункт одним из самых важных для правильного начала в копирайтинге? Да потому что правильное окружение и правильные ценности формируют всю будущую карьеру автора. То, каким вы будете, зависит от того, как вы начали. И где. И с кем.
Будете общаться с вечно недовольными лузерами, сами скоро станете таким.
Если привыкнете, что работа за копейки на бирже – норма, там же и останетесь.
Если решите, что нужно идти по головам и вообще копирайтинг – это путь требований, то так и застынете во всем этом.
Разница в том, что форум позитивного общения копирайтеров ForCop совершенно другой. Там все общаются на равных. Там нет агрессии и откровенно дилетанских советов. Там не заклевывают начинающих копирайтеров и не смеются над их вопросами.
Это, кстати, единственное место в Рунете, где я до сих пор полноценно общаюсь и помогаю советами. Бесплатно и много. А получить помощь и поддержку от не самого последнего копирайтера –это, согласитесь, редкая возможность.
Плюс, на там же вы можете выложить для разбора любой свой текст и получить объективный аудит с рекомендациями. Например, узнать реальную стоиомсть работы, оценить качество SEO-контента, разобрать стилистику, проверить продающие моменты и многое другое. Такого тоже нигде нет.
Не любите агрессивных выскочек? Хотите попасть в атмфосферу дружелюбия и подробно узнать том, как и с чего начать в копирайтинге, чтобы “не было мучительно больно”? Обязательно приходите на наш форум!
ШАГ 6. “Курс из солдат в Генералы”
Чтобы не скатиться в рекламу и “впаривание” я не буду называть этот этап обязательным. Он важен, он крут, но это только на ваше усмотрение. Хотите сократить время и узнать массу интересных фишек уже в начале карьеры копирайтера? Тогда он вам понравится.
Расхваливать курс долго, проще будет, если вы сами все прочитаете. Там очень много того, чего не говорят на обычных, уже набивших оскомину курсах. Это честный FAQ от практика. Там все настоящее.
Если хотите начать правильно и не топтаться годами на месте, то посмотрите, что вы можете получить на курсе “Из солдат в Генералы“. Лично я бы за такое, если курс существовал в мое время, отдал немало. Увы, раньше его не было.
P.S. Напоследок посмотрите видео о цене успеха в копирайтинге. Это отличный способ перестать верить сказкам о “легких деньгах и быстрых заработках”. Денег в профессии полно, но до выхода на этот уровень пахать придется много. И долго. Иначе никак.
Кто утверждает обратное, обманывает. Это говорю я, П. Панда, человек, прошедший все этапы профессии с самого низа и знающий копирайтинг “от” и “до”.
Добра вам!
Опечатка? Пожалуйста, выделите её и нажмите Ctrl+Enter. Спасибо!
Руководитель проекта “Панда-копирайтинг” и Университета копирайтинга. Создатель убедительно-позитивного стиля. Автор нескольких книг о копирайтинге
путь, заработок, планы + советы
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Soft Skills Аналитика Базовые понятия Бизнес и управление Менеджмент проектов ВКонтакте Дизайн Бренд дизайн Веб-дизайн Графический дизайн Дизайн интерьеров Инстаграм Интернет-маркетинг Email-маркетинг SEO SMM Контекстная реклама (PPC) Копирайтинг Фриланс Программирование Все Soft Skills
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Копирайтинг
90000 How to Become a Freelance Copywriter 90001 90002 I’m a lucky bitch. 90003 90002 Yes, I’m a 90005 lucky bitch 90006. 90003 90002 … And that’s not just because I have an amazing partner and home life and family and job. And great health. And generally strong financial security. And a sense of balance, love, hope and purpose. 90003 90002 (Wow — I 90005 am 90006 a lucky bitch.) 90003 90002 But because I’ve lucked into a lot of things in my professional life. 90003 90002 Of course, when I look at how I «lucked» into those things, it’s clear that I’m one of those people who’s only as lucky as she is hard-working.90003 90002 When the effort stops, the luck stops. 90003 90002 Thankfully, I’ve never had to worry much about earning an income. That’s lucky. Maybe I have not worried because, when I first started out, I was happy to take 90005 anything 90006. If I’d wanted a $ 50k / year job when I first started copywriting, I probably would not have felt so lucky when I landed a $ 32k / year copywriting job. 90003 90002 I have not had to worry about freelancing. The work has just come. 90003 90002 But it’s not that easy for everyone.90003 90002 OR … it 90005 is 90006 that easy for everyone, but others have higher expectations than I’ve had. 90003 90002 So last week I got a question from a reader named Susan Silver. (Great name, hey?) 90003 90002 It’s a question that I get quite a bit, which is why I asked Susan if she would not mind me publishing my response here, on the blog I so rarely get a chance to update. 90003 90002 She happily agreed. 90003 90002 So here’s the question Susan sent me: 90003 90040 90002 I was wondering what advice you might give to someone starting up a small time copywriting business.I have been encouraged to build my business, but I am not sure who my best clientele might be. 90003 90002 My strongest skills are blogging, SEO, and relationship marketing. 90003 90045 90046 90047 The Coles Notes Version of How to Become a Freelance Copywriter 90048 90049 90050 90002 Six ways to build a small freelance copywriting business. 90003 90053 90054 Prove you’ve done this work before. 90055 90054 Talk about everything you do. And only do things worth talking about. 90055 90054 Choose a niche.90055 90054 Choose a niche that’s either a «networker» or an «influencer» so they will spread the word for you. 90055 90054 Pitch yourself to an ideal client, even if you have to discount your services to get the work. 90055 90054 Try the tactics that work for your clients. 90055 90066 90046 90047 How to Become a Freelance Copywriter: 90047 90048 90049 The Proven-Only-For-Joanna-Wiebe Model 90049 90050 90002 By the time I decided to freelance full-time in Sept 2011, I’d already been freelancing on an ad hoc basis for clients like Acana (that high-end pet food most of us can not afford … but should really try to).I’d also built up a nice resume that included senior-level duties at Intuit and agency work. That’s what clients wanted to see. 90003 90002 That’s what your prospects will want to see. 90003 90002 Not experience at Intuit. Or in an agency. 90003 90002 Just proof that you’ve done this before. Proof from an authority that you are skilled. Proof from a multitude of others that you’re worth hiring. 90003 90002 Quantity of proof. And quality of proof. 90003 90002 The smaller the job you’re going for, the less you should worry about quantity or quality.90003 90002 So that’s tip numero uno: 90047 Prove you’ve done similar work before. 90049 90003 90002 How? 90003 90002 Start with a good-looking, easy to navigate online portfolio. I use Carbonmade, and I totally recommend it. You can create multiple portfolios — so you can have one portfolio of copywriting for hair salons, another of print copywriting, another of copywriting + creative direction. Then you can send your prospects to the appropriate portfolio. 90003 90002 Now, in recommending that you prove your work in order to get work, I know what you’re saying: 90003 90002 90005 «I need work to get work.But I can not get work without a history of work. I’m doomed! » 90006 90003 90002 I hear you! 90003 90002 But, I guarantee it, you’ve already done 90005 some sort 90006 of copywriting work. Even if you’ve never been hired by a client. 90003 90002 If you’re the one your sister goes to when she needs her school paper edited, voila — you’re an editor! 90003 90002 If you wrote a brochure for your mom’s workplace, voila — you’re a copywriter! 90003 90002 If you proofread for your university paper, voila — you’re a copyeditor! 90003 90002 You do not need to do a lot.You just need to know this one little secret: 90003 90002 90005 90047 Everything you do has the potential to be BIG. 90049 90006 90003 90002 What does that mean? 90003 90002 It means it’s 90005 up to you 90006 to milk every piece of experience you have. To wring it dry in your self-marketing. Even if it’s small, it can be big in your marketing. 90003 90002 You know why big names like Anthony Robbins, Marie Forleo and Laura Roeder became big names? 90003 90002 They put themselves out there.And then they talked about the results endlessly. 90003 90002 Everything they do becomes big. Everything they spend energy on is something they then market themselves with. 90003 90002 So that’s tip numero two: 90047 Talk about everything you do. And only do things worth talking about. 90049 90003 90002 That means you 1) need a blog that you 2) post your wins and client stories on, with a focus on 3) only doing client work that will translate into a blog post that can bring in more clients.90003 90002 Let’s say you want to write copy for local hair salons. You want to be the go-to person in this niche. Why? Well, let’s say you really like getting your hair done (so you have a personal interest), you love the volatility of this sort of small business (because that’s a fun challenge for you), and — this is 90005 important 90006 — you recognize that hairdressers are people who not only connect with other hairdressers but who also have clients that they spend an hour or so talking to during each visit.Which means that, if you do a good job for them, they are VERY likely to spread the word about you to people in and beyond your niche. 90003 90002 So that’s tip number three: 90047 Choose a niche. 90049 90003 90002 And tip number quatre: 90047 Choose a niche that’s either a «networker» or an «influencer» so they will spread the word for you. 90049 (Susan, this is where to start when thinking about clientele!) 90047 90048 90049 90003 90002 So you seek out a hairdresser. Maybe it’s your hairdresser.You pitch yourself. You even agree to do the copywriting work for half of what you’d normally charge. Yes, for half. Because you’re trying to grow your business. And you need someone to bite. 90003 90002 (Should you give your services away free? That’s the topic of another post!) 90003 90002 Tip number 5: 90047 Pitch yourself to an ideal client, even if you have to discount your services to get the work. 90049 90003 90002 The result? You get a client who’s a hairdresser, and you write a direct response piece — like a postcard — to help him grow his client base.This is a client you’re going to want to blog about. 90003 90002 Tell him you’re going to promote his business on your blog, and then write a great post all about what you did to help him, such as: 90003 90165 90054 Getting an understanding for his ideal client 90055 90054 Identifying the need to do a print piece / DR mailer 90055 90054 Targeting an area in town to send the piece to 90055 90054 Developing the right value proposition for him 90055 90054 Crafting the offer / Developing the best incentive, if any 90055 90054 Taking things further — promoting sharing by liking him on Facebook 90055 90054 Creating a Facebook page for him 90055 90180 90002 Do not forget to share the results! Be 90005 explicit 90006 with the outcomes.People need to know both the immediate outcome 90005 and 90006 what that actually means long-term. 90003 90002 Did you bring in 3 new clients for him? That may not sound like a lot … but what’s the lifetime value for a client? Can he expect to make $ 125 off each one every 3 months? That’s $ 1500. more per year. If the cost of producing and sending the mailer was $ 750, you just got him some serious ROI. 90003 90002 And he can resend the mailer again and again — to the same neighborhood and different ones — without paying you for anything more than tweaks and distribution coordination.Imagine if he gets just 2 new clients from every mailer, and he sends out 6 more mailers over the course of the year. Suddenly he’s got 15 clients, thanks to you! 90003 90002 When you write this blog post, share it! Put it on Facebook. Put it on LinkedIn. Submit it to Inbound.org. If you have any sort of Twitter following, tweet it. 90003 90002 After a week passes, repeat. Share it on Facebook again, and tweet about it again. 90003 90002 Three months down the road, repeat. 90003 90002 But that’s not all.90003 90002 Why stop at creating a great promotion for your client? 90003 90002 Tip number 6: 90047 If something works for your client, try it to market your own business. 90048 90049 90003 90002 It’s always a good idea to set aside a portion of the money you make to spend on promoting your own business. If you’ve gained traction in a niche where you can rely on word of mouth to grow your business, that’s great. But do not forget about the power of good ol ‘self-promotion. 90003 90002 If the postcard worked for your client, do a mailer for your business.After all, you just got more experienced in direct response … so why not put that experience to work for you? 90003 90002 Create and send your postcards. Then, measure the results. 90003 90002 And then? 90003 90002 Blog about it. Even if it totally failed. Blog about the experience … because some people 90005 will 90006 relate. 90003 90002 And share the post. And update your portfolio! 90003 90002 So there you have it. Six ways to build a small freelance copywriting business. 90003 90053 90054 Prove you’ve done this work before.90055 90054 Talk about everything you do. And only do things worth talking about. 90055 90054 Choose a niche. 90055 90054 Choose a niche that’s either a «networker» or an «influencer» so they will spread the word for you. 90055 90054 Pitch yourself to an ideal client, even if you have to discount your services to get the work. 90055 90054 Try the tactics that work for your clients. 90055 90066 90002 In your freelance copywriting business, you are both the product being marketed and the marketer of the product.90003 90002 You may have skills in blogging, SEO and relationship marketing — that’s what you’re selling — but you need to have skills in marketing in general. 90003 90002 In Susan’s case, she’s got relationship marketing skills, so connecting with someone in her niche should not be a challenge. Telling yourself to do it — that’s the challenge. 90003 90002 She’s also great with blogging and SEO. Her clients will benefit from those skills … and so will her business. She’ll have no trouble blogging about her successes 90005 and 90006 getting traffic to those posts.90003 90046 90047 Additional Tips for Starting & Growing 90048 as a Freelance Copywriter 90049 90050 90165 90054 90047 Get your name in front of your market! 90049 Guest blog post strategically. Remember to talk about everything you do … but only do things worth talking about. Which means no guest posts on sites that will not help you. 90055 90054 90047 Ask to be paid the value of your work! 90049 If your SEO services will help bring in $ 1000. for a business in the first year, you should not be charging $ 25 / hr for 4 hours of work.If you undervalue yourself, others will undervalue you, too. 90055 90054 90047 Do not ask for more than you’re worth! 90049 Unless you have some sick data to prove how amazing you are — like the results of split-tests — do not ask for more than you know you’re worth in the early stages of your career. Let yourself learn, and, once you’ve learned, charge more. Battle scars will get you to six-figure income. Ego will not. 90055 90054 90047 Leverage your existing network! 90049 My first paid copywriting gig came via my stepmom, who knew a guy.She brought me the contact, but my work proved itself — and I kept that client for 10 years, until I decided to cut ties. 90055 90054 90047 Charge for think time and meetings! 90049 Some people charge only for the time they’re actually typing. That’s crazy — and that’s a quick way to get burned out. Every minute you’re thinking about your client is a minute to charge for. 90055 90054 90047 Do not annoy people! 90049 Exact thing not to do: use autoresponder DMs for your new Twitter followers.There’s not a person alive who likes receiving a Twitter A / R. Same goes for building an email list that you only use for promotions. And for giving out crappy ebooks or fluffy newlsetters. Not cool. Annoying. 90055 90054 90047 List yourself in [quality] directories! 90049 Before they became a Pinterest knock-off for copy, Drivvel.com specialized in connecting freelance copywriters with clients. The AWAI has also helped to create many successful copywriters. 90055 90054 90047 Follow people you want to be like! 90049 If you love me, follow me.🙂 If you want to be like Nick Usborne, follow him, too. Learn from the people who’ve been there … so you do not have to learn the hard way yourself. 90055 90180 90002 Additionally, remember that you’re a business. Think of yourself as one, and suddenly you’ll have no choice but to take marketing yourself seriously. To help you remember that you’re a business, do things that drive that point home. Such as making your home workspace feel like an office: if you’re in the guest bedroom, take the bed out; if you’re in a cubby off the kitchen, tell your family that your «virtual door» is closed from 8am to 6pm.90003 90002 Make sense? 90003 90002 One last thing: I’m slightly concerned about the idea of keeping your copywriting business small. It’s a concept I do not quite understand. 90003 90002 ‘Cos when you get more clients, you get to build a waiting list — which makes your clients feel even better about working with you. (No one wants to work with someone that is not in demand.) 90003 90002 And when that happens, you get to start increasing your hourly rate. And you get to be more selective with the clients you take on as a freelance copywriter.90003 90002 And when that happens, you get to work fewer hours. 90003 90002 Do not you want to move from $ 50 / hr to $ 150 / hr? Sure you do. 90003 90002 So good luck, Susan! And good luck to everyone who wants to become a freelance copywriter. 90003 90002 ~ joanna 90003 90002 PS: For more on becoming a freelance copywriter, check out these posts 90003.90000 How to Become a Master Copywriter in Just One Year 90001 90002 Before getting into becoming a master copywriter, let’s be honest: «master» is relative, because even well-known masters of copywriting today still have not reached the pinnacle of their craft . 90003 90002 There’s always something new to learn, something more to discover. 90003 90002 But there are indeed ways you can rise up the ranks in your copywriting career so that you can call yourself a master (and feel 150 percent confident in that title) — and you can do so in just one year.Possibly even less. 90003 90002 Here’s exactly how you can become a master copywriter in less than a year, and in just five easy steps: 90003 90010 Read a Lot — a Damned Lot 90011 90002 Mastering any skill means absorbing all the information and education that possibly exists. (Like this idea? Click to tweet it!) Copywriting is no different, and plenty of resources can get that learning going on the path to a solid writing education. 90003 90002 Head over to Amazon and pick up several copywriting books from renowned leaders in the industry, like Bob Bly, Joe Sugarman, and David Ogilvy.It’s best to avoid books from relative unknowns or wanna-bes — to become a top copywriter, you want to learn from the top leaders in the field. 90003 90002 Read each book slowly and with high levels of focus. Do not just skim the content or skip chapters because you think you know what’s in them — you’ll forget 80 percent of everything you’ve read and miss the crucial details that make a big difference. 90003 90002 Then reread each book as you finish it, taking notes the second time around. Your brain will retain more information and understand it better, thanks to devoted effort.You’ll absorb the education and make it second nature much faster that way. 90003 90010 Practice Even More 90011 90002 Deliberate, intentional practice of each technique you learn is key to mastering it. Think of Olympic athletes who spend years perfecting one specific movement, over and over — you should do the same with every single copywriting technique you learn. 90003 90002 In fact, 90025 lack of practice is one of the most common reasons good copywriters never become great 90026 — they do not put in the extra effort to truly master their craft, and they always stay stuck at status quo because of it.90003 90002 So as you read through your books and learn new, specific techniques, take time to practice each one thoroughly. Then practice it some more. 90003 90002 Have a sheet of paper or your keyboard handy so that as you spot a new technique, you can stop right there and try it out immediately, over and over. When you feel you «get» it well, you can move on to the next new technique. 90003 90002 But that does not mean you should stop practicing. Have individual practice sessions for each technique, then as you become truly confident, integrate two techniques you feel you’ve mastered.Practice them together, as a whole, then add in a third technique you know well. 90003 90002 90025 Schedule regular, daily practice into your calendar, and put in the effort 90026 to continually improve your skills. You’ll pat yourself on the back for going the extra mile. 90003 90002 90003 90010 Get One-on-One Training 90011 90002 Self-education is great, and it can certainly take you a long way, but there’s nothing better than working one-on-one with a copywriting coach to advance even further towards mastery of your skill.90003 90002 After all, this person has been where you are and can show you how to take your copywriting skills to the next level. He or she can provide direct, immediate feedback on what you think you’re doing well enough or what you feel you need work on. 90003 90002 Feedback from someone better than you is key: You’ll learn which areas need work, exactly what you should do to improve and get confirmation when you’re doing it right — or correction that helps you when you can not quite get it. 90003 90002 Group course environments are good if you can not get a leading copywriter to mentor you personally in a one-on-one environment.You’ll receive less attention in a group because the instructor’s focus is diluted over several students, but it’s definitely better than no feedback at all. 90003 90010 Get Over Your Issues 90011 90002 The biggest hurdle to becoming a master copywriter is not your skill set, your lack of education or your ability to produce good prose — 90025 it’s your psyche 90026. 90003 90002 The biggest roadblocks that slam themselves down in front of would-be copywriting masters are always psychological in nature.They’re rarely skill-related obstacles only. Writer’s block, blank-page syndrome, difficulty knowing what to say, endless editing, performance pressure … those are all common issues that could prevent mastery. 90003 90002 The good news is that these issues are all in your mind, and you control your mind. There are all sorts of ways you can overcome your writing psychology roadblocks so you can advance to mastery levels. 90003 90002 It may sound fu-fu, but never underestimate the value of a good therapist.This person can help you overcome writing fears and issues for stress-free copywriting in short order. 90003 90002 Strategies that could be used include changing bad habits for better ones, relaxation techniques, and discussion of fears so you can dissolve them into full confidence. 90003 90002 A creative psychology coach is often the best person to have on your side, though they’re fairly rare and difficult to find. You’ll reap the rewards, though, and find yourself mastering copywriting at twice the speed you were before.90003 90010 Expand Your Knowledge 90011 90002 Okay: You’ve read the books, taken the training, practiced like mad and sorted out your crazy-making. You’re doing damned well and feeling great about your copywriting skills! 90003 90002 Now’s the time to expand and enrich your education in complementary fields, such as sales and marketing, storytelling, consumer psychology and critical thinking. Add a dab of each of these to your copywriting, and you’ll be able to reach new heights in your copywriting career in no time flat.90003 90002 (In fact, it’s well known that copywriting is simply salesmanship in print. So why not start there?) 90003 90002 Before you get discouraged at all this learning, take heart: You do not have to become a master in each of these related fields. 90025 But with a good working knowledge of related skills sets from different fields, you can integrate each into your copywriting. 90026 90003 90002 You’ll be well set to take your copywriting skill set to the final levels … and become a master — in less than a year.90003.90000 How do you turn great home page copy into killer home page copy? (Case Study) 90001 90002 Optimization is an iterative process. 90003 90002 Your copy is never «done.» 90003 90002 So although we more than doubled SweatBlock.com’s revenue by applying these 3 copywriting principles — messaging hierarchy, specificity and appropriate CTAs — we were not about to stop there. 90003 90002 This spring, we worked with the SweatBlock team to run 90009 another 90010 copy test on their home page. 90003 90012 To Figure Out What to Test, We First Had to Do the Unsexy: 90013 Develop an Hypothesis About What Was not Working 90014 90002 When you get a statistically significant paid lift of 108%, you might tell yourself it’ll be tough to beat that winning copy.90003 90002 And you’re right: it probably will not be easy. 90003 90002 But it’s never «easy» to beat any copy. (Anyone who says «this’ll be easy» is trying to sell you something. Slowly back away …) 90003 90002 And of course the goal is not to beat the copy. … This is the part where I robotically repeat what we all say and hear at conferences: the purpose of testing is to learn. I mention that grudgingly not because it’s not true but because I get sooo tired of people scaring people off testing with endless rules and guidelines.(Are not we a little early in split-testing for so many bloody rules ??) 90003 90002 Back to the point: We knew some things about what moved SweatBlock prospects. We needed to know more. Hence, test. 90003 90002 By the time we got to the point of creating a new variation for SweatBlock, we: 90003 90027 90028 Knew the product well, having used it 90029 90028 Knew the audience well, having watched dozens of testimonial videos and read through 1000s of their Amazon reviews 90029 90028 Had a strong sense for what was working in the Control, given that we’d written it thoughtfully and intentionally 90029 90034 90002 With so much more to learn, we needed to start by poking holes in the winner.90003 90002 Picking apart other people’s work is always a fun exercise. Hence these fantastic comments on our earlier SweatBlock post. 90003 90002 So why not give it a try now? Go through the Control copy that follows immediately below, and think of what 90040 90009 you’d 90010 90043 do to improve it to the end that more people buy more SweatBlock: 90003 90002 90003 90002 Here is a fraction of the list we came up with : 90003 90027 90028 90002 Woman in hero is facing away so we can not see her dry underarms — perhaps better to see her facing forward to see a grey shirt that’s free of underarm wetness.90003 90029 90028 90002 Should the hero woman be in a crowd, where she’s more likely to feel «sweat shame», rather than alone? 90003 90029 90028 90002 Should we get rid of the global nav? 90003 90029 90028 90002 Maybe people want more than to «control» their sweat. 90003 90029 90028 90002 Does the SweatBlock product shot come too soon? 90003 90029 90028 90002 Does the free shipping offer come too soon? 90003 90029 90028 90002 Is the call to value in the hero too value-y and not action-y enough? 90003 90029 90028 90002 Do the media logos need an introduction? 90003 90029 90028 90002 Do we need the media logos at all? What are they there to do? (We did not place these thoughtfully in the winner.) 90003 90029 90028 90002 Should we try to get our prospects to feel more of the pain of sweating before we intro the solution? 90003 90029 90028 90002 Does the product «demo» (i.e., 4-step nighttime application) appear too soon for prospects? 90003 90029 90028 90002 The 7-day calendar — is it believable yet? We show 7 days, but it’s actually 6.4 days. 90003 90029 90028 90002 Many SB customers have tried countless solutions and may be so frustrated they’re considering Botox. Should we address this or compare the ease and affordability of SB to the drastic measure that is a Botox injection? 90003 90029 90028 90002 Perhaps the photos showing the various types of sweating are not big enough? 90003 90029 90028 Maybe we should just cut that whole area with the 5 stacked photos and sweat types? 90029 90028 90002 Perhaps those photos are too stock photo-y? 90003 90029 90028 90002 Are we minimizing the authority and influencer proof (i.e., doctor, Rachel Ray) too much? 90003 90029 90028 90002 By putting FDA compliant in the crosshead on the close, are we introducing concerns? Do we have reason to believe that prospects need to know about FDA compliance with such emphasis at this point? 90003 90029 90028 90002 If you get free shipping on 2 boxes, should we show 2 boxes in the close instead of 1? 90003 90029 90028 90002 Is there a better way to integrate the FAQs so they’re not so tacked on? 90003 90029 90028 90002 Where are all the testimonials ??? 90003 90029 90028 90002 Should we remove the CTAs in the footer? 90003 90029 90028 Should we add in new messages? — countless Amazon reviews raved about using SweatBlock on hands, necks, backs, knees.90029 90034 90002 For me, a lot of those questions and ideas were … smaller. It felt like we could and should address some of them, yeah. But, well, really, they were just elements. They spoke to execution rather than something bigger and possibly more interesting. Treating them would be treating the symptoms, not the disease. 90003 90002 Bigger research questions — based on bigger lessons to learn — might look more like: 90003 90027 90028 90040 Do people landing here feel alone? Will a greater emphasis on social, authority and / or influencer proof better speak to our prospects and compel them to buy? 90043 90013 This would likely drive us to create a new variation that leads with and leans heavily on testimonials and shows of support from authorities.90029 90028 90040 Are non-readers struggling to see themselves on the page? Will more solution-focused or happy-outcome photos better speak to scanning prospects and compel them to buy? 90043 90013 This would likely drive us to create a new variation that uses 1) more photos that 2) showcase wet vs dry underarms in a range of social situations. 90029 90028 90040 Are prospects struggling to understand how SweatBlock will work in their lives and, thus, will more story-focused social proof and demos help convince them to buy? 90043 90013 This would likely drive us to create a new variation based around a SweatBlock demo, a la infomercials and traditional consumer-goods long-form sales pages.90029 90028 90040 Should we treat this more like the great «miracle cures» of past direct response excellence? Are we jumping too quickly to the solution? Will spending more time on the problem before presenting the solution pull more prospects in so we can convince them to buy? 90043 90013 This would likely drive us to create a new variation that uses the PAS framework, keeping most of the «solution» part of the page the same but leading with the problem and then agitating it. 90029 90034 90002 Now comes the part where we separate the conversion copywriters from the conversion consultants.90003 90002 (My favorite part.) 90003 90002 We decided to test the thing that would make our copy-geek imaginations light up. Because if you were a copy geek and could choose between indulging your copy geekery or not, what would you do? 90003 90002 Now before I get into what we did, you may recall that, at the end of the first SweatBlock post this week, I invited you to guess what we might have done to optimize our winning copy. 90003 90002 A big congratulations goes to Andre, who totally nailed it with his guess about what we’d test for this second round: 90003 90002 90003 90002 Andre wins a spot in 10x Emails, our email copywriting course relaunching next month.(Andre: email me!) He knew we’d do this: 90003 90012 We Decided to Test a New Variation That Used the «PAS» Framework 90014 90002 The PAS framework is intriguing to moi because it’s an old-school copywriting formula / framework . 90003 90002 It’d be interesting to test on any page. But particularly on home pages. Because it’s not designed for home pages. … But that does not mean it can not work for ’em, right? Right! 90003 90002 Now combine the PAS framework with my frustration with home pages, which I mentioned in one of my recent posts.90003 90002 Part of my problem with home pages is that they welcome so many different types of prospects — people in all stages of awareness, with varying degrees of intent — that they have to try to be everything to everyone. Which dilutes the message. Which makes the page nuthin ‘to no one. (I know that’s a double negative. Work with me.) My general solve for this is to write for the 20 to 35% of the home page visitors that you actually stand a chance of converting. And that’s a good approach.But it makes for rather loose and generally ho-hum «I’m everything to everyone!» copy. 90003 90002 What I 90040 love 90043 is landing pages. 90003 90002 Landing pages follow lovely little rules. 90003 90002 Landing pages are meant for targeted audiences in a somewhat controlled flow, making them dramatically easier to write than home pages. And, BTW, it’s not like I’m not up for the challenge of writing a difficult page. I totally am. What I’m not up for is the moving target that is a home page.90009 «Now it’s for you. Now it’s for you. Wait, now it’s for you. Forget personas and targets — home pages for everyone! » 90010 90003 90002 Painful. 90003 90002 Landing pages, on the other hand, benefit from lovely little layout frameworks like AIDA. And like my personal fave: PAS. 90003 90002 90009 90040 P 90043 roblem 90010 90003 90002 90009 90040 A 90043 gitation 90010 90003 90002 90009 90040 S 90043 olution 90010 90003 90002 To use PAS when writing your copy, you simply start with the problem.Then poke at that problem so your reader can not help but feel it. Then, when they’re itching for relief, present the solution. 90003 90002 90040 Now let’s say you wanted to use PAS on your home page. 90043 That would require leading with the problem and then agitating it. (The latter is the hard part.) And that would mean you can not do what we usually do on home pages: lead with your solution. Almost every home page you stumble across (except for large ecommerce and large publishers) leads with the product or solution, often phrased as a core piece of the value proposition.Take a look at the hero copy of a random selection … 90003 90002 Stripe’s home page 90003 90002 90003 90002 The Peak Athlete’s home page 90003 90002 90003 90002 Bluejeans gets to their value prop in the home page subhead 90003 90002 90003 90002 Value props, all around ! We’ve seen that leading with your value prop on a home page can work wonders, as we wrote about here. We recommend to our students that they focus their home page hero on a strong value prop. So it’s not like it’s a bad practice to lead with a value prop.Not at all. It’s good! 90003 90002 It just makes leading with something else … scarier. 90003 90002 Now, would not you just know it — when I was looking for screenshots to use as examples, I went to Basecamp.com. And there I saw the closest thing to PAS I’ve ever seen on a home page: 90003 90002 90003 90002 PAS on the Basecamp 3 home page. And they use an open letter on the page, too. Because of course they do. 90003 90002 90040 <3 Basecamp 90043 90003 90002 The team at Basecamp has always represented to me the ultimate marketing team.As long as I've been reading their stuff - and it's gotta be a solid 8 years now - they've promoted the idea that everyone on a product marketing team is a copywriter. If you work at Basecamp, you're involved in copywriting. So little wonder they're testing or they've arrived at the PAS framework for their home page. 90003 90002 Now let's return to the home page in question: SweatBlock.com. 90003 90002 With a pain-aware reader in mind, I wrote the new top 800 or so pixels of the page using PAS.90003 90012 Make No Mistake: Writing a PAS Home Page Made Me 90009 Uncomfortable 90010 90014 90002 90040 It seems easy enough to present a problem and agitate it, does not it? 90043 90003 90002 90040 Until you sit down to do it. 90043 90003 90002 What kept getting in my way was not just the possibility that the right prospects to convert might not be further up the ladder than Problem Aware, which PAS is ideal for. To convert Problem Aware prospects, you need to move them from Problem Aware to Solution Aware to Product Aware so they'll buy.And I was gonna try to do that on the page. Not a tiny feat. 90003 90002 ... But that was not the problem. After all, the last round of tests we'd done on the home page had also tried to move prospects through multiple stages on a single page, but that version had not even had the benefit of a framework. So using PAS to frame such a page made me feel more confident than when I'd used nothing at all. 90003 90002 90040 What was getting in my way was the force of every single home page convention that PAS was forcing me to ignore.90043 For the past 20 years, we've been carving into stone home page rules like: 90003 90279 90028 Start with a statement of what the product is and does (which we've been hearing since at least 2002) 90029 90028 Emphasize your differentiator in seconds to reduce bounce (since 2003 or earlier) 90029 90028 Get to the point (discussed here) 90029 90028 Start with the most important point (as here) 90029 90028 Your headline should say what the product is, say what the prospect gets or say what they can do with it (as here) 90029 90290 90002 Imagine each of those conventions had a voice.90003 90002 And they were all shouting at me as I tried using PAS. 90003 90002 It was extraordinarily painful to push their voices away and just focus on the prospect's problem: sweating excessively. Please take this as the warning that it is. Should you decide that you, too, would like to test a PAS home page, know that you will struggle to quiet ye olde voices - the Jakob Neilsens, the Bryan Eisenbergs - but that you must push through all of that. 90003 90002 At least, that's what I did. And here's how that turned out.90003 90012 And In This Corner: Our PAS Home Page 90014 90002 Lemme show you the wire I sent to Chase at SweatBlock, and then I'll tell you wassup with it: 90003 90002 90003 90002 90040 We led with a pain we'd heard a lot: 90043 excessive sweaters are sweating for all sorts of reasons. It's almost never 'cos it's hot out. 90003 90002 90040 We agitated that pain 90043 by reminding them that sweating is not just about ruined clothing. Excessive sweating makes you feel trapped. It can not be solved with regular deodorant - that's why you find yourself avoiding light-coloured clothing, layering your shirts, tucking tissues inside your shirt - the list goes on.(It actually goes on for 8 bullet points.) 90003 90002 90040 We continued agitating 90043 with the true story of Brianna, a woman who struggled with sweating in social situations. Her problem culminated in an embarrassing event at her child's school, following which she went home and Googled "excessive sweating." 90003 90002 The perfect segue for the page. 90003 90002 90040 At this point, we introduced the solution. 90043 This just so happened to be the same point at which Brianna found the solution: SweatBlock.In fact, Brianna's whole testimonial follows the PAS formula - it's almost like the page is a large extension of her story. 90003 90002 From there, we started to bring in much of the page that had already won. Here's what changed: 90003 90027 90028 We revised the hero to more seamlessly connect the new PAS top with the rest of the page. 90029 90028 We added more proof points, like 4 million towelettes sold. 90029 90028 We removed the 4-step "demo" because I was not entirely sure prospects needed to see that in order to buy.It may be worth testing the addition of it later. 90029 90028 We changed the use case area (i.e., where we wrote about nervous sweating) to a 4-column area. This area did not make it into the final version we tested. 90029 90034 90002 The SweatBlock team was keen on the test, God bless 'em. 90003 90002 But they were not sure if the hero image should be of a man or a woman. 90003 90002 So they ran this as a three-way split test (ie, A / B / C), where these variations were tested against each other: 90003 90002 90003 90002 90003 90002 This is the easier-to-read closeup view of the PAS addition: 90003 90002 90003 90002 So, do you think this PAS addition has what it takes to beat the Control, which already proved itself to be a high-converter? 90003 90002 Could either Variation B (woman) or Variation C (man) outperform the Control? 90003 90002 If so, which one? Or could both do the trick? 90003 90002 Did our copywriter-geek gamble pay off? 90003 90012 Do We Have a New Winner? 90013 The Results of Our Home Page Copy Split-Test 90014 90002 Indeed, we have a winner! Two winners, actually.90003 90002 Both variations brought in more paid conversions than the Control. 90003 90002 Here are the results: 90003 90027 90028 90040 Variation B (PAS, woman) 90043 produced a paid lift of 49%, with 99% confidence 90029 90028 90040 Variation C (PAS, man) 90043 produced a paid lift of 46%, with 99% confidence 90029 90034 90002 So, at least for the SweatBlock business and audience, the PAS framework worked on the home page. 90003 90002 I'm particularly excited about these results because they suggest that a home page does not have to be an absolute guessing game or designed to speak to a broad audience.If you have reason to believe that the people you can convert on a page are in X stage of awareness - even if they're landing on a catch-all home page or one-pager - you should test messaging for X stage of awareness, not for all the stages. 90003 90002 Further, these results give me greater confidence in trying PAS in other places. It is a really cool formula. Works again and again. There's a reason it's my fave. 🙂 90003 90002 You should give it a shot with your next test. 90003 90002 ~ jo 90003.90000 How to write a cold email 90001 90002 90003 Presented live on Tuesday, Feb 28 2017 - register for our next tutorials 90004 90005 90006 Want an influencer to share your content? Got a prospect in mind to pitch your product or services to? When you know how to write a cold email, you stand a far better chance of getting your foot in the door - and growing your business. In this tutorial, you'll see how to write not one, not two ... but five different cold emails - all based on cold email templates that work again and again.90007 90006 90009 Joanna is writing in Airstory, the beautiful drag-and-drop document platform. 90010 90007 90006 90007 90014 Transcript 90015 90006 Joanna: Okay, this is the craziest tutorial Tuesday ever. Like it's our what, fifth? I'm at a standing desk, and my cat just tried to jump all the way up, and it's a rag doll and he has no vertical game at all, so he like was hanging on. I was dying of laughter. I'm so sorry. That is just awesome. Okay. Wow. This is like the world is against us talking about cold emails.As soon as we start talking about cold emails, it's like, no, Copy Hackers is not allowed to talk about it. Okay. On track, we'll just like edit out the whole part when we post this, but thank you. Yeah. [Inaudible 00:01:11] Huffalot is his name, and he's a wonderful little cat. He just does not get that he can not jump this high. Okay. Cold emails. 90007 90006 I'm not sure how much you ... I am. Chris Clay just said I'm modeling how distracted those influencers are, right? I think that's actually a really good point.The point that I was making during [inaudible 00:01:32] boys, was that the people that we're trying to reach out to are trying to be reached by other people. Others are trying to do it. If you're trying to reach somebody, chances are extraordinarily good that somebody else ... I'm just [inaudible 00:01:49] But that somebody else is definitely trying to reach them, and are they gonna do a better job? Chances are that even if two cold emails end up in some influencer's inbox, and they happen to look at both, are they going to open and respond to both of them? 90007 90006 People are busy.We know that's true, so that's why we want to focus our efforts in writing cold emails on people that are very likely to actually do something with our cold email, so knowing a lot about that person, and then, tailoring the content to them, but that does not mean you always have to start from scratch, and it also is something to be careful of when you know a lot about your prospect, about the person that you're reaching out to, you may, as I've seen, you may find yourself saying a lot in an email about how much you know about them, like giving a lot of examples of things they've done, and it can be good, and we're gonna show you some templates based on links that have worked really well.It can be obviously very good to flatter and compliment the person that you're reaching out to. It's definitely good to make sure that they know you actually know who they are, and you did not just like get a list of people that you should probably try to reach out to, and then like go whip off a whole bunch of emails to them. That's bad. 90007 90006 We do not want the recipient to the cold email to have that reaction, but at the same time, you do not want to come off as a stalker. You do not want to come off as somebody who knows everything there is to know about the person you're reaching out to, so we're gonna talk through five templates, now, 'cause we're ten minutes in.Tutorial Tuesdays are supposed to stay really short. They do not usually have complete audio and cat fails throughout. Although, I do not think that was a cat fail. I think that was pretty awesome. I'm gonna share with you now these templates that we use for cold emails, with some examples for them as well, and they're successful cold email, not one time, but many times, so the measure of them, if you saw the email that I sent out before this session started, and that was about two hours ago to tell you what's gonna happen.90007 90006 If you did not see it, I'll just quickly recap. The way that we put these cold email templates together is, when somebody sends me a cold email, it always goes into a swipe file, because I keep in my swipe file bad examples and good examples, and the way I can tell it's a good example, when it's a cold email, is I reply to it, so when I go through my Gmail swipe folder, and I see four cold emails, I've got like a billion swipes in my Gmail ... When I go through and see the cold emails that have a three or four next to them, indicating that there's a three and four back and forths on that, that's usually a good indicator that the email was probably effective in getting my attention, if I actually responded to it.90007 90006 So, we take that, and then, we use that when we're gonna send out cold emails to people. Okay, that worked on me. Will it work on others? We did this a lot, almost to the point that I do not even know if it works anymore. It's not included in here. But we got an email from a local person at a startup where the subject line was Free Beer. I do not even drink beer, but it's a good subject line. I opened it, I used it, I responded it, and then, I later used it, and it was still effective, so we take the emails that work on us and then, we test them on people that we want to reach out to that we might not know very well, or that we might not know at all, and that's what happened to come up with this training for you this morning, this live training.90007 90006 Okay. I'm going to now share my screen with you. You will see very soon that one, this one. You should be seeing ... I'm gonna wait to get the okay from Sarah and Lance that you are seeing my Air Story screen. Yes, Sarah, yes, Lance. 90007 90006 Lance: You're good, you're good. 90007 90006 Joanna: Thank you. Okay. I do not want to move forward, with the luck you've been having in this tutorial today ... I'm not moving forward without any okay. We have five templates here that I want to show you, with examples beneath each, so we're gonna talk through cold email to promote your content to an influencer, and there's gonna be some things you'll see across these, like things that are in common across each of these.The next email is remote content to a quoted influencer, so if you create content, and you quoted me in it, or someone in it, whatever, then this is the kind of email that you might want to send, and this is the personality edition. This is the one that really comes off as a lot more personal, frankly, because it feels like there's a real person really writing it. The content promo to anybody, so anybody that you want to share out your content, this email is great for them to pitch your services.This one worked really well on me, and it continues to work, so I definitely recommend it, and timeliness is a very important part of why this works so well, and finally, to pitch your product. 90007 90006 That's a lot to cover off, so we're just gonna fly through it. The first one. Cold email to promote content to an influencer. Across the board, all your cold emails should always come from your first and last name, ideally. At least your first name. In best cases, first and last, largely because it feels personal.It does not feel like you're sending from Mail Chimp or somewhere where you can rewrite your from name, so your first name and your last name. Real names, not fake names, knowing that a lot of people have installed in their email client ways to identify who the sender is, so if I get a cold email from somebody who has a really American sounding name, and then, I can see in like Rapportive, more about them. And if you do not Rapportive, R-A-P-P-O-R-T-I-V-E. 90007 90006 It's a plugin for Gmail to help you understand who's sending emails to you.If the name in the sender name does not match or does not seem like it's a connection between what I'm seeing in Rapportive, that's a problem. For example, I got an email from somebody who was clearly not a woman, with a name that was very womanly, and it was Brenda Johnson, or something. There was no way the sender was actually Brenda Johnson, so that's a huge [inaudible 00:08:41] for me, so obviously, it should be your actual real name, in best cases ... Or in all cases, I do not know why you would not be using your real name, so there are obviously little signals you can send out.Use your full name, especially on mobile devices. Your from name is a huge signal that a person should or should not open your email, and most email on mobile, your from name ... Sorry, I'm just seeing something ... Your from name is bigger than your subject line. It's very important that you get that from name right. I do not think you have to put your brand name in there. None of these cold email templates have your brand name in there. First name, last name. 90007 90006 The subject line on this one begins with the person's name.As often as you can, it's good to put that person's name in there, or even their brand name. A subject line, we're not gonna go through in these cold email templates. That works really well on us, has again and again, is our brand name, plus and then the sender's brand name, so Copy Hackers plus Receitful. Okay, so I can see that there's something called Receitful, and they know about Copy Hackers, and someone's suggesting from Receitful that we do something with Copy Hackers, and other ways are just like those two chevrons, like the brackets between the two, but the brand name plus the brand name works really well.We're not gonna talk about that in this one, though, but it's another point being, we all need signals in our inbox that we should pay attention to that email, because it's so obviously easy not to pay attention to it, so we begin ... 90007 90006 This is us going faster, because I'm only on like the third word here. First name, can you help me? Hey, Joanna, I know you get a ton of emails, so I'll keep this short. Then you want to say the thing that triggered the sending of this email to this influencer, so in a lot of cases this might be something like, and I've got an example down here ... If you're sending this to like Heaton Shaw , and Heaton Shaw just upvoted something on Product Hunts that's related to a product you have, or some content you created about a product like that, or about Product Hunt, whatever it might be, if you have a timely trigger, it works a lot better than something that feels really cold or out of the blue.We want to have our cold email be less cold. 90007 90006 As warm as possible, knowing that you do not know the person, so what else can you do to make it feel this is not an ice cold communication? And if you can indicate that you have followed that person, that you've noticed something they've done recently, then that can be a great way for you to start warming the conversation up, if they do not know who you are. You say what the trigger is, then you say your quick reaction to that, like, "That was cool," or, "I could not believe it," or whatever that quick reaction is, where you're involving yourself, now , in what they've done.And then, you say the thing that leads to you with casual language, like, "Anyway, we posted something similar on X, but this time we focused on," now you want to say what's different. 90007 90006 They just posted an article, or they just tweeted on an article about SEO in 2017, you would say, "We actually just wrote something about that too, but here's our angle on it," and the reason you need your own angle on it, is because why should they care about content they're already familiar with? If you have your own angle on it, now, not only are they likely to click through and read because it interests them, but they have a reason to share that too.It does not conflict with the thing they just shared out. They can see a reason to share it, and then, if you can say something extraordinary that happened, like, "In fact, we managed to," and that might be something like, "Okay, we managed to interview 30 Google SEOs, or something, in the making of this content. " That's interesting too. Now, I have yet another reason to care. And it might sound like, "Oh no, well I do not have any of that stuff." 90007 90006 Well your content should have something that's unique about it, and the extraordinary thing you did to create, it does not have to be that extraordinary.You just have to tell the recipient why they should care about this content so that they will want to get the link to it and share it out, and then, this is the important part. The call to action is not, "Hey, here's pre-written Tweet for you," or, "Hey, I'd love you to go check it out. Here's the link. " We get those all the time. I never click on them, and if I do, I'm extra skeptical actually of the content that I'm reading, once I click through, because I have not been nicely invited, really. I have not experienced that moment of, frankly, respect, and I think a lot of people who receive cold email will feel the same way, where it's like, "Hey, I know your time is really valuable.I'm not even gonna give you the link, but I you want to just reply back real quick, yes, I'll send it right over to you. " 90007 90006 Since you consistently share content on, and then, that subject, very quickly ... This is supposed to be a short email, remember. All of these ... Some of the longer ones ... I really would love to get your quick feedback on it. Mind if I send you the link? Getting quick feedback on it is important, so this is like an adage. We're hearing more and more and more lately, and that is, if you want something, first ask for advice, and you'll actually get the real thing you want.If you want money, ask for advice. If you want a share, ask for advice. If you want anything that the other person has to give up, ask for advice instead, so if you say, "I'd really love to get your quick feedback on it," the recipient might actually give you feedback, and then, might also share out your link too, or they might just say, "Yeah, cool, send it over," and then, you send it, and they just share it up. 90007 90006 Example below, I'm just gonna read through it. Hey, Dharmesh, if you're writing to Dharmesh Shah.I know you get a ton of emails so I'll keep this short. Earlier today, you tweeted about how template emails saved your users more than a million hours in the last year alone. So cool, that's amazing. Anyway, we posted something similar on [inaudible 00:14:42], but this time we focused on how templating your blog post can save you a ton of time. In fact, we managed to create three charts to illustrate time savings across nearly 25 thousand data points. Since you consistently share great data-driven content, I really would love to get your quick feedback on it.Mind if I send you the link? Cheers. Name, and then, actual signature. That's to go. I'm just looking at this question here to see if we've got anything. Chats. 90007 90006 We're good. I know some people have to leave, so there will be a recording after this, with the first ten minutes of catastrophe, as Christine said, cut off. Influencer number two is next one. If you quoted an influencer, this is the personality edition. Still, from me, is first name, last name. That's your first name and your last name.Subject line, now this is not ... This is pure template, so this is like Take This Subject Line and Use It. Of course, once people start doing that, then, you'll see it everywhere and it'll die. It'll not be as valuable as it used to be, so you may find that you'll want to definitely play with your subject line, if you find that open. Start going down, because people are used to seeing the subject line. Hi, first name. Again, personalizing here. We did not personalize the subject line, so we do want to immediately personalize in the body.90007 90006 My name is, I'm in this, and then, this is where you start to show some personality, so you tell them a bit about yourself, and then, you say something that's a little light and funny about the city you 're in, and this caught my eye when [inaudible 00:16:18] and I tried doing it too, and it was really interesting. Anyway, that's called an awkward transition, I recently wrote a blog post about, next subject, in which I quoted your specific advice. You can see that post here. Given that you're, again, same subject, expert, I was wondering if there was any one thing you would change in the post or add to it.Importantly, one thing. You're not saying, "I'm wondering if you can tell me what you think about it," which you were kind of doing on the last one when you asked for feedback. Is there any one thing, and that focuses them on maybe giving you one piece of feedback, instead of looking at your whole post, and going, "I do not know. Change all of it. Do everything. Do nothing, I do not know. " One thing would be like, "It's great, but your headline is not that snappy, or it does not reflect what actually happens in the context."You might want to change that. One thing is better than many things. 90007 90006 And then, say why this matters to you. I'm trying to create a library of the highest quality material on my site, and I really value your advice on this. You're complimenting, you're flattering, but you do not sound like a total kissass. Quick last note, thanks a ton for all the work you do. I've learned so much from you. That actually works a lot. It works really well, so then, that gets into ... Sorry, I do not have the right example there.That's weird, so I'll go ahead and put that in there afterwards. My bad. Sorry. [Inaudible 00:17:46] 90007 90006 Let's move on for time. Cold email to promote content to anyone. Again, same from as before. Subject, quick question. We did not personalize it, so what are we gonna do? Immediately, in the cold email, we are going to start with, Hi, first name, I know you get a ton of emails, so I'll keep this short, and then, you better keep it short. I've just published something about, like subject, and I think you'd be really interested, and I'd love to get your feedback on it.Mind if I send you the link? 90007 90006 This is a really, really, really commonly used template for good reason. It does keep it short. It still is personal. It does not give the recipient too much work to do, like any real work to do. They all just have to just answer with yes or no. No, I do not want the link, so they probably will not answer at all, or, "Yeah, send it to me." 90007 90006 Filled out, quick question. Hey, Jessica, I know you get a ton of emails, so I'll keep this short. I've just published something about SEO I think you'd be really interested in.Would love to get your quick feedback on it. Mind if I send you the link? If you said, "Would you mind sharing it out?" I have seen that very one come in, and I have not shared that out, unless I feel really like ... Just, I'm in a mood where I feel like being nice to people, or sending cold emails, just like, okay, cool, that's fine, like I know you're trying, but if the person's very busy, they do not really have the luxury of saying that. Saying, like, "Okay, fine, I'll do it." That's to just ask for a small ask.90007 90006 Those are all of our content promotions. Then we get into pitching your services. I'm gonna fly through these. First one, again, same, from name, your name, last name. Then, a relevant signal class deliverable. I'm gonna show you what that means in the example. Hi, first name, explain the trigger for sending this, so what has done it. You are trying to pitch services in a timely way, so it's important that you immediately match the timeliness. Really help recipient understand why this matters to them right now.I would love to help you with that thing, that was the trigger. I've helped other people like you with great success. Take a look at my portfolio here. Again, you're pitching your services, so you should have somewhere for them to go look. If you do not have a portfolio, because your services are not like that, then you would replace that with something else. 90007 90006 Plus, and then, you want to enter a key differentiator, and this is gonna be really clear, when I show you the example, but when you go back and try to write this, this template will help you better understand what you 're gonna be filling in, once you've seen the example.Sure got a lot on the go, always respecting the recipients time, trying to keep these really short. Can we hop on a quick call? You're pitching services now, so you're ask is gonna be different from the ask for getting someone to share your content. Here is one that actually is very close to one I got back at MOZCON 2016. 90007 90006 People who had slides for MOZCON, people are starting to file in, seeing them in here, that's cool, so people who are gonna present to MOZCON, obviously, listed on a speaker's page.Okay, that's true for like every conference, so somebody who wants to put slides together for people like those who speak at conferences would be very wise to go through those conference speaker list and pitch them. Say, "I'll do your slides for you. I'll make them look way better. You'll look like a pro. " This is what's happening there. Hi, Joanna. I saw that you're scheduled to speak at [inaudible 00:21:11] Fest this spring. I'd love to help you with your slide to make you look extra amazing onstage.I've helped speakers at [inaudible 00:21:16] Fest, MOZCON, and Inbound, with great success. Take a look at my portfolio for some inspiration. Plus, if you're looking to add video to your slides, so we're doing that plus extra relevance, giving the audience [inaudible 00:21:27] I can help find [inaudible 00:21:28] engaging videos too . I'm sure you got a lot on the go, so can we hop on a quick call, and I can take slide design off your to-do list. That is a critical end note. 90007 90006 Taking something off a busy person's to-do list is what service providers are all about, so all you have to do is say it."I'll take it off your to-do list," just say that. And then, now, I can imagine my life with that not on my to-do list, and if I'm not busy, your services would not work for me anyway. I do not need your services if I'm not busy, unless I'm an absolutely crap slide designer, so there's that angle, too, but I do not know if you really want to go that angle. It's far better usually to say you're gonna save some people a lot of time, and make them look amazing at the same time. That's that. On to the last one, which is pitching a product.90007 90006 If you have a product that you know somebody else should be using, an influencer should be using, this is a way to go about getting them to at least start paying attention. First name, last name, desirable thing for the person, so what's the desirable thing, in noun form. I'll show you, that the recipient wants, and then, you put in brackets for you with their name, so desirable thing for you, Joanna. Hi, Joanna. You're busy, but I hope you can spare 20 seconds for something that could, and then, say what desirable outcome they're gonna get that could save you a ton of money, or that could make you a ton a money, or that could help you hire your next CMO, or whatever the thing is that's desirable that you're pitching.And then, the adverb. Is it gonna be fast? Is it gonna be cheap? What is the thing? That desirable outcome can not just be get one. It has to be done in such a way, like faster, cheaper. My name is, now we getting into introducing ourselves, so we've got their attention by talking about them, and now, we're gonna talk a little bit about ourselves so that they know why they should care about what we're saying . 90007 90006 Who you are, what your title is, what the brand name is that you're at, and very quick value prop.Four, five, six words. Something, again, it's cold email. They're not gonna read a lot, so you better tighten that up. Our ... Some social proof here ... Customers have been using our, and is it a service, is it a product, is it software, whatever ... To, then the thing that it's most obviously used for, and then, the unexpected benefit that comes out of that use. Then, you make the offer, you help them understand the offer in their world, and then, you give them the easy ask, where you're asking it in question form.Here's how that looks. 90007 90006 Content upgrades that [inaudible 00:24:07] leads for you, Pat. So, if you were pitching Pat Flynn on your content upgrade product, it's gonna be some WordPress plugin that you have to turn all of Pat Flynn's blog posts into content upgrades. You know he'd be great to use it, you know that if he uses it, he's gonna tell people about it, or they're gonna see it on his very popular site, and by the way, he knows that too. He knows that he has that capital, or that courtesy.He knows what he's got. He's not a fool. He gets it, so you have to make sure that you make it sound like a good pitch for him, because he could just as easily ... Actually, far easier, say no. 90007 90006 Hi, Pat, you're busy but I hope you can spare 20 seconds for something that could double your opt-ins fast, and if that's not the right, desirable outcome for him, it probably will not work, so you have to know your recipients in order to know what that desirable outcome is. My name is Matt, I'm the co-founder of Blogalot, the content upgrade plugin for WordPress sites.Our 2000+ users have been using our plugin to turn blog posts into downloadable PDFs, and they've been getting on average, twice the opt-ins on posts that use Blogalot versus those that do not. Again, I can hear people saying, "Okay, but I do not have that kind of data. I do not know if that's true. " You have to have some sort of proof for your product, and if you do not have any form of proof, and it does not have to be 2000+ users. It could be, we're just out of beta, but while were in beta, we had 50 users, and here's what happened there.That's the cool thing that happened, not the long boring story on what happened. The cool thing that happened. You can find the cool thing. Just get that nagging voice out of your head that says, "We do not have any of that. You've got it. You just have to look for it. 90007 90006 We just added a convert kit integration. This is important. This is tying it back to his world. You know, because he's an affiliate for convert kit, and he talks about it all the time, that he uses convert kit. The reason to send this to him right now is because you've just created a convert kit integration, so I'd love to offer to you white glove setup support and lifetime free access to Blogalot.This is for an influencer. We're gonna give that influencer something that makes it really worth it for them. So, I'd love to offer you white glove setup support, and lifetime free access. Can I connect with your teach lead? This is not, "Can I hop on a call with you, Pat?" You recognize that Pat is busy, you have reason to believe, because he's busy and doing well as a business, that he probably has somebody else who handles the tech stuff, and he does not, if it's still him, nonetheless, you ' re still going into the conversation with this, like, "Hey, I'm gonna make your life really easy for you, so can I connect with your tech lead," and if he's like, "No, actually, let's just hop on a call, "or," Grab some time with me.You're on my [inaudible 00:26:58] "or whatever. That's his response, that's up to him, but you're doing your best to make it really easy for him to see that your world is all about making it easy for him. 90007 90006 Hope to hear from you soon. Thanks. Matt. That's a longer tutorial Tuesday than ever before. I see people are filing in to these templates. You can see that they're all available here as cards, that you can then go ahead and drag into your own projects, so that would be as simple as for the sample project that you have, or any new project you've got.Let's just put a template there. You can open up a new tab, or start a new project. Drag these in from the shared projects, so you pull this over here. Any of them, drag them, accept it, and then, to make this your own, to make this yours, because it'll be locked for you, to make this yours, all you have to do, is highlight that, click this little convert to card, and then, a new one shows up here, and that is unlocked, so this is now your template, so you can just call it Cold Email Template One.There you've got it from that point on. You can use it at any point by going into your All Projects, where you'll see all of the cards that you've got across all of your projects, and you'll be able to find it by searching the word "template, "there, so you'll always be able to bring that up. 90007 90006 Go through and do that again and again, for all five of those templates, and then, now you've got them. Now, they're right there for you the next time you want to write a cold email to Neil Patel, Heaton Shaw, all of the people that you want to reach out to, you've got templates to choose from.If there are questions ... I know some people have to hop off. I totally get it. It went longer, but thank you for your patience, with initial tech slash cat stuff. Let me see. Any questions? 90085 Carlos: Just one question, I think, from Carlos, really. It's about including a time and date for that call to action, like when you want to chat with somebody. We've seen better responses when we include that time and date, versus just open ended, "Can we chat?" 90085 Joanna: It depends, so if it's something that I'm really gonna want, like the MOSCON slides, if I know I have a deadline to get those slide in as a speaker, and you know it's gonna take some time, very good , then, to at least try and [inaudible 00:29:27] say, "Hey, are you free next week?" But it's a little presumptuous, so we want to inch people along in saying yes.They can say yes to small things. 90085 It's harder to say yes to those the next step over. So if the first step is ... What's the first yes you need from them? The first yes is, "Yeah, sure, let's talk." It's the initial response that's basically just a yes. Then, the next one is, "Great, when can you talk?" So, if you're skipping from that "yes," to, "When can you talk?" Or, "Are you free this Thursday from two to four?" That's trickier. That's the kind of thing that usually happens in the followup email, no matter what situation you're really in.You want to get that initial yes, make it really easy to say yes. As soon as I have to click over and look at my calendar and go, "I do not know. I'm kind of busy that afternoon. " Then, I'm starting to question whether I want to do this at all, and if my life is starting to get harder already. I did not say yes to you yet, so I can just as easily back out and say no, so in that case, I would not. I have not, actually, until the second followup. 90007 90006 Do we try to keep templates to under a certain number of words? Rule is keep them short.If you can keep them short and still relevant, make it easy to say that one simple yes, make it sound like you know the person you're talking to, and you respect them, that's good, and you should not have to tell a long story to get there, so these templates cut out a lot of that fluff, but they also leave room for you to go longer than you ought to, so that's the problem with leaving with desirable outcome. What if you express that in 20 words, versus expressing it in four words? Our goal is try to get it down to as lean as possible, because our recipient does not know us.Why are they suddenly spending time with us? You've got that very quick elevator pitch, and it's not even an elevator pitch, because they're not stuck in an elevator with you. They can just close your ... They will not even have to open your email in the first place, and they can very quickly close it down, so you have to keep it very, very short. I would not say there's a maximum number of words, 'cause it depends, but I'd say if it feels long, it is. Cut it. 90007 90006 All right, cool. We are seeing ... Awesome, I'm glad some people are saying they really liked it.That's great. Cool, Brian. I'm so glad. Cool. I think everybody else ... I'm just looking through these really quickly. Everybody else appears to be taken care of, and that link to those templates has been sent out. If you do not have an Air Story account, you just create an Air Story account. It's pretty basic thing. You get a free project, obviously, and you can go ahead, and, of course, whenever you find that Air Story is extraordinarily valuable to you, then you can choose to add new projects, and upgrade to single or team accounts.90007 90006 Jennifer, Michelle asked: Do you do followups to a cold email? We purposely did not include ... Purposefully or purposely ... Did not include followups in this. It's a whole other conversation. An important point, though, is that if you do the automated followup thing, they did not answer you for a reason, and you do not know what that initial reason is. They were busy, they were ... Who knows? Or they just did not like your pitch, so we're gonna leave that conversation for another time, because it's such a big point, but you do not want to not be a hustler, when it comes time to cold emailing people.This is the stuff of sales and hustling, frankly, so if you're just gonna put something out there, and then, vanish, not as great as putting something out there, and then, following up in a smart way. 90007 90006 So, not just following up with ... The worst for me. I did not reply to a cold email, and they, a week later, forwarded it to me with like "Ping" in the body. Ping. There's no pinging. Do not ping me. So, you've gotta be really careful with that followup. If they did not reply to you, it's for a reason, so try to anticipate what that reason might be, and then, do your best in the next email, the followup email, to make sure that that reason is no longer a reason .People are saying that's helpful. Great. I know it's the end. Thank you guys for staying on for 40 minutes of this cold email tutorial. Tuesday, we'll follow up with the recording. We'll also follow up with another link ... Same link, but you'll have it in email to go ahead and access these templates in Air Story, and otherwise, we will see you next week, for the next Tutorial Tuesday. Thanks, everybody. Bye. 90007.