Wordpreneur.com

BY BEN SETTLE

If you want to dramatically improve your copywriting skills — and if you want to do it as quickly as possible — then here’s all you have to do.

For now on, whether you’re writing an email to a friend, a letter to your grandmother, or a memo to a co-worker, start writing in “copy.”

In other words, forget about formal structure, forget about proper grammar, and forget about trying to sound “professional.” Instead, treat everything you write like it’s sales copy.

You know what that means, right?

Short, choppy sentences. One or two word paragraphs helping break up the page. Easy-to-digest language that sounds like you’re talking and not writing. And words that induce emotion, image and belief — instead of just cold, hard logic.

Trust me.

Doing this will explode the speed at which you are able to write profitable copy faster than you ever dreamed possible.

How do I know?

Because I’ve done this myself. And almost like magic — my response went up and more money went into my bank account. And you know what? I can almost guarantee you can do the same thing.

Anyone can.

You just have to learn the basics of writing copy and then apply it to everything in your life whenever possible.

But here’s the thing. While writing everything in “copy” will almost certainly make you a better copywriter, it will murder your other writing skills.

I kid you not.

Back in high school and college I used to get straight A’s in English class. I even used to help people write their term papers and reports when they got stuck. I had a natural “flair” for writing that astounded my teachers and made breezing through my English classes a piece of cake.

Now?

Well, now I’m not so good at “writing” anymore. I’d even go so far as to say I suck at “writing” in any kind of formal style. My old English teachers would cringe if they read my ads, articles and other writings. In fact, I tried to submit an article to a real newspaper a few weeks ago and it totally flopped.

Even though the idea behind the article was something any paper would want to publish, and even though I had help from a friend with dozens of published books and articles (and truly understands what good writing is), I couldn’t get it right. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ran out of ink in his red pen while marking it up!

So just know, if you choose to learn to write copy this way, you will not be impressing any of your colleagues or people who really are good “writers.” Frankly, many of them will laugh and sneer at you, and try to “correct” you at every opportunity.

But that’s okay.

Because your copy will improve by 100% (at least) and the ads you write will be that much more powerful, and make you that much more money.

Ben Settle is a direct response copywriter and author of The Copywriter’s Cheat Sheet which contains over 300 pages of advanced copywriting secrets and rare swipe file ads not easily found anywhere else. You can get a free copy of his book and read his latest copywriting ideas and tactics at his website.

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