- In this video, I'm gonna show you my complete copywriting tutorial. In fact, I've used the
tips from this video to create blog posts that have been shared thousands of time. I've also written several high converting, seven-figure sales letters. I'm Brian Dean, the founder of Backlinko. So if you want more traffic, leads, sales, and social shares, you'll love the actionable
strategies in this video. Let's get started. Here's the truth about copywriting. Despite what you might have heard, you don't need years of
experience or training to learn copywriting. In fact, before I launched Backlinko, I used to be a freelance writer. Then one day, out of the blue,
one of my clients asked me, "Do you, by any chance
write sales letters?" Now, at this point, I'd never written a
sales letter in my life. But I wanted to give it a try, so I told him, "Sales letters? "Heck, yeah, I write sales letters." And now that I was hired, I had to write a sales letter fast. In fact I had about a week to write this sales letter from scratch. So I researched as much as
I could about copywriting. And because I was in a rush, I ignored the minutiae and
focused on the key principles that I saw again and again. And it worked. My client told me that my sales letter outperformed their current
one by a 2:1 margin. Since that day, I've written
dozens of sales letters, newsletters and articles. And over that time, I
discovered what most copywriters don't want you to know. Copywriting is really easy. That is when you know what
to do and how to do it. And that's exactly what I'm gonna show you in this tutorial. So, without further ado, let's dive into
copywriting tip number one, use Reddit threads. Reddit is a copywriting gold mine. To use it, head over to a subreddit, where your customer hangs out. Then, take at look at threads
that have lots of comments. For example, let's say
that you just launched a new keto diet bar. Well, you'd head over to
keto and paleo subreddits and search for bars. Then, pay attention to the
exact words and phrases that people use to describe
what they like and don't like about the bars they've tried so far. For example, I found tons of awesome copy in this one thread, copy
that would work great for a landing page or Facebook ad. Moving right along to our
second copywriting tip, use short sentences. Here's a good rule of thumb that applies to pretty much
everything that you write. Short sentences equals better copy. And there's data to back this up. A study conducted by the
American Press Institute found that short sentences were 711% easier to read and understand, which is why always atomize sentences to be as short as possible. Bottom line, use short sentences. They're easier to read and understand. Which leads us to technique number three, the slippery slide. Here's the deal. You can have the best copy in the world, but if people stop reading the
page after the first sentence your copy didn't work. That's why one of the
main goals of your copy is to keep people reading. Or as copywriting legend
Joe Sugarman puts it, the sole purpose of the first sentence is to get you to read the second sentence. The question is, how do you get someone to keep reading your blog
post, email or sales letter? The slippery slide. A slippery slide is where you
add something to your page that's specifically designed
to keep people reading. For example, you can tell a little story in the beginning of your sales letter, but leave the ending for the end. Or you can refer to something
that's coming up later in your blog post. You can even just say things like here's the deal and the question is, to push people to keep reading. And now it's time for
copywriting tip number four, super-specific headlines. You've probably already seen
this old statistic before, 80% of people read the headline and only 20% read the copy. Is that statistic accurate? I have no idea. But I do know that your
headline is super important. And one of the best ways to make your headlines more effective use super-specific headlines. Super-specific headlines
are exactly like they sound. They are headlines that tell your reader exactly what they're gonna get. For example, check out
this blog post headline. Not bad, but not that specific. Now check out this
super-specific headline. It's much more compelling, right? In fact, this works so well that I tend to use
super-specific headlines on every blog post, landing
page or sales letter that I write. And now it's time for
technique number five, use FOMO. FOMO can make your copy
10 times more effective. That said, FOMO also known
as fear of missing out, doesn't work for every situation. But if you can use FOMO,
you should use FOMO. That's because FOMO
triggers a strong reaction with your prospects, and emotion that makes
them wanna listen closely to what you have to say. For example, we've
recently launched a product that closed on a certain day in time. So, we emphasize that on our sales page. Which brings us to copywriting tip six, write strong leads. Everyone and their mom knows
the headlines are important, but no one talks about
something that in my experience, is just as important if not more than a headline. Your lead. Your lead is the section of your page that comes right after your headline, and at least in my experience if you lose people here,
you've lost them for good. With that, here are three
strategies that you can use to write awesome leads. First, use a hook in your
first or second sentence. The first sentence of your lead is huge. So make sure that first line really grabs your reader's attention. For example, this landing
page from Marie Forleo has a killer first line. Next, you wanna make your lead about six to eight sentences max. Whether you're writing a
blog post, video script, sales page or email newsletter, you want your lead to be super short. Remember, the goal of your lead is just to grab your reader's attention. And once you've done that, you wanna transition into the
main section of your content. For example, I keep my
blog post introductions to around six lines. Finally, use mini-stories in your leads. Stories are a great way
to hook your readers right off the bat. But like I just mentioned,
the problem with that is that your lead needs
to be short and sweet. So, you don't have a lot of
room to tell an epic story. Enter mini-stories. Mini-stories condense
a story into 45 lines. For example, here's mini-story that I used in one of my most
successful sales letters. And, now it's time for me to tell you about copywriting technique number seven, don't use big words. Let's face it, big words
don't impress anybody. Um, yes, in this video
I plan on demonstrating the effectiveness of online vocabulary and augmenting online transactions. In fact, they make your
content harder to read. So instead of big fancy words like these, use words that are easy
to read and understand. And now it's time for
our eighth technique, the A-I-D-A formula. AIDA is a classic copywriting formula that can help boost
conversions on sales pages, landing pages, articles, newsletters, video scripts and more. Here's what this formula looks like. As you can see, A-I-D-A stand
for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. Let's take a look at a real-life example of this formula in action. I actually used the AIDA
formula on this guide from my blog. First I grab people's
attention with the first line, then I create an interest
with a bold promise, and I fold it up buy tapping into a desire that anyone reading this page wants. Higher Google rankings, and finally I cap things
off with a called action to keep reading. Moving right along to
technique number nine, benefits over features. There's no doubt about it. When it comes to copy,
benefits crush features. In other words, features
are nice, but benefits sell. For example, let's say
that you run a SAS company that sells productivity software. Here's how you can turn boring features into powerful benefits. Coschedule.com does a great job of highlighting benefits over features. Yeah, like any software product, they outline key features. But unlike most SAS companies, the vast majority of their
copy is benefit-driven. Nice. Moving right along to technique number 10, get out of the friend zone. We've all been in the friend zone before. Or at least I have. The friend zone is when you like someone and they like you back, as a friend. Well, as it turns out,
the same thing happens with potential customers and clients. They like what you're selling,
but not enough to buy. What's the solution? Address their objections. I'm talking about objections like, "It's just too expensive." "It's not a good time for me." "Yeah it sounds good, but
will this work for me?" or "I'm not ready to switch
from another product.". Most people pretend that
these objections don't exist. Instead, you wanna bring
up these objections and squash every one of them. For example, here's an objection
that we raise and squash on a product FAQ page. Let's get right into tip number 11, talk to customers. Remember earlier when I talked about using Reddit for customer research? Well, if you want to
take this sort of thing to the next level, I recommend actually
talking to your customers. For example, I've recently hopped on Skype with three people that graduated
from one of my programs. Fun fact, I was visiting
my family in Rhode Island when I did this interview, that's why you can see my
mom's amazing flower curtains in the background. And because we were chatting on Skype, I could dig deep with follow-up questions. Next up, we have urgency and scarcity. Have you ever had someone tell you that they're interested
in what you're selling, they just need some time to think it over? In my experience, 99% of the time that person doesn't end up buying. Maybe they got busy and forgot, maybe they found another product. The exact reason doesn't really matter. The important thing is
that you do something to get that person to convert right away. The question is, how do you do it? Add these words and phrases to your copy. Needless to say, these statements should be
backed up with real limitations, otherwise you're gonna
loose people's trust. But if you can use them,
you should use them. For example, this email from one of our recent product launches uses a clear to-the-minute deadline, that creates a super
high sense of urgency. And now, it's time for
our last copywriting tip, solve the social proof paradox. You need social proof to sell, but you need sales to get social proof. I call this the social proof paradox. And it's a real problem for
lots of business owners. Fortunately, I found a simple way to get around this problem. Feature your strongest
form of social proof. It doesn't have to be sales. For example, let's say
that you just launched a new nutrition coaching program. And to get leads, you offer people a free
seven-day meal plan. And if they wanna upgrade
to a paid coaching plan, they get a full 90-day meal plan and personalized support from you. But so far, only a few people have upgraded to your paid plan. Well, in that case you can showcase how many people signed up
for your free meal plan, or maybe only have 20 total customers. But three of those customers
got amazing results. Well, you can feature
those three amazing results on your homepage. For example, when I launched
my YouTube SEO course, at that point we only had
about 10 total beta users. 10 people isn't a lot of social proof. But four of those 10
people got great results. So we decided to feature those four people on the sales page, and it worked. And now it's time for a quick bonus tip, use this proven, three-step
testimonial formula. It's no secret that testimonials
can skyrocket sales. In fact, BigCommerce
reports that testimonials, can increase sales by up to 62%. That's the good news. The bad news is that most
people use testimonials that simply don't work. I'm talking about testimonials like this. Now, to be fair, there's nothing wrong
with that testimonial. But it's not gonna get anyone
to whip out their credit card and buy what you sell. Instead, I recommend
using this proven formula. As you can see, this
formula is broken down into three main parts. The three parts build on one another to create one super-powerful testimonial. First up, you have the before. Here's where your customer talks about where they were before they
used your product or service. That way, people can relate to the person in your testimonial. Here's an example. Next, it's time for the after. The after highlights specific results that your customer got from your product. Finally, it's time for the "what they'd tell someone" section. As the name suggests,
here's what your customer would tell someone that's on the fence. And because this recommendation comes directly from someone
that used your product, it's very believable. Let's close out this video with one more bonus strategy, use crooked numbers. Crooked numbers are numbers
that haven't been rounded. Here are some examples. According to research, crooked numbers are more
believable than round numbers, which means, whenever you can, you wanna use them
instead of round numbers. For example, check out this
intro from one of my blog posts. I could have made this a nice round number like over 200.000, but I went with the exact
crooked number instead. So, that's it from my
copywriting tutorial. If you like this video, make sure to subscribe to my
YouTube channel right now. Just click in the Subscribe
button below this video. And if you want exclusive SEO techniques that I only share with subscribers, head over to backlinko.com
and hop on the newsletter. It's free. Now I wanna turn it over to you. Which technique from today's video are you gonna try first? Are you gonna use crooked numbers or try using more benefits
instead of features? Let me know, by leaving a
comment below right now. Oh man. With that, here's... You good? Aren't rounded, aren't rounded... You wanna do lunch? How the hell am I gonna say that? But no one's... Okay, that wasn't bad.
