How I Learned to Write Great Sales Copy Without a Teacher

Copywriting is one of the best-paying writing skills you could possibly have. When you know how to write good ads (instead of just good content), you can hit peoples' persuasion triggers and get them to buy or get them to take any sort of action (like putting your info to use or opting into your e-mail list). That's a skill worth $500 per page instead of $5 per page.

You don't even need to know how to write copy from scratch, you can just make a few tweaks to bad copy to make it into good copy. Think about it. What if you found a great product with an affiliate program that had a crappy sales page? You could rewrite that copy to gut out the unimportant parts, add a few of your own points and shape the offer in such a way that gets people to buy.

What shape is that? AIDA... Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.

Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. Get their attention with a headline, capture interest with a problem and a solution, build desire with benefits and testimonials... then tell them to take action. Click an order button, subscribe to a newsletter, whatever. Today you need to find AIDA in every day ads.

Look at 4 pieces of junk mail on your mail table or look at direct mail ads online at a site called "Hard To Find Ads" ... you can find it in Google. For each of those 4 ads, write down what the Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action for each one is.

(Come on, hurry up and do it, it will only take you a couple of minutes. Make a commitment to yourself.)

You have only done four today, but I want you to keep AIDA in mind every time you read a web site, watch a TV commercial, see a poster at the mall... ALL successful ads use it. We have all seen commercials that are clever or funny... but you have no idea what they are selling.

Obviously attention and action are the most obvious parts of AIDA, but attention is only the beginning... and without desire, you don't want the product and you won't order. Keep in mind that the elements of AIDA go in order and keep building... building... and building pressure until your prospect is ready to explode, and have nowhere to go BUT to buy.