Copywriting « Apryl Parcher - Health and Wellness Copywriter

December 7, 2009

Help People Find You: Optimize Your Social Media Profiles

Filed under: Copywriting, Marketing, Social Media — Apryl @ 12:33 pm

How long ago did you create your LinkedIn, Facebook or YouTube profiles? Do you remember? Did you know that certain aspects of your information profile have SEO value?

If it’s been a while since you created your social media profiles, things have changed a bit. The industry is evolving, and it helps to stay on top of how your favorite channels can be optimized for better search results. In the next few blog posts I’ll share some of the tidbits I’m learning in my International Social Media Association (ISMA) certification course to help you make the most of your online networking efforts.

Today I’ll start off with LinkedIn, because it’s one of the oldest networks. Most of us set our profiles up long ago and then forgot them! Here are a few tips to polish up your info:

Develop an Updated Keyword List

You should use your keywords in as many places as possible in your social media profiles to take advantage of today’s enhanced search features. Take a look at your current list and update it to include phrases around your:

· Industry

· Job title

· Offers

· Products

· Services

· Clients

· Company name

· Client’s industry

You’ll want to keep this handy for optimizing all your public profiles. For LinkedIn, you can use these keywords to optimize your headline, content, updates and summary, so strategize a bit about those items, and use terms that your potential clients may be using to find your services.

Pull up LinkedIn’s People and Company search options and study the fields available, then do some searching on your own with a few specific keywords and see what you come up with.

You can also use those keywords when writing answers to industry questions in LinkedIn’s Answers tab—or when coming up with questions of your own.

Customize Your Profile Link & Website

To can edit your website name, which defaults to “My Website.” Just click the little [Edit] tab next to the field and change the name. Mine currently says Apryl’s Writing Website, but I’m thinking of changing it again. Also, it’s a good idea to change your public profile link (from the default letters and numbers) to a name that will be easy to remember and share. There’s a handy “Customize Your URL” example right on the profile page before your summary.

Once you get started, you’ll probably find several areas in your profile that could use improvement —but that’s ok. Consider it a work in progress, and make a note to stop back in and make updates periodically.

Over the next few posts I’ll concentrate on Facebook, but if you’ve come across more items on improving LinkedIn, please share!

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August 24, 2009

How to Attract Better Clients to Your Writing Business

Filed under: Copywriting, Marketing, Salesmanship — Tags: business writing, Chris Marlow, Copywriting, Copywriting Success Summit 2009, Mike Stelzner, Peter Bowerman — Apryl @ 2:15 pm

Do you want to generate higher-quality leads and win better projects, just like leading writers? Does the economic slump have your customers dropping like flies?

Discover how to grow your writing business (in any economy) at Copywriting Success Summit 2009–an online professional development conference for freelance writers coming up soon.

Presenters include bestselling authors and copywriting experts such as Peter Bowerman (Well-Fed Writer author), Steve Slaunwhite (Start & Run a Copywriting Business author), Michael Stelzner (Writing White Papers author), Marcia Yudkin (Persuading on Paper author), Nick Usborne (Net Words author), Chris Garrett (Problogger author), Casey Hibbard (Stories That Sell author), Chris Marlow (the original copywriter’s coach), Pete Savage and Ed Gandia.

Learn how to qualify for a $200 savings (expires Sep. 24) to this live online summit. Visit Copywriting Success Summit 2009 and get an immediate gift valued at $42 entitled “How to Be a Highly Paid Copywriter as a One-Person Business.”

During my writing career, I’ve learned a lot from one-on-one coaching from the likes of Peter Bowerman, Chris Marlow, and (most recently) my “apprentor” Mike Stelzner. Now they’re all coming together with other powerhouses in the writing community in one place, and you can pick ALL their brains!

I highly recommend attending this summit–I’ve attended two of Mike’s summits in the past, and really–there’s no better way to get energized to move forward in your career.

Got questions? Just let me know…

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August 5, 2009

San Diego, Here I Come!

Filed under: Copywriting, Marketing, White Papers — Tags: Chris Marlow, Copywriting, Marketing, Michael Stelzner, White Papers — Apryl @ 10:30 am

I’m very excited to be heading out to San Diego tomorrow for Michael Stelzner’s White Paper Boot Camp! As Michael’s apprentice I have the honor of introducing him, and also helping out in the break-out session answering questions on writing white papers from attendees.

Here’s a link for more info on the Boot Camp: http://snipr.com/nn4xt. But even if you can’t be there, Mike is having the event recorded, so let me know if you’re interested in the videos.

This is my first trip to sunny CA, and I hear the weather is absolutely gorgeous! And to top it all off, my great friend and copywriting coach, Chris Marlow, is going to join us from lunch onward.

Chris and I have also cooked up an informal networking event for attendees after the workshop. We’ll be meeting up at the Mission Bay Hyatt Swim Bar (doesn’t that sound yummy?). In addition to just relaxing and hanging out after an intense day of learning from Mike, people can sign up for our newsletters and find out more about Chris’s powerful, one-on-one coaching program. Chris chose me as one of her assistant copywriting coaches, too, and you can learn more about that here: Marlow Marketing Method.

I’ll be making a report (or two) after the White Paper Boot Camp, so stay tuned for updates. I’ve had a lot of help in my copywriting career, but Chris and Mike are two of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE mentors, so this trip is going to be fun, Fun, FUN! I’m sure I’ll come back inspired and ready to share, so stay tuned…

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June 20, 2009

Tips for Creating Magnetic Headlines

Filed under: Copywriting, Marketing — Apryl @ 4:38 pm

Whether you’re writing a blog post, an article, a display ad, a landing page, or any marketing copy for that matter, the headline is one of the most important factors in marketing, and also the factor most business overlook.

Too many times, headlines are tacked on as an afterthought—something to stick on top after we’ve written the piece—when in fact, it should be the part we labor on the hardest, because it accomplishes the most important task: Capturing your reader’s attention long enough to compel him to read further.

“Why Should I Read This?”

Think about the above phrase for a moment. Isn’t this something that runs through the back of your mind every day as you read the paper, check your email, cruise articles online, or look for something to watch on TV?

Compelling headlines magnetically draw you to click on a link, open an envelope, pick a channel, or select anything to read for that matter—and they’re magnetic when they mean something to you personally.

Think about that from your reader’s perspective. With over 2,000 marketing messages thrown at us on a daily basis from a variety of mediums, we get pretty choosy about what we’ll spend our time on—so here are a few tricks I learned for making the most out of each headline.

· Use Dominant Emotion: When you can “get into your reader’s head,” all kinds of possibilities come up. If you know your reader well enough to understand where he’s coming from, and can empathize with him on solving his problems, the emotions that drive him to make decisions become apparent to you. Distill this down to the one driving emotion that might compel him to seek your solution. Is he afraid? Angry? Frustrated? How can you capitalize on that?

· Incorporate the “4 U’s” Ultra-Specificity, Uniqueness, Usefulness and Urgency: Your headline should grab attention by piquing the reader’s interest with a big, bold idea or compelling promise (benefit), but dig a little deeper. Is it specific enough to paint a clear picture? Is your benefit truly useful to your prospect? Are you using a unique angle? Does it imply urgency? Be critical and score your headlines against these 4 elements…strong headlines should have a minimum of 3 out of 4. If you get a 2, keep working.

· Never Write the Headline First: Great headlines are most often created from the “wreckage of your writing.” Your thought processes evolve as you put words to paper—so do the bulk of your writing first, and let attention-grabbing ideas percolate from there.

· Brainstorm Several Headlines at Once: I usually write out five or six headlines and play with the word combinations until the right one pops out. This is a good exercise, because the “rejects” can often make good subheads.

Practice makes perfect, and if you make using this checklist a habit before composing headlines, I think you’ll see a big improvement. At the very least, make sure you critique your headlines with the 4 U’s strategy (I have them written out on a post-it note taped to my computer screen).

Happy Headlining!

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November 19, 2008

Nifty Things I Learned at Boot Camp

Filed under: Copywriting — Apryl @ 10:00 am

Whew!! I just got back from one of the most INTENSE three-day conferences I’ve ever attended, the AWAI Bootcamp in Delray Beach, Florida.

Absolutely NO tan to show for it (just a little midnight sand in my shoes), but I’m still so excited that I think I’ll explode!

First off–there was an incredible array of speakers and presenters–some of the best writers and designers in the business. These are my copywriting IDOLS, like Bob Bly (my hero), Carline Anglade Cole (my shero), Michael Masterson (founder of AWAI and Copy-God-of-the-World), Hersell Gordon Lewis (THE catalogue copy genius) and many, many others.

They didn’t just get up in front of us and recite the same ole rah-rah, either. This was real meat-and-potatoes stuff. Relevant, timely, and razor sharp.

It was awe-inspiring, to say the least–and I really have to hand it to the AWAI folks. The way they set up the conferences with bits of down-time in between gave me a chance to actually meet these copywriting icons after years of studying them and admiring from afar, and you know what? They’re really nice people! They all made themselves available for questions, advice, small-talk, you name it. It was really a hands-on experience.

Secondly–there were over 300 people in attendance at this Bootcamp, from raw beginners to copy veterans, and we worked our butts off!

We learned, and we learned, and we learned some more…and the BEST part of that was, I came away with a group of at least seven other copywriters who have agreed to form a “peer review” group, which will help us get better at writing winning copy in a hurry. You can’t beat that with a stick!

I have to say that the whole “peer review” idea was really a light-bulb moment for me. Michael Masterson introduced it to us on the first day…but it wasn’t until the day we left (Saturday) that we really got a chance to put it to the test.

Now here’s the fun part–after working with a mini-group for about an hour, and getting their feedback on my copy (we all roughed out a headline and lead and reviewed each other’s work), Michael asked for a volunteer to come forward and have his or her work peer reviewed by the WHOLE CLASS of conference attendees.

I found myself with my hand in the air (from the back of the room), and you guessed it–he picked me! GULP. And there were cameras!

Michael had me come up to the stage with him and read my headline and lead copy to the group (with an overhead of the piece showing on the screens behind us), and the entire conference voted their numerical opinion of its worthiness. Yikes!

Talk about jelly knees…and did I have butterflies in my stomach? Nope–they were full-sized pidgeons! But I wasn’t about to pass up a chance to get critiqued by not just ONE master, but a whole room full of copywriters.

The result? Drumroll please….a 3 out of 4! WOW! That’s about the same number the copy received at our little table of 6–which drove home how statistically relevant this system of peer review can be. It works for a universe of 6 or 600–and is a pretty clear indication of how that copy will do in the mail.

Before leaving the stage I got to choose another “victim” in the audience. Now she had a totally different style, but the process worked exactly the same way–the larger audience came up with the same numbers as her mini-group.

SHAZAM! This peer review thing really works!

That was truly a mega-watt lightbulb moment for me–since I spend all my time writing copy alone in my basement. And the coolest thing is–I’ve been using the peer review system ever since I got home on Saturday to hone my skills on a daily basis with other copywriters I met at the conference. How cool is that?

You see, we’re not competitors in this business so much as we’re colleagues. That’s what I absolutely love about being a copywriter–besides the fun of creativity and using my talent to make my clients a LOT of money, it’s so easy to make friends in the biz!

Now that I’m home, I can’t WAIT to find out what I’ll learn (and who I’ll meet) at the next AWAI Bootcamp.

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