Most copywriters and marketers would agree  that if you could read your prospect’s mind, you could be a lot more successful writing copy for – and selling stuff to – those prospects.

Because you’d know their world.

You’d understand their pain.

You’d know their deepest fears, and you’d understand their highest aspirations.

So how do you do that? Here are 7 practical tips. They sound simple, but when you actually use them their impact can be profound.

1. Learn everything you can about your prospect. If you’re in direct marketing, it’s easy: just look at their data cards. When you have demographics, you can infer a lot about the “average” person who represents the group. If you don’t have that kind of data… guess. It’s a lot more accurate  than what most marketers do (which is: they don’t bother with any of this stuff).
2. Imagine yourself living your prospect’s typical day. Go through it step by step – from rising out of bed in the morning to getting back into the sack at night. Use all five of your senses: what do you see, hear, feel, taste, touch and smell? Make notes.
3. Think about their biggest fear – the one that wakes them up at 3 in the morning in a cold sweat.
4. Think about  their highest aspiration – what do they dream of? Not the little dreams (the ones we all tell our buddies), but the big dream in their “secret heart” (the dream that they don’t dare tell anyone).
5. Go where they live. Find a neighborhood that is like your prospect’s and walk through it (driving doesn’t work – looking at it through a window is just more TV… nice to look at but not REAL). Talk to people.
6. Read what they read. Read their magazines, newspapers, blogs and Twitter.
7. Watch what they watch. Watch the TV shows your prospects watch. Especially the ones  that don’t interest you.

If you do this, you’ll develop the apparent ability to read your prospect’s mind.

And you’ll sell more.

But something funny about this is: you’ll also most likely care more. And that’s far more important than any selling technique.

The world’s a funny place, ain’t it?

Many people want to know the “magic formula” is for writing web site and ad copy that sells.

If you’re one of those folks who would like to know that formula, I have some disappointing news: there isn’t one.

“But Ray,” I hear you say, “Haven’t you yourself  taught several different copywriting ‘formulas’?”

Yes.

But.

They are not “magic” and they don’t work universally.

What a formula can do is give you a basic structure on which to hang your “argument” (your logic for why someone should buy your stuff); what the formula cannot do is somehow magically compel people to buy something they don’t really want or need.

What a formula can’t do is teach you the fears and aspirations of your readers, so that your persuasion power comes from the point of intersection between your audience’s needs/desires and your product’s features/benefits.

Only you, as an empathetic writer, can do that.

This one is for those of us who are freelancers, service providers, or who have ongoing relationships where we work with clients.

Gary Halbert – one of the greatest copywriters to ever work in the field – used to wear a hat that had two works embroidered on it: “Clients Suck”.

Do they?

A lot of people say they do.

For a long time I bought into that idea. I had good reasons. Most of my clients seemed to be too demanding, too unwilling to follow my advice, and too determined to carry out some weird idea even though it was clearly not in  their best interest. Some of my clients were even abusive, taking advantage of me in ways I don’t want to go into here (it wouldn’t help anybody to do so).

The one day I realized I was making a contribution to each of those relationships that helped create that situation. My contribution was three-fold, and it directly contributed to making those relationships miserable for me (though they were, in fact, great for my clients). One lesson for you: if the relationship is only great on one side… it’s not great. It’s dysfunctional, and somebody is getting hurt.

Here are the three things I was doing that made it seem as though “clients suck”:

1. Not carefully selecting clients from the beginning, screening out those with whom I was not a good match.
2. Not setting boundaries for the relationship so that both parties know what those boundaries are, and teh reasons tehy are in place.
3. Not realizing that I was free to “fire” clients who were “problem children”.

Once I finally figured those three things out, and changed the way I selected clients, how I set boundaries with them, and how I communicated with them when those boundaries were crossed, I was completely freed from the notion that “clients suck”.

Because mine don’t … now.

And that’s the lesson: you too can quickly reach a place where you love and appreciate your clients, where they don’t trample on your schedule or your value, and where you can easily resolve any conflicts that might arise.

All you have to do is:

1. Develop criteria that describe your ideal client and use those criteria to screen out any clients who don’t meet them.
2. Carefully and respectfully set the boundaries in your relationship from the beginning – and stick to them.
3. Communicate immediately with the client when those boundaries are crossed – and when you suspect that you need to “fire” a client, do it sooner rather than later. Trust me, you’ll know when it is time.

If you will do those three things, then when someone says to you that “clients suck”, you’ll be able to give them the same response I do: “Mine don’t.”

Inspired by Seth Godin.

As you’re crafting your next marketing campaign, here are 7 questions to ask yourself.

Answering them will virtually write your sales copy for you.

It’s easy to do.

But very powerful. Try it and see.

1. What problem are you solving?
2. What is your solution?
3. Who is it right for?
4. What will it do for those people?
5. How does it work?
6. What are the reasons someone might NOT buy it?
7. Why should they trust you?

After each answer, ask ‘why is that so important?’

You probably know who Clark Kent is.

He’s the fumbling, bumbling, mild-mannered newspaper reporter who wears the big geeky glasses.

A nice guy, but not exactly a role-model for manhood.

After all, we can ALL identify with Clark.

But when an emergency arises, Clark sheds the glasses and the business suit, revealing a being of extraordinary strength and power: Superman.

The Man of Steel.

The “strange visitor from another planet … [who] … fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way!”

You don’t really need me to explain Superman to you.

And that’s the point of this piece.

If you’d like to really amplify  your marketing message, one of the best ways to do it is to become the superhero of choice for your prospects.

Here’s how you do that…

Identify The Villains Your Customers Face

These could be economic villains like rising interest rates, or psychological villains like poor self-esteem, or even health-related villains like arthritis. Once you’ve identified the villain – get specific and identify the villains superpowers and weapons.

Name Your Hero And His Powers

This could be you personally or your company – but you need to have a “title” or “superhero name”. Something that sums up who you are and what you’re about. It should be short, catchy, and self-explnanatory.

Clearly State Your Mission

Superman’s mission statement is a great model: “Superman … fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way!”

Build  your own mission statement – it should be short (ideally one sentence like Superman’s – more like a “slogan” than anything else).

A Real Life Example

VILLAIN: Anemic Advertising. This creepy character sucks the life our of small business advertising budgets – by spending all your money on ads that get very little response. Ad dollars go out, but revenue doesn’t come in. Leaves victims penniless and discouraged. Destroys many businesses.

HERO: Captain Copywriter. Magically transforms limp, lazy, lackluster ads into profit-pulling powerhouses. Multiplies revenue while at the SAME TIME slashes your ad spending. Produces sales, profits, and peace of mind.

MISSION STATEMENT: “Captain Copywriter fights a never-ending battle for better ads, producing more profits, more often.”

Use Your Identity

So how do you use your “superhero identity”?

Well, first of all, start “living it”.

If you were a copywriter who had now become Captain Copywriter — how would the Captain behave?

How would he talk?

What would his costume (web site) look like?

Does he have an insignia?

What are his sayings and catch-phrases? (Superman had “Up, up and away!” – what would YOURS be?)

Even more important than all of this: once you start putting yourself into the state of mind of your “superhero character”, you’ll easily start thinking like he would think!

Let me prove it.

If you came across a bank robbery in progress, you might not know what to do (other than maybe call the police).

But let’s say you were Clark Kent and you came across that same robbery in progress. NOW what would you do?

You’d intervene, of course.

You’d duck behind a door or into a hallway, put on your super-suit, and then move into action.

See how simply IMAGINING a super hero identity gives you access to superhero strategies?

The only thing you need to do is step into the ROLE of your business superhero… and then just as yourself, “What would Captain Copywriter do about this?”

And then walk it out.

So.

What are you waiting for?

Take off those glasses, snap on that cape, and commence your crusade!

(NOTE: This is an update of a previous post… enhanced with video. Please be sure and let me know what you think of this “multi-media” approach, okay? It’s quite a bit of work, and I’m happy to do it if you think it’s worthwhile.)

As marketers and entrepreneurs, we have a simple job – to get other people to do what we want them to do.

I’ll leave the discussion about the ethical side of this for another time; let’s just assume that you and I will always work for the best interests of our customers and prospects, okay?

So. We want to get people to do what we want. It will help them. It will help us. But exactly how do we do it?

There is a tactic that gives almost magical powers of persuasion.

You can, quite simply, get practically anyone to do practically anything.

It’s so simple you’ll be tempted to shrug it off.

Don’t.

Take just a moment to think about the fact that you already know this works, because you already know people who have this power. Don’t you know at least one person who seems to be able to persuade people on just about any issue?

Don’t you know at least one person who can seemingly “sell ice to the Eskimos”?

So how is it that some people are able to do that – and more importantly, how can you do the same? Wouldn’t that make an enormous impact on your business?

Here is the big secret…

“Enter the conversation already taking place in your prospect’s mind.”

As far as I know, that idea originated with the late, great copywriter Robert Collier.

If you can “join up” with what your prospects are already feeling and thinking, get in synch with them, and get them to identify you as a “friendly” in a hostile world… they will listen to what you have to say.

Think of it this way: the easiest way to influence someone is with whatever is already influencing them.

It’s a simple principle, but not easy to do.

So how do you do it? Here are some tips that will help you harness this seemingly magic power:

1. Listen. Pay attention to what people say. Hang out in online forums. Track trends on twitter. Collect the words, phrases and ideas your market uses. Speak back to them in their own words.
2. Watch. Be conscious of what your store or website visitors actually do. What causes them to opt in? To opt out? To buy? To ask for a refund? Nothing teaches like behavior. People vote with their feet. Watch their feet.
3. Think. How can you solve their problems? How can you solve them quickly… easily… and with simplicity? Be the “aspirin for their headache” – and abundance will be yours.

If you can do these things, your readers/visitors/ listeners will be nodding their heads, slapping the table top, and saying, “Yes! That’s exactly how I feel!”

And when that happens, Constant Reader, they will do anything you ask.

Because anything you ask will be in alignment with what they already desire.

That’s a deep well I just pushed you into. Follow it all the way down, and be rewarded with the cool fresh water of more sales, more often.

Funny story.

Back in my radio days, one of the shows I was in charge of was a morning radio team.

And this particular morning team had a regular feature where a couple of psychotherapists woud come on each week.

When I say a “couple”, I mean it. They were actually a COUPLE, and they were both actually THERAPISTS (can you imagine the dinner table conversations?).

Anyhow, I knew this couple only as characters on this particular morning show. “Judith and Jim” was how I knew them. And I knew only their voices.

Fast forward a few years later.

I had left the radio business, and was at an Internet Marketing seminar.

During one of the presentations, I noticed this couple sitting near the front, and I noticed  they were asking lots of questions. And their voices sounded familiar. And their names were… Judith and Jim.

We connected for the first time in person, and we’ve been friends ever since. (Okay, so it was “funny” as in “coincidence” and not funny as in “LOL”).

To continue my story…

I discovered that Jim and Judith ventured into online marketing just four years ago. Along the way, they had to overcome their technical deficiencies and learn to make friends with their computer. Even more so, they had to, in their own words, “open our minds to an entirely new way of being in the world, a whole new and very different mindset-a marketing/business mindset”.

But there was a problem. As they attended lots of marketing conferences, they felt something was wrong.

According to Judith and Jim, “We always felt a sense of displacement, a feeling of not belonging, of somehow being outsiders.”

As they connected with people at those same  conferences they learned that others had the same complaint. And they noticed a pattern: All those who voiced this kind of discomfort were service providers, care-givers, change agents of some kind, men and women who had dedicated their lives to helping others-heart-to-heart.

“It became clear that there was a segment of the Internet marketplace that was not being served,” says Judith.

Jim chimes in, “That segment is peopled by soft sell marketers-all of us who are care-givers and life-change artists as distinct from accumulation artists whose focus is money first and foremost.”

And now these two friends of mine have written a book on the subject of soft sell marketing for service providers… and for people who don’t like hard-sell approaches. I recommend you get a copy of The Heart of Marketing.

I was on a conference call where marketing was being discussed.

The discussion turned to “back end promotions”. Which means, “what you sell people after they bought your entry-level product”.

And the topic was the copy used to sell “back-end promotions”. One of the well-known, high-profile marketers on the call said something like, “Heck, you don’t need a great copywriter to write  that stuff. Those people are already your customers. A monkey could write that stuff.”

BUZZER.

That player is out of the game.

If you think any piece of your copy can be written by “a monkey”, you’re in trouble.

Because if that’s what you think, you’re saying your customers are monkeys, too. See how that works?

And if you still think there’s nothing wrong with all that, try this exercise: imagine your mother or your grandmother is the customer in question. Now imagine telling Mom or Grandma you hired a monkey to handle this part of their transaction, because that’s all the respect you needed to give them.

How’s that working for you?

It astounds me.

At every seminar I attend, someone asks me this question: “Does anybody really make a living selling information online?”

I also hear this one: “You can’t make any money as a copywriter or marketer now that the economy has gone down the toilet.”

What a load of garbage! Aaarrrgh!

Here’s why…

It’s easier than ever to make money online.

Especially if you’re a copywriter.

Why would I say that? Simple.

If you know how to write great copy, you have three ways to make money online:

1. You can get paid to write copy for others.

2. You can make money writing copy for your own products that you sell online (that may have nothing to do with copywriting or marketing).

3. You can make money as an affiliate for other people’s products (because you have copy skills, your promos will be far more effective than those of mere mortal marketers).

Not one way to make income, but three ways.

You might think I’m exaggerating. Heck, you might even think I’m lying.

Doesn’t matter.

Because I’m proving every day that what I’m saying is true.

And I look around me and I see lots of evidence that the “economy” has not “stopped” the wheels of commerce.

For instance, I’m traveling the country in my new motor home. Over the last 2 months I have visited both Disney parks in the USA (Disney World in Florida, and Disney Land in California)…

…plus I’ve been to Las Vegas, Phoenix, and a few other sunny places.

And looking out my window right now, I see lots of motor homes (which cost anywhere from $80,000 – $700,000 or more).

Nobody told all these people the economy was “in trouble”.

And…

While I was in Vegas, I visited the Coach store, the Apple Store, and many others. Crammed with people spending money.

Now, some people are spending money, right?

OBVIOUSLY.

And just as in the retail business, and in the RV business, and in the exotic car business… in the marketing business, people are still buying.

(Look, I’m not minimizing anyone’s pain here; I understand that there are many people experiencing real problems. Far from criticizing them or minimizing the seriousness of their situation, I’m simply pointing to one possible way out of those problems.)

And the good news, if you’re a copywriter, is that you have three ways to make money.

Trust me, other marketers will pay you LOADS to write killer copy for them. Because they  hate writing their own, in most cases.

And… it gets even better.

Because when you can write your own copy, you can roll out as many of your own products as you like.

One little online money machine after another. See how that works? And because you write YOUR OWN COPY, you bypass the single biggest expense in marketing. Copy.

So my message in today’s post is really quite simple: whatever you have to do…

GET GOOD AT WRITING COPY.

It’s the one skill that pays you back for the rest of your life. I know it has for me.

So do what it takes. Get good at copy.

If you need fast cash, you can write for other people.

Then, if you want to build long-term income, write copy for your own products. And/or promote affiliate products.

It’s the winning skill in today’s “economy”.

(If you’re curious about how you could start a career as a copywriter, or learn the skill for your own business, you might want to take a look at this resource.)

You need content for your blog or newsletter or ezine.

It needs to be relevant – in other words, you need to write about stuff your market cares about.

Most bloggers (and newsletter/ezine publishers, and speakers, and authors, etc.) don’t have a clue what their market cares about.

Oh, they think they know what the market wants. That’s the problem. Don’t be too upset if this has happened to you, because I’m about to give you 5 easy ways to always know exactly what’s on the mind of your market.

It’s almost as if they were wearing signs around their necks proclaiming, “Here’s what has my attention right now…”
This is going to seem brain-dead simple.

Just find out what they’re already talking about, or what they’re already paying attention to, and give them more of that – but with your own unique spin.

And of course, in a way that adds value to their lives (and at the same time leads them to your door).

So here are the “5 Easy Ways”… really they are 5 websites that are like magical marketing x-ray machines. Just look at the screen, and see what’s inside the mind of your market.

http://del.icio.us
http://digg.com
http://answers.yahoo.com
http://stumbleupon.com
http://google.com/news

Of course, it’s up to you (or your copywriter) to figure out how and why today’s hot topics matter to your market. And how they relate to your message about who you are and what you bring to the world.

We’ll be talking more about exactly how to do this at my upcoming workshop in Las Vegas (there are only 5 seats left, so you might want to take a look and see if it’s right for you).