Complete Copywriting Tutorial - Examples, Tips and Formulas

in this video i'm going to 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 times 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've never written a sales letter in my life but i wanted to give it a try so i told them 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 minutia 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 two to one 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 goldmine to use it head over to a subreddit where your customer hangs out then take a 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 subreddit 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 percent easier to read and understand which is why i always edit my 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 eighty percent 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're 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 are right and now it's time for technique number five use fomo fomo can make your copy ten 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 an emotion that makes them want to listen closely to what you have to say for example we recently launched a product that closed on a certain day and time so we emphasize that on our sales page

which brings us to copywriting tip six write strong leads everyone and their mom knows that 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 a 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 want to 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 want to 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 many stories condense a story into four to five lines for example here's a 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 on 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 aida formula ada 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 aida stands for

attention interest desire and action let's take a look at a real life example of this formula in action i actually use the ada formula on this guide from my blog first i grabbed people's attention with the first line then i created interest with a bold promise and i followed it up by tapping into a desire that anyone reading this page wants higher google rankings and finally i cap things off with a call to 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 want to 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 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 lose 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 7-day meal plan and if they want to 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 home page 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 big commerce reports that testimonials can increase sales by up to 62 percent 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 going to 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 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 want to 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 for my copywriting tutorial if you like this video

make sure to subscribe to my youtube channel right now just click on 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 want to 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