Without doubt, copywriting and advertising techniques can get your business, website and brand noticed if you go about it the right way. But like anything in life, the learning curve can be long and steep if you want to do it yourself.

And with that in mind, here’s some places to get you started on your journey…

Emotional Direct Response Copywriting Tips: Direct Mail Strategies

www.kingofcopy.com http Craig Garber Reveals: Which emotional triggers do you push when you own a service business! The right way… and the wrong way to use “fear” in your emotional direct response sales copy! How to use direct mail to sell a boring…

3 Basic Copywriting Tips for Beginners | Copywriting Consulting

3 Basic Copywriting Tips for Beginners is part 1 of a 3-series articles that focuses on ideas for beginners in the copywriting field.

http://www.copywritingconsulting.com/internet-copywriting/3-basic-copywriting-tips-for-beginners/

Effective Copywriting Tips

Tips for effective copywriting and to write the best content for your sales letter which will grow your business.

http://www.techiemania.com/tips-for-effective-copywriting.html

Copywriting Tips: How to Write Attention-Grabbing Headlines

Edited by: Diana Pohly in: Copywriting Tips. Comments . “Five Headline Formulas That Get Attention,” a recent post by copywriter Julie Eason on the Virtuosi Media blog, recommends five simple headline structures that …

http://www.stepbystepmarketing.com/daily/copywriting_tips/how-to-write-attention-grabbing-headlines/

By cathygoodwin

Ted Nicholas – Copywriting Tips For Beginners

Trevor ‘ToeCracker’ Crook, Ted Nicholas & Peter Woodhead’s 3.5 Day Copywriting Workshop reveals how you can become a copywriter. Learn Copywriting from basic copywriting tips for beginners to advanced copywriting tips . . . when you want to ignite yo…

Yep, once again, more red tape to comply with I’m afraid.

The New Legal Rules

The new rules were first announced in September 2010, to give people six months to change the way they market online. And the deadline for complying with the updated rules was 1st March 2011.

Unfortunately, a lot of people just don’t know about these new rules and are putting themselves at risk of an investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

How To Get Legal

I’ve found a great guide which simplifies the new guidelines (the originals are over 100 pages long!).

It’s called; The CAP Code Guide.

The CAP Code Guide contains tools, checklists and summaries of key facts to make it really easy for you to audit your own online business communications.

It’s a quick and easy way to comply with the new rules.

Here’s the thing: If you advertise your business, services or products online – in any way shape or form by websites, social media campaigns, video marketing – then these rules apply to YOU.

To get your copy visit:

goo.gl/RmoCJ

Please take a moment to checkout this guide to make sure you’re not putting yourself at risk.

Stay legal!

The whole idea is to do one task at a time during day and stop multitasking for once in your life.

See the thing is, according to experts, multitasking could well be bad for you.

In fact, studies from University of Michigan and UCLA indicate Multi-tasking forces our brains to continually perform “Task Switching” which makes our brains work harder with less efficiency.  Some researchers believe this could even cause brain damage! So sorry ladies, but us guys had it right all along!

Now  Single-Tasking Day is meant to help us focus on one activity at a time and NOT do anything else until its complete. A tall order in this day and age, but with anything like this, you have to be ruthless to see it through.

Now as a copywriter, I picked up a great tip to help with this very thing. It came from copywriting legend Gene Schwartz.

He used to advise young copywriters to prevent distractions by using a kitchen timer.

He’d set the timer to 33 minutes and work solidly on the copy he was writing until the bell rang. Then he’d take a 5 minute break doing something completely different to rest his brain, then set the timer to 33 minutes again and so on.

I use this technique a lot and it works fine for me.

So give it a go and find a time setting that works for you. That way, everyday will be Single-Tasking Day and you won’t have to think about it.

If you do, then here’s 10 simple steps that show you how to motivate and sell yourself.

Because whether you’re aware of it or not, every day of your life you’re selling yourself. And nothing positive happens until you’re successful at doing just that.

You’re in the selling business whether you like it or not. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re a lawyer, accountant, manager, politician, engineer or business owner.

And the truth is, if you need to achieve something, you spend a great deal of your time trying to persuade people to buy your product or service, accept your proposals or merely accept what you say.

It stands to reason then – that before you get better at persuading or influencing other people – you need to get better at self-motivation and selling yourself.

But how do you develop, motivate and inspire yourself?

Here are 10 simple action steps you can use for better results:

First off, you need to understand what you’re selling. You have to start believing in “you”. Because YOU are your product.

Plus, you need to develop the right attitude, because the first thing people notice about you is your attitude.

But let’s face it, if you’re like most people, then you’ll suffer from lack of confidence from time to time and that’ll affect your attitude to a certain extent. And that’s only natural. So there will be times when you need to give yourself a confidence boost by talking positively to yourself on the inside.

But here’s where you can get a jump on other people, because the majority of people are more likely to self talk to themselves negatively rather than positively – this is what holds them back in life.

It’s about the right attitude – the quality of your thinking.

See, studies have shown successful people have a constructive and optimistic way of looking at themselves and their work. They have an attitude of calm, confident, positive self-expectation. They feel good about themselves and believe everything they do will lead to their inevitable success.

So the message for you here is; if you’re in a sales job or you’re a business owner or a manager, then you need to continually work on your attitude. You need to listen to that little voice inside your head. Is it saying you’re on top, going for it and confident, or is it holding you back.?

If you’re hearing – “I can’t do this or that” or “They won’t want to buy at the moment” or “We’re too expensive” then you’d better change your self-talk or change your job.

Start to believe in yourself and don’t let things out with your control effect your attitude.

Avoid criticising, condemning and complaining and start spreading a little happiness.

Remember the saying of Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company – “If you believe you can do a thing, or if you believe you can’t, in either case you’re probably right.”

The way a product is packaged and presented can have a major influence the customer’s decision to buy.

So, everything about YOU needs to look good and you must dress appropriately for the occasion. And don’t think that just because your customer dresses casually, they expect you to dress the same way.

The style and colour of the clothes you wear, your spectacles, shoes, watch and even the pen you use, all make a statement about you.

Dress to impress – presentation is everything.

No need to get carried away, you don’t need a big toothy grin, just a pleasant, friendly face that doesn’t frighten people away.

Use your customer’s name as soon as you can, but don’t over do it. Conducting business is less formal nowadays, however be careful of using their first names at first.

However, make sure your customer knows yours and remembers it.

Develop your own self awareness by watching other people and how they interact with you when they meet you.

What does their body language tell you?

Are they comfortable with you or are they a bit nervous?

Are they listening to you, or are their eyes darting around the room?

See, if they’re not comfortable and not listening, then there’s no point telling them something important about your business.

Far better to make some small talk and – more importantly – get them to talk about themselves.

It’s best to go on the assumption that in the first few minutes of meeting someone new, they won’t take in much of what you say. They’re too busy analysing all the visual data they’re taking in (Remember what we said earlier: Dress to impress – presentation is everything).

Many people – particularly men – listen but don’t show they’re listening. The other person can only go on what they see, not what’s going on inside your head.

If they see a blank expression then they’ll assume you’re “out to lunch.”

The trick is to do all the active listening things such as nodding your head, the occasional “UH-HUH” and the occasional question.

Makes sense, yes?

Lead by example. If you want to be INTERESTING, then be INTERESTED. This really is the most important thing you can do to be successful at selling yourself.

Here’s the thing… The majority of people are:

If you can do these things when you meet new people, then you effectively raise their self-image.

If you can help people to like themselves by making them feel special and important, then they’ll LOVE you.

However, don’t fall into the trap of falsely flattering the other person, because most people will see right through you and they won’t fall for it.

Just show some genuine interest in your customer and their business and they’ll be much more receptive to what you say.

Don’t say – “Isn’t it a horrible day” or “Business is pretty tough at present” or any thing else that pulls the conversation down.

Say things like (and only the truth) – “I like the design of this office” or “I’ve heard some good reports about your new product.”

Paint vivid pictures of confidence and success.

This doesn’t mean mimicking the other person, it just means you speaking and behaving in a manner similar to the customer.

For example, if your customer speaks slowly or quietly, then you speak slowly or quietly.

Remember people like people who are like themselves. They’ll feel safe and trust you more if they buy ‘YOU’.

If you look or sound stressed or aggressive, then don’t be surprised if the other person gets defensive and less than willing to co-operate.

If you look and sound warm and friendly, then you’re more likely to get a positive response.

This isn’t about being all nicey-nicey. It’s about a pleasant and warm conversational tone in all your communications.

So there we are, 10 Simple Steps to Self-Motivation and More Sales.

No matter what business you’re in, before we can get down to the process of selling your product, your service or your ideas – you need to be as sure as you can be your customer has bought YOU and you have their full attention.

Now the good thing is, you don’t have to spend millions of dollars just to get some decent exposure for your company. There are ways to get your business noticed without blowing a hole in your advertisement budget.

Here are some simple ways to increase the visibility of your business without shelling out more than you can afford.

However, all these techniques need patience and some footwork to produce the best results. Despite what some would have you believe, there’s no magic button you can push to get ‘instant’ attention. You have to put the groundwork in first.

OK, it stands to reason you need a website before you can make use of these low-cost Internet marketing strategies.

So go create one or hire a web developer if you haven’t already got a site up and running.

Use the site to advertise your products and services by employing the following Internet marketing techniques:

This is the process of recruiting a network of smaller websites, or net savvy individuals – known as ‘affiliates’ – to drive targeted traffic to your website. You provide your affiliates with tools like Ad copy and links to send visitors to your site so they buy from you.

You have to pay a certain percentage of each sale to your affiliates. Make sure this percentage is high enough to attract good affiliate marketers and they’ll work hard on your behalf promoting your products.

It’s a good win-win situation all round.

One of your goals should be to achieve page one rankings with search engines like Google.

A good way to do this is through link building. This can be done through trading links to other businesses and websites that are complimentary with yours.

In fact, back-linking is considered to be a top strategy by a lot of Internet marketers.

Sending out Newsletters to your subscribers (those who signed up for your newsletters) will help greatly in establishing a good  relationship with your customers or prospective customers.

The best Newsletters are content rich, consistent and written in a conversational tone.

Never be scared to send out regular newsletters, as your readers will soon be eagerly looking forward to them, if you provide good, useful content.

One of the most cost-effective Internet marketing tools you can ever use.

Email marketing is still one of the best ways of keeping in touch with your customers and keeping them aware of your products and services.

There are a number of excellent Autoresponder services you can sign up to that make email marketing easy.

Just make sure you avoid spamming your subscribers or you’ll soon get a lot complaints and you could fall foul of the ISPs and other agencies.

No one likes spam, so do email marketing the right way.

Write quality content and post articles on your website educating visitors about your products and services.

The search engines will soon learn to love your site and index you highly in their search results.

And getting your website indexed by popular search engines means more traffic for you – and more sales.

Another zero-cost way of expanding your web presence is through joining forums that discuss things related to your products and services.

Actively posting responses to readers questions and offering valuable information will build your reputation.

Plus, you can boost your company’s visibility through your ‘signature file’. After posting some great content for a few weeks, start to use sig files at the end of every post.

Skillfully done, sig files can contain links to your website to drive new visitors and sales at no cost to you.

So now you have six low/no-cost ways of driving traffic to your site. Use these methods consistantly and you should see increased traffic and sales of your products and services.

And not long ago I was walking down the precinct, busy with people going about their normal Saturday shopping.

There were the usual sounds of people talking and chatting as they went about their business.

But then, over the noise, I heard the call of a Big Issue seller…

The Big Issue is a charity that publishes a weekly entertainment and current affairs magazine, sold by homeless and vulnerably housed people to earn a legitimate income. It gives them a chance of earning some money and helping them along.

They can be seen selling the magazines in many UK High Streets all year round.

Now what caught my attention about this particular seller, was what he was saying…

“Get your Big Issue here. Can be read from cover to cover in 20 minutes, a guaranteed cure for insomnia and you get two free staples with every issue.”

Brilliant!

I thought it was a very clever piece of marketing.

This seller had captured and communicated the benefits of his product:

• Can be read in 20 minutes
• A guarantee – the cure for insomnia
• A free gift – 2 staples

It proved that no matter what you’re selling, if you look hard enough, you can turn features into benefits.

Being homeless must be a nightmare and I hope this seller sold a TON of magazines that day to ease his plight.

So next time you’re scratching your head wondering what you can highlight about your product or service, just remember the Big Issue seller.

If he can do it, then so can you.

What other benefits could the seller have highlighted?

Leave your comments below…