One of the cornerstones of powerful writing is the use of concrete details that can tell your story for you. I don’t care if you’re writing a sales letter, a blog post or a short story for The New Yorker, you need details.
They have to be vivid.
They have to be compelling.
And they have to matter to your reader.
One of the underlying themes from last weekend’s SOBCon was putting more you into your work. There are literally hundreds of millions of blogs out there, with more starting every day. In a sea of competition, you’ve got to capitalize on what makes you unlike anyone else.
Your unique point of view. Your writing style. Your own individual, personal stories and the way they shape your message.
There’s just one problem with all of that. It’s terrifying.
I don’t think there’s a more scorned form of literature than the romance novel. “Bodice rippers,” “trashy books” or “that Harlequin crap” are some of the more charitable terms I’ve heard. It was probably pure perversity that led me to try to write one. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be, and I didn’t expect to learn as much as I did.
The four romance novels I published taught me more about writing than anything else I’ve ever done. And when I began to write marketing materials, and later blogs, I realized that the key to writing romances is also the key to any kind of persuasive writing.
No, contrary to popular opinion, it’s not the sex that gets the reader to turn those pages.
Do you ever feel like the world is starting to look at lot like Bladerunner? Or maybe Minority Report. Something by Philip K. Dick, anyway.
We’ve got ads on grocery receipts, ads on toys, ads on cars, ads on diapers, ads superimposed on top of other ads, ads that look like tv shows, ads that look like movies, ads in our email box, ads in our snail mail box, ads in church, ads at school, ads on airplanes, ads in restrooms. Of course, that’s in addition to the traditional ads on radio, television, magazines and newspapers.
There are even ads on Sesame Street. Nothing is sacred.
Are your readers doing what you want them to do? Are they clicking through to your links, ordering your eBook or signing up for your opt-in? If not, you need to learn a master craftsman’s copywriting secret.
This technique acts like a remote control to get your readers to take action. Press this “magic button” and you’ll see your results improve dramatically.
The secret, masters-only technique to compelling your readers to act is to . . .
Have you ever reached a plateau with your content? You come to a point where you have a predictable amount of traffic, that traffic creates a predictable level of response (comments, clickthroughs for your product, number of back links, whatever), but your response doesn’t seem to budge past that point.
It’s fun climbing to that spot, but less fun to get stuck there for weeks or months on end. I’m going to share a painful secret with you. It isn’t your layout or your banner. It isn’t your SEO. It isn’t your lack of the perfect WordPress plugin.
