14 Lessons Learned from One of the World’s Highest-Paid Copywriters (Lessons 6-10)

14 Lessons Learned from One of the World’s Highest-Paid Copywriters (Lessons 6-10)

Reader Comments (26)

  1. Valuable information. But even a mention by a problogger like Daren or Chris won’t help for long unless you provide a continuing flow of great content.

  2. @Ray: You’re absolutely right. Your job is to create great content. Every mention from big to small can add up to the eventual BLOW UP, but if you’re not consistent with your quality, all the mentions in the world will never amount to much.

    @Melissa: Absolutely. People are important and they want to know that you know it too.

    EVERYONE

    I’ll be back tonight, or during the weekend to check in with comments. I’m swallowed in commitments today, but look forward to reading your thoughts as soon as I am able.

    Have an awesome day!

  3. Thanks for posting this information. Big fan of Dan Kennedy’s here, constantly read in his book “Ultimate Sales Letter”.
    Look forward to reading more of your information.

  4. Ray makes a good point. Bringing in the traffic is only half the battle. Keeping the traffic is the key to success and you can only do that by writing consistently good content.

  5. Sean:

    I enjoyed reading your post. Thank you.

    I also think it is important to be open and responsive to customer feedback. Apart from that, there are other kinds of inputs as well, such as the external environment of your business.

    You have to be sensitive because things are always in a flux. Legislation, technology, politics, social trends, consumer behavior, demographics, etc.

    Maybe keep your ear close to the ground and listen with empathy. And keep on tweaking your product/service until you get it right. Try to please your client/customer.

    It seems these days customers have become more discerning and want to be wowed. Hence, the demand for more tailor-made and custom-designed products and services. “Old wine in new bottle” is no longer good enough. Of course, this maybe true only for the upmarket segments, but I have noticed this shift in perspective.

  6. Thanks for the post!

    You’re absolutely right about social media sites, the opportunities and potential of free social websites.

    I am sure that today is much easier to reach someone hear what you have to say. All depends on what kind of impression we leave and what value we are giving to people with whom we come in contact.

    People will start talking in social media sites and then comes a moment when everything is going viral.
    Cheers!

  7. Great ideas.

    I second the holiday idea. My blog gets quite a few hits from people searching for “Married To a Scorpio Support Day” because I tied a post to it. Not sure they find what they’re looking for, but hopefully they get a laugh nonetheless.

  8. Oh my god, who else just fell down at the simple directive to ASK for something from your readers? I mean, my site is wholly entertainment meaning I’m not selling anymore than my self. But to ASK for readers to bring over more readers? Simple, genius, I’m doing it immediately. Thanks!

  9. Great tips. I’ve been offered to do a cross promotion with another blog. I’m trying to figure out how to relate the offer to my blog topic.

    I’m also working on posting on odd days such as your Pirate Day suggestion.

  10. Hi Sean, Great advice here. I hadn’t thought about tying my posts into holidays, news stories or other events. I also agree 100% on providing value to old customers just as much as your new ones. I have been that “old” customer before and when you stop receiving the value you stop paying attention or lose interest.

    Thanks – Heidi

  11. @IronicMom, it’s always a source of amusement for me to see how people come into a site. Although mine don’t tend to be as colorful as, say, Naomi Dunford’s.

  12. @Ray, that’s very true. I was fortunate enough to get a link from Seth Godin very early on my first blog. It was a wonderful shot in the arm (and helped me feel like I was on the right track with this whole blogging thing), but the important thing was to capitalize on that jolt of traffic by offering a lot of really high quality material to keep people reading and keep them engaged. I’m also very glad that I had an email newsletter already in place with a solid autoresponder, so I was able to capture those readers and continue a relationship with them.

    I would have reached the same point with or without that link — the link just helped speed me along.

  13. Dan: I’ve recently finished “Ultimate Sales Letter” as well. Great stuff. I hope you enjoyed the followup.

    AV: Ray’s dead on. Without a way to capture what’s coming, it will only fall through the holes in your net.

    Archan: I totally agree. My family had a flower shop for 30 years. After a lean beginning it grew extremely successful. My parents listened to their customers, stayed ahead of the trends and did things better than anyone else in the city. But the market changed and they didn’t listen. The store died a slow, hooked to a respirator sort of death as a result. You have to pay attention or that’s it, game over, you’re irrelevant.

    Branko: Yes, it has never been easier to reach so many. Our tools are terrific.

    Ironic Mom: Ha, it’s always funny to look at the analytics and see how people are finding you. I’m actually embarrassed by a few I’ve seen on my sites.

    Samantha: Word of mouth is older than the oldest profession.

    Maren: Me too. 🙂

    Beki: Do it now! It works. 🙂

    Adrienne: I’m writing a pirate post in my head right now.

    Heidi: No one wants to feel unimportant. The most valuable thing we have to give is our time. We want to know it’s being respected rather than taken for granted.

    Sonia: Ha! I can only imagine.

    Sonia and Ray: You know, when I first started out I got some nice attention from some terrific people rather immediately. But in hindsight I did a pretty lousy job of capturing or doing anything with it. I was putting out good stuff, but it wasn’t the type of stuff that was going to move me forward in the way I most needed to go. I really wish I’d known that then. So, it’s not just keeping up with the quality content, it’s pointing your sails to catch as much as you can of the incoming wind. It would have made all the difference in the world had I truly understood the definition of content marketing way back then.

  14. As a business owner, one of my most challenging time management tasks is finding the ideal balance between gaining new customers and maintaining existing customers. In the end, however, I have found that when I continuously impress my existing customers they begin to solicit new customers for me all on their own!

  15. Love your points; great advice.

    Free advertising is so easy to get these days, it’s amazing. All you have to do is, for example, guest post on a site like CopyBlogger, and suddenly you’ll have tons of traffic coming in (not that getting a guest post published here is easy).

    Before, you had to either pay money or have a lot of connections, and then you have to do with big corporations…

    Getting hot is a really amazing tool, and it’s unbelievable what you can accomplish if you become a trend; just by adding value.

    A lot of people foolishly spend tons of money on advertising like drunken sailors when they don’t have any content. Although I promote myself through things like commenting, being on Twitter, etc. I’m completely revamping my blog, and especially if your blog has no content, spending money to advertise is foolish.

    I recall hearing Neil Patel once saying in a bonus interview with Darren Rowse (which you can get by signing up to http://problogger.com/) that a guy once offered him something like $400,000 to market his business idea, but Neil wouldn’t accept because he didn’t think the idea was good. Obviously most people don’t have that much money to spend on advertising, but it can be translated to much lower amounts of money.

    Kennedy’s split of why people lose customers is very insightful, but what exactly do you mean by “indifference?”

    Going viral is such a powerful thing it’s scary: http://mashable.com/2009/12/30/addthis-2009/

    Can’t wait for the top five!

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