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LinkedInThe Art of Zen Copywriting – Part 2
In part 1 of this post, we considered what many copywriters might think is a radical idea: hard sell copy isn’t always the best option.
Why? Because it’s overused, it can destroy your credibility, and many copywriters just don’t feel comfortable being so aggressive.
We also looked at 4 basic principles behind the idea of a different, less in-your-face approach. Namely that people want to buy from you, you cannot force anyone to do anything they don’t want to do, selling does not require brilliant copy, and you must remove the barriers to buying.
If you’re clear on these preliminaries, let’s now get into the meat of Zen Copywriting and how you can make it work for you.
The Art of Zen Copywriting – Part 1
I originally wrote this 2-part post for Copyblogger. But I thought readers here may enjoy it as well.
If you’re like most copywriters, you truly want to help your clients (or help yourself) sell more products and services.
Your instinct will be to write the sort of hard sell copy you’ve seen so much of, because you will assume that’s what always works. But will it? Maybe. Maybe not. The trouble with hard sell is that it’s overused, it can destroy your credibility, and many copywriters just don’t feel comfortable being so aggressive.
So what do you do?
I’d like to show you a different approach to selling that turns conventional wisdom on its head, replacing hard sell with a less aggressive and more natural way to write copy. We’ll call it Zen Copywriting.
100 spam trigger words that can kill your email copy
The same qualities that make email attractive to legitimate advertisers also make email attractive to spammers.
To combat the ongoing flood of spam, Internet Service Providers, email marketing services, and even email program companies (such as Mozilla or Microsoft) analyze millions of messages and compile lists of “trigger” words and phrases most often associated with spam. These trigger words and phrases are then used to filter incoming messages.
This is a good thing, since it helps reduce the amount of unwanted messages we all receive. But it’s also a bad thing, since it invariably snares legitimate messages from honest advertisers.
This means that when you’re writing email messages for a client or for your own business, you face a unique challenge. Because, like it or not, seemingly innocent copy, especially in the subject line, can kill your email copy.
Here’s one example of a spam trigger word list from Vertical Response:
