Below, I’m going to share three easy, yet effective strategies anybody can use to write better copy.

The first technique is to create a survey for your customers to fill out and ask specific open-ended questions about your product or service. Then you want to go through all the responses and look for valuable “copy nuggets”, which are gems of copy, written by your customers in their language, as they describe your product or service. You want to look for recurring themes and unique descriptions that you can later use as you write your own copy.

A great way to create surveys is through Survey Monkey (non-affiliate link). Survey Monkey allows you to create any length survey and it will host it online so you can direct prospective or current customers, clients, and patients directly to the survey where you can then analyze the results of, online. You can even embed the surveys into your web page, email them, or more!

What you can do when analyzing your survey results, is to browse through for interesting copy nuggets. Just looking in my own account with surveys I've done I've found some great items such as, "saves me time," "keeps the reader engaged," "quick to use."

You can also dump all of your survey results out into a report so you can view all of the answers at once and browse through for customer-written open ended responses you can pull copy writing nuggets from to use in your copy.

Another unique way to write better copy is to review comments on Amazon.com (non-affiliate link).

Here’s how this works:

The first thing you want to do is search for books on your topic. Let’s use copy writing as an example.

Recently I went into Amazon.com and just searched for the keyword "copy writing." When I clicked on the first  book that came up I was able to see all  of the reviews from customers and pull out words, phrases, and triggers I could use in my marketing copy. I always find some great phrases that I may not be thinking of, but customers are.

Just looking at the first review I recently came across, the word, "indispensable" stuck out for me. This isn't a word I would normally use, but it is a great word to add to my marketing and I can write about how CopyDoodles are indispensable for copy writers.

My last easy copy writing tip is the easiest of the three to use immediately. It has to do with writing email subject lines for your business.

Most of us are doing some sort of email marketing in our businesses and as we write these emails, often times we have our marketer/sales hat on and not our me to you, "I’m a friend" hat on.

The result can be a very corporate and impersonal sounding email and subject line and if your subject line doesn’t get attention, the email isn’t going to get opened.

What you want to do is go through your personal sent emails to friends and family and identify the difference in the way you write these subject lines versus the way you write your business subject lines. Chances are there’s a difference, not only in the words themselves, but also in how they look.

Next time you write a business email subject line, picture your best friend as you craft it, write in that style and see the difference it can make in your open rates.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these easy copy writing tips. Start implementing today to start seeing great results.

I'd love to  hear your easy copy writing tips, too so please leave them below!

Personally, I am a huge fan of webinars and over the year’s I’ve hosted hundreds of webinars. Some that were informational and free, some that sold a product and some that required a fee to be a part of.

If you can use a computer – you can host webinars.

Think of a webinar as an opportunity for your customers, clients, patients or prospects to “look over your shoulder” as you conduct some type of computer presentation.

I cannot think of a single type of business owner who could not figure out how to host either live or recorded webinars and help strengthen their business relationships and increase sales.

If you’re just getting started with webinars or having been doing them for a few months, I invite you to check out http://www.theperfectwebinar.com .

Using CopyDoodles® to market and enhance your webinars is a smart strategy. Here are 7 ways you can use CopyDoodles on your next webinar!

1) Use one of our brand new WebinarDoodles, which is a collection of over 50 handwritten webinar-specific phrases. Many of these are from my own personal collection of CopyDoodles I created for my own webinars.

2) Use CopyDoodles in your pre-webinar print marketing. You can use CopyDoodles to create excitement in your newsletters, flyers and postcards promoting your next webinar.

3) Use CopyDoodles in your pre-webinar email marketing. Insert a CopyDoodle or two in your next webinar email campaign.

4) Use CopyDoodles on your webinar registration pages. A proven way to get more people to sign up is to use CopyDoodles to create a unique, personalized “eye-magnet” on your webinar registration pages.

5) Use CopyComics on your webinar registration pages. I love using CopyComics on my web pages and you can use them to jazz up your webinar registration pages so they don’t look like every other webinar page out there.

6) Use CopyDoodles during your webinar! This is another technique I love using. CopyDoodles work great to add visual spice to your PowerPoint presentation. You can even use the various custom animation settings in PowerPoint to simulate the CopyDoodle being written.

7) Use CopyDoodles on your webinar replay pages! After you hosted a live webinar, you’re going to want to leverage a webinar replay using the recording. Use CopyDoodles on your webinar replay pages for a personalized touch!

Three BIG takeaways in this article… first, figure out a way to start using webinars in your business!

Second, use CopyDoodles to enhance your webinars!

Third, check out http://www.theperfectwebinar.com !

If you’re like me and enjoy food, you naturally understand the value and importance of enhancing the taste of your food with various spices, accents and flavorings. Personally, I am a huge fan of hot and spicy food and I have a new-found passion for the Bhut Jolokia pepper or ghost chili as it’s sometimes known.

For my two daughters, it’s not ice cream if it’s not covered in chocolate syrup and rainbow jimmies.

My point is, when applied correctly, spices and flavorings make something that is good, taste even better. Add too much salt, hot pepper, or even chocolate syrup for that matter and you can ruin a perfectly good dish.

The reason the smart marketer and copywriter uses CopyDoodles (and other copy cosmetic techniques) is to take something that is good and make it better by knowing when and where to add these powerful copy enhancements.

Keeping with the food analogy (remember, I’m Italian) CopyDoodles add S.P.I.C.E. to your marketing or “Super Personal Instant Copy Enhancements.”

The KEY to unlocking the power of CopyDoodles is in knowing which “spice” to add, where to add it and how much to add.

Unfortunately, this is where a lot of marketers make fundamental, but preventable mistakes.

When I am working with private clients or mastermind members, I constantly start with three basic questions:

• Who’s your “who?”

• What’s the context of your relationship with your “who?”

• What’s the one thing you want your “who” to do?

The beauty of CopyDoodles is how fast and simple they are to use, but before I even consider adding a single CopyDoodle to any marketing piece, I give careful consideration to the three questions above.

The answers to these questions tell me what spice to add, where to add it and how much I can add.

Over the years, I’ve seen sales letters that looked like a wall of graffiti. I’ve seen advertisements where CopyDoodles were haphazardly thrown on. And I’ve seen newsletters, emails and other marketing materials where CopyDoodles were incorrectly used, resized, or looked terrible when printed because the person using them didn’t understand the fundamental concepts, techniques and psychology behind the proper use of CopyDoodles.

Truly, there is an art and science behind using CopyDoodles and copy cosmetics in general, which is why for the first time in 3.5 years, I am hosting a four-part, six hour CopyDoodles Best Practices Webinar Series for individuals interested in understanding the best ways to maximize the use of CopyDoodles.

Never before have I covered the A to Z theories, strategies, technical tips and short-cuts in such a concise, easy-to-attend and easy-to-understand way as with this series of webinars that you can attend from the comfort of your home or office.

This will be the most complete, advanced, with “insider secrets” training I have ever done on the power and use of CopyDoodles in both offline and online marketing. Even if you’re an experience CopyDoodles user, you will learn new ways to improve the look and response of your marketing.

The fee to attend the live webinars (and get access to the video replays) is downright cheap. I hate to use that word, but it’s a fact. For the level of training and insights I am going to deliver on these webinars, you’ll be kicking yourself for missing it. Just one, simple idea or strategy taken from the six hours of training could provide a phenomenal return on your investment.

Check out http://www.copydoodles.com/training for all the details, including my risk-free guarantee.

With the impending opening of my CopyDoodles Access Club later this month, I am releasing another “sneak peak” video showing you some of the powerful new features of this amazing, one-of-a-kind web site for business owners looking to create attention-grabbing, response-boosting marketing.

On this video I am showing a preview of our new SocialDoodles Facebook™ app which allows members to create custom CopyDoodles to post on the Facebook wall.  Nobody is currently using handwriting on Facebook and this is a sure way to get more attention for your posts.  Check it out at:

http://www.copydoodles.com

Also on this CopyDoodles Access Club sneak peak video, I show you our new vector based CopyDoodles (in EPS and EMF format for you design experts).  What this means for the rest of us is that CopyDoodles are now scalable to any size you need with NO DISTORTION!  So yes, you can have a CopyDoodle on the side of bus and it will look great!  Check out the VectorDoodles on our site under "Demos":

http://www.copydoodles.com

We’ve just released 20 fun new CopyComics, including 10 restaurant-themed specific comics on our membership site. CopyComics are copyright free comics for marketers and they may be customized via our CopyComic Generator.

Also just released is a brand new CopyTemplate. CopyTemplates are templates you can customize for your specific marketing needs.

This month, it’s a single-sheet, double-sided self-mailer CopyTemplate which is sure to get the attention of your reader! On the outside you can place any one of a number of check or certificate images and on the inside there is room for a single page letter.

Included in this CopyTemplate are graphics you can customize for your specific needs, including a “stimulus check”, gift certificate, raffle ticket and service certificate. We’ve also included a number of unique CopyDoodles related to each graphic.

This is a great template to use for direct mail or a flyer and you can easily create it right in your own office!

Current CopyDoodles.com members may log in and begin using immediately. If you’re not a CopyDoodles.com member, please visit http://www.copydoodles.com.

For the first time ever, we’ve decided to host a booth and get a chance to meet all the great folks at the Super Conference!

We also have some exciting information to share at the event about the future of CopyDoodles and our never-been-seen before CopyDoodles Access Club.

We also have two special gifts for attendees. For the first 250 who stop by and drop off their business card, you can have the official CopyDoodles luggage tag identifier. I don’t know about you, but I can never tell my luggage from the next person’s and these neat little things make my luggage quite visible.

And if you’re not yet a CopyDoodles customer (or you’re want the latest and greatest I have to offer)…just stop by booth #2 – the CopyDoodles booth – for a very, very special opportunity! I’ll be stopping by and my wife Becky (a.k.a “BeckyDoodles”) will be there too!

One of the smartest copywriting strategies is to use lists, such as bullet, check, and number lists when writing about your product or service, however 98% of copywriters and marketers overlook the critical importance of how their lists look and what they can do to make them stand out and grab the attention of their reader.

It’s a fact… how your copy and marketing LOOKS is critical for getting maximum readership and maximum response and conversion.  I am currently putting together a book that describes all the unique techniques you can use to improve the cosmetics of your copy and today I want to look at technique # 25 – lists.

If you look at successful advertisements, web sites, sales letters, they typically all use some type of list within them to air out the copy and create short, visual nuggets of information.

One of the smartest strategies for writing lists is to think of all the “reasons why” a prospect should invest in your product or service and use them as the basis for your list.

Once you have your lists created, the next step is to add copy cosmetics to spice up the look of your copy and grab the attention of your reader.

Use several unique strategies, including the use of CopyDoodles® to replace your word processor’s generic black round dots and numbers.  You can easily import a CopyDoodles into your program and create the look of a handwritten list.

If you’re printing in color the double impact of a hand-drawn checkmark in red really stands out and magnetizes the reader to your copy.  Watch the video to learn how to do this.

The other neat technique I like to use is to add CopyDoodles around my lists with phrases like “Check these out!” or “Don’t miss these” and then add a CopyDoodles arrow to point to my list.

By adding CopyDoodles you are creating eye-magnets which allow you to selectively emphasize key points within your copy.  This allows both skimmers and readers to instantly see what it is you want them to see and take the action you want them to take!

If you do the math… that’s a return on investment of $130 for every dollar he spent – not bad, huh?  I want to share what Justin did because it’s a classic example of three important strategies.

First, Justin understands the importance of getting attention and standing out.  Second it uses the power of testimonials and third it shows Justin’s ability to get things done and not worry about perfection.

I also want to share it with you because it’s such a simple strategy ANYBODY reading this post can use.

So what did Justin do to get such an amazing return on investment?  Did he spend weeks reading books on how to create an ad?  Did he look at what his competition was doing and do the same?  Did he spend hours upon hours “researching?”

Not quite.

Justin took out one of those little business card ads in a local publication (a good market to media match), but rather than simply photocopy his business card (like everyone else does) Justin used my CopyDoodles.com site and created something that looked like a handwritten testimonial from one of his clients.

Click on the ad to see the larger version and tell me that Justin’s ad doesn’t get your attention when compared to all the other “business cards?”

It’s beautifully simple in its effectiveness and its ability to capture attention.

Now the funny thing is when Justin shared this with our group, we all immediately started to try to “fix it” and make it better.  Sure he could have made an offer.  Sure he could have offered multiple ways to respond.  But you can’t argue with success.

He’s already gotten one deal worth over $3K and several other new leads that could turn his measly $25 investment into one of his most successful marketing efforts this year.

In this day and age of marketing that looks the same wherever you go, it’s critical you create marketing that stands out and gets attention.   Whatever you do, don’t create “plain vanilla” marketing!