Most of the copy peo­ple ask me to rewrite seem to offer great prod­ucts and ser­vices. In fact, some offers are so good, prospects would be crazy to turn them down.

But they do.

And these sales pieces end up falling on my lap because they’re des­per­ately unpro­duc­tive. When clients ask me to cri­tique or rewrite copy, one of the biggest prob­lems I see is the fact that the copy is stale, limp, and anemic.

Copy so down­right dull, the only response it gets are yawns.

You’ve heard the adage, “copy­writ­ing is sales­man­ship in print.” This is noth­ing new. It comes from the age­less teach­ings of the mas­ters, like Hop­kins, Bar­ton, Col­lier, and oth­ers, which still ring true today. Includ­ing the Internet.

But peo­ple tend to for­get this axiom. Here’s why…

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Words are pow­er­ful. They are the crux of our exis­tence as copy­writ­ers. And your choice of words is cru­cial in get­ting the results you seek, whether you’re a copy­writer or not, and be it in busi­ness or in your per­sonal life.

To com­pel oth­ers to do what you want them to do, words do the job. So it goes with­out say­ing that you need to choose your words. And you need to choose them care­fully. Because words are more pow­er­ful than you think.

How pow­er­ful?

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One prob­lem in copy­writ­ing I often see is the fact that the audi­ence is not tar­geted for the offer. An untar­geted, unqual­i­fied prospect won’t buy, no mat­ter how good the copy is.

Or at least, they will ask for a refund once they smell the cof­fee. But that’s not the topic I want to discuss…

It’s the sec­ond biggest copy­writ­ing prob­lem. Which is the fact that the copy doesn’t speak to the cus­tomer at the stage of aware­ness at which they hap­pen to be.

This is absolutely essen­tial to ensure that the copy is long enough, and strong enough, to appeal to, qual­ify, edu­cate, and sell the prospect. It’s about con­nect­ing with them.

What are these “stages of aware­ness?” There are four.

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