After read­ing some of my arti­cles on how to find copy­writ­ing clients, one of my stu­dents, Jeff, asked me an inter­est­ing question.

He’s an aspir­ing copy­writer and wants to build his own free­lance copy­writ­ing busi­ness. When he read that I wrote copy for free when I started my career as a copy­writer, he told me he was think­ing about doing the same.

How­ever, he won­dered if he should ask for some­thing, any­thing, in return. In fact, here was his question…

“Mike, my friends have a very small busi­ness, and they have asked me to do copy for them. They say they can’t really pay me that much. I have told them I will do it for free as long as I get rights to the copy and can use it for a ref­er­ence and in my port­fo­lio. I think this is a won­der­ful oppor­tu­nity to get more expe­ri­ence, but my wife wants to see some money on the table.

“I value your opin­ion. Can you help?”

Here was my answer.

Ask­ing for a con­ces­sion in exchange for offer­ing one is always the way to do it. While I believe your trade-​​off is good in prin­ci­ple, it’s still mea­ger. I would con­sider some money — or some larger con­ces­sion on the part of the client. Here’s why…

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EDITED: The spe­cial has been extended, pos­si­bly a day or so, since I made a mis­take. (Read below for the details.)

Did you miss out on the 10th anniver­sary spe­cial I did last year, where I offered life­time mem­ber­ships to my pri­vate copy­writ­ing how-​​to site, “The Copy Doc­tor,” for just a frac­tion of the cost?

Since that time (and even to this day), I get hun­dreds of emails from peo­ple who missed out and want to know if I’ll ever do it again. I wasn’t plan­ning on it since 10th anniver­saries don’t come often.

How­ever, with so many peo­ple clam­or­ing for it, I thought about it for a while and made a deci­sion. (If you missed out, then you’re going to like this!)

I’m ready to pro­mote Life­time Mem­ber­ships of Copy Doc­tor for just $397 to a few select peo­ple, one more time, until the end of March, 2008 (end­ing in a few days). And pos­si­bly for the last time, too.

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A mem­ber once asked a ques­tion about the legal­ity of using an alias or pseu­do­nym in copy.

That is, is it legal to write the copy in the voice of a fic­ti­tious char­ac­ter, or telling the story of a fic­ti­tious char­ac­ter enjoy­ing the ben­e­fits of your offer?

Using an alias in busi­ness is a com­mon prac­tice. How­ever, if you’re con­sid­er­ing using an alias or already are using an alias, there are a few things to know to keep your head above water with the law.

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Scarcity is an effec­tive tac­tic often used in copy­writ­ing to cre­ate a sense of urgency in an effort to con­vince the unde­cided reader to make a pur­chas­ing decision.

After all, peo­ple pro­cras­ti­nate, and they do for a vari­ety of rea­sons. It’s sim­ply human nature. So the goal of apply­ing scarcity is to pre­vent prospects from pro­cras­ti­nat­ing.

As online con­sumers become wise to these direct-​​response copy­writ­ing tac­tics, one ques­tion often arises:

“What about dig­i­tal prod­uct down­loads, like ebooks and soft­ware? How can you cre­ate a sense of urgency for some­thing that, in itself, is lim­it­less or per­ceived as such?”

Here’s how to use scarcity sell­ing effec­tively with dig­i­tal products:

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Through­out my research, I’m always sur­prised when I stum­ble onto web­sites that are pro­fes­sion­ally designed and seem to offer great prod­ucts and ser­vices, but lack or fail in cer­tain impor­tant elements.

Ele­ments that, with just a few short changes, can help mul­ti­ply the results almost instan­ta­neously.

Gen­er­ally, I have found that there are seven com­mon mis­takes. I call them the “Seven Deadly Sins.” Is your web­site com­mit­ting any one of these?

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This small book­let con­tains ten core prin­ci­ples based on my “Power Posi­tion­ing” con­cept — a set of pow­er­fully effec­tive strate­gies that have made tons of prof­itable busi­ness for many entre­pre­neurs and pro­fes­sion­als like you.

These ideas are dis­tilled from my inten­sive train­ing sem­i­nars that have cost some peo­ple up to $2,495 to learn. They are offered to you here for a much more mod­er­ate invest­ment that, if applied prop­erly, will surely return your invest­ment a thou­sand times over!

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If there’s one prob­lem in all adver­tis­ing and mar­ket­ing, it is the sheer fact that there is too much com­pe­ti­tion out there. Every­thing just seems to look like every­thing else. If one copies another com­pany let alone another company’s pro­mo­tion, it only serves as a reminder of one’s competition!

You don’t want to remind your prospects about your com­pe­ti­tion, do you?

So, don’t copy them — or as Earl Nightin­gale once said, “Don’t copy, cre­ate!” Be unique. Be orig­i­nal. Be spe­cial. Be dif­fer­ent. In fact, be so dif­fer­ent that, if pos­si­ble (and it is), your name or the name of your firm as well as the ser­vices you deliver become generic in the minds of prospects.

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