Spice Up Your Copywriting With This Secret Ingredient

We’ve all done it. We get frustrated when a promotion doesn’t work or the sales letter doesn’t pull. We think, “Maybe there’s just ONE missing ingredient… “
By way of analogy, if you bake a cake and leave out the baking soda, your cake flops. So if your cake falls, your cooking coach (if you had one) would say, “Um, did you leave out the baking soda? Like… duh?”
So it’s natural to wonder, “Isn’t there some simple ingredient that can jumpstart our copy or even our whole business marketing campaign?”
One question I get often is, “Are there some magic copywriting words you can use to jazz up my copy?”
Copywriters do have a list of powerful words an phrases, but that’s not where the magic lies. Let’s imagine that the secret ingredient is orange peel… or 3 drops of some exotic spice. That info won’t do a thing for me. I don’t know how to fold this secret ingredient into a recipe. I’d just toss it in and… well, let’s not go there.
In the same way, power words and catchy phrases will be effective when you’ve got a context. Here are some bullets that use power words (if you think I got them from your site, you’re probably wrong: I found variations all over the place):
“attract more ideal clients” “expand your sales and income” “get more clients faster and more easily” “accelerate your business growth”
Now let’s do some REAL copywriting. What’s unique about the coach who’s making these promises? Where are her bragging points and how does she turn them into her brand?
Suppose she developed a proven method for growing your business by connecting to your prospects at networking events and discovery sessions. Her brand is all about teaching clients to make connections, based on her experience as a mental health counselor.
We delve into her story. Maybe she’s worked with troubled teens or couples in conflict. Maybe she’s a mediator who soothed conflict in a bitter strike.
Now we can begin to create some content to showcase why she’s unique, in a way that matters to her clients. For instance:
“how to transform your network contacts from jaded listeners to active advocates, five minutes after the first handshake”
“a 3-step system to build relationships in the first five minutes of a discovery call”
These ideas would be a first draft; I’d spend lots of time learning more about this client and about her market. The magic is in the details: being specific, painting word pictures, and highlighting what makes you special. As you read sales letters, practice looking for these elements, rather than individual words that seem to sizzle and smoke.