Online Marketing With Copywriting – Bullets You Don’t Need To Bite

Independent professionals and service business owners need a great deal of content to for online marketing. However, when creating content, it is important to understand a few basic principles of copywriting. The reason is that you are writing to an audience of targeted prospects. They will be reading your words as they make a decision to hire your services or buy your information products.
Copywriting takes time to master. However, you will find a few basic tools you can use over and over again: headlines, opening, sub-headings, and call to action. This article will introduce you to the most essential copywriting ingredient: bullets.
A bullet is a short sentence or phrase that communicates a promotional idea. Typically you see bullets highlighted with bullet points (small dots), as they would appear in a written business memo. You will also see bullets highlighted with arrows, stars, asterisks, and even special symbols.
Choose any graphic to highlight your bullets, as long as it doesn’t draw attention away from the words of the bullet. For instance, a restaurant probably should avoid using pieces of fruit to highlight bullets; a dog trainer would be advised to avoid highlighting key points with images of dog bones.
When you study copywriter, you will discover many ways to write bullets. You can begin a bullet with “How to…” or, “Discover why…” However, nearly all bullets can be analyzed as a dynamic combination of features and benefits. Two formats you can use are:
Benefits (because) Features
Examples:
Your dog stops chewing shoes *because* you use our unique Canine Awareness techniques
You begin to reduce your debt *because* you learn to reprogram your relationship with money.
Features (so that) Benefits
Examples:
Learn three Canine Training Commands *so that* your dog stops chasing motorcycles as if they were sheep.
Gain an understanding of your own spending patterns *so that* you begin paying off your debt without effort.
Three mistakes that are very easy to make:
— Not enough bullets. Although some content works well with few or no bullet points, you will usually get better results by mixing up bullets and narrative text.
— Bland bullets. Bullets need to be juicy and emotional. If you find yourself writing dry, boring bullets, you probably haven’t asked enough questions about why your prospects might want the services you are offering.
— Skipping the so-what question. For instance, “Now you will understand why your boss behaves this way.” But we need to ask, “So what? Will I increase the likelihood of getting promoted? Reduce stress by reducing conflict? Or…”