Copywriting Industry and Advertisement Scams: A Review

Copywriting is one of the most successful careers you can have today. If you are good in writing and using promotional language, then you can be a great copywriter. Amongst us are copywriters earning six figures in a month, and some who have established their own companies to earn twice as much.

Copywriting is a way of writing content, promoting a particular person, company, or business concept, prompting interested people to invest. Copywriting for the advertisements and copywriting for the websites exist. The former promotes a particular product or service through targeted words that compel readers to spend money, while the latter is a bit simpler targeting readers less than search engine bots.

Who Can Do it?

Well, this is a freelancers’ world. Today, anyone can flaunt as anything with some money and a fast Internet connection. But the real success lies in the work you do. You cannot just write anything and get it promoted overnight. You should develop that kind of language, which rock the readers and make him disgorge dollars.

Now, How Do We Do That?

Simplicity is power! 90 % of the world’s English-speaking population is poor in grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary. They cannot understand what you mean if you say “It’s a juggernaut of a strategy to subjugate the fiefdom of copywriting.” And such sentences would just not get digested even with the academic community. So, keep it simple and effective.

To that 90, I would add a 75 % of schoolchildren, who can digest only the conversational tone. Most of the schoolchildren are unable to understand a word of business news or share market stories. And when you intersperse your writing with tough industry-specific words, most of your readers just get bored and drowsy.

A Bit on Exaggeration!

“Make 2000 $ a day, start your business within the next 45 minutes, and you will be millionaire within a month! Order this system now for only $97.”

I laugh! Such advertisements are allover the Internet these days. I recently found one such in my inbox, and went to the person’s website. I dropped a mail to him after fetching his contact details:

“Dear sir,

I just saw your advertisement about earning more than 1000 dollars per day. I was very tempted by the figures you have shown there, and would very much be interested to do it. But the trouble with me is that I have no money to spend right now. In this regard, if you could get me a special position into the system without any upfront payment, I assure you, I will not pay you $97, but all 50 % of what I make every day for a whole month. That would be nearly $500 per day for you. And I am willing to sign any contract for this.

But if you cannot assure the earnings, please DO NOT reply to this email.

Yours sincerely

Lenin Nair”

And the email was never replied. The ads like these are outright impossible, and cannot in any way convince people like me. They may be legitimate businesses, but no! They cannot satisfy me. The copywriting done is outright inept in that it scoffs any legit business in existence today by making the figures look extremely inflated. I guess that makes them look sillier. Compare such an ad with one below:

“If you are about to purchase a new car, if you are trying to finance your home, or if you are trying to start a new business, here we have the best of loans for you at the most affordable interest rates in the industry.”

The ad is quickly written and rather long. But it satisfies one condition—reliability. You can check if the advertisement is speaking the truth. You can crosscheck their interest rate with that of other major players in the industry. So, the ad attracts your attention, and you think the company is good. So, the result is that you would be tempted to click on their ad and get yourself that loan which you wanted badly. Simplicity succeeds here.

A Tip Not to Get Cheated!

“Read in between the lines.” In the earlier advertisement, the website told, “You can get even $1000 per day.”

Earlier, I had this post on the scam, Blogit, which is a blogging system that pays its readers. It’s website says, “You can earn more than $1000 per month just writing blogs.”

What does that ‘can’ mean? Nothing! It means ‘may.’ And the may is a possibility that can be 99.99% or 0.001%. It can be anything, but the statistics show that it is mostly less than 1 %. So, 99 % of the time, you may not earn a cent!

And none of these Earn-$1000-per-day schemes give you any confirmation that you will do it. They are just telling you that you may. To read better between the lines, you can get to their Terms of Service (TOS) and read it fully. None of the terms would make it clear that you will be paid in the numbers advertised. So, they are legal scams.

Also, I would like to mention another recent statistic I found. Here, the task is promotion of a web service. And the statistics example shown is $4800 per month just for placing a link to their website on our website for a month. And after flaunting such a huge sum in the front page in multicolor, bright fonts, there is some text in 8pt grey font at the bottom, “The figures shown are entirely generic. Your specific result may be different.” That tactic has failed bitterly, and the website (contactthem.com), is not in existence now, but here is a friend’s review of the program, the best review I could find.

Another advertisement that flocks the Internet in millions is of the data entry business. Some thug early during the inception of Internet thought that the traditional data entry could look very colorful through Internet and created this buzzword: “Data Entry” and everyone started thinking that it is a legitimate business. Still many millions are signing up for the scam Data Entry jobs sprawling and crawling the net like crazy ants (read this). I tell you, the figures they show are more than any legitimate business can offer you in any way (many companies offering $200-$2500 for a day or some even per hour).

Such advertisements and schemes can only be deemed as fraudulent, and should be avoided at any cost.

So, How Do You Succeed?

Maybe I just deviated a bit from my central topic. Deviation is something I don’t really tolerate, but this one was for good. Here are the basic rules of success in copywriting industry:

Keep it simple, mild, and digestible. Talk directly to the reader, and give him no exaggeration or inflated stats, just give him helpful suggestion. Always give importance to what your reader wants, and build that rapport with her by thinking in her direction. For instance: “We are here to refinance your home at the best repayment terms you can ever get. Stop foreclosure! We hate it more than you do!”

Give maximum data in simple words. You cannot afford to give just a hazy content touching here and there on anything. Neither can you throw your points at your reader in tens. You should be exhaustive and simple. Cover everything the reader wants to know, and be simple with it. This may be done with in depth research and good writing.

Show an authority with courtesy. When you show your professionalism, the readers tend to believe you more. When you tell them or make them feel that you are telling them the truth, they will be far more inclined to give you credit for that. When you give them what they want, they would give you what you want.

Good writing skills: A copywriter’s main asset is her writing skills. Improve your language in every way, before you get into this business. Though a positive slip in grammar or style is acceptable at places, slapping your grammar would backfire, remember! There are a million highly educated beings around (I included), who believe that grammar mistakes and sentence construction errors are the best indication of unprofessionalism.

Hope I gave you an idea of copywriting industry. More on this topic will follow in the coming days.

History Today

Alexander Pope, English poet was born in 1664.

Thomas Warton, English poet, died in 1790.

Copyright © Lenin Nair 2008