Finally you’ve reached the final stage of the AIDA saga. The past few articles have shown you how to grab your readers’ attention, get their interest, and create a desire for your product. Now all you have to do is get them to take action.

The best way to get your reader to take action is through the use of testimonials. These are a fantastic motivator and a tool that every freelance copywriter should have in their writing armoury. Avoid the temptation edit client testimonials. They may contain the odd grammatical or punctuation error but this is exactly what you want – it makes them real.

Another way is by offering free samples, statistics, a free trial or money-back guarantee. If you have the option of using these why not use them all or a combination plus testimonials (if possible).

The call to action

This is one of the most important aspects of copywriting. If this is weak, the rest of your hard work would have been wasted.

Don’t think that you have to save them for the final paragraph. Sprinkle them throughout the sales letter or, if using email, use hyperlinks so once your reader has made their buying decision they can act immediately.

Here are a few things to bear in mind when writing your CTA:

• Ambiguity is bad – don’t confuse your reader
• Watch your wordiness – you’ve made your pitch so get straight to the point
• Don’t be vague – leave them in no doubt as to what they need to do

In a nutshell, your CTA should be short, simple, direct and clear:

- Give them different ways to get in touch/place their order (e.g. email, fax, phone)
- Give them a clear and simple-to-complete order form
- Be commanding – ‘order now’ ‘order by 1st February’

It doesn’t matter what you’re writing - always remember: AIDA - Attention – Interest – Desire – Action and you can’t go wrong.

My previous two articles have looked at how to attract attention and interest so now we are onto the ‘D’ of AIDA - so just how do you create a desire?

Any sales person will confirm that getting someone to interested in something is one thing, but to get them to want it is entirely different. That’s because what we actually want makes up only a small percentage of the things we are interested in.

As a freelance copywriter I always keep one thought in mind whenever writing for clients - when someone wants something they’ll convince themselves that they really need it.

Bring the product to life

You need to use words to create a picture and make your readers ‘see’ what their lives would be like with your product. Play on their emotions. Will they appear more successful, more attractive to the opposite sex…?

Restrict the supply

If you are looking to increase the ‘want factor’ limit your product by time - having a cut-off date after which it won’t be available (or a special offer price for a limited period). Or restrict the supply in numbers e.g. attendance is limited to just 50 people.

Desire drivers

Try one of these:

* Your reader has been specially selected
* They are among the first to get the offer
* People they respect have bought the offer
* Only your offer can give them the benefits they want
* How easy you’ve made it for them to act

By putting all of the lessons so far into practice your reader will be on the verge of buying your product. We just have one more hurdle to jump - you now have to get your reader to take action.

Following on from my last article, we’re now going to discover how you can attract your readers’ interest in what you are selling.

How do you do that?

Well, your reader has a problem – they are feeling stressed, bored or unfulfilled. It’s down to you to find a way to tie your product to their problem as the solution.

A metaphorical arm around their shoulder

Freelance copywriters can be described as counsellors. We have to be able to show our readers that we understand how they feel. We then we promise to take the problem away - all they have to do is buy your product.

The golden rule here is to make sure you write about the solution not the problem – negativity won’t help your case.

Think about this question - ‘How will my reader’s life be improved if they do what I want them to do?’ and answer it in the first sentence or paragraph.

Sell the benefits

Benefits are anything your reader perceives as valuable or worthwhile – something that will help them make/save money, save time, get them promoted, make friends etc.

But it is important to make sure you are selling the benefits and not
the features. The product might be recyclable but that is a feature. The benefit would be that it helps preserve natural resources.

It will take a bit of practice, but you’ll get the hang of it.

But just because they are interested and can see the benefits, doesn’t mean they’ll simply hand their credit card over.

The next step is to create a desire for your product. See you in a day or so.

Every freelance copywriter lives by a certain set of letters.

AIDA provides all the elements your writing needs to make a sale. If your copywriting skills are going to be effective you have to learn how to:

- Capture your readers Attention
- Arouse their Interest
- Create a Desire
- Get them to take Action.

I am going to break this down over the course of the next few articles. So to start with we’ll take a look at how to go about grabbing your
readers Attention.

How does a copywriter grab their readers’ attention?

If you’re writing direct mail, web copy, reports etc., your attention grabber is an effective headline. If you are writing an email, it’s the subject line.

To save complicating matters this article will concentrate on the writing of a sales letter. Your headline will be at the top of your letter but, to create instant impact, you could also add it to your envelope as this will be your first opportunity to grab the attention of your reader.

So what type of headline works best?

- One giving news?
- One promising a benefit?
- One that arouses curiosity?

The most powerful headline is the one that incorporates all three elements.

If you are stuck for ideas try starting it with ‘How’ or ‘Now’:

‘How this copywriter will increase your sales conversion rate’

‘Now, even better quality, even lower prices’

When is the best time to write it?

For some the best time is at the start before they write the body of their copy, for others it’s at the end. There is no right or wrong answer so go with whatever feels right to you.

If you can, come up with several headlines and then pick the best one. You may find that different ideas occur to you at different times in the writing process.

Forget the full stop

This mind sound simple but whatever you do never, never end your headline with a full stop.

A full stop tells your reader to stop reading – that is last thing that you want to happen.

How long should it be?

As long as is necessary to get your message across.

In a few days I’ll post the next article in this series addressing how you can arouse your readers’ interest.