“Copywriting is the use of words and ideas to promote a person, business, opinion or idea. Although the word copy may be applied to any content intended for printing (as in the body of a newspaper article or book), the term copywriter is generally limited to promotional situations, regardless of the medium (as in advertisements for print, television, radio or other media).
The purpose of marketing copy, or promotional text, is to persuade the reader, listener or viewer to act—for example, to buy a product or subscribe to a certain viewpoint”.
In the online marketing world, copywriting is used extensively to promote blog readership, get opt-ins for list building and to monetize your prospects.
If you truly wish to be successful in your online business, you’ll have to learn the ropes of effective copywriting so that your readers will love you.
Thankfully, good copy writing practices is a learnable skill.
The ability to turn words into gold is probably the most important aspect of any marketer. If you can do this, it does not matter where you are in the world, you can make money from anywhere, anytime just from your words.
This whole copywriting thing came later on. Back in the day, the best “copywriters” were the great businesspersons of the olden days who knew how to sell anything to anybody. While people possessed powerful weapons, their most powerful weapon was their pen (or tongue).
Today, modern entrepreneurs are making a killing using copywriting techniques in their businesses. Bear in mind, selling things online is a lot harder than selling things offline because you lack the sincerity of voice and body language.
However, if you know how to tap into the power of copywriting to excite the emotions of your customers, you’ll be laughing your way to the bank.
We all have things that leave us on edge. Sometimes it’s an event or a person (like a visit from your mother-in-law). Sometimes we’re more anxious due to more significant issues, leaving us unsure of our safety and well-being, like when a severe illness is going around. Whatever the case, anxiety is adept at derailing our lives and keeping us from accomplishing what we want and need to.
How do you handle this kind of nervous worrying? If you’re lucky, you eventually learn how to take it in stride. For some people, their coping skills aren’t healthy. For others, they flounder, trying to find their way. If you’re in these latter groups, consider this: Visualization is a proven skill shown to reduce anxiety and create a calmer and happier you. Let’s explore how.
Feeling especially fearful? It’s time for a trip to feel someplace safe. For some, this might be the beach. Or perhaps you’d feel more at home by a mountain lake or city café sipping coffee. Wherever you feel the safest and most at home, you want to go there now in your mind. Start by sitting back and making yourself comfortable. Close your eyes and picture yourself in your favorite place. Add in every detail you can to make this experience as real as possible. Include all your senses in the background. Breathing deeply, holding yourself in this place until you feel calm and somewhat refreshed.
Unwind with some String
Feeling all tense and coiled up inside? This usually comes when you’re holding back too many emotions. Picture yourself carrying around all these knotted emotions tangled up with words you’ve wanted to say all day but couldn’t. Make all these feelings into an imaginary ball of yarn. Now sit back and take several calming breathes as you withdraw this ball of yarn and hold it in your hand. Do you feel the weight? Good. Now drop it on the floor, holding onto the end of the string so that the ball rolls away from you, unraveling as it goes. Watch all the strands of yarn unwind, disappearing as they do. Stay in the vision until the entire ball is unwound and gone, and you’re feeling lighter and more relaxed.
Our thoughts can be noisy things. We hear so many voices in our heads, reminding of us deadlines, things to do, and people to see. Add to this the negative self-talk which creeps in occasionally and the half-heard phrases we’ve carried with us, which sound suspiciously like our parents, and you’ve got a lot of chatter and no peace. For this kind of problem, visualize yourself in a room with a big open window. Set all these voices outside the window. Now, take a deep breath and shut the window firmly. This is a nice thick double-paned glass. You can no longer hear the voices when the window is closed.
With visualizations like these, you tell your mind to calm. You take back control where you need it most and set your feet back on a better path. Remember, you’re in charge of what goes on in your head. Don’t let anxiety set the tone for you.
I am currently living in Baku, Azerbaijan – all part of my life plan to visit and live in different countries. It’s been a tough time. I landed here the day war broke out with neighbouring Armenia. It is a conflict which goes back a long way, and not one I want to discuss here.
So I arrived and the government set a curfew from 2100 to 0600 the next day – stay at home unless you have government permission for work reasons. This was on top of some corona virus restrictions. The war ended but curfew didn’t. The in December they went for another lockdown; we needed to send an SMS to get permission to leave home to go shopping etc for a maximum of three hours. So I was back to working online; and trust me, as a teacher of many decades experience I can say Teaching Online is much more difficult than classroom teaching. I hate it. Though I keep at it as I want to keep pushing my students to be their best.
Fortunately, we will be having restrictions removed soon. I haven’t actually taught one of my classes in school since mid March when I was still in Morocco.
We hear a lot about how to be calm and why calmness is essential. But why?! What does “calm” really do for someone? If you’re feeling like being calm gets in the way of your motivation and achievement-focused mentality, you’re not alone.
A lot of people associate calmness with nonchalance, but in reality, it’s what helps you have a clear mind so that you can achieve all of your dreams and goals. You’ve got to start somewhere, so here are five ways to become a calmer person:
1. Go All In
Just like when you learn a new language, in order to become calmer, you need to immerse yourself in the headspace fully. That means the mind, body, and soul. Whether you decide to download a meditation app or start going to yoga classes, the important thing is that you commit to it.
2. Surround Yourself with Calm
Tapping into the immersion piece, another way to become calmer is to surround yourself with calming imagery. Maybe you’ll paint your walls a color that makes you happy and serene. Or perhaps you’ll add a fountain in your room for soothing background noise.
3. Take a Break When You Need One
The hustle is great, but sometimes you need a break. Breaks are good for the mind, especially when you’re usually working hard! Let your mind go through its unconscious thoughts so that its conscious self can get back to work when you wake up.
4. Let Conflict be Conflict
Sometimes, we get into conflict, and we take all the blame. Or we hand the blame over to someone else. Either way, engaging in conflict and letting it consume you is not the way to attain calmness for your mind. The next time you find yourself getting wrapped up in conflict, take a step back, and ask yourself what good it is doing for you. If it’s not doing any good — and most of the time, it’s not—step away and let the conflict be conflict.
5. Observe from Far Away
It’s one thing to choose not to engage in something, whether it be a conflict or a toxic relationship. It’s another thing to decide to observe from far away, detach and then let go. For some people, it takes years to nail down the art of observing and detaching. It doesn’t matter how long it takes you — go at your own pace, and you’ll see progress.
Affirmations are a powerful way to help you reach your goals. They can build optimism and turn around a negative mindset. And they work most effectively if you repeat them until they become part of your self-talk.
But saying your affirmations to yourself in front of the mirror can get old fast. You need to find more creative ways of building your affirmation practice into your routine. Supercharge your motivation by injecting a little affirmation sauce into every aspect of your day.
Write Your Affirmations
Writing your affirmations makes them more tangible. Studies have shown that the physical act of writing enables your brain to remember better. Choose your favorite way of recording your own affirmations. Keep a journal; write post-it notes and leave them where they’re easy to see, on your fridge, bathroom mirror, and computer. Set reminders on your smartphone or tablet with the text of each affirmation at different times of the day.
Make Affirmation Themed Art
This might sound a little off the wall, but try making art themed around your affirmations. Use paint, collage, clay, or colored pencils, and let your Inner Child play with colors and shapes to interpret how your affirmations make you feel.
Take a familiar or favorite tune and sing your affirmations instead of the regular lyrics. If you’re musical, maybe you can write a song that uses your affirmations. Make a rap song about your affirmations and create a dance routine to go with it.
Vision Board Your Affirmations
Vision boards are powerful tools for setting out your goals. Affirmations can sometimes feel a little abstract. Using a vision board can help you come up with concrete images of what you want in your life. Look for photos that inspire you and make you feel good. You can make a physical vision board or use an internet platform like Pinterest.
Get inspired
Look around for motivational speakers and writers whose approach to life appeals to you. You can find plenty of motivational talks on the internet, on platforms like TED Talks and YouTube. Search for motivation from people you admire or those who have made their dreams come true while overcoming adversity.
It’s essential to find someone whose values and approach feel right for you. Don’t watch an influencer just because they’re popular. Check back with your affirmations to see if their themes ring true to you.
5 Things You Can Be Hopeful About Even When It Looks as if All is Lost
Everyone has times in their life when things look grim. They might even seem to be hopeless. The world can feel like a scary place, and you alone in the middle of it. But history has shown that even in the worst of times, people have chosen to be hopeful. If you’re finding it hard to believe that better times will come, here are five things you can hang on to.
No matter what world of life crisis you’re going through, if you have your health, you’re wealthy. You might take it for granted, but being strong and healthy is probably your biggest asset.
Look after your body, eat well, stay fit, and be game-ready for the next opportunity.
Even the worst day comes to an end, and you get a chance to do better tomorrow. Brooding over past failures is as pointless as worrying about the future. You can only deal with what is right in front of you.
Take your motto from Scarlett O’Hara and remember that tomorrow is another day.
You Are Full of Potential
Do you believe you can live your best life? Do you think you can be successful, famous, and happy? Or does it feel to you that success is only for the lucky few?
All humans are born full of potential. The only thing stopping you from meeting your potential is you. Change your mindset from self-doubt to self-confidence, and you can do whatever you set your mind to.
Learn to Look on the Bright Side
It’s highly unlikely that everything in your life will go wrong at once. So learn to hang onto the good things in your life and be grateful. No matter what situation you find yourself in, it could pretty much always be worse.
If you look for abundance, you will find it. Practice looking for things to be thankful for, starting with being alive right now. And remember, hard times come and hard times go. Better times are just around the corner.
Challenges Make You Stronger
If you’re down in the trough of a life crisis, remember that when you come out of the other end, you’ll be stronger and smarter than before. You will have learned things about yourself and what you’re capable of that would never have occurred to you before. And in spite of feeling crushed, you have triumphed, you made it!
After his outrage about how rejoining the Paris Climate agreement will only benefit Parisians, Senator Ted Cruz, the single celled amoeba from Texas, has declared war on funding other countries with American foods.
“The Buffalo is a Great American Symbol. It reminds us of how we starved the indigenous people so we could make warm hats. And now we are exporting their wings to every country in the world. It’s time to stop this exploitation and let the buffalo fly free in America,” added the former aide to the Moron in Chief.
Cruz has decided on a campaign to stop American hard earned dollars going to support the coffers of other countries. He is particularly angry with Americans who continually support the French and German governments by purchasing French Fries, French toast and hamburgers. He also wants to ban Swiss Rolls and Swiss cheese.
“Why should Americans subsidise those European Communists?” he asked.
He has asked incoming President Biden to stop the sales of Sichuan Peppers and Bombay duck.
“We should stick to traditional American foods like Pizza, Chinese Takeaway and Sauce Americaine,” declared the festering imbecile.
Photo by u0410u043du043du0430 u0425u0430u0437u043eu0432u0430 on Pexels.com
As I said, the craze is upon us. Everyone’s online, and sometimes folks spend more time chatting with Internet buddies than they do talking face to face with actual friends. I know I’ve been guilty of this one myself. Anyway, along with the advent of the World Wide Web, came people who need a little help figuring out how to get where they want to get. They want to find like-minded people, find a date, find love, and find support.
There’s a huge book market for hooking people up with people online. Here are just a few things that could be covered: speed dating online, virtual music jams, taking online classes, hooking up with people who share your hobby, and finding online support groups. Any of these and more are of interest to people who wish to get maximum benefit from their ability, thanks to the Internet, to network with people in the farthest reaches of the world. In fact one of the appeals with online communing is that distance does not matter. Help these people in foreign lands find each other with a book.
The facts don’t lie. Women dominate the Internet, and they spend or influence spending of 80 cents for every dollar changing hands. What women want has never been so important to business owners and authors.
Certain topics appeal particularly to the female set. These include beauty, health, decorating, emotional support, and life enrichment. Women do a few things, generally, that men don’t. They play bunko, wear make-up, and talk for hours to their girlfriends on the phone. They send more greeting cards, prepare more casseroles, and vacuum more often than men. They eat more salads and go shopping more often for clothes. They get more pedicures and love to dance more than the average man.
There are two things to keep in mind with regards to women and books. If you want to attract a female market, you need to write about a topic that women like to read about, and you want to make the title friendly towards women.
Here’s a female-oriented subject and title: Where to find great shopping bargains in Taos.
And here’s a male subject: Where to catch the most fish in Taos.
Here’s a female-friendly title (same as above): Where to find great shopping bargains in Taos.
And here’s a male-friendly title on the same subject: Keep your money in your pocket in Taos.
See the difference? Even the text colour!!!
Know your market, and if you need to choose between one and the other, you’re safe going with the women’s title.
Sex.
People don’t need to sneak out of bookstores with erotic books in their hands anymore, and they know it. They are looking on the Internet for sex materials, toys, and books. The Internet is private, individuals can take their sweet time, and indeed they can surf with or without a lover sharing their chair. There’s been a recent eBook success entitled Orgasms for two. There is room for more similar eBooks. On the subject of sex, this is one case where a fiction book may also do the trick. You could create erotic short stories or a how-to-have-great-sex eBook. Either eBook would entice adults interested in this category (or incidentally, most adults are indeed interested in this category).
I have been married twice and known many beautiful women. For most of the last decade I have been happy to live alone.
Selfish?
Yet recently I met someone. And things feel like they are changing.
The way my thoughts have gone bring me back to a song from Jethro Tull. I must have bought this album on vinyl more than 50 years ago…
“All the places I’ve been make it hard to begin, to enjoy life again on the inside, but I mean to. Take a walk around the block, and be glad that I’ve got, me some time to be in from the outside, and inside with you.”
My research has taken me a little further. I recently attended an online course which said the three hottest niches for writing and online sales are :-
Health
Wealth
Happiness
And people will complain about these aspects of their lives and so start searching for solutions.
In these days, although fewer and fewer are attending churches, more and more are flocking to purchase self-help books. Self-help books are leaping off shelves at brick and mortar bookstores. People want to feel that if they read a self-help book, they have all the power to change their lives. Whether or not this is true is moot. Changing your life, soul searching, and helping thyself, are all great book topics.
As much as ever before, people want to know how to find peace with their pasts, how to be creative or spiritual in a consuming society, and how to find true love. There is no end to how-to books you could create in the category of self-help, or life enrichment. Here are a few more ideas:
These are fiery hot topics that are sure to be on the rise. You can pull any one of these to use for your first book. Then come back and pull another topic for your next book.
Using the latest electronics.
We are a society obsessed with having the latest and greatest technology. Do a book on iPods, email/camera cell phones, wireless Internet, digital TV, or any combination of these items.
There’s so much of a craze in this area that do-it-yourself (DIY) stores are on every corner of major cities. If you haven’t been to a Home Depot or Lowe’s lately, then you are one of the few. Sure, apartment dwellers and young students aren’t in this market, but people with homes and money to afford them are in this market. In fact, some cable TV services offer entire channels dedicated to home improvement.
Especially of current interest are in-home automation systems. DIY home improvers are eager to learn about and buy things that will make their home lives more relaxing, high-tech, or fun. Create a book to teach them how to make their lights come on for them before they get home from their jobs, or how to press a button to adjust window blinds, music, or temperature. Or how Bill Gates’ house works. Or how to add automation to an existing home, or how to build-in automation when a house is constructed.
Identity theft prevention.
Especially because many books are marketed on the Internet, this is a great topic. This is because people who purchase over the Internet are concerned that their credit card numbers will not be seen by others or misused in any way. Even away from the computer though, consumers are on-edge about identity theft. Today, people are shredding their receipts, removing their personal information from the face of their checks, and cautiously covering themselves when they type in passwords at public terminals or ATMs. Microchips are being installed on ID cards. People are worried. Tap into this with a book!
Along the same lines as worrying about identity theft, people are worried about their safety from other things like crime, chemical warfare attack, and natural disasters. Watch the evening news tonight, and you will be able to list at least twenty things that people are afraid of. When you talk about safety, you are speaking their language. Titles along the lines of be prepared for any natural disaster would go over well, as would those like never be a crime victim again, how to defend yourself in a parking lot, or prevent sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
How-to manualsforany new product recently on the market.
This harks back to the Dummies series but takes it one step further. Target your book to people who want to buy the most current commercially available item. How to use the new model John Deere tractor. You will be sure that no one else has a book like yours, and you can say so in your sales pitch.
How to survive any phase of life.
People face numerous demons and battles as they live their lives. For many, when they’re in need, they’ll be reaching out for help. Support groups, private therapy, being with friends, starting over – these are all solid topics for a book. You could also reach out specifically to certain people needing emotional assistance. How to get through the terrible two’s. How to cope with a cancer diagnosis. Living with your own shortcomings. How to live with someone who is dying. Surviving high school. Any of these will do.
People are pampering their pets more than ever before. Some pets are treated better than people. It’s the people who spend small fortunes on their pets that will also be willing to pay good money for a book that gives them ideas on how to treat their animals even more royally than they already do.
Write books on how to pamper your parakeet, homemade meals for picky dogs, where the pet spas are, how to train your kids to be cat-friendly, million dollar homes for mutts, which animals make the best pets, or pet psychology.
Traveling mixed with the subjects above.
Not only are people traveling like crazy, but they want to customize their itineraries and their methods of travel with their hobbies and lifestyles. Try a few of these on for size:
Where to dine around the globe and still stay on a low-carb diet plan
Fairy Hanny 