Years ago, I was watching a training video on wealth empowerment in which the speaker recommended that if you could only learn one skill for creating wealth, choose copywriting.
Really? Copywriting….
In an age of great technical innovation it seems like there could be better choices – coding, digital marketing, product management. Why would copywriting rank above these for wealth creation?
The thing is, no matter what new technologies come into existence, or how business changes, the mechanics of the human mind will remain the same. What makes copywriting so powerful is its ability to influence human behaviour through using almost any channel to reach large audiences.
To get a feel for how copywriting influences, you need to understand it’s fundamental framework: AIDA
Attention – In our information saturated world it can be difficult to catch attention. The key is to create a headline that distinguishes itself from the noise by immediately touching upon something of importance to the audience (of course this requires having an idea of who your audience is).
Interest – Once you have gotten their attention, you have to hold their interest. This is best accomplished with a story, as the whole point of a story is to create a compelling journey that leaves the audience wanting more.
Desire – If the first two parts have gone well, the audience will be interested in what you are talking about. Here you create an emotional need by showing them how great it would be if they had whatever it is you are advocating.
Action – More commonly known as a call-to-action or the-ask. This is simply where you request or suggest that the audience takes an action you want them to take.
To see this in action, take a look at what is considered the greatest sales letter of all time here.
With AIDA, copywriters have produced countless pages of copy that have covered nearly every conceivable topic and shaped businesses of all sizes. So while there are many interesting skills out there, and of course you don’t need to limit what you learn about, copywriting may be worth taking a look at.
At the end of the day, business is about people. Without people there is no business. So it makes sense to build a skill which is based upon what will always be the key factor in business – each other.