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What you need to know before you start writing:

Aside from solid writing, it’s very important to get into the head of your reader, know your product, become an expert on everything in your reader’s world.

If you’re selling a CD product, you listen to the series not once, not twice, not three times, not even four… listen to everything at least five times. If you’re selling facial cream, use it. If you’re writing about vacations, take the vacation.

By the time you’re done, you’ll know the product better than the designer. You need to believe in the product and get excited about what you’re selling. It’s excitement that compels your reader to get up and take action… whether you want them to donate, buy, sell, vote… whatever.

But how do you approach selling something, whether it’s your writing, a product, or even a long piece of writing, when you have trouble getting excited about it?

First, you need to dig into the product. What are the deep, deep benefits. Not your surface stuff, we’re talking the benefits lesser writers wouldn’t be able to come up with.

For example, I wrote advertising for dentists longer than I’d like to think about. Actually most of them in this group were cosmetic dentists, meaning (in my at-the-time limited opinion) that the only thing they offered was something rather wealthy folks would use to raise an already-impossible standard of beauty.

Kinda judgmental, eh?

My opinion was the cash spent for white teeth = vain person.

I was wrong.

When I started digging into the issue, I found deeper benefits in the area of cosmetic dentistry.

People born with facial disfigurements often use the services of a cosmetic dentist. Cosmetic dentists help people avoid dentures. They also re-root teeth (using dental implants) which helps avoid bone loss in the jaw.

On a deeper level, each of these procedures helps the patient regain a part of their life that they’d lost, such as their self respect, their smile, their ability to eat. Disfigured persons weren’t disfigured anymore. Some patients felt younger.

On an even deeper level, many patients gloried in feeling “normal” again. Some appreciated not being stared at anymore. They finally “fit in” to society.

The final result of many of these procedures turned out to be far different than my original expectations.

The old saying goes, “You can’t wage war with a friend.”

Make friends with that which you don’t understand and you’ll discover an entire world of information you may have missed.

Benefits come in three variety: Features, Benefits, and Deeper benefits.

This is where we’ll start next time.

Onward and upward!

Beth 🙂

P.S. This was an excerpt from my latest book, Advice to Freelance Writers: Insider Secrets to Effective Shoestring Marketing, Managing a Winning Mindset, and Thriving in Any Economy. We’re talking three volumes of hard core freelance information in one handy download (at a fabulous price to boot). I truly appreciate your incredible support for this project. 🙂

Just click here.

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Published inWriting Etc.