Complete Kick Ass Copywriting Revisited

The creation of powerful yet simple copy begins with the famous First Principle: The product or service offered must satisfy a genuine need. This can be simple and easy to do, according to Susan Gunelius, author of Kick Ass Copywriting in 10 Easy Steps. The First Principle Of Copywriting says “Your product or service is far less important than it’s ability to fulfill your customer’s needs.” Keep track of this idea because a product or service has to fulfill a need to be of interest to the buying public. If it doesn’t fill a need no one will want it or buy it.

In order to sell a product with simple but effective copywriting we ask ourselves who wants to buy our product and why. There are two types of need we are interested in; urgent need and mere perceived need. We address our copy to either one. The only person likely to buy our product or service is a person with a need for it. So we pitch to this need. Any problem that causes extreme discomfort and/or threatens the life and happiness of the prospect and his ability to function fully is an urgent need.   But perceived need refers to needs that are not extreme but never the less make the prospect uncomfortable. His discomfort is such that he definitely wants relief but will suffer no strong harm if his satisfaction is slow to arrive. Because urgent need is the most compelling it is more effective to offer a product or service that will eliminate an urgent threat quickly. Although most items available to the public address lesser perceived needs we would be smart to create or promote an item that satisfies urgent need. This is clear enough.

Urgent need is always the need to deal successfully with a threat to survival or the capacity to survive in the short term that also causes physical or mental discomfort. The need for food, air, water, climate and solutions to life threatening diseases are its main characteristic. But products that enable the customer to earn money strongly relate to survival anf the appropriation of comfort. Copywriting addressed to what is termed “perceived need” deals with less immediate sources of discomfort, many of which can be mostly psychological. The most powerful copywriting aims at urgent need . Offering to fulfill any need is the first principle of copywriting. We will also want to look at a list of the various needs, urgent and perceived,copywriting aims at and how to hit the target effectively with words. Compelling copy aims at these.

After learning each basic copywriting principle in the Complete Kick Ass Copywriting eCourse we look at real life advertizing and take note of how the learned principle is being applied by professional copywriters. Take the time to look at a TV ad, a newspaper, magazine, or web site sales page, and listen to an audio ad. These are great real life examples of the principles we learn here and show specific ways of how the relevant needs are targeted and the style of the presentation. You can learn a lot for free by studying ads that you can find everywhere. In fact, you would be hard pressed to avoid them.

This lesson is based on the book, Kick-Ass Copywriting in 10 Easy Steps by Susan Gunelius. Buy it at my aStore or get the condensed versions of it’s 10 steps sent to your Inbox free by request.