Under: Career, Copywriting/By: Will Veic

Direct response copywriting is a form of sales where, unlike TV commercials which play the long game, the response is required immediately. The user is asked to buy, subscribe, download, follow, or perform any other target action.

But, always remember, copywriting has a giant flaw: it only works if there are people on your website to read it. And even the best copywriting in the world cannot sell anything if the website has no traffic.

That is why the first step should always be learning how to get free website traffic.

Direct Response Copywriting Salary

Best part of copywriting is also the worst part of copywriting. And that is (for the most part) – there is no salary. You are usually paid proportionally to the results you provide for the company. But also: no results = no pay.

This means, if you are a person that can bring tens of millions to the company, you will be paid millions as well. If you can’t sell anything, you won’t get anything.

And this is the complete opposite of most 9-5 jobs there you will NEVER be paid 10 times more if you provide 10x results.

Why is direct response copywriting a great long-term skill to learn?

If you are paid for the results, then the company has almost zero risk when hiring you. This means you are pure benefit for the company – you bring in the money. And especially in a recession, every company wants more sales.

So regardless of the economy, your services are always needed.

Also, this skill is transferable. So even if an entire industry was to disappear, the psychology doesn’t change. This is unlike other professions like programming where your knowledge is constantly being outdated.

In copywriting, the knowledge compounds.

Is direct response copywriting becoming less effective?

The difficulty in any sales process is always the same. This is because a big part of buying psychology is novelty. That is why you buy a new phone even if the old one is just fine. So it’s not less effective if you’re original.

Originality can come from many different angles. One of the most basic ones is the message medium.

In the past people used to get a bunch of (phisical) mails. And most would end up in the junk unopened. Then email came along and everyone was opening everything. Today we’re cluttered with newsletters and spam messages.

No one opens anything (or at least not as often).

Imagine getting a direct response sales letter. And I mean physical letter. You would probably open it. Maybe even take the time to read it. Why? Because it’s novel again since no one is sending physical mail anymore.

Get it now? Every strategy works as long as it’s not too familiar among your potential customers.

How to find direct response copywriting clients?

There are four steps you need to follow: copy, results, copy, clients. Use copywriting to get results and then use copywriting and the results to get the clients. Contact them using direct response email copywriting.

Step 1.
Learn some copywriting.

Step 2.
Confirm to yourself that you actually know what you’re talking about. And you can do that by selling some smaller product using your copywriting skills.

Step 3.
Use the copywriting skills (since now you know they work) and combine it with examples of the results you managed to provide.

Step 4.
Contact the clients who are more likely to give you a chance now that you demonstrated your skills really work.

Direct Response Email Copywriting

Direct response email should never try to sell anything. Your only goal with this email is to get readers to click on a link and go to your website. It should be fairly short and inspire the reader to go to your website.

Only then, on your website, will you actually try to achieve your bigger goal of selling, subscribing, etc.

In the specific example of getting copywriting clients you will try to sell a meeting. So the email sells a click, website sells a meeting, and meeting closes the client. So take small incremental steps and slowly raise the commitment.

Beginning In Direct Response Copywriting

There is no better way to start than the beginning of every copywriting text: the headline. So if you’re new to copywriting, the very first skill you need to master is the headline because it’s the first thing the reader sees.

And your readers will not see anything else if you haven’t convinced them to click on your headline and read more. Here you can find a great headline copywriting guide.