The Blockbuster Secret That Creative Professional Know-And YOU Can Swipe!

by Bonnie Boots

It's oh-so-easy to get stalled in the process of creating products and marketing them on the internet. There are so many steps involved, so many skills needed, and no one person can be master of them all.

Still, until you've earned enough money to hire everything out, you're pretty much stuck doing them yourself-whether you've mastered them or not.

Writing your own book, difficult as that may be, can actually seem like the easiest part of the program as you struggle to do things like write compelling copy for your sales page or create an opt-in to start your mailing list.

If copywriting isn't one of your skills, trying to turn out your own powerful sales page can lead to migraines.

If you don't know how to make digital graphics, creating simple illustrations for your sales page starts to make childbirth look easy.

And suddenly the idea that once sounded so fun-making your own products and marketing them on the internet--begins to seem like a colossal source of pain.

If you find yourself constantly struggling to create web pages, sales letters, ecourses, articles, graphic designs or any of the many other things that are necessities of internet marketing, then you need to swipe the tactic used by all professional creative-make yourself a swipe file.

A swipe file is nothing more than files filled with bits and pieces you've swiped from other people's sales campaigns.

All creative professionals, including copywriters, graphic designers, web designers, illustrators--anyone whose job demands that they be ready and able to instantly create something for clients--keeps a swipe file.

Despite its name, a swipe file is not something you use to steal other people's work.

A swipe file is a creative professional's way of getting the juices flowing. People who make their living by being creative on demand can't afford to get stuck. Professional copywriters, for instance, can't afford the luxury of writer's block. They have to perform on demand. So a swipe file serves to grease the brain gears and get things moving.

Why struggle though the whole creative process when you can spend a few minutes browsing through a swipe file until your brain starts churning out its own bright ideas?

I've been a creative professional most of my life. My swipe files are huge. I have paper files as well as digital files filled with examples of excellence in almost everything.

When I see a magazine ad that does a great job of making me want to buy perfume, it goes in my swipe file. When I see a catalog whose sales copy makes me want to order everything, it goes in my swipe file.

To my mind, the postman never delivers junk mail. He delivers lessons in the fine art of writing sales copy and designing the layout of everything from postcards to brochures.

Physical space used to limit the amount of printed material I could store, but since the advent of the digital age, my swipe files know no limits. When I see an excellent web design, I save a copy. When I get a first-rate email solicitation, I save a copy. When I see an opt-in page that makes me go "Oooooh!" a copy of it goes in my files.

Then, when I have to create an opt-in page, I dig into my folder labeled "sample opt-ins" and refresh my sense of what makes for an excellent opt-in. When I have to write a sales page, I start reading through my swipe files of sales pages until I've reacquainted myself with the basic parts of a pitch--and my brain starts writing pitches of its own.

If you find yourself struggling to create your own marketing materials, then you need to start a swipe file. As you surf the net, make it a habit to save a copy of any marketing piece that moves you.

When you find yourself reading a sales page that makes you want to click that buy-it-now button, take time to click the "save file" button first.

Chances are, if the marketing piece moved you to action, it has lessons to teach you.

When you read an article, see a book cover or land on a squeeze page and feel yourself compelled to take action-make your first action saving a copy in your swipe file. 

Start today by creating a new folder named "Swipe Files" or, if the word "swipe" make you uneasy, name it "Samples." Inside that main folder, create a folder for saving samples of opt-in or squeeze pages. Create another folder to save samples of download pages. Create another folder to save samples of email courses.

Here's a list of things you should consider collecting:
*Email sales letters
*Web sales pages
*Autoresponder series (ecourses)
*Opt-in or squeeze pages
*Pop-ups and slide-ins
*One time offers
*Joint venture invite pages
*Articles
*Ebook formats
*Launch process (save the entire sequence of email letter, sales page, pop-up, download page, one time offfer and what ever else was involved in the launch.

Saving such material and studying it when it's time to create your own is the single best way to learn how to do it--and do it well. Because you're not going to save crap, are you? You're going to save examples of excellence.

Creating a collection of materials that you can refer to when you need ideas and examples of excellence is the fastest and easiest way to improve your own marketing. It makes you look at marketing materials with an objective eye, questioning why they work-or why they don't-and it makes you focus on excellence.

When your focus is on excellence, when you train yourself to recognize it and appreciate it, you won't let yourself settle for mediocre in your own marketing. And in a web that is awash in mediocrity, aspiring to excellence is the surest way to stand out.

 

 
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