The Art of Persuasion: How to Craft Words That Sell

Do your words sell?

Want to sharpen your copywriting skills?

To explore the art of persuasion and why it's important to social marketers, I interview Ray Edwards.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode I interview Ray Edwards, author of Writing Riches and MoneyWords. He's host of The Ray Edwards Show. His latest book is called How to Write Copy That Sells: The Step-by-Step System for More Sales, to More Customers, More Often.

Ray will explore how to craft written and spoken words that sell.

You'll discover why marketers should care about creating persuasive content.

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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
The Art of Persuasion
Ray's copywriting journey

In 1974, at age 9, Ray saw his first direct-response copy at his grandparents' house in Pineville, Kentucky. His grandmother loved to read Weekly World News and The National Enquirer, and Ray's favorite part of those tabloids was the fascinating, full-page articles that were peppered with information about books and courses that were available for purchase.

Those stories had headlines like, "Turn Your Mind Into a Mental Magnet That Attracts Friends, Power, Love, and Money" and "How Modern Chinese Medicine Helps Burn Disease Out of Your Body, Using Nothing More Than the Palm of Your Hand." Ray later learned these were not articles; they were full-page ads written by Eugene Schwartz, who was "a genius with direct-response copy."

During his career in radio, Ray studied direct-response copywriting and marketing, and used them as his secret weapon in the business. While others were cranking out commercials and ad copy to fill 30- or 60-second spots, Ray wanted to get money into advertisers' businesses. That way they would keep doing business with the station and he could keep his job.

In the early 2000s, radio started changing because of the Internet. People could take their favorite songs with them, which eliminated the things that annoy people about radio stations: static, commercials, and DJs.

Ray recalls paying $1,200 to go to a group meeting at Seth Godin's office in New York. (This was before Seth was as big as he is now, but after he had written Permission Marketing and Unleashing the Ideavirus.) Ray figured Seth could offer "marketing wizardry" about how to fix the radio stations, but Seth's advice to Ray was to figure out what to do after he was out of the radio broadcasting industry.

Ray realized everything he'd learned about marketing, persuasion, and selling in an entertaining and palatable way would transfer to the Internet. He hung out his shingle and has been working as an Internet copywriter since 2005.

Listen to the show to discover which client (and handler) Ray and Mike had in common.

The importance of persuasive content

Marketers need to write so people will buy not only products, but also ideas. You want people to read your blog posts to the end, comment on or share them, or write about them. Ray explains that you know you're writing persuasively when other people are writing about your posts. You're the generator of the conversation, not only a participant.

He says that at it's core, copywriting is the science and craft of persuasion in communication. Whether you're talking, writing a blog post, doing an interview, recording a podcast, or posting on Snapchat, every communication is persuasion.

Listen to the show to learn why Mike feels this topic is so important.

Ray's system for persuasion

Because everyone is present on the social media playing field, you have to be persuasive and stand out.