Copywriting 101
Copywriting isn’t that difficult.
You don’t have to know a bunch of copywriting formulas to be good at copywriting, either.
Those formulas were really made for people to go by at the beginning, if they needed some kind of inspiration. It’s good to learn them but you don’t have to master every one of them.
My favorite one is simple. It’s called PAS. Problem-Agitate-Solve. You present a PROBLEM, then you AGITATE the consumer to get them emotionally involved, and finally, you provide a SOLUTION which is your call-to-action, usually your selling point.
But you don’t even have to use a formula to make good copy.
You do want to be able to tell a story, though.
Storytelling is your main function with good copy. If you can tell a story, you can hook a reader, and then you can sell something a lot easier.
We all love a good story.
If you’re having problems being a good storyteller, then you need to start listening to more stories.
I always listen to podcasts like The Moth and This American Life. I also listen to Spy Scape and Detective Stories. The more storytelling you expose yourself to, the more storytelling will become an easier task for you.
Listening to stories can definitely make you a better storyteller.
Develop Your Own Product
AdSense pays you pennies. That’s because Google in the middleman and does all the work so they get the bigger cut.
Affiliate ads also pays you pennies, but you get a little extra since you also have to do the work to make a sale.
Instead of earning pennies as a solo digital entrepreneur, you should be earning the big money like other people in your industry.
And you can earn that big money, too.
You just need to invent a product or service and sell it as your own. There is no middleman. There is just you. You get ALL of the money earned.
Doesn’t that sound a lot better than pennies?
But I used a word that seems like a hard task. Inventing. To you, that might seem impossible. But it really isn’t.
You just need to see what products would fit your current target audience based on their needs, wants, and pain points.
Can you make a paid newsletter, an online community, or provide a consulting service as the product? How about a course or a virtual event of some sort?
You don’t have to invent something physical.
Take advantage of digital products that you can make into your own and sell them as products or services. That’s how you invent something for your brand. That’s how you maximize your online profit.
What product or service are you going to sell?
Make sure you put yourself first, too!
It’s okay to put your business first.
It’s okay to put your family first.
But it’s not okay to not put yourself first.
Your wellbeing is important. It’s important to take care of yourself. If you’re not taking care of yourself, then you’re failing your business and you’re failing your family. Your wellbeing is required in order to live up to your success.
Exercise. Meditate. Breathe. Be Happy.
Take time for you time and keep being successful in the process.
Don’t Feed the Trolls
Trolls are everywhere on the internet.
They’re on social media. They’re on forums and chat. They’re in your blog comments. They’re in your contact forms. They’re even in your town.
Trolls are among us and their purpose in life is to disrupt and cause a scene. They feed off reactions, anger, threats, and most of all, they thrive from drama within a community or around a specific individual.
Don’t feed them.
If you can block them, then block them. But make sure you ignore them and don’t respond to them. If you do respond, they win. You end up looking bad. And they have created public drama that could haunt you or keep you upset.
Being upset is a ticket to an early death. Stress kills. These trolls are trying to kill you.
Ignore them and take away their ability to have a voice in your domain.
It’s at that point when you have full control of the situation.
Have you considered a community this year?
Communities for 2025!
An online community is a channel between you and your direct target audience that social media algorithms and search engine ranking rules can’t infiltrate.
A community such as an email list, forum, or other type of self-hosted platform gives you direct access to your audience contact information meaning you don’t have to please an algorithm to get your content in front of their eyes. With a community, you can do this all on your own like it used to be in the good old days.
Communities aren’t really a thing of the past anymore, either.
Whether it’s an email list, an online discussion forum, or both – you should really consider starting a community in 2025, especially as AI takes over these algorithms and search engine optimization ranking systems.
Communities might be the best way for you to reach your customers.
What kind of community are you going to start this year?
Is AI bad?
It can be used for bad.
I think artificial intelligence can be used for exactly what we’ve seen on the Terminator movies if we allow it to become that. It might even be the doom of the entire human race if we let it get that way.
But not because of Terminators.
It’s because we will allow it to replace all the brainstorming actions we do to keep a healthy functioning mind. If we’re no longer using our brains, don’t expect our future generations to be born using their brains. We can’t let it get out of hand like that. That’s when it becomes a de-evolutional-type issue.
But for now, we should know about it. We should learn how to use it. We should also use it to help automate things such as our online projects, hustles, businesses, and brands.
But with that, we should pay close attention to what huma skills it could be replacing. Make sure you don’t lose that skill.
Use AI responsibly.
Take advantage of an ice storm warning
I’m under an ice storm warning right now.
More than a quarter ice of freezing rain and sleet will be falling where I’m at. Mix that with snow and gusty winds. Needless to say, we’re not doing anything away from the house tomorrow. The power might even go out.
It’s fine. I’ve charged up my laptop and have extra power bricks to charge it up even more if I need to.
I’m seizing the opportunity to write blog posts for my blogs and online businesses. I’ll have nothing else to do. This is the perfect opportunity to batch create blogs, social media, and stuff like that.
The message here is the next time you get an *Insert whatever disaster that keeps you home here*, take advantage of it and batch create to make your solo business practices even easier.
Hopefully, the power stays on. It’s going to be single-digit cold at night.
Be safe, folks.
Why am I blogging every day?
My personal New Year resolution is to blog every day on this blog.
That’s 365 days straight for 1 year. If I miss a day, it starts over. I’ll blog until I get it done.
Why?
CONSISTENCY.
I want to prove to myself that I can be consistent. Blogging for a year straight is a big step to mastering consistency.
Seth Godin blogs every day and has done so for many years. I can at least do one year!
And like I said, if I miss a day, I’ll simply start over. Most would quit and be angry at themselves. Buy quitting is a bigger failure to yourself than starting over. Are you a quitter or a do-getter?
What’s your personal goal for 2025? I’d love to know!
Is personal branding important?
Is personal branding important?
Is personal branding important?
For a solo online entrepreneur? In most cases — yes.
Your solo. That means it’s just you. YOU want to be seen as the expert so that people will buy your product or service. So, yes, your personal brand kind of matters in this situation.
If you’re building a company that will have employees, your personal brand will often not be required. If you’re an influencer or a solo businessperson who wants to be seen as a voice in your niche, then your personal brand is everything.
If you want to do business online solo, then you need to improve your personal brand.
That also means your reputation. Remember that anything you say or do online WILL be held against you. It will reflect you, your company, and anything you associate with. You can say “opinions are of my own” all you want but it will not change how your actions will be used against you if you have said something to offend another person or group of people.
Anyone who gets online should consider their reputations when doing things, but especially if they’re solo online entrepreneurs.
Learn Something New Every Day
Learn Something New Every Day
You should learn something new every day.
If you truly want to become an expert at something, you need to be able to commit to learning about it. You should do every day, too. You should always learn something new and be willing to be a lifelong learner because our niches are always changing. If you’re not up on the up and up with your niche, you’ll lose your expertise.
Experts can answer a question when given one.
If you can’t answer it, it’s fine. Be truthful and explain that you’re going to learn everything there is about the answer and visit back when you can answer it. That really shows your audience that like them, you’re not perfect, you’re a human, too.
Learn something new every day about your niche.
Setup Google Alerts for keywords related to it. Read blog posts of bloggers in the niche. Join forums and chat servers and ask questions about the niche. Read books and eBooks. Socialize with experts and influencers. Subscribe to feeds and news of industry experts and know what new developments come out. Answer your own questions about the niche by researching for them.
The more you learn, the more of an expert you will be.