** Continued From: Profit Perceptions!

Last time C-Pimp needed to fill up a web page he published one of my pieces titled "Profit Perceptions" where I tried to suggest that the way we perceive ourselves is very important to our bottom line.

I tried to suggest that newcomers in this industry were still seeing themselves as something different than what really is. In the past, many of us reveled in being able to describe ourselves as Webmasters because that somehow gave us “status” in the eyes of people outside the industry.

It also fooled us into believing we were something other than what we really are and that in turn has come back to bite us. As the marketplace changed, many of us have held onto that perception which has reduced our capacity to make money.

As a Webmaster many of us have concentrated on things to do with the web. We have kept up-to-date with all the changes in HTML, we have taken the time to learn all about Style Sheets and we have learned how to turn out a mean looking web page that can be viewed in every browser on the web today.

But can we make a sale?

Heck of course we can, we're Webmasters; we know about banner placements and we know which sponsors are hot and which ones are not.

But can we make a sale?

Well of course we know that banners aren't converting all that well these days and we know that text is probably doing better.

But can we make a sale?

Yes I know! I keep on asking that question because the answer to that question is vital to your success or failure in this industry. You can know all there is to know about HTML and you might have even written the bible on Style Sheets but if you can't make a sale, you need to change your perceptions.

You might have done very well in the past and made lots of money but things have changed in the industry and the people who make the money these days are the sales people. These are the people who understand that their role is to make sales.

"These days the marketplace has matured and to make a sale you really have to make a sales pitch."

They have no allusions about their own self-importance because they recognize that they are just the same as any other sales person in any other industry.

Sure, they may, and should, be able to write basic HTML themselves and they may, and should, understand the basics of Style Sheets and maybe even PHP but their true focus is on how to make sales.

In the past, every Webmaster had at least one and probably more HTML textbooks close at hand. Today the guys who are making the money are the ones who still have those HTML textbooks handy but right alongside them are texts on copywriting and the psychology of making sales.

And it is those latter books that get more attention than the HTML books. These days there are any number of good HTML editors and so the need to produce code by hand is long gone. The focus has completely shifted towards how to make sales, how to write good copy and how to make money.

What type of books, if any, are laying around on your desk right now? Do you even own a book on copywriting? Don't tell me you don't even know what copywriting is? If you don't know what copywriting is and you do want to make money in this industry then read on.

On a very basic level, copywriting is writing the text for advertising and/or promotional material. In reality it is much more than that.

J Jonathan Gabay in his book 'Teach Yourself Copywriting' suggests that a copywriter is “a communicator who manipulates words and images…” to ultimately “…communicate product or service benefits”.

Is that what your ads for your sponsors actually do?

Do the banners that your sponsor provides actually do that?

And hey, let's ask the fundamental question here. Is copywriting really relevant to marketing on the Internet?

Only you can answer the first question and the answer to the second has to be that some do but many don't.

And the answer to the third would have to be a resounding YES!

In the past it was possible to make easy sales on the Internet simply because people were not used to the instant availability of porn. Suddenly it was there on their computer screens and they could access it in the privacy of their own homes. It was convenient and they just couldn't resist the temptation to buy.

These days the marketplace has matured and to make a sale you really have to make a sales pitch. The Internet marketplace that once soared with the eagles has now sunk back to the same levels as all the other advertising mediums. That means that effective copywriting has assumed its rightful place in Internet advertising - especially the Adult Internet.

While the fine detail of how to write good copy for the Internet may differ from other mediums – in fact the fine detail is different for each advertising medium – the fundamentals of good copywriting remain the same.

It doesn't matter if you're producing an ad for a magazine or television or the Internet, the fundamentals of how you build and manipulate the elements within your ad remain the same. If you don't understand those fundamentals then you're seriously limiting your ability to make money.