Do you know why people clicked out before they even finished reading copies? Because it’s boring. Nope, correction…because it’s confusing.

Confusion always leads to “Why am I reading this piece of s**t?”. I’m not being rude. I’m being honest. I do think like that when I read articles on Medium or when I read ad copies on Facebook.

Call me whatever you want but one thing is for sure — confusing copies don’t get read and act upon. They get skipped and ignored. That’s a cold, hard truth.

In the world of getting people’s attention, you can’t waste a word on being confusing and boring. People can and will click out. All they need is one click and you’re non-existent.

Let’s talk about the Rule of One

Ask any experienced copywriter about the Rule of One. Chances are, they have heard it before. And the good ones will put it into practice while the not-so-good ones will just go about doing their own thing. Trust me…you can tell the difference between an expert and a newbie straight away.

What makes the Rule of One effective is it allows the copywriter to be highly persuasive in structuring a sales argument. By argument, I mean content that is meant to support the big idea (we’ll go through this in just a moment). The big idea gives the whole copy a solid structure. A direction in which the copywriter leads the reader in their copy.

The Rule of One is about bringing bits and pieces of content to support one big idea. Stories, research results, testimonials….these content become part of the big idea. They come together in a harmonious flow that brings the reader from a state of uncertainty to a state of absolute enchantment.

In simple terms, whenever you’re trying to write a copy, focus on one topic only and elaborate with relevant content pieces. This method is very powerful because it eliminates the reader’s confusion. The content is relevant to the big idea and nothing else.

“You don’t want to talk about ten random things at once but talk about ten relevant things, one at a time. Let that sink in.”

Finding out your big idea

The big idea is a pathway for your words. Like a railway to a train. Finding out your big idea is a simple task. If you know how to look for your audience’s pain points, you’ll get your big idea easily. The hardest part about this whole thing is the way you present your big idea.

Nevertheless, I’ll walk you through the big idea generation process. It’s easy to get a big idea. It’ll just pop out in your mind out of nowhere. But as for the process to get a big idea, not really. You’ll need to be very clear on what to look for so the big idea comes to you.

I’ll talk about my process. You can use it for inspiration and feel free to improvise however necessary. Cool? Right, let’s go.

First things first…a topic. For this article, I knew from the start I wanted to talk about copywriting. But I haven’t had any big ideas about how I want to write it. At this stage, I was just browsing through Quora or social media to get inspiration on audience pain points.

Then, I got some inspirations:

I don’t know how to write persuasively
I don’t know what to write
I’m not sure what to look for when doing research

These three pain points have the highest engagements. Number 2 is something I’ve had experience with so I go along with it.

That is not my big idea by the way. It’s more like a subtopic. I then recalled my process and did some research on how to overcome that specific pain point. That’s when my big idea came to me — The Rule of One. Read the full context through this link.

To put it simply, The Rule of One is a method that allows you to structure your copy in a way that is cohesive to the reader. It gives context as well as content inspiration. That way you know what to write to guide the reader from the headline to the CTA.

That’s how I got my big idea. Find a topic, figure out the subtopic, specify the subtopic.

3 ways to present your big idea

So now you know how big ideas are formed. Here comes the hard part — presenting it. Ideas are just ideas when they are not properly presented to the readers. Taking back my example. I have a big idea — The Rule of One — and I present that idea by redefining the big idea generation and presentation.

With that being said, here are 3 uncommon ways you can present your big ideas so people read your copy from the top to the bottom.

Bring out the unique element

Uniqueness is very relative. Some see it while others don’t. And your job is to explain the uniqueness of your big idea the best you can. The good thing about uniqueness is you don’t need to make something up. Your big idea will be unique to whoever sees it for the first time.

So…how do you figure out the unique element of your big idea? Research, of course — competitive research. Find out if competitors are using your big idea so you can take full advantage if they aren’t. Your idea will only be unique if no one else heard of it. And that’s what you look for.

Here’s something you need to take note of the uniqueness of your big idea. As the title said, bring out the unique element of your idea. The idea might not be unique, but one of the elements of the idea might be. Let’s say your big idea is to lower Facebook ad costs by increasing click-throughs. The unique element could be increasing CTR by using a certain color in your creatives for a specific niche. That’s a unique element.

Redefine the normal

I like this method a lot. I would say I use this method in almost all my work. The reason being my competitors are lazy and all they do is give out mediocre content. This gives me a huge competitive advantage over the sea of copywriting content. I challenge you to do a quick Google search on ‘what to write in my copy’ and look for copywriting content similar to this.

To redefine the normal is to turn something extremely mundane into something fresh and new. The best way to do this, in my experience, is to go specific in your big idea. It’s even better if you have content that no one has ever covered before. If you can nail down this method, I can’t guarantee you will have all the traffic but I can guarantee that you will have better conversions.

It’s fairly easy to do. Just do a quick Google search and start reading all of the search results. You will notice they are general and repetitive. Find one subtopic that you want to redefine and do further research. Just like how I wrote this article.

State the unspoken

Did you know if you use certain typefaces you could increase your conversions by 113%?…I bet you didn’t know this because it’s rarely spoken about in blogs and YouTube videos. That’s how this method works — find something rarely talked about and talk about it comprehensively. Here’s the case study if you’re interested to know more.

Listen…this method is very powerful. It’s the most powerful amongst the three methods listed in this article. Stating the unspoken triggers the emotional side of the brain which makes it highly irresistible.

People have the need to know what they don’t know. They must know because of the fear of missing out and also because of the deep-rooted survival instinct within the brain. It’s programmed within us that uncertainties are a threat to our survival. We simply have to know what we don’t know.

Curiosity is the best weapon in a copywriter’s arsenal. Use it wisely. This method alone can increase your conversion by tenfold. It’s so irresistible for your readers that it would be a loss to not click through and find out more. In conclusion, find out what’s not being spoken about enough and use that in your copy.

Example copy

That’s enough lecture. Knowing your big idea and these three methods are more than enough to give inspiration in your copywriting. I’ll give an example in detail.

Big idea: Build an email list with hot buyers through email marketing

Big idea presentation method: Bringing out the unique element

The unique element: Enclosing an offer link in every email naturally

Target audience: Affiliate marketers

Offer: Hot-buyers Email Marketing Course

Example copy:

Affiliate marketers, you should place affiliate links in EVERY email you send.

You have no idea how much we spent to get this remarkable discovery.

We didn’t believe it at first.

We tested the method with our clients’ businesses. And it worked…

Every single time.

We’re not bluffing.

We spent a total of $105,607 on list-building strategies and countless A/B testings on both ours as well as our clients’ email lists.

What most affiliate marketers were taught to do was the 7 to 1 method.

7 value emails and 1 offer email…

We did the opposite. We put affiliate links in every single email we send.

This is a method me and my affiliate partners discovered while doing testing with our email lists.

The good thing about this method is it looks absolutely natural. No spam alerts at all.

And the best part? Guaranteed high percentage CTR on every email.

Not only that…we managed to skyrocket offer page conversions by 67%. Proven!

So here’s the deal.

We want to share this remarkable discovery with affiliate marketers who are struggling to make affiliate commissions.

We spent $105,607 so you don’t have to. We packed everything we know into one 10-hours course.

Just complete the course and you’re on your way to earning 5-figures affiliate commissions.

Get your early-bird access to the course (early-bird price is $9.89) : *Insert link here*

Wrapping up

Finding out what to write in your copy is science and creativity. Most of the time, if you have no idea what to write, you didn’t do enough research to generate an idea and the best way to present it. So go back to the drawing board and figure them out!