Copywriting & Sales: Leading Challenge for Web Writers, Poll Results Show

Writing sales copy is the biggest challenge in our informal poll of writing challenges, after a week of open voting on this blog.

1. Writing sales and promo copy:                         30.8%
2. Writing articles, newsletters, & white papers:  23.1%
3. Writing news/press releases & web pages:       15.4%
4. Writing blog posts:                                           7.7%

What does this mean? This is far from a scientifically valid survey because voting is only from readers of this blog who may have biases and are not a representative sample of the general population. But we're not interested in the general population, anyway.

My purpose in running this survey was to be able to direct some information to readers that would be most helpful to them, and address my readers' biggest needs.

And you know what? I can do that now. Copywriting and sales or promotional messages can be one of the most difficult writing tasks a business person faces. Even more so now that many of us write our own sales copy for the Web, not having big budgets to hire expensive copywriters.

There are many sites on the web that sell copywriting courses and provide information for that purpose. I have a big problem with many of them, and I don't know if you do too, but here's my beef:

The big names in Internet copywriting are all very good marketers: that's how they got to have big names and big salaries. But they all have big egos that go with it and I am fed up with all the ego-centric hype that goes with the terrain.

I put up with their emails because I want to learn how to write compelling copy. But after a while, I get a little nauseous and start deleting their messages without reading. At least their headlines are teaching me a thing or too.

What's your beef with learning to write sales copy? Am I the only one who gets a rash while reading these copywriting gurus? How can we learn without getting sea-sick? Your helpful input is required.