Fishbowling - The Art of Internet Marketing

I only have couple of minutes to blast this out.  Busy like everyone else, you know! But this topic today should be very helpful.  I just wanted to throw out a quick and easy tip for all of you out there that are new to or really just getting started with article writing and copywriting. 

I remember that I was always collecting magazine, newspaper and other types of advertisements to keep in a folder so I could reference them when I needed an idea.  I went to my folder when my “idea well” had run dry  — the times when I couldn’t get started on something and I needed a little help.

In today’s digital world we call this a swipe file.  The best way to describe a swipe file is that it’s a word doc or any file that you can store information in.  Inside this file you put all the cool stuff you have seen that you might use later.   Swipe files can have a list of websites of a certain genre like “dog training”, “SEO techniques”, “video submission sites”, or a list of really great IM promotional emails you have received, etc.

For an example, I going to describe making a swipe file for article and copywriting. 

You receive an email promoting a product and you go to the sales letter and you find that the opening headline or the sub-headlines are very compelling.  You then copy and paste them into a word doc for later reference and ideas.

Maybe the copy or the bullet points are concise and well written.  If so, copy and paste them into your doc.  Much of the sales copy today can be rewritten and used for many different products, because benefits are pretty universal.  You know, the benefits are some form of “help you make gobs of money”, “live your dreams”, “save you money”, “save you time”, etc.

When I am researching to write an article or report, I might do a search and find a bunch of websites in the genre I am writing on.  I go and check them out.  I find a very informative article or post on a niche subject I am working on or planning to work on. 

What I do is cut and paste the entire article or post with the title directly into a word doc. Next I name the doc something like “copy writing articles”, or “SEO headlines” etc.  Then I put all these into a folder for later reference.

With all this information available at my fingertips, I can easily find a headline or article headline or title to get some ideas from.  Also, I am easily able to find content for article and for copywriting from all the stuff I have put together.

This is a tremendous time saver.  It isn’t always the solution — sometimes I still can’t get going even with the extra help, but I have benefited many times from using a swipe file.

Good luck!

To living your dreams,

Chuck Yockey

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