How to Win Friends and Influence People… Through Conscious Copywriting!

In his critically acclaimed book, Dale Carnegie sets out 6 principles for influencing behaviour, that I've found fit perfectly in an ethical and conscious approach to copywriting.

1. Be sincere

Be Sincere. Don’t promise anything you cannot deliver. Forget about the benefits to yourself and focus on the benefits to the other person.

This one goes without saying. It isn’t ethical to make false claims in your copy.

2. Keep the goal in mind

Know exactly what you want the other person to do.

Two is the whole aim of copywriting: to inspire action.

3. Be empathetic

Be empathetic. Ask yourself what it is the other person really wants.

Three busts the ‘marketing is manipulative’ myth. You have to show empathy and step into another person’s shoes to consider what they want and how you can get it to them.

4. Consider the benefits

Consider the benefits that the other person will receive from doing what you suggest.

Take your ideal customer, consider their problems, and consider how you can help solve that problem – what’s more ethical than that?

5. Make it easy

Match those benefits to the other person’s wants.

Perfect logic. Make it easy and accessible for the reader. It’s helpful and fair to make the right info easy to find.

6. Make it obvious

When you make the request, put it in a form that will convey to the other person the idea that they will personally benefit.

Conscious Copywriting

Without realising it, I had these principles already in mind when creating my Conscious Copywriting Packages.

To hear them backed up in a famous book? Well, I must be doing something right!