Writing your own copy at least some of the time has many benefits. You're not dependent on someone else's schedule for example, and if you want to change a Web sales page, you know exactly how to do it. Best of all, once you've got basic copywriting skills, you'll know instinctively whether copy someone else has written will work for your business.

Just follow the four steps in this article to become your own copywriter, and get great results.

1. "What response do I want/ what do I want people to do?"

The first step is to look at the product, and write down what you want people to do as a result of reading your copy - or seeing, or listening to, if you're writing audio-visual copy.

Perhaps you want people to:

* Call your business (if the copy is a lead-generation tool);

* Purchase a product (if the copy is direct sales copy, for direct mail, or for the Web);

* Join your mailing list (tip: offer an incentive, if you want people to join your list.)

Write down what you want people to do in a single sentence, and paste it on your computer monitor. It's vital that you have this in front of you. You'll be amazed at how often you read your copy after a day or two, and discover that you've omitted your copy's primary goal.

2. "Who's my ideal customer?"

Ask yourself who your ideal customer is - please don't say "everyone."

Generally, the more narrowly you can target your copy, the more successful it will be. So if you're writing a Web sales page, you might write several versions of the page to act as landing pages for your Pay Per Click advertising, all targeted to different customers.

3. "What rings his bell?" Choose an emotion to evoke with your offer

The aim of all copy is to evoke an emotion, and the more successful you are at doing that, the more successful your copy will be.

With your ideal customer in mind, think about how he spends his day. Does he work? Is he retired? Married? What does he love to do? What annoys him?

Once you've targeted an emotion - pride, anger, desire, jealousy - purchasing your offer will relieve that emotion.

You can learn how to evoke emotion with your copy; emotions are the subtext of all advertising.

Watch a few minutes of TV advertising to see how it's done, or read ads in a magazine, and ask yourself what emotion you feel. You may be surprised. Advertising is sneaky, and the best advertising compels the target audience to act, completely unconsciously.

4. Engender trust and credibility - offer testimonials and references

The final step in copywriting is to engender trust and credibility with your copy.

Usually this is done by offering a guarantee, testimonials, and references. Much of the "branding" advertising of large companies is done solely to engender trust and credibility: this is the underlying purpose of branding.

So there you have it: four steps to follow to write your own copy, and get great results. If you follow these steps, you'll write copy which is the equal of copy written by top copywriters.