Sales and Marketing Copywriting formulas and frameworks
Power of Headlines
How to make a winning sales letter
Copywriting skills will make you a killer Founder, Marketers and Content Developer
The biggest problem is copy and websites not working and making sales. It’s because the sales letter is off. CrawlQ Copywriting framework based on best references will make your copy compelling.
You can use the sales letter in all assets - outbound emails, ads, landing pages, blog videos. It can help you build sales letters quickly and efficiently.
Marketers and content creators who want to take their game to the next level and make magic.
Founders and CEOs who want to test ideas and bring their ideas and products to the world. This is the number 1 skill a ceo needs to have. The ability to write and get people to believe.
Here is the template we use:
“How {company name} Went From {state 1} to {state 2} in {Timeframe} Using {Mechanism}”
“For {Niche}: How to go from {State 1} to {State 2} in {Timeframe} Using {Mechanism}”
“How to go from {State 1} to {State 2} in {Timeframe} Using {Mechanism} with {negative outcome}”
“Case Study: How {company} Went From {state 1} to {state 2} in {Timeframe} Using {Mechanism}”
Example:
“How to take your B2B SaaS company from $0-$1M in 12 months or less using content marketing funnel and AI-powered content automation”
Use this intro:
“In this [article/video/podcast], I’m going to walk through [insert headline]”
Copywriters’ job is not to just create a copy but to direct and channel a mass desire which already exists and comes from the market. You alone cannot create a desire for a product. You can only channel hopes, dreams, and fears, suspicious, failures that already exist in the minds of your prospects.
As a copywriter, focus on those existing pain-points and map it to a particular product. As a Copywriter you can only exploit those pain-points. You cannot create the mass desire and if you run against it you will end up in a deadlock.
As per Eugene Schawrtz, mass desire is the public spread of a private want. When the private desire is shared by a statistically significant number of people, large enough to profitably create a business case, then a market is born.
By simply directing this gigantic, already-existing mass desire—rather than being required to create it—content marketing thus commands an economic force hundreds of times more powerful than the number of dollars needed to create the content.
This is the Content Amplification Effect of successful content—the reason that $1 spent on such content creation can create $850 or even $I000 in sales. But this Content Amplification Effect takes place only when your content exploits already-existing desire. With education, you can create this desire but the goal of content marketing that sells and convert to paying customers is to exploit the mass desire which already exists.
Content marketing should be put to exploit this mass desire that already exists for its successful goal of making new sales and generating more revenue.
The first step is to choose the most powerful desire that can possibly be applied to your product. A mass desire has three dimensions.
Dimension one: Urgency, intensity, and Degree of demand to be satisfied.
Dimension two: Starving power, degree of repetition, and the inability to become satiated.
Dimensions three: Scope, the number of people who share this desire
Acknowledge that desire—reinforce it—and/or offer the means to satisfy it—in a single statement in the headline of your ad.
This headline is the bridge between your prospect and your product. It touches your prospect at the point of awareness that he has arrived at today. If he is aware of your product and realizes that it can satisfy his desire, your headline starts with your product. If he is not aware of your product, but only of the desire itself, your headline starts with the desire. And, if he is not yet aware of what he really seeks, but is concerned only with a general problem, your headline starts with that problem and crystallizes it into a specific need.
Your answers to the last two questions will give you the content of your headline.
Here your headline is faced with one of seven tasks:
To reinforce your prospects desire for your product:
To sharpen his image of the way your product satisfies that desire;
To extend his image of where and when your product satisfies that desire;
To introduce new proof, details, documentation of how well your product satisfies that desire;
To announce a new mechanism in that product to enable it to satisfy that desire better cheaper and faster;
To announce a new mechanism in your product that eliminates former limitations;
Or to completely change the image or the mechanism of that product, in order to remove it from the competition of other products claiming to satisfy the same desire.
A headline that will work to a market in one stage of awareness will not work to a market in another stage of awareness. Nor will it work, even to a market in which it has been successful, once that market passes on to a new stage of awareness.
Most products are designed to satisfy a specific need or desire. They are born into markets that are at least the third or fourth stages of awareness. They may therefore never be faced with the problem of an unaware market.
Without a strong headline, getting attention will be difficult. Marketing has nothing to do with your offer and mechanism. Even if your offer or mechanism is fantastic, if the headline or marketing message is wrong, no one will ever know of it.
Your headline has only one job—to stop your prospect and compel him to read the second sentence of your content. The headline does not sell.
The best headlines are promises made that are derived from either your case study outcomes or research outcomes. Just take a look at your best case study, and use the transformation that took place.
If you don’t have case studies yet, use the transformation that you witnessed via 2nd-hand evidence. For example: “How Clickfunnels grew to $100M in 4 years without raising money”.
If you are still unsure, start by crafting the most bodacious headline that you can think of.
When you are testing something, no. When you are actually marketing something, YES. This is where people get confused…They are scared to make claims that are not true yet, however, without making these early claims, you won’t find the point of resonance, and you won’t be able to build something that meets the market at the point of resonance. Once you find the point of resonance, you work hard to get the claim right.
This is where the engineering bandwidth is used. Salespeople without engineering bandwidth end up lying, getting sued or going to jail. Engineers who don’t know how or are too scared to make claims end up building products that no one wants.
The solution is to have the salesmanship skills and courage to make the claim, then the engineering bandwidth to make the claim true.
You see Elon Musk does this all the time - he makes a claim, then forces himself to make it true. He sometimes comes up a little short, but what he did in the meantime is still so damn useful to the world, that no one cares. He knows he has to put these forcing functions on himself to stretch the engineering limits.
Be simple. Be direct. Above all, don’t be fancy. 'Sum either the need or the claim in your headline—nothing more. Dramatize that claim in your copy—make it as powerful as possible. And, then bring in your product; and prove that it works.
If you’re second, and the direct claim is still working—then copy that successful claim—but enlarge on it. Drive it to the absolute limit. Outbid your competition.
When your market has entered into its Third Stage of Sophistication, your prospects have now heard all the claims— all the extremes. Perhaps they have even bought one or two competitive products. Every time they open a newspaper, another similar headline screams out at them. How are they to distinguish one product from the mass? How do you break through to reach them?
If your market is at the stage where they’ve heard all the claims, in all their extremes, then mere repetition or exaggeration won’t work any longer. What this market needs now is a new device to make all these old claims become fresh and believable to them again.
In other words, A NEW MECHANISM—a new way of making the old promise work. A different process—a fresh chance—a brand-new possibility of success where only disappointment has resulted before.
The fourth stage of sophistication–If a competitor has just introduced a new mechanism to achieve the same claim as that performed by your product, and that new-mechanism announcement is producing sales, then you counter in this way. Simply elaborate or enlarge upon the successful mechanism. Make it easier, quicker, surer; allow it to solve more of the problem; overcome old limitations; promise extra benefits.
You are beginning a stage of embellishment similar to the Second Stage of Sophistication described above. The same strategy will be effective here.
In this Final Stage of Sophistication, your market no longer believes in your advertising, and therefore no longer wishes to be aware of your product. In many ways, therefore, this Fifth Stage of Sophistication corresponds to the Fifth Stage of Awareness.
The problems are the same. The strategy is the same. The emphasis shifts from the promise and the mechanism which accomplishes it, to identification with the prospect himself. You are dealing here with the problem of bringing your prospect into your ad—not through desire—but through identification.
Humans think in time and associate change with time. When you speak to a transformation, you will need to add a time component. Ex. doubling in 10 years is way less interesting than doubling in 1 month.
Be sure to include a time component to your headline.
The conversion rate and engagement rate is a function of specificity, meaning the more relevant the piece is to the target, the higher the engagement rate will be. When you are specific to a niche, your headline will resonate more than just a broad claim, which will marketing.
Be specific until you sold more than $10m. Then open up to the broad market - Tai Lopez (an OG marketer and businessman)
The copywriter can use Market Research and Resonance in two ways. Market Research about the most powerful needs and desires of his market—desires that may be hidden, verbally unacceptable, or completely unknown.
It shows him the strength of those desires—their drift and momentum—the taboos that accompany them and limit their expression. It helps him locate splits in his market—points of difference—design pinpoint appeals for each of them.
And it feeds back to him early reactions to his own phraseology—to test his own worry-points in the ad—to enable him to shift emphasis—and even to emerge with a completely new idea.
All well and good. But an MRR finding is not a headline, nor even the central theme of content, nor will it ever be. Like any other fact, it is a direction. , it tells you where not to go, to avoid wasting your time. And then it indicates the general area of your solution. But the transformation of those facts into an idea, and the expression of that idea in the strongest possible form, still require as much creative talent as any other starting point. The source of an idea, no matter how profound, is still only the beginning. The copywriter has to take it from there.
The second great service that MRR can perform for the copywriter is that of testing his own hunches, in answering the questions he uncovers in dealing with his market over a period of time.
One of the most indirect discoveries of the Market Research and Resonance is that a product has a distinct and complete personality to the consumer.
This personality is complex and embraces many traits. For a product, it consists of quality, prestige, performance, appearance, resale value, freedom from other tools, ease of use, and much more.
However, one of these traits will always be the most effective in summarizing and expressing this personality?
If you can, you want to mention money, weight, or health.
If you can’t derive the monetary benefit, you will need to do an absolute benefit analysis.
You want to make the headline as bodacious as possible. If it’s not bodacious, no will listen. A simple tweak in the headline can double or triple sales in a second.
Have some courage to make a claim. Stick your neck out. You might take a bit of heat, but that’s fine. The market is an unforgiving space. Make doesn’t work.
Marketing and sales are very different in that marketing is used to get people in the door, and sales is used to convey an argument as to why the prospect needs to make a transaction with you now. The claim is marketing. It is independent of the product, the sales process, the price, etc… It simply needs to tickle the market and get people to show up.
This is what a lot of people don’t understand. The marketing is completely separate from the sales and product and price. The headline and marketing needs to bring people in the door and create belief and demand. The sale needs to solve a specific problem for a price. The mechanism needs to deliver on the promise made during the sale. There are 3 moving parts.
Still make the bodacious claim that resonates with the market. This is where courage comes in. You will need to figure out how to make it true with either your product or a process and information.
You want to go for the “guaranteed yes”. There are two degrees of freedom: 1. Interest 2. Believability - going for the guaranteed yes will remove interest from the equation so you can focus solely on believability.
This headline will be used in opt-in pages, video sales letter titles, ads, cold emails etc…
It’s bait.
It’s a claim.
There are stages of sophistication that Eugene Shwartz speaks of:
First to market and a new claim
Second to market and an elaboration of the claim
Third to market and emphasis on the mechanism
Forth to market and an elaboration of the mechanism (better, faster, cheaper)
Fifth to market and a focus on identification with the prospect
You can change the headline of your content piece as you are tweaking. This is not a newspaper 🙂
You will be rapidly testing claims. If you are extremely skilled, you can test a new claim every day. The process is pretty simple: come up with a claim -> write a sales letter -> publish on a page -> drive traffic -> test return -> repeat
How much does your market know about your product? (Their State of Awareness.)
How many similar products have they been told about before? (Their State of Sophistication.)
So, to answer the question, think about the problems of the CMO whose solution lies in your offer/product. Problems of CMO vs Solutions coming from your mechanism or claim. Also one very subtle nuance here is a CMO will not visualize the problem which is personal to himself, but he will buy into a problem when it relates to his family, children or his direct financial freedom (which is indirectly related to his/her business). This is why life insurance can be sold, not by picturing the prospect’s death, but the horrors inflicted upon his wife and children if insufficient money is left over to take care of them.
To sum up: A man will not visualize future disasters occurring to himself, but he is perfectly capable of visualizing, and buying preventatives from, the image of such future problems affecting others around him.
NOW AT THIS STAGE, WRITE DOWN THE SINGLE IMAGE, A SINGLE IDENTIFICATION, A SINGLE CLAIM THAT WILL TAP THE GREATEST POSSIBLE EMOTIONAL FORCE WITHIN YOUR MARKET.
“Let’s get to the heart of the matter. The power, the force, the overwhelming urge to own that makes advertising work, comes from the market itself, and not from the copy. Copy cannot create desire for a product. It can only take the hopes, dreams, fears and desires that already exists in the hearts of millions of people, and focus those already existing desires onto a particular product. This is the copy writer’s task: not to create this mass desire – but to channel and direct it.” – Eugene Schwartz
“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.” – Elmore Leonard
“Copy is not written. Copy is assembled.” – Eugene Schwartz
“When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.” – David Ogilvy
“Your job is not to write copy. Your job is to know your visitors, customers and prospects so well, you understand the situation they’re in right now, where they’d like to be, and exactly how your solution can and will get them to their ideal self.” – Joanna Wiebe
“Nobody reads ads. People read what interests them. Sometimes it’s an ad.” – Howard Gossage
“Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.” – Leo Burnett
“Metaphors are a great language tool, because they explain the unknown in terms of the known.” – Anne Lamott
“The secret of all effective advertising is not the creation of new and tricky words and pictures, but one of putting familiar words and pictures into new relationships.” – Leo Burnett
“We have become so accustomed to hearing everyone claim that his product is the best in the world, or the cheapest, that we take all such statements with a grain of salt.” – Robert Collier
“A big reason so many businesses compete on price is because they can’t prove what value they offer, so they’re stuck with the one selling point that’s a breeze to communicate: cheapness.” – Mish Slade
“Every product has a unique personality and it is your job to find it.” – Joe Sugarman
“People will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, justify their failures, allay their fears, confirm their suspicions, and help them throw rocks at their enemies.” – Blair Warren
“Here’s the only thing you’re selling, no matter what business you’re in and what you ship: you’re selling your prospects a better version of themselves.” – Joanna Wiebe
“The mind thinks in pictures, you know. One good illustration is worth a thousand words. But one clear picture built up in the reader’s mind by your words is worth a thousand drawings, for the reader colors that picture with his own imagination, which is more potent than all the brushes of all the world’s artists.” – Robert Collier
“Instead of representing the buyer’s expectations, needs, wants, and concerns, many personas are built around a profile of what the business would like its ideal buyer to be.” – Jennifer Havice
“A business man is no different from any other kind.” – Robert Collier
“To properly understand advertising or to learn even its rudiments one must start with the right conception. Advertising is salesmanship.” – Claude Hopkins
“The very first thing you must come to realize is that you must become a “student of markets.” Not products. Not techniques. Not copywriting. Not how to buy space or whatever. Now, of course, all of these things are important and you must learn about them, but, the first and the most important thing you must learn is what people want to buy.” – Gary Halbert
“The very first thing I tell my new students on the first day of a workshop is that good writing is about telling the truth.” – Anne Lamott
“It has long been my belief that a lot of money can be made by making offers to people who are at an emotional turning point in their lives.” – Gary Halbert
“There is your audience. There is the language. There are the words that they use.” – Eugene Schwartz
“Decide the effect you want to produce in your reader.” — Robert Collier
“Brevity doesn’t mean bare bones or stripped down. Take as long as you need to tell the story.” – Ann Handley
“What I am doing here is taking the reader by the hand and leading him exactly where I want him to go. It seems like a small point and, maybe it is, but is the little touches like this that keeps the letter flowing, the reader moving along, and, it relieves him of the burden of trying to figure out what he is supposed to do when he finishes reading a particular page.” – Gary Halbert
“There is a secret every professional artist knows that the amateurs don’t: being original is overrated. The most creative minds in the world are not especially creative; they’re just better at rearrangement.” – Jeff Goins
“The word block suggests that you are constipated or stuck, when the truth is that you’re empty.” – Anne Lamott
“So, before you begin the writing, be sure you know the purpose or mission or objective of every piece of content that you write. What are you trying to achieve? What information, exactly, are you trying to communicate? And why should your audience care?” – Ann Handley
“I’ve learned that any fool can write a bad ad, but that it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one.” – Leo Burnett
“Tap a single overwhelming desire existing in the hearts of thousands of people who are actively seeking to satisfy it at this very moment.” – Eugene Schwartz
“Good advertising is written from one person to another. When it is aimed at millions it rarely moves anyone.” – Fairfax M. Cone
“In writing good advertising it is necessary to put a mood into words and to transfer that mood to the reader.” – Helen Woodward
“The vast majority of products are sold because of the need for love, the fear of shame, the pride of achievement, the drive for recognition, the yearning to feel important, the urge to look attractive, the lust for power, the longing for romance, the need to feel secure, the terror of facing the unknown, the lifelong hunger for self-esteem and so on. Emotions are the fire of human motivation, the combustible force that secretly drives most decisions to buy. When your marketing harnesses those forces correctly you will generate explosive increases in response.” – Gary Bencivenga
“All the elements in an advertisement are primarily designed to do one thing and one thing only: get you to read the first sentence of the copy.” – Joseph Sugarman
“What matters isn’t storytelling. What matters is telling a true story well.” – Ann Handley
“Copy is a direct conversation with the consumer.” – Shirley Polykoff
“You sell on emotion, but you justify a purchase with logic.” – Joseph Sugarman
“In an online world, our online words are our emissaries; they tell the world who we are.” – Ann Handley
“The greatest thing you have working for you is not the photo you take or the picture you paint; it’s the imagination of the consumer. They have no budget, they have no time limit, and if you can get into that space, your ad can run all day.” – Don Draper
“Make your copy straightforward to read, understand and use. Use easy words; those that are used for everyday speech. Use phrases that are not too imprecise and very understandable. Do not be too stuffy; remove pompous words and substitute them with plain words. Minimize complicated gimmicks and constructions. If you can’t give the data directly and briefly, you must consider writing the copy again.” – Jay Abraham
“It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea.” – David Ogilvy
“Probably the biggest thing or biggest ‘aha’ moment I had with the process of copywriting was when I realized that copywriting was more than just being creative. I used to think, ‘Wow, let’s come up with something great and wonderful,’ and I didn’t start becoming successful, in my own eyes, until I said, ‘No, my clients are not hiring me to be creative; they’re hiring me to deliver a control.’” – Carline Anglade-Cole
“Marketers have a tendency to try to abstract their messages to the point that everything can be said in two to six commonly used words, which somehow gives us the comforting sense that we’ve created a polished marketing message. As if that’s the goal. Let me leave you with this: polish doesn’t convert.” – Joanna Wiebe
You don’t get an idea or a headline— you either build it, or unfold it, petal by petal. You dig it out of the market research . . . you wring it out of the product . . . you read, you listen, you experiment for yourself. You work— hard. You rub up against this product and this market so hard that they seep into your pores.
And—above everything else—you remember this cardinal ride of creativity: What you are looking for in this product and this market is the one element that makes them unique. The idea you want— the headline you want—the breakthrough you want—are all wrapped up inside that product and that market.
Nowhere else. And no outside ride—no outside formula will give them to you. You are facing a product-market-timing relationship that never happened before—it is unique. And the solution you need is just as unique.
You will be trying multiple headlines to determine which one resonates with the market. Remember, that the headline is independent of the offer and mechanism. The question we need to ask ourselves is: “What can we claim that will get people fired up?”
If your first headline doesn’t engage anyone, then change it quickly and try again.
The faster you go through this iteration loop, the faster you will get to a headline that actually works.
Be ruthlessly objective when you are writing your claims. Understand that no one cares about your product. Think of yourself as a detective solving a mystery. What does the market really want to hear right now? What is the guaranteed yes? If you are close to the market, you will be able to come up with claims like magic that just works.
Desires are physical, material and sensual. They have tremendous potential and driving power. They already exist in your prospect. You cannot create them, diminish them or battle them. But you can expand them, sharpen them, channel them and give them a goal. This is your primary task as copywriter.
You need to make your prospect visualize the wonderful new world your product offers him so strongly that he practically lives in it and then offer him that product. The method to channel their desire is called intensification.
Longings for prestige, success, social status complement and intensify the desires. You can call these longings as goals, hopes, dreams, ambitions, envies, admirations, fantasies or objectives. Your job as copywriter is to directly put these longings behind your product.
Make your prospect feel the prestige and select a group when he joins and become subscribers of that product. You need to make him take selfies with people who live in your product’s community.
Beliefs are the opinions, attitudes, judgements, prejudices, fragments of knowledge and conceptions of reality that your prospect lives by.
This is the world of emotionalized reason that he inhabits—the way he accepts or rejects facts and builds up his universe, the types of thinking he uses to arrive at decisions, the ideas and values which give him comfort and which he believes are permanent and true.
These ideas may be shallow or profound, valid or false, perfectly logical or mere wishful thinking. But it is not the copywriter’s mission to argue with them. And you cannot change them. Creating content for sale is not education.
Copywriting, like science, must accept reality as it exists, not as it might wish it to exist. Only then can it alter reality—not by smashing into it head-on—but by exploiting its tendencies and giving direction to its energies.
People believe in certain ways. These beliefs form a filter through which your product-information must pass or be rejected. And their already-established patterns of reasoning create habit-channels along which your copy must build its conviction—or die.
Skepticism, lethargy and price and results of your product are main obstacles in sales. The job of the salesman is expanding the mass desire horizontally to more people and vertically by sharpening and intensifying it in such a way that these obstacles are overcome.
These mass desires are vague in the prospect’s mind. Your job is to fill out these vague desires with concrete images—to show your prospect every possible way that they can be fulfilled—to multiply their strength by the number of satisfactions that you can suggest to achieve them.
As a copywriter you need to show your prospect all the tomorrows that your product makes possible for him.
Do not repeat your argument but reinforce them in the sequence which makes your prospect more engaging and participating.
First present the product or the satisfaction it gives directly—bluntly—by a thorough, completely detailed description of its appearance or the results it gives.
Put the Claims in Action: Now that you have presented your main description, you are ready to expand the image. One of the most effective ways to do this is to PUT THE PRODUCT IN ACTION for your reader. To show, not only how the product looks, and what benefits it gives the reader, but exactly how it does this.
Bring in the Reader: put your reader right smack in the middle of this product-in-action story, and give him a verbal demonstration of what will happen to him the first day he owns that product.
Show your prospect how to test your Claims: Turn the demonstration into a test. Let your reader visualize himself proving the performance of your product—gaining its benefits immediately—in the most specific and dramatic way possible.
Stretch out your benefits in time. showing the product at work, not for just an hour or day, but over a span of weeks and months. Here you extend your reader’s vision further and further into time—showing him a continuous flow of benefits.
Bring in an Audience: other actors besides the reader are brought into the scene. Each one of them—each group of them—provides a fresh new perspective through which your reader can view the product. Seen through their eyes—experienced through their actions and reactions—the product performances become new, vivid and completely different again.
Show Experts Approving: But not only celebrities and ordinary people can be used to reaffirm the product benefits. Experts in the field—professionals—the sophisticated, the discriminating, can be called on to register their reactions.
Compare, Contrast, Prove Superiority: the competition can be carried into contrast. The disadvantages of the old product or service can be laid side by side with the advantages of the new— throwing these advantages into sharp relief.
Picture the limitation of your product too: Here the negative aspect to every promise—the problem that you are liberating your prospect from forever—is painted in all its full black color. You irritate the wound, and then you apply the salve that heals it.
Show How Easy It Is to Get These Benefits: at every point that your product touches the life of vour prospect price, availability, ease of use, durability, portability replacement and maintenance, it furnishes you with another fresh perspective in which to reiterate and reemphasize its benefits. Here is just one example—stressing the ease of application, and contrasting it with the tremendous benefits that that application gives you.
Use Metaphor, Analogy, Imagination: nor do you have to be satisfied merely with the statement of rate fact. There are infinite opportunities for the use of imagination to present those facts in more dramatic form, outside of the rigidly realistic approach.
Before You’re Done , Summarize again: as long as each additional fresh perspective continues to build the dominant desire in your prospect’s mind, use it. But if the additional perspective is not different or dramatic enough to renew your prospect’s interest in your claims, then leave it out.
Put Your Guarantee to Work: finally, as you close the sale, as you ask the prospect for action, as you state the terms of your guarantee, you can turn that guarantee into the climax of your sales letter—the last brief summary of your product’s performances—reinforced at every step by the positive reassertion of that guarantee.
The recognition and magnification of mass desire, wants, needs and cravings is the first and most obvious task of copywriting. However, your copy is incomplete if you do not take care of longing for personal identification. It builds the second mechanism of persuasion as personal identification in your product. Identification here means more than the buyer persona or customer’s process of identifying with a product personality. In this context, it means at the same time the active process by which the copywriter capitalizes on this need for identification by building its realization through his copy into his product. The activities and process that you must accomplish, the psychological effects you must achieve to give your copy the maximum possible strength.
What, exactly, is this process of Identification? Quite simply, it is, first of all, the desire of your prospect to act out certain roles in his life. It is the desire of your prospect to define himself to the world around him—to express the qualities within himself that he values, and the positions he has attained.
In two ways: First, by turning your product into an instrument for achieving these roles. And second, by turning that product into an acknowledgement that these roles have already been achieved.
Every product you work on should offer your prospect two separate and distinct reasons for buying it. First, it should offer him the fulfillment of a physical want or need. This is the satisfaction your product gives him. And second, it should offer him a particular method of fulfilling that need, that defines him to the outside world as a particular kind of human being.
This is the role your product offers to your prospect. It is the non-functional, super-functional value of that product. And it is built into that product—not by engineering—but by copywriting alone.
The first dimension is Desire—want, yearning, motivation—with specific goals and/or cures in mind—with the prospect begging to be shown how to obtain them. It is the copy writer’s job to make sure the path to these goals goes through the product—and to make sure that the prospect can visualize every drop of satisfaction that their achievement will give him.
The second dimension is Identification—the need for expression and recognition—unformulated, unspoken, at least partially unconscious—searching for symbols, definitions and embodiments. It is the copy writer’s job to crystallize these self-definitions and emboch’ them in his product—so that the product may be used, not only as a source of physical satisfaction, but also as a symbolic extension of the personality of the prospect for whom it is intended.
As a next step, desire and identification alone are never enough. By themselves, they can never produce the full reaction the copy writer must have if he is to achieve the maximum success with his product. No matter how intense the desire. no matter how demanding the need to identify, both these reactions must be fused with a third great emotional dimensional force—Belief— before they can produce the final overwhelming determinant of action—Absolute Conviction. It is this fusion of desire and belief—this conviction—this certainty—this feeling in the prospect of being right in his choice— of being assured of what he has been promised—that the copy writer seeks as his ultimate goal. And it is to this third dimension of the human mind—the Belief that produces this certainty—that we now turn.
Looks like that belief is the most complex fusion of thought and emotion in the human mind. The accepted facts, truths, values and opinions are raw material of belief. Most important part of the copywriting process is the vast amount of emotional security your prospect derives from these beliefs. It is a great feeling of being comfortable and reassured of living in a world that has meaningful self-actualization. It is your prospects’ world where he understands and predicts today and his tomorrow and that is stable.
The exact role of belief in copywriting can be stated as follows: If you violate your prospect’s established beliefs in the slightest degree—either in content or direction—then nothing you promise him, no matter how appealing, can save your content. But, on the other hand, and even more important: If you can channel the tremendous force of his belief—either in content or direction—behind only one claim, no matter how small, then that one fully-believed claim will sell more goods than all the half-questioned promises your competitors can write for all the rest of their days. This channeling of belief is so powerful that, if properly directed, it will even support otherwise-absurd claims.
This process of starting with the facts that your prospect is already willing to accept, and leading him logically and comfortably through a gradual succession of more and more remote facts—each of which he has been prepared in turn to accept— is called Gradualization. It is the third Process of Persuasion.
Make no mistake, it is this acceptance for your product that we are looking for. Effective content development, like effective literature, is built—not of words—but of reactions. We put down on paper an architecture of words. If these words are effective, they evoke, in turn, an architecture of reactions in our prospect’s mind. We are creating a stream of acceptances, with a definite sequence and content and direction, and, if we are successful, with a definite goal—the absolute conviction in your prospects mind that he must have your product. This is the essence and single most important goal of building your content.
Interest and believability—these are the two requirements that determine your headline.
Gradualization is the art of stating a claim in such a wav that it will receive the greatest possible acceptance and/or be- lievabilitv from your prospect.
Belief ultimately depends upon structure. Just as desire de- pends upon promise, so belief in that promise depends upon the amount of preparation that promise has been given before vour reader is asked to accept it.
One fully-believed promise has ten times the sales power of- ten partially-believed promises. Most copy writers try to strengthen sales copy by piling promise upon promise. What they usually get for their troubles is greater sales resistance from their prospects. They could far better invest the same time in strengthening the believability-structure of the original justifiable promise.
Contingency Structures—such as “If. . . then . . .”, or “Wish your…then…”
Repetition of Proof: Echoing—such as “These experts found. . . . These experts found. . . . These experts found. …”
Promise—Belief—Promise Variation. Where every sentence of promise is followed (ideally) with another of proof, or verifi- cation, or documentation. So that the reader never has the breath- ing space to question.
Paragraph Parallelism. Where the same word structure used in an accepted statement is then picked up exactly, and used to borrow acceptance for a fresh claim.
All have the same objective. To gain continued acceptance. To prevent rejection. To build conviction. Belief is the goal.
First step is to redefine your product. It says that the product is this rather than that. The main objective is to remove roadblocks to your sales-if possible, before the prospect even knows that such a roadblock exists.
Use the flip-flop method to turn disadvantage into an advantage.
Use a simplification method for the overcomplicated product. Engineer simplicity into the product.
Innovate, but remember that innovation without acceptance is valueless. The more people know that something is difficult and more revolutionary and innovative is your product and different from others–the more resistance you will get from accepting it. You therefore need to create a background and redefine the problem-solution statement before you bring in your product “how it works”.
Demands for more information. He is saying to you “Tell me more”
Demands for proof. He knows he wants it. What he wants to know is true. He is telling you: “Oh yeah? Who says so?”
Demands for mechanism. He knows he wants the end result; now he wants to know how you are going to give results to him. He is saying: “How does it work?”.
In hindsight, no successful copy ever sells a product. It sells a way of satisfying a particular desire. And its power to sell ultimately comes from the intensity of that desire.
If the desire is commercial—that is, if it is shared by masses of people, and if each of these people want that satisfaction enough to pay the price required for a mechanism to satisfy it—then it is highly probable that many firms will try to deliver that mech- anism, or product, to them. Also then you face competition but as a copywriter you do not compete with competition but you differentiate away from the competition.
Superiority of your product is the ultimate weapon in the war of the consumer’s dollar.
A best product also needs a best copy. Without a copy, the product cannot sell. And the best copy eventually comes from the superiority of promise. A stronger promise, that evokes more desire. A more believable promise, that brings in the skeptics as well as the susceptible. We are setting here a blueprint of developing such a promise.
Product role is the third most important weapon. The role the product allows its consumer to play. The personality, the identification, the prestige, the status, the excitement you can bring out of your product.
Your ability to escalate claims, shift mechanisms, invade new markets.
And finally direct attack, the mechanism of concentration which is different from the rest above. When you start small, direct attack on competitors is another formula to crack their image, to shatter their loyalty before you can re-channel desire from your competitor’s consumers.
If you can only attack another product—without showing at the same time, by comparison, how your product provides what the other lacks—then say nothing at all! Never attack a weakness unless you can provide the solution to that weakness at the same time
In CrawlQ, competitor differentiation is the process of pointing out weak- nesses in the competition . . . emphasizing their disservice to your prospect . . . and then proving to him that your product gives him what he wants without them.
Equivalently Eugene Schwarts called this technique of concentration. This uses the techniques of intensification to show the penalties of continuing with the old product. Gradualization to show the logical cause of the weaknesses and how they can now be cured. Mechanization to prove that your product removes the weakness.
We first make a creative search for headlines which aroused interest and curiosity. Then we exploit that headline by feeding more interest and curiosity in our prospects mind leading and steering that headline into a body copy.
A body copy has three most fundamental functions. 1. Intensification of desire 2. Creation of an acceptable product personality-role that prospect is willing to identify with. 3. The abstract structure of your copy that produces believability of your product.
With CrawlQ we have simplified and revealed the secrets within Dan Kennedy’s The Ultimate Sales Letter… To give you a proven system for writing copy that makes tons of money fast! It is useful to watch this video.
Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy: a must watch
The Market Research and Resonance should build the foundation to write all sales copy and marketing contents on your website.
If the Market Research and Resonance is off, then the automation of content might not work and content will not resonate as much as you want.
The sales letter underpins the entire business, marketing, sales scripts, narrative. They are used in all ads, outbound messages, follow ups, emails sequences, etc…
It can be thought of as the “sales argument” - the reason why someone would buy.
If you get the sales letter right once, it will give you yield for years.
The goal is understanding. To persuade someone, to motivate someone, to sell someone, you really need to understand that person.
Dan mentioned about Dr. Maxwell Maltz, author of the 30-million-copy bestseller and his
Psycho-Cybernetics, and he uses those techniques—like “Theater In Your Mind”—to visualize your letter’s recipients as living, breathing, thinking, feeling, walking, talking human beings. He visualizes their day’s experience. How did it start out? What did they do when they first arrived at the office? Do they get their mail presorted? Opened? From an “in” basket?
Hand-delivered? When do they get it? Where will they stand or sit when going through it? At that time, what else are they thinking about? Preoccupied with? What do they worry about, complain about, secretly wish for, enjoy?
If you don’t have enough information and experience to do this, you must get it!
“10 Smart Market Diagnosis and Profiling Questions” by Dan S. Kennedy
What keeps them awake at night, indigestion boiling up their esophagus, eyes open, staring at the ceiling?
What are they afraid of?
What are they angry about? Who are they angry at?
What are their top three daily frustrations?
What trends are occurring and will occur in their businesses or lives?
What do they secretly, ardently desire most?
Is there a built-in bias to the way they make decisions? (Example: engineers = exceptionally analytical)
Do they have their own language?
Who else is selling something similar to them, and how?
Who else has tried selling them something similar, and how has that effort failed?
This may seem strange to you at first, but identifying the flaws in your product, service, or offer is a big step forward toward making the sale! By acknowledging the flaws, you force yourself to address your letter recipient’s questions, objections, and concerns. You also enhance your credibility.
Create an objection matrix for your prospects. Write down objections, your ideal rejection to those objections and customer or benchmark research data as why their objection is baseless.
There is, for example, a selling tactic known as “draining the objections,” in which salespeople list the objections on a pad before answering any. They keep asking “Anything else?” until the customer runs dry of objections. Then they ask, “If we can take care of all these concerns to your satisfaction—and I’m not sure that we can—but if we can, you will then want to go ahead with the XYZ tonight, right?” When the customer says “yes” to that, he or she is boxed in.
While I avoid overestimating a customer’s intelligence, I try never to underestimate skepticism! Those marketers who think they can “hide” the objectionable issues are grossly underestimating the skepticism of customers. If customers are going to think of anything, they are going to think of all the reasons not to buy. Dan mentioned that he had great success with a copywriting formula that airs the likely objections for the customer, and then answers them. The start of that copy block reads something like this: Excerpts from Dan
{First Name}: Audited Delivery of Next Business Goal Milestone
{First Name}:The Information You Requested
{First Name}: { } Is Enclosed . . .
{First Name}:Important Documents Enclosed . . .
I personally like this subject line very much….{First Name}: Your competition does not want you to have the Information Enclosed!!!
Use these graphic enhancements.
Bullets ■ ■ ■ 2. Numbering: 1, 2, 3, and so on 3. Underlining 4. Boldfacing 5. Varied type 6. Simulated handwriting—in the margins, in the P.S. 7. Boxes 8. Lines made of asterisks *************** 9. Yellow overprint (an option in your word processing program allows your printer to use yellow ink to simulate sloppy markings made with a yellow highlighter pen) 10. Screens (washes of a light dot pattern over a paragraph or two; you can use a gray screen if printing in black, or a pastel screen from your primary accent color, such as pink from red) 11. Photographs with type running around them 12. Subheads . . . lots and lots of subheads!
Contrary to what many people in the advertising business believe, these choices about graphic devices should not be left up to the typesetters and artists. The person who writes the copy must have direct involvement in suggesting, considering, and deciding on the use of these devices.
The main purpose of these graphic enhancements is not to improve the aesthetic appearance of the letter; it is to add “voice inflection” to the copy—and the copywriter is best qualified to choose what to emphasize and how to emphasize it.
All success of funnels, video sales letters, sales scripts, outbound emailing, advertising is dependent on the sales letter. For this reason, we start with it.
If you start with a website, you won’t know what to write on the website and you will likely have to redo the whole thing since the structure and the messaging was off.
The websites are easy to build. It’s simple coding and design. The hard part is matching the content to the niche in a way that triggers a purchase decision.
The best sales letters are not “salesy”, they are useful. They provide real value to the prospect and the prospect is better off after they have read the letter. The metric we optimize for is utility. Don’t ever forget this. The whole reason why customers buy, prospects listen, friends do favors for you…is utility. The sales letter is useful. Useful and unique.
Nope. If you spout features and benefits of your product or service, you will just frustrate people. No one cares about you, they care about what you do for them.
Your sales letter will be useful whether or not the customers buy your product. The ad platforms will reward you because the engagement is so high. Customers will love you. Prospects will trust you. It’s all about utility.
There is a time and a place for feature dumping - it’s when the prospect has already bought into your core argument and “new activities”. In fact, if your core argument and “new activities” are written well enough, prospects will feel compelled to buy, even if they don’t even know what you sell.
The sales letter is “niche-specific” meaning it is written with one type of person in mind. If you can’t picture the person, then you are not specific enough.
If you need to write multiple sales letters to address multiple people, then do that. You are not bound to one sales letter
The letter should read like you are speaking to a friend. It’s specific. This will cause a massive amount of rapport.
Don’t be afraid to double down on your customer. As soon as you commit, you will get the resonance.
If your sales letter is too broad, you won’t get resonance, and your ROI on marketing will flop. You need to double down on the person you are targeting.
The speed at which you can create the sales letters and get them published will determine the speed at which you can test products and ideas. If you can get quick at writing and publishing, you will be able to find nerves in days and find offers that resonate with people in seconds.
All business is writing and building. That’s it. Marketing is easy, updating sales pages and websites is easy. The hard part is writing and building useful things. Those are the two skills you need. If you can write, you can sell in person. If you can write these types of docs and letters, you can lead. If you can write these sales letters, you can cause a massive amount of demand and have opportunities for days that will allow you to test offers, pricing, mechanisms and find product-market-fit so fast you wouldn’t believe.
Ray dalio wrote a badass sales letter that likely took him 20 years to develop. It is now 15m views and counting.
Expert Secrets: Russell brunson writes books as sales letters. He also hosts webinars that crush.
Tai Lopez: The 67 steps
Sam Ovens: 2 hour long webinar - made $15m in a year all by himself
Alex Becker’s Funnel : Becker is a beast at sales letters
Ben used the sales letter framework to make really compelling arguments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUpFjP0m5To
The sales letters are appended to the outbound emails and outbound messages. They are used to deliver immediate value to the prospect. In return for the value you delivered, the prospect will either reply or request a meeting.
Outbound prospecting and cold emailing won’t work if the content is wrong. That’s the key. It’s not just about sending emails and “hitting doors”.
Each component of this written sales letter mapped perfectly to the slides of the video sales letter. This sales letter also maps to a sales page. These templates are available here.
Video sales letters are easy to produce once the sales letter is written.
The slides are just pictures of your concepts explained in the sales letter.
A marketing agency won’t be able to write a compelling sales letter for you unless that agency employs a master copywriter who also has some expertise in your field. A typical fee for a copywriter to create this sales letter for you is $25k USD. It is very difficult to find a master copywriter to write these for you. You can hire us, but we will charge you $12k USD and there is no guarantee we have bandwidth to write your’s. Also, we don’t want to.
An agency could help you with the media buying, but still…doesn’t really work. It’s like hiring someone to build your perfect product. Doesn’t work. They are going to build shit products that don’t work, it’s going to take longer than necessary and it’s going to be super expensive. It’s just a bit easier. Unless you pay the big bucks $400k salary or you pay the wizards to write you sales letters, you will have to write these and do these yourself.
The best CEOs are showmen and can write killer sales letters. Jeff Bezos writes his letters, Warren Buffet writes his letters, Elon musk does his key notes, Steve Job did his key notes.
Spent lots of time writing the sales letter and refining your concepts, but don’t get paralized. You want to push your first version out as fast as you can, then iterate.
Blast through the writing and throw up your points. Then go back and refine. Don’t try to make it perfect on the first go.
Start with one, niche-specific sales letter. The first one will take you some time to get comfortable with the framework, however, the next few will feel easier. You can write as many sales letters as you want. The return on your time is estimated to be $50k per hour! The reason why this is so much is due to the fact that your words can reach millions of people digitally and without any energy spend.
You will be using email marketing automation to push your sales letters out to your audience on a weekly or daily basis.
The longer you spend on the sales letter, the higher the return up until approx 3 weeks, then you start to get diminishing returns. However, you can spend more time and craft a world-class book. This is what authors do.
For the entrepreneur, it takes approx 1-2 days of uninterrupted work to craft a solid sales letter. If you want to go a bit deeper and make it a beast, you could take 3-4 days. Some of our most successful customers spent 3 days straight developing their sales argument.
The sales letter can be as short as 1 paragraph (like an ad), or as long as a book (like The Bible). What matters is how useful it is. It can be 100 pages if it is useful. It can be 4 minutes or 1 page if it is useful. The only thing that matters is that it is useful.
Don’t worry about the length, just worry about the utility of the content.
The ad is just a mechanism that transfers the prospect from social platforms to your sales letter. The ad is a “pitch” that convinces someone to at least look at your sales letter.
Media buyers get this all wrong. It’s not about the a/b tests or the splitting or the rapid testing of the audiences. These are just tactics used by people who don’t understand marketing or persuasion. The ad platforms are just auctions in which you can buy eyeballs. What those eyeballs do is dependent on your sales letter.
Keep proof as short as possible, as dramatic as possible and as specific as possible. A proof copy is equal to selling a copy. It must offer the kind of proof that makes the prospect hungry to read every word of it, see every second of your VSL and it must make him want the product more and more at the end of every line.
Proof—like claims— is most effective when the reader unconsciously demands it, and when he is reached/ to accept its content as necessary and logical.
Process 1 is Gradualization-development of a stream of acceptance from your reader to your statements.
Process 2 is removal of the pre-conceived objections on the part of your prospect towards your product by providing with a new definition of that product
Process 3 is Mechanization --the verbal proof that your product works that it does what you say it does.
Process 4 is Concentration-the verbal proof that other alternatives presents do not do this essential function as well.
Each of these four processes not only increases the believability of your claims, but also increases the believability of your proof. The first rule of the copy that it produce an emotional impact.
Again why emotional impact is so much useful in copywriting?
In mathematics, one plus one always equals two—never more. In emotional writing, one plus one can often equal ten. In other words, two emotional images, joined together in the right way- can often have TEN TIMES the impact that either of these images.
By far the most popular — and probably the oldest — of all direct mail copy formulas is one of the most simple: AIDA. A. Attract the reader’s attention. I Arouse the reader’s interest in the proposition. D Stimulate the reader’s desire to take action. A Ask the reader to take the action requested. There are several variations on the AIDA formula. The late Robert Collier insisted the proper order for sales letters was: Attention Interest Description Persuasion Proof Close Earle A. Buckley had this variation: Interest Desire Conviction Action
Victor Schwab suggested this formula: A Get Attention A Show people an Advantage P Prove it P Persuade people to grasp this advantage A Ask for action
Henry Hoke, Sr., took a different approach: Picture Promise Prove Push
Many writers have found Jack Lacy’s Five Points an excellent guideline for their sales letters: 1. What will you do for me if I listen to your story? 2. How are you going to do this? 3. Who is responsible for the promises you make? 4. Who have you done this for? 5. What will it cost me?
Frank Egner offered a more detailed, nine-point formula: 1. The headline (or first paragraph) to get attention and arouse desire. 2. The inspirational lead-in. 3. A clear definition of the product. 4. Tell a success story about product use. 5. Include testimonials and endorsements. 6. List special features. 7. A definite statement of value to the prospect. 8. Specific urgent action copy. 9. A postscript.
Of all the formulas, I have found Bob Stone’s seven steps the most helpful: 1. Promise a benefit in your headline or first paragraph — your most important benefit. 2. Immediately enlarge your most important benefit. 3. Tell the reader specifically what he or she is going to get. 4. Back up your statements with proof and endorsements. 5. Tell the reader what might be lost if he or she doesn’t act. 6. Rephrase your prominent benefits in your closing. 7. Incite action — now.
There’s one more approach many writers have built into their direct mail copy. It was the basis for much of Cy Frailey’s teaching about effective letter writing. He credits a Chicago consultant, Dr. Frank W. Dignan, for creating the Star-Chain-Hook approach: Star An opening that quickly captures the reader’s attention. Chain A series of facts to change the reader’s casual attention to a real and sustained interest. Hook Something to impel the desired action.
Many teachers of writing often add a mathematical formula to these approaches. Several of these mathematical formulas are based on the readability formula introduced by Dr. Rudolf Flesch.* The late Maxwell Ross, whose name is in everybody’s book as one of the all-time great direct mail writers, boiled it all down to this: ■ For every 100 words you write, make sure that approximately 75% are words of five letters or less. In the classes I teach, I try to make it even simpler: Concentrate on short words and action words. The reason for this is that most formula-oriented copywriters have a tendency to lean too heavily on their formula. As a result, there is a stiffness to their copy that destroys the natural flow.
Frankly, I’m convinced that none of the top direct mail writers really use their formulas when writing. It’s just that when asked to give a speech on copywriting, the easiest thing to do is talk about a formula. The formulas that flow from the platforms at direct mail meetings are promptly forgotten when a writing assignment comes along. * The Art of Plain Talk, Rudolf Flesch, Ph.D., Harper & Brothers, New York, 1946.
This doesn’t mean copywriting formulas are without merit. They deserve to be studied and entered into the subconscious and can be useful in analyzing what’s wrong with a copy that doesn’t hit the mark. When it comes to editing copy, there are many more sets of helpful guidelines. The late, great Edward N. Mayer, Jr., who created the first series of continuing education programs for the Direct Marketing Association, often suggested this list: 1. Make every letter sell. 2. Know your subject thoroughly. 3. Make your letters clear 4. Make your letters concise, but tell the whole story. 5. Know what you want — and ask for it. 6. Use simple language and short words to tell your story. 7. Make your letters friendly. 8. Make your copy sincere. 9. Make your copy tactful. 10. Always put a hook in your copy.
Another great copywriter, John Yeck, offers these guidelines: 1. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. 2. Be friendly. 3. Shoot for the bullseye (to take the reader from where she is to where you want her to be). 4. Keep your letters clear and easy to read. 5. Make them interesting and keep them moving. 6. Be believable. 7. B.U. — be yourself. 8. Write, write, write — carefully. If you love formulas for writing and editing, you’ll find many more of them in Dartnell’s Direct Mail and Mail Order Handbook*
The most useful formula, however, is Maxwell C. Ross’s 20-point checklist for better direct mail copy: * Direct Mail & Mail Order Handbook, Richard S. Hodgson, Dartnell Corporation, Chicago, Third Edition, 1980. -
Does the lead sentence get in step with the reader at once? Do this by talking in terms of things that interest your reader — not in vague generalities or of things you want. Put yourself in his place! I can’t think of a better way to say it than this: Get in step with your reader.
Is your lead sentence more than two lines long? But if it takes three lines or four lines or even more to get in step with your reader, use them.
Do your opening paragraphs promise a benefit to the reader? Lead with your best foot forward — your most important benefit. If you have trouble with your opening paragraph, try writing your lead at least six different ways. Then when you get six down on paper, you are quite likely to have at least one pretty good lead somewhere among them.
Have you fired your biggest gun first? Sometimes it’s easy to get confused in trying to pick out the most important sales point to feature in your lead. But here is one way to tell: Years ago Richard Manville developed a technique that has been of great help. When you are pondering over leads, ask yourself if the reader wants more x or y?
Is there a big idea behind your letter? You may wonder what the difference is between firing your biggest gun and this big idea. In one case, for example, the big gun may be the introductory offer on an insurance policy, but the big idea behind the letter is a company that makes insurance available to the senior citizens. The big idea is important. My guess is that the lack of a big idea is why letters fail.
Are your thoughts arranged in a logical order? In other words, have you got the cart before the horse? It is a fundamental copywriting truth that your reader anticipates what you are going to say. So it may help to think of your reader as a passenger in a motorcycle sidecar — and you are the driver. You can take him or her straight to the destination, surely and swiftly and smoothly. Or you can dawdle along the way, over side roads, bumps, and curves, sometimes making such short turns that he or she may shootoff down the road without you. Unless you follow a charted course and make the ride as pleasant as possible, too often your “passenger” will say, “I’m tired. Let me off.” This is another good reason for having a checklist to follow.
Is what you say believable? Here is a chance to offer proof and testimony to back up what you have said in your letter. (Notice I didn’t say “true” instead of “believable.” What you say may be true, but not necessarily believable.)
Is it clear how the reader is to order, and did you ask for the order? You would be surprised how easy it is to write a letter without asking for the order.
Does the copy tie in with the order form, and have you directed attention to the order form in the letter?
Does the letter have the “you” attitude all the way through?
Does the letter have a conversational tone?
Have you formed a “bucket brigade” through your copy? If you study the works of master letter writers, you will notice that all these letters have swing and movement — a joining together of paragraphs through the use of connecting links. Some of these connecting links are little sentences like, “But that is not all”… “So that is why”… “Now, here is the next step” . . . “But there is one thing more.” You can find dozens of ways to join your thoughts like this — in short, to take your reader by the hand and lead him through your copy — and avoid what I call "island paragraphs’’ that stand alone and are usually as dull as they look to the reader.
Does the letter score between 70 and 80 one-syllable words for every 100 words you write?
Are there any sentences that begin with an article (a, an, the) where you might have avoided it?
Are there any places where you have strung together too many prepositional phrases?
Have you kept out “wandering” verbs? You can often make sentences easier to read by rearranging them so that verbs are closer to their subjects.
Have you used action verbs instead of noun construction? You gain interest when you do this. Instead of saying, “This letter is of vital concern to . . .” say, “This letter vitally concerns …”
Are there any "thats’’ you don’t need? Using too many "thats’’ is another strength-robber. Eliminate as many as you can, but be careful. Read your copy aloud to make sure you haven’t trimmed out so many that your copy will slow down the reader
How does the copy rate on such letter-craftsmanship points as (a) using active voice instead of passive, (b) periodic sentences instead of loose, © too many participles,(d) splitting infinitives, and (e) repeating your company name too many times? Moderation in copy is a great virtue.
Does your letter look the way you want it to? Finally, from the wisdom of Guy L. Yolton, an outstanding copywriter, come seven guidelines for editing direct mail copy:
Edit for warm-up. This is first because it occurs at the beginning of a letter. It’s the general type of statement that is perfectly obvious to your reader. It’s usually just the copy writer’s warm-up to her subject, explaining to herself what this is all about. Statements like, “As an American businesswoman, you know that managing people is a difficult job …” The reader already knows that. If there’s a personal message for her, or some interesting ideas coming later, she won’t wait around for them. She wants to know: “Why am I getting this letter on this subject?” Or, “What have you got to say to me that’s new?”
Edit for stoppers. These often show up when you read your draft copy back to yourself, or when you read it to someone else. Stoppers are words and phrases that are awkward, contrived, and out of the ordinary. They hold up your reader and interrupt the rhythm of a piece that otherwise flows smoothly from one idea to another. Stoppers sometimes get into the copy because the writer didn’t.
Edit for author’s pride. The well-turned phrase is fine if it adds a unique and powerful twist to a sales point and keeps the copy moving. But if you’ve come up with a catchy- expression that stops your reader along the way while he admires your handiwork and forgets what you’re working at, you may never get him back on track. Sometimes these phrases may not have much meaning. “This public speaking course can be your capstone to success.” What in the heck is a “capstone”? The reader might know it’s the finishing stone of a structure, but if he stops to figure out how that metaphor applies to him and the product being sold, he’ll probably never make it to the order card. Distrust and question those dandy little word structures that please you. Strike them out, and let the reader move on to the action.
Edit for order. Does this follow that? There are natural sequences of ideas that are easier for people to follow. Small, big, bigger, biggest. If you are describing the advantages of your product, this could be the best way to build them. Then, now, later on, future.If your explanation is related to time, this is the logical order for development. In testing whether your copy is orderly question “Should the idea appear where I have it, sooner, or later?” You could wind up turning the whole piece upside-down.
Edit for “reason why.” Do advantages you attribute to your product just sit there in mid-air, supported only by the fact that they appear on paper? Why does it do what you say it will? How did it get that way? What proof can you offer? The reader needs a little more than unsupported puffery to decide to buy. A mailing from a business publication says, “The unusual resources which the editors draw upon are unparalleled in American publishing.” Why the resources are unusual… why they are unparalleled is never made clear.
Edit to stretch benefits. This is another way to help your copy get away from unsupported puffery. A circular tells me that I’ll get new techniques in thinking … payoff tables … . the “decision tree.” Those sound like benefits, but they don’t go far enough. Is it possible that “pay-off tables” could be stretched to: “How pay-off tables tell you when your decision is on the right track”? The decision tree could become: “Unique in approach, the ‘decision tree’ helps you put the elements of the problem in logical order” This kind of editing is related to what Elmer Wheeler meant when he said, “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.”
Edit for market. Is your prospect male or female, educated or uneducated? An outdoor person or desk-bound? A specialist or generalist? In looking through your draft copy, is your language, style, and tone something your prospect can be comfortable with on his own terms? Writing for Field & Stream is entirely different from writing for the Harvard Business Review prospect.
To satisfy curiosity
To get a surprise
To be successful
To be more comfortable
To make work easier
To gain prestige
To be sociable
To be creative
To be efficient
To safeguard self and family
To protect family’s future
To be good parents
To be well liked and loved
To appear different from others
To gain popularity
To add to life’s pleasures
To express a personality
To be in fashion
To avoid embarrassment
To fulfill fantasies
To be up-to-date
To own attractive things
To collect valuable possessions
To protect or conserve possessions
To satisfy ego
To be “first”
To accumulate money
To preserve money already accumulated
To save time
To protect reputation
To satisfy appetite
To enjoy exotic tastes
To live in a clean atmosphere
To be strong and healthy
To renew vigor and energy
To get rid of aches and pains
To find new and uncommon things
To win others’ affection
To be more beautiful
To attract the opposite sex
To satisfy sexual desires
To bring back “The Good Old Days”
To be lucky
To live longer
To feel important
To gain knowledge
To improve appearance
To gain praise from others
To be recognized as an authority
To enhance leisure
To save money
To have security in old age
To overcome obstacles
To do things well
To get a better job
To be your own boss
To gain social acceptance
To “keep up with the Joneses”
To appreciate beauty
To be proud of possessions
To resist domination by others
To emulate the admirable
To relieve boredom
To gain self-respect
To win acclaim
To gain admiration
To win advancement
To seek adventure
To satisfy ambition
To be among the leaders
To gain confidence
To escape drudgery
To gain freedom from worry
To get on the bandwagon
To get something for nothing
To gain self-assurance
To escape shame
To avoid effort
To get more comfort
To gain praise
To be popular
To have safety in buying something else
To take advantage of opportunities
To protect reputation
To be an individual
To avoid criticism
To avoid trouble
To emulate others
To “one-up” others
To be in style
To increase enjoyment
To have or hold beautiful possessions
To replace the obsolete
To add fun or spice to life
To work less
To look better
To conserve natural resources
To protect the environment
To avoid shortages
To relax
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