Pictures paint a thousand words, right? But when it comes to using pictures in a direct-response sales letter, a badly chosen image will more likely lose you a thousand sales. More often than not, in my own sales letters I tend to avoid using stock images altogether. After all, when writing long copy you’re really constructing a persuasive […]
Category Archives: EMOTIONALS
You get an email telling you the good news… If you act in the next two hours, you can claim a £100 discount on so and so’s latest copywriting seminar. That’s great news. But is it the best way to promote that offer? Is good news always a good thing? Not necessarily. When it comes […]
Coming up with a headline that will grab your reader’s attention is hard. You might spend weeks writing and testing different ideas for nothing. Even if the product or service you’re selling is amazing, it doesn’t necessarily make writing a captivating headline any easier… But there is an exercise you can do that will help […]
When someone decides to pay money in return for a product or service, it’s a serious thing. Good copy should respect that. I was sat in a meeting recently when a sales letter I had written was brought up on the screen. Though I naturally recognized it as mine, the people I was meeting with […]
As with most things in modern art, the first time it happened, it was down to Picasso… He painted a picture of a chair, but not satisfied with paint alone, he stuck an actual chair on the canvas. Surrealist Marcel Duchamp, took it a step further, and in 1917, he just signed a toilet, turned […]
Copywriters can be precious people… I should know… I am one. And sure, tell me my copy doesn’t work or that I could do something better and once upon a time I would have sulked for a week. Yup, I used to be like that. But these days, I’ve calmed down. I’m wiser. You see, […]
You could have the best sales promotion in the world… But if the copy you’re using to direct readers to that promotion is rubbish… Then your promotion is ultimately pointless – regardless of how good it is. Some people call if ‘lift’ copy… Some call it ‘endorsement’ copy… Some call it ‘ad’ copy… And I’m […]
Copywriters aren’t often too kind to subheads… In fact, most of the time subheads are treated as nothing more than punctuation. Indeed, one of the uses of subheads in long copy sales promotions is to punctuate copy… but it is just ONE use. There are many more. The fact is, having strong subheads throughout your promotion […]
It was about four years ago… Michael Masterson flew into London to meet with us young copywriters to teach us a thing or two. He actually taught me a fair bit, but one thing stuck above all else. Ironic really, because that one thing was his concept of ‘the power of one’! Seriously though, whether […]
Like any good copywriter, I don’t just write copy… In fact, in my experience I’ve found that all the most successful copywriters and ad men I’ve met and trained also write some form of ‘non-copy’ too. Mark Ford (Michael Masterson) and Nick Laight are poets, for example… Dave Fedash writes film scripts… Bill Bonner has published […]