Often the first few lines of a direct response sales letter are redundant. Sometimes, even the first few paragraphs are too. Look again at the opening of any sales letter you’re working on and ask if it would not be stronger to start a little further in. You see, when we start writing we are […]
So this is a trick I teach any copywriter or editor I work with… It isn’t difficult. It isn’t time consuming. And it certainly isn’t fancy. In fact, it’s a very simple and purely technical change you make to your word processor each time you’re writing copy that will be read via email. It’s particularly […]
I often compare writing a successful direct-response sales letter to passing your driving test… Providing you don’t make any major errors and you manage to keep the minors to a minimum – you should be OK. If figures then that when you start learning about copywriting, you generally tend to focus on avoiding the bigger […]
Once upon a time, direct-response copywriting was considered ‘the Don’ of copywriting… Not the Don Draper. Far from it. You see, Don Draper – the famous fictional copywriter from the TV series Mad Men – is an indirect-response man. He writes copy that’s designed to briefly get your attention and then force the product to linger in your […]
There’s nothing worse in direct-response copywriting than assuming too much knowledge… Sure you need to target your copy. I mean, you can’t sell everything to everyone. But to assume that your potential customers know what you do and why they need you to do it for them… Well, that’s just copywriting suicide. I shed a tear for […]
Take a look at this copywriting infographic… Of course, there are many weird and wonderful ways to structure a direct-response sales letter. As with most things in copywriting, there are no hard and fast rules. But… There is one particular structure that I return to time and time again and it always produces good results. […]
I make mistakes in my writing. Everybody does. Thing is, some of my mistakes, I don’t mind. In fact, I sometimes make them on purpose. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that I let some of my mistakes remain. I’m not talking about misspelling their as there, or your as you’re – they’re unfortunate […]
As you write more and more copy, you tend to develop your own list of ‘go to’ words. You know that if you’re in a scrape and your brain isn’t functioning properly after a heavy night, you can dip into this universal sack of trigger words and the result will be half decent. But I […]
Questions in copy can be so dangerous… Do you agree? No. And there you go, my question is answered. Just like that, it’s all over. Sorry to waste your time. I’ll speak to you another day. OK. OK. What happened there? Well, I asked a question… You had an answer, and hell… I wouldn’t blame you […]
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 […]