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 […]
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. […]
So look… You might disagree with me here. You might sneer. You might even think I’m an idiot for saying what I’m about to say. But I’m going to say it anyway. I’d be a liar if I didn’t. Spit it out? OK… With direct-response copywriting I think it’s often better to be cliché than […]
I blame Dostoyevsky… Even his name is difficult to read. Is that even how you spell bloody Dostoyevsky? Who knows? Who cares? OK. OK. Yes, I accept – he probably was one of the greatest writers that have ever lived… And yes, his novels are deeper than a deep thing that’s very deep. But here’s […]
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 […]
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not (at least on this occasion) having a go at the copy itself… But I was just working through the pile of copywriting products I have to review and I came across this online sales letter for Copywriting Supremacy. I don’t know what’s going on but I seem to be coming […]
With four best-selling books on copywriting under his belt – not to mention more than 12 years working as a marketer in the corporate sector – Andy Maslen is fast becoming one of the UK’s most popular copywriters. I caught up with him to find out more about what influences him, how he works and […]
I’ve had a lot of emails from people asking which copywriting products I think are worth the money… It’s difficult. A lot of stuff is nothing more than swipe file collections (which you can build for free), audio interviews (which involve one copywriter gushing over another) or long and boring part-work courses (that take forever and a day to […]
When you walk into a classy restaurant you usually notice one thing before anything else… Sometimes, in fact, you don’t even realise you’ve registered it: it’s something that happens on a subconscious level. But the fact is, this seemingly minor detail can have a huge effect on your overall experience. I’m talking about a sense […]
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 […]