Notes from the book The Elements of Writing Copy by Bob Bly
To some degree all 8 elements must be present:
- Gets attention
- Focuses on the customer
- Stresses benefits
- Differentiates your product from the competition
- Proves its case
- Establishes credibility
- Builds value
- Closes with a call to action
Being overly clever for the sake of being clever is a major cause of confusing copy. So are lengthy sentences, cliches, big words, not getting to the point, a lack of specifics, technical jargon, overuse of superlatives, and poor organization.
Does my copy tell them something important, new, or useful?
Don’t talk about yourself. Don’t tell the readers what you did, what you achieved, what you like or don’t like. That’s not important to them. What’s important to them is what they like, what they need, what they want. Make sure you copy discusses facts that are relevant to the readers’s self-interest.
Use short sentences. 43 words were difficult for readers to get through. Best average sentence length for business writing is 14 to 16 words. 20 to 25 words is passable, but above 40 words the writing becomes unreadable.
Vary sentence length.
Use sentence fragments. Like this.
It doesn’t take much to block the door to success. A flash of an idea that slips your mind. A note that never gets written.
Train yourself to write in crisp, short sentences. When you have finished a thought, stop. Start the next sentence with a new through. When you edit, you should automatically seek out sentences that can be broken in two.
Use colloquial expressions. A sure thing, turn on, a rip-off, OK, sick and tired. But be wary of using cliches.
The lead must rapidly follow up on the idea expressed in the headline. If the headline is a question, the lead should immediately answer or relate to it.
Be specific: Platitudes and generalities roll off the human understanding like water from a duck, wrote Claude Hopkins in his classic book, Scientific Advertising. ‘They leave no impression whatever’.
- Empathise with the reader
- Use the ‘ah-ha’ factor
- Turn a potential negative into a positive
- Ask a provocative question
- Make a quick transition from your opening to the sales pitch
- Use details
- Be sincere
- Avoid contradictions
- Narrow the focus
- Make your product sound irresistable
- Use fear as a motivator
- Anticipate the prospects most likely complaint
- Make your offer clear early on
- Flatter the reader
- Inject a personal note into the copy
- Highlight your guarantee
- Make it easy to respond
- Use the two most powerful words in direct-mail copywriting: You and Free
- Demonstrate your product
- Promise to share a secret
Originally posted 2009-10-25 13:17:37.
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