How To Write Good Advertising Copy

There are several steps to writing a good sales letter.

A good headline

Whilst this stage has fewer words than any of the other parts of the letter it is in fact by far the most important element.

In fact the headline can make or break the whole sales pitch plus if you get the headline right the rest of the letter flows more easily.

So what should you bear in mind when writing your headline?

First and foremost you should remember that we are all human so naturally we all think in terms of "what's in it for me"

The way to capitalize on this natural response is to provide your reader with a benefit.You have to appeal to their emotions. It is the benefits which will cause an emotive reaction.

However do not confuse a benefit with a product feature.

What is the difference?

A product feature would be camera x has y amount of pixels. On the other hand because this item has more pixels than camera z it takes much better pictures. The fact that camera x takes better pictures is the benefit. People buy on benefits whilst features build credibility. (see later)

Sub-Headers

Sub-headers are used for 2 main purposes. 1) To break up the text. This makes the document much easier to read and more pleasing to the eye. 2) To re-enforce the benefits. You have to keep appealing to the emotions of the reader.

However it is important that the sub-headings relate to what is actually written in the paragraphs that follow.

The Main Body

This is where you promote the main points of your offer.

Bear in mind that you still should be promoting benefits here but now you can include product features particularly to appeal to the technically minded.

The Reasons

Here you begin to give the reasons why your reader should take up your offer.

By this stage the reader is probably beginning to think of logical reasons why s/he should buy your product rather than just relying on emotion. The art here is to re-enforce their emotions by adding to the reasons why they should purchase your product. You should try to establish what questions may be going through the mind of your potential client and attempt to answer these in your text.

The Offer/Price

As the title suggests this is where you tell them what the price/offer is.

What you have to achieve here is informing your reader that regardless of the price of your particular product whether it is in $10's or $1000's they are getting a bargain.

To help achieve this it is best to reiterate the main benefit just before you disclose the price. Guarantee

Whilst hopefully you have created the desire in the mind of the reader to buy your product at this stage you have to make them feel comfortable.The best way of keeping someone in their comfort zone is to offer a guarantee

Bear in mind that the prospective customer may not know you and the way to gain trust is to offer a "copper bottomed" guarantee.

Free Bonuses

It is surprising how important free bonuses are. In fact some people will buy just to get the bonuses!! One of the main advantages of a bonus is that it offers perceived increased value.

Besides the emotional reasons for buying as human beings we also need to justify to ourselves our decision to buy. Bonuses help with this decision.

The Summary

There are two main points to address here:- 1) To re-emphasise all the benefits especially the main one. 2) To make the all important "call to action"

Postscripts

These are the little p.s's found at the end of a letter. Surprisingly these have been found to be very important.

So what should you put as a p.s?

Certainly you should reiterate your Main Benefit and highlight the free bonuses and give reasons why the reader should take action NOW.

With all the above parts of your promotional letter there are three main points you should always bear in mind:- 1) Always write the copy as if you were speaking to a friend 2) Write with passion about your subject 3) Get your thoughts on paper first and edit later

If you are in any doubt as to how to go about writing your own sales letter then the best advice I can give is to study those that are obviously successful and follow the same format.

Whatever you do don't copy word for word but use as a "template" to guide you in putting your own stamp on your proposal.

To YOUR success

John Beaumont