Page 156 - 100 Great Copywriting Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

Dear Mr Sample,
I think you are like me. You’re passionate about technology
and you want the best you can afford. More than that,
though:
That first six-word sentence does several things. It invites the reader
to read it because it’s so short. It implies that the rest of the letter will
be easy to read. And, crucially, it piques the reader’s curiosity. This
was a two-page letter, so I assumed the reader would glance over the
page to see who the letter was from. The Editor in this case. So the
question my opening sentence plants in the reader’s mind is, “How
am I like the Editor of PCW?” It is also a subtle piece of flattery. By
opening like this, I engaged directly with the reader’s own sense of
self worth and encouraged him to read my next sentence. In other
words, I began training him to read past sentence breaks.

In practice

• Use curiosity as a motivator if you can, but be sure to link it to

an appeal to the reader’s self-interest. In this example, he was
curious to find out how he resembled an authority figure in IT.

• A simple technique to get or keep people reading is to tell them

that, “In a moment I am going to reveal to you the XYZ industry’s
dirty little secret.”

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