Page 72 - 100 Great Copywriting Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

For fun? Yeah right! No, for profit. “But people don’t read that much
copy,” the cry goes up.
Well, here’s the kicker. Maybe they do read it and maybe they don’t.
Nobody knows. But what we do know is that they respond.
Here’s my analysis of what’s happening. Let’s say you have an eight-
screen email sales letter. On every screen you include three cross-
heads, each one encapsulating, in some way, a benefit. That’s 24
benefits-driven headlines. Your reader may well not be reading word
for word. But even if they just skim and scan, they are picking up a
couple of dozen reasons to buy.
Or you could send them a one-screen email. With three heads.
They might not read this one either (a fact often overlooked by the
naysayers), preferring to skim and scan. But now they’re getting
three reasons to buy instead of 24.
That’s an 88 percent REDUCTION in selling power.

In practice

• First you have to find out as much as possible about the target

reader for the copy. Then you have to dismantle the product
until you have a gut understanding not of what it is, but of what
it does.

• Finally you must create a proposition for buying that is so

irresistible that once they’re hooked, your reader will happily
keep reading until you’ve finished with them.

100 GREAT COPYWRITING IDEAS • 63