Writing Sales Copy: A Third Grade English Lesson
Dear Business Builder,
My 12-year-old son has appointed himself the “crack cop” of our house.
The moment someone allows their pants to slide down a bit and then bends over, the boy gleefully yells, “Say no to crack!” And then he collapses helplessly in spasms of laughter.
It happened to me just last night. In front of the babysitter. Fucking humiliating.
Now, as your friend and mentor, I would hate for something like this to happen to you, especially when you present your copy to a client.
Showing off your keester, showing that you skipped school the day they taught grammar and punctuation rules in third grade, is no way to put your career on the fast track!
No, I’m not messing with you. In fact, this problem is more about my health than your career.
Look, I get tons of spec assignments and samples from writers who want to work with me. Also, I edit loads of sales copy from “A” and “B” level writers who work for my agency, Response Ink.
And if I have to correct another stupid and/or sloppy mistake in grammar or punctuation, my head is going to explode.
And so, in what I’m sure is a futile attempt to avoid heart attack or stroke, I’m sure will happen the next time you see the same brain-dead mistakes in sales copy: Here are 17 simple guidelines I found on an educational website that may help…
1. Verbs have to agree with their subjects.
2. Also, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
3. Be more or less specific.
4. Comments in parentheses (as relevant as they are) are (generally) unnecessary.
5. There are no sentence fragments.
6. Foreign words and phrases are not appropriate.
7. Don’t be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it is very superfluous.
8. You should never generalize.
9. Never use double negatives.
10. Avoid union symbols, abbreviations, etc.
11. The passive voice should be avoided.
12. Delete comments, which are not necessary. However, words in parentheses must be enclosed in commas.
13. Never use a big word when a tiny or diminutive will suffice.
14. Uses words correctly, regardless of how others use them.
15. Understatement is always the absolute best way to present momentous ideas.
16. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
17. Check carefully to see if any words come out.
Now, I’ve heard that in addition to the rules above, those of you with a sheepskin on the wall have also learned a few things about how to communicate effectively in English that just aren’t true, like…
1. One word sentences? Remove. No way! I’ve found that when used discreetly, one-word sentences and even one-word paragraphs in sales copy add emphasis and make the page look more engaging.
2. Who needs rhetorical questions? I do, that’s who! Rhetorical questions are a great way to stop prospects in their tracks and get them thinking. My rhetorical headline, “What’s wrong with getting richer faster?” mailed for years.
3. Contractions are not necessary and should not be used. Baloney! Contractions should always be used when writing sales copy, unless NOT using them adds appropriate emphasis: “Don’t buy any stocks today” is far less emphatic than “DON’T buy any stocks today.”
4. Prepositions are not words to end sentences. Not necessarily true. Remember: We aim to write colloquially, and most of our prospects break this rule with abandon.
5. And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction. WRONG! Conjunctions are connecting words… when used at the beginning of a paragraph, they can be very helpful in promoting reading.
6. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive. Again, speaking to your prospect in a conversational way can sometimes be helpful.
7. Avoid clichés like the plague. (They are old hat.) That’s as dumb as a bag of hammers. Clichés, metaphors, and other figures of speech are more than colloquial and comfortable; they tend to paint vivid mental pictures. And as we both know, a picture is worth a thousand words.
8. Also, always avoid annoying alliterations. Some of the most effective headlines ever written used alliteration to make them memorable. Bencivenga’s legendary “Lies, lies, lies”, “12 smiling swindlers”, etc.
9. Comparisons are as bad as clichés. Who wrote these rules anyway? Comparisons are essential in sales copy. To make my case, I often compare something that is happening in the economy or the stock market today to something that happened in the past.
And to keep things simple, I often compare something going on inside your body to something going on outside: “This supplement is like a root rotor for your arteries.”
And of course, comparing the high value of the benefits my product offers to its low cost is a proven winner.
10. Analogies in writing are like the feathers of a serpent. Again, analogies are word pictures… used in colloquial conversation… and are a quick way to drive your point home.
11. Kill all the exclamation marks! Not always! Judicious use of exclamation points when writing sales copy is helpful in emphasizing important points! However, overuse can kill!
12. Remove quotes. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I hate dating. Tell me what you know.” You can quote me on this: Waldo was a drooling asshole. Citing implicit or explicit endorsement from a top expert of your rationale, topic, or product is a powerful way to establish credibility.
13. If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it effectively. Hyperbole is like art: no one can define it, but everyone thinks they know it when they see it. As a writer, you alone should judge whether your tone and word choice are appropriate or overdone.
14. Word games are for children, not for great readers. Tell that to Arthur Johnson: He knows that light humor, including puns, can be a powerful booster for readers and responses, especially in headings and subheadings!
15. Go around the barn at noon to avoid colloquialisms. Nonsense. Colloquialisms communicate. See above.
However, there is one more set of rules that I DO try to follow carefully, and that I see broken more than any other…
Use the apostrophe where it belongs and omit it when it is not necessary.
Ah, apostrophes. Those little devils seem to be all devils I know. The problem is that the misuse of apostrophes is a concern for me.
I can’t explain why, but when they’re used incorrectly in copy I’m reviewing, critiquing, or editing, they make me see red.
My blood pressure “shot”, those little “veins” on my forehead swelled, a gallon of adrenaline “pours” into my bloodstream, and I have to resist the urge to strangle the poor person “who” offended me.
IMHO, nothing, NOTHING, makes your sales copy look more ignorant than misusing or abusing the humble apostrophe.
And wouldn’t you know? Just about everyone in my office…every copier I work with…every vendor that sells stuff to my companies…every client I have…and even the top copywriters I copy boss with every day… .they couldn’t not correctly use an apostrophe if you put a gun to your “head”.
Look. This is neither brain science nor spatial surgery: there are three times, and ONLY three times, when an apostrophe is required…
Tense #1 — To make a possessive word:
RULE A: If the root of the word is NOT possessive and does not already end in “s”, adding an apostrophe followed by an “s” makes that word possessive.
Example:
“This is the Clayton article.”
NO “This is the Claytons article.”
RULE B: If the word already ends in “s”, no additional “s” is needed. An apostrophe at the end of the word is sufficient.
Example:
“That’s Martin Weiss’ Newsletter”
NO “That’s Martin Weiss’ Newsletter”
RULE C: Words that are already possessive do not need an apostrophe, regardless of whether they end in “s” or not.
Examples:
“This is yours?”
NO “This is yours”
“This is yours?”
NO “This is yours?”
“Is this hers?”
NO “Is this hers?”
“This is theirs?”
NO “This is theirs?”
“said your product”
NO “He said it’s a product.”
AND DEFINITELY NOT “He said it’s a product.”
Tense #2 — To combine two words into one using a contraction:
The apostrophe is used to replace a missing letter in the combined word.
Examples:
is = is
not = not
won’t = won’t
could not = could not
she is = she is
he is = he is
are = are
Clayton’s = Clayton’s
Tense #3 – Colloquially, to indicate that a letter or part of a word or number is missing.
Examples:
Clayton has been called “The Sultan of ‘Persuasion’.”
In ’87, the stock market crashed…
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There.
I feel better.
I’ll never have to correct these things again, will I?