Writing Copy For Dummies

Part I

Understanding Copywriting Basics

In this part . . .

Copywriting is the crossroads where business and language meet. Choose the right path, and you’ll see a steady improvement in sales, growth, and profits. If you take your writing in the wrong direction, however, you’ll find yourself in the dark place with brimstone and pitchforks.

This part leads you in the right direction. In these three chapters, I show you the general copywriting terrain, map out your options, and give you the basic tools for researching, forming, and writing messages that resonate with the most important people in your business: your customers.

Chapter 1

Writing Copy: Capturing Hearts, Minds, and Money

In This Chapter

bullet Defining copywriting

bullet Comparing different uses of copy

bullet Meeting people who create copy

bullet Matching various copywriting tools with purposes

P icture me at the summer barbecue, my bare pale legs reflecting blazing beams of sunlight, my loud Hawaiian shirt howling with color. As I pass cold beers and overcooked hot dogs to my neighbors, someone I haven’t met before may politely initiate conversation by asking me what I do for a living.

Copywriting typically draws blank looks, so I try to explain. Marketing material, I say. You know: Direct mail. Collateral. Public relations. Still the blank look. Finally, I just make things simple: I write ads.

Oh, they’ll say. Got it. For 99 percent of the population, copywriting is about writing advertising. That’s only partly true. As you discover in this book, copywriting covers an enormous range of communications, from Web pages to white papers. Whatever the form, almost all copy shares two common characteristics: The author remains anonymous (there’s no by anybody to be seen), and the language attempts to persuade you to do or believe something — usually in regard to the surrender of your cash.

In this chapter, I give you the five-cent tour of the copywriting world (sans beers and hot dogs). I show you what it is, who uses it, and how to select the options just right for your needs. So stop staring at my legs and read on.

What Copywriting Is (and Isn’t)

Copywriting includes all the written communications used to sell, market, and promote products and services to prospects and customers. As a category, it’s bigger than advertising writing because it also includes things such as brochures or Web sites. But it’s smaller than business writing because it doesn’t include nonmarketing communications such as interoffice memos.

That said, let me introduce two important ideas about copywriting repeated throughout this book: going beyond information and inspiring action.

Transcending information

Many copywriting projects begin with the reasonable desire to inform prospects and customers about your business and/or one of its products and services. But if all you want to do is tell your prospects about something, you’re aiming too low — and you’re not getting full value from your writing.

Telling is for journalists, teachers, and stool pigeons. Copywriting is about conducting business, not distributing information. Your job isn’t to tell, but to sell — to spike your communications with messages that persuade, motivate, and build desire. In Chapters 2 and 3, I lead you into the three crucial elements that distinguish selling from telling:

bullet A ruthless fixation on benefits: These are the things your product does for the customer. By appealing to your prospects’ self interests, benefits provide motivation — a reason to buy, act, or respond. See Chapter 2 to find out more about this essential characteristic of good copy.

bullet A desire to make offers: Selling is all about let’s-make-a-deal. The deal you present — do this to get that — is called an offer. In Chapter 2, I give you the inside scoop on linguistic deal making.

bullet A commitment to the customer’s point of view: Swallow your ego: If you want to create genuine rapport with your customers, you have to embrace and communicate from their point of view. In Chapter 3, I make several suggestions that draw you closer to your customers, such as collecting testimonials from happy customers.

Generating action

Information is often like a guest who overstays his welcome: just lying around, doing nothing, occupying space. You want more from your copy, however. Effective business requires action — from you, for starters, and then (you hope) from your customers.

Here’s a way of doing business that immediately places you light-years ahead of your competition: Think of every piece of copy you write, whether it’s a letter or an ad, not as a static project but as an agent of action. Instead of generating information, commit your resources — your time, money, and talent — to writing that does things: makes sales, builds leads, stimulates interest, draws customers, and so on.

When you approach a new writing project, always ask yourself two questions:

bullet What does this do for my business? Not all copy can (or should) close a sale, but all of it should serve a clear purpose that moves your business one step closer to your goals. If you can’t define the purpose, that’s an excellent warning sign that the potential project either is misconceived (the wrong match of project to purpose) or may be a waste of money.

bullet What do I want the prospect to do after reading this? Often, the answer is as simple as Buy my product. But in many cases, the pathway to the sale is more complex and may involve numerous steps and way stations before the deal is done. In any event, be sure that your copy facilitates that next step by including all the information a customer needs to make that step and by being as persuasive as possible to encourage movement in your direction.

For basic information on creating a call to action, check out Chapter 2.

Recognizing Copy’s Different Uses

When you think of all the things that can be sold and the services that can be provided, the range of potential copy content seems staggering. Look more deeply, however, and you’ll see that most copy fulfills one (or a combination) of three primary uses. In descending order of immediacy, these are making sales, attracting customers, and building relationships.

Making sales

You can’t get more immediate than this: Prospect reads copy; prospect buys product. Without any additional support (other than someone, perhaps, to take the order), your words make the sale.

The writing formats that can make direct sales include the following:

bullet Direct mail: With skill, you can turn ordinary mail into a powerful tool for targeting prospects with your offers and persuading them to buy. See Chapters 5 through 8, which cover direct response letters, direct response brochures, other elements in the direct response package (like reply devices), and stand-alone items like self-mailers, postcards, and catalogs.

bullet Direct e-mail: With e-mail, you can perform many of the functions of direct mail electronically. To find out how, see Chapter 9.

bullet Advertisements with a direct response option: Many of the advertisements you see simply want you to remember a brand. But those that offer a phone number and a deal — Order now and get all twelve knives for four easy payments of $9.99! — are making direct sales. Get more information about print, Web, and radio advertising in Chapter 11.

bullet Web sites with ordering capabilities: If your site can manage orders online, include copy that can make the sale on the spot. See Chapter 14.

Attracting customers

If you move one step further away in terms of immediacy and directness, you can use your copy as a lure to attract customers to destinations, such as retail stores or Web sites, where the final sale is made. Instead of selling, your copy helps build a foundation for a sale that may be completed at a later time and in a different place. Formats for attracting customers include

bullet Print and broadcast advertising: Instead of making an immediate sale, you can create a memorable impression on the prospect that may influence future behavior. By trumpeting benefits, unique features, or especially attractive sensual characteristics, you can move your product into its own special spot in the prospect’s mind. Check out Chapter 11.

bullet Electronic promotions: E-mail can do more than make direct sales. You can use e-mail (including e-newsletters) and Web sites to build brand (the image and attitude of your business) and direct traffic to your stores. By touting new info, helpful tips, and/or special promotions, you can continually motivate prospects and customers to visit and revisit your sites or stores. See Chapter 9 on e-mail and Chapter 14 on Web sites.

Building relationships

Furthest away from the immediate sale are those copy assignments that help you establish a rapport with potential customers. This objective is important when your product is complex, expensive, and/or requires the approval of multiple decision makers before the sale can be made.

When you’re running a long-distance race to build relationships that may eventually lead to business, you want to establish credibility for your organization while educating your prospects. These methods can help:

bullet Press releases: If you can turn some aspect (or aspects) of your business into something newsworthy to a publication’s readers (or a broadcaster’s audience), the media may do the talking for you. To attract their interest, use the press release, a short and simple announcement that feeds news to the media, as described in Chapter 12.

bullet Articles: Nothing says authority like being an author. Whether you get your story published in a traditional print publication or an electronic e-newsletter, an article can help you (and by extension, your organization) be seen as the expert in your area of business. In Chapter 13, I show you how to turn news, human-interest stories, case studies, and how-to tips into effective ways to attract and hold the attention of your audience.

bullet Collateral: One way of maintaining your relationships with potential customers is with a regular diet of meaningful communications, packed with knowledge that your audience values. That’s where collateral — a catchall category of information that includes brochures, pamphlets, sales sheets, and more — comes in. Find out more in Chapter 15.

Looking at People Who Produce Copy

Sure, professionals such as myself, who make a living by writing copy, write a lot of marketing materials. But as a class, the number of professional writers is much smaller than the number of people who use or produce copy for their business purposes. (I assume most of my readers are in the latter category.)

You don’t have to be a professional writer to create excellent, professional-level copy. With the help of this book, you can either write the quality copy you need or be in a better position to evaluate copy written on your behalf.

Although the whole business of copywriting is associated with ink-stained wretches (or merlot-sipping hipsters), the real world of copy is populated with users who have a variety of objectives in mind. Chances are, you may see yourself in one (or more) of the following categories.

Owning a business

Perhaps you own a business, such as a flower or auto-body repair shop (or a combination of the two, which may prove interesting). Or you’re an independent professional, such as an accountant or orthodontist. Chances are, you don’t have the budget to turn to an agency for your marketing work. With the help of this book, however, you can either write your own copy or know what to look for should you choose to buy help.

Although all the information in this book is useful to you, you may find the following budget-minded topics especially helpful:

bullet Quick and dirty direct mail: With just a little time, a personal computer, and a laser printer, independent professionals have a particularly effective (and cheap) direct response option at their disposal. When you can identify your prospects by name and address, this simple direct mail process can get your message into their hands — and attract business to your door. (Check out Chapter 7 for more information.)

bullet Postcards: These mailing pieces are an inexpensive way of sending your message to prospects and current customers. If you have a special offer or event to promote, a simple postcard with concentrated copy can be an exceptionally cost-effective way to communicate. (See Chapter 8.)

bullet Press releases: A press release (see Chapter 12) is a simple announcement to the media that can give businesses a chance to garner favorable press exposure. By turning your expertise, experience, or new product offerings into news that matters to a publication’s readers, you can attract media interest and build credibility with potential customers.

Managing a business, organization, or department

Instead of flying solo, you fly with a team of individuals with various responsibilities. Often, though not always, the scale of the marketing ambition (and its marketing budget) is comparable to the scale of the business. When your job involves making decisions regarding the appropriate allocation of resources (where you should spend your money), you should pay particular attention to the following areas:

bullet Direct response: Chapter 4 gives you an overview of direct response, a means of encouraging immediate action from your targeted prospects. You find suggestions for developing prospect contact lists and identifying appropriate communications formats that can help you go beyond writing one project to developing an ongoing, working system.

bullet Branding: In Chapter 10, I show you how you can associate your business with a bundle of favorable ideas, emotions, and associations. By separating you from the competition, the resulting identity, your brand, forms a solid foundation for all of your marketing efforts.

bullet Sales to a business: Chapter 16 provides special insights and strategic suggestions for those companies that target other businesses as their customers. You discover how to leverage the special desires and fears of businesspeople, and how to target your messaging to the specific needs of different titles or roles within the same organization. In addition, I give you tips for promoting events, seminars, and Webinars, popular marketing tools frequently used to help make business-to-business sales.

Raising money and getting support

Running side by side with those who use marketing to sell products and services are those who apply similar marketing skills for nonprofit or not-for-profit efforts: charities, political and social causes, some forms of education and healthcare, and so on. I have a special chapter just for you.

Chapter 17 helps you subsidize your organization’s efforts with a practical guide for writing the classic fundraising letter. An appeal to the heart, the best fundraising letters use stories, personal perspectives, and precise descriptions of your organization in action to move the reader to give money. In addition, the chapter provides insights and strategic advice for writing political flyers and informational pamphlets or brochures that can build support for your organization, cause, political candidate, or institution of learning.

Helping, healing, or inspiring people

Within both profit and not-for-profit organizations, your promotional efforts aren’t always mercenary (asking for money). Instead, you sometimes want to educate, inform, assist, heal, or inspire. (The most obvious example is healthcare providers who need to create materials to help patients understand diagnoses, treatments, and/or medications.) Chapter 17 includes information on writing political, healthcare, and education-related copy. In addition, the following topics are helpful:

bullet Collateral: Chapter 15 can help you write brochures, pamphlets, and other supporting materials loaded with practical information (and sometimes even encouragement) appropriate for a variety of audiences, including medical patients.

bullet Newsletters: If you want to create a vehicle for ongoing communications with the people you serve, newsletters (in Chapter 13) can help. By providing news, success stories, updates on new services, and more, you build a tighter bond with your audience and reinforce the organization’s stature as an effective resource or problem solver.

Selecting the Right Tool: When and Why to Use What

From the tiny little tag line at the bottom of a print ad to the massive headline posted across an interstate billboard, marketing copy can show up in just about any shape, size, or form. Yet regardless of scale or format, almost all marketing copy falls into one of four major categories (which, not-so- coincidentally, correspond roughly to parts of this book): direct response, branding, public relations, and sales support.

Landing the sale with direct response

You go to the mailbox and find a letter that says you’re preapproved for a credit card; all you have to do is return the enclosed form to apply. Whether you’re motivated to reply, you’ve been hit with a form of direct response marketing: You got an offer you could fulfill right on the spot, without going to a store or talking to a salesperson.

Whatever its form — mail, e-mail, Web site, print ad, or radio ad — all direct response communications request a response (call this number or return this card, among others) that, in turn, satisfies some promise made to the prospect. Many direct response communications are precisely targeted to specific names at specific addresses or phone numbers.

Direct response can be an exceptionally powerful way to market your business in the following situations:

bullet You can conduct your business with minimal personal interaction. If you can provide your product or service without the intervention of a store or a complex sales call, direct response may be the way to go. It’s been a proven winner for subscriptions, collectibles, tools, apparel, crafts, toys, food supplements, and thousands of other things that can be easily delivered by mail or package services.

bullet You’re capable of identifying your targets. To go to prospects directly, you have to know where they are. For mail and e-mail, you work with addresses and phone numbers of people who may be likely prospects. For radio, you need to identify time/program slots that attract your target audience. You don’t want to buy time during a hip-hop program aimed at teenagers to sell vitamins for arthritis sufferers.

bullet You want to generate leads for future sales. Few people buy a car by mail. Fewer still commit their company to a multimillion-dollar purchase on the strength of a phone call. But direct response tactics can initiate the sales process by gathering leads — collecting a pool of responses to which you may direct further sales efforts. (See Chapter 16 for more.)

Several chapters in this book give you what you need to write successful direct response copy. Start with Chapter 4, an introduction to direct response, and then turn to those chapters that speak to the tactics that interest you.

Building businesses with branding

Many of the advertisements you remember (and, in the case of broadcast commercials, the associated jingles you can’t get out of your head, try as you may) don’t make direct sales. Instead, they hope to create a memorable impression — a brand — that influences your shopping behavior. The actual sale is deferred until you arrive at a store or other point of purchase: If the branding successfully resonates with you, you’ll select that particular product among its competitors.

Brand marketing may be for you if the following traits apply to your business:

bullet Your sale is indirect. Consumers can’t buy your cereal, toothpaste, or car wax directly from you but have to go to a store (owned by someone else) to get it. Branding helps put your product at the top of consumers’ minds when that momentous occasion occurs. If you own a store, brand advertising can also direct customers to your retail location for ice cream, furniture, yoga lessons, or whatever you’re selling.

bullet You face many similar competitors. The most dreaded word in marketing is commodity: a product, like crude oil, whose only distinction among competing sellers is price. Branding combats commoditization by creating a constellation of images, feelings, ideas, or even values that are unique to your branded product. It sets your product apart from its competitors, and it allows you to escape the race-to-the-bottom that comes when the only advantage you can offer is a cheaper price.

Chapter 10 surveys the branding landscape and copywriting’s role within it. Chapter 11 gives you the basics for applying brand tactics to advertising.

Grabbing attention with public relations

Just as sales can be direct or indirect, so too with marketing messages. Instead of directly pitching your message, you can indirectly communicate through events that establish your virtues and values and through media coverage — in papers, magazines, journals, and more — that tell your story for you.

Public relations can be an important part of your marketing mix if the following situations apply to you:

bullet Your product is complex or unusual or requires an educated prospect. One of my clients helps banks apply interest-rate risk-management techniques to lower costs and boost profits. This topic isn’t easy to explain in an ad or a letter, so my client produces newsletters and places articles in banking publications to explain what it does. Media coverage can be an excellent and inexpensive way to educate prospects before you close in on the sale.

bullet You want to establish credibility and/or authority. Everyone understands that a paid advertisement is biased (of course) to the one who places it. But actual articles in esteemed publications lend an aura of objective credibility to your story. They can be a terrific way to establish your organization’s authority and expertise, or its commitment to values that are important to your prospects.

You can find an introduction to public relations and hands-on advice on how to make it work for you in Chapter 12. Chapter 13 goes even deeper, with step-by-step instructions for creating your own articles and publications.

Sustaining your efforts with sales support

Imagine a casting call for a major Hollywood movie: Among the beautiful and glamorous stars who capture all the attention are numerous subordinate players, such as character actors and extras, who fill out the rest of the cast. They may not be sexy, but the movie can’t be made without them.

In marketing, the supporting cast is made of various miscellaneous materials including Web sites, brochures, sales sheets, pamphlets, and so on. They all support your sales efforts, and you may want to create them if

bullet You need to fill in the gaps during the sales process. A long time can elapse between the initial lead and the final sale. Collateral materials can sustain your message in the interim.

bullet Your customers can’t complete the purchase without more info. Sometimes, your customers just need more facts before they can buy. When you’re considering a software purchase, for example, you need to know whether it will work with your current hardware configuration and operating system. Supporting materials supply that information.

bullet Your sales team insists upon it. Salespeople hate to go on a call empty-handed, and they like to leave something behind. Your supporting material gives them props that can help them with their pitches.

For more on writing sales support stuff, turn to Chapter 15, where you can find a fat load of information with the skinny on brochures, white papers, and more. For Web sites, which can be designed to take orders, provide information, or deliver customer service, see Chapter 14. And to help you with the special sales and marketing requirements that arise when your customers are other businesses rather than consumers, see Chapter 16 for an overview of business-to-business copy strategies and tactics.

Chapter 2

Marching Ahead with Copywriting Fundamentals

In This Chapter

bullet Discovering the common building blocks of copy

bullet Working with extra copy elements

bullet Making your copy shine with the right editing rules

T here’s a famous anecdote, attributed to various politicians, that illustrates the difference between being well spoken and being a good speaker. Of the first politician in the story, audiences responded to his speeches by saying, My, isn’t he a good speaker? Of the second politician, people responded by saying, Let’s march! Although the first speech drew praise, the second actually accomplished the speaker’s purpose: persuasion leading to action.

That’s also the difference between good writing and good copywriting. You may admire a piece of writing for its rhythm, apt use of metaphor, and graceful application of language, but if it doesn’t contribute to your business objectives — whether they’re sales, more leads, or greater awareness of your products and services — it’s not truly good copywriting. Good copywriting makes connections with your intended audiences (your customers or potential customers) that ultimately result in improved business performance.

Fortunately, you don’t need to be a great writer to write great copy. Although having a sense of style and an ear for poetry is helpful, you can write quite profitably without them. But you can’t write persuasive, customer-motivating copy without a firm grip on the proven principles that turn idle prospects into active customers. In this chapter, I introduce the fundamentals common to almost all successful copywriting assignments: promising benefits; making offers; telling stories; and using headlines, subheads, and body copy. As this book proceeds, you discover variations on these themes appropriate to specific challenges or projects. But by mastering these basics as soon as possible, you create a foundation for success. Let’s march!

Writing Copy 101: The Building Blocks

Whether you’re writing print ads or Web pages, brochures or e-mails, letters or postcards, you work with three basic elements: a headline that sets the bait, body copy that hooks ’em, and a call to action that reels ’em in.

Taking the lead: Headlines

In newspapers and magazines, the headline tells readers what the subsequent article is about, providing just enough information so that they can decide whether they want to read on. Marketing headlines provide information, too, but they also go an important step further: They make a promise, overt or implied, that appeals to your prospects’ self-interests.

Avoid the temptation to write cute or clever headlines for their own sakes, under the mistaken belief that they attract readers’ attention. Chances are, your message will suffer the same fate as the class clown who does anything to draw attention to himself: It’ll be ignored.

Cute and clever may be acceptable, but only if your headline appeals to the one thing readers care about — their self interest. Every good copywriter needs to be familiar with the three time-tested, market-proven, cash-register-ringing ways to appeal to reader interests: Promise a benefit, make an offer, and deliver relevant news.

Promising a benefit

If you’ve ever interviewed for a sales or marketing job, you may have been hit with one of the classic stupid-interview-trick challenges: Sell me this pencil. You may have been tempted to do something rather violent and obscene with that pencil, but to get the job, you had to demonstrate your understanding of features and benefits salesmanship.

Well, I’m not going to ask you to sell me a pencil (heck, I’m just grateful you bought this book), but I do want you to understand what features and benefits are and the absolutely crucial difference between them.

bullet Features are qualities or things that an item or service has, such as anti-lock disc brakes or a water-repelling exterior shell. Features are static characteristics, and they’re almost always nouns or adjectives. The pencil, for example, has the following features:

• It’s yellow.

• It’s a hexagon.

• It has an eraser.

bullet Benefits are what the product or service does for the owner or user. They are, therefore, much more important than features because they include a what’s-in-it-for-me motivation. They’re active qualities and are almost always verbs, adverbs, or verbal phrases. They save people time and money, protect them from foul weather, alert them to danger, make them look younger and sexier, and so on. You can say that the pencil gives you the following benefits:

• Its bold color makes it easy to find on a cluttered desktop.

• Its ridged shape prevents it from rolling off your desk.

• Its built-in eraser helps you correct mistakes in a flash.

You may notice that in the preceding example, the pencil’s benefits are intimately related to its features. In fact, I took each feature and uncovered its value — what the pencil does for people that makes it worth buying. Hold onto your hat (without, somehow, dropping this book) because I’m going to let you in on the single, most important secret to good copywriting: Transform features into benefits!

It may seem like marketing magic, but transforming features into benefits is easy. For any given feature, ask, What does this do for my customer? The answer is the benefit. For example, consider the call-waiting feature on your phone. What does it do for you? It alerts you to incoming calls, even when you’re on the line with someone else. The benefit: You never miss a phone call. Simple, right? Yet it’s amazing how many would-be marketers fail to take this fundamental step.

After you identify benefits, the next step is working them into your headlines. Try this simple formula: A verb plus a desirable quality or thing that a customer might want equals a benefit headline. The stronger the desirability of that thing, the stronger the benefit. Take a look at this example:

Turn your kitchen trash into garden-enriching super-fertilizer.

Here, the leading verbal construction, Turn . . . into leads the headline into the promise of an attractive new thing: garden-enriching super-fertilizer.

You can improve on this strategy by adding a reinforcing feature to the principal benefit:

Enjoy younger, smoother skin in just 30 days.

The word enjoy is the active verb that sets the headline into motion, while younger, smoother skin is the desirable thing; in just 30 days is an additional feature that implies speed, another important benefit.

Sometimes a benefit is not something you desire, but something you want to defeat or overcome, such as debt, bad breath, or high credit card interest rates. For example:

Cut your healthcare insurance costs in half!

The promise in this headline is the reduction of pain — in this case, an expense trimmed by 50 percent.

Later in this chapter, I show you how to write body copy that fulfills the promise of the headline. You can get a jump-start on your sales story, however, by including in your headline an important proof point — some material fact or compelling logic that adds credibility to your headline while giving the reader a smooth transition into the body copy. Here’s how it works:

Eliminate offensive odors with StenchAway, the only kitchen cleanser with bacteria-eating enzymes.

Eliminate is the verb, and offensive odors is the negative outcome the headline promises to overcome. This headline not only introduces the name of the product but also offers a reason why the product is better than its competitors: It’s the only one with bacteria-eating enzymes.

You need not follow the verb + desire formula to the letter to write an effective benefits headline. To get the name of your product (or business) into the headline, make it the subject of the sentence, like so:

Chlorolux renews the green in your grass!

Transforming features into benefits

You can perform a little magic of your own by applying the question What does this do for my customers? to your product or service’s features. For example, think about the energy-saving features built into many notebook computers: What does that do for the customer? It extends battery life, allowing users to get more work done between recharges — that’s the benefit.

Now you can practice your newfound transformational skills. For the following features, apply the what’s-it-do? question to uncover the feature’s benefit, its value to the customer:

bullet The removable lining to a leather jacket

bullet The surge protector on an AC power strip

bullet A resealable potato chip bag

bullet A TV remote with extra-large buttons

bullet A word processing program with an auto-save option

Making offers

An offer is the promise of an exchange. In return for responding to your message, sending a check, filling out a form, or visiting your store this week only, your readers get a subscription, a discount coupon, a two-for-one deal, or whatever offer you wish to make.

A discount, special sale, or special price can be a particularly strong offer. When you have a great offer, consider leading with it in the headline, especially when your product is otherwise similar to other products or has a familiar benefit that no longer attracts attention.

The offer headline is the simplest kind of headline to write: You simply state the offer, or you present the offer and add the name of your store or the location where the offer can be obtained. The offer is the star, so you don’t want to dim its shine by adding lots of verbal clutter:

Save 25% on all women’s shoes at Toe Town.

You can add a deadline or time limit to create greater urgency. Human beings tend to be expert procrastinators; by creating urgency, you encourage action (before your message is otherwise entirely forgotten):

Order one collectible coin kit by May 31, and get the second set for half the price.

One of the most powerful marketing appeals is exclusivity, the sense (or illusion) that an offer is being made only to a select, special, or elite few, which just happens to include you! You, in fact, is a great word to use in an exclusive appeal, because it speaks to the most important people in your readers’ universe: them. Words such as only, special, and even exclusive may prove handy as well. The important thing about this offer is to expressly identify the audience and make them aware that the deal is indeed exclusive.

For Yachtsman Today subscribers only: FREE 30-day trial of new PointX GPS system.

Providing news

People value new information about issues and things that interest them. You can turn this curiosity to your advantage by constructing your headline from a tidbit of provocative information. Your goal is to break through reader apathy with new information and then link that new information to something readers value — something that makes them richer, healthier, safer, stronger, sexier, and so on. For example:

Latest NASA solar panels now available for energy-conscious homeowners.

In this instance, the news about the solar panels is reinforced with the credibility of NASA and linked directly to a specific audience — energy-conscious homeowners.

You can create suspense by turning a news headline into a question that challenges what the readers already know. If the substance of the question is important enough to prospects, they’ll read the body copy to satisfy their curiosity or allay their anxiety. One of the longest-running and most effective ads of all time led with this headline: Do you make these mistakes in English? The headline may seem tame now, but when the ad was launched in the 1920s, it touched on a profound anxiety among Americans, many of whom were first-generation immigrants from non-English-speaking countries trying to find upward mobility in the newly emerging world of white-collar work.

To write an effective question headline, be sure to promise a reward of meaningful news by hinting at the importance of your information and by implying that readers will find answers in subsequent copy — if they read on. For example:

Are you prepared for the 3 most important changes in this year’s tax regulations?

This question suggests that if you don’t know what the changes are, you’re unprepared. In the copy that follows, you’d not only deliver (briefly) the news about the three changes, but you’d also link that information back to your service — in this example, a tax-preparation firm.

Multiplying your headline powers by three

Writer’s block? Bah, humbug! You have at least three proven formulas for turning a piece of information into a compelling headline: benefits, offers, and news.

Suppose that you want to run an ad in the local paper for a car wash that has just added a rust inhibitor to its cleaning solutions. To promote the new feature, you’re offering a $2 discount in April, reducing the price from $10 to $8. In a flash, you can multiply your headline power by three.

1. First, you can turn the feature — the rust inhibitor — into a benefit for your headline:

Remove rust and extend the life of your car with Norustatal 9, only at Sugar Daddy’s Car Wash!

2. Second, you can emphasize the discount offer:

This April only: Get a deluxe car wash — and remove winter salt and rust — at Sugar Daddy’s Car Wash for just $8!

3. Third, you can use the rust inhibitor as alluring news:

New rust-fighting formula extends life of your car. Now at Sugar Daddy’s Car Wash, no extra charge.

Now try your hand and write three different headlines (benefit, offer, news) for the following:

bullet A new Internet-based service that allows customers to use their network connection to make long-distance calls, with an average savings of 35 percent to 55 percent on charges.

bullet A flea collar that uses nontoxic, botanical essences to kill ticks and fleas; available at Pete’s Pets — buy two, get the third free.

bullet A health club that offers advanced Pilates training — proven to help prevent osteoporosis — to all ages; sign up for one year at full price, get second year at half price.

Fulfilling the promise: The body

After you capture your readers’ attention with the headline, the body, or the bulk of the copy that follows, pursues the sale by fulfilling the promise stated or implied in the headline. (You build the body with copy points , facts, evidence, and/or ideas that support the case or story you’ve already introduced.) You don’t need to scratch your head wondering what to do next. Just follow your headline’s lead.

If you led with a benefit, your body copy must articulate the value of the benefit to the customer by clearly explaining what it does for the reader. For example:

Headline: Chlorolux renews the green in your grass!

Beginning of the body copy: You weed, you