The dif­fer­ence between good copy and great copy are in the results achieved. In direct response specif­i­cally, results are based on the num­ber of actions the copy generates.

The more actions the copy dri­ves, the greater the copy is.

My friend John Reese, a mas­ter at sim­pli­fy­ing what we often tend to unnec­es­sar­ily com­pli­cate, says it best. He says the only met­ric you should ever really count on is this:

How many said “Yes” or “No.” And that’s it.

Sounds sim­plis­tic, I know. But here’s the key point: your copy may get read­ers and it may get great feed­back. It may enter­tain and it may edu­cate. It may inform and even inspire.

But if it doesn’t sell, it doesn’t matter.

Now, what makes copy nudge peo­ple into action requires a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent things. So let me share with you three pow­er­ful ele­ments that can help you turn your not-​​so-​​good copy into good copy, and your good copy into out­stand­ing copy.

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I once took a media com­mu­ni­ca­tions course in which I dis­cov­ered an inter­est­ing exam­ple of the way the mind works. I soon real­ized how this applies to copy­writ­ing as well.

As part of a given les­son, they showed a video­tape of a tele­vised news­cast dur­ing which a jour­nal­ist was about to give a live report on a for­est fire dev­as­tat­ing the mid-​​west.

The news anchor said: “We now take you to Sally Smith, report­ing live from above the scene of the fire…”

He then turned around to face the back­ground screen, which gave a live bird’s-eye view of the rag­ing fire, and asked: “Sally, tell us, how big is the fire?” In a voice par­tially drowned by the whizzing sound of heli­copter blades, Sally reported:

“John, it’s so big, it’s cov­er­ing well over 140 acres of land… that’s about 200 foot­ball fields back-​​to-​​back for you and me.”

What is this telling you? A lot more than you think…

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I first taught this tech­nique in 1998. While there have been tons of improve­ments since then, today I still see copy on so many web­sites, sales let­ters, or emails using a lan­guage that only the per­son who wrote them understands.

The bot­tom line is, most mar­keters and copy­writ­ers still seem to ignore the most impor­tant part of their sales copy…

… Their readers.

Abra­ham Maslow once com­mented, “If all you have is a ham­mer, every­thing looks like a nail.” Abra­ham Maslow may have been a psy­chol­o­gist, but he prob­a­bly knew more about copy­writ­ing and par­tic­u­larly sell­ing than what most peo­ple cared to admit.

Even now, most of the copy I cri­tique dis­obey this impor­tant rule the most. Their sales mes­sage doesn’t com­mu­ni­cate with their read­ers, par­tic­u­larly at their level. Now, I’m not talk­ing about a socioe­co­nomic or edu­ca­tional level. I’m talk­ing about the level at which they under­stand and, above all, make buy­ing decisions.

They fail to use what I call “upwords.” It’s an acronym that means…

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This is another arti­cle writ­ten by one of my asso­ciate copy­writ­ers, Joe Valente, as an intro­duc­tion to one of mine — which I linked on this blog entry fur­ther down. But Joe’s arti­cle is so good, I decided to reprint it here.

Essen­tially, it’s about appeal­ing to dif­fer­ent buyer per­son­al­i­ties with your copy. Some peo­ple are dri­ver types. Oth­ers are more ana­lyt­i­cal. Some are expres­sive and col­or­ful. Oth­ers pre­fer the warm-​​fuzzy type of copy. Either way, your copy should chiefly appeal to the pre­dom­i­nant per­son­al­ity of your market.

So before I go any fur­ther, you bet­ter read this arti­cle. (There are also many great lessons about copy­writ­ing used — and some hid­den in the arti­cle itself. About sto­ry­telling, about the power of metaphor, and about human behav­ior. I sug­gest you read it, then read it again. Look for them. It’s that pow­er­ful.) Take it away, Joe!

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A sig­nif­i­cant rea­son behind most floun­der­ing web­sites is the lack of a response-​​driven mes­sage — an effec­tive one that gets peo­ple to do some­thing, even if it’s to keep reading.

A direct response mes­sage is not just about response. It’s com­prised of three ele­ments: it must be 1) cap­ti­vat­ing (it cap­tures the reader’s atten­tion), 2) riv­et­ing (it pulls her into read­ing fur­ther) and 3) engag­ing (it calls her to act).

(These are the “three steps” I talk about in my course.)

How can you incor­po­rate those three vital elements?

If I were to answer that ques­tion ade­quately it would likely take me an entire book the size of an ency­clo­pe­dia! But for now, let me give you a suc­cinct explanation…

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A strat­egy in copy­writ­ing that’s immensely pow­er­ful is to use words and phrases that help to paint vivid pic­tures in the mind. When peo­ple can visu­al­ize the process of doing what you want them to do, includ­ing the enjoy­ment of the ben­e­fits of your offer, you also drive their actions.

I call them UPWORDS: “Uni­ver­sal Pic­ture Words and Relat­able, Descrip­tive Sen­tences.” In other words, words and phrases that describe ideas the mar­ket can uni­ver­sally appre­ci­ate and relate to.

That is, analo­gies, metaphors, action words, men­tal imagery, exam­ples, tes­ti­mo­ni­als, case stud­ies, com­par­isons, col­lo­qui­alisms, sto­ries, etc.

Why?

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