After read­ing and re-​​reading the lat­est FTC guide­lines, I’ve come to some impor­tant con­clu­sions that I want to share with you. Par­tic­u­larly as they relate to testimonials.

Last night, my good friend and top copy­writer John Carl­ton called me up, and we had an inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion on this whole FTC thing and the hys­te­ria it has created.

I expressed to John my opin­ions about them, along with a very sim­ple solu­tion. And John agreed with me.

It’s a huge ben­e­fit to those who under­stand copy­writ­ing, because they can actu­ally turn around and use the FTC rul­ings to their advan­tage. Even make more sales as a result.

Part of the solu­tion is actu­ally sim­pler than you think. And it doesn’t involve tear­ing down all your tes­ti­mo­ni­als, plas­ter­ing a bazil­lion dis­claimers around them, or con­duct­ing painful, men­tal con­tor­tions to decide what is typ­i­cal or not.

You can start by doing this one sim­ple thing…

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The other day I was asked the fol­low­ing ques­tion: “Should I use active or pas­sive voice in sales copy?” My answer may sur­prise you.

The premise behind this ques­tion is sim­ple. Tra­di­tional rules of good writ­ing state that we should use active voice. When it comes to copy­writ­ing, it makes per­fect sense.

For instance, active voice engages the reader and makes it easy for them to quickly under­stand the copy. They don’t have to sort through a sen­tence to under­stand it.

For those rea­sons, writ­ers are told again and again to focus on using active voice. But I’m telling you that, in some cases, you shouldn’t. And here’s why…

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In an ear­lier blog post, I talked about the fact that lately I’ve been lean­ing a lot more towards test­ing the reduc­tion in bottlenecks.

Some of the results are staggering!

In short, the more I increase the sense of secu­rity and trust, bet­ter the flow and ease of order­ing, and project a more con­gru­ent and pro­fes­sional image, the more sales I make.

Since that post, some read­ers have asked me for some exam­ples. I pre­fer not to reveal mine as they are pro­pri­etary. But I can say this…

One of the things that I’m start­ing to really like are ecom­merce sites that are less “saleslet­ter­ish” — i.e., less long-​​scrolling copy in a direct-​​mail for­mat, and more clus­tered lay­outs that are reader-​​focused, commerce-​​centric, and action-​​driven.

They still use com­pelling copy and a solid response mech­a­nism. If the user needs more details, a “more info” link then sends them to a typ­i­cal, long copy saleslet­ter. But these sites’ front-​​end are more action-​​oriented than they are scrolling-​​oriented.

I’ve decided to test this with our main web­site at Suc­cess Chef. I still use long copy. But I’ve con­verted the front-​​end into an ecom­merce, multi-​​product, catalog-​​like format.

And the results are in…

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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 test con­stantly in an effort to boost my response rates. So it’s no won­der why some peo­ple have asked me about mul­ti­vari­ate test­ing. Specif­i­cally, they want to know what is it, how does it work, and what’s “Taguchi.”

First of all, Taguchi is just one form of mul­ti­vari­ate test­ing. I’m not a math­e­mati­cian. And Dr. Genichi Taguchi and his work specif­i­cally relate to the man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­try, which was later proven ben­e­fi­cial in the car industry.

Not direct mar­ket­ing. (At least, not at first.)

Dr. Taguchi’s for­mula was only recently extrap­o­lated to the areas of direct mar­ket­ing, adver­tis­ing, and now Inter­net mar­ket­ing, and has become the basis behind mul­ti­vari­ate test­ing and the pop­u­lar­iza­tion of mul­ti­vari­ate test­ing as a whole.

More often than not, the name “Taguchi” is a buzz­word often bandied about, even by peo­ple who’s mul­ti­vari­ate tests do not use Taguchi’s method specif­i­cally. The for­mula is rather com­plex, and I’ll leave it to those more capa­ble than me to explain it to you.

But in this arti­cle, let me explain the basics of mul­ti­vari­ate test­ing, using layman’s terms and as best as I can. I hope not to lose you along the way. Fin­gers crossed.

What mul­ti­vari­ate test­ing is, is this…

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The other day, one of my read­ers asked me the fol­low­ing ques­tion, which I found rather inter­est­ing: “Why should the author of a prod­uct be included in their sales copy?”

Seems like a pretty redun­dant ques­tion, right? Espe­cially to any vet­eran copy­writer or mar­keter worth their salt.

But the ques­tion didn’t stop there. The reader offered the fol­low­ing insight, which explains why this issue was such an impor­tant one to him, and why I felt com­pelled to answer:

“Specif­i­cally, why do my read­ers need to know who I am or what I bring to the table? How does telling them my qual­i­fi­ca­tions increase the strength of my copy? My prod­uct solves a med­ical con­di­tion. But I am not a doc­tor and I have never had this con­di­tion myself. I’ve spent a year research­ing the best method to cure this con­di­tion. I have a list of 20,000 peo­ple with this con­di­tion and con­verse with them a lot. I know pretty much every­thing there is to know about this con­di­tion and have made it into an ebook.”

The answer is quite sim­ple, actu­ally. In fact, in his attempt to defend him­self (i.e., that he’s not a doc­tor but has lots of expe­ri­ence and spe­cial­ized knowl­edge about his mar­ket), the reader answered his own ques­tion. Let me explain…

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When writ­ing direct response copy, a few things can max­i­mize the respon­sive­ness of your mes­sage. The first and most impor­tant ele­ment that can turn any web­site, saleslet­ter, or adver­tise­ment into an action-​​generating mech­a­nism is, with­out ques­tion, the head­line.

But lately, I’m see­ing more and more head­lines that are limp, bloated, or sim­ply dead wrong.

A head­line is meant to do two vital things.

No more and no less. First, it needs to grab your reader’s atten­tion. That’s the pri­mary and most impor­tant job of the head­line. It’s not meant to sum­ma­rize an offer or be a para­graph in and of itself. It’s not meant to make a sale, either.

You know what I’m talk­ing about, right? Head­lines like these make me twitch…

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