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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Sci­en­tific Adver­tis­ing by Claude C. Hop­kins is a time­less clas­sic writ­ten many years ago but a book whose pow­er­ful prin­ci­ples still ring true to this day.

It con­tains 21 chap­ters of time­less strate­gies you don’t want to ignore in your adver­tis­ing and mar­ket­ing efforts.

In fact, David Ogilvy once said: “Nobody, at any level, should be allowed to have any­thing to do with adver­tis­ing until he has read this book seven times.”

I highly rec­om­mend that your read this book, which is brought to you free, before you spend any money on other copy­writ­ing books.

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Michel Fortin: If you look at the laws and rules and all that won­der­ful stuff, they do exist for a pur­pose. And I under­stand that. But I also believe in edu­ca­tion because the more you edu­cate peo­ple the more you will change the world rather than forc­ing it to change. So, if you’re going to help out some­body in their own lives you need edu­ca­tion. If you’re going to help out peo­ple to real­ize maybe they are bad peo­ple and they’ve done hurt to oth­ers edu­ca­tion is the answer.

It’s not pros­e­ly­tiz­ing. It’s not try­ing to argue with them. It’s just teach­ing them and teach­ing them until they’re ready to be taught and they’re ready to change. I’ve met a lot of peo­ple who change their lives because they’ve learned and they’ve decided to learn and that’s the key. Edu­ca­tion is prob­a­bly the most pro­found answer I can give to that ques­tion. It’s just education.

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A mem­ber once asked a ques­tion about the legal­ity of using an alias or pseu­do­nym in copy.

That is, is it legal to write the copy in the voice of a fic­ti­tious char­ac­ter, or telling the story of a fic­ti­tious char­ac­ter enjoy­ing the ben­e­fits of your offer?

Using an alias in busi­ness is a com­mon prac­tice. How­ever, if you’re con­sid­er­ing using an alias or already are using an alias, there are a few things to know to keep your head above water with the law.

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A recently under­stood seg­ment of mar­ket­ing is the immense power behind the prod­uct cat­e­gory. Often, many busi­nesses build their entire mar­ket­ing strat­egy around a par­tic­u­lar brand and its bet­ter qual­i­ties within a cur­rently known prod­uct cat­e­gory, only to have it all go down the drain in the end.

Remem­ber the “New Coke”? In the 80’s, Pepsi con­ducted taste tests called “The Pepsi Chal­lenge.” Coke, on the side­lines, also heard from their own research that a newer, bet­ter tast­ing brand would beat Pepsi.

Only 77 days later, accord­ing to Coke’s for­mer mar­ket­ing vice-​​president Ser­gio Zyman in his book “The End of Mar­ket­ing As We Know It,” not only were they forced to rein­tro­duce the older ver­sion as “Clas­sic Coke” but they also had to even­tu­ally wipe the New Coke out. Bet­ter is not always bet­ter.

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