Want Better Copy? Go On A Quest!

Writ­ing copy usu­ally involves two major things: fig­ur­ing out what to say and then how to say it.

The sec­ond part is usu­ally the eas­i­est part of my work. Why? Because fig­ur­ing out what to say is often a whole lot harder than how to say it.

Find­ing the right thing to say requires a lot of research, cre­ativ­ity, time, and, of course, “sales detec­tive work,” as my friend and top copy­writer John Carl­ton calls it.

But when I know what to write, when I fig­ured out what I’m going to say, the ques­tion I’m often asked is, “Do you start with the head­line, or do you work the head­line last?”

Let me share with you a for­mula I use. First, when I write new copy, I tend to start with the copy itself, then cre­ate the head­line and head­ers (some peo­ple call them “subheads”).

With exist­ing copy how­ever, it’s the other way around: I start with a bet­ter head­line — after read­ing the copy and ques­tion­naire replies from my clients — and then the rest.

Why? Because…

Some­times (in fact, a lot of times), my client’s copy is already pretty good. The cul­prit behind a poor response, and this is true almost 9 times out of 10 in my esti­ma­tion, is a poor head­line. And it’s often the one ele­ment I test the most, too.

The head­line is the piv­otal ele­ment in copy upon which the suc­cess of your copy will hinge. If peo­ple are not inter­ested enough in read­ing the copy fur­ther after read­ing the head­line, they will leave with­out read­ing any more — regard­less of how good the copy is, how great the prod­uct is, and how per­fect the offer is for their situation.

So I tend to try to find a good hook for the headline.

After a lit­tle bit of detec­tive work, usu­ally by going through some of the answers my client gives me after fill­ing out my pre­lim­i­nary ques­tion­naire, this usu­ally comes to me after tin­ker­ing with the head­line a bit, some­times writ­ing sev­eral of them down.

(Or I rewrite it sev­eral times until I come up with the one I think will pull best. You’ve prob­a­bly seen me do this on my cri­tique videos at The​Copy​Doc​tor​.com as an exam­ple. In it, check out the brief 15-​​minute video sam­ple where I recon­struct a headline.)

Head­ers are usu­ally parts of the copy — either pulled from the copy where they make sense, cre­ate curios­ity, and force the reader to stop scan­ning and start reading.

With new copy, I usu­ally start with an out­line, but I really don’t write the actual head­ers. I often start with the con­cept or idea I want to intro­duce in spe­cific sec­tions of the let­ter, but then write copy and use head­ers at that point, all based on the flow of ideas.

Here’s how I do it. Most of my saleslet­ters focus on five core com­po­nents. What I usu­ally do when I write or rewrite copy is fol­low this for­mat. Call it my “5-​​step guide,” if you will.

It’s sort of my own take on the AIDA for­mula — well, it actu­ally com­ple­ments it, as I still fol­low AIDA. I’m sure you’ve heard of the AIDA for­mula: you grab their Atten­tion, arouse their Inter­est, build their Desire, and then ask for some kind of Action.

My for­mula is this: I call it going on a “QUEST.”

1. Qual­ify
2. Under­stand
3. Educate
4. Stim­u­late
5. Tran­si­tion

It’s like tra­vers­ing a moun­tain, so to speak, when you start climb­ing the moun­tain on one side, reach the sum­mit, and start climb­ing back down on the other side. And just like climb­ing a moun­tain, the incline is where much of the hard work is done.

Almost all my saleslet­ters take on this quality.

Here’s what “QUEST” means:

Q = Qualify

You qual­ify the reader and pre­pare her for what’s about to be dis­cussed. And it’s also where you weed out the non-​​prospects, tire-​​kickers, time-​​wasters, etc.

That’s why it’s good to ask ques­tions at the begin­ning or to set the stage by giv­ing a sce­nario they can imme­di­ately relate to, such as by talk­ing about how ter­ri­ble things are with “this” or “that” prob­lem, or how nice it would be to solve “this” or “that” problem.

You also try to denom­i­nate who usu­ally has this prob­lem, who this solu­tion is for, and/​or who it is not for. You can do this out­right, but I often incor­po­rate this into a story.

The aim is not only to cre­ate aware­ness, but also to qual­ify the reader, and more impor­tantly rein­force how qual­i­fied the reader truly is, in their mind, for the offer.

This is espe­cially true where there’s a bit of an edu­ca­tion involved — where the prospect doesn’t really know or is not fully aware there is a prob­lem in the first place. The prob­lem may be in the back of their minds, but my job is to bring it to the top.

In fact, this is why the next part is cru­cial and flows from the first.

Because, the next step is to…

U = Understand

After qual­i­fy­ing the reader, you express how much you under­stand her. You do this by reach­ing out to them, con­nect­ing with them, sym­pa­thiz­ing and empathiz­ing with them.

To this end, you expand on the prob­lem. You agi­tate their pain. You not only get the reader to iden­tify them­selves with you, but also mag­nify the prob­lem by mak­ing it more real and vivid in their minds. You “add salt on the wounds,” so to speak.

In other words, you share their pain or in their pain, and you tell them how much more painful it is either because there is no solu­tion out there, or because other solu­tions, even com­pet­ing or pre­vi­ous solu­tions, are not as good for what­ever reasons.

It’s where you bring the prob­lem to the top of their minds — and it’s why, once you’ve reached to the top “of the moun­tain,” it becomes an easy down­hill trek afterwards.

You can also use this sec­tion to tickle their curios­ity about a poten­tial solu­tion, and insert spe­cific ben­e­fits other solu­tions don’t have but with­out fully dis­clos­ing “your” solu­tion yet — i.e., a unique sell­ing point, supe­rior nice-​​to-​​have ben­e­fits, some­thing new or dif­fer­ent that will be linked with the offer later on, the story behind the prod­uct, etc.

In fact, if the cre­ator of the prod­uct used to be in the same sit­u­a­tion as the reader, I would include a story behind the prod­uct based on that fact. It’s also a great place to build cred­i­bil­ity and give the reader rea­sons why they should keep reading.

Read­ers iden­tify them­selves with the author. You cre­ate a cer­tain affin­ity with them. They get a sense that “you get them.” They might say to them­selves, “Hey, I felt the same way!” Or, “I cer­tainly don’t want to go through what she went through!”

When you intro­duce the solu­tion later on, you can tie it to all of these. It’s like telling the reader: “Wouldn’t it be great, if…” And later, “Well, there is a solu­tion that, which is…”

And that leads to the next step, which is to…

E = Educate

You edu­cate the reader on the fact that there is a solu­tion. Your solution.

This is where you intro­duce your prod­uct or ser­vice — but not the offer. You expand on the fact that a solu­tion not only exists, but also is unlike and bet­ter than all the oth­ers. Usu­ally it’s in the mid­dle of the copy. It’s “the sum­mit of the sales moun­tain,” if you will.

Also, it’s a great place to add a lead-​​capture form, if you didn’t use the forced opt-​​in or “squeeze page” process. That is, if peo­ple landed imme­di­ately on your saleslet­ter, organ­i­cally, with­out going through a land­ing page with an optin form first.

(Avoid this as much as you can. But if you must, we’ve tested var­i­ous loca­tions for putting an opt-​​in form on a saleslet­ter, and this seems to be the high­est pulling area.)

It’s a great place to build on and empha­size cred­i­bil­ity intro­duced in the “U” por­tion of the for­mula. You should include a lot of proof here, and build on the believ­abil­ity factor.

This includes cre­den­tial­iz­ing the author and why should one lis­ten to her. It’s also a great loca­tion to talk about the fea­tures of your prod­uct or ser­vice, dis­pel any myths, and respond to any objec­tions regard­ing the prod­uct or service.

It’s also the loca­tion where I add visual proof ele­ments, demos, case stud­ies, and tes­ti­mo­ni­als. In fact, I tend not to add any tes­ti­mo­ni­als until I’ve reached this section.

Why? Because they tend to scream “saleslet­ter” and scare peo­ple off. In tests, push­ing tes­ti­mo­ni­als fur­ther down in the copy actu­ally increased response in most cases.

(Of course, this depends at what stage of the buy­ing process the mar­ket is in. If they are vig­or­ously aware of their prob­lem and they’re hurt­ing already, tes­ti­mo­ni­als a lit­tle early won’t hurt. In a few tests, it boosted response significantly.)

Once they’re edu­cated, the next step is to…

S = Stimulate

You stim­u­late the reader on the offer. I guess you can also say that “S” stands for “sell,” too, as this is the loca­tion where the bulk of the sell­ing really takes place.

This where the offer is made and the value buildup really starts. You list and expand on the ben­e­fits. (In “E,” I start to talk about fea­tures and describe the prod­uct. But in here, I talk ben­e­fits, ben­e­fits, ben­e­fits… And I link them to the fea­tures described in “E.”

It’s the place where the offer really starts tak­ing shape. Also, it’s a great loca­tion to add value to the offer, such as offer­ing pre­mi­ums, mak­ing guar­an­tees, and insert­ing value boost­ers, such as adding scarcity and mak­ing apples-​​to-​​oranges comparisons.

Com­par­ing “apples to oranges” means to com­pare the price to the ulti­mate cost (finan­cial or not) of not buy­ing — rather than to the price of some alternative.

In other words, it’s com­par­ing the value of your offer not with the value of a sim­i­lar or com­pet­ing prod­uct but with the value of all pos­si­ble alter­na­tives, includ­ing miss­ing out on the poten­tial ben­e­fits, pecu­niary losses, ulti­mate costs of not using the prod­uct, etc.

Use this sec­tion to link the offer to the rest of the for­mula. That is, you restate some of the prob­lems men­tioned in “Q,” how the solu­tion answers the greater prob­lems talked about in “U,” and how it links to all to the fea­tures and ben­e­fits described in “E.”

After that, you then…

T = Transition

You tran­si­tion the reader from prospect to cus­tomer. It’s the famous “let’s wrap this up” or “call to action” sec­tion. It’s the response device. The close, in other words.

This includes the order area or order form, and it’s where you talk about the price, the offer, the P.S.‘s, addi­tional tes­ti­mo­ni­als (espe­cially results-​​based tes­ti­mo­ni­als). Above all, it’s where you make the reader feel as if they already own the product.

It’s a great place to sum­ma­rize the offer, talk about the guar­an­tee, and per­haps intro­duce new points not dis­cussed to this point to spur action, such as adding an as-​​of-​​yet undis­closed ben­e­fit or bonus — also called “pot sweeteners.”

(I also tend to add a lift­note in this sec­tion, usu­ally a John­son box or a linked pop-​​up win­dow, which says, “Click here if you decided not to order today,” and so on.)

Now, I don’t fol­low this for­mula pre­cisely as I just explained.

QUEST is a guide, not a goal or a rule.

I usu­ally start with QUEST as an out­line first, and use it to cre­ate a skele­ton saleslet­ter. I then refer back to it later. Once the out­line is made, I expand on each point and “go with the flow” of what I think is best for the offer through­out the salesletter.

I also write header (i.e., sub­head) ideas in that out­line, too. But first, I expand on the copy, and if needed, I re-​​arrange ideas around for bet­ter flow. And then, I write the head­ers as I see how they fit in the QUEST for­mula, all keep­ing the fol­low­ing in mind:

1. The header intro­duces a new piece of infor­ma­tion. It’s spe­cific and descrip­tive. It has an ele­ment of intrigue or curios­ity. Best of all, it has an inher­ent ben­e­fit — whether it’s of the offer or one in read­ing what fol­lows. (Usu­ally, it’s the latter.)
2. It helps to intro­duce the fol­low­ing sec­tion. It should read as if the per­son never read the pre­ced­ing copy. It some­what explains it as to not con­fuse and push peo­ple away. (But it doesn’t explain it entirely, as the next point reveals.)
3. More often than not, it also piques their curios­ity in order to force them to stop scan­ning and go back to the begin­ning of the copy — as peo­ple usu­ally scan and read the head­ers when they hit a saleslet­ter for the first time.

The third one is the one I use the most.

My favorite is when the header intro­duces a por­tion of an idea — like a half-​​statement, some­times fol­lowed by an ellipse — or some kind of “news­wor­thy” topic — think of a newspaper’s front-​​page head­lines — that pulls them into the copy.

To con­tinue my mountain-​​climbing anal­ogy, head­ers are like “knots” or “hooks” in the rope, so to speak. Why? Because it forces peo­ple to stop — and ulti­mately pulls read­ers back into the copy (or keeps them read­ing and cling­ing through­out the copy).

Finally, don’t force your­self to fol­low the QUEST for­mula “to the let­ter.” Just as I do, use it as a guide to help you in cre­at­ing the copy and ensur­ing it has a proper flow.

Just like there are dif­fer­ent moun­tains of dif­fer­ent shapes and sizes, there are dif­fer­ent mar­kets with dif­fer­ent lev­els of aware­ness. There­fore, each climb should also be dif­fer­ent. And the view is dif­fer­ent at every van­tage point along the way.

But keep this in mind. Climb­ing any moun­tain has three com­mon things: the ascent, the sum­mit, and the descent. You copy should flow in the same way: pull them in, prove your case, and push them to act. I call these the “3 P’s.” But, that’s for another day…

About the Author

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