Anatomy of Sales Copy

Effective Sales Copy Speaks in Terms of the Customer

Your company is fantastic, innovative, and cutting edge. The founders are revolutionary thinkers, brilliant, and value customer service. You service is fast, accurate, and reliable. Excellent. But what’s in it for me?

Effective sales copy focuses entirely on how your product will bring value to the customer. If your service is accurate, how does that directly benefit the consumer? The simpler it is for the reader to associate your features with their needs, the more effective the copy.

Boring:

Our handheld device gives you instant, accurate results.

Bold!

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Powerful Sales Copy Uses Action Verbs and Present Tense

Exciting, energetic people draw a crowd. The underlying tone of your writing leads potential clients to draw conlusions about how you might respond to their needs. When your text that exudes a sense of action and confidence, they will associate you with the same. Breathe life, excitment, and energy into your sales copy by speaking in the present tense and using attention-grabbing action verbs.

Boring:

The Realtor Team has sold more than 900 homes and has been serving San Diego for 15 years

Bold!

Families choose The Realtor Team time and again to negotiate the best housing deals in San Diego.

Startling Sales Copy Avoids the Passive Voice

Words such as: "is, am, are, was, and were" shirk ownership of actions and lead to dull writing. Bold sales copy attaches ownership to actions.

Boring:

More than 2 billion employee development training videos were purchased in 2005.

Bold!

Companies valuing employee development consumed more than 2 billion training videos in 2005 alone.

Successful Sales Copy Speaks in Terms of Benefits

One of the most common mistakes in sales and sales writing is the tendency to speak in terms of features rather than benefits. A feature is an attitribute of a product or service, such as a sheer fabric or "24-hour customer service." A benefit is the result or perceived result of possessing the feature.

Boring:

This stunning handheld PDA includes an automatic grammar and spell checker.

Bold!

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Start by developing a features and benefits list. Create 2 columns on a piece of paper and title one column “Features” and the other “Benefits.” For every feature you list about your product or service, devise at least one corresponding benefit. Sound simple enough, but this exercise can prove extremely frustrating! Nevertheless, once complete, you have the heart of incredibly effective sales copy.