Copywriting - the magic of the message

When someone responds to your ad or your sales letter, they're not buying the product, they're buying the description of the product contained in the words on the page.

Therefore, it's not the more desirable or superior product that sells, it's the more desirable words.

So, how do you make your sales message more appealing?

Firstly, forget about "creativity", "imagination" and "humour". A good sales message is a good sales message. Or, to put it another way, it's "salesmanship in print".

Secondly, there are a number of approaches to writing a sales message which have been proven, in test after test, to be the most effective.

Good direct response copywriters have studied these and use them to boost the response of the salesletters, ads and web pages they write.

Case Study #1: one of my clients has an e-commerce website (i.e. an online shop). I made a simple change to his product page and tested my version against his in what's called a "split test" (half the visitors saw his page, half saw mine and we tracked the sales for each page). 

The result? A 28.9% increase in sales. 

If you want to check this for yourself, you can see a screenshot of the test results from Google's testing software if you click here.     

Case Study #2: a property website that had never had a single enquiry from over 1,000 unique visitors. Within 2 days of my changes being made, they got their first ever online enquiry.

Here's what the owner said:

“Thank you Steve for the excellent and professional service in the re-writing of my website. Most importantly, it’s already making a difference to the number of visitors contacting me after reading. More enquiries mean more profits! Thanks.”

Sandy Hristov www.bnbt.co.uk

I don't know if I can get similar results for you, but here's my suggestion:

If you've got a sales piece - and that means an ad, sales letter, flyer, email, website - that you believe could be made more profitable, email me and I'll have a look at it.  

If I believe it can be improved, I'll tell you why and I'll quote you a price for re-writing it.   

(and, if I think it's fine as it is, I'll tell you so)

So, just email me at steve@stevegibsonconsulting.co.uk with "copywriting review" in the heading and I'll get back to you within a couple of days.

Steve Gibson