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12. Trying to Do Too Much
You are not going to sell a house with a post card. But you may get someone to raise their hand and say I want to find out more about that house with a post card.
You should also try to do one thing and only one thing. If you want them to call you, everything should lead to them calling you. If you want them to send back a post card to get the free DVD, everything should be about getting the DVD.
Tip: Determine what you want to accomplish and be sure everything in the letter supports that one thing.
13. No Double Readership Path and Poor Cosmetics
There are two types of ‘readers’ who will read your sales letters, post cards, print ads, etc. - skimmers and readers. If your headline does its job (see rule #1), then the readers will read every word that write. Skimmers, will NOT. You want skimmers to be able to make a buying decision by just reading:
• The Headline
• Subheads
• Captions
• Order instructions
• P.S.
While they may not make the buying decision based on the 5 bullet points above, if you’ve told your story well enough with your headline, subheads, captions, order instructions and P.S. they will often go back and read the entire letter.
With that said, we can enhance the sections above, and our copy with cosmetics.
Cosmetics can be bolds, underlines, italics, CAPITALIZATION, a different font, SIZE, Colors, etc.
Cosmetics enhancements are used to increase readership among skimmers and help readers follow along. Cosmetics are used to cover key points and they make long copy seem shorter to the reader, and thus increase readership.
Tip: After you’ve written your sales letter, go through and use cosmetics to enhance your key points. The key points being your offer, reason why, guarantee(s), testimonial(s), deadline, and call to action. Then, have someone read just your headline, subheads, captions and cosmetic enhancements. If they can repeat your entire story just reading those areas, you’ve got yourself a double readership path with great cosmetics!
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