Posted by:
Michel Fortin
August 10, 2010
Issue #985
Dear Business-Builder,
In a recent critique for a coaching client, the issue of "Gap Analysis" arose. Gap Analysis is something I learned in sales, and it was heavily taught by sales trainers like Brian Tracy, such as in his course "The Psychology of Selling."
Gap Analysis is an immensely powerful selling technique. It’s also an important feature of copywriting. Most people will know a variation of it, which is often called "Problem-Agitate-Solve," a term coined by top copywriter Dan Kennedy.
I prefer "Gap Analysis" because it drives home the relationship between those three elements. So what is Gap Analysis and how can you apply it to your sales copy?
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Posted by:
Michel Fortin
June 22, 2010
Issue #950
Dear Business-Builder,
Most of the copy people ask me to rewrite seem to offer great products and services. In fact, some offers are so good, prospects would be crazy to turn them down.
But they do.
And these sales pieces end up falling on my lap because they’re desperately unproductive. When clients ask me to critique or rewrite copy, one of the biggest problems I see is the fact that the copy is stale, limp, and anemic.
Copy so downright dull, the only response it gets are yawns.
You’ve heard the adage, "copywriting is salesmanship in print." This is nothing new. It comes from the ageless teachings of the masters, like Hopkins, Barton, Collier, and others, which still ring true today.
But people tend to forget this axiom. Here’s why …
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Posted by:
Michel Fortin
May 4, 2010
Issue #920
Dear Business-Builder,
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.
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Posted by:
Michel Fortin
March 23, 2010
Issue #890
Dear Business-Builder,
When writing direct response copy, a few things can maximize the responsiveness of your message. The first and most important element that can turn any Website, sales letter, or advertisement into an action-generating mechanism is, without question, the headline.
But lately, I’m seeing more and more headlines that are limp, bloated, or simply dead wrong.
A headline is meant to do two vital things.
No more and no less. First, it needs to grab your reader’s attention. That’s the primary and most important job of the headline. It’s not meant to summarize an offer or be a paragraph in and of itself. It’s not meant to make a sale, either.
You know what I’m talking about, right? Headlines like these make me twitch …
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Posted by:
Michel Fortin
January 12, 2010
Issue #840
A while back, a bunch of copywriters who also blog – like yours truly – shot the breeze on the Nuts and Blogbolts talk radio show.
It was an interesting and, at times, spirited discussion.
After some talk about content and copy (or should I say, writing content versus writing copy), the show’s host, Mike Sansone, asked each panelist if we would individually respond on our blogs to this question:
“Writing for the visitor is more important than writing for the search engines. Can both be met without sacrificing quality?”
Ryan Healy posted his answer on the subject. Good answer. I agree with him, because he makes some great points. But I also disagree as I think there are ways around it.
So I guess my answer is both “yes” and “no.” Here’s why.
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