A High-School Dropout’s Guide to Effective Punctuation
How Those Lowly Dots & Doodles,
Scrawls & Squiggles
Can Ramp Up Your Response
Dear Business Builder,
If you’ve been reading The Total Package for any significant amount of time, you’re keenly aware of three of the most important Copywriting Commandments we teach:
- Write to prospects using the language they use every day: Using the same colloquial words, phrases, sentence structure, jargon and figures of speech your prospect uses helps you communicate faster. And because it also helps him see you as a “regular guy” just like he is, it also boosts the credibility of your sales message.
- Never make your prospect work to understand your meaning: Having to read a sentence or paragraph twice to figure out what it says is work. Every confusing chunk of copy costs you readership and response points.
- Always make sure your sales copy triggers your prospect’s most actionable emotions: In direct response, a delayed sale is a lost sale. The last thing you want your prospect to do is “think” about your offer or to “shop” your price. Since the vast majority of purchases are made to satisfy an emotional need, your sales copy must trigger the actionable emotions required to move your prospect to immediate action.
Now, we’ve written reams on the strategy and tactics of writing colloquially … making copy clear and precise … and on techniques for triggering prospects’ emotions. But in two years, not a whisper on how the punctuation you use can help you accomplish all that.
And that’s a shame — because I’d be willing to bet that I could take a strong control and cut response by 50% or more just by balling up the punctuation.
And if that’s true, the converse is also true: Improving the use of punctuation in your sales copy could help you keep prospects reading, better activate their motivating emotions and ultimately, put extra dollars into your pocket.
Fact is, punctuation can totally change the meaning of a sentence…
A woman, without her man, is nothing.
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
I like to think both sentences above were written by the same guy; the first when he was bachelor; the second, after years of being happily married.
Notice that although these two sentences use the exact same words, they mean two completely opposite things.
That, my friend, is the power of punctuation.
So let’s take a quick look at the lowly dots, doodles, scrawls and squiggles that comprise your punctuation arsenal and see if we can’t find ways to make them work harder for you …
Right off the bat, we’re going to throw the rulebook out the window.
Why? Because I hate rules.
Besides: I’m a high-school dropout — remember? I’m not sure I even know the rules.
So instead of thinking about what some dead guy once wrote about proper punctuation usage, we’re going to ask ourselves, “How can I use punctuation to make my copy feel more colloquial … read faster and easier … and trigger more actionable emotions?
A High School Dropout’s Guide
to Effective Punctuation
Periods: They end most sentences.
Periods say, “What I just said is a fact. It’s not a question. And it’s sure as heck not an exclamation!”
They also say “Stop!” And since I do NOT want my prospect to stop reading after he’s seen my headline, deck copy or subhead, I use them only when finishing a sentence down in the body copy.
Periods come in plenty handy when I need to grab my prospect’s attention with a flat understatement of fact I’m pretty sure he’ll agree with — like:
“You should be getting richer quicker.”
… Or, when I need to deliver a fact my prospect may or may not be aware of:
“In 2006, U.S. stocks were up 13.6%. Chinese stocks jumped 131% — nearly ten times more.
… Or when I want to create a drumbeat:
Plus, Vietnamese stocks soared 144.5%.
And Peru’s stock market skyrocketed 168.3%.
… Or when I want to intrigue him with a tantalizing proposition:
“The fact is, if you’re investing exclusively in U.S. stocks, you’re leaving 90% of your profit potential on the table.”
Question marks: I figure question marks look like little upside-down fishhooks for a reason. When used wisely, they’re a great way to hook the reader into reading what follows.
Now, some folks will tell you that beginning your copy with a question is bad form. After all — any question you ask could be answered in a way that is not helpful to your objectives as a copywriter.
But not necessarily. A few years ago, Barron’s ran an extremely successful ad campaign under the headline, “Are you rich enough yet?” I sincerely doubt a single soul answered that question in the negative.
Recently, Health & Healing sold a boatload of subscriptions under the headline, “Is there anyone left we can trust?”
Of course, it really wasn’t a question at all. It was a proposition. It said, “Boy — there sure are a lot scoundrels offering health advice today, aren’t there? I don’t trust them — do you? Who can we trust?”
In short, that brilliant headline created instant bonding and credibility by placing the spokesperson in the same boat with his prospects. And then it answered the question by presenting its editor’s credentials.
Still, I try to be careful with how I use question marks. Like a good lawyer, I avoid asking questions when I don’t already know the answer.
Like when I’m using a particularly powerful persuasion device called “Socratic Reasoning.” That’s where I ask a series of questions, the obvious answers to which inevitably lead my prospect to the desired conclusion.
If you really think drug companies are in business to make you healthy, just ask yourself, “If prescription drugs make people healthier …
“Why is there more heart disease in America than there was ten years ago?
“Why are cancer rates skyrocketing?
“Why is there an epidemic of diabetes, arthritis and other degenerative diseases today?”
Now, let me ask you: If you were the chairman of a big drug company … if your only responsibility was to make your shareholders richer … wouldn’t you want MORE people to get sick — not less?
… Or when I want to quickly answer a question my reader is probably asking himself about my proposition:
Why don’t doctors, surgeons, hospitals, drug companies — or anyone else in the mainstream medical industry tell you this?
Why wouldn’t they want you to know about natural supplements that are clinically proven to work better than drugs — and without the high cost and miserable side effects?
Simple: Because when you prevent disease or heal yourself naturally, they don’t make a red cent!
Exclamation points: Most copy I see today has ‘way too many of ‘em.
See, there’s a simple rule that goes, “When everything’s emphasized, nothing is emphasized.” So reserving exclamation points for places in the copy where they’ll do you the most good is an excellent idea.
One of the worst uses of exclamation points is when a copywriter adds one to a pathetically weak headline or subhead – like:
Why You Have Arthritis!
He might as well have added, “I know that headline is stinking up the room — but I’m betting you’re not too bright so you probably won’t notice if I add a slammer after it.”
Commas: When you really, really want to slow the reader down, you insert lots of these little squiggles in your copy.
To readers, commas say, “Take a breath chill out pause slow down.”
To a savvy copywriter, they can also say — “Hey, numb nuts! You wrote this sentence upside down!
To wit:
Eager to come up with a quick example, Clayton wrote this sentence upside down.
NOBODY talks like that! Not you and certainly not your prospect. Any normal human being would say it like this:
Clayton wrote that sentence upside down because he was eager to come up with a quick example.
So to give your copy momentum: Scan your copy for every comma. Ask yourself, “Why did I need that little bugger right there? Is there a way to rewrite that sentence so the comma is unnecessary?”
Colons: They point at things. They say, “Hey, look at this!”
Em dashes — the long dashes before and after this phrase — do the same thing.
I use colons and em dashes a lot because I often want my prospect to pay special attention to certain things in my copy.
Example:
It’s true: For every $1 S&P investors earned, Botswana’s major stock index would have paid you an astonishing $5.68!
Nobody in his right mind should settle for the meager returns — and larger risks — in the S&P, the Dow, NASDAQ or any other U.S. stock market index.
I even combine colons and em dashes sometimes — as in …
FATAL ERROR #1 — Using Two Colons In The Same Sentence: Ipsum colorum …
See, I could have said …
FATAL ERROR #1: Using Two Colons In The Same Sentence: Ipsum colorum …
But using two colons in a sentence telling you not to use two colons in the same sentence would have been dumb. Right? So I combined them and it worked out just fine.
Ellipses: They also point to things plus, they connect things — like
- If you had invested in Spain’s IBEX 35 Index instead of the S&P 500, you would have done more than TWO TIMES BETTER — with a 31.8% gain
- Mexico’s Bolsa Index could have made you more than THREE TIMES MORE MONEY — with a 48.6% gain and
- Russia’s RTS Index would have made you nearly FIVE TIMES RICHER than the S&P 500 — with a 71% gain.
And I also like to use ellipses to separate important facts in a longer paragraph – like
Household income is rising four times faster in Australia, Mexico and Brazil … five times faster in Cambodia … six times faster in Thailand … seven times faster in India … nearly eight times faster in Vietnam … and a whopping 11 times faster in China!
And ellipses also come in plenty handy when I have a really long paragraph and need to break it up to make the page look more inviting …
In Malaysia, stocks rose 21.8% in Sweden, they jumped 19.51% in Poland, they leapt 41.6% in India, they soared 46.7% in the Philippines, they jetted 42.3% higher in Bulgaria, they flew 48.3% higher in Indonesia, they skyrocketed 55.3%
and across South America, stock markets are positively exploding — by 37% 156% up to 168% in a single year — beating the S&P by a mind-blowing 13 to ONE.
And I’ll even combine ellipses with colons and/or em dashes to point at something:
There’s more: This may surprise you — but in fact, an investment in …
- Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index would have made you 45.7% richer than the S&P could have
- Germany’s DAX Index would have made you 68.3% richer and
- Singapore’s Straits Times Index would have made you 108.27% richer.
Apostrophes: They drive me crazy. For my true feeling’s on these little devil’s, click here.
Semicolons: These are the namby-pamby, mealy-mouthed Wally Coxes of the punctuation world. All the other punctuation symbols laugh at them behind their backs.
They’re for when you can’t decide whether to use a comma or a colon – so just to be sure, you use both.
Since I do my best to expunge every unnecessary comma from my copy — and since I love using colons to point to stuff — I hardly ever use ‘em.
Quotation marks: You know the rules. Put quotes (“_”) around quotations.
If your quotation is several paragraphs long, put the quote marks only at the beginning of each new paragraph, and then at the end of the final paragraph.
If you’ve got a quotation inside a quotation, it should have single quote marks (‘_’) around it.
Using quotation marks around a word in an effort to add “emphasis” to it is bush league.
Beyond Punctuation
By now, it’s probably becoming clear to you that I use punctuation to try to make my copy sound like I want it to sound inside my prospect’s head.
Brilliant deduction, Sherlock!
You’re absolutely right: I want my reader to hear my spokesperson’s voice as he reads my text. I want him to sense my spokesperson’s empathy for his current plight … his passion for helping my prospect to find a better way. And I want him to relate to my spokesperson as he would as if the two of them were eyeball to eyeball.
Put simply, I want my copy to clearly communicate my spokesperson’s emotions regarding the subject at hand and by doing so, introduce my prospect to a three-dimensional spokesperson.
I use italics to emphasize a word or phrase in a mock stage whisper.
Bold characters shout and so do words or phrases in ALL CAPS.
I present the name of my title in all caps, bold, italics so it feels like I’m so proud of it, I could bust.
Get the idea?
Great! Then try this
Take out a piece of copy you’re working on. Read it aloud. Practice using punctuation to give it life.
Hope this helps
Yours for Bigger Winners, More Often,
Clayton Makepeace
Publisher & Editor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE
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4 Comments »
Join the Discussion!
Let us know what you think. Or ask us anything. Or offer your own sage advice.
The only rule: RESPECT THIS HOUSE! Postings that contain abusive language and/or personal attacks will be cheerfully VAPORIZED. One cross word and – POOF! – your well-thought-out post will be gone in a puff of smoke.
– Clayton
Comment by Lou Schuyler — July 2, 2007 @ 10:27 am
Great article.
The part about \’the bachelor and the hapily married man\’…we know who was watching when you wrote that. :grin
Comment by Scott — July 2, 2007 @ 4:17 pm
Don\’t forget -
Can You Write A Letter Like This One?
Worked like HELL on me!
Comment by malcolm — July 6, 2007 @ 10:46 am
Clayton,
Why do you force me to listen to the rest of these people (e.g. subscribe). I am in info overload mode and I just want to hear your wisdom, but because of some faulty decision I have to listen to these other people. Please let me opt in and out individually to your newsletter writers. I am close to even unsubscribe to your earth shattering wisdom just to get rid of the rest.
Comment by Drayton Bird — July 7, 2007 @ 10:58 pm
Great stuff as usual on a sadly ignored subject, Clayton - and so is the crack piece.
But aren\’t you being a bit over subtle with the deliberate apostrophe mistakes? Just a point of view from an old hack.