50 Principles of Powerful Copywriting – Kenneth Turnbull
- Write with passion
- Write your ad to one person
- Appeal to your prospect’s pre-existing beliefs
- Don’t try to educate the prospect into buying
- Be entertaining
- Don’t be boring
- Write intriguing headlines
- Make the claim in your headline instantly believable
- Or use a hard-to-believe claim in your headline… but immediately back it up with overwhelming proof
- Tighten up your headline until you can’t remove another word, without changing the meaning
- Write from a place of abundance (It doesn’t matter whether the prospect buys or not, either way, you’re eating steak)
- Don’t use a complicated word when a simple word will do
- Keep your opening sentence short and punchy
- Make your opening sentence intriguing
- Whenever you use a pronoun, make sure it’s clear as day who the pronoun is referring to
- Vary sentence lengths
- Vary paragraph lengths
- Keep your copy below an eighth-grade reading level
- Ensure your copy flows smoothly between sentences
- Present one idea per sentence
- Write in the active voice
- Structure your copy in a persuasive order
- Don’t abruptly change the topic between sentences
- Agitate your prospect’s current pains
- Paint vivid word-pictures of your prospect’s desires coming true
- Back up every claim you make with proof and credibility
- Anticipate your prospect’s possible objections and answer them in the copy
- Every word of copy must earn its place – if it doesn’t help your sales case, delete it
- Include at least one strong call-to-action
- Grease the slide, so each sentence makes you want to read the next one
- Follow the rule of one (one big idea, one problem, one solution, one offer)
- Keep your writing pithy. Don’t say in 100 words what can be said in 50.
- Write in the 2nd person whenever you can.
- Be your prospect’s trusted advisor
- Admit any flaws about the product
- Weave social proof into your copy
- Be careful not to use negative social proof
- Offer a strong guarantee
- Tell folks why they may not qualify to buy from you
- Fill your copy with both emotion AND logic
- Use the word “you” often in your copy
- Write the first draft with gusto, then edit ruthlessly
- Sell by telling stories
- Show your prospect how they can move towards pleasure or away from pain
- Write copy that targets the conversation already going on in your prospect’s mind
- Don’t just list features – talk about their benefits
- Show, don’t tell
- Avoid superlatives
- Write copy that’s worth reading
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