Ever wondered exactly how to swipe a sales letter? If so, you’ll want to pay close attention. Because in just a moment I’m going to demonstrate HOW to swipe a sales letter.
But first, you should know: While I don’t generally swipe whole ads, you can actually write fairly strong copy by swiping.
When I say swiping, I don’t mean plagiarizing. Plagiarizing is stealing copy word-for-word; swiping is taking similar ideas, concepts, or copy structure from one ad and using them in another.
Some people take the idea of swiping too far. For instance, you would never want to take somebody’s copy and then just replace a few words here and there. This is basically plagiarizing.
Of course, it’s easy to create a list of “dos” and “don’ts” without ever fully communicating the right way to swipe a sales letter. With that in mind, I figured I’d actually show you three sales letters for three different products.
- The first one is the famous Wall Street Journal letter.
- The second one is a swipe of the Wall Street Journal letter.
- And the third one is my swipe of the Wall Street Journal letter.
Each of these letters uses the same structure and some of the same selling arguments to make their case. Take a look…
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Learning how to write bullets may be one of the most important copywriting skills you ever learn. This is because bullets often do all the “heavy lifting” in a sales letter. They’re the words that penetrate your buyer’s natural buying defenses. They’re the words that sell.
I’ve heard many direct marketing experts explain the importance of bullets this way: “You want to write as many hard-hitting bullets as you can because sometimes just one bullet will persuade somebody to buy.”
I know this is true… because I’ve experienced it myself. I remember reading a sales letter for a Nightingale-Conant product. The letter was probably 80% bullets. As I read through those bullets, one or two of them really hit me. The bullets addressed something I really wanted to learn.
Then, as I kept reading, I began to think, “How could I not buy this product??” This is the best possible response you could ever hope for: When your prospect can’t imagine life without your product. He has to have it.
With that in mind, here are my methods for bullet writing. What I share here is not necessarily “the right way.” It’s one way. It’s the way I do it. So here it goes…
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Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins is one of my favorite copywriting books of all time. I’ve read it straight through three times, and I’ve quoted it many times besides.
I’m not sure what it is about the book that appeals to me so much. Maybe it’s the simplicity of the lessons. Or maybe it’s the slightly old-fashioned language. Or maybe it’s just the timelessness of the principles Hopkins outlines. Whatever it is, I love this book!
Here’s what I did: I actually recorded the entire book, chapter by chapter, using the mic that plugs into my computer. I then uploaded each chapter to Audio Acrobat. You can download all 21 MP3 files… or you can stream them over your computer.
Since each of the 21 chapters is 10 minutes or less, you can literally listen to the whole book in 21 days by listening for less than 10 minutes a day. Enjoy!
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Two months ago I created a video showing you how to set up a split-test using Google’s Website Optimizer.
I used my own opt-in page for the test — and I actually didn’t know which variation was going to win. Well, now I know.
In fact, one version absolutely killed the other version. I don’t use the term “killed” lightly. The winning page one by almost double.
I recorded a new 6-minute video for you. In this video I reveal the winning page, plus a few thoughts as to why the winning version won.
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For any piece of copy to successfully generate a sale, it must do a few critical things. One of these things is overcoming objections.
Many times your prospect will actually want what you have — and want it badly — but he will not buy it. Why? Usually it’s because of an objection he has that has not been sufficiently addressed in your copy.
So as you write, think about all the objections your prospect might have. Then try to seamlessly overcome those objections in your copy.
With that in mind, here are a few methods for identifying and overcoming objections in sales copy…
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