copywriting tips

Guest Post By Michel Fortin
“What am I supposed to do?”
You may not know it but that’s a question your readers, visitors and prospects may be asking right now. And it’s also one you need to avoid at all costs, or else it will cost you in wasted traffic and sales. In other words, if people [...]

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Guest Post by Michel Fortin
Most of the copy people ask me to rewrite seem to offer great products and services. In fact, some of their offers are so good, prospects would be crazy to turn them down. But they do. And these sales pieces end up falling in my lap because they’re desperately unproductive.
One of [...]

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Guest Post By Michel Fortin
Writing copy is usually the easiest part of my work. But figuring out what to say is often a whole lot harder than knowing how to say it. That requires a lot of research, creativity and, of course, “sales detective work,” as my friend John Carlton calls it.
But when I know [...]

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Guest Post By Michel Fortin
I do believe what Dan Kennedy says, when he says clunky copy outsells clean copy. But not all the time. And recently, a university study proves this point.
People have a tendency to forge not only a lasting opinion based on first impressions but also a blanket opinion that pervades all other [...]

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Guest Post By Michel Fortin
An interesting discussion is going on in one of my favorite online forums, The Warriors Forum, about short copy winning over long copy. And the author of the thread cited a study he conducted, where he proved that shorter copy won over long copy.
Some people are screaming “heresy!” Others agreed.
Personally, I [...]

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Guest Post by Michel Fortin
Some people like hypey copy, while others prefer newsy copy. Some people like long, others prefer short. Some people drama, stories and testimonials… Others data, statistics and facts.
Does it all matter? Absolutely.
What makes one style of copy more favorable than another? Why does one person buy from one [...]

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Guest Post By Michel Fortin
A forum post on my copywriters board suggested that too many italics, bolds, underlines, yellow highlighting and the like are not good. One referred to them as “speed bumps,” which reduce usability and readability.
I don’t necessarily agree with this premise.
First, understand that formatting tricks help to drive important points home, or [...]

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Guest Post By Michel Fortin

When writing direct response copy, there are a few things that can maximize the responsiveness of your message. The first and most important element that can turn any website, salesletter or advertisement into an action-generating mechanism is, without question, the headline.

But lately, I’m seeing more and more headlines that are limp, [...]

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Guest Post By Michel Fortin
When I write copy, some tools help me tremendously. Whether it’s the copy itself, or interactions with my clients, there are certain websites I use that help make it a lot easier for me.
There are quite a few pieces of software, so let me just stick with the web-based ones. How [...]

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