notes from yesterday's call

Yesterday I had a Copy Review Call with one of my clients.

I wrote an email sequence for his upcoming course launch. And he's writing the copy for the sales page.

On the call, we reviewed the sales page copy he's working on.

Afterwards, I sent him an email with notes about what we discussed on the call, as well as a recording of the call itself.

There are 2 notes I mentioned in the email that I wanted to share with you. They're basic copywriting tips that are pretty much guaranteed to improve your writing.

Here they are:

1. "Be more specific wherever possible, both with the benefits and the pain points (Take things 'from the clouds to the streets')"

In copy, specificity always wins.

"A blue bowl overflowing with Cocoa Puffs" is always going to be more interesting than...

"A bowl of cereal."

In the same way, being specific with the pain points of your audience and the benefits of your product is going to lead to better sales copy.

Why?

Being specific about the pain points demonstrates to readers that you understand what they're going through...

And being specific with the benefits of your product demonstrates that it actually works.

For example:

"Boost your reading speed by 7.5x in just 11 minutes" is stronger than...

"Learn to read faster."

I believe Ramit Sethi calls this "going from the clouds to the streets."

2. "Clarity always beats cleverness"

I should have added a caveat to this one:

"In sales copy clarity always beats cleverness."

There are times when you may want to choose cleverness over clarity. But that's generally in creative writing or creative copywriting.

When it comes to sales copy, though...

You'll make more sales by focusing on being as clear as possible, rather than being clever.