{"id":32,"date":"2006-10-12T18:03:57","date_gmt":"2006-10-12T23:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/?p=33"},"modified":"2006-10-12T18:03:57","modified_gmt":"2006-10-12T23:03:57","slug":"when-killer-copywriting-can-actually-kill-your-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/when-killer-copywriting-can-actually-kill-your-sales\/","title":{"rendered":"When “Killer” Copywriting Can Actually Kill Your Sales"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the most-quoted copywriting phrases in the world is, “sometimes people will buy your products because of just one bullet.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

And that’s true.<\/p>\n

People really will read an ad that’s 5, 10, 15 pages or more… but whip out their wallet simply because of a bullet point<\/a><\/strong> buried somewhere on page 8.<\/p>\n

However, there is also another side of the bullets story where bullet points can actually hurt your sales.<\/p>\n

Let me give you a “real life” example.<\/p>\n

A few years back I wrote an ad that was long (one of my copywriter friends even said, “What is this the Declaration of Independence!”), copy intensive and had something like 60 or 70 bullet points.<\/p>\n

I was dang proud of that ad.<\/p>\n

And when I finished it, I sat back, laced my fingers behind my head and congratulated myself on a job well done.<\/p>\n

Until that same copywriter friend of mine above gave me his feedback.<\/p>\n

“Ummm Ben…”<\/em> he said.<\/p>\n

“Pretty awesome, isn’t it?”<\/em> I boasted.<\/p>\n

“Yeah, this is great except… with this market… nobody’s going to care about any of the stuff in your 14 pages of bullets.”<\/em><\/p>\n

I was floored.<\/p>\n

Here was a guy who gets paid something like $25,000 to write a single sales letter — making his opinion worth its weight in gold — telling me all those wonderful bullets I’d written were worthless.<\/p>\n

And as much as I hated to admit it… he was right.<\/p>\n

You see, this was an ad showing people how to buy large, multi-million dollar businesses, without needing any money, credit, banks or prior experience.<\/p>\n

And while the benefit of this is universally desired… the details of how this is done is foreign to most people.<\/p>\n

Especially the people we were targeting.<\/p>\n

To see what I’m talking about, here are a few of the bullets:<\/p>\n