Hi there,

The other day a good frien*d of mine was driving me down from
Johannesburg to Durban, in South Africa. On the way we were
chatting to break up the boredom and we got to talk about trees.

As we were passing through a vast stretch of open country I
pointed one out to her and said: “Look over there, that tree must
be a few thousand years old, can you imagine the things it has
seen during it’s lifetime?”

“Just imagine the hundreds of tiny birds that have been raised
inside it’s protective branches, all the countless animals that
have sheltered from the sweltering midday sun under it’s
sha*dy crown.

Think of how much food it has provided for the wandering
giraffes, how many people have stopped for a pee against it’s
trunk, how…”

Well something in that last remark really got to her and she
burst into such wild, raucous laughter that the car started to
swerve violently all over the roa*d and…

But that’s not why I’m writing to you, what I want to ask you
is: Do you use stories in your sales letters?

No? Well it’s something you should really consider because
everybody loves a good story and there is no better way to focus
someones attention on your words.

Think of all the top motivational speakers, how do they capture
their audience’s attention? With stories!

So next time you write a sales letter include a personal story or
two – you’ll be surprised at the increased response.

All the best

Stuart.

PS
Grab yourself a free copy of my Copywriting Power Guide and find
out how to turn visitors into buyers.
http://stuartelliottcopywriter.com/Convert.html

This article follows on from my previous one, “Adding Excitement To Your Sales Letter – Part 1″ where I outlined the steps you need to take to really get to know your product, customer and opposition before you write a sales letter for your product.

OK, so now that you know what product you are really selling and who you are selling it to it’s time to start thinking about words and emotional buttons to press to make your prospect excited.

I love to use adjectives and metaphors that create pictures in my prospects mind as he reads my sales letter.

Metaphors especially are such wonderful tools to create a mental picture in someone’s mind, take a very common one for instance:

“Like a Hot Knife Through Butter…”

Immediately your reader sees this phrase he subconsciously imagines himself effortlessly running his knife through the block of butter without any effort at all.

There is no need to explain how easy things are, the mental image created in your prospects mind does this for you, immediately he understands exactly how effortless the process you are describing is.

Warning – it is imperative that you know who your target market is and only use metaphors that they can understand and relate to.

Take the above example for instance, if I were addressing my sales letter to people in China and I hadn’t taken time to research my market I’d be very surprised when I found out that this particular metaphor has no effect on them other than to have them say “What is he talking about?”

You see, butter is not a culinary item in China, most people have never tasted it, heck you can’t even buy it outside of the big cities – I live in Nanning, a city of 2 to 4 million people and there are only two shops where you can buy it!

As a side note you can and should use your words and phrases to qualify your prospect to continue reading further – you only want people who are really interested in your product to purchase it otherwise you could end up with all sorts of complaints and refund requests.

Describing words, or adjectives as the grammar purists would call them, are powerful little words that immediately tell you about something.

For instance if I tell you that I met a girl the other day and… you will probably say “Yeah? So what.”

But if I tell you that I met a girl who was so beautiful she should have been a model on the cover of ‘Vogue’ magazine… Immediately your ears perk up and you listen more attentively.

Why?

Well, firstly I have used an adjective to describe the girl and then supercharged that adjective with the allusion to the fashion model. Not only are you creating a picture in your mind of a beautiful girl you’ve met but you also start to think of glossy magazines and picture all the beautiful girls that you’ve seen on the covers.

You start thinking to yourself “you lucky so and so, I wish I’d met her… ”

You want to find out what happened and you’ll really listen to what I’ve got to say – I’ve created a little bit of excitement in my story.

Another way to add excitement to your sales letter is to allow your passion and feelings for your product to come through into your copy.

I received an email the other day with the title:

“As Important As a Bag Of Cobras Sitting In Your Lap”

This was a brilliant eye catcher and practically forced me to open the email.

Now this headline is about emotion, you’re stirred by the vision of snakes in your lap – How much would you like to have a bag of snakes in your lap? Would it get your full attention? – You bet it would!

But if, I add one more word, a word that refers to emotions, it makes the headline even stronger. See what happens to the headline when I add anger into it”

“As Important As a Bag Of Angry Cobras Sitting In Your Lap”

Oh my god, help me, not only have I got snakes in my lap but they’re mean and angry too… HELP!

Now I’m riveted and have to open the email.

Back to the content of this email, I opened it expecting an interesting, important message and I wasn’t let down.

The writer had just been through a bad experience with a former customer and allowed his passion and feelings to be transferred into his writing. You could feel his pain and emotion as you read his message.

You need to do the same when you write your sales letter, use your passion for your product and whatever emotions it triggers in you to get your message across. Since you know your target market well by now it will be easy to write in a way that they can relate to and understand.

Go on give it a try.

All the best,

Stuart.

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Resource Box

Stuart Elliott is a world-class copywriter who has written numerous articles about sales letters and copywriting. Pick up your free copywriting power guide at
http://howtowritekickbuttcopy.com

“The Best Copywriter On This Planet Is Free… No Hired Gun Has More Passion For Your Product Than You Do”

Article Copyright 2006 Stuart Elliott, All rights reserved. You may only reprint this article in its entirety and you must leave this resource box intact.

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A couple of years ago a policeman in South Africa visited my parents in law’s house to take a statement about a burglary they’d reported on a property they owned.

On arrival at their house the policeman parked his car on the grass outside the lounge window, rang the bell and then moved towards the window to see if there was anyone at home.

Now, as anbody who has ever visited my parents in law’s house can tell you, the one thing you NEVER do when you visit is ring the bell…

You see, they have a Bull Terrier dog who is the most gentle, loving animal in the world… Until she hears that bell!

Well, on this particular day there she was, sprawled flat on her back, legs pointing to the heavens, eyes exploring the inside of her eyelids as she happily slept upon my sister in law’s bed and dreamt about chasing rabbits or whatever it is that dogs dream about.

That was until some @#*$&@! fool decided to disturb her slumber…

Sure enough the sound of the bell was like a hair trigger on a starters pistol and she was off like a hundred yard sprinter with a nest of angry hornets stuffed down the back of his trousers, only madder and meaner!

Now picture this…

The lounge is over thirty metres long and it is another twenty metres or so from the bedroom to the lounge so she had plenty of time to reach warp speed…

Pieter, my father in law, was watching TV at the time and thought “OH NO!” as he heard the bell ring and quickly went outside to warn the stranger.

He’d just got outside and was saying hello to the policeman when the lounge window exploded into a thousand tiny pieces as 25Kg of furious, power packed muscle came to greet the person who’d dared to intrude upon her siesta!

To make matters worse the window is at head height above the ground and this white ball of fury straight from hell, was suddenly hurtling at great speed right towards the face of the policeman – only a metre or so away.

Well I can tell you, there isn’t an Olympic sprinter or high jumper who is faster than that policeman was on that day…

His car was about 10 metres away and he covered that distance and was on the roof of his car before the first piece of glass was halfway to the ground!

Pieter just stood there in speechless amazement as he took in the scene – the glass exploding and the tiny, glinting pieces scattering lazily in the sun, the hurtling white missile and the ‘Olympic Gold Medalist’ making a herculean leap for the safety of his car roof!

Fortunately no one was hurt and Pieter soon had things under control, he helped the policeman to get shakily off of the roof and the dog, now that she’d made her point, was as happy and friendly as ever and trundled merrily off to resume her slumbers.

Before he could get the policeman to write down a statement though, Pieter did have to ply him with copious amounts of whisky to stem the violent shaking of his hands!

And the window? Well shortly after the policeman had left Pieter called the glazing company and had it replaced with armoured glass… Just in case!

All the best,

Stuart.

PS
A story is one of the most powerful ways of capturing your readers attention, use one every time you write a sales letter and you’ll be surprised at the results.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Resource Box

Stuart Elliott is a world-class copywriter who has written numerous articles about sales letters and copywriting. Pick up your free copywriting power guide at
http://howtowritekickbuttcopy.com

“The Best Copywriter On This Planet Is Free… No Hired Gun Has More Passion For Your Product Than You Do”

Article Copyright 2006 Stuart Elliott, All rights reserved. You may only reprint this article in its entirety and you must leave this resource box intact.

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I was asked this question the other day:

“Stuart, How can I add more excitement to my Sales Letter?” and it set me to thinking. You see it’s not quite as straightforward a question as meets the eye.

What did the asker mean by it, what is excitement? A quick look in the dictionary brings up these four definitions:

1. The feeling of lively and cheerful joy
2. The state of being emotionally aroused and worked up
3. Something that agitates and arouses
4. Disturbance usually in protest

Do you really want to bring ‘lively and cheerful joy’ to your sales letter or what about ‘disturbance usually in protest’? No, these two are very difficult to incorporate into your sales strategy, but they hardly add “excitement” in the sense you would think about it.

This leaves you with definitions two and three, which are the states you want to create in your prospects as they read your copy.

One of the classic, and highly effective, ways to persuade a prospect to invest in your product is to highlight his problem and then agitate it so much that he feels the world will end unless he can find a solution to it.

Of course you just “happen” to have the solution to the problem you’ve been agitating all throughout your sales letter and when you present this solution to him your prospect falls upon it like a dog does a bitch in heat.

So the first step towards adding excitement to your sales letter is to learn all there is to know about your prospect. You have to take the time to learn his or her habits, fears, worries hopes and dreams.

You have to be able to put yourself in their shoes as you write your sales letter.

This will enable you to understand the problems or fears that they face on a daily basis and agitate them to the point that a solution is an absolute necessity for continued survival.

Another time honoured way of adding excitement to your sales letter is to use your passion for your product to stir up emotions like desire, want, need and lust for you product inside your prospect’s head.

Here you are using your excitement and enthusiasm for the product to create the desire and interest in your prospect, you show them how excited you are by the product and make them think their lives will be incomplete or that they will miss out somehow if they don’t own your product.

How many times have you seen a brilliant film and been so fired up afterwards that you went and told all your friends that they just “have to” go and see it? What you are doing is using your excitement for the product (film) in a way that your friends would expect to hear from you, and using this excitement to ‘sell’ them the film.

This is what you need to do when you write your sales letter, pretend you are telling your best friend about the fantastic, earth shattering film you saw last night and let your enthusiasm and passion come through into your words.

Of course before you write any sales letters or adverts for a product you need to take the time and find out everything about your product, target market and opposition.

This is a step that most entrepreneurs don’t follow and is really what separates the “men from the boys” so to speak.

If it is at all feasible then you should go out and buy the product that you want to write a sales letter for. If this is not possible then try to loan one for the duration of the project. Unless you’ve used, it touched it, felt it, it’s very difficult to feel any passion for your product and thus write a sales letter that cries from the heart.

Many a person’s made this mistake, they’ve located a great looking product and dived in head first writing their sales letter without knowing all the ins and outs of the product they HOPE to sell.

Don’t join the ranks of these people – the only way you’re likely to head if you do so is down.

In the next part of this article I’ll delve a little deeper into emotional words and triggers that can be used to add excitement to your sales letter.

Stuart

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Resource Box

Stuart Elliott is a world-class copywriter who has written numerous articles about sales letters and copywriting. Pick up your free copywriting power guide at
http://howtowritekickbuttcopy.com

“The Best Copywriter On This Planet Is Free… No Hired Gun Has More Passion For Your Product Than You Do”

Article Copyright 2006 Stuart Elliott, All rights reserved. You may only reprint this article in its entirety and you must leave this resource box intact.

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A few years ago when I was travelling through Africa I was camping with some friends in the Masai Mara game reserve in Kenya.

In case you don’t know, the Masai Mara borders the Serengeti game reserve in Tanzania and is an area of outstanding beauty full of many of the wonderous animals of Africa. It is not constrained by fences or other man made barriers and ‘Boy’ is it a beautiful place!

Well on this particular morning my friends and I were busy preparing breakfast when a troop of Baboons decided to pay us a ‘courtesy’ call.

There were about thirty in the troop including a few big males, these are big and powerful animals with canine teeth that are bigger than a lion’s, so they can be quite dangerous if roused.

They were all obviously a little hungry and started to eye up the wonderful delicacies that we humans were busy preparing and soon decided that they wanted us to share our breakfast fare with them.

Obvioulsy we were not willing to do this and a battle of wits between the humans and the ‘wild’ Baboons soon ensued. It really was quite comical – one Baboon would make a mock dash for our food only to be chased by an angry shouting human whilst another would try to take advantage of the confusion caused.

Well, I can tell you, it didn’t take long for the Baboons to outsmart their ’superior’ counterparts and soon one particularly big male was on our table, busily helping himself to a full loaf of bread – greedy so and so!

Now, amongst my group of friends was a Lady from Holland and as Hollander’s tend to be she was a particularly fine specimen of a woman, over six foot tall, big boned but not fat and as strong as an Ox.

This particular girl, I’ll call her Jane, was so incensed at the antics of the Baboons and by the particular cheek of this one cocky male that she reacted as though he had raised his middle digit to her.

She promptly picked up an enormous stick and with a blood curdling yell launched forth directly for the cocky Baboon.

The sight of this six foot ‘Amazon’ beauty hurtling straight for him and the fearful yell accompanying her sudden appearance certainly put the wind up the Baboon’s sails.

With an agile leap he was off for the safety of the nearest bushes like the proverbial 100m sprinter at the sound of the starters gun, but no way was he letting go of his prize loaf of bread!

Jane was quite pleased with her efforts so far but she wasn’t going to let ‘Mr Smarty Pants’ disappear with her breakfast so she dug in her spurs and followed him like a heat seeking missile locked onto it’s target.

Soon both disappeared into the nearest clump of bushes. All that was left was a cloud of dust hanging in the air and an eerie silence after the yells, screams and curses.

In fact the whole troop had scattered at her antics whilst we were mesmerised by the spectacle.

The silence didn’t last long however, and soon the bushes erupted as though there was a tornado within…

Out hurtled Jane closely followed by ‘Mr Smarty Pants’ only this time HE was weilding the enourmous stick!

It was just like watching something that Walt Disney had dreamt up only it was happening in real life.

Just picture if you can the sight of an Amazon princess, stick in hand, chasing down a furry breakfast thief. Both disappear into the nearest bushes only to re-emerge seconds later with the tables turned – ‘Mr Smarty Pants’ is now chasing the ‘Amazon’ princess!

Talk about entertainment value! I tell you, after the utter amazement of this situation wore off we were soon rolling about in the dust with tears in our eyes helpless to do anything but laugh!

Fortunately nobody was hurt but we never did get our loaf of brea*d back and, as hard as we pressed her, the Amazon princess just wouldn’t tell us what went on in those bushes!

Did you enjoy that story, it’s true by the way, and did it focus your attention to the end?

Well as I’ve mentioned before that is the power of a good story and you really need to tell one in all sales copy you write.

Don’t worry about whether or not you are a master story teller, just tell your story in the way that only you can. Say your words just as if you were talking to your best friend and your readers will focus on your message right to the end.

It’s something that far too many people fail to do and then wonder why people don’t buy their products.

It’s one of the most powerful ways to get your message across to your reader and is a fundamental of selling – everybody loves a good story!

Until the next time, hoping for your success!

Stuart.

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Resource Box

Stuart Elliott is a world-class copywriter who has written numerous articles about sales letters and copywriting. Pick up your free copywriting power guide at
http://howtowritekickbuttcopy.com

“The Best Copywriter On This Planet Is Free… No Hired Gun Has More Passion For Your Product Than You Do”

Article Copyright 2006 Stuart Elliott, All rights reserved. You may only reprint this article in its entirety and you must leave this resource box intact.

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