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Writing and Speaking > Copywriting > Why Bad Writing And Lots Of Typos Can Actually Make You More Sales
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Article rating : 0.00, 0 votes. Author : Ben Settle
If you'd like to see the "spelling police" panic in the streets,
weeping and gnashing their teeth, horrified and distraught
beyond belief, then this article is going to make you smile
from ear to ear.
Here's why.
There was once a time when I used to subscribe to every
"copywriting" course and email report I saw. You know, the
"FREE!!!" ones.
It didn't take long to realize why they're free and I was going
to have to shell out a lot of cash to learn this craft.
Case in point: I'm not going to name names or anything like
that, but just last nigt I was looking at an article on writng
copy by a self-proclaimed "ezine guru". This peron was
saying what a lot of people tend to believe -- that gramatical
mistaks and typos kill sales. Which is almost always
never the case.
Look, let me just say I don't have anything against this
person. For all I know they may be the sharpest knife in the
drawer when it comes to "writing". And I can guaratee this
person's "writing" skills are ten times better than mine.
But copywriting has very little to do with "writing".
It's true. The actual "writing" part of the sales pitch is only
about 10-20% (if that much) of the process. And if you break
that 20% down, only a fraction of that has to do with
any kind of tecnical writing "skill" -- while the other 99% has
to do with how you structure the information.
Think of it this way: What if I sent you a letter that was typed
with an old, beaten-up typewriter, with all kinds of
grammatical mistakes and erros. And the letter said,
behind all the misspelled words and incomplete sentences,
that I want to give you a million dollars. That I picked you
totally randomly out of the phone book and you can expect
the check in a week or so.
Would you care if it was full of errors?
On the other hand, what if I sent you a letter typed up on the
best quality paper, with perfect sentences and no spelling
erros whatsoever -- and I even put some kind of scent on it
so it smelled like your favorite food. But I was trying to sell
you some land that is shut down by the EPA for radioactive
pollution?
Would you listen?
Which leads me to my point: It's not how you say it
that really counts, it's what you say. In fact, some of
the old time copywriters -- the ones who used to sell books
during the Great Depression, when money was tight --
sometimes purposely misspelled words to ADD to
the "human" element of th pitch.
I've even heard true stories of how sales letters have been
mailed out missing entire pages...and orders still
kept pouring in. The customrs were so enthralled
with the pitch, they just blew on by the typos and bought the
product anway. One prominent online marketer sometimes
even brags about how his sales actually go up
when he has a bunch of misspellings and typos.
Anyway, here's the point: While there are exceptions to this,
for the most part, if you ONLY focus on 1.) sending your
pitches to people who have already demonstrated (with their
wallets) they are interested in products similar to yours and
2.) crafting a truly irresistable (and believeable) offer...your
chances of making the sale are astronomically
higher than if you just put out a wimpy offer...to a
semi-intrsted list...and with a perfectly "written" sales letter.
Oh, and one last thing. I didn't edit this article at all. Just sat
down and knocked it out in one sitting. If you've read this far,
it obviously didn't bother you that much that there are a poor
sentence structures and misspelled words, did it?
Ben Settle is a seasoned freelance copywriter and
direct marketer. If you liked this article then check out
Ben's website at http://bensettle.com -- where you'll find
over 500 pages of advertising ideas, strategies and
tactics just like this one -- as well as rare swipe file ads
and hot marketing information not easily found
anywhere else.
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