“Killer” has to be the most overused adjective in sales copy.

The next time you catch yourself using it in a sales letter…

Consider not using an adjective at all!

Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs, as Strunk & White say in The Elements of Style

(By the way, when I was in college, a film writer told me to read that book once a month until I graduated. I did and now I read it once a year and think that every copywriter should do the same).

If you can’t describe your product with nouns and verbs alone, chances are your product isn’t so “killer” after all.

Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t ever use an adjective. They can pack a wallop in the right situation.

I admit I’m as guilty of using adjectives without proper forethought as anyone else.

But I saw the adjective “killer” in yet another sales letter the other day (sigh) so I whipped out my favorite thesauruses and quickly found 55 alternatives to “killer:”

fierce

awesome

wicked

best

cool

boss

smashing

mindblowing

mindboggling

magnifcient

fabulous

trippy

formidable

unforgettable

impressive

overwhelming

marvelous

tremendous

fantastic

sublime

portentous

vital

landmark

momentous

extraordinary

staggering

stunning

breath-taking

incredible

unbelievable

inconceivable

amazing

phenomenal

rad

astounding

remarkable

exceptional

wonderful

superb

far-out

prodigious

wondrous

unmatched

nonpareil

unusual

unprecedented

staggering

rare

unique

special

superior

incomparable

singular

hot

fly

Not all of those words are perfect alternatives to “killer” but you get the idea.

Your thesaurus is your friend

If you need thesaurus recommendations see my last post.

Perhaps the most indispensable tool for a copywriter, right behind the computer, is a thesaurus.

A thesaurus is a simple but powerful way to make your writing more compelling and persuasive.

As Strunk & White said in The Elements of Style, “Do not be tempted by a twenty-dollar word when there is a ten-center handy, ready and able.”

If you find yourself using a twenty-dollar work, or you notice that you use the same word too often on a page (I try not to use the same verb more than once in a paragraph, for example), whip out a thesaurus.

Let’s take a look at some print/offline thesauruses:

Rodale’s Synonym Finder The Synonym Finder is terrific. An Amazon reviewer sums it up well: “There are 1.5 million words in “The Synonym Finder”, including variations on the same root word. That’s more than 4 times the number of words in “Roget’s International Thesaurus”. If you simply want to find synonyms, this is the book for you. It isn’t as versatile as a thesaurus that is organized by subject, but it’s more to the point and easier to use if you are simply looking for word alternatives.”

Roget’s Thesaurus Roget’s International Thesaurus, 6th Edition
is the classic thesaurus and is also organized by subject in addition to alphabetically. It’s a bit more scholarly than Rodale’s Synonym Finder.

Here are some online thesauruses:

Answers.com has a thesaurus and much more. In addition to giving you the synonyms for each word it gives you the dictionary definition and a description of the history of the word as well as information about foreign language and idioms. It’s a complete reference for words.

Thesaurus.com is similar to Answers.com. It gives you encyclopedia and dictionary information in addition to the thesaurus.

If you enjoy mind maps you’ll enjoy Visual Thesaurus. Go to the website and in the white box type a word. Then select “look it up.” A box will come up. Select “try.” After a few seconds it will expand and grow. It’s like a living thesaurus. The desktop version works faster than the online version. It’s $19.95 per year or $2.95 per month.

If you have a favorite thesaurus please share it in the comments.

I hear this all the time and you probably do too: the money’s in the list!

As an email copywriter you might expect me agree with that.

I do agree that a list is of great importance to your business. Whenever I send an email I get many more visits to my website than when I put a link to it on Twitter or Facebook.

Except there’s one problem… this “The money’s in the list!” attitude usually results in endless emails that are just boring pitches.

So what should be in your list?

Your art.

Your gifts (no, I don’t just mean free reports or ebooks….I also mean the generous sharing of your ideas).

Your superpower.

Your stories.

Your magic.

Notice I haven’t said anything about open rates and click thrus and opt-ins and opt-outs.

That’s because the people on your list aren’t buying your products…

They’re buying relationships and stories and magic.

When you send an email your sole motivation should be to connect with your reader and make a difference in their lives.

Respect the bond that exists between you and the people reading your email.

The irony is, if you remember that it’s your magic that is in the list, not money, then it’s likely that the money will follow eventually.

Oh how I love a good metaphor.

You already know how important stories are.

Metaphors are like mini stories.

I would argue that the right metaphor is even more powerful than a story.

A metaphor is a comparison between two or more unrelated objects.

A friend of mine regularly uses metaphors in her emails to me and they are brilliant.

They are so good I copy and paste them into a document filled just with her metaphors.

Here are a few examples:

“Her blood pressure was lower than the Mississippi Valley.”

“There are more wires involved in that desktop than there are pit vipers in India.”

“He ate like a human forklift at a three county landfill.”

“He started snoring like Gunga Din’s chainsaw.”

“…eating like Kirstie Alley in a Fettucini Alfredo factory.”

“I feel like I’m trying to teach Aristotelian logic to Mike Tyson.”

I’ve asked her how she thinks up these metaphors and she just says that they pop into her head spontaneously as she’s writing.

Here are some other metaphors I’ve found from various places:

“”The sun was behind the wood, very red, looking over the paling of trees like a farmer inspecting his own hogs.” (Flannery O’Connor)

“Burst of energy just hit me like a train carrying 10 tons of espresso.” (Dooce.com)

“The landing at JFK was like being on the back of a motorcycle when it crashes through a brick wall.” (Dooce.com)

“All over me like melted cheese on a radiator.” (Elizabeth George)

“As loose as the rivets on a Southwest Airlines 737.” (source unknown)

I’m no expert on how to write metaphors but I do know that the more specific they are, the better.

For example, saying “You look like a madman” just wouldn’t have the same chops as “You look like you might have swallowed a mad dog.” (Flannery O’Connor)

I also know that you should read Gary Bencivenga’s bullet about metaphors.

He says you’ll be one of the most persuasive people on the planet if you master metaphors.

Or, as Aristotle said, “The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor.”

If a copywriter sold $6 billion worth of products over the years would you listen to what he had to say about headlines?

I should think so.

Ted Nicholas is this kind of copywriter. Sadly, the last time I checked, his book   Magic Words That Bring You Riches (my favorite)  is out of print.

Anyway, Ted says the headline is 90 percent responsible for the success of any piece of copy.

Yeah, I  know. In my last post I argued that openings are the bee’s knees, but let’s hear Ted out.

Most copywriters take shortcuts with headlines at some point, to the detriment of the sales letter.

One symptom of this is the long-winded mega headlines you see on many online sales letters. These often top out at 50-100 words or more.

Rather than take the wrong kind of shortcuts, Ted recommends his “fill-in-the-blank” shortcut for writing headlines.

Headlines fall into one of these 11 categories:

1. How to (Blank)

2. Secrets of (Blank)

3. Stacked Benefits

4. Problem/Solution

5. How to/Guaranteed

6. Get Benefit Fast, Regardless…

7. Solve a Problem…

8. Visualize it…

9. Ways To/Reasons Why

10. Problem Solver…

11. If…Then

Here’s an example he gives of a Problem/Solution headline:

“No More Bad Hair Days! Here’s a Proven Way to Maintain the Perfect Look Any Day of the Week!”

The next time you brainstorm headlines for a sales letter, pull out this list.

So what’s the most important part of a sales letter?

The headline?

The P.S.?

The proof?

This is debatable, of course. But today I will argue that the opening is the most important.

The opening of a sales letter is so important that Herschell Gordon Lewis devotes more than 100 pages to the subject in his book Sales Letters That Sizzle.

For the most part, people don’t read every word of a sales letter.

They skip around, look at the headlines and subheads, look at the P.S.

The brilliant anecdote on page three might not get noticed at all.

You have a better chance of people reading page three if you wow them with your introduction.

According to Lewis, “Changing the opening — the first few paragraphs — has the capacity of generating a huge increase (or decrease) in response, often far more profound than letter length.”

So rather than simply wonder if long or short copy will work best for your product, focus on the opening too.

Here are 10 examples of openings that Lewis provides in his book:

1.  If You’re Like Me…

2.  Ask a Provocative Question.

3. What If…

4. Suggest a Cataclysmic Decision. For example,

“The decision you make today can…”

5. I [We} Need Help.

6. Congratulations!

7. I Invite You…

8. I Have a Free Gift For You.

9. As You Know…

10. I Have Something Good For You.

Choosing the right opening is critical because the reader might not even see your USP or main benefits without the proper opening.

And, oh yeah. This applies to email copy too.

“Programs don’t make great presidents,” said political scientist Jim Morone after President Obama’s State of the Union speech. “Stories make great presidents.”

He went on to say that the president failed to persuade the American people as a result of not having stories.

This is a reminder that stories are key to persuasion.

And, yes, it means that stories make for a great business. Not products.

What’s your story? Are you telling it to your customers?

Today I’m mixing marketing and politics.