Astounding Language

If you want to make your ads and sales letters “monkey simple” to read, comprehend and understand…then listen to this:

The late, great copywriter Eugene Schwartz once said ad copy should be like a display window. It should be clear and not call attention to itself in any way whatsoever. With no smears, no cracks in the glass, and no distracting decorations around it.

And there are two extremely powerful ways to make sure your ads fit that criteria.

The first is to use simple, easy to understand words, phrases and ideas. In other words, if a child can’t understand it, you probably should not include it. (Yes, I realize there are exceptions to this, but it’s good advice no matter what market you’re writing to either way.)

And the second way to make your ad copy “display window clear” is to limit your paragraphs to just one — and only one — idea or concept.

For example, if you have a paragraph that says:

“Here’s the bottom line: These professionally produced DVD’s teach you everything you need to know about winning street-fights while standing up…in close quarters…on the ground…with weapons…and even against multiple attackers. With no tedious studying required. No long hours of intense training needed. No years of perfecting boring techniques that are useless in a real fight. And check this out: This set of street-fighting DVD’s isn’t the only thing I’m sending you. It’s only part one. There’s another part to this system just as important to your survival on the street…as the skills and tactics you’ll learn in the DVD’s…”

To make it totally clear and easy to follow, you simply break it up into several paragraphs — each containing only one train of thought — like this:

“Here’s the bottom line: These professionally produced DVD’s teach you everything you need to know about winning street-fights while standing up…in close quarters…on the ground…with weapons…and even against multiple attackers.

With no tedious studying required. No long hours of intense training needed. No years of perfecting boring techniques that are useless in a real fight.

And check this out: This set of street-fighting DVD’s isn’t the only thing I’m sending you.

It’s only part one. There’s another part to this system just as important to your survival on the street…as the skills and tactics you’ll learn in the DVD’s…”

See what I mean?

This way you aren’t cramming too many ideas and concepts down the reader’s throat all at once. Instead, everything is “bite sized” — easy to pop in your mouth, chew and digest.

And you know what?

That’s exactly the way information should be presented if you want to give yourself every advantage possible in your copy.

Ben Settle is an expert copywriter and direct marketer. If you liked this article then check out Ben’s website at http://bensettle.com — and get your hands on 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.