Let’s Do The Twist

Dear friend and
subscriber,

Let's do the twist!

You know, I've been writing this newsletter since 1986 and
I've written a number of issues on how to write copy. However, there's
at least one important area I haven't covered... and... at
least to my knowledge, it hasn't been covered in other
newsletters or books on how to write copy. What I'm referring
to are known in the profession as "bullets." Bullets are
little one line statements of what you'll learn about in the
book the copywriter is trying to get you to purchase or some
other product he's writing about. Bullets are usually preceded
by a dot or an asterisk (the bullet) and they look like this:

What
question
you must ask when you rent a car to get the
lowest price humanly possible!

How your military record
can get
you extra Social Security money!

The single
best way
ever discovered to sell a house... and... sell
it fast!

How you
can legally tape any telephone call you get
from a
collection agency... and... how to use that tape to scare the
hell out
of them... and... even use it (legally) to make them
pay you a big
settlement!

And so on.

Listen, many of the most successful ads running today are
nearly all bullets. Often there's a headline and then maybe
two or three (or even just one) paragraph to preface
the bullets. Here's an example of such a one paragraph
preface:

"Are you
troubled by prostate problems? If so, you may be
interested in a new book just released by
XYZ Publishing. Here's a small
sample of what you will learn
when you read this book:"

Then, of
course, there are bullets, bullets and more bullets followed
by ordering instructions. Let me tell you something: Many
times a person will read an ad or a direct mail letter
containing dozens and dozens of bullets and... he'll order
just because one of them appealed to him. A
long time ago (I think it was clear back in the '70s) I was
doing some work as an outside consultant for Entrepreneur Magazine and
I was writing an ad for one of their reports or something and,
out of a tremendous amount of bullets there was one hidden in
the copy that caused calls to come in for months and maybe
even a year later. Here is that bullet: