While surfing Clickbank's Marketplace, looking for a good e-book swipe, I came across this site:

Advanced Covert Hypnosis - Learn How To Hypnotize Anyone Secretly Using Covert and Conversational Hypnosis

I'm not recommending the site or the product, but what did impress me were the bullets. There's 40 of them.

Reading over the bullets reminded me that often a consumer will buy the product on the strength of one bullet alone. As I was reading a certain bullet, I thought to myself, hmmm, I wouldn't mind knowing how to do that.

But, since my visit was for research purposes only, I didn't buy.

Alex

P.S. Here's a good article on bullets written by Gary Halbert:

The Gary Halbert Letter

"Baiting the Hook" or How To Write Great Bullets has good research material.

My suggestion would be to anchor the bullet points in the unique benefits of the product or service. Hooks are good, but don't forget the bait.

Here's another copywriting secret: write your bullets first.

Before you do anything else when you're writing copy for an ebook or audio or video go through the whole program and write bullets as you go.

The secret to writing great bullets is to look for specific information...names, numbers, locations, famous people and of course benefits to your prospect.

By going through a full information product this way you're educating yourself on the value of the product, its specific benefits and it gives you a whole pile of content you can use directly in your sales letter.


I also agree with John here.

To write good copy you have to get beyond thinking of the process as a series of "tricks" you use.

Ultimately you're selling to real, live people and after you've written your bullets (or even while you're writing them) you should talk to some real live prospects about the product you're trying to sell in print.

You really want to research your market thoroughly and find the emotional hot buttons that drive your prospects' behavior.

You want to know what's really troubling them, what unsolved problems they have, what they're buying, how and why they make their buying decisions.

You just can't be a great copywriter without really getting to know people and how to influence their behavior.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

I've heard/read Ken McCarthy and John Carlton both say they've bought products because of one bullet. No doubt many others have done the same.

That's why it's always good to err on the side of more bullets, not less. You never know which one might grab the reader and compel him or her to buy.

And sometimes, it is just ONE that seals the deal.

Also, to add to the bullet writing advice, it's good to break them up into series of 7. Clayton Makepeace wrote an article on this, and he really likes seven as a "magic" number, if you will.

Write seven bullets, then a paragraph or two in between, then another seven, another paragraph and so on...

Then there's A/B bullets (or whatever name you want to give them) where you write a bullet, then expand on it in a second sentence (often putting the second half in parenthesis).

Two examples:
(taken from Gary's site, Bencivenga Bullets )

How to harness today's most powerful secrets of viral marketing (where your prospects and customers become your enthusiastic sales force).

How you can increase your chances of success when launching a new product by 300%-500% with another simple strategy. Yet very few marketers, even veterans, have ever heard of this.

Another example, not from Gary:

Need money? God’s blueprint for creating wealth and achieving any goal. (John D. Rockefeller ran with this secret and created a vast oil empire). (page 16)


Plus, you can do a compare/contrast which deepens the benefit of the bullet. Rather than expand on the original benefit, make the second half of the bullet what happens if you don't do so...

Again, from Gary's site:

The single most important secret for marketing anything online. Violating this rule is the most common cause of failure.

Another example (not from Gary)

The key to keeping every decision you make (breaking this is an important reason why many of your decisions become “impotent” and are never fulfilled…) (page 11)

Yet another technique is to bold every other bullet, which I've seen many marketers do. Haven't come across any A/B test results on how effective this is, but probably worth testing.

Maybe Subtle has research or comments on whether it causes undue eye-strain or adds effectiveness when bolding every other bullet.

In any case, as Ken McCarthy says, bullet writing is arguably the most important thing you need to learn in becoming an excellent copywriter. If you can write great bullets, you certainly can write great headlines (which may come from one of your bullets, if you end up writing those first)

Hope this helps.

There have been some great copywriters. Some even wrote books. Most did not. However, there is one guy, who in MY OPINION, is at the top of the "study-his-every-move" class...and I've recommended him before...

And the REASON I like Eugene M. Schwartz so much, IS, because he got so much of my money from his copy.

To me, that is the true test...yea, you read the copy, yea, you admired the copy, yea, you learned something from the copy...but did you BUY?

I have the Harry Lorayne course (the origninal one in a box, not the book)...
"I'LL MAKE YOU A MENTAL WIZARD IN ONE EVENING"

I have Appleman's great book:
Any One of These SMART-MONEY SECRETS Can Make You $20,000, $50,000. Even $100,000 This Year Alone!

I bought "How to DOUBLE Your Child's GRADES in SCHOOL!

I even paid for books I had no real use for, like the one sold with this headline:

"NOW YOU CAN EAT THE DELICIOUS FOODS YOU LOVE
AND ACUTALLY LOSE WEIGHT DOING IT!"

And this one for when I went into the Navy: "GIVE ME ONE WEEKEND, AND I'LL MAKE YOU A MASTER BOAT HANDLER". (Heck, I couldn't even swim and had a fear of the water...but I still bought it).

It is my opinion, that every copywriter should keep "BREAKTHROUGH ADVERTISING" on her desk...the guy could write, for sure...but more importantly, he didn't write to impress...

Schwartz could extract dollars out of a 647 pound circus fat man's wallet while he was sitting on it...

He was AMAZING.

gjabiz

Jay, I have to disagree with you on this one. A universe of one is hardly a valid test.

Alex

For the product you looked at and didn't buy? Or for the product I did buy?

I'm not sure Alex which is not the valid test.

You probably are not the market for this product? Looking more from a copywriting standpoint...and by the way, the beginning of that ad was lifted almost verbatim from an ad that ran 30 years ago for a product from the COMMANDO Co. on 5th Ave. in N.Y. (HINT as to the copywriter)...

and they were selling a little monograph called SUCCESP and their ads ran for years in various publications. Sold for 10 bux.

Anyhow, back on point. Unless you were the target, then you're NOT buying is irrelevant as to the test of the copy. The only valid responses come from the target market.

And if it was me being the one. Well, you are right, just because I bought doesn't make the copy great...but because it was Gene Schwartz, and I bought, although other copy in similar genre didn't have any BUY effect on me, then a universe of ONE buyer is all you need...to know his bullets worked on me.

I've seen 100 letters mailed out, and if ONE person responded, then it was a VALID test. It proved something. If NO ONE had responded, then you'd have to keep testing, but then again, maybe you learned something there too...again, these 100 communiques going to qualified buyers within your target range.

So, I'm not sure which one of us is the ONE you are referring to, but, when it comes to bullet points and your original post...I'll put Gene Schwartz and his bullets up against anyone else you got.

gjabiz

PS. OH, Information Inc. and later the Executive Research Institute, Inc. were located at 119 Fifth Ave. New York.

The bottom line is: how any one person reacts to a piece of copy can in no way be considered a true or valid test. And if that one person is not a target prospect, well, that makes the test even less true or valid.

Alex

Getting back on topic, re:

This is a good idea, but no examples which I think is closer to the thread topic. So....

In this corner .... Gene Schwartz with

* An introduction to one of the cleverest (and laziest) men in the United States. He works from 4:30 to 7:30 five nights a week - and earns over $12,000 a year. His gimmick: a stroll through a shopping center parking lot, a couple of part-time high school kids, and an irresistible message written on a 5-inch by 8-inch card.



In this corner .... Mel Martin with

* Want to learn the secret to writing bullets that automatically draw friends, power, love, money far beyond your fondest dreams into your life OVERNIGHT? See page 294.

Good point John. As much as we all admire the work of Schwartz, to claim that he was the best bullet writer of all time is a bit subjective.

Alex