It’s a cliché but it’s true. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. This is especially true with book and information product marketing copy, where you have as little as one or two seconds to engage a potential buyer. 
If you’re a coach or an author, here is a safe assumption you can make about EVERYONE who sees your promotional materials: Before prospects read your sales copy, they’ll give it a quick skim to see if it looks fast and easy to read.
If it doesn’t, you’ve lost them. So, it must be crafted in a style that appeals to the eye.
Or as I like to say—it must be at-a-glance friendly.
When your promotional copy is a series of dark chunky paragraphs, it looks like torture to read. Even if its great copy, no one will read it simply because it looks like a chore to get through.
To engage and excite potential buyers, your marketing copy must look open and inviting.
Here is a proven five-step at-a-glance formula that will achieve this.
FORMULA
- Be liberal in your use of headlines and subheads
- Limit descriptive paragraphs to two or three lines of copy
- Use tight bullet points to highlight key benefits and takeaways
- Create white open space around your copy
- Use sharp endorsement copy to do your selling for you
Below is an example of this five-step formula in action. I used it to write promotional copy for author Carol Talbot’s book, You the Divine Genius, which became an Amazon bestseller.
EXAMPLE
Ignite Your Ability to Transform Your Life!
YOU the Divine Genius – Carol Talbot
“YOU the Divine Genius is a must-read because it will change how you think about yourself, about reality, and about your presence in the world.. I highly recommend it.”
—Jack Canfield, Co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series and The Success Principles™
Ready to Unleash Your Hidden Power?
Have you ever wondered how much personal power you really have? If you shatter current beliefs about who you are, and bust free of self-imposed limitations – how high can you really climb?
How far can you expand the unlimited potential within you?
In her new book, YOU the Divine Genius, bestselling author Carol Talbot empowers you to answer these questions and flow into the evolution of a different life.
If you’re ready to expand your awareness – YOU the Divine Genius will propel you to a place where you can …
- Realize if you’re limiting yourself through your current view of reality
- Discover if there is something more magical for you to do in this life
- Open yourself up to a greater expansion of who you really are
- Turn chaos into a positive vehicle for achieving a higher consciousness
As a life-long seeker, learner and explorer, Carol Talbot is recognized as an in-demand international speaker, master trainer, and a respected authority on neuro linguistic programming (NLP).
YOU the Divine Genius is a vibrant testament to Carol Talbot’s passion for empowering shifts in thinking and self-perception.
Why not make today the day you discover YOU are more than you think you are!
*****
Headlines, subheads, brief paragraphs, bullet points, and tight endorsements. Write all your book and information product marketing materials in this crisp, at-a-glance-friendly style, and a lot more people will engage with your message!
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Thank you, Casey! The endorsement copy is something most forget to mention, but it’s such an important part of the formula!
Love the example. After hearing you speak about this market, the example really drive your points home.
Hey Casey,
I’m so pleased to have read this, because it’s helped back me up in a “debate” I’ve been having with another copywriter.
I agreed with you that the aesthetics of your sales letter/page absolutely DO make a difference. I mean, if people look at something and it looks difficult to read because of long paragraphs and little white space etc, then they’re not gonna bother reading it.
Yet this other person seems to think that “ugly” copy converts better.
I asked him to show me one example where “ugly” copy has out-pulled aesthetic copy, and, as you probably guessed, he couldn’t give me one example.
Thanks for a great read, Casey.
Tom Andrews
Even when we don’t realize it, aesthetics influence us, and almost no one wants to feel squeezed and crowded—the immediate effect of long, unbroken copy. I often struggle with #2 in your formula and have to go back through and break up paragraphs. And thanks for the reminder about including endorsements.
Here’s a question: if you have a bulleted list, does it help at all or not matter that the list is indented? Indented looks better to me, but some templates don’t allow it, and in your example above you didn’t indent the list inside the book copy, but did indent Formula criteria.
Another immediately-useable post. Thanks, Casey.