Copywriting Weapon: The Art of Telling Only Half the Story

June 19th, 2007 Dina at Wordfeeder.com

There is a distinct difference between journalistic writing and ad copywriting.

In journalism, you’re writing to inform, or share news. Therefore, you are expected to be objective, tell only the facts, give the full story from both sides, and remain impartial/opinionless.

In copywriting, you write to convince or persuade. The goal is to elicit a specific psychological response and produce an immediate action. For this reason, your message should always be biased, or tell only HALF the story.

Ad copy delivers a distinct opinion behind the message. It’s partial. It’s subjective. Understanding this fact of copywriting is the KEY to writing content that sells a product or service.

That said, let’s talk about the tactic of telling only HALF the story as a way to increase sales.

Let’s say you were selling lawn and garden chemicals.

The “whole story” might be that there are environmentally-friendlier options than spraying harmful pesticides all over your plants and trees. But if you’re the Lawn Doctor, it’s not exactly in your best interest to share that information with your audience. So you leave that part off and only focus on the benefits of the method that YOU yourself use to rid the area of weeds and pests.

Another example - on your website, you pitch home computer security systems. The truth is that there are a million freeware and shareware sites offering protection that’s right on par with what you offer… but theirs doesn’t cost anything. And that might be the “full story” on your industry, but it’s not in your best interests to share such information. Not if you want to make sales.

Bottom line: marketers don’t give away the whole information enchilada in their advertising copy. You would think this would be completely obvious - for example, when writing your sales letter or a product landing page on your website. And yet, it’s easy to “lose sight of the purpose” when you’re cranking out high volumes of sales copy that’s read all over the internet and in all of your print collateral.

Despite your best intentions, there is always a chance that in creating “grey area” exposure tools like web articles, advertorials, and press releases, you or someone on your team, could accidentally make a few points that HURT, not HELP, your business. It’s important to watch for, and weed out, those types of statements.

Consider this the next time you’d like to educate your readers on an important issue while simultaneously furthering your own goal.

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Posted in Copywriting Techniques, Copywriting Weapon, Dangerous Truth, Persuasive Copywriting, Wordfeeder Copywriting |

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