A while back, I wrote about a critique I’d gotten from Parris Lampropoulos.
Parris is an ultra-successful copywriter, who gave me some advice about a sales letter I’d written.
“The body copy is fine,” he said.
“But you never want the headline to tip off that you’re selling something.”
The only exception, according to Parris, is if you’re the first person in a market.
I took Parris’s advice to heart. And I believe it’s made my copy better.
BUT!
I’ve just had a bit of contradictory feedback from one of my clients.
These guys sell physical products through ads on Facebook, which lead to advertorials.
I’ve been writing both the ads and the advertorials. The headlines I’ve been using strictly avoid mentioning the product.
So I was surprised to hear that the client tested out some new headlines, which mention both the product and the price.
Doing this decreased clickthroughs (expected) but increased sales (very unexpected).
This kind of boggles my weary mind. Especially, since the products we’re advertising aren’t unique (dozens of competitors sell identical stuff) and the price isn’t a bargain (you’d be able to find much better deals on similar products by searching on Amazon).
Maybe this testing data point will be useful in case you too sell ecommerce products through advertorials.
And it also shows that even the most iron-clad commandments of copywriting are only rules of thumb.
Yes, they increase your odds of success. But sometimes, breaking these commandments can produce better results. The only way to know is to test.
On an entirely different topic:
I currently have a book on Amazon about how I got $150/hr copywriting clients through Upwork.
I will be taking this book off Amazon this weekend. I will make it available some time later, but off Amazon, and at a higher price.
So if you want to read this book, at its current low price, while it’s still on Amazon, better act fast. Here’s the link to see what it’s all about: