There are many ways to flay a feline, and sales copy is no exception:
Today, I read through a part of the Chaffee Royalties promo. This 2008 sales letter is famous for its use of “transubstantiation,” and because it was analyzed in the book Great Leads.
But something else struck me upon reading the lead of Chaffee Royalties:
There’s almost no “you”. There are no direct promises. It’s all intrigue, case studies, historical anecdotes.
In many ways, Chaffee Royalties doesn’t read like “typical” copy. If I looked at this without knowing it’s a sales letter, I wouldn’t be sure immediately that there is something for sale — simply because not every sentence ends with, “and so can you!”
Even so, this sales letter was successful. Not only did it do well enough to get into Great Leads, but Agora ran a version of it again in 2013, just with different stocks.
Here’s what I’m trying to get at:
A while back, I mentioned the most common piece of feedback I kept getting from my former copywriting coach. That was to make more “on the nose” claims in the lead. Meaning, make claims that are so direct and you-focused that even the most distracted reader can’t fail to grasp them.
That’s obviously worked well for my-ex coach. And in many ways, it’s copywriting dogma, which you can see in the majority of big-name promotions.
But even at very high levels, writing to the same financial newsletter market… there are people who have had success selling with a soft, indirect, and camouflaged approach.
And so can you.