Lesson 19: How to appraise your new sales page before tweaking it

All about assessing your copy

You’ve probably heard that “copywriting is salesmanship in print”. This is not technically wrong — but it is a really bad definition in terms of helping you understand copywriting. It is very unhelpful, especially, when it comes to assessing whether you’ve done a good job with copy you’ve written, and how you can improve it.

This is because almost everyone thinks wrongly about sales­man­ship itself — especially hapless business owners who are stressed out with doing everything themselves.

Many aspiring copywriters — and many more solopreneurs who just need to be able to write good copy for their own businesses — are led astray because they think:

1. Copywriting is salesmanship in print;

2. Salesmanship involves all kinds of psycho­logical tricks, manipulation and pressure tactics to get people to buy something asap;

3. Therefore, copywriting involves all kinds of psychological tricks, manipulation, etc.

Needless to say, if that’s how you’re thinking about copywriting — even subconsciously, since by now you probably at least remember that clarity trumps persuasion — then you’re going to have a lot of misguided reactions when you’re reading your sales page in preparation for editing it.

Reactions which will lead you astray and prompt you to make changes you shouldn’t make.

So I’m going to suggest two alternative ways to understand copywriting.

1. Redefining salesmanship