Style difference between pro's and the average Joe

[Nathan Alexander]

I've been thinking a lot about this recently.

Hopefully some of you can shed some light and give me your opinions on this. I've taken to educating myself via the resources that most seasoned veteran copywriters suggest over the last few months or so, and it leaves me wondering about something that doesn't appear trivial.

In essence, I notice a lot of sales letters (typical online ones) use a LOT of call-outs such as bolding, hilighting and what not. I understand the importance, I really do, but I feel a lot of it is almost too excessive. My own first stabs at copywriting included.

I've compared the fonts used as well and there obviously are three or four very commonly used.

That's great. I get that.

But, when I look at that old Gary Bencivenga ad for his 100 seminar talked about on another thread, I notice something different. The same goes for Gary Halbert's stuff in his newsletters.

I know I certainly over-did a lot of the special bolding, underlining and yellow highlighting (am I spelling that right?) at first, but my inclination is to let it go and really streamline my "call-outs".

The gentlemen I listed above use Times New Roman, and courier, and keep it pretty clean -aesthetically wise. They also indent a bit whereas a lot of others don't.

Now I may be knitpicking the indent, but if they do it, shouldn't I? And yes, I know a lot can depend on several circumstances. But again, I read Gary's letter for his seminar and I think more mature.

Dan Kennedy and Bill Glazer obviously know what they're doing, and they're a little more - and I hesistate to use this word - "hype" in there writing. Although they do so still more in a way consistent with mature writing.

Does this make sense? When I see a sales letter with both hypey language AND tons of variation between fonts, color and call-outs it screams amateur-ish.

I could be wrong. And I'm sure the market has something to do with it too.

In any event, can I actually use Times New Roman? Courier? Are they still trumped by Tahoma and Ariel and such for online?

And the bigger issue for me... Should I stay with a "cleaner" look like Gary's ad? He's obviously in the top (if not THE top) circle of authorities on the subject.

Anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Maybe I've just had bad luck with stumbling onto a lot of poor copy sites or too many fill-in-the-blank templates with guys who (like me) thought you needed (way too much) visual accents.

Thank you for your thoughts...

Nathan

[Raydal]

Hi Nathan,

Basic issue that I see in your question is one of layout and font choice.

And what "looks good" and have perfect symmetry the brain tends
to ignore. So all those "dirtying" of the page is to get ATTENTION.

It's like those grooves to the side of the highway--if you ever
fall asleep and drift off the road the sudden vibration saves
your life.

Now as far as the argument about 'what this guru uses' you
cannot always go by that 'rule' because when you have credibility
you don't need the other 'little things' to make the sale. Many
professionals do not give their best when writing for themselves.

So a clean sales letter may get admiration but a dirty one gets
attention and sales!

-Ray Edwards

[Loren Woirhaye]

The old-school direct mail guys cut their teeth mailing
mimeographed salesletters - because at the time it
was the cheapest way to get the message through.

A lot of their layout tricks come from that... and from
print ads. Often the old letters were made so they looked
like they came off a typewriter - sometimes with typos
left in to convey an sense of immediacy.

There is a more polished school of direct mail. Get the
book "Million Dollar Mailings" and you will see a few plain-jane
letters but most packages are a collaboration between
a seasoned writer and artists. The effect can be really
cool, but there is no doubt that those mailings are often
costly to produce.

Halbert, Kennedy are more representative of the "mail
1000 letters and test, test, test" school - so they were
testing offer/list compatibility - often to small, targeted
lists.

Older internet buyers may like the old-school look - I often
use Courier myself because I started out doing direct mail
and I like the message of the font.

A lot of smaller internet launches these days have really
exquisite graphics - very bling-bling. But on the things
targeted at a higher price point and more seasoned buyers
you'll see a bit less of that... more of a meaty message
usually.

Clayton Makepeace pays a LOT of attention to the whole
graphical/layout thing. His magalogs are exquisite and
his consistency of branding across his own products is
nice too - all designed to give a more polished impression.

I would say try to do what feels right for you until your
style of writing develops to the point where you want to
test things that don't feel right to you. What I mean is
that you should get your style and your voice as a writer
in place - don't try to emulate layout tricks that don't
feel correct to the kind of ambience you want. YOU are
the film director.

[Nathan Alexander]

Wow, really great answers. I really appreciate it. What you guys have said does make sense, and it helps to know there are ideas behind why they do what they do.

Of course, this is something that I'm sure will come after the other stuff is in place for me.

I gotta admit, the process of learning is incredible fun in and of itself. I'm a copy addict (hopefully for life) and I look forward to "selling" myself in all areas of my life

[vistad]

One of the biggest differences between Internet ads and the print media is that on the Internet quite often you are closing a sale. So there has to be an immediacy about the copy. In the case of high value products it may act as a lead for someone else to follow up and call.
I have started looking at sales pages, any help in providing me with successful sales page links would be appreciated.
Thanks