If your copy lacks this there will be no sale

If you study direct-response copywriting, then eventually you piece together the basic structure of a piece of sales copy.

It is basically headline, lead, story, and close.

That's where a lot of people put their focus. They zoom in on the structure and get all amped up about the sexiest headline or the most seductive lead.

Yet there's one piece of the puzzle so many folks out there miss.

It is very easy to get sucked into the glamorous side of copywriting. Too many people do. They get wooed by the fancy headlines and the punchy bullets points that they forget essential things like selling to the right people and working on the actual core offer of the promotion.

And there's another thing people like to look over as well. That's clarity.

You see, above all else, copywriting should be clear.

Really, at its core level, copywriting is just window glass, so the customer can look through and see the offer. Then they either go inside the store and buy it over move on and forget it.

Copywriters would like to bamboozle you and get you to think that they do all the heavy lifting and that without them all businesses would surely collapse into anarchy and debt. Not so.

You can verify this by looking into what is called the 40/40/20 rule. I won't go into it here, as we are talking CLARITY.

So much copy is just needlessly confusing. The prospect is fooled around, lead down dead ends, and ultimately has to struggle to even read the sales message.

This means death for a promotion.

Let us demonstrate this shall we. What do you think would work better as a headline?

Now! Finally! Relief from those HOT Summer Days is HERE AT LAST!

Or,

Free Ice-cream

If you're offer is that fricking appealing, you can lead with it. Why beat around the bush if you are offering free ice cream? Why try and entice people with some run around story when you are offering FREE ICECREAM. maybe add where people can get the ice cream etc, but you get the idea.

Now this a case by case basis, but clarity is something that applies to all sales messages.

When people confused, they will not buy. I have seen this a lot in the computer store. A salesperson gets very excited and talks about all the wonderful features with a certain laptop, and Mr Prospect says, "I need to think about it," and goes off, never to return, likely to buy from someone else who is less confusing.

Clarity... clarity... clarity.

A lot of people's resistance to clarity is that they don't think their offer can stand on its own. They have to do a little song and dance instead of writing persuasively to sell the damn thing. If you offer sucks that much, that you need to actually confuse someone before they're stupid enough to buy from you, then no amount of copy can help you. Sorry.

Writing with clarity doesn't mean being boring. It means making sense.

I used to struggle with this. Then a book called "Obvious Adams," sort of woke me up to the truth of the situation. Again, good copy is like clean, unadorned window glass. It isn't drawing attention to itself, and it isn't making the prospect look away from what is being offered.

A lot of copywriters will try and sell you on how "wonderful" their sales writing is, yet many of them don't know a thing or two about being CLEAR.

Thought this could be a useful read. Let me know what you think!