Style difference between pro's and the average Joe
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
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