Copywriting Tips - When is it Hype?

We've had the most fascinating discussions over at the Warrior Forum the last few days about hype in sales copy. It has been most revealing as far as how different people view hype differently. I'm not going to bore you with a definition of hype. Like I tell most people, I may not be able to define it, but I know it when I see it. So, when is it hype and when is it substance? This article is going to explore this issue a little. Hopefully, it will help you when it comes to writing your own sales letters.

Let's take this line of sales copy.

"Rake in thousands of dollars a month on autopilot."

Most people would probably consider this to be hype, meaning that it's an unsubstantiated claim. But what if right after this statement, you saw a video of the person logging into their PayPal account showing all the money they made? And then, what if after the video they showed tons of testimonials from people who used the system and made tons of money? The statement now doesn't sound like hype as much, at least not as far as the dollar amount.

But what about the autopilot statement? Well, that's something else. Sure, maybe it's easy to make all this money, but on autopilot? Doesn't that suggest that you just set it up and let it run? Some people might still find that a little hard to swallow. So that part of the statement may still sound like hype, even with all the income proof. So what do you do? Well, you can leave out the autopilot statement. You could maybe replace it with "Rake in thousands of dollars a month with an easy to use system." Now it's more believable, especially if the testimonials say it was easy.

The truth is, there is a fine line between hype and truth. Sure, a degree of hype is important in order to make your copy come to life. If you say something like, "This system will help you make money online" you're really putting your prospect to sleep. There is absolutely no life to that statement. It's boring and will not get the job done. So a little excitement, which is really what hype is, is important to sales copy that is going to convert prospects to buyers.

To YOUR Success,