In Which I Dispense Copywriting Advice

Ten Commandments of Copywriting
1.) Keep your sentences short and punchy. Six to eleven words. Of course, you’ll want to mix it up a little—add variations in cadence with the occasional long sentence and the odd fragment. But the bulk of your sentences should be concise.
2.) Make your pitch early. Repeat it as often as you can without being obnoxious.
3.) Address your reader as ‘you.’ Never use the stilted, formal third-person for copy. Calling the reader ‘you’ makes your sentiments immediate and personal. One should avoid the third-person like the plague.
4.) Know your grammar. While it is fine to occasionally violate rules of grammar—to use fragments, for instance—a copywriter should know, internalize, love and respect all things grammatical. Then, any violation is clearly intentional.
5.) Talk about benefits, not features. Your reader is interested in the ways your product will make his or her life better, easier, or more enjoyable. So cough up this information right away! The copy isn’t about how great your product is. It’s about the great things it will do for your reader.
6.) Tell a story. People like to read about other people. So if you can give a real-life example of the benefits that your product produced, and make it into a good story, your sales will increase.
7.) Less is not more. More is more. Give your reader as much benefits-focused information as possible. The more information you give consumers, the more likely they are to select you product.
8.) Define your terms. Your readers aren’t idiots, but they aren’t saturated by the language of your business, either. State technical concepts in the clearest possible language, and don’t give your readers more than they need. The technical details will be of great interest if you’re marketing to a tech audience, but will bore Joe Schmoe to tears.
9.) Make your pitch early. Repeat it as often as you can without being obnoxious.
10.) Close with a call to action. Tell people what you want them to do, and say it in such a way that they feel compelled to do it. If you can offer some sort of incentive, so much the better.