Benefits make features personal. They explain how features will be of use in customer's life.

End Results - A Glimpse Into Future

We can take this process one step further, however. After customers buy phone, and after they use it, what end results will they experience? As asked before, how will their lives be improved? What will effects of their buying decision be? Let's go back to our list and add end results as last sentence in benefits list.

·5.8GHz digital system: The 5.8GHz frequency lets you go anywhere in your house and still have clear reception without disrupting your home network. The frequency-hopping digital technology keeps calls secure from outside sources. You'll have complete freedom to talk with no interference on one of most advanced systems available. ·Talking caller ID: No need to be within visual distance of your phone. You can hear who's on line before you pick up phone. You'll enjoy ultimate in convenience with this feature. No more running to view handset or base! ·Expandable: Keep a phone in any room—extra handsets cost less than other phones and don't need a phone jack. This base unit supports a total of four handsets. Add up to three handsets for a complete set. Expandable phone systems are smart investments that save time and money. ·Selectable ring tones: Customize sound of your phone by choosing from three ring tones. Make your phone an extension of yourself. ·Dual speakerphones: Talk directly into base with base speakerphone, while handset speakerphone provides convenient hands-free calling wherever you take your handset. You'll have flexibility of speakerphones wherever and whenever you talk.

Do you see what end results have done? They've given customer a glimpse into future. The feature states that phone offers 5.8GHz technology. The benefit goes on to explain that 5.8GHz technology is important because it offers clear reception and safety. The end result wraps things up by stating customer will have a life filled with freedom and no interference from their highly advanced system.

Other end results point out how phone system will make each user's life more convenient, how this smart investment will save time and money, how it will conform to one’s personality and how phone will lend flexibility to customer's life.

When you create your copywriting plan, be sure to list features and build your benefits as usual. But, for added power, don't forget to include end results that will help customers visualize how your product or service will make their lives better.

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Or lower...

3) Build a swipe database

All good copywriters keep a swipe file. Some have entire rooms full of old ads, mail packages, and sales letters that worked in past. And once in awhile they package them up and sell them for a nice profit...

With Internet it's easy to just save good copy to your hard drive or a folder in your email program. When you run across something that catches your eye save it immediately before you do anything else. Otherwise you might suddenly find yourself immersed in other matters and forget about sales letter you just read.

As so often happens in cyberland...

I kick myself sometimes because I forget to save a hot letter. And later on. when I go back to try to find it, it turns out they've already taken it down because product sold out.

You also need to get on email lists of people doing marketing in your niche(s) so you can get their mailings. Some very good sales copy is written specifically for email.

The more material you have to work with better. There just might be one little idea in that ocean of material that makes difference in whether your copy succeeds or fails...that makes difference between small profits and large profits.

So start a virtual swipe database. If you run out of room on your hard drive burn it onto CD's. It'll take a while to fill a room with CD's full of swipe material!

By way, nowadays on Internet there are several "swipe file" products available for purchase, but you need to be careful. These collections of "winning" sales letters are often of very poor quality. So do your due diligence before you buy them.

In direct mail industry quality control is much more stringent. There are several excellent collections published in book form and most good copywriters, online or off, keep a couple of them on their shelves.

Some examples of these great works are Hodgson's "The Greatest Direct Mail Sales Letters of All Time", Denny Hatch's "Million Dollar Mailings", and Herschel Lewis and Carol Nelson's "World's Greatest Direct Mail Sales Letters". Hodgson's book is available in PDF form from www.twipress.com , a great website for marketing books in general.

Oh, and don't forget that your own past successful efforts are also good candidates for a swipe or two...

4) Integrate Smoothly

It goes without saying that you should smoothly blend material you swipe into your own copy so that it looks like it belongs there. But it's amazing how often people fail to do this.

Make sure to put copy you borrow into your own voice so it reads as if it were something you wrote. Novice marketing is often easy to spot because of discrepancy between less-than-experienced voice of marketer and confident voice of good copywriter or copywriters he or she has borrowed elements from.

When you've got conflicting voices within a sales letter people pick up on it.

While most buyers don't care about good grammar, they will notice, even if it's on a sub-conscious level, when your copy is out of balance. They'll know that something "just isn't right". And that's all it takes for them to click out.

So make sure you put what you borrow into your own words. Authenticity is a genuine key to direct marketing. Customers identify with a perceived personality behind words, not with letters on page.

You can borrow headlines, sub-headlines, bullets, stories, offers... Even ideas. The list goes on. But make them a part of you! Not just a cut-and-paste job that stands out like a sore thumb.

As long as you retain your own USP (Unique Selling Proposition) throughout your copy, you will maintain your offer's consistency. And within that context you can then borrow copy ideas to your heart's content. But blend borrowed copy in smoothly. Spend a good amount of time with this. It's definitely worth it.

Swiping is a part of everyday life in copywriting world. And once you get hang of it, only hard-core copywriting students will pick up on what you've done.

Which is perfectly alright. You may even get a congratulatory note from them.

So go forth and boldly swipe. Because sometimes good enough is indeed * good enough *!