Sense-ational writing
Fiction writers have some leeway for character and story development. Sales copy must be more succinct and efficient… but that doesn’t mean it needs to be dull and one dimensional.
In face to face sales you have the benefit of body language, tone, volume and pitch. Sales copy has to work harder to convey emotion.
One way to accomplish that is to engage the other senses… smell, sound, taste, touch.
When you land on my webpage, I can’t pass a fresh brewed cup of coffee under your nose. But I can write about struggling through an unfamiliar airport after coming off an overnight trans–Atlantic flight. Passing through customs and rounding the corner… your right eyebrow arched as the aroma of coffee broke through your stuffed sinuses and pulled you off your path.
And I can write:
My pulse must have doubled, my heart jumped up to my throat and pain filled
my ears when I mistakenly set off the louder than a jet engine security alarm.
You get the idea.
Create the experience on as many levels as possible to pull the reader in and fill the gap between “being there” and reading about it.
Enhance the experience with picture words to stroke an image in the reader's brain… as they say a picture tells a thousand words. Our human brain thinks in pictures. If I say cat, your brain doesn't think of three letters: C A T. It recalls stored images of cats… and the memories and feelings associated with cats for you.
After you’ve written your copy, go back through each paragraph, sentence, word and see if you can replace flat words with more descriptive words. Close your eyes and experience your subject through as many senses as you can. Then describe that experience.