Summarizing Is Death

In all forms of expression, summarizing is lethal. But that’s what many copywriters do. At the end of a sales letter, they methodically recount all the important points they just made. What happens is that the energy of the copy is dissipated, the blood drained off.

A much better approach is to take a single strong element of the sales argument and present it in detail. This has a much greater emotional impact on the reader. And it often conveys some of the rest of the whole — even without talking about it.


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“Today’s Gloom or Doom article was timely. I’m in the interior design business, and getting ready to send out a mailer to a small neighborhood where I already have some clients. While I think the copy for it is good, I’ll do some modifying based on your article.

“Thanks so much!”

Dianne Clay
San Antonio, TX

[Ed. Note: Mark Morgan Ford was the creator of Early To Rise. In 2011, Mark retired from ETR and now writes the Palm Beach Letter. His advice, in our opinion, continues to get better and better with every essay, particularly in the controversial ones we have shared today. We encourage you to read everything you can that has been written by Mark.]