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By Ray L. Edwards

I could still recall the days of writing telegrams. That wasbefore the fax machine, internet and email. Writing a telegrammeant economy of words and so obvious verbs and needlessadjectives had to be omitted.

Today, with the advent of email and other cheap sources ofcommunication you don't have to be that paranoid about yourmessage-except you are writing an advertisement. When writing aclassified ad for example, every word must count in the smallspace allowed and so word choice becomes very important.

But word choice is not only about being brief.

Even when crafting a long sales letter you should try and avoidusing the personal pronouns: "we, me, I, our,us". The salesmessage should be about your prospects and not about yourcompany. The "we syndrome" is a common error but it can easilybe avoided. A sales message should state upfront the benefit tothe customer not parade how many awards the company has receivedin the past ten years. Whenever possible then the copy should bewritten in the third person.

There are some other words that are very common in advertisingbut are just too vague to have any force. Great copy is alwaysspecific. "How to make $3,567.23 from your home in 30 days!" hasmore force than "How to make money from home." Here are somecommonly used words that lack force because their meaning is tooethereal:

"It" - State what "it" is rather than leave "it" for the readerto figure out. This word can often be replaced by what 'it'represents or stands in place of.

"Quality" - This has a similar meaning to "personality". Weoften hear people say that someone has personality. But everyonehas a personality whether good or bad. The same holds forquality. Every product or service has some quality which thecustomer will be the ultimate judge of.

Superlatives such as "tastiest, best, fastest, strongest,superior, minimize, optimize". The problem with these words isthat they instill doubt in the readers because these claimsappear unsubstantiated. These words lack power because they arenot measurable. Take the word "superior" for example. Whatcriterion or measurement was used to judge this product assuperior and by how much?

"Solution" - This word cannot stand on its own. If you areselling a product or service it is also obvious that you areselling the solution to a problem, so state what the solution israther than just using the word.

"Technology" - This word is commonly used to suggest innovationand newness. But customers have little concern about thetechnology that is behind the products they buy. They are onlyconcerned about the benefit they derive from these products andservices. How many drivers are really concerned about thetechnology that's under the hoods of the vehicle they drive?They are really only concerned that the vehicle is reliable andgives them some social status.

"Difference" - Rather than stating that you are different fromyour competitors state the difference instead. Just saying"different" means little and is just filling space. Thestatement "We make all the difference" doesn't leave theprospect more educated than before reading your sales message.

Consider the following advertiser's blurb:

"We make all the difference because of our superior quality andsolutions we offer."

It's like junk food - a lot of flavor but zero nutritionalvalue. This statement means little because it's not specific atall. It creates more questions than answers and leaves thereader totally confused. And this is the last thing you want todo to a customer.

Go to any website and you'll see statements such as "can saveyou time and money", (well how much?) "creates website in lesstime" (less than 2, 4, 100 hours?), "maximize your gas mileage"(by how much 1%, 5%, 40%?). All these statements will tripletheir effectiveness by using numbers (note that I gave aquantity, 'triple').

The more specific your message is the more believable you willappear. Using a bunch of superlatives only makes you seemself-serving. Customers are immune to this type of hype andfilters out these claims like a squirrel discards peanut shells.

When making any comparison in your sales letter state thebaseline, use numbers and give a time period whenever possible.In this way you don't have to use superlatives because thenumbers will speak for themselves. If you follow this simplerule your sales conversion rate will increase by 4.7% within 29days of putting this into effect.

Even though that last statement was hypothetical you can senseits power because specific numbers were used instead of justsaying 'your sales will increase'.

I think it's time to review your sales message and sweep awaythe chaff words leaving the pure wheat behind.

You'll be 9.9% happier that you did!

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