This is the point where you need to push your reader off of the fence one way or another.

Whether you are looking for a subscription, a sale, or simply some form of contact from your reader, you must tell them what you want them to do.

Let’s give a little analogy just to emphasize this point.

You need to borrow some money from a friend. They may lend it, they may not. But do you think that they will lend you the money if you do not ask them for it?

Of course not.

You MUST make clear the actual goal of your sales copy and make explicit what the reader must do to receive the benefits that you have previously mentioned.

The call to action represents the final letter of the AIDCA acronym and is essentially the ‘make-or-break’ point with regards to getting the reader to make the desired action.

You already have their attention and interest, you have developed their desire for your product, you have convinced them, and now all that remains to be done is to tell the reader what to do.

You can even sprinkle calls to action throughout your copy to allow your (easier convinced) readers to stop reading and take action.

Whether you choose to use numerous calls to action, or just one, you must ALWAYS make it an order, not a request.

Don’t ask the reader if they would like to place an order, tell them to ‘order here’.

It may seem a little brusque to write in this manner, but take it from us, it is much more effective than making a feeble request.

After your call to action, if you are writing your copy in a letter format, it is often a prudent strategy to summarize the major benefits of your product in a PS and PSS to catch the people that are still unsure about making a purchase.

You might also like to add a few more testimonials here to inject a little more conviction.

By now you should have a well written, focused, effective sales letter ready to put in front of your prospective customers.

Being interested in a product is one thing, but having a desire to buy a product and the conviction to go ahead with the purchase is completely different.

This is the job of your body copy; to create the desire and conviction for your reader to purchase.

Whatever your product is, your body copy must make the reader feel as though they not only want the product, but that they need it.

The length of body copy is a much debated subject. Should it be long and drawn-out or short and straight to the point?

The truth is . . . it depends.

It depends on your product. It depends on your reader.

If you’re selling a technically intricate product, for instance a Patek Philippe wrist watch, then the body copy will naturally be lengthier given the extra benefits and features that you must talk about. If you’re selling a pencil, on the other hand, your copy will be considerably shorter.

Similarly, if you are selling to a ‘time-poor’ market, such as executives or young professionals, your copy needs to be short and straight to the point. Any longer and they will not have the time (nor, I suspect, the patience) to read your copy.

If you are selling to pensioners however, you have a little more freedom to give a further detailed account of your product and its benefits.

Generally, long sales copy outperforms short sales copy BUT only if it is long, interesting copy not long, boring copy. If you find yourself repeating points that represent little or no benefit you will lose the reader’s interest and not make the sale.

Now you have an idea of how long your copy should ideally be you can begin writing the body of your sales piece.

To work on building your reader’s desire you need to bring your copy to life whilst remaining focused on benefits throughout your writing.

Invite the reader to play the lead role in a story all about themselves and their wonderful life with your product. Pack your copy generously with the ‘power’ words mentioned earlier for even more emotional kick.

Use teasers at paragraph ends to keep the reader thirsty for more. If you need to break your copy with testimonial boxes or other graphics, do it mid-sentence. Play on the human need for completion to keep your reader hooked.

Keep your copy personal as if you were talking to the reader in person. In fact, this can often be a good way to see how your copy reads. Imagine that you are telling your reader what you are telling them, face-to-face.

This stops the urge for you to produce showy, complex copy.

Would you say . . .

“The most superior quality stainless steel food excavation and incising facilitation set in the world”

. . . to promote a high-quality cutlery set? I think not.

Okay, so that example was a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea. Keep it simple.

To keep your copy even simpler and more digestible for your reader, use plenty of sub-headings to break things up a little and highlight the major benefits of your product.

By now you should have covered most of the benefits that your product has to offer. You have the reader on the brink of purchase. But you can’t stop here.

You must now convince your reader and help them to overcome their reluctance to buy. This is the “C” in the AIDCA formula.

It’s not that they do not want to buy your product, they do. People just exercise a degree of natural caution when making their purchase decisions.

Your job now is to convince the reader that the risks of not buying your product far exceed the risks of buying your product.

A great way of doing this is to induce ‘envy’ in your reader, one of the 7 deadly sins that we mentioned earlier.

Use testimonials to show the reader how other people have benefited from buying your product. Make them feel as though they are the only person in the world not benefiting from using your product.

Other useful tools that you can use to convince your reader include:

• A free sample or trial
• Statistics
• Money-back guarantees
• Third party endorsements

• Press coverage

• Online security certification (MacAfee site advisor, SSL certification etc.)

Free samples and free trials are particularly effective. Think back to when you bought your car. Would you have made the purchase if you couldn’t first take the vehicle for a test drive? The chances are, you wouldn’t.

Not only would it arouse your suspicion, given the commonality of test-drives, that you are refused one. But given the size of the expense for such a good, you would want re-assurance that what you are about to buy delivers exactly what it promises.

Now you should be ready to push your reader towards making the purchase.

Your opening paragraph should follow on seamlessly from your headline, developing your reader’s attention into a real ‘interest’ in your product.

Once you have written your opening paragraph, read back over it in role-play through the eyes of a member of your target audience to see how it reads from their perspective.