I wish I could un-see this

Yesterday I had the acute misfortune of reviewing some of the worst-written copy to ever scar my retinas.

If I were to write a parody of the cheesiest infomercial “one weird trick” style sales page…

And then turn around and write a parody of THAT…

Then we’d be in the ballpark of this copy.

Where to begin?

For starters, every single sentence ends with an exclamation point!

Except for the ones that end in multiple exclamation points!!!

And a couple that end in multiple question marks, like “What Are You Waiting For???”

But wait—there’s more!

The writer doesn’t back up any of his claims!

He says things like, “demand is growing by 619% year over year!” and just expects that you’ll take his word for it!

And he provides next to no detail about what’s in his product, other than saying it contains “hours upon hours of on-demand content”!

The subheadlines include clunkers like “Wow, Incredible ROI!” Used without any sense of irony!

And on and on it goes!?!

Ready for the crazy punchline?!?

This page worked.

As in, converted at a respectable 2.5% for a $500 offer to a very skeptical and jaded market.

Here’s the point I want to make about this:

You have to be very careful when you look at “successful” copy and consider swiping it, or modeling your approach after it.

Often you’ll hear that a promotion is working well, but you don’t get the full story as to why.

The hype in this sales page would kill most promotions.

I happen to know this market fairly well—it was the pull of the offer, along with near-perfect timing, that saved the day.

That’s not something an outside observer would necessarily pick up on.

So always take “results” with a large grain of salt.

And don’t just “swipe” blindly, even when the copy supposedly killed.