The 3 F’s of Advertising Copywriting

I’ll bet you understand my frustrations with online advertising. When writing advertising copy for the web you have to address the same concerns that a salesperson deals with face-to-face, but without the direct feedback or ability to adapt your words to new questions or objections. You have to anticipate everything before you start writing your advertising copy.Master copywriter and direct marketing entrepreneur Joseph Sugarman, in his 1999 book Triggers, discussed and illustrated 30 different ways to motivate, influence, and persuade people when writing. It was an inspiring read. But, I had trouble getting all of those great ideas into my copy. Whenever I started getting traffic to a salespage I wrote, my results were zero. I couldn’t translate my knowledge into effect sales copy.

I felt like all of my promotional efforts were wasted because I couldn’t write copy that people responded to. I was stuck. I needed some framework to build on that would get me consistent results. Then, I discovered the 3 F’s of Advertising Copywriting.

Feel, Felt, Found (Discover)

While reading an e-book on email ad campaigns, I discovered the 3 F’s. I had found the structure I needed to build effective sales copy for my web pages. Once I learned to recognize this pattern I began to see it everywhere.

The 3 F’s are feel, felt, and found (or discover.)

You start off by letting your reader know that you understand how they feel – you’ve felt it yourself! Then you let them know that you felt the same way until you found whatever secret, product, or service you are trying to persuade them to accept. What you found changed everything and now you want to share it with the whole world.

You understand how they feel, because you felt the same way until you found the thing that changed everything.

This is a very powerful technique you can use to gain the trust of your audience and lead them to your product or service. Look for it on other websites you visit and work it into your writing.

Andrew Seltz
The Go-To Guy

P.S. I hope it was pretty obvious that I was trying to use the 3 F pattern to structure this article. It was a fun excercise. Let me know how well I did and share your results using the 3 F’s in your copywriting.

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