tedster - 2:30 am on May 26, 2003 (gmt 0)

4. Define your target market.

One my friends who has decades of experience as a copy writer offered me what he calls "the litmus test for good copy." The idea is to write for your hottest prospect - the person who would really want what you're offering if they only knew what you've got.

I call it the "DeNiro effect". If your best prospects can't recognize themselves in your copy, if you don't generate that "hey, you're talking about me" response, then your copy is less than it could be.

Before my friend let me in on this "secret", which is really nothing more than precise targetting, I was writing rather flat footed copy. I was trying to talk to absolutely everyone who might stumble across my page, and I was anxious about losing a single reader.

As a consequence, the people most likely to buy were not getting the fact that this product/service was really created for people exactly like them.

So I learned to relax about those fringe prospects. Instead I create scenarios of the exact kind of person who could use the product, and I write directly to them. I often flesh these prospects out in detail - name, income, family details, car, hobbies, whatever it takes to make them real in my mind.

When I write to the best prospect I can envision, right square in the center of the target market, then I also end up converting more people who are a bit towards the edge of center.