Source: Copywriting canon, classics to modern web and SaaS copy

Replace every superlative with a figure (chapter "Being Specific").

Judge every line with one question: "Would this help a salesman sell the goods?" (chapter "Just Salesmanship"). Cut any cleverness a salesperson would never say to a customer.

Use the headline to pick out the right reader, not to entertain: "We pick out what we wish to read by headlines." Hopkins's example: a story about the most beautiful woman in town goes unread under the headline "Egyptian Psychology."

Assume a hurried reader. People "skip three-fourths of the reading matter."

Once you have attention, tell the full story: "Bring all your good arguments to bear." Leave out one claim and you lose the readers it would have convinced (chapter "Tell Your Full Story").

Test small before spending big. Let returns, not opinions, pick the claims and headlines (chapter "Test Campaigns").

Spend most of your effort on the headline: "On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar."

Put the reader's own keyword in the headline so the right person picks themselves out. His examples: "BLADDER WEAKNESS", "MOTHERS".

Headlines that promise a benefit or carry news are the safe bets.

Facts beat puffery. Show the benefit specifically and factually. His Rolls-Royce headline proves quality with one checkable detail: "At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock."

Respect the reader: "The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife." (Confessions, via Ogilvy's quotation book)

Research and positioning come before execution. Ogilvy: "Unless your advertising is built on a BIG IDEA it will pass like a ship in the night" (How to Create Advertising That Sells, via Ogilvy's quotation book).

Channel desire; do not try to create it: "Copy cannot create desire for a product. It can only take the hopes, dreams, fears and desires that already exist in the hearts of millions of people, and focus those already-existing desires onto a particular product."

Write the headline to the reader's awareness stage:

The more aware the reader, the less you need to say. The less aware, the more the copy has to build before the product can appear.

Work out how sophisticated the market is:

When everyone makes your claim, sell the mechanism: name it, describe it, feature it.

Rank headline types by evidence: self-interest (a reader benefit) first, news second, curiosity third. "For every curiosity headline that succeeds in getting results, a dozen will fail."

What you say matters more than how you say it.

Long headlines that say something beat short headlines that say nothing.

Specifics are more believable than generalities.

Test all the time. Caples reports one mail-order ad selling "19-1/2 times as much merchandise" as another in the same space and publication.

Long copy sells more than short copy (Ogilvy's foreword to the fourth edition). Caples adds that long copy is for crowding in sales arguments, not for filling space.

Follow the five fundamentals in order: get attention, show people an advantage, prove it, persuade people to grasp the advantage, ask for action.

Never skip "prove it." The step between the promise and the ask is where web copy is usually thinnest.

Borrow headline patterns from a tested catalogue before inventing new ones.

Test headline, appeal, copy length, layout and call to action one variable at a time.

Enter the conversation already taking place in the reader's mind. The popular one-line version is a paraphrase. In the 1950 edition Collier writes that every reader holds "a mental conversation with himself, the burden of which is his own interests" and that a letter should "chime in on that conversation" (full text: https://idoc.pub/documents/the-robert-collier-letter-book-6nq8egkr7pnw, read 29 October 2026).

Open with what the reader is already thinking about (a current worry, event or desire), then lead into your offer.

Understand the reader's needs and desires before writing. The letter sells a desire fulfilled, not an object.

Find the starving crowd first. Asked which advantage he would want for a hamburger stand (better meat, a better location, the lowest price), Halbert answers: "NONE OF THE ABOVE! The best advantage of all is a STARVING CROWD."

Structure a sales message as attention, interest, desire, action, and ask for the action now (chapter 16).

Train your ear by copying great ads out by hand (chapter 17).

Read your copy aloud, and let drafts rest before revising (chapters 15, 18 and 22, per summaries).

Use simple, everyday words, short sentences and short paragraphs.

"The sole purpose of the first sentence in an advertisement is to get you to read the second sentence."

"All the elements in an advertisement are primarily designed to do one thing and one thing only: get you to read the first sentence of the copy." Headline, image and subhead all serve the first line.

Build a "slippery slide": every sentence pulls the reader into the next, and the first sentence is short and easy.

Write as much copy as the sale needs, and no more.

Write one-to-one, in a personal, honest voice the reader can nod along with.

State the problem factually, then agitate (make its cost felt), then present the solution.

Write for a defined list of prospects, not the general public.

Treat agitation as a dial. On a SaaS page, stating the cost accurately usually beats dramatizing it.

Mine reviews of adjacent products, in places where your prospects already talk about the problem: Amazon book reviews, TripAdvisor, review sites, forums.

Sort what you find into "what they love," "what they hate" and "what they worry about," and keep phrases word for word: "Their words become yours. You'll take what they say, and mirror it back to them."

Let the customer's language beat yours. For a rehab center, the review-mined headline "If you think you need rehab, you do." got over 400% more clicks than "Your Addiction Ends Here" and 20% more form submissions later in the funnel. This is a single test reported by Wiebe.

Work in three phases: research and discovery; writing, wireframing and editing; validation and experiments. Frame recommendations as hypotheses.

"Copywriting formulas work best when you use them with copy research." Formulas give the structure; research gives the content.

Answer four questions in order:

Lead with the category in plain language (for example "project management application"), then back it up.

Make relevance concrete. Name the specific pains and use cases of the target buyer, not broad benefits for everyone.

Differentiate by naming the alternatives and backing each claim with proof: "Do not invent difference by adding adjectives."

Fix the earlier layers before the later ones. Change one hypothesis per revision so the feedback stays readable.

Run three tests on every line: Can I visualize it? Can I falsify it? Can nobody else say this?

Write calls to value, not calls to action: "Create your website" rather than "Sign up now."

Name the target customer outright. People pay attention when something is clearly for them.

Start ideas from substance, not adjectives: "Adjectives are okay. Just ideas don't start with them." Avoid stock landing-page words such as unlock, unleash and empower.

Let customers write the copy. Ask one question at signup ("what is your biggest frustration with ...?") and collect the answers (his Design Academy example).

Prefer short sentences, active voice and a structure people can scan. Never exaggerate: "An honest line always feels warmer."

Think of conversion as "Purchase Rate = Desire - (Labor + Confusion)": raise desire, cut effort and confusion.

Apply the header test: "If the visitor reads only this text on your page, will they know exactly what you sell?" Prefer "Visually design and develop sites from scratch. No coding." to "Improve your workflow!"

Use the subheader (one or two sentences) to say how the product works and which features make the header's claim believable.

Write each feature as a value proposition plus the objection it raises. Find objections by asking customers "What almost stopped you from buying?"

Make the CTA the next step toward the header's claim: "Start learning," not "Request a meeting."

"Don't fear writing a long homepage. But, ensure your hero is incredible." The writing handbook adds: write a terrible first draft fast, then rewrite hard for clarity.

Accept "The Ugly First Draft" as necessary, then edit hard. Good writers "are excellent editors of their own work."

Edit in four passes:

"No one will ever complain that you've made things too simple to understand." "Assume the reader knows nothing, but don't assume the reader is stupid."

"Buzzwords and jargon are the chemical additives of writing."

Sales copy should sound like the product it sells, "like the same author wrote it." Use short, parallel bullet lists of three or five.

"White space is oxygen." Format for people who skim and scroll, and read your copy aloud.

Dig under each benefit. Ask "What is the benefit of the benefit?" until you reach the real motive (https://www.verygoodcopy.com/writing/benefits).

Show, don't tell. Present a specific scene and let the reader supply the feeling; his example is David Abbott's Chivas Regal Father's Day ad (https://www.verygoodcopy.com/writing/showing-vs-telling).

Write to one real person, not a composite: "A persona is a Frankenstein" (quoting Sean D'Souza) (https://www.verygoodcopy.com/thinking/persona).

Study the classics directly. The site republishes lessons from Ogilvy, Bencivenga and Drayton Bird.

Interview recent buyers who fit your target best; they still remember how they bought.

Pull out five things:

Write for trigger moments. Every purchase starts when a person goes from not knowing they have the problem to actively looking for a fix.

In interviews, ask about what people actually did. Do not pitch what you are building.

Interview customers who bought in the last 6 to 12 months and still remember why they chose you over the alternatives.

Headlines state what you do, who it is for, and why you are different.

Replace short testimonials in sliders with long, specific ones placed next to the claim they support.

Open the pricing page with value and ROI proof before the tiers.

Keep features together. Spreading them across many pages makes a platform look like a single-purpose tool.

"Write a bad version 1 as fast as you can; rewrite it over and over." "Cut out everything unnecessary."

Write in a conversational tone with simple, Germanic words. Read it aloud to find where you stumble.

"Writing simply keeps you honest. If you say nothing simply, it will be obvious to everyone, including you."

"The easier something is to read, the more deeply readers will engage with it."

Useful writing "tells people something true and important that they didn't already know, and tells them as unequivocally as possible." Importance, novelty, correctness and strength multiply together.

"Copywriting is interface design. Great interfaces are written." Button labels, empty states and help text are all copy.

"Don't use acronyms or words that most people don't understand. Don't use internal lingo."

Clarity first: "CLARITY is of utmost importance on this page." Do not give up clarity for cleverness.

Start with words: "everything always starts with writing." If a feature cannot be explained clearly in writing, it "probably isn't ready."

"Write what I'd want to read."

Define five components, each building on the one before: competitive alternatives, unique attributes, value, target customers, market category.

Choose the market category on purpose. It sets the reader's expectations and is the "clarity" layer of the page.

Work out the value from what is unique compared with the real alternatives, including spreadsheets or doing nothing.

79% of test users always scanned new pages; 16% read word by word ("How Users Read on the Web").

Compared with a promotional version, usability was 58% higher for concise copy, 47% for scannable, 27% for objective, and 124% with all three combined.

Users "detest" marketese and prefer facts.

Caveat: a 1997 study with small samples, though later NN/g work points the same way.

Landing pages written at a 5th to 7th grade reading level converted at 11.1%, against 7.1% at 8th to 9th grade and 5.3% at a professional level.

Higher word counts went with lower conversion (a -18.6% correlation), and difficult words of three or more syllables more so (-24.3%). Financial services was an exception.

Caveat: these are correlations across many pages, not controlled tests.

Sources: Ken Segall, Insanely Simple (2012), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Segall . Segall was Jobs's agency creative director for 12 years, worked on "Think different," and came up with the "i" naming of iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. Harry Dry, "How Steve Jobs clarified Apple's message," https://marketingexamples.com/copywriting/think-different , contrasts the spec-heavy Lisa launch with the two words "Think different."

Lessons: boil the message down to one idea. Consistent naming is part of the copy. Identity and story work after the brand is known (Schwartz's fifth stage of market sophistication), not for an unknown product.

Sources: RC Victorino, "How Stripe Built a Writing Culture" (Slab, Sept 2, 2020), https://slab.com/blog/stripe-writing-culture/ , covers short paragraphs, subheads, bullets, sample documents and review of high-impact documents. Homepage, https://stripe.com (read 29 October 2026): the headline leads with the category ("Financial infrastructure to grow your revenue" in the English page title). A customer logo strip sits directly under the hero. Proof by numbers follows (135+ currencies and payment methods, 99.999% historical uptime), and the enterprise section adds that 50% of the Fortune 100 have used Stripe.

Lessons: category plus outcome in the headline (Wynter's clarity layer), numbers as proof instead of adjectives (Hopkins), logos as social proof (Shapiro).

Flag: no rigorous independent teardown of Stripe's marketing copy was found. This analysis is the research agent's own, applying the frameworks above.

Homepage, https://linear.app (checked Sept 2026): "The product development system for teams and agents" / "Purpose-built for planning and building products. Designed for the AI era."

Beliefs live on a separate narrative page, https://linear.app/readme . Working principles are at https://linear.app/method (for example "Write issues not user stories").

Analysis: Daniel Schwarz, "Linear design: The SaaS design trend that's boring and bettering UI" (LogRocket, June 7, 2025), https://blog.logrocket.com/ux-design/linear-design/ , on direct, minimal copy paired with restrained visuals.

Lessons: put the category and the audience in the headline, with a one-line subhead. Put the manifesto on its own page so the homepage stays easy to scan. Short, declarative principles read as confidence.

Ogilvy's long-copy line for expensive purchases, via reviews of Ogilvy on Advertising.

Halbert's chapter numbers for the editing tips.

The "one big idea" emphasis in Great Leads.