Hey there. One of the things you can do to really make your promotional copy have some punch is to write attention-grabbing bullets. And today we're going to talk about some of the formulas you can use, why it's important to write bullets, and a few other little tips here on the Resilient Faith Online show. Welcome. I'm Arissa Shadrick, host of the Resilient Faith Online Show. I'm an online marketing coach and certified copywriter. In this podcast, you'll find a different perspective to the external and internal challenges we face as online content creators. Join me for some inspiration and practical tips as we create positive change online. To connect with me in my private Facebook group, go to MarissaShadrick.com forward slash community. Hello, hello. So glad to be here today. We're going to talk more about copywriting because copywriting is the promotional words that you write for videos, for sales pages, on your website. It's all of the words that you are trying to communicate to an audience that's reading your material, regardless whether it's free or something that you're trying to sell or something that you want them to click. It's all copywriting. And we've been diving in and talking about different elements of copywriting. And today we're going to talk about bullets, what they are and why they're so important. Because copywriting is really essential if you're going to be on the online space trying to sell, trying to promote, trying to grow your email list, trying to get clients. You really need to dial this in. It's so, so important. So let's get started. I'm Arissa Shatrick. I'm an online marketing coach and certified copywriter, and we're going to learn why and how to write attention-grabbing bullets. But here's the problem: a lot of people try to write a lot of content about their services, about their offer, about their products, and it becomes really thick paragraphs and it gets really wordy. And even on an opt-in for a freebie, you want to be very succinct. You want to have a lot of white space around your copy. So you want to avoid the really blocky paragraphs because, for one thing, it's hard to read and they're just going to skip over it. It's just too much. So you want to break it down into little bite-sized content. And the best way to do that is to write bullets. So I'm going to pull out some points here for you. So number one, the main purpose of a bullet is to make the content easier to skim and scan. You want to be able to reduce resistance so they stay on the content and read it and it will increase interest. So again, a bullet will reduce resistance and increase interest because you simply want them to read the next bullet or the next line that you have on whatever piece of content you're writing. Number two, why is this so important? Because in order for your reader to take action, they must first read the copy. They have to first read and see what's in it for them, what are the benefits. And if they're scanning and it doesn't seem appealing or interesting, they're going to click out and not really get to the juicy stuff. And we want to make sure that all the juicy stuff about your products and services really stand out in headlines and in bullets. And that's exactly what bullets can do for you. So bullets can capture attention, bullets can stir curiosity, bullets can create desire, bullets can increase interest, and bullets can lead to action. Now, if you notice, all of these are very emotionally charged, and they will reduce the resistance that people have when they come to a page and they're reading your promotional material. They're attention-grabbing bullets that lead the reader deeper and deeper into your copy. You could say they're almost like teasers that will provoke people to continue to read the rest of the copy. Number three, bullet formulas. As David Garfinkel says, bullets are your product in action. You want to make sure when they read a bullet, they're understanding what's in it for them. What is the benefit? What is it that's going to interest them or pique their curiosity? They're going to want to continue to read. Now there's different formulas to creating these bullets. I'm going to highlight about five of them that are the most common bullets. So you're not overwhelmed and you can start writing these bullets immediately. And I'm going to give you some examples of each bullet formula. And these examples come from Gary Bensilvanga's sales page on marketing bullets. I'm going to go ahead and share a few of those bullets in there because that particular sales page had a lot, a lot of bullets in it. So you can always go there and check it out and see marketingbullets.com and you can see some of those bullets in there as well. So the first bullet formula is a number bullet. A number bullet has a number in it. It's as simple as that. Here's an example. It doesn't have to start with five ways. We're not writing a headline, we're writing a bullet. And you can craft the bullet this way: the five universal objections to every sale and how to counter each. So you see how there's a balance with the bullet? It's not only saying what it is, but it's also giving you the benefit. So in this particular bullet, the number bullet saying five universal objections, okay, that piques someone's curiosity to every sale, but also how to counter each. So they're not only going to tell you what the universal objections are, but in this bullet, it's implying that they're also going to give you a solution to those objections. So you see how there's a balance in the bullet. You're not just stating out that you have these five objections that you're going to give them. You're saying why it's important and how you're going to fix it. So it's it's really filled with benefit. The next bullet formula is the secret bullet. Now, the secret bullet, you can guess, stirs curiosity. We want to know what the secret is. We just can't help ourselves. It's human nature to see what is the secret. I want to know what the secret is. So secret bullets are very effective. Here's another example from Gary Bensavenga. The easiest way to apply the secrets of Warren Buffett, America's smartest investor, to the process of marketing and wind up far richer. Very few marketers have ever thought of this. So you see how even the secret, it's not starting out with the seven secrets to something, right? Because that's what everybody writes. He's really putting the word in a few words in. He's saying the easiest way to apply the secrets of Warren Buffett. And he's pointing out the credibility, America's smartest investor. And then he's saying what the secrets are applied to, the process of marketing, and where you can wind up far richer. And then here he puts a little teaser saying, very few marketers have ever thought of this. Again, creating that curiosity within that formula of the secret bullet. So there's the first two, the number bullet and the secret bullet. The third one is the how-to bullet. You've probably seen this often enough, the how-to bullet. And here's another example that Gary provides for us. It says, How copywriters and designers too can be more successful when negotiating with clients. So here we see the benefit, right? It's a how-to. It's how copywriters and designers too can be more successful, but he doesn't stop there. That's one of the problems that I see when people write bullets, they they'll say something like, How copywriters can be more successful and they stop. You always have to balance it with that benefit. So here, the whole bullet that he has listed here is how copywriters and designers too can be more successful when negotiating with clients. So he's finishing the thought there and letting you know that when you negotiate with clients, you're gonna be able to be more successful. And that implies more revenue, more clients, more growth, more stimulation for your business. So here it's this how-to bullet explains that you're gonna know exactly how to be able to do this from whatever product or service that he's selling. The next bullet formula is the benefit bullet. I think of all the bullets, this is one of my favorites is the benefit bullet. Here's the example. Not only will you likely achieve a blockbuster success, but once you do, your new product will be relatively immune to knockoffs. So here they're showing the benefit of the product or service, right? They're saying not only will you likely achieve a blockbuster success, but once you do, your new product will be relatively immune to knockoffs. They're adding, they're extending on that benefit. They're adding a little more to think about when you read this bullet. It's got kind of a layered amount of benefit in there because it's it's subtly implying success. Not only will you likely achieve blockbuster success, but it's also adding an extra layer there of benefit by saying once you do, your new product will be relatively immune to knockoffs. So you see how they've kind of layered the benefits in that one bullet. Very, very effective. Now here's the final bullet formula. It's called the warning bullet. The warning bullet, you can see it written different ways when you read copy, but I love the simplicity of this example. It says why you should never compete on price. I love the simplicity of it because it's creating curiosity, saying that they're going to give you some answers as to why competing on price can be negative for you, can have a negative effect. They're not saying all of that, but they're implying that why you should never compete on price. So it creates that curiosity, but it also implies that it's going to give you an answer, a solution, a reason why you should not compete on price. So there you have it. Here are some of the formulas again. Let me repeat them again: the number bullet, the secret bullet, the how-to bullet, the benefit bullet, and the warning bullet. Now, one of the things that you can do when you write bullets is just to do an easy test. You could just read your bullet and see if you've completed it and put that benefit in there and if you've touched emotion. You can ask yourself this, and it sounds kind of rude, but it works. Just ask yourself when you read the bullet, so what? Has it answered so what? If it hasn't answered, so what, your reader's gonna read that bullet and wonder, well, so what? You know, you're you don't want to necessarily just give them this is what's in it. You want to give them a reason why they want to go ahead and continue to read on because you've written the bullet with a benefit. The benefit is what is going to pull the reader in. So you want to create that or curiosity. So again, we said earlier that bullets will capture attention, it'll stir curiosity, it'll create desire, it can increase interest, lead to action. Bullets can do different things. And the beautiful part, as we said earlier, is they're scannable. And so the best of the best is really kind of highlighted with your bullets, and people will see that. And if that captures their attention and interest, then they'll read the rest of it. So always test your bullets by asking yourself, so what? Now, you might think, where can I use these bullets? Is this just for those long sales pages that I've seen people do? Well, bullets can be used just about everywhere. And here are some examples of places that you can put bullets. Now, you can put them even on an opt-in form for a freebie. I think that's one of the best ways to really show the benefit of your freebie by putting a nice captivating headline. I did a podcast episode on headlines as well. So I'll put in the show notes a link to it so that you can refresh your memory on it. But in the bullet for an opt-in, you can put a headline and you can put three little bullets of why this freebie is beneficial without writing a whole long story about it. Just write bullets and it'll be nice and clean. You'll have that white space around the copy, and then a call to action to put their name or email in the fields that are provided. So you can use it in opt-in forms. Obviously, you can use bullets and should use bullets on sales pages. Whether it's a short sales page or a long sales page, you should have bullets for the very reason we said earlier because it's scannable, easy to read. You're really highlighting some great emotionally charged, benefit-charged points about your product or service. So sales pages are another great place to have bullets. Another place you can have bullets is on your website, right on your homepage. You can have bullets there, right above the fold. You can have a headline, even if you have a video, you can have bullets. So then people land on your website, they know exactly what to expect from your website, and you can capture the essence of what you do with bullets as well. So that's a great way to use bullets, is on your website or in other pages of your website as well. You can use bullets on registration pages. If you have, say, a boot camp or you have a webinar or you have a challenge and you're trying to persuade people to sign up and register, you can have bullets as well to show them what's in it for them and why it's important for them to register. So bullets are very compelling, again, because they're so easy to read and you can get to the point very quickly. Another place you can have bullets is on any promotional emails that you have. Rather than write these long emails, if you have an email campaign, you can summarize a lot of things with bullets and it makes it very easy to read, especially when people are on their phone, on their mobile devices. It'll make it nice and easy to scan and see exactly what the email is about and be able to glance that email. So it'll make your emails more compelling as well. So you can use bullets there. And then, of course, you can use bullets for social media posts, even on ads. I've written some uh Facebook ads where I summarize benefits in bullet points and it makes it nice and clean. And again, you have that white space around the copy. So you can use it for social media posts and you can use it for social media ads. Another place you can use bullets is in articles. When you list things in an article, you can break it down with you know your headline, then you have your subheads that you know breaks down the content of your blog post or your article. But within a section, you can have bullets that makes it really, really easy to read as well. So you can have them in articles that you write. So there's some examples of some places that you can use bullets. Now, some of the unexpected advantages of bullets that I think is just so valuable for us who are content creators is the fact that it forces you to have clarity about your product or service. Because when you're writing the bullets, you're going deep because you're really trying to uncover all of the benefits, all of the benefits. And the benefits could be an outcome, but it could also be an emotional benefit as well. So you can uncover so much when you're forced to write these bullets. And some of the things that I do when I write headlines and I craft lots of headlines, what ends up happening is obviously I'm not going to use all the headlines, and I craft a lot of headlines, at least 50 of them. Some of those I can turn into bullets, and then I'll craft more bullets to be able to really capture the essence of what I'm trying to convey. It forces you to uncover the emotional and practical benefits. It helps you break down the features and it really highlights value. So when you write bullets, you're really highlighting the value of what you're offering. And then bullets clearly show how your product or service is different from the competition. Because when you're really pulling out value and you're pulling out benefits and you're trying to pull out how you're different, it really uh shows how you differ from competitors. One of the things that I suggest is write more bullets than you'll need, and then you can pick the best ones. But the last unexpected advantage is bullets can be repurposed. So when you write copy and you have a lot of bullets, you can use some of those bullets. You know, say you have five bullets, you can maybe use three of them for something else, for a social post or a caption on Instagram. They are so versatile as far as where you can put these bullets. So let me recap real quick because we covered a lot today. But the main thing is we're talking about why bullets are so important. And we said that the main purpose of the bullets is to make the content easier to read, easier to scan and skim, so the person will find it interesting and stay on and read the rest of the content. We also said that it the bullets are important because they capture attention, they stir curiosity, they create desire, they increase interest, and they lead to action. And we talked about the different formulas of bullets. There's the number bullet, there's the secret bullet, there's the how-to bullet, the benefit bullet, and the warning bullet. And we also said that once you write a bullet, ask yourself the question: so what? Did I complete the bullet? Am I really showing the benefit for the reader? And we talked about where you can put these bullets. Uh, there's so many places that you can use them from opt-in forms to sales pages, websites, your articles. We went on and on explaining different places that you can use them. And the unexpected advantage of bullets is that you will have more clarity about your product or service as well as you start uncovering all of the emotional and practical benefits of your product or service. So I hope that helped. I know that when we think of writing these bullets, we think, well, are they really necessary? But I'll just say again, the headlines, the subheads, and the bullets will do a lot of heavy lifting for you simply because people won't read copy from beginning to end, especially if there's big blocks of text. And bullets help you organize your thoughts so that it's easy for the reader to read everything. So when you focus on headlines, subheads, and bullets, you've written the majority of the copy. You understand exactly what you're trying to say to your reader, and then the rest is sort of fill in the blank and it makes it much easier to be able to write copy because I know it can be very daunting when we have a blank screen and we're trying to figure out where to start to write copy. The first thing I would start with is some headlines, and then some of those headlines can turn to subheads and see the sequence that you're trying to create and then elaborate on what you're trying to say as far as benefits by using bullets, and you will have a big portion of your copy written. So I hope this was helpful. And I just want to let you know that I am going to be opening up a copywriting membership probably in January, and I am right now inviting people to get on the wait list because I will have a preview for people on the wait list. And all you have to do is go to marissa shadrick.com forward slash wait list. It's called copy connection, and it's going to be a membership site that you can come and join where you're going to learn how to write copy and you'll have templates and you'll receive a training from me. We'll have a monthly uh opportunity to answer questions and also an opportunity to submit copy. And uh depending on how many people are in copy connection, you know, can't review all of the copy, but we can review at least the main the main areas where people are missing a point of a particular lesson. So if we're writing, for example, about headlines, I can pick a number of examples and show how I can be stronger and why certain headlines need certain elements in them. So if this sounds like something that would be of interest to you, I would really encourage you to go to marissachder.com forward slash waitlist, get on the wait list because once I hit go, um, this is gonna move very quickly. And I'm going to launch it in January and I'm gonna take only a certain number of people's sign-ups because it's gonna be kind of the early adopters. And so there's gonna be, let's just say, a launch offer that's gonna be very compelling and exciting for everyone. So if you're interested, go to marissashadow.com forward slash waitlist. I would love, love, love, love to have you there. And we can really deep dive into this copywriting process and make it simple for you because it is really the heartbeat of everything that you write that's promotional. So thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you have a wonderful week and I hope you continue to create marvelous products and services and really showcase them well with copywriting. So until next time, take care. Wait, before you go, if you found this podcast helpful, subscribe so you never miss an episode. Every subscription, review, or rating means so much to me. Remember, cultivate resilient faith online to create positive change in the world.