1. Types of Sales Copy

In this chapter I have lumped together a whole range of types of copywriting that are all more or less directly connected with selling to consumers or businesses (aside from direct marketing, of course, which is covered in Chapter 11). At one end of the spectrum are brochures and leaflets, material which might be considered the classic domain of the marketing copywriter. At the other are specialist documents such as media packs, white papers, point-of-sale (PoS) materials and other types of sales collateral.

The basic rules of good writing (Chapter 8) apply to all these types of projects, just as they do to other copywriting disciplines. The key point of any sales copy is to get straight to the point and bring out benefits, not features, up front.

Here is a brief account of some of the major types of sales promotion work and a few of the copywriting considerations they throw up.