Persuasion without pressure

The best person at a type-conference stand opens a file, finds the thing you asked about and shows it working. Nobody at that stand shouts. Write like that person.

This page holds the working rules for marketing copy: how to find where the reader starts, what to say first, how to make an offer legible and how to keep the voice when a draft passes through many hands or a language model. The registers page says when a passage is marketing at all; the marketing chapters explain each rule at length.

The salesperson test

Ask of every line: would a knowledgeable colleague say this to the reader's face, with the file open between them? If not, it does not belong in print either. The test removes a surprising amount. Nobody at the stand says “Unleash your creative potential”. They say “Drag the node along its own contour, and the curve follows.”

Visible effort to persuade raises resistance; let the work be visible instead. Chapter 309 develops the test.

Know where the reader starts

The same product needs different first sentences for different readers. Before drafting, place the reader by asking four questions in order:

1. Do they know the problem exists?
2. Do they know that tools solve it?
3. Do they know this product?
4. Do they know what it costs and what it requires?

The first “no” tells you where to begin. An owner of the previous version knows all four, so lead with what changed, the price and the date. Someone comparing two font editors knows the first three: give them the mechanism and the evidence. A lettering artist who has never thought of making a font knows the first only as a vague wish: begin with the work they already do, and bring the product in when the task is recognizable. Give each piece one primary starting point and route the other readers elsewhere. Chapter 311 develops the method.

Write the message before the copy

Write a short message document before any page: what the product does, how it does it, and five answers. Why would this reader consider it? Why ask us? Why change what they use now (including doing nothing, without inventing a cost of staying put)? Why this product? Why now, if there is a true reason? Every answer must be provable; an empty “why now” is left empty rather than filled with pressure.

Then compress. Say the message in a hundred words, then in fifty, then in ten. The ten-word version is the test every section answers to. If a paragraph does not serve it, it belongs on another page.

Open with a promise the next line keeps

An opening is a promise. The first screen, the first frame of a clip or the first paragraph of an email must pay it at once. Curiosity is honest when the piece answers its own question; it becomes bait when the answer is withheld or smaller than the hook implied. Price, eligibility and limits are never held back for a reveal.

Select the reader rather than attract everyone. A line that names the task (“You have a cutter and a bitmap logo”) draws the people who can use the product and lets the others move on. A line that names a status (“For serious designers”) flatters some readers and tells none of them anything. If an opening could be sent to anyone, rewrite it.

Draft many openings before choosing. Change the point of entry, not the adjectives: the task, the visible result, the object, the condition, the question the reader would type. Chapter 304 covers headlines; chapter 307 covers subject lines and first frames.

The first sentence of the body has one job: to get the second sentence read. Keep it short and easy to enter, and leave the specification for later. For an owner the easiest entry is the fact (“Version 5 is out”); for a newcomer it is their own work. Captions are read more often than body text, so each caption carries the product name and its claim on its own, for the reader who looks at the picture and nothing else.

Specific beats superlative

A superlative is discounted on arrival and taints the claims around it. A specific claim is either true or false, and readers know the difference. “Vexy Lines exports SVG, PDF and EPS” beats “every format you need”. “In Vextra, a new Smart Corner starts at 55% tension” tells an illustrator more than “perfectly smooth corners”.

Ordinary facts that nobody has bothered to state can carry a page. If FontLab checks something before export, say what it checks, even if other editors do the same. The first company to explain a process plainly often owns it in the reader's mind.

Run the swap test on praise: put a competitor's name in place of ours; if the compliment is still true, it is not yet saying anything about us. A shared fact stated plainly still earns its place; the test removes empty praise, not useful facts. Where a general claim is needed, follow it with what it means, why it matters to this reader and how they can check it.

In a crowded category, the mechanism leads

When every tool in a category promises speed, accuracy and ease, readers file each new promise with the old ones, and a bigger promise joins the pile. Before writing a headline for a crowded category, read a dozen recent headlines from the products the reader compares us with. If they share one claim, put the mechanism first: what our product does differently, in terms the reader can check, with the familiar benefit following as shorthand. “Smart corners that keep the sharp node underneath” before “faster editing”.

Starting points move. Owners of a version that has just shipped are at a different stage from the people who read the launch, so a headline that worked last year can stop working without a word of it changing. Recheck each product's starting point after every release.

Order the claims so belief builds

One claim the reader fully believes does more than several they half believe. Begin with a fact the reader already accepts about their own work, put the claim that most needs belief after the facts that prepare it, and place each proof where the reader would ask for it. A question can select the reader by situation (“Was your font started in FontLab 7 or 8?”); it must not presume a problem the reader has not reported.

Explain an unfamiliar product simply and a familiar one in detail. Vexy Lines and the plug-ins meet many readers for the first time; FontLab meets experts who want formats, limits and behavior.

Show, then let others tell, then tell

Evidence has an order of strength. Showing is strongest: a demonstration on the reader's kind of material, with the input, settings and result visible and anything untested named. Next comes an attributable account from someone else, quoted exactly with permission. Weakest is the company's own assertion. Use the strongest form the evidence allows, and many small proofs over one large claim.

A demonstration that keeps its rough edge is more credible than a polished montage. Show the first pass that looks wrong and the one setting that fixes it. “Autotrace gives a first pass; you adjust nodes where the shape matters” is a promise the product can keep every time.

Answer objections where they arise

Readers do not leave because of a missing adjective. They leave because a question went unanswered: will my files open, is the license per machine, do my scripts still run, can I learn this, can I undo the decision? Collect these from support mail, forum threads and sales questions, rank them by how often they come up, and answer each one next to the decision it blocks. Answer the strongest real objection head-on, including the honest limit, rather than hoping nobody raises it.

A fit statement helps when the evidence supports one: who needs this product, who will be better served by something else, and what they need before they start. Write it as a requirement, never as a judgment of the reader. Naming the better tool for a task we do not serve, even our own other product, is what an advisor does.

Make the offer legible

Put the whole offer where the reader decides: what they get, the price with its currency, who qualifies, the term, and the exit terms (trial length, what the trial limits, refund window, renewal and cancellation, what the buyer keeps if they stop). If you cannot state who qualifies, what they get, the price and the date in one or two sentences, the offer is not ready to write.

Say what the price covers before or beside the number, in the reader's terms, and let the number stand: no “only”, no apology, no minimizing comparison or per-day arithmetic after it. Answering a price question with what the price covers is expected. When price meets resistance, offer a different package at its own price rather than an unexplained cut. Eligibility discounts (upgrade, education, crossgrade) are fine when their reason is stated.

Risk reversal is a set of literal terms, never a promise about outcomes. A real deadline carries its date, time and time zone, and is repeated wherever the offer appears. Every promotion has a true reason: a release, an eligibility rule, an anniversary that actually happened. Chapter 312 covers offers and objections in detail.

Give each message one offer. Owners see their upgrade; newcomers see the license and the trial; bundles and other products wait for the order confirmation. Readers offered nine choices often choose none.

End a page with the whole offer in one place: what the buyer receives, who qualifies, the total price, the requirements a buyer would otherwise ask about, and a button that names the action. A missing requirement is a reason to postpone. Then let the last line state the choice rather than press it: “Version 4 keeps working; upgrade when the master view matters to you.” People agree more readily when they are told they are free to decline.

Every claim has a source on file

A factual claim needs its evidence before it is published, for every reasonable reading of it, not only the one the writer meant. “Every format” promises a list; “saves hours” promises a measurement. Either supply the evidence or rewrite the sentence as the mechanism (“spacing and kerning suggestions that run on your computer”). Because we write as the experts, our opinions are read as facts; “in our view” does not change that.

Four kinds of claim need particular care:

• Quotations. A customer's sentence that we publish becomes our claim. It shows its date, the product version it refers to and its source, and it discloses any connection: an employee, a partner, a free license, a pre-release build.
• “Free”. The condition travels with the word into every subject line, preheader, post and translation. If the condition does not fit, the word does not go out.
• Earlier prices. A “was” price or a “later” price is one that was or will actually be charged.
• Comparisons. Every cell states what that maker publishes, with the source and the date read; where a maker states nothing, the cell says so in the same type size. Like is compared with like, and a comparison is rechecked when a competitor changes, not only before publishing.

A promise is kept at checkout as well as on the page: a crossgrade or free-upgrade rule appears in copy only once the store applies it.

Say who benefits

When a partner, creator, affiliate or employee recommends a product, the reader is told the relationship at the start, in the reader's language, in the place the recommendation is read: on screen and in speech in a video, not only in a description. For German readers the label is “Werbung” or “Anzeige”. A founder posting about the company's products names that role in the same post. Chapter 307 covers the short formats.

Test, then keep the winner

Readers' behavior settles what argument cannot. Give each variant its own key (a code, a link) that survives to the store's records, and judge it on purchases and revenue per reader, not on clicks. Change one thing at a time against the last version that worked: the promise first, then the price or terms, then the format. Test two promises with the same offer on part of the audience and send the winner to the rest. Report the size of each group and whether the difference could be chance; a small difference in a small group is no difference. Keep a winner until it stops working rather than rewriting it on a schedule. Chapter 304 applies this to headlines.

What the house does not use

Much classic advertising advice works by pressure. It remains effective in the short term and it is not ours. We do not use:

• guilt, fear or greed as the reason to act now;
• scarcity or deadlines that are not real, and countdowns that restart;
• status imagery that sells the reader to their neighbors;
• invented reference prices, and discounts without a stated reason;
• editorial disguise: an advertisement made to look like reporting;
• claims enlarged to beat a rival's claim;
• guarantees about outcomes, rather than terms;
• “dry tests” that take orders for a product that does not exist; a waitlist says what it is;
• a price change announced without its date and the new price;
• any reward for a review or a rating;
• statements exaggerated to provoke a reaction;
• simulated personal touches: fake handwriting, “sent from my phone”, a first name that no person answers to;
• negative norms (“most designers forget to back up their masters”), which teach the behavior they describe;
• a “team” that does not exist;
• stock or generated people beside a real quotation, AI personas cited as research, and generated images shown as what the product made.
• “only a few left” for software, “limited quantity”, “we are the number one”;
• invented feelings (“I know how defeated I felt”) and manufactured intrigue (“You picked a special day to stop by”);
• coupons aimed at readers a tool has marked as price-sensitive, make-good coupons, monthly community discount codes and “one-time offer” downsells;
• testimonials written for the customer to sign;
• competitor names in tags and “best, top-rated” in metadata.

What the same books teach and we keep: research before writing, the mechanism, the demonstration, the real deadline, naming the product's limits, and testing on buyers.

Judge email by what readers do

Open rates are no longer a reliable measure: mail privacy features open messages before people do. Judge a message by clicks, replies, purchases and revenue per delivered address, and record opens only as an indication. Do not resend to “non-openers”; the list cannot tell who they are, and a second copy to people who did read it costs complaints.

Use the reader's words

The best headlines often come from support mail. Keep a phrase bank: the words practitioners use for their own situations, recorded with the source and date. “Cut file”, “weeding”, “my overlaps vanish on export” are the reader's nouns; “vector output solution” is ours. Interview people about what they did last time, not what they wish for. Mark what you inferred separately from what they said, and never publish a paraphrase as a quotation or a composite as a customer. Chapter 313 shows the method.

Write for people who arrive through an answer

Many readers now meet our products first through a search result or an answer engine's summary. Write passages that survive being lifted out: the question as a heading, the answer in the first sentence, product, version, format and platform named instead of “it”. Publish prices, requirements and formats on our own pages in plain text, so nobody has to quote a stale forum thread. Use one approved description of each product, word for word, everywhere it appears. Chapter 314 explains why and how.

Draft with AI under the same rules

A language model writes the average of what it has read; the house voice is what the average leaves out. Give a model our material, not adjectives: the fact sheet, the changelog, the manual pages, approved examples in the right register, the house rules. Tell it to mark every missing fact instead of supplying one. Have a separate session review the draft against the rules. A person writes the lead claim, approves the offer and checks every fact before anything is published. Chapter 315 gives the full workflow.

Review from the ground up

When a page does not work, find the lowest level that fails before polishing sentences. Check in this order:

1. Reader: whose decision is this, and where do they start?
2. Idea: can the main claim be said in ten words, and is it ours?
3. Offer: are the price, terms and next step clear?
4. Proof: can the reader see or check each claim?
5. Execution: the headline, the sentences, the rhythm.

Polish cannot rescue a weak floor below it. A beautiful headline on a page whose offer is unclear is still a page whose offer is unclear.

Then read it as the reader would: cold, on the device they use, without the context the team carries. Mark the first sentence where they would ask “but what does it do?” and repair the page there.