The Michel Fortin Blog

Some of the tests results I love to follow are those from The Poynter Institute. Their eyetracking studies are some of the largest ever conducted in this space. While their tests are primarily done for, and funded by, major newspapers, their...

A lot of people ask me how I write copy. I don't mean the content-writing process (such as how I come up with headlines, bullets, offers, etc), but how I tackle the actual task of composing a new salesletter from scratch. Everyone is different....

The most important part of your copy is not your headline, not your offer and certainly not your benefits. The most important part is your customer. In the last few weeks, I've been critiquing some pretty good copy. Very well-written and...

Looks like I've been tagged again. Apparently, Mike Sansone of ConverStations started the new tagging trend, titled, "Why do I blog?" Ryan Healy then added me to this list. I've been tagged in the past, and this is something I really like....

An ad-writer, to have a chance at success, must gain full information on his subject. The library of an ad agency should have books on every line that calls for research. A painstaking advertising man will often read for weeks on some problem which...

An interesting question was recently asked of me in a discussion forum: "I agree with the idea of submitting articles a lot of targeted visitors to a site, however, I was wondering, 'What keeps Michel Fortin writing?' I mean, Michel, what is your...

When I write copy, some tools help me tremendously. Whether it's the copy itself, or interactions with my clients, there are certain websites I use that help make it a lot easier for me. There are quite a few pieces of software, so let me just...

Gary: Then you go out to a library or a bookstore and get ten books on golf and outline a product based on the ideas you got from those books. I remember one book I really liked had a simple title said, "The Secrets of Perfect Putting", but anyway...

Writing copy usually involves two major things: figuring out what to say and then how to say it. The second part is usually the easiest part of my work. Why? Because figuring out what to say is often a whole lot harder than how to say...