BBP 019: How to Write Bullet Points That Convert with (Emma Lee Bates)

Tools and Resources Mentioned:

• How to Write Copy that Sells by Ray Edwards: Grab it on Amazon

About Emma Lee Bates

Emma Lee Bates is a sales page designer and copywriter, Potterhead (that’s a Harry Potter fan for the uninitiated), and work from home mom of three. She currently works in the online marketing space, helping course creators, coaches and creative online business owners build sales pages and funnels that connect with their ideal audience. When she is not working you can find her playing Wizard’s Unite with her kids, walking her Beagle/Dachshund mix around her small town, or eating ice cream with her husband. Learn more at https://www.facebook.com/emmaleebatesblogger

Shownotes

Hey Boss, welcome to the Blogger Breakthrough Podcast, I’m your host, Liz Stapleton from ElizabethStapleton.com and founder of the Blogger Breakthrough Summit. 

Today we’re talking about bullet points with Emma Lee Bates, who was one of our fantastic 2020 Summit speakers. 

Remember if you want to make sure you get notified when registration opens for the 2021 Summit, be sure to joining the Blogger Breakthrough Summit newsletter and the link to that is included in the show notes.

Now, before we dive in, I did just want to take a second to point out that while this session was focused on writing for sales pages, it can easily be applied to any place that you want people to take action. So that could be an opt-in box, an email, or even social media copy, so with that I’ll let this snippet from Emma’s session take over…

[00:01:06].110] – Emma Lee Bates
A lot of people will stop and look at bullet points because they’re usually kind of short, to the point they can get something out of it and then if they’re interested, they’ll go back and read longer paragraphs. So you definitely won’t have multiple places where you have bullet points on your page. They are, as I said, easy to read and highlight benefits. And they create a break for the eye.

[00:01:24].830] – Emma Lee Bates
The best bullet points create an open loop for the reader and open loop is a question that the mind naturally wants to answer.

[00:01:30].110] – Emma Lee Bates
So one of the reasons that I ask questions in the headline, because it is something that people naturally want to finish. When a bullet point is well written, it answers one question and brings up a second, or it creates curiosity about how something is possible.

[00:01:43].660] – Emma Lee Bates
A few types of bullet points, the two step bullet and elaboration on the main benefit. And I’ll tell you all, I’m going to show you again at the end, what I’m talking about for all of these bullet points came from one of my very favorite copywriting books called How to Write Copy that Converts by Ray Edwards.

[00:02:00].080] – Emma Lee Bates
So you should look that up if you want to get better at bullet points. OK, so the two step bullet point, an example would be “how to create standard operating procedures in your business (You’ve been wasting time, energy and money doing it wrong).” So it’s telling you a feature, right, to create standard operating procedures. And then it’s telling you something that is sort of a hint as to what you might learn inside. It’s creating an open loop because you ask yourself, what am I doing wrong? I thought I was doing this right. What am I missing? So it creates a little intrigue to create some curiosity about what is inside. So this is the first type of point that I love.

[00:02:35].270] – Emma Lee Bates
The second type is the single most low point. This will be used when you have proven results. So if you have something with a case study that has proved your point or something that’s been tested, you can say something like “the single most effective way to appear powerful on camera tested by

Harvard University.”

[00:02:51].790] – Emma Lee Bates
In this case, that’s a big name, Harvard University. So people don’t know what that is, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be something that sort of intense. It could be “tested by my previous students.” And then you show the proof, you show them screenshots and case studies and that type of stuff. But it is a great way to give a lot of power to what you’re teaching or sharing.

[00:03:15].870] – Emma Lee Bates
All right, the next type of bullet point I really love is the “how to” bullet point. It’s simple, but you need to make sure you include why the reader should care. So this is what I was talking about before with features and benefits. When you want to tell them what it is and why they should care, for example, “how to quickly grow your Facebook group with true fans”, why they should care is “so you can explode your income.” Things that people care about most are, saving time, saving money and making money, things that are basic needs, especially in real life.Finding food, finding relationships, that type of thing.

[00:03:52].890] – Emma Lee Bates
The last one I have here is called the number bullet point, when you show multiple ways of doing something or multiple reasons why. So this would be like “the three most important reasons that you need a plan before you want your next product.” So this can be the “three most important mistakes” or the “three most common mistakes that people make in real estate” it could be the “three most devastating examples of people not following my method” type of thing.

[00:04:25].630] – Emma Lee Bates
But you use a number. They say that using odd numbers is better. So like five, seven, nine. But it really a number is powerful, a list is powerful. This is why places like us, we make a killing because they are all listicles and people are attracted to that.

[00:04:42].890] – Emma Lee Bates
OK, so you need to use different kinds of bullet points, you want to use a group of bullet points to be you want a group of bullet points related by topic, but use a variety of types of bullet points to keep people interested in what you saying.

[00:04:52].740] – Emma Lee Bates
So you don’t want to have five bullet points, all starting with the three most, five most, seven most. You know, that’s boring. That’s not mixing it up. You want to make sure that your group of bullet points has diversity.

[00:05:06].890] – Emma Lee Bates
Practice, practice, practice, just like with headlines, you want to write out a lot of bullet points. Keep writing them down. When I sit down to write a sales page, I’ll start with a whole bunch of bullet points and keep adding to them as I go and then mix them up and try to figure out where they go on the page.

[00:05:22].880]
I usually have features and benefits section. You might have section with what’s included. You can have a section with the biggest benefits for people or things that your students or clients did after they worked with you. All sorts of different types of bullet points are really good to include, and it’s good to use an odd number of bullet points in each group.

Wrap Up

Alright so hopefully that gave you tons of ideas on how to write better bullet points. I hope you’ll join me next week. Catch ya then!