The Rule of One

In this final segment of this module, we want to talk about the rule of one. There are several different ways to look at this but in essence, your copy needs to do one thing. It needs to be focused on one reader (and by that we don’t necesarilly mean just one person, but one type of buyer—although great copy will feel like it was written specifically for just one person). 

It needs to communicate one promise. It should talk about one mechanism. It should be focused on one offer and have only one call to action.

Even if your product can be used by multiple kinds of people and even if it does multiple things—focus on the rule of one.

One promise to one person with one offer and one call to action.

Here’s why this is so important… when you talk to several audiences at once, you’re not able to be specific enough for any one of them and you tend to not connect with any of them. Remember what we said earlier about the power of specificity.

When you talk about more than one promise, again you’re not specific enough about what your product will accomplish and you lose the opportunity to communicate about the specific thing your audience needs to hear.

When you make more than one offer or have more than one call to action, you confuse your reader about what they should do… and often they’ll respond by not doing anything at all. A confused customer does not buy.

So as you write, be sure to focus on one promise. One reader. One offer. One call to action. That’s it. One.