Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes
Persuasion in print is largely structural. When I explain it here it’s going to seem abstract, but when you study good salesletters in the future look at the structure.
There are obvious things of course: headline, subhead, testimonials, and so on… and those are elements and by default some of them occupy specific places in the letter… but these are not what I mean when I say that persuasion is a structural challenge.
When you understand the role structure plays in written persuasion you can then start to deploy persuasive elements intentionally for precise effect at specific points in your copy.
In short, when you understand how structure in copywriting works you start to grasp not only what to write, but where to write it in your letter.
Learning any skill is awkward at first, then it becomes comfortable, and when you become highly skilled it starts to feel natural and even works at an unconscious level.
Salesletters are structured, generally, with a bold headline making a claim or otherwise attempting to capture attention from the target audience: the people most likely to have the problem the product solves, the desire to do something about it, and the means to 





