In his book Influence, Robert Cialdini (2000) observes that people are motivated to comply with people whom they like. He goes on to itemize qualities that we might possess, or actions we might take, that would cause someone else to like us. One of these is paying compliments.

‘Why should I?’ That is what the person you are trying to persuade is thinking. They don’t necessarily know you. They don’t necessarily trust you. (They almost certainly don’t trust you.)

Try this: Picture your ideal customer as a fictional character. Give them an inner life. It’s a great way to get to know them.

‘No blisters’ is a benefit but we need to process it intellectually. ‘You’ll have a garden to be proud of and no sore hands’ is a promise and we process it emotionally.

The old ‘better mousetrap’ fallacy. The trouble is, people don’t want better mousetraps. They want dead mice. Mice that were alive in their houses and are now dead, I mean, not, like, packages of dead mice in the post.

copy itself is more interesting, describing life with the product, rather than the product itself.

A different spin on the revealing of secrets is the revealing of lies.

Forget about long introductions, or passages of exposition. Just as with good fiction, you should aim to tell your story through action not description. Dialogue is action. Events are action. Adjectives, superlatives and clichés are not action.

stop them in their tracks and make them want to read the next sentence. Which Joseph Sugarman, another garlanded US copywriter, claims is the single job of the headline.