Sales copy resource
Honest sales copy checklist: claims, proof, and offers
Use this review process before publishing a landing page, email, ad, or sales message. Make the offer easier to understand without inventing results, customers, urgency, or authority.
- State who the offer is for and what it actually does.
- List every factual or measurable claim.
- Attach evidence to each claim—or narrow or remove it.
- Make scope, conditions, and next steps plain.
- Use testimonials only when they are authentic and properly presented.
1. Build the offer brief before the headline
Capture six inputs first: the product, buyer, promise, proof already in hand, offer terms, and call to action. If an input is unknown, label it unknown. A blank is safer and more useful than a confident invention. Organize these inputs with the browser-local offer brief builder.
2. Make a claim-to-proof table
Read the draft once only for claims. Include explicit statements and implications a reasonable reader could take away. The FTC’s Advertising FAQs for small businesses explains that advertising should be truthful and non-deceptive, advertisers should have evidence for claims, and both express and implied claims matter.
| Draft claim | Evidence | Decision |
|---|---|---|
| “Setup takes 15 minutes.” | Documented tests under stated conditions | State conditions, or remove the number |
| “Customers love it.” | No reliable customer evidence | Remove |
These are hypothetical editing examples, not claims about Digital Dignity or any customer.
3. Match wording to evidence
Strong certainty requires strong support. Watch for words such as always, guaranteed, proven, best, fastest, and precise performance numbers. If the evidence supports only a narrower statement, write the narrower statement.
Prefer an observable description
Instead of calling a tool “effortless,” explain the mechanism: “The template keeps the product, buyer, proof, offer, and call to action in one brief.” Readers can evaluate the feature without accepting a sweeping conclusion.
Do not hide a contradiction in fine print
If a condition changes the meaning of the promise, put it close to the claim in understandable language. A footnote should clarify, not reverse, the main message.
4. Treat proof as source material
Good proof is traceable. Keep the source, date, method, relevant conditions, and permission to use it. Depending on the claim, proof might be a demonstration, documented specification, contract term, or appropriate test data. Do not add a logo, badge, ranking, or press mention unless it is real and appropriate to use.
- □ Can a teammate locate the source behind every number?
- □ Does the source support the exact wording?
- □ Are important conditions shown near the claim?
- □ Is the evidence suitable for the type of claim?
5. Use reviews and testimonials responsibly
Do not write a customer’s praise for them, invent an identity, buy a required positive sentiment, or present an insider as independent. The FTC’s Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule Q&A discusses fake or false reviews, incentives conditioned on sentiment, insider reviews, company-controlled review entities, and review suppression.
Before using a testimonial, confirm the person had the stated experience, the words accurately reflect it, relevant relationships are disclosed as required, and the presentation does not imply unsupported results. Keep the original statement and permission.
6. Make the offer complete
A reader should be able to identify what is included and excluded, the price or how to obtain it when relevant, important timing or usage conditions, and what happens after the call to action. Use urgency only for a real deadline or genuinely limited quantity, and record that basis before publishing.
7. Run the final review
- □ The headline describes a supportable benefit or mechanism.
- □ Every objective claim has identified evidence.
- □ No example looks like a real customer result.
- □ No invented review, rating, ranking, press logo, customer count, or endorsement appears.
- □ Material conditions sit near the claims they qualify.
- □ The terms and next step are understandable.
- □ Any urgency statement has a real operational basis.
- □ Someone unfamiliar with the draft checked its overall impression.
Turn the review into a usable brief
Start with facts, mark gaps plainly, and draft only after the claim-to-proof review. The result gives the buyer a clearer basis for a decision.
This guide is general information, not legal advice. Review rules that apply to your product, industry, audience, and location.