Get in, Reader. We’re getting structural today.

(Love you forever if you recognize the reference✨.)

The last two “AI tells sabotaging your copy” have been pretty sentence-level – i.e, the specific lines, general phrasing, and overall ~vibes~ creeping into your copy.

Today, we’re zooming out.

Because today’s AI tell is all about copy that tries to promise *everything* but the kitchen sink.

So, here’s the thing about AI: it will not stop you from using literally everything.

Every feature, every benefit, every possible reason someone might buy – all dutifully packed in, all with equal weight, because you asked it to write copy about your offer and it decided to be “helpful” and, well… capture all of it.

Which is how you end up one of the worst copy sabotageurs of all: a gazillion competing promises on a single page.

For example, I recently reviewed a sales page that had all the following promises scattered throughout:

“Get your time back.”

“Fix what’s broken in your business.”

“Increase your business’s valuation.”

“Find out where you’re losing time, money, or momentum.”

“Make your business feel like yours again.”

Now, take a second and read through that list of promises again.

By promise #3, did you already forget what promise #1 said? By the time you hit “increase your business’s valuation,” were you still holding onto “get your time back,” or had that one already slipped away?

On their own, none of these are inherently bad.

Each one, standalone and with the right strategy, could hypothetically anchor an entire page.

But stacked together like this, your poor readers’ brains aren’t given guidance on which promise to hold onto. So, they end up holding onto none of them.

Leaving us with 5 decent promises...

...all competing for the same short-lived attention span...

....ultimately watering each other down until the page seems to say a lot but very little truly sticks.

So instead of taking this “everything but the kitchen sink” approach to your copy, I want to invite you to get nerdy with me and think of your core promise like a thesis statement.

Meaning: you hone in on ONE SINGLE CORE PROMISE in your copy, then use the rest of the copy to support that ONE SINGLE CLAIM (rather than consistently introducing new ones).

Which also means that strategic repetition in your copy isn’t just okay, but actively encouraged!

So, let that final call-to-action mirror your headline! Don’t be afraid to say the same thing more than once!!

After all, mirroring your one core promise throughout your page is how it survives a skim, and how it gives your reader something to latch onto.

Be back tomorrow, this time tackling: okay, but what goes where on the page?

~Nicole

P.S. Sure – this tendency to repeat the same point 5 different ways or panic-cram every possible reason someone may want to buy is not exclusive to AI copy!

Us humans love to do it, too ;-)

As business owners, I know we often feel tempted to put every single thought we’ve ever had about our offer on the page.

But the real skill of copy comes down to discernment – knowing which of those ideas to keep, what needs to go, and how it all fits together strategically and persuasively.

AI does a crappy job helping you figure that out because it can’t discern which of your 15 good points is the point to lead with. (Based on your unique audience, offer perspective, yadda yadda)

So left to its own devices… it’ll happily keep all fifteen. (RIP your poor readers’ brains!)

Nicole Elliott Human-First Conversion Copy & Messaging Strategy Non-salesy sales copy that sells w/out the sleaze   hello@nicoleelliott.co www.nicoleelliott.co

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