Copywriting Formula AAPPA

Attention Advantage Prove Persuade Action

A formula for long-form sales pages or videos.
It's based on the 5 fundamentals in the writing of a good advertisement from Victor O. Schwab's book How to Write a Good Advertisement: A Short Course in Copywriting.

Attention. Get your prospect's attention with your headline or your layout, preferably with both.

Advantage. Show people an advantage. Tell your prospects what is in it for them. Explain what your product can do and show every feature and selling point you can think about. You can take a positive or a negative approach.

• Positive - You show them what they can save, gain, or accomplish with your product.
• Negative - You show them what risks, worries, losses, or other undesirable conditions your product will help them to avoid, lessen, or eliminate.
  Schwab argued that when you tie up the advantages of your product with what people want to gain, save, or accomplish, they'll want to buy from you. The same happens when you tie up the advantages of your product with any undesirable condition people want to avoid.

Prove it. It's time to back up all you have said in the point above. People need and want facts to use them as reasons and excuses for buying a product. Facts are used as proof material of what your product will do for them. They must be credible and specific.

• Facts you can use: facts about materials and manufacture of the product, reputation as a company, quality of materials or design, patents, achievements of the product in actual use, testimonials, statements of experts that use your product, awards, guarantees, and free samples.

Persuade people to grasp that advantage. Now it's time to persuade them to take action by stressing the benefits of the product in use. In long copy, you may even present a demonstration of specific advantages of the product in use.
This section blends with asking the reader to take some kind of action.

Action. Ask for action. In this formula, Persuade and Action meld together.

In this article I dive deep into every part of this formula: The Man Behind Dale Carnegie's Success: Deconstructing His Lesser-Known Copywriting Formula

A variation of this formula is:
PAPA (Problem Advantage Proof Action)
Problem. In this case, we start with the problem and then we talk about the advantages.
Advantages of solving that problem
Proof
Action