If writing marketing and advertising copy were easy, we wouldn’t see so many terrible ads everywhere we turn. As marketers and business owners, it’s important that we learn how to write efficiently and effectively in order to command and capture the attention of our consumers.

In the past, my blog series on copywriting has included tips such as using techniques to highlight important text, making your copy more readable, and using positive language. In this post, we’ll cover a very simple tool that you can use almost anywhere, bullet points.

A bulleted list is easy to read, period. When a consumer looks at your ad, or a page on your website, or a piece of promotional literature you’ve sent them, they’re going to make a split second, almost subconscious decision whether or not they want to read it. And one surefire way to lose their attention is long paragraphs of text with no breaks.

A list, on the other hand, is inviting. You can use bullet points to:

• Highlight all the aspects of your offer
• Call out all the features of your product or service
• List the awards or recognition your company has received
• Outline the key points in a text that will follow

Lists will draw in a reader, because they know that they’re easy to read, and usually the most important piece of any text. Make sure to use them wherever possible, and put your most important messaging in them. There is a good chance that the bullet points are the only thing that your consumers will read.