sales-copywriting

name	sales-copywriting
description	Persuasion and conversion copywriting frameworks. Cross-cutting core (headlines, CTAs, anti-resistance, proof) applies to all pages. Sales frameworks (PASTOR, 4 P's, guarantees) activate for landing/sales/product pages. Level 2 persuasion — confident and professional, never pushy.

Sales Copywriting

Acknowledgement: Shared by Peter Bamuhigire, techguypeter.com, [phone].

Use when

• The task matches this domain: Persuasion and conversion copywriting frameworks. Cross-cutting core (headlines, CTAs, anti-resistance, proof) applies to all pages. Sales frameworks (PASTOR, 4 P's, guarantees) activate for landing/sales/product pages. Level 2 persuasion — confident and professional, never pushy.
• The work needs a quality gate or standard applied across other outputs.

Do not use when

• The task is unrelated to this standard or quality lens.
• A more specific execution skill should own the work instead.

Required inputs

• The content, interface, or artifact being reviewed or improved.
• Any brand, audience, regional, or conversion context that affects the judgment.

Workflow

1. Read the artifact and the decision context before applying rules.
2. Use only the parts of the preserved guidance that matter to the current task.
3. Review or revise the work using this skill as a focused quality lens.
4. Return actionable changes or acceptance criteria instead of abstract theory.

Quality standards

• Recommendations must be concrete enough to apply immediately.
• Changes should improve consistency, usability, or credibility without flattening the brand.
• The standard should support downstream implementation rather than slow it down.
• Treat copy as a market-message-offer system: identify the audience, sharpen the promise, and match the CTA to the right next step.
• For any meaningful rewrite, prefer customer language, objections, and proof over internal brand phrasing.
• For premium commercial work, use premium-commercial-writing to keep persuasion credible, proof-led, AI/search-ready, and premium-fee worthy across the full artifact.

Anti-patterns

• Do not apply every rule mechanically when only a subset is relevant.
• Do not give generic critique with no change implications.
• Do not override project reality with taste-based preferences alone.

Outputs

• Revisions, review findings, acceptance criteria, or quality guidance tied to the artifact under review.

References

• references/website-messaging-framework.md — primary reference for any website page: headline logic (4 U's, 8 types), sub-headline rules, slippery-slide, proof placement, objection-handling map, CTA ladder, service/about/FAQ structures, voice and tone, editing discipline. Grounded in Bly, Sugarman, Handley, Krzyzek.
• references/message-mining-and-proof.md — use when the task needs voice-of-customer mining, message banks, objection extraction, or proof gathering before rewriting the page.
• references/value-proposition-and-cta-lab.md — use when improving home heroes, value propositions, buttons, CTA reassurance, or testable copy variants.
• ../premium-commercial-writing/references/offer-and-landing-page-writing.md — use when conversion copy must fit a premium offer page, campaign page, lead magnet, consultation page, or high-ticket service page.
• ../premium-commercial-writing/references/professional-writing-quality-gate.md — use for final proof, claim, tone, and CTA quality checks on premium sales copy.
• references/legacy-guidance.md — preserved detailed instructions from the previous skill version.
• Read only the specific files under references/ that match the current task instead of loading the whole directory.
• This skill has no bundled scripts by default; keep execution focused on the documented workflow and any existing project files.

Notes

• Treat this SKILL.md as the portable execution layer for both Codex and Codex.
• Preserve existing project behavior unless the current task explicitly requires a change.
• Default sequence for high-stakes conversion work:
  1. mine voice-of-customer and objection language
  2. define the value proposition and offer type
  3. choose the right page goal and CTA commitment level
  4. place proof and risk-reversal close to the claim or ask