A handwritten letter presented a practical problem. Once the writer reached the end, adding a forgotten thought meant squeezing it into a margin or beginning again. The postscript offered an easy solution: one last message after the signature.<\/p>\n
In direct-response copy, that afterthought became a deliberate opportunity. Readers who skim a letter may still examine the ending. A carefully chosen P.S. can return their attention to the most important reason to act.<\/p>\n
You can use a postscript to restate the unique selling proposition, address an objection, provide relevant proof, remind the reader about the next step, or insert other elements like a bonus or scarcity statement.<\/p>\n
That’s a lot of options and the danger is treating it like a junk drawer.<\/p>\n
Imagine a sales letter selling a writing workshop. Its strongest advantage is that students receive personal critiques of their drafts. Yet the P.S. mentions a free checklist and a discount that never ends. The closing lines advertise the least distinctive parts of the offer.<\/p>\n
Try a postscript that brings the central advantage back into focus: “P.S. Every participant receives feedback on two complete drafts. You’ll know what to revise before sending your work to a client.” This is appropriate only when that feedback is genuinely included.<\/p>\n
Now perform a simple test. Read the headline and the P.S. without reading anything between them. Do they make a coherent promise together? Does the ending reinforce what makes this offer worth considering?<\/p>\n
The postscript is your final editorial choice. Give it a job worthy of that position, or leave it out entirely.<\/p>\n
RW
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A handwritten letter presented a practical problem. Once the writer reached the end, adding a forgotten thought meant squeezing it into a margin or beginning again. The postscript offered an easy solution: one last message after the signature. In direct-response copy, that afterthought became a deliberate opportunity. Readers who skim a letter may still examine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buying-psychology","category-copywriting"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":731,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions\/731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}