Marketing heresy from the world’s greatest living copywriter

A while back, I was writing a sales letter for a probiotic and I was stuck for a headline.

The unique thing about this probiotic was that the strains it contained were proven effective in clinical studies (unlike just about every other supplement out there).

But that’s a really ugly, non-benefit-oriented feature to highlight in a headline.

So I borrowed a technique that I’d heard of in copywriting legend Gary Bencivenga’s farewell seminar. The resulting headline went something like this:

“Announcing a doctor-formulated probiotic that’s been clinically proven in controlled human studies to…”

And then it went on to list the 7 or 8 separate proven benefits that this probiotic was actually proven to deliver.

When I first heard of this headline technique, it seemed weak to me. After all, isn’t all good copywriting focused on a single, overriding idea? It certainly seems to be the conventional wisdom, and even I’ve done my part in propagating this.

And yet, here we have Gary Bencivenga, widely acknowledged as the greatest living copywriter, somebody who’s won control after control, and who’s been privy to the results of tens of millions of dollars worth of advertising tests, saying that you can have a headline that’s effectively trumpeting a half dozen separate benefits.

“Our *three* benefits are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency”

And Gary doesn’t stop there. I was just re-reading an interview he’s done with another famous copywriter, Clayton Makepeace, and I came across the following:

“I know this sounds like heresy, but I’d much rather have in a good direct mail package three or four or 10 good reasons to buy, than to have to sacrifice nine of them in favor of the one USP. The USP really can be misapplied to direct marketing where you have the luxury of closing the sale on the spot and can give one dominant reason to buy but also seven or eight other reasons. You don’t have to abide so religiously to a single Unique Selling Proposition.”

So what to make of all of this?

Maybe Gary understands copywriting at such a deep level that he can afford to break rules that apply to the rest of us.

Maybe he’s just stating in a slightly stronger form what many copywriters already do (“give one dominant reason to buy but also seven or eight other reasons”).

But maybe, just maybe, the current emphasis on “The One Big Idea” is a bit of a fad, and maybe there are other effective ways to create a successful direct marketing promotion.