Copywriting

Second hand news: My 10 direct response fundamentals that work almost any time

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Do direct response prospects still respond to “How to” headlines?

Or is it better to strip off the “How to” and give them a command?

I decided to test this out. The results were instructive, but not in the way you might expect.

Anyways, ​​I don’t have a live sales letter running, but I do have several large email lists that I can send A/B-split emails to.

So I prepared one email with a “How to” subject line and identical “How to” CTA text. The other subject line and CTA were the same, except if you imagine a pitbull came and ripped the “How to” part to shreds.

Result?

The “How to” variant had marginally lower open rates… marginally lower clickthrough rates… and marginally higher total sales.

In other words, a total testing washout. I repeated the test a couple days in a row, and same crabstick.

You might not be surprised. In fact, you might think this is a perfect example of testing “whispers” — irrelevant details that don’t really move the sales needle.

I agree. The only reason I tested this is because I was told, on very good authority by a very successful copywriter, that “How to” headlines, much like a love affair between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, are a nostalgic throwback to the 70s. In other words, second hand news.

Maybe you think I’m wasting your time, but there’s a bigger point here.

After doing this copywriting stuff for a while, after reading a bunch of books, watching a bunch of courses, talking to other copywriters, and most importantly, writing copy and seeing the results of actual campaigns, I’ve come to a couple conclusions.

First, top copywriters really do produce better copy and get better results. But much of the specific copywriting advice out there — “Don’t use ‘How to’ headlines in today’s market” — is really unproven intuition or personal preference.

My other conclusion is that there are just a few direct response fundamentals that really matter, and that really work in almost any context. I wrote down 10 of them. (It was hard to get to 10.)

When in doubt, I will go back to these 10 ideas. If you want, I’m sharing them with you below. You’re unlikely to find something surprising or new here. But you might find a good reminder — and that’s really what the point is. Anyways, here’s the list:

1. Markets are problems. Address problems.

2. Curiosity works to get people’s attention, and to keep people’s attention.

3. Start where the reader is. Positioning is probably the most important decision you can make.

4. Accept that you don’t have the reader’s full attention and that the channel is noisy. Adjust your marketing and your copy for this.

5. What you say is more important than how you say it.

6. Concrete beats abstract. Stories beat sermons.

7. It’s a numbers game. The best you can do is make an educated guess. Or better yet, several educated guesses.

8. Your copy can probably use more drama than it currently has.

9. New sells real well. New product. New mechanism. New understanding.

10. Give people a way to justify making this purchase. Justifications can be proof… or another dimension of benefits… or a risk-free offer.

I’m back. Just to tell you one last instructive thing. I write a daily email newsletter. If you want to read more of what I write as it comes out, then one option is to subscribe to that newsletter. If you want, here’s where to sign up.

The invaluable experience of freelancing for peanuts

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Today, I was waiting in line at the grocery store and watching the fiasco up front.

A woman of indeterminate middle age, wearing skimpy latex shorts and big leather boots, had just put all her groceries on the conveyor belt.

Only once the grocery dude rang everything up and it was time to pay, did Cruella de Vil realize she didn’t have her wallet.

Ok, it happens to everybody. But then it went to another level.

“Please put the groceries aside,” she commanded the grocery dude, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

She left the store, I guess to get her wallet.

She was back in 5 seconds.

“Could you put the groceries in a bag for me and charge me for the bag? I’ll be in a hurry when I get back.”

The grocery dude was confused but he did as he was told. Cruella left the store for a second time.

She was back again in another 10 seconds.

“Actually I’ve got my own bag,” she said. She unwrapped a little designer nylon bag and started packing her groceries inside. She still hadn’t paid or even gotten her wallet. Eventually she left for the third time.

But let’s switch to another topic for a second.

Before all this happened — in fact, all the way yesterday — I got involved in a discussion on Reddit.

The gist of the discussion was an old freelance copywriter conundrum:

Is it worth working for peanuts at the start of your freelance copywriting journey… or is it better to hone your skills in secret, and then to approach higher-caliber clients straight away?

I was on the peanuts side. My argument was that peanuts are better than no peanuts.

Other people disagreed, because they find peanuts offensive.

It’s too bad the discussion stopped there.

Because peanuts or no peanuts, I feel there’s a lot of value in getting experience with client work, even if the money is laughable.

For example, some clients can be very demanding. But when it comes to paying, suddenly they’ve forgotten their wallet at home, just like Cruella did in the story above.

Eventually, you can learn to recognize the red flags, like the tiny latex shorts or the big Doc Martens. But you have to have those experiences yourself.

That’s why I think, if you’re just starting out, it’s good to get going with client work as soon as possible. You’ll get invaluable experience in the business of copy. And the fact that a client is paying you peanuts can even be a benefit, because it can take much of the pressure off.

The Joey Tribbiani school of subtle persuasion

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Over the years, I’ve said a lot of bad things about the TV show Friends. I take it all back. Because a few days ago, a kind and multi-talented reader wrote in to point out the persuasion lesson hiding right in the pilot episode.

The scene is set in a Manhattan apartment of one Ross Geller, circa 1994. Ross’s wife has just left him. Ross is desperate. He fears he will never find love again. What if there’s only one woman for every man?

Joey Tribbiani, Ross’s man-whore friend, is personally offended by this idea. “That’s like saying there’s only one flavor of ice cream for you. Let me tell you something… there’s lots of flavors out there. Rocky Road… cookie dough… cherry vanilla! This is the best thing that ever happened to you! Welcome back to the world. Grab a spoon!”

Perhaps this scene is not terribly convincing, much like all of Friends. But it does illustrate the gist of a powerful way to create insight. And that’s persuading by metaphor or analogy.

“Romantic partners are like ice cream.” When your brain hears this, it starts to look for points of similarity. It maps obvious features of one thing to another. And if those fit well enough, your brain jumps to the conclusion that other, less obvious features map also.

“Ice cream comes in different flavors. So do romantic partners. Just because you like one flavor, that doesn’t mean you cannot like another.” Maybe you’re not convinced. But Ross is.

By the end of the pilot episode, Ross makes a bold move on his old high-school crush, Rachel. “Do you think it would be ok,” Ross asks, “if I asked you out, sometime, maybe?”

Rachel realizes she’s dealing with a child. “Yeah, maybe,” she says.

That’s good enough for Ross. He leaves the apartment, walking on a cloud. “What’s with you?” asks his sister.

A smile spreads across Ross’s face. “I just grabbed a spoon.”

Here’s why this kind of persuasion works — even outside of 90s sitcoms.

We often get entrenched in a way of thinking. Getting out of that rut can be hard. That’s what analogies and metaphors are for. They create a new perspective — a new pattern of thought — around an old and familiar problem.

Imagine a cliffside of sheer rock, jutting straight up. You want to get to the top. “But it’s impossible,” you tell yourself.

An analogy is a wooden arrow sign, stuck into the ground next to that cliff. “Hidden staircase this way,” it says. All you have to do is follow where it’s pointing.

Computer genius Alan Kay once said that a change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points. It doesn’t take a genius to see that, if you can make a good analogy to your prospect and raise his IQ by 80 points, he might finally be smart enough to see the value in your offer.

How valuable would that be for you?

Well, after the pilot, Friends ran for another 262 episodes. Today, 25 years later, the franchise is still worth over $1 billion each year, thanks to reruns.

Am I saying that analogies could be worth $1 billion to you? No. But maybe, for a split-second, your brain jumped to that conclusion.

By the way, I’m putting together a book on other strategies for creating insight in your prospect. If you want to know more and get notified when the book is out, one option is to get on my daily email newsletter.

My appeal for your help

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I recently watched a movie called Elmer Gantry, about a traveling salesman who loves hard drinks and fast women.

Elmer lands in a small town in Kansas, where he falls for a preacher woman named Sister Sharon Falconer. So Elmer joins Sister Sharon’s traveling revival meeting, preaching as the “reformed businessman.”

In his first performance, on the topic of “Christ in commerce,” Elmer sermonizes to the masses:

“I was in hell. I knew all the salesman’s tricks. Why wasn’t I rich? Why wasn’t I successful? I opened the Bible, and I read the 18th Psalm. ‘The Lord is my rock and my fortress.'”

Long sermon short, with Jesus’s help, Elmer makes the sale of a bunch of electric toasters. Hallelujah! Biggest deal of Elmer’s life.

It’s a good scene. But what’s the point of it?

Unfortunately, I don’t know.

Over the past week, I’ve watched a new movie each day, Elmer Gantry among them. And while I’ve collected a bunch of interesting scenes like the one above, I still haven’t found what I’ve been looking for.

I mentioned in previous emails I’m putting together a book about insight marketing. I pretty much have all the pieces I need, except for one thing:

A pop culture illustration of “persuading by analogy.”

That’s what I’ve been looking for. But no soap. So I’m appealing to you for help.

I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Two characters. One is trying to persuade the other. But rational, logical appeals aren’t doing it.

So character one launches into a story or a parable or an extended metaphor. Character two listens, not seeing where this is going. By the end of the story or parable, character two sees how this is an analogy to the situation at hand… he grasps the moral of it all… and he is grudgingly persuaded.

I feel I’ve seen this scene a thousand times in movies and on TV. But now that I want to find a good illustration of it, my mind has locked up, and the history of cinema has been rewritten. After a lot of thinking, digging, and watching, I’ve still got nothing.

So if you can help me out, I’d appreciate it.

Have you watched a movie in the last week? Was there a scene of persuasion through analogy?

Or maybe you know something from a book? An episode of Seinfeld? A famous court case? A newspaper cartoon? A video game?

Anything will help. Just write in and let me know. You will be my rock and fortress.

Speaking non-sexually about reactance and excitement

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I won’t say I’ve never been excited in my life. It’s just never lasted very long.

But let me take a step back.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post in which I agonized over the question of, why do people sometimes soak up outside influence like a sponge… while at other times they react to it like prickly porcupines prepping for a fight?

A few readers wrote in with helpful answers. But I still wasn’t 100% satisfied.

And then, while reading a book called the Catalyst, which seems to be a kind of modern-day addendum to Cialdini’s Influence, I came across the concept of “reactance.”

I’ve mentioned this also in a recent post.

Basically, if people feel like you are trying to persuade them… if they feel pushed… and in particular, if they feel you’re getting something out of it… then they have a tendency to become all stubborn and guarded. Sometimes, they will even do the exact opposite of what you want them to do.

Which is probably the most obvious observation in the history of persuasion literature. And it just goes to show what a literal-minded chimp I can be, since I didn’t think of this myself.

Reactance is why, if you got any kind of agenda, your best course is to get your prospect to persuade himself. I’ve written about this repeatedly, and I’m even putting together a book about it.

But here’s another theory I thought of yesterday:

Reactance might also be why enthusiasm works so well in sales copy.

Sure, enthusiasm makes your promises seem bigger and more urgent.

But it also tricks the reader, or allows him to trick himself, into believing he’s listening to a passionate preacher who cannot stop himself from sharing important news… rather than a sly salesman who is using facts to influence and manipulate.

The point being, reactance is another vote in support of getting excited and enthused when you write.

Because you’ve got to feel excited yourself. Enthusiasm is very hard to fake. And if your audience smells you are faking it, then then they get all stubborn and guarded again.

So how do you start feeling excited or enthusiastic for real?

Now we’re back to the beginning. Because enthusiasm is not something I’m good at, not for any length of time. Like Faye Dunaway says in the movie Network, “I arouse quickly, consummate prematurely, and can’t wait to get my clothes back on and get out of that bedroom.”

You know, speaking non-sexually.

So if you got any advice, write in and let me know.

Otherwise, if you’d like to hear more about overcoming reactance, I write about it in my daily email newsletter on occasion. And let me state for the record, I’ve got no ulterior motives in mentioning that, besides trying to persuade you to sign up. If that’s what you want to do, the place to go is here.

Forrest Fenn fortune finally found

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Ten years ago, somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, a man named Forrest Fenn buried a small treasure chest.

According to the available descriptions, the chest dated back to the 12th century. It was made of bronze, with wood liner and a locking front clasp. On its sides, it showed scenes of knights scaling a wall while damsels above rained down flowers.

Fenn, who was a filthy-fun arts and antiquities dealer out of Santa Fe, filled the chest with hundreds of rare coins, gold nuggets, and pieces of ancient jewelry. The treasure was estimated to be worth between $1 and $2 million.

And then, Forrest Fenn hid the treasure and the chest “in the mountains somewhere north of Santa Fe ” — intending for somebody else to find it.

Fenn published a memoir in 2010 titled The Thrill of the Chase. It contained hints as to the location of his treasure chest. It also contained a poem, which Fenn said had nine specific clues.

In the decade since, hundreds of thousands of people searched for Fenn’s treasure. Five treasure hunters even died in the quest, by falling off cliffs or drowning in rivers.

And then this weekend, Fenn announced that somebody has finally found the treasure chest, somewhere “under a canopy of stars in the lush, forested vegetation of the Rocky Mountains.”

So what’s the copywriting lesson here?

First, I think this was an impressive instance of mobilizing people. Forrest Fenn literally got people to sacrifice their lives in search of a $1M prize.

Of course, this wasn’t just about $1 million. This was about uncovering a secret treasure. And that’s the point I want to get across to you.

Forrest Fenn could have just announced that he had buried $1M worth of treasure in the Rocky Mountains. “Go find it, you bums!”

But that’s not what he did.

Look at the description above of the treasure chest and its contents. It came from Fenn himself.

There’s so much detail.

You can probably picture the bronze box, the relief on the sides, and the jewels and gold coins stacked up to the rim. Then there’s Fenn’s memoir itself, in which every line could be a possible clue to the location. ​

And that’s the copywriting lesson.

If you’re going to lead people by the nose, you have to give them enough bait to get them hooked. Otherwise, they will just think you’re making stuff up. Or, as John Forde and Michael Masterson put it so formally in Great Leads:

“Specificity is absolutely required to overcome the skepticism that secrets automatically evoke.”

Salvation for low self-esteem prospects

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Martin Luther was obsessed with images of the devil’s butt.

Luther was tormented, day after day, by the awareness of his sins and impurities.

He went to confession so often and confessed in such detail that his confessors grew angry.

Had Martin Luther been born today, there’s a good chance he would be diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and medicated accordingly.

But because Luther was born in the right environment for his particular kind of crazy, he went on to become one of the most influential persons of the last thousand years.

Point being, a seeming weakness or fault can actually be a tremendous strength — in the right circumstances.

Yesterday, I promised to tell you one way you can convince your prospects that success for them is probable, and not just possible.

This is something I picked up in a talk by Rich Schefren. Rich said that one of the biggest things you have to do as a marketer is increase your prospect’s self-esteem.

And the way to do that is to take something your prospect doesn’t like about himself… and to twist it, so it becomes a potential strength.

“You say you’re obsessed with images of the devil’s butt? That’s actually a good thing. It means you’re on the lookout for moral weakness, which can help you and others from sliding into sin.”

Of course, you’re probably not selling to Martin Luther types.

But with a bit of thinking, you can show your prospect how his procrastination… or shiny-object addiction… or never following through… are just bad manifestations of a good kind of crazy inside him. In slightly different circumstances, the underlying positive characteristics would make him a success.

And how could he change his circumstances in the right way? The path to salvation is quick and easy. It lies in taking you up on your offer.

Here’s an offer that is sure to help you rid yourself of intrusive images of demonic behinds: I write a daily email newsletter. It talks about the fine points of persuasion and copywriting. And if you’d like to keep yourself far from the temptation to slack off in your learning about persuasion and copywriting, then click here to subscribe.

Possible vs. probable in murder and in marketing

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A few days ago, as part of research for a copywriting project, I watched a movie called 12 Angry Men.

There are some spoilers about it ahead. So if you’re ever planning on watching this 1957 classic, it may be best to stop reading now.

Still here?

All right. Then I can spoil for you that this entire movie is about a jury deliberating a murder case.

An 18-year-old kid is charged with killing his father. Did he do it?

All the jurors believe so. Except for juror #8, who has a few doubts.

Over the course of the movie, through some unlikely twists and turns, this one guy, played by Henry Fonda, manages to flip all the other jurors.

The toughest nut to crack is a bull-necked businessman. He refuses to believe the kid shouldn’t go to the chair. After all, what about the woman who saw the kid do it?

And then the following exchange takes place:

Henry Fonda: Don’t you think the woman might have made a mistake?
Bull-necked businessman: No!
Henry: It’s not possible?
Bull-neck: It’s not possible!

Stubborn. Of course, what this last juror is saying is, it’s so improbable it’s practically impossible. And that reminded me of something insightful I heard from marketer Rich Schefren.

Rich was talking about prospects in direct response markets. These markets tend to be filled with people who have repeatedly failed to solve their problem. In time, many of these people conclude that solving their problem is so improbable that it is practically impossible.

The standard marketing approach ignores this. A typical sales letter explains how great the offer is. And then it gives testimonials to prove it.

“It might work for them,” your bull-headed prospect will say. “But my situation is different. It’s impossible!”

So your job as a direct response marketer is not just to show your prospect his problem can be solved. Instead, you gotta give the prospect hope that this time it’s different, and that success is probable, not just possible.

How do you do that?

I can think of a few different ways. I’ll tell you about one of them, which works well for swinging a jury of skeptical information buyers, in my email tomorrow. If you don’t want to miss that, here’s where you can subscribe to my newsletter.

Copywriting playboys get treated like a piece of meat

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A while back, when there was still such a thing as professional sports, I noticed that the top three or four men’s tennis players all had one unusual thing in common:

They were all in settled, long-term relationships, often with the same girl they had started dating while they were still teenagers.

Further down the rankings, you had tennis players who were known to be playboys. Regardless of their natural talent, these playboys hovered around the top 20, but could never break into the very peak of the sport.

Coincidence?

Probably. But maybe not. Maybe a stable relationship really is crucial for massive success.

Don’t worry. I’m not telling you to go in search of a ball and chain to lock around your ankle. My point is simply this:

When I look at top copywriters — meaning people who get paid millions of dollars a year, with schedules booked up months in advance — they all fall into one of two categories.

One is guys like Chris Haddad or Jon Benson, who got successful promoting their own offers. The other is guys like Dan Ferrari and Stefan Georgi, who worked in-house at a direct response publisher for long enough to get a pile of successes in their knapsacks.

What you don’t see are playboys who came up by bouncing around from client to client. Maybe this promiscuous lifestyle worked many winters ago. But I don’t see it happening today.

Not to say you can’t make good money as a copywriting playboy. It’s what I’ve done in my career. I now make more money for less work than at any job I could have ever held.

But if you want to make it to the top… or if you want to be perceived as more than a commodity service provider… then jumping from client to client is unlikely to get you there. ​​If you want clients to stop seeing you as a piece of meat, you will have to get hitched — either to your own business, or to somebody else’s.

That’s something I’m working on as well right now. If you want to follow how I’m doing that, click here and subscribe to my email newsletter.

Use the Force to avoid copy that’s too long

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George Lucas’s early drafts for the Star Wars script talked about “the Force of Others.”

These early drafts gave detailed explanations of what the Force of Others was, how it tied into a “Kyber crystal,” and how there was a “Bogan” side and an “Ashla” side of it.

Following his better instincts, Lucas stripped out all the explaining in the final draft. He got rid of the crystal and the Bogan nonsense, and dropped “the Others” and simply called it “the Force.” Star Wars went on to become a pretty, pretty big hit.

There’s a copywriting lesson here. But first, here’s another illustration:

Back in 1982, Darryl Hall was writing the prototype of a song called Maneater. He was stumbling on the last line of the chorus. “Oh here she comes… She’s a maneater and a …”

Hall can’t remember the original final line, because his girlfriend told him to “drop that shit at the end.” So he did. Maneater went to the top of the charts ​and stayed there longer than any other Hall & Oates song. Hall said that cutting down the last line made all the difference.

Conventional direct response wisdom says that longer copy outperforms shorter copy. It’s been proven over and over in many tests.

Copywriter Victor Schwab, who wrote How to Write a Good Advertisement, definitely supported the use of longer copy. But Schwab also wrote the following:

“Some ads don’t need much factual under-pinning… The copy about some products can soar successfully — without ‘coming a cropper.’ An abundance of factual material merely inhibits its flight. If too explicit about the “why” and “hows,” such copy pulls the reader’s imagination up short.” ​​

I can’t give you a recipe for when you should take out the “whys” and “hows” of your copy. I think it’s a matter of having a good feel for your market and your product, and knowing what they need to hear — and what not — in order to make the sale.

In other words, trust your intuition. Or use the Force. The Bogan Force. Of Others. And stop yourself if you say too much.

I should have stopped there. But I have one final thing to say. I write a daily email newsletter. If you’d like to get my emails, much like what you just read, you can sign up here.