Copywriting

Shutting the drawer on the Rule of One

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“One good idea, clearly and convincingly presented, was better than a dozen so-so ideas strung together. That rule made a difference. When we obeyed it, our essays were stronger. When we ignored it, they were not as powerful as they could have been.”
– Michael Masterson

I first read about the Rule of One in Michael Masterson and John Forde’s Great Leads. You get a feel for the rule in the quote above. In a nutshell:

Focus on one idea, one emotion, one problem — not a dozen.

I read Great Leads early in my copywriting education, and the Rule of One sank deep into the fresh soil of my newbie brain. I’ve been following this rule ever since. And here you are, reading what I write.

Only one problem though.

Even though Michael Masterson says his favorite essays and stories all follow the Rule of One, I can’t say the same. In fact, I can think of lots of great content that looks and reads like a grocery list:

– James Altucher’s post “11 or 12 Things I Learned About Life While Daytrading Millions of Dollars”

– Dan Ferrari’s email “35 direct response lessons from 35 years on Earth”

– The Every Frame a Painting video “Akira Kurosawa – Composing Movement” (which covers five ways that Kurosawa used movement in his shots)

But you might say, those are all examples of content, not sales copy. All right then, here’s a relevant quote from Gary Bencivenga about sales copy:

“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.”

Maybe I’m simply misapplying the Rule of One, or maybe I don’t understand what it really says. And I do think there is value in focused writing.

But for me personally, I am moving the Rule of One from the “rule” drawer and into the “tool” drawer. Focusing on just one idea can be useful in a given situation… but it’s not something to obey blindly. Perhaps you’ll consider whether this makes sense for you too.

Anyways, if you’re interested in reading James Altucher’s post above or watching that Every Frame a Painting episode, both are easy to track down on the Internet.

Not so with the Dan Ferrari email. Dan doesn’t archive his emails anywhere. So if you want to get them when he sends them out, you’ll have to be on his list.

And even then, you might have to wait a while, because Dan emails very rarely. (I guess he’s too busy counting all the zeroes on his royalty checks.) But when he does send something out, it tends to be great, like the “35 lessons” email above. So if you want to sign up to Dan’s list so you don’t miss his next (sporadic) email, here’s where to go:

http://www.ferrarimedia.com/

Send the juices rushing back to your prospect’s manhood with a new diagnosis

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“You start with the pills, next thing you know you got implants with pumps. I think a hard-on should be gotten legitimately or not at all.”

That’s a bit of dialogue from 1999’s Analyze This.

Mafia boss Paul Vitti, played by Robert De Niro, is having problems. Hard-on failures are a part of it.

So he barges into the office of Dr. Ben Sobel, a New York shrink, played by Billy Crystal.

Vitti doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. All he knows is he gets choked up all the time, he cries without reason, he’s uncomfortable hanging out with the guys he’s grown up with. And then there’s the hard-on issue.

“Have you been under a lot of stress lately?” Dr. Sobel asks him.

“You mean like seeing your best friend murdered?” Vitti shoots back. “Yeah, I got stress.”

Dr. Sobel shrugs his shoulders and makes his first-level diagnosis: It’s probably the stress that’s causing all of Vitti’s symptoms.

Vitti visibly brightens at this. He smiles and points his finger at Dr. Sobel.

“You… YOU… you’re very good, doc,” he says. “You’re right on the money. I can feel the juices rushing back to my manhood as we speak.”

I rewatched this movie recently. It’s not very good overall, but I watched it specifically for this scene, because it’s a great (if caricatured) illustration of the power of making a new diagnosis.

And of course this goes for marketing too:

Your prospect out there has vague or intractable problems. All he knows is he doesn’t feel right. The symptoms he can point to are not something he understands, or can fix himself.

And then you, as the marketer, kindly sit him down on your couch, and you give him a diagnosis he’s never heard before:

“You’re under stress.”

Or…

“You’re a bright-shiny-object addict.”

Or…

“You have hypothyroidism.”

Once you make your new diagnosis, your prospect sees the fog lifted from before his eyes. For that moment at least, he lights up, and he thinks his problem has been solved, or at least can be solved. He feels the juices flowing back to his manhood… or womanhood.

More importantly, in that moment, he think you, YOU, are very good. And he’s willing to follow your lead, even as you explain how your product or service naturally addresses the underlying cause of his problems.

Of course, in Analyze This, the true underlying cause of Vitti’s problems turned out to be more complex than simple stress.

The same will probably happen in your prospect’s life. But if you do an honest enough job of delivering the diagnosis for the surface-level symptoms… and if your recommendation based on that diagnosis isn’t too self-serving… then your patient, I mean prospect, will still listen to you when you offer to solve the deeper problems in his life.

A non-tactic for making friends at marketing conferences

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One of my todos for 2020, along with losing 80 pounds, developing a magnetic personality, and writing my first novel…

Is to go to a marketing conference.

All the big names say you gotta do it. It’s where relationships are made… it’s how you meet the top clients… and if you’re serious about copywriting, it’s supposed to pay for itself.

So I’m putting together a list of such events, and I’m steeling myself to go. I say steeling, because my image of how conferences work isn’t pretty:

A bunch of hungry, pushy, teething pups, all pressing forward to grab a nipple on the tired bitch’s teat.

If that’s how you imagine marketing conferences as well, then I wanna tell you a story.

I heard it today while listening to a podcast episode where Kevin Rogers (of copychief.com) interviewed Dan Ferrari (a top copywriter).

At the time of this interview, Dan had only been copywriting for 3 years. And yet, he already had a string of controls for the Motley Fool, and he had made connections with some of the biggest names in the industry.

Such as for example, at Brian Kurtz’s Titans of Direct Response in 2014. This event featured a bunch of copywriting and marketing legends, including Gary Bencivenga, Dan Kennedy, Jay Abraham… the list goes on.

On the first day, Dan (Ferrari) found himself seated all the way in the back of the room, one table away from all the speakers.

When the break came, the whole room erupted as everybody pushed to the back to try and get a word in with one of the celebrities.

As the smoke cleared, Dan spotted a woman sitting meekly by herself. And rather than trying to join the feeding frenzy, he started talking to her.

She wasn’t a marketer.

She wasn’t a copywriter.

In fact, she was only there because her husband had to come.

So Dan and she had a nice conversation. At the end of it, her husband came over. She introduced him to Dan.

And that’s how Dan met and started a friendship with Gary Bencivenga.

Now, I’m definitely not telling you this as a manipulative tactic for worming your way into the inner circle of big players you cannot reach otherwise.

I just want to suggest (to you as well as to myself) that going to a conference and having normal, human-sized conversations, can be productive and useful, even in such a seemingly competitive environment.

By the way, if you too are thinking of going to a marketing or copywriting (or other) conference in 2020, let me know. Maybe we’ll be at one together, and I’d love to meet you in person.

A copywriting revelation from today’s Uber ride

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I took an Uber today and in my best Gene Schwartz moment, I decided to chat with the driver.

We talked for a few minutes about casual topics. Suddenly, he shifted to his interest in theology and his deep Catholic faith.

He spoke enthusiastically for a minute. And then, sensing my lack of religious conviction, he launched into a persuasive argument. These were the key points:

1. Perhaps you think God doesn’t care about you?
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2. Of course he does. Why else would he make you in his own image?

​3. You’ve got reason… You’ve got memory… You’ve got free will. These are all aspects of God. He gave them to you because he cares.

​4. You should look into this more… it will give you the meaning you haven’t been able to find so far in life.

Here’s why I bring this up:

A few days ago, I watched an excerpt from the Agora copy camp (or whatever it was called). This is a video training recorded at Agora Financial offices where they locked a bunch of newbie copywriters in a dungeon, and over the course of a week or two, taught them the Agora way of writing copy.

The excerpt I watched showed Joe Schriefer, the copy chief at Agora, explaining how to structure your sales letters.

The first step is to brainstorm a giant list of objections…

Then pick out the most important ones, and put them in a logical order — the order in which they will appear to your reader.

The next step is to convert each objection into a sexy subhead.

And the final step, the actual writing, is to expand each subheadlined section in a 4-part structure, which my Uber driver adopted instinctively:

1. Objection
2. Claim
3. Proof
4. Benefit

If you write sales copy, you should look into this structure. It will give you the kind of writing speed and persuasive power you haven’t been able to develop with more heathen copywriting methods. Why else would Joe Schriefer share it with you?

A screeching halt for curiosity subject lines

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A few days ago, my (former) car started giving me serious barney.

Suddenly, I couldn’t change gears properly.

One time, I was in second gear, trying to shift into third.

After a struggle, I got it out of second gear… but instead of third gear, it hopped into first.

Of course, since I was trying to speed up, black smoke shot out the diesel exhaust, the car revved up with a roar, and then slowed down. The exact opposite of what I was trying to accomplish.

I bring this up because right around the time this car trouble started, I sent out an email with the subject line,

“My biggest email mistake of 2019”

It was about how I don’t get much love whenever I use bizarre, curiosity-first subject lines. To which a reader named Andrew responded:

“I’ve noticed similar variations with my own email open rates depending on the subjects. For example, my list really doesn’t like rants, but the same email posted to LinkedIn as a blog post generally does much better.”

Andrew’s definitely got a point.

There are general principles of how to create an effective message, whether that’s an email, a blog post, or a YouTube video.

But much also also depends on the medium and the market.

For example, people are saturated with marketing emails — and they are much more ready to dismiss a weird email. On the other hand, LinkedIn probably has way fewer direct marketers, and something that stands out as a little bizarre might do very well there.

In other words, what works in one setting might not work in the other. Maybe that’s Obvious Adams.

But unless you take the trouble to find out what works where… and adjust your (formerly effective) message accordingly…

Then you might find that the end result is like jamming your car into the wrong gear: black smoke, an unpleasant noise, and a screeching halt.

How to write like your client in 3 mechanical steps

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Who’s the greatest actor in Hollywood? Well, now that Chris Farley is dead and Mickey Rourke is unrecognizable, the field is thin. In my opinion, it’s not De Niro… or Pacino… or DiCaprio… or even Nicolas Cage.

Instead, I think the greatest actor is [drum roll, opening the envelope]:

Jim Carrey.

Yes, Jim Carrey is amazingly talented. If you don’t believe me, just go on YouTube and find a 1983 appearance he did on the Johnny Carson show.

Carrey puts on a complex performance, doing pat imitations of James Dean, Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, and Elvis. He actually becomes Elvis. It’s incredible. Almost supernatural.

How does he  do it?

Well, there’s body movement.

When he’s imitating Elvis, Carrey can’t stand still. Hair flailing, shoulders jerking, weight shifting from leg to leg, arms out to the sides like he’s trying to balance himself on a slippery patch of ice.

Then there’s the face.

Lips in a one-sided sneer, eyes rolling back in his head.

Then there’s voice.

Yes, there’s a bit of magic in how Carrey mimics the color of Elvis’s voice. But he also creates the effect by exaggerating Elvis’s cadence — how fast/slow, how loud/quiet he speaks — and which words he emphasizes.

And that’s all there really is to it.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s no doubt that Carrey is talented, and that he worked hard to develop his plastic face and his mimicry of the people he imitates. I just want to point out that there are 3 almost mechanical strategies that, when perfected, allow him to create the illusion he is actually another person.

And get this:

The same thing is true when you’re trying to imitate somebody’s voice in writing.

Fortunately, it’s much easier to write like somebody than to imitate how they look and speak. When you’re writing, you’ve got much more time — and you don’t need to get everything perfect.

But just like on stage, a few simple tricks or strategies are enough to imitate somebody’s voice on the written page.

In fact, if you go by the advice of Justin Blackman, a “Brand Ventrioloquist” who’s written copy for big brands (Red Bull) as well as direct response businesses (The Copywriter Club), there might only be 3 mechanical steps you need to take to write in anybody’s voice.

Which 3 things?

Well, Justin laid them out on a recent episode of The Copywriter’s Podcast. If you’re in the business of imitating your client’s voice in print, it might be worthwhile to listen to. Here’s the link:

http://copywriterspodcast.com/index.php?podcast=940

Simple price negotiation with long-term clients

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Yesterday I talked to a previous client about a possible new job. He offered me to handle emails for one of his businesses on a straight-up commission basis.

At this point, a lot of copywriters would start running and screaming “Red flag!” But I got no muss with getting paid all on commission, at least with this client. I’ve worked with him already… he’s legit… and his business is making money and growing.

At issue is how much commission I would get paid. The client wrote:

“What’s the minimum amount you’d want to be making for the volume of emails that I’m proposing?”

Hmmm. That’s not a question I have a good answer to. So I thought for a minute. And I responded using a strategy that I saw described on Mark Ford’s blog.

Mark says he saw his client/partner BB (I assume Bill Bonner, the billionaire founder of Agora) using this strategy throughout his career.

It’s a way of negotiating that’s very simple, but effective if your main goal is a long-term relationship and a fair outcome for everyone involved.

I think Mark’s post explains it very well, so I won’t rehash it here. It’s worth reading if you find yourself negotiating prices with clients, and you hope to do business with them again. Here’s the link if you’re interested:

https://www.markford.net/2019/10/23/11059/?doing_wp_cron=1576003704.1623599529266357421875

How to get paid extraordinarily for doing ordinary work

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A banana taped to the wall just sold for $120,000.

That’s because it was art. The artist in question, Maurizio Cattelan, became famous with his last piece, a functioning solid gold toilet, titled “America.”

America-toilet was first installed at the Guggenheim, where it was used as intended by 100,000 people. It was then loaned to a palace in the UK, where it was stolen and probably melted down.

​(​All this outrageous information was reported by CNN, so you can be sure it’s true.)

And here’s the 24-karat point:

​​Cattelan could have stayed in his home town of Padua, taping fruit to the wall. He probably would have been shunned and mocked. Instead, he chose to go on the world stage, where he tapes fruit to the wall, and is being celebrated and paid millions of dollars.

Fact is, you often get as much as you ask for. And that even holds in “results-based” professions like sales or copywriting.

You can work for small clients, who give you trouble, pay you pennies, and grumble when they do. Or you can work for big clients, who appreciate your work, pay you millions, and treat it like the deal of a lifetime.

In both cases, the fruit taped to the wall is much the same. It’s the context that makes all the difference. And if that’s true, then it’s time to start looking for a “gold toilet” opportunity that will make you a star in your field… so people ooh and aah even when you stick a banana to the wall.

Please do not lick your screen

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Today, I’ve got a sample of “old school cool” for you.

It’s a piece of Madison Ave advertising that 1) looked great and 2) apparently sold tons of product. It ran in magazines all around the country for years, in the 1940s and 50s. And in spite of the prohibition in the headline, parents apparently caught their kids licking the page.

I bring this ad up, not just cuz it’s cool, but because it also illustrates a few important marketing points:

1. When all else fails, just sell the damn thing.

2. You have to “build vision,” and images can often be the best way to do so.

3. Your headline should enter the conversation already going on in your prospects mind. In this case, there’s no point in saying, “These suckers are delicious!” Kids already knew.

Anyways, here’s the ad — just make sure to heed the warning in the headline:

Simplicity itself: Bugs Bunny and copywriting

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I watched a video just now with Looney Toons director Chuck Jones demonstrating how to draw Bugs Bunny.

“Start with a pear-shaped body,” says Jones. “A circle for the head… a little nose…”

So far so good. I’m following along as Jones draws 2 bubbles on the page and one dark triangle for the nose.

“Then you extend the angle of the nose in a V above the head. That shows you where to put the ears.”

Hold on, how do I draw the ears like that?

“… the eyes go on those same lines as the ears… depending on what our budget is, we can use 2 or 3 whiskers.”

At this point, just about 4-5 seconds after drawing those initial two bubbles, Jones has drawn a cheeky, perfect, live Bugs Bunny. But I have no idea how he did it. So he explains:

“If you’re gonna draw Bugs, the best way is to learn how to draw a carrot. Then you can hook a rabbit onto it. Simplicity itself.”

Fact is, just because somebody is an amazing practitioner, like Chuck Jones, that doesn’t mean they can explain their method well. And even if they can explain their method well, maybe they just don’t want to, not to every Joe Schmoe off the street. The same happens in every field, including marketing and copywriting circles.

Maybe you’re following some expert’s paint-by-numbers, plug-and-play approach to writing sales copy. But if you’re not getting the results you want… if you’re not making sales you expected to make… if you’re not impressing clients…

Then it’s probably not your fault. There’s just a gap in the education. Maybe the expert can’t explain their method well… or maybe they are saving it all up for a higher-priced product.

The long-term answer is to keep searching for other experts to learn from. In the meantime, if you are looking to get better at writing sales copy, here are a few things that are guaranteed to sharpen your chops:

1) Write something every day — even if it’s a short email like this

2) Read some good ads

3) Read one of the proven books about direct response advertising. Most of the secrets in this business were discovered 50 or 60 years ago, and you can get access to almost all this wisdom for a few dollars on Amazon.

I can’t help you with 1). But if you want some pointers for where to track down good ads for 2) or if you want my suggestions for books in 3) write me an email and I will share my recommendations.