A primate’s copywriting epiphany

Many, many Aprils ago, I read a book titled A Primate’s Memoir. The author was one Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford biologist who studies baboons.

Based on the title, I assumed the book was going to be the made-up diary of a baboon. After reading the first 50 pages, I realized I was wrong. The book was not a made-up diary, but real, and the primate was not a baboon, but Sapolsky.

I’ve had a soft spot for Robert Sapolsky and his humor ever since, and I’ve continued to read his books. Right now, I’m also watching his excellent series of lectures on YouTube about evolution and behavior. And today, while watching these lectures, I learned something new to me:

95% of human DNA doesn’t code for any kind of protein. In other words, only 5% of DNA actually has any kind of productive output. The rest of our DNA — 95% of it — simply controls when that productive 5% of DNA gets turned on and how.

And now let me tell you a second story, this one about copywriting:

A few months back, I got hired to write an upsell VSL. There was already a control in place, which was doing ok, but the company wanted to see if I could do better.

“No problem,” I said to myself. “This control doesn’t really emphasize consistency or urgency, and it does very little to sell this particular solution.”

In short, I wrote the new VSL. And in spite of all my consistency, urgency, and selling, the new VSL did no better than the control.

But then the CEO of the company noticed a tiny detail. “We forgot to include the headline you sent us.”

Keep in mind, this was a VSL. People aren’t reading, they’re watching and listening. The headline was just a bit of copy above the video itself. I wasn’t hopeful it would make any kind of difference.

And yet, two days ago, I got an email from the CEO, letting me know that my headline + VSL are in fact beating the control by 50%. Which is definitely nice, especially since there are royalties in play here.

On the other hand, it makes me wonder what I’m doing with my time. I spent two weeks working on that VSL copy… and it had no effect on its own. It was only when that headline was included that the copy actually seemed to get activated.

You can see now why this made me think of Robert Sapolsky, and the 95% of DNA that does nothing but activate or deactivate the “payload” DNA.

As copywriters, we spend so much time agonizing over structure… sales arguments… consistency, urgency, and all the other Cialdini buzzwords…

And yet, 95% of the time, all that stuff doesn’t even get activated. The offer is a bust, or we chose the wrong headline, or there’s something wrong with the design, or we sent the promotion out a week too early or too late.

I’m not sure what my point is, except to share this epiphany with you, and reassure you that if your copy underperforms, it probably had nothing to do with the copy itself. (95% certainty at least.) And also, to advise you to put yourself in a position, as soon as you can, where you can run different pieces of copy frequently — more often than every few weeks, or God forbid, every few months.