Gary Bencivenga

How to succeed in copywriting more than the other guy

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Legend says that, as Wall Street titan Bernard Baruch was nearing the end of his long and influential life, somebody asked him how he did it.

How did he herd a bunch of U.S. presidents and countless other bull-sized egos, and get them to go where he would? Baruch’s answer was simple:

“Figure out what people want, and show them how to get it.”

Interesting. Except… Did Baruch really say it? Just like that?

That’s how the story was told once, in a closed-door session of top copywriters and rich and powerful direct marketing execs.

But I wanted to use this anecdote in a book I’m writing. So I decided to find some context and proof for this quote. And there went a morning, about two hours of work, straight out the window.

First, a random Google search… then more in-depth reading about Bernard Baruch… then searching through a database of old newspapers and magazines… and finally downloading several BB biographies.

Nothing. The closest I found was a similar Dale Carnegie quote, along with other blogs that refer to the same second-hand source (Gary Bencivenga’s farewell seminar) that I already knew about.

In the end, I gave up and told the anecdote much as I told it above. But I started it with, “Copywriter Gary Bencienga once told a story…” Because I couldn’t confirm that the damn story really was true, or that the quote really was as Gary B. said it was.

So were the two hours of fruitless research a waste?

Yes. But I don’t regret it. I enjoy researching and obsessively tracking down original sources. The fact I get to do it is a perk of how I make money.

But wait — there’s more!

Because I’ve long had a feeling that obsessive research can be a competitive advantage. It can surface gold where you’re only looking for silver.

And along these lines, I hit upon the following quote today. It’s by a man who took his obsessive copywriting research… and turned it into a Park Avenue penthouse and a world-class modern art collection. Take it away Gene Schwartz:

“This is what makes success. There’s nothing else in the world that makes success as much as this. I will take the best copywriter in the world who is sloppy and careless, and match him against a good copy cub, and two out of three times, the sloppiness of the great person will be beaten by the carefulness of the other person. […] The person who is the best prepared and the most knowledgeable makes the most money. It’s so simple!”

In case you want to be knowledgeable and prepared, at least when it comes to marketing and copywriting, you might like my daily email newsletter. Click here if you want to subscribe.

Why I didn’t collect my $10.5 million

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Today I found a tantalizing email in my spam folder. The sender was Mrs. Mary J. Parker. The subject line read:

“FROM THE UNITED NATIONS POLICE (UNPOL)”

The email explained UNPOL was contacting me because of some money I’d wired to Nigeria.

This is a bit embarrassing. But a while back, I got another email. It described a unique opportunity to help somebody and get rich at the same time. At least that’s how it seemed.

I wired the money as that first email asked. And I waited to get rich. But I never heard back from anybody, or saw my money again.

Anyways, the email from Mrs. Parker informed me that a bunch of organizations, including “Scotland Yard Police, Interpol, Federal Bureau of Investigation, (FBI) United States of America, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of Nigeria and all the African Crime fighter leaders” have been working hard to capture the fraudsters who grabbed my money and the money of other people like me.

These law protection agencies caught a bunch of these “Internet rats.” They retrieved billions of dollars.

And now, to make it up to me, they wanted to send me $10.5 million so I could start a new life. All I had to do was furnish a certain Dr Richard Kelly with $450 and also my correct and valid details.

Now here’s something that might shock you:

I decided to pass up this offer. Even though I’d previously wired money to unknown persons in Nigeria. And even though $10.5 million was on the line. Why I did this is the subject of this post.

Let me set things up by telling you about two direct mail campaigns. The first campaign was written by Gary Bencivenga. It made a generous offer:

Six free issues of Boardroom’s Bottom Line/Personal newsletter, plus a premium book. All for free, no strings attached.

It was such a generous offer that Gary thought it needed a reason why. So he used the idea of a survey.

“Fill out this survey,” Gary’s letter basically said, “and send it back to us. As thanks, we’ll send you six free issues and the book.”

This campaign was a massive success. A bunch of people sent in their surveys and got their trial six months of Bottom Line/Personal.

The trouble is, they didn’t subscribe much when the trial expired. And those who did subscribe didn’t buy much of Boardroom’s other books or offers.

But a control is a control. And so this survey offer kept running.

Until the second campaign. Which was was also written by Gary Bencivenga. And which also made the same generous offer.

But instead of using the free survey, the second campaign sent a 64-page booklet, titled The Little Black Book of Secrets.

This booklet had the most interesting secrets from different issues of Bottom Line/Personal… along with occasional calls-to-action to get your six free issues + bonus.

Result?

The second campaign pulled in only HALF the number of responses of the survey campaign. But twice as many of those people actually paid to subscribe when their trial ended. Plus, these non-gimmick customers bought way more of Boardroom’s other products.

In the long term, the second campaign was the winner, and became the new control. Which brings me back to the email I got from UNPOL.

The people at UNPOL did right by giving me a second opportunity to wire money to Nigeria. That’s standard direct marketing — it’s called having a back end. But here’s the thing:

I’m a greedy and opportunistic person.

Sure, I liked the big promise of being able to get rich quickly. That’s why I wired my money over the first time. But my interest was fleeting, and I’ve already moved on. That’s why I didn’t reply to Mrs. Parker’s offer today.

It’s pretty much the same as those people who filled in a 2-minute survey to get something free from Boardroom. Because hype and impulsiveness can get you lots of buyers… but those buyers can make a wobbly foundation for your business.

As Michael Fishman said once:

“Your selling copy in the prospecting process can actually impact the longevity of a customer with the company. So what I mean by that is if you make very, very big promises for a self-help product, a health or investment product… if you make very, very big promises for that about quick results and overnight success, etc… the kinds of people that will find that believable and ultimately will buy turn out to be folks that are not very committed in the long run to your company.”

But you’ve stuck with me for over 750 words now. Do you feel yourself becoming a bit committed to reading my stuff for the long run? In that case, you might like to subscribe to my daily email newsletter. It’s free, now and in six months’ time. Here’s the optin.

Gary Bencivenga’s “disinterested” way to create proof and get attention

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I read a confession today by a former employee of a shady solar company.

This guy reports the company used to print out fake ID badges for its salespeople.

The salespeople were then told to focus on houses with “No Soliciting” signs out front. After the door was open, they were supposed to claim they “worked with the power company” in order to get in to start their pitch.

And here’s where it gets dark:

The guy says he and every other salesperson knew full-well the savings from solar depended on government tax credits.

And yet…

They pushed these same savings as given — to senior citizens. Who weren’t paying much in taxes. Who couldn’t benefit from a tax credit. And who wound up getting saddled with a massive loan, which they couldn’t afford.

Now back to the ethical world of direct response marketing:

I used the story above in an email today, to a large list of buyers of money-saving ecommerce products.

At the end of that email, I said how I’m passing this story along as a warning. And that if they want to get the money-saving benefits of solar, they can. But they might have to bypass solar companies and power utilities and government tax credits. Then I linked to an affiliate offer that shows them how to do this.

A-list copywriter Gary Bencivenga said that proof is the most important element of copy when it comes to closing the sale.

He also said that acting as a consumer advocate is one powerful way to create proof.

It makes you seem disinterested… it demonstrates you know what you’re talking about… and if done right, it can even capture attention.

Sounds good.

But it begs the question, where do you get riveting consumer advocacy stories that go beyond what everybody already knows?

Well, I have my own private little methods of digging up such stories. I don’t share them in public… but I have shared one of them today with the subscribers of my email newsletter. In case you want to get on my newsletter, so you get more posts like this, with nothing held back, click here and follow the instructions.

How to write slowly

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“In ten hours a day you have time to fall twice as far behind your commitments as in five hours a day.”
— Isaac Asimov

It took me about two hours to finish this post.

I didn’t spend most of that time writing. Instead, I looked over notes for topics I meant to cover but didn’t… I read articles searching for inspiration… I picked up and then put down a book.

The trouble of course was that I had a large block of free time today.

I finished with client work some time earlier… I have a client call later tonight. In between, the only thing I have to do is to write this daily post.

Hence, two hours. To write about 300 words. You might know this as Parkinson’s Law:

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

It’s a problem in my life. And it’s one of the reasons I’ve decided to overbook myself with work — about three times the usual amount — for the coming month.

Because according to marketer Ben Settle, writing lots of words under intense deadline pressure will make you a faster writer. Permanently.

I’ll let you know how it works out. (Although there’s no need to wait for me. It’s something you can try yourself right now.)

Anyways, I’ve long collected copywriters’ advice on how to write faster.

So far, I’ve got direct “how to write fast” tips from Ben Settle (above), Dan Ferrari, David Deutsch, Colin Theriot, and a few others. I’ve also connected some ideas I read from people like Gary Halbert and Gary Bencivenga to the topic of writing faster.

So here’s my offer:

If these tips interest you, sign up for my daily email newsletter. If I share this complete collection of tips, that’s the first place it will go.

Sweet inconsistency in copywriting education

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“The most important thing — you can know every copywriting technique in the book, you can read every book — the most important thing is to understand your audience.”
– Parris Lampropoulos

At the start of this year, I got a job to rewrite a VSL for an upsell of a successful offer.

A bit of background:

The offer was in the real estate investing space. It basically showed newbie investors how to get their leads for free using a secret resource.

​​Once people bought the frontend offer, they were shown the upsell. The upsell was about how to hire virtual assistants to automate much of the work involved in the frontend offer… so you can make more money in less time.

The question was how to position this upsell VSL.

My copywriting coach at the time said something like, “This training is the quickest way to become a millionaire real estate investor.”

That might be true. But my feeling was, for this audience, it was not believable. Most of these people had never even completed their first deal. Lots of them were retirees, or people who just wanted to quit their crap jobs and spend more time at home.

If these folks heard “You can be a millionaire,” my gut feeling was they would say, “No, that’s not me.”

And so I wrote that VSL around the promise of, “Get your first deal faster by doing less.” And that positioning turned out to be a winner. It beat out the control by 50%.

Here’s why I bring up this story from my client annals:

Copywriting wisdom is full of sweet inconsistency. Many top copywriters will tell you to make the biggest promise you can — and they will show you million-dollar ads to back up their case. Here’s a famous one from John Carlton:

“Amazing Secret Discovered By One-Legged Golfer Adds 50 Yards To Your Drives, Eliminates Hooks And Slices… And Can Slash Up To 10 Strokes From Your Game Almost Overnight”

But then you have other top copywriters, who will tell you the opposite — to make modest but believable promises. They will also show you successful ads to back up their case. Here’s one from Gary Bencivenga:

“Get Rich Slowly”

So who’s right? The “biggers” or the “modests”?

Neither, of course. Instead, it’s Parris who’s right.

As he says in the quote above, you’ve got to know your audience. Some audiences will believe any promise, so the larger it is, the better for you. Other audiences won’t. So make the biggest promise you can — as long as you’re sure your audience will find it believable.

Want to get better at copywriting slowly? I have a daily email newsletter where I share more information like this. You can sign up here.

Wiley Jews and subverted cliches

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In 1982, Hollywood movie studios apparently froze in fear. None of their old formulas were working and big budget movies turned into flops.

In fact, the only runaway hit for the first half of the year was a small outside production, which managed to reap $136 million on a budget of just $4 million. It was called Porky’s.

I’d never even heard of Porky’s until a few weeks ago. I decided to watch it today.

It turns out to be a teen sex comedy set in Florida in the 1950s. It hasn’t aged brilliantly.

It’s quaint with its boyish pranks (one boy’s “tallywacker” stuck through a hole in wall of the girls’ locker room shower) and its unabashed objectification of the multitasking gender (a hot female PE teacher, played by a young Kim Catrall, is nicknamed “Lassie” because of her coital howling).

But ok. Product of the times, right?

What seems out of place even for 1982 is the subplot involving one Brian Schwartz. Brian is Jewish. In the 1950s Dixie high school, he sticks out like a lobster on a sand beach.

Spoiler alert: Brian rises above and works his way inside the gang. That’s impressive, considering he drives a Richie Rich Jaguar while all the other boys drive pickup trucks.

But Brian wins their approval by 1) speaking calmly and intelligently to get the other boys out of trouble with the police and by 2) coming up with a devious, multi-stage plan to replace the boys’ dumb plan for the climax of the movie.

Way to explode those stereotypes about Jews. You can’t blame Brian, though. He’s just using his God-given intellectual talents. What you can do is blame the screenwriters for resorting to the cliche of the natural-born Jewish schemer.

And that’s where today’s Porky’s email ties into copywriting:

One easy, almost mechanical way to surprise your readers involves cliches. Of course, not salting your copy with even more cliches. But also not avoiding cliches, either.

Instead, what you can do is subvert a cliche. You can do it at the level of your concepts (Gary Bencivenga: “Get Rich Slowly”). You can do it at the level of an individual sentence (Ben Settle: “Take my advice with a grain of chili pepper”).

However you do it, your reader will think he knows where you’re taking him… but Brian Schwartz doesn’t grow up to become a well-paid Hollywood lawyer.

Sure, you can get sometimes away with a cliche. Porky’s proves that, as do many sales letters and emails. But there’s value in unpredictability. As A-list copywriter Jim Rutz wrote:

“The #1 sin in ad mail is being boring, and over half of it richly deserves its quick death by wastebasket. What is ‘always boring?’ The predictable. You must surprise the reader at the outset and at every turn of the copy.”

Half a mil (and then some) for a single copywriting project

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In 1997, while the stock market was in the middle of a nice bull run, direct response publisher Boardroom ran a promo. It was written by an A-list copywriter, Eric Betuel. It promised readers information on how to protect themselves and profit from “big money shocks.”

A year later, the mood had started to change. The market was overheating and all that dot-com money was going crazy. So Boardroom ran the same promo with another cover, talking about how to protect yourself and profit from the “coming worldwide money panic.”

Then in the spring of 2000, Nasdaq hit its peak and then quickly dropped 20%. Boardroom ran the same promo again. The new cover talked about the “coming stock market panic.”

Over the course of 5 years, this Boardroom promo mailed over 12 million times. Going at 5 cents per mailing, that means Betuel earned over $600,000 for this piece of copy. Not bad for a one-time project, along with a few new headlines about the unseen dangers lurking beyond the horizon.

Another A-list copywriter, Gary Bencivenga, once said there are two parts to copywriting: 1) opening the sale, and 2) closing the sale.

If history is any guide, opening the sale is the more fickle part of this equation. You might have to toss lots of different bait in the water. Much of it might not get a bite. But once that marlin is lured in and hooked, the same proven and almost automated process will work to pull the big beast out.

Enemies, enemies, enemies

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Famed A-list copywriter Gary Bencivenga once wrote a promotion called Lies, Lies, Lies. It was about all the scheming swindlers — the lawyers, the politicians, the IRS — working to rip off small investors.

Speaking about this promo in an interview with Clayton Makepeace, Gary said the following:

“Instead of the usual “I’m trying to sell you something,” which sort of sets up immediately in the reader’s mind a you-versus-me mentality, I found a way to shift gears by saying, “it’s you and me against these other guys.” And if you can create an enemy in your copy, that’s what happens. You set up a three-point discussion and you come around from your side of the desk to be on the reader’s side of the desk and then it’s you and the reader against the enemy that you’re railing against.”

Then and now, creating an enemy = power.

But what if you’re a peace-loving hobbit who only has good will, even towards orcs and trolls? Well, in that case, young Frodo, you have to start thinking outside the box.

To help you out, here are 10 categories you can look to for potential enemies, along with a couple of examples I just made up from the copywriting and marketing space.

By the way, I’m not telling you to go out and make war against these specific enemies. Nor am I saying these are enemies of mine. Just use these examples to get your ideas jogging around your head.

Anyways, here are 10 rocks under which you can find gruesome and evergreen enemies, enemies, enemies:

1. Industry insiders. Examples: Successful copywriters boasting about their fees and selling their “secrets.” Copywriting coaches who haven’t written a word of copy in years.

2. Snake oil salesmen. Examples: No-name marketers who have only sold copywriting courses by tricking those less experienced than themselves. Newbies who regurgitate what they’ve read but never tried writing copy themselves.

3. Government institutions. Examples: The FTC, which makes regulations to keep the little marketer down but allows big corporations to get away with murder. The FDA, which will suppress promising products, because it is in the pay of secret interests.

4. Big corporations. Examples: Facebook and Google, who will gladly take your money and sell you fake clicks. Amazon, which will take your successful product and make a clone of it.

5. Price points: Examples: Ridiculously high prices (eg. $10k) for a couple of videos. Ridiculously low prices (a free guide on how to achieve a 7-figure income).

6. Customers and prospects. Examples: Freebie seekers. Serial refunders.

7. Ways of doing business. Examples: Copy hype backed up by low-quality products. Maximizing one-time sales at the cost of long-term business.

8. Ways of leveling up. Examples: Hand-copying old ads. Writing ads for nonexistent products.

9. Ways of working. Examples: Working for an hourly wage. Not working for an hourly wage and getting paid peanuts.

10. Received wisdom. Examples: Making big promises in your headlines. Writing your body copy in choppy sentences…

… with each sentence fragment on its own line.

Still not enough enemies? Come and join my daily email newsletter. I sometimes rail against my enemies there, but these rants are reserved for my subscribers.

The first commandment of A-list copywriters

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Steve Martin has a standup comedy bit about clueless guys in bars.

“The way I meet girls,” Steve starts, “is by looking cool. The important thing is to have a great opening line.”

So he takes a sip of water, grits his teeth to take the sting out, and walk over to an imaginary girl. After a cocky pause and a twitch of his brow, he unleashes the killer line:

“Yeah… I make a lot of money.”

This is how it is in marketing, too. Most advertisers think they’re being suave, and instead put out ads full of hyperbole and empty claims. When prospects see these ads, they do what most girls would do with Steve Martin above. A roll of the eyes. Instant dismissal.

But don’t take my word for it. This was the opinion of one Gary Bencivenga, an A-lister whose star shines brightest on the copywriters Walk of Fame.

According to Gary, the two most powerful words in advertising are neither “FREE” nor “NEW.” Instead, the two most powerful words are, “Yeah, sure.” That’s why Gary’s number one commandment was to put proof above all other elements in his ads.

But you probably know all this. So I won’t go on more about proof or Gary Bencivenga. Instead, let me make a confession.

For the past several months, I’ve been working on a book about something I call “insight marketing.”

My original plan was to write this book in 28 days. Well, that didn’t happen.

I’m making progress on the book (about halfway done) but it’s taking way more research and thinking than I planned originally.

So while I continue to write this book about insight, I decided to put out more tiny Kindle books on topics I already know a lot about.

And that’s where all of that Steve Martin/Gary Bencivenga stuff above hooks in. It’s the beginning of the first chapter of my upcoming book.

How upcoming? 28 days, of course. If you want to know when it’s out, you can sign up for my daily email newsletter, in which I write about persuasion and marketing, much like you read above.

No fuss or fireworks: The “duck for sale” principle

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Today I read a clever little ad, which famed copywriter Gary Bencivenga wrote to promote his own marketing agency.

​​True to Gary’s philosophy of advertising, this ad is full of value — useful info that keeps you reading whether you plan on hiring Gary’s agency or not. On page 7, there is a caption that reads:

“THE DUCK FOR SALE” PRINCIPLE. When you have a product with immediate, apparent appeal, present it straightforwardly. For example, if you are trying to sell a duck, don’t beat about the bush with a headline such as, “Announcing a special opportunity to buy a white-feathered flying object.”
You’ll get much better results with, “DUCK FOR SALE.”

I liked this a lot. And I think this “duck for sale” principle applies more broadly than just to products with immediate, apparent appeal.

I’m not saying all ads should trumpet the product in the headline. But I personally often overthink advertising. I try to get clever. Tricky. I want to work in that copywriting mystique sold by copywriting gurus.

But based on what I’ve seen after sending hundreds of emails to peddle truckloads of ecomm gimcracks… all the successful copy I’ve written satisfied the “duck for sale” principle in a way. It was direct, at least about the problem it was solving. It was simple to understand. And it was close to what was on the prospect’s mind.

Gary Bencievenga apparently likes a little book called Obvious Adams. It’s about an unremarkable man who becomes a remarkable marketing success. He gets there by doing something similar to what I’m talking about here:

“How many of us have sense to see and do the obvious thing? And how many have persistence enough in following our ideas of what is obvious? The more I thought of it, the more convinced I became that in our organization there ought to be some place for a lad who had enough sense to see the obvious thing to do and then to go about it directly, without any fuss or fireworks, and do it!”