Three wise men doing a copy critique
Professor Skridlov: Father Giovanni, how can you stay here instead of returning to Italy and giving the people there something of the faith which you are now inspiring in me?
Father Giovanni: Ah Professor. You do not understand man’s psyche as well as you know archeology. Faith cannot be given to men. Faith is not the result of thinking. It comes from direct knowledge.
I started re-reading Gene Schwartz’s Breakthrough Advertising. And right on the first page, he offers this warning:
“Copy cannot create desire for a product. It can only take the hopes, dreams, fears and desires in the hearts of millions of people, and focus those already-existing desires on a particular product.”
And here’s another related quote, this from Gary Halbert:
“You know, I’m sick to death of people who can’t be bothered with the little nitty-gritty details of “hands on” experience. Of people who believe that somehow they can know a thing without experiencing it. Listen: It is possible to be “conversant” with something and really not have any kind of “gut understanding” of it at all. I’m sorry, but no matter what your Mommy and Daddy told you, men can never really understand the pain of childbirth, priests cannot comprehend the joys of sex, “normies” can never understand alcoholics, and not one speck of true advertising wisdom has ever been written by a PhD.”
And finally, a bit from a recent Ben Settle email:
“This is, btw, why I don’t do critiques anymore. (Besides the fact I hate doing copywriting critiques) As Doug D’Anna put it in the same interview: ‘How can I offer somebody a copywriting critique on a piece of sales copy for a product or a prospect that I am 100 percent unfamiliar with?'”
Here’s how this ties together in my head.
Nobody can really judge good copy unless they are a prospect and ready to buy. Nice-sounding copy can bomb. Awful copy can sell.
So how do you write good copy? Research is important. So is experience. So is intuition. Then there’s feedback from other experts.
All that stuff is great, but ultimately, none of it is conclusive.
Fortunately, direct response copywriting is one area where we don’t have to agree to disagree. We can know which appeal is best. Even if we cannot see inside people’s hearts, and even though we cannot have their problems (or faith). And that’s simply through sales.