First, a warning:
Today’s email contains several dirty, obscene, lewd — and I’m afraid to say this — even French names. I see no other way to make an otherwise important point. If this upsets you, I suggest you stop reading now.
But if you’re still with me, here are some real places with unusual names:
* Blue Ball and Intercourse, Pennsylvania
* Eggs and Bacon Bay, Tasmania
* Pee Pee, Ohio
* Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands
* Y, France
* Pett Bottom, England
* Whorehouse Meadow, Oregon
I’ll tell you in a moment where I’m going with this.
But first, let me tell you how I found all this out. It was in a book called “Welcome to Horneytown, North Carolina, Population: 15.” I spent the last 40 or so minutes reading it.
It was my email yesterday that did it. It mentioned the town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. I saw the name again today when going over replies I got to my email from yesterday. This led me to the Horneytown book — as well as a surprise.
Because I’d known about Truth or Consequences for years. I even made plans once to travel there with a girl I’d chatted up one evening when I was feeling uncharacteristically outgoing.
But all these years, I assumed Truth or Consequences started out as some fundamentalist Wild West community. Fear of God and the Bible, let any stray cowboy riding into town know exactly what he’s getting into, that type of thing.
But no. Truth or Consequences was founded in 1930. It was originally called Hot Springs. It renamed itself in 1950 after a popular radio show as a publicity stunt.
I could keep going on about this. But I once heard A-list copywriter Parris Lampropolous share a valuable lesson he himself learned from A-list copywriter and entrepreneur Mark Ford.
Mark advises copywriters NOT to go on for more than a page about the same thing. Page, page and a half max.
Then Mark advises you to say, “I’ll tell you more about that in a moment, but first…” And then hit them with something new.
Perhaps you wonder what this has to do with obscene, unusual, and French place names. In that case, perhaps today’s email deserves a closer reading. And so do some of my other emails.
Because this page, page-and-a-half-max thing is so important that I try to respect it in each email I write these days. Only, expectations are different in emails than in sales letters. A page and a half in an email is too long to talk about the same thing. I’ll explain why in just a bit, but first…