600 Million

The ‘Prince of Print’ was arguably one of the greatest marketing minds of the twentieth century and certainly one of the greatest copywriters.

Click here to see a large version of the letter.

flying under the radar . . . 

The first obstacle in any direct mail campaign is simply getting your letter delivered. The next hurdle is then getting it opened (let alone read).

Halbert used several stealth techniques to address these obstacles.

To address the first, Gary used real, honest-to-goodness first class stamps.

Many other direct mail marketers thought they’d save money by using bulk rate mail or franking. In far too many documented cases, postal staff simply dumped postage which screamed junk mail hoping the sender and recipient would be none the wiser.

Just as important was the postmark – that official mark stamped on a letter giving the place, date, and time of posting.

To perpetuate the illusion that this was a personal letter and not the commercial pitch it really was, Halbert wanted the postmark to reflect the return address of Bath, Ohio where they had hired a house to act as their ‘office’.

To do this he had the letters delivered from the printer in Illinois by truck to the Ohio, Bath post office where they could receive the local post mark.
While this stealth approach did not lower the recipient's defenses it was one more tactic to ensure they wouldn’t be raised.

The second stealth technique was the envelope. This tactic was implemented in three parts.

Firstly, the letter was delivered in quality, plain white envelopes. The kind of nondescript envelope you might use to send a letter to a friend.

Secondly, while many direct mail pieces of the time had teaser copy on the outside of the envelope, this had none. There was nothing to give the recipient a reason to file it in the round filing cabinet.

Finally, many direct mail pieces affix the address with a self-adhesive label; typical of mass-mailings. This had the address printed directly on the envelope using a font which gave the impression it was typewritten.

There was nothing to indicate that this was anything other than a personal letter.

buying from people you know, like & trust

People are more inclined to buy if they know, like and trust you.

How do you address those concerns through a letter?

The coat-of-arms letter used several techniques:

One was by providing the sender’s contact details by way of a physical return address and telephone number.

Right off the bat, when you open this letter, you know how to get in touch with the sender. For the recipient, even though they have no intention of actually picking up the phone, it’s very comforting to know they can reach you.

This is more important in the Internet age where emails and websites can be opaque and anonymous. The quickest way to encourage trust is via transparency.

The second thing this suggests is that the letter was sent by a real person, not a company. This is one more technique to instill the impression that this is a personal letter.

When the letter was originally written in the late 1960s and early 1970s, computer generated letters were just coming in to vogue. Virtually all direct mail used a generic salutations like “Dear Friend” or “Dear Occupant”.

Gary used the recipient’s favorite word – their name – four times in the letter starting with the salutation.

Further emphasizing the personal nature of the letter, Gary estimated that this alone tripled the response rate which averaged 7% but was as high as 23% for some surnames.

To facilitate ‘personalization’, Halbert simply printed and mailed it in batches of the same surname, literally working his way through the telephone book.

the subtle art of hooking your reader

A headline would have screamed sales pitch, so the letter needed a more subtle approach to draw you into the body copy.

The letter tactfully hooks you from the first sentence with a question that engages curiosity and ego.

The most common response going through most people’s mind after reading the opening would be “No”.

This could feasibly be followed by questions going through the reader’s mind such as:

• My family has a coat-of-arms?
• Seven centuries! That long ago?

Whatever the internal questions the reader has, the letter starts out with a little known fact to appeal to the ego and arouse curiosity.

In the Internet world, where attention spans are short (and getting shorter) and people ‘scan’ copy rather than ‘read’ it, hooking your reader from the get-go is crucial. 

Remember, people won’t be bored in print. If you lose them for a moment, you’ve lost them forever.

So now that you have their attention you need to keep it . . .

reeling them in . . .

The letter immediately provides a legitimate answer to keep the reader engaged.

Notice the tone of the letter? It’s very casual and understated. It sounds like it’s coming from a person – a real person – not company.

Too many entrepreneurs try and give the illusion that their business is bigger than it is. Ironically people are much more comfortable dealing with an individual than a faceless corporation.

Notice the tone of the letter? It’s very casual and understated. It sounds like it’s coming from a person – a real person – not company.

Too many entrepreneurs try and give the illusion that their business is bigger than it is. Ironically people are much more comfortable dealing with an individual than a faceless corporation.

Mentioning her husband further reinforces the idea that this is a personal letter not a commercial sales pitch.

Given the letter is signed by Nancy, she doesn’t have to mention her husband but doing this makes Nancy seem real and the letter more legitimate.

It’s as though you met an acquaintance or neighbour with the same last name and casually mentioned, “oh, by-the-way, my husband and I did some research on our last name . . . “.

It’s very low key and under the radar.

This instils the idea that not only is this authentic (‘exactly as described in the ancient records’) but we’ve had it ‘professionally’ reproduced, suggesting value before price has even been mentioned.

And still here in the second paragraph there is no explicit suggestion that this is in fact a commercial, direct mail piece.

drawing your reader into the net

The letter continues drawing in the reader with more details about their ‘distinguished’ family name.

But like any compelling bullet list, it accentuates the ‘what’ but not the ‘how’, selling the sizzle without giving away the steak.

The description is very succinct but rich in detail listing features which appeal to pride and the ego. The reader discovers that they don’t have any old last name, but one that is “very old” and “distinguished”.

Genealogy is a growing interest and people are eager to know about their heritage. Mentioning the family motto and famous people in their lineage builds on this interest.

The copy also uses the reader’s last name two more times but without being blatant. It’s all done in context of the conversation.

This paragraph essentially gives a list of “product features” without stating as much and then goes on to suggest how it could be used (framing).

how to deploy testimonials when you don't have any

A strong sales pitch builds credibility through testimonials and endorsements.

The coat-of-arms letter is no different, but its approach needed to be more tactful while still managing to include a third-party testimonial.

The letter provides an implicit testimonial from the friends they prepared the report for, effectively stating that the only reason more copies were produced is because their friends were so delighted.

Even before the sale has been asked for, the letter implies scarcity by highlighting that they only have “few extra copies”.

The post 600 Million – Hidden persuaders behind the most successful mail campaign in history appeared first on Copy-Fast.

That is, for every 1 time I mentioned me, I mentioned you 3.3 times.

One rule of thumb is to talk about your reader at least twice as much as you talk about yourself.

For every “me” you mention, you should mention “you” two times (or more!).

 That’d give a you-me ratio of 2.0. So 3.3 is pretty good

The post It’s not (about) you, it’s me appeared first on Copy-Fast.

Don’t send out another email until you’re sure you’re not committing one of these email crimes.

Anyone of these can cause your readers to hit unsubscribe faster than you can say antidisestablishmentarianism.

I recently registered a new domain name.

No big deal, you’d think. Just a routine administrative task.

But registering the domain name itself wasn’t an issue.

It was the 100 or so unsolicited emails trying to sell me web development, SEO and related internet services.

While most of them came from businesses in India, one word can be used to describe all of them.

Awful.

If you send emails to prospects using any of these approaches, you’re not simply losing customers.

You’re repelling them.

Here’s 10 marketing crimes you should never commit when trying to engage your audience unless you want to kill your sales.

Here we go . . .

[Really] Poor Audience Targeting

Facebook has some amazing tools for drilling down to unearth an audience that would most benefit from your product or service.

This usually means a more relevant message for your reader and higher sales for you.

Not so these intrepid marketers.

They know nothing about me, my resources or my intentions with my newly acquired domain name. This makes it nearly impossible to present a relevant, targeted message and offer.

Instead I received almost 100 unsolicited, badly targeted emails randomly offering everything from SEO services, website development and graphic design to outsourced IT services. They almost unanimously boasted “highest quality” with “lowest prices”.

As an antithesis to the standard marketing objective, they end up sending
the wrong message
to the wrong person
at the wrong time.

Subject Lines that Scream ‘Junk Mail’

The late, great Gary Halbert told how he observed people sorting their mail at the post office.

People divided their mail into two piles. What he called the ‘A’ pile and the ‘B’ pile.

‘A’ pile letters were opened while ‘B’ pile items hit the bin unopened. If you want your message to be read, you obviously want to be in the ‘A’ pile.

The simple observation was that if an item even looks like junk mail – it hit the bin without a conscious thought.

He used this observation to develop a direct mail campaign that saw over 600 millions letters distributed and earned over $20,000 per day.

The letters looked hand-typed, used a first-class stamp, had a local postmark and looked like they might have come from a friend.

The same principle applies to your emails.

If your subject line looks like a blatant sales pitch, you’ll see your open rate plummet.

Here’s some actual subject lines of emails I received. Can you guess which ones are junk mail (a.k.a. SPAM)?

S.E.O. Special Offer

Website!Plan

Website Design/Redesign

Specialist web designing

Request for a call ?

Very Low Budget ( Seo Service)

Proposal……………….!

E-commerce Web Development (PHP,CSS,WORDPRESS)……………..#%

Hire Web Designer and Developer at low cost

SEO Proposal

-“50 keywords Organic SEO @ $400 per month”

Create your website________Low Price

Proposal…………..SEO

Mobile Apps Development !!

Give yourself a Gold Star if you said “all of them” 

I suspect 99.99% of the recipients of these emails simply hit the delete key without reading beyond the subject line.

What could they have used as a more enticing subject line?

Well, here’s a subject line from an email I received from Direct Marketing legend, Drayton Bird:

Why most ads fail

This curiosity arousing headline could easily be modified for intrepid marketers as:

Why most web designs fail

The email could first discuss problems which cause website development failure before showing how their services provide successful results.

Here’s another example from Thrive Themes who have a well honed – and relevant – marketing machine in place.

Can you think how this could be modified for an interest service provide flogging SEO or web development services?

It’s Not You. It’s Me.

Henry Hoke, a leader in direct mail for many years, advised to remove all offensive words from your sales copy.

The most offensive words in sales included:

• I
• me
• my
• mine
• we
• us
• our

If you managed to convince your audience to even open your email, your opening line should have a single objective.

Convince them to keep reading.

And the best way to do that is . . .

. . . talk about them!

One common way is to address a burning problem your reader has perhaps by pointing out the elephant in the room.

That is, your message should start with your reader, not with you.

Here’s the opening lines from some of them emails I received. Can you tell which ones are about me and solving my problems?

Well done if you got the right answer – a big, fat zero.

It’s all about them, who they are and what they do. I really don’t care if they have 100+ IT professionals on staff.

And one of my favorites:

You’re kidding, right? He wants me to read his boring company profile before I even know who they are and – more importantly – why it’s relevant to me.

Compare this to the email from Thrive Themes where the opening line was:

This opening line is both response raising and divisive (which is a good thing).

It’s divisive because either my reader believes selling is hard or they don’t.

It’s a simple question which divides the herd.

If they don’t believe selling is hard, they’re not my target audience anyway, and I’m not going to try to convince them otherwise.

If they do believe selling is hard or challenging, they know this email relates to them.

In their head they may even be thinking, “yeah, it is” or “I wish I could do something about it”.

Ka-ching! You’ve just entered the conversion already going on in your prospect’s head.

Not Using Your Audiences’ Language

David Ogilvy, one of the original Mad Men of Madison avenue (waaaay before the TV series) stressed the importance of using the language of your audience when he said:

I don’t know the rules of grammar. If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think.

Do you think or talk like this?

How about this?

Or this?

Neither do I.

The lesson here is simple.

Discover how your audience thinks. What they say. What language they use. There are simple strategies for doing this.

Your writing should reflect this as much as possible – punctuation and grammar be damned.

Not Focusing on the Outcome

There’s a common marketing maxim which says that people don’t want to buy a drill bit; they want a hole.

This marketing maxim is wrong.

People don’t even want a hole.

They want to have a painting hung or whatever the hole’s purpose serves.

If you want to use Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as a reference point, even this is premature.

If the hole is to hold a family portrait then the hole service a more intrinsic purpose. They want feel all warm-and-fuzzy surrounded by family memories – the hole in the wall is just a means to an end.

So when you write your email, focus on the result or outcome, not the features or benefits. Digital Marketer calls this focusing on the ‘transformation’ your customer will experience.

Let’s contrast this with our SEO marketers:

Actually, no. I want more sales. Google, like other marketing mediums, is just a means to an end.

Okay, we are getting closer with this last one but it lacks focus and certainly doesn’t pique interest.

Trust is a fragile thing. Don’t drop it.

Another common marketing adage says that people buy from people we know, like and trust.

Trust is hard to obtain and easy to destroy.

So, why would you do this?

You use a Gmail account and *then* you’ll email me from your real account once I respond with my contact details?

Do you want my credit card details at the same time?

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen successful online marketers use Gmail as their primary email account. But, why would they only tell me their real email account after I’ve replied. Don’t they trust me?

Please. Don’t. SPAM.

And my favorite:

Umm, yes – you are spammers. I shouldn’t have to reply as I never requested or agreed to communication from your company.

You simply took my email address from the domain name registrations database and sent me an unsolicited sales letter (along with 100 other spammers).

Seth Godin details this strategy in his book Permission Marketing. Perhaps I should buy these intrepid marketers a copy.

The lesson here, unless you want to incur the wrath of your recipients, only ever send emails to people who requested it.

Can anyone spell CAN-SPAM?

Begging Doesn’t Become You

If you’re going to sell, sell. Don’t beg.

How’s this for a sales pitch? Would you ever approach any of your clients or prospects in this manner?

Nothing kills your negotiating position more than the smell of desperation.

You need to use the right selling words and phrases to project confidence in your product or service. There’s tools to help you do this too.

Keep it Jargon Free

Now, I’m a software developer, so I like a computer acronym as much as the next geek.

However I learnt long ago in my IT career was there is no faster way to make my clients’ eyes glaze over than to use “nerd talk”.

Ever see a stunned deer staring blankly at the high beams of an oncoming car?

Here’s how to reproduce that effect with your prospects using email:

Did you get that?

Neither did their readers.

Most drivers want performance, safety and fuel economy from their cars. Most don’t really care what’s under the bonnet or want to read exhausting exhaustive technical specifications.

Same goes with websites.

Most online businesses would want a responsive, modern website that converts leads into sales. If you can explain it to them in words a 5 year old would understand, you’re well on your way to a clear message.

Don’t Treat Me Like a Moron

There’s a great quote from David Ogilvy about insulting the intelligence of your audience.

You may have read it:

The consumer isn’t a moron. She is your wife.

Contrast this to one of the emails I received which implied that the company had actually critiqued my site:

Another email I received said:

Remember, this is a domain name I just registered.

There is no website.

There are no “major issues” they could have found.

This also ties back to that “trust” thing we talked about.

The relationship’s not off to a good start if I know they’re lying to me from the outset.

There’s nothing wrong with embellishing your sales copy. But the Internet makes it childishly simple to verify most advertising claims, so anything you claim need to be honest and accurate.

Email Crimes Checklist

So there you have it – 10 email crimes against humanity your should avoid at all costs.

Keep this as a checklist the next time you’re writing a sales pitch in an email or sales page.

Here’s a quick summary you can copy and paste somewhere convenient (better yet, go ahead and  bookmark this page):

1. Target your audience and their needs accurately
2. Use compelling subject lines that don’t scream ‘Junk Mail’
3. Talk about your reader. It’s not about you.
4. Use the language of your audiences
5. Focus on the outcome or transformation your product or service will produce
6. Trust is a fragile thing. Don’t drop it.
7. Please. Don’t. SPAM.
8. Sell, don’t beg
9. Keep it jargon free
10. Don’t treat your reader like a moron

Write on!

The post 10 Email Crimes I Uncovered Registering a Domain Name appeared first on Copy-Fast.

I’ll show you the step-by-step process to read your customers’ minds and give you tools to do it.

All without spending a penny on a clairvoyant

Remember last week we spoke about the myth of creative writing and that the most productive copywriters used tools, frameworks and specific techniques to write great copy fast?

Based on my studies one of the most productive tools used by the most prolific and effective copywriters is deploy before they write a single word of copy.

That tool is research.

Yes. Research.

Research is the difference between the pros and the amateurs.

And more importantly the difference between those who make the sale and those who miss the mark.

Research is the proverbial Abe Lincoln spending 6 hours to sharpen his axe if he had 8 hours to chop down a tree.

But stick with me because I’ll show you there’s a slow way to do research and a fast way to do research.

But first let’s get a few thoughts on the importance of research in writing compelling emails, sales letters and sales pages.

Want to Be ahead of 99% of your competition?

Focus on some simple research and you’ll be ahead of 99% of your competition who are still waiting for “inspiration”.

This is Gary Halbert. Also known as The Prince of Print.

Gary was arguably one of the greatest marketing minds of the twentieth century and certainly one of the greatest copywriters.

Gary was the marketing genius behind the Coat of Arms sales letter. That’s right, a physical letter with a first class stamp that was mailed out over 600 million times (some say it was a billion).

But get this, at its peak in the mid-1970s this campaign was mailing one million letters a week.

He was receiving 20,000 orders a day.

Gary had to hire 40 assistants simply to help bank the money (remember you’ve taken your Delorean to the mid-1970s) .

The whole operation was eventually sold to Ancestry.com for $75 million.

Here’s what Gary had to say on the role of research in writing copy:

When it comes to writing copy, far too much attention is paid to the actual writing and far too little is paid to ferreting out facts about that which the copywriter is trying to sell!

And to drive the message home he added:

If you do your research properly, if you do enough ‘prep’, your ads and sales letters will almost write themselves

We’ll look at how to do that later in this article.

Let’s keep going.

This is Gary Bencivenga.

Gary’s known as the copywriter’s copywriter.

He trained under the fathers of modern advertising and copywriting. Names like John Caples, David Ogilvy, and Dan Rosenthal.

Gary’s widely regarded as the best copywriter of his generation (some say of the last century).

Here’s Gary’s take on the subject:

the best copywriters are the most tenacious researchers

His mentor, John Caples author of the classic “Tested Advertising Methods” suggested this:

[you should] gather seven times more interesting information than you could possibly use

Enter the Original ‘Mad Man’

And then there’s David Ogilvy.

Ogilvy’s the father of modern advertising. He started what became one of the largest advertising agencies in the world was part of the inspiration behind the “Mad Men” television series.

When it comes to research he had this to say:

Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals

If you don’t do your research or ignore what it’s telling you you’ll get killed in the marketplace.

Ogilvy is responsible for the famous Rolls-Royce ad.

Ogilvy spent 3 weeks in research for this ad. He read all the material he could get and spoke with everyone at Rolls Royce from management to factory staff.

Ogilvy was famous for doing so much research and his ads were laden with so many interesting ‘facts’ and tid-bits they read like articles, not advertisements.

One tid-bit became the basis for one of the most well known headlines in advertising history:

At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce from the electric clock

As a result of this advertising campaign, Rolls-Royce sold out their entire U.S. inventory.

I know what you’re thinking.

You’re saying: “Hold it. Did you just say David Ogilvy spent ‘3 weeks researching’ ?”.

Well that’s not going to happen.

Who the heck has 3 weeks to spend on research?

You’ll soon see that things have changed a little since Ogilvy’s time.

Here’s one rubber-to-the-road research tactic you can start using today.

This isn’t a light-weight technique either. This is a strategy Jay Abraham confesses to using.

Jay’s a well renowned marketing strategist, author. He was listed by Forbes as one of the top 5 executive coaches in the U.S.

He’s a major contender in the marketing world and usually charges $100,000 per day as a consultant.

On a YouTube video called Amazon Copywriting Secrets he had this to say:

A shortcut to mastering the process of gaining insight into the mind of your audience is the [Amazon] reviews.

Amazon reviews are the proverbial gold mine for market research.

To understand what your prospects are thinking.

And to get that in their own words.

Watch how you can cut 3 weeks of research to 3 hours (or less)

Jay suggests going to Amazon and looking up the topic you’re writing about, such as weight loss.

Start with the book titles: many book titles alone will convey the “big payoff”. That is, what people are really interested in.

Remember, we want 3 very specific things from this exercise. We want to know:

1. what our prospects are thinking

2. what’s most important to them

3. plenty of ammunition for our copy

First you want to go to Amazon and search for the top selling products in the category you’re interested in.

Because Amazon doesn’t actually tell you sales volumes, we’re going to use the number of reviews as a proxy.

This proxy approach assumes that only a given percentage of people will ever bother to write a review. So the more reviews a product has the more people who bought it.

Once you’ve found a few products that have a reasonable number of reviews, you want to copy and paste each review into your word processor in a table with 4 columns.

You want to copy & paste the Review Title, Review Date, Rating and the Review itself.

You can use the review date to filter out older reviews.

And you can use the rating value to sort the reviews so you can see all the good or bad reviews grouped together.

We’re really interested in 5 and 1 star ratings. Ratings where people either loved or hated the product especially from products which really polarized people.

Now the fun part. . . 

Read through each review and highlight positive phrases, negative phrases, references and beneficiaries.

You can print the reviews out, but I tend to do this in Microsoft Word which has a highlighting feature..

You can choose your own colors but I highlight positive phrases in the reviews in green.

I highlight negative phrases in magenta.

Negative comments are just as important as positive ones. Each negative comment is an objection you need to handle in your sales page.

I then highlight beneficiaries in yellow. A beneficiary is anyone who would benefit from this product or descriptions of how people have used the product. This is very useful for your copy describing the benefits of your product.

And finally I highlight references in cyan (light blue).

References are things people mention in reviews that you want to look up later. Maybe they mentioned a competitive product, a free alternative or a blog post.

You’ll quickly start to get a feel for people’s underlying emotions by the way they express themselves.

Just the color coding itself which give you an idea of how many positive and negative emotions are being expressed in the reviews.

You Want to Collate the Reviews into Themes

We want to go one step further and group or collate all those emotions into underlying themes.

This will allow you to gauge how important each topic is to your customers.

Let’s go through our reviews document again. This time we’re just going to focus on the positive and negative phrases you’ve highlighted.

You want to copy each positive statement and negative statement you highlighted into a new document, but this time we’re going to group them in to themes or categories..

So for the first positive or negative statement, decide a theme it represents. Maybe it’s about the product’s ease of use, or price.

Enter the name of that theme as a category heading and paste the statement there.

Now go to the next highlighted (positive or negative) statement.

If it has the same theme as the first comment, paste it under that one.

If not, create a new theme heading.

Repeat this process until you’ve gone through all the positive and negative statements you highlighted and copied each on to a theme (or category).

When you’re finished you’ll have a document that lists every positive and negative sentiment expressed by your audience grouped into major themes.

The last time I did this I had 27 pages of categories review phrases to work with.

Which theme stands out?

What’s most important to your audience?

Well to know that, all we have to do it count them.

So at the top of the theme document enter each major theme and count how many phrases of each you collected from the reviews.

Here’s what mine looked like. This cam from reviews about a copywriting book:

You can see that the book being categorised, helped with brainstorming and helped overcome writer’s block were the 3 most common things reviewers commented about.

Bonus tip: To make life easy for you, I’ve included done-for-you templates as bonus download

So where are we? Do we have the 3 things we wanted?

You now know:

What your audience likes (that’s the positive comments).

What their objections are (that’s the negative comments).

Those combined tell you what your prospects are thinking.

You also know how important each theme or topic is.

That’s the number of times each theme was mentioned in the reviews which tells you what’s most important to them.

And you have the exact words your prospects used to express their thoughts in their own language.

That gives you plenty of ammunition and is pure gold fodder for your copy.

All you need now is a way to structure it into your sales copy.

(Don’t worry, we’ll cover that another time).

This whole process may have take a couple of hours – a far cry from 3 weeks.

Now you have everything for your own sales page

In writing your sales page, focus on the 3 or 4 major themes in the reviews for your sales copy.

These will become your benefits for each of the main “features”.

Use customers’ own words in your sales copy to speak the language of your customer.

Use the negative comments to write responses to their objections. Many sales pages include these in a FAQ section.

Remember what the late, great Gary Halbert – one of the 20th century’s greatest marketers – taught:

If you do your research properly, if you do enough ‘prep’, your ads and sales letters will almost write themselves

The post How to Read Your Customer’s Mind (without spending a penny on Clairvoyants) appeared first on Copy-Fast.

And that is, you’ve got to be creative.

One of the prevailing stereotypes is that to write effective copy – let alone write it faster – you need to be the creative type. Phooey!

Let’s get a professional opinion on this.

This is David Ogilvy. The King of Madison Avenue.

Ogilvy is often referred to as the father of modern advertising.

He started what became one of the largest advertising agencies in the world which still bears his name and was part of the inspiration behind the “Mad Men” television series.

When it comes to creativity, as you’d expect from a Scotsman, he didn’t mince words:

if it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative

One of the most influential figures in advertising and marketing in the last 100 years knew from experience that writing effective copy wasn’t about creative prose.

It’s about results.

As an aside David Ogilvy, Original Mad Man of Madison Avenue considered himself a “lousy copywriter”.

Meanwhile some of the best copywriters aren’t creative at all – not in the traditional sense. They use tried and tested methods to get their persuasive message across.

Ogilvy later condensed his lessons learnt building one of the world’s largest advertising agencies in a book, “Ogilvy on Advertising”

The opening sentence from his book drives this message home. He said:

I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art-form. When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me you find it creative. I want you to find it so interesting you buy the product.

Let’s get a second opinion on this.

This is Gary Bencivenga.

Gary is the copywriter’s copywriter.

Gary trained under the fathers of modern advertising and copywriting including John Caples and David Ogilvy. He’s is widely regarded as the best copywriter of his generation (some say of the last century).

This is what Gary had to say on creative copy:

Effective copywriting is salesmanship in print, not clever wordsmithing

Oh, and by the way, Gary has a B.A. in English Literature, a background we often associate with “creative writing”.

And then there’s Bob Bly.

Bob’s been referred to as “America’s Top Copywriter”, especial in the business-to-business space.

Over 4 decades Bob has written over 70 books on business, marketing and copywriting including the renowned “The Copywriter’s Handbook”.

Here’s Bob’s perspective on creativity and copy:

structure is key: if your copy does not follow the formula for persuasion, it won’t work … no matter how creative you get

Great copywriters add their own unique individuality to a well laid path rather than starting from a clean slate each time. We’ll talk more about these well laid paths another time.

Meanwhile, as a successful copywriter earning high 6-figures every year, Bob has a degree in Chemical Engineering. Far removed from what you’d consider a creative background.

Writing a great sales letter is about preparation & process, not creativity

Writing copy, like many professions, involves a known process.

With the right training and the right tools you can write effective copy faster too.

I’m going to reveal techniques the best copywriters use to dramatically improve their productivity in future posts.

But for now let me say that in all my research I only found one, lone copywriter claim their productivity was due to “discipline and motivation”.

I guess we can cross that one off our list.

Finally this is Ray Edwards.

Ray is a renowned copywriter and author of the best-selling “Writing Riches”.

He’s written or directed campaigns responsible for an estimated $100 million in sales having worked with Tony Robbins through to Jeff Walker of Product Launch Formula fame.

Ray contends that a great sales letter is not concocted from some creative outburst.

It’s a formula. And a typical sales letter has fifteen basic elements or building blocks.

Here’s what Ray had to say about writing a sales letter

It’s a formula. And if you follow the formula, you will get predictable results. You will sell stuff.

So what are the 3 cures to writing creativity?

Many copywriters cited tools, techniques, frameworks and other resources to write copy faster.

Instead of creativity, many copywriters cited tools, techniques, frameworks and other resources to write effective copy faster.

In summary these are:

• Research
• Templates
• Formulas

Over the coming weeks we’ll explore each of these areas with practical, hands-on techniques you can use to write effective emails, sales letters and sale pages faster.

The post 3 Ways to kill the creative copywriting myth (once and for all) appeared first on Copy-Fast.

Some might call you an expert.

But then, it seems we’re all experts today.

We’re bombarded with ‘expert’ opinions on the news.

In the media. Online. Everywhere!

Even people who might not consider to be an expert are experts.

Not convinced?

Here’s a snap of a truck I took outside a pub at the Borough Market recently.

To save you squinting, on the side of the truck in front of a photo with their staff it says “It’s not just a drinks delivery, it’s a truckload of expertise”.

Are they kidding? They’re just dropping off some booze at the local battlecruiser.

But still, they’re presenting themselves to the world as experts in the logistics of beverage distribution.

So back to that shingle you’ve hung out.

If everyone’s calling themselves an expert, how are you going to stand out from the crowd?

Calling yourself an expert will sound “me too” at best, or make you invisible at worst.

The solution?

Don’t call a spade-a-spade.

Call it a ‘manually operated soil displacement apparatus’.

You want to convey the same concept or impression but by saying in it a very different way.

Even better,you want to have the right tools at your disposal to make the whole task easier and faster.

Here’s an example I saw outside Marylebone tube station recently.

On the side of the cab, with a pointed finger  it says “This guy knows London like the back of his hand”.

Now to be fair, London Cabbies posses The Knowledge, and are renowned for their intimacy with London’s back streets and alleyways.

But the point is the advert doesn’t say this cabbie has an expert knowledge of London streets or that he’s an expert driver.

Experts are cliché.

Besides, he’s far more experienced than that! He knows London streets so well, he knows them “like the back of his hand”.

9 Expert Formulas to Stand Out from the Crowd

Here’s 9 formulas you can use to stand out in the crowd and convey your expertise in a world full of experts.

Swipe whichever one suits your situation the best.

Just copy. Tweak. Voila!

_______ have combined their talents

Two heads are better than one. This formula shows how your talents are strengthened further by a collaboration.

This is a great formula to swipe if you work in a partnership. This could be between your business and another; renowned members of your own team or, even better, between experts previously considered to be adversaries.

Here’s an example:

Bassist Mike Smith and trumpet virtuoso Tom Wesson have combined their talents to form a harmonic duo that will mesmerise you.

_______ is our business

This formula implies that you are a specialist and with that comes a depth of knowledge, experience or a product range not available with a generalist competitor.

Some companies like Toys’R’Us even used their business name to emphasise that expertise.

Toys’R’Us were previously a generalist department store who changed their name and their entire focus after realising their only truly profitable department was toys.

Here’s an example:

Your health is our concern; after all nutrition is our business.

_______ – meister

‘Meister’ originates from the German for ‘master’ although it’s exact translation depends on the context.

Meister is also used casually in English as a compound noun. For example, a “puzzle-meister” would be someone highly skilled at solving puzzles.

Use meister when a more hip or trendy portrayal of expertise is required.

Referring to a dentist as a tooth-meister has less credibility than a DJ who’s a spin-meister.

Here’s an example:

DJ Eric Stone is the spin-meister of ‘80s rock

(admittedly I’m giving my age away with this example)

award-winning

Your expertise has been recognised by third-parties by virtue of the awards that you, your company or product have won.

Essentially you’re letting everyone else say what an expert you are. They’re effectively testimonials given by third parties.

Milk this one for all it’s worth and remember to include images of the awards – even wine bottle labels do this.

Here’s an example:

Our award-winning journalists will ensure you’re up-to-date with all the breaking news.

endowed with _______

‘Endowed’ suggests your expertise is something innate and cannot easily be replicated.

This is supremely suitable for demonstrating your expertise in creative or artistic endeavours.

You’ve either got it or you haven’t; and you’ve got it, baby.

You could also use “flair for _______” as an alternative.

Here’s some examples:

SlimPlus is endowed with 12 naturally growing, rare herbs which …

and

A virtuoso of classical guitarist with a flair for improvisation, Juan will mesmerise you with his masterly skill.

meticulously engineered

Your technical expertise is expressed through the precision and attention to detail in your engineering.

Suited to products where engineering quality is a major selling point.

Here’s an example:

Wesson power-tools are meticulously engineered for power, agility and endurance.

professional, experienced staff

Here you are leveraging two concepts to emphasise your expertise.
First your staff are professionals suggesting your product or service is delivered to a high standard achieved by a formally recognised education or training.
Secondly that professionalism is backed-up by experience not just theory.

Here’s an example:

Our professional, experienced staff will guide you through every step of the process and answer any questions you have.

pioneers in _______

You’re not just an expert in your field but one of the pioneers who started it. You may not have been the first, but being a pioneer allows you to be at the forefront.

Similar to the ‘we pioneered the _______’ formula, this frames you as an innovator.

To be credible, this needs to be consistent with your market positioning. Kodak ‘pioneered’ digital photographing in the mid-1970s but are not considered a leading player in that area now.

Here’s an example:

As pioneers in sound technology our range of exceptional Wesson headphones will impress the most discerning audiophile.

we’re totally obsessed with _______

As Winston Churchill once quipped, “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject”.

This formula is particularly suitable for markets where your customers are fanatical or aficionados such as with golf or cigars (although there’s many others. ComicCon anyone?).

This formula connects with your market showing that you’re one of them.

Even better if you can show that your staff is made up of people with the same obsession (take a look at an Apple Store).

Here’s an example:

Like you, we’re totally obsessed with pure sound quality, which is why we test all our headphones ourselves against everything from Vivaldi to Van Halen.

Wrapping Up

Feel free to swipe these and use them as your own.

Just copy. Tweak. Voila.

But these are just the tip of the iceberg . . .

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