Copywriting Kid

• Spying On John Carlton
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    Tuesday, 4:06pm San Francisco, CA “I left my heart…” (Tony Bennett) Howdy. By the time you read this, I’ll be back home in Reno… a better man for having spent a week in San Francisco. Even though it was all business, I still get invigorated just from hanging out in that city by the bay.  It’s one of the few […]
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  • Takin’ It Too Far…
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  • Night Of The Living-Dead Sales Letter…
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As a copywriter, you gotta get hip to human nature. And one of the best ways to do so is to observe what’s going on inside of yourself.

I recently hung out at a friends house, and she’s absolutely nuts about an absolutely ridiculous Spanish soap opera.

Now, while I was there, this soap opera got aired, and of course she had to watch it.

(These soap opera fans are dependent on their daily dose).

Now, I don’t speak Spanish, and I watched the soap opera just from the periphery of my eye… well, at least intially.

The characters? Mainly women who were trying to poison each other so they could marry the handsome rich guy. Guys that would beat each other up or hire tugs to get rid of an adversary. It was completely ridiculous, over the top. But you know what?

I suddenly noticed myself asking my friend: “What did she just say?” and then again and again.

The addiction hit me too.

Despite how candidly crappy the actors were, how much the script sucked – I got hooked on the story. Because it was about jealousy, greed, despicable acts, romantic love,  intense hate and injustice, compassion, joy and sorrow – all pact together so densely into such a short time frame.

So if we want to get out copy read – could we actually learn from those soap opera script writers to get readers hooked?

When you surf the web, every once in a while you notice an AdSense up showing up somewhere.

And then you notice it again on another site, and again on another site, and again, and again…

… and that’s when a little lightbulb should go off in your head.

Because there’s a high likelyhood that the ad copy that they use in that ad is pulling like magic, specially if that ad leads to a direct response style salesletter that either converts into sales, leads, or wasted money. These guys measure, track, test and analyze everything, and if they put a lot of money into an ad that shows up all over the web all the time, then it means: this ad works. And it probably does so like gangbusters. So study it and learn from it.

When writing the easy way is always to stick with general words that can mean a lot of things. It’s a comfortable fuzziness to rest your brain in – much easier than digging for just the right word in your vocabulary.

There are times when general words are a good choice – and there are times when specific words are a much better choice.

Read John’s article to see for yourself. He’s illustrated it really well.

I just read one of the most boring ads of my life – but incidentally, it’s a very successful ad that has been running for around ten years straight.

So it’s worth studying.

It’s very plain, very simple on the surface. But the fact that it works so gangbusters show’s that we copywriters should focus on what works, instead on what is exciting.

(Plus – to the target audience, people who collect coins, this IS an exciting offer).

You can download the ad itself directly here.

Troy White has two 6-year old daughters, and they are all over a new kind of “teddybear”. It’s from a company called Webkinz. They basically merged the old fashioned teddybear with virtual worlds.

What’s interesting about this is how they came up with the idea: they asked their target demographic (kids) questions to find out what they love to do.

It’s kind of like a further developed tamagotchi thing, but in many ways more sophisticated. I don’t know how much money they made with tamagotchis, but this company is just getting started and they already made $45 million.

Here’s a great way to use a piece of news about a major development in the world to make a point that supports your case. Copywriter Daniel Levis just wrote a post about the end of socialism in Europe, and while I read it with interest, I was kind of wondering where he’s getting with it all.

(Because while I do believe that Daniel has a genuine interest in politics, I also know that he usually isn’t someone who goes into a long  ramble about his opinions and views).

He wrote about the bad work-ethic that exists accross wide parts of Europe and the Western world (basically saying that there are way to many lazy people who are stuck in jobs they disgust and just put in their time so they can get to retirement as soon as possible). He then makes the point that this way of working won’t work much longer – and that there will be massive and crass changes in society.

And then he points to the huge opportunity this presents…

This is from Drayton Bird:

Anyone who has worked in sales or marketing knows you are wise to get customers’ permission regarding when and how often to talk. When a customer gives you their home phone number, if you’re smart you ask the best time to call: you consider that customer’s preferences. Poor marketers call customers after 9pm, or in the middle of dinner, get the kind of reception they deserve – and lose the sale forever.

Surely nothing revolutionary, but a point well worth making. If you create a marketing message, it will be more effective if you deliver it to your prospects when they are more comfortable receiving it. Seth Godin has written a book about that, packaged the whole old story as a completely new thing and it was a huge success.

PS doesn’t work in emails?

I wasn’t aware of this at all:

Bill Fryer of Fryer Direct has conducted tests that suggest the only direct marketing technique that doesn’t work on e-mail is the P. S. This is generally the most recalled part of a mailing, because people look to see who signed the letter. However, you know instantly whom an e-mail came from, and scrolling down is, of course, harder work than glancing down or turning over a letter.

I did the bolding. The explanation surely makes sense, but I’m quiet surprised by this statement nonetheless. I often read the BS, sorry, PS.

What’s one of the most powerful psychological triggers in using the written word to propel people to buy?

It’s tapping into a desire that resides deep within everyone of us.

And that’s the desire to be someone special, to be part of a special and exclusive group of people.

Paul Maxey recently wrote about this in the Total Package, and it’s well worth checking out. (Also, specially the swipe that goes along with that post!)

You can check out some of the wording that is being used to create the illusion of exclusivity:

“NOT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE …”

“Normally, these ‘forbidden’ breakthroughs are seen by HSI members only – in our privately circulated Members Alerts and daily e-mail updates …”

“We’ve granted you a temporary Guest Membership …”

“Please use this privilege immediately …”

“Just accept our RISK-FREE invitation to register as a permanent Member of HSI …”

As you can see, it’s not rocket science, but simple psychology. We all feel that we’re better than the average, then the large masses of people. And if you can sincerely acknowledge that perception of your readers, then it can form both a deep emotional bond, and a desire to get more of it – and you can channel that desire to create a buying impulse in them.

Sometimes it’s good to make things seem more difficult and troublesome. When writing salescopy, we often focus on simplyfying things and making them more easy. But sometimes just the opposite is true.

One example is the case of Colleen Szot who recently broke a 20-year sales record of a popular homeshopping channel.

One crucial element of that record was changing the call to action. The usual call to action would have been: “Operators are waiting, please call now.”

She changed it to “If operators are busy, please call again.”

This little change created a huge difference in responsiveness. Why? Simply because it included a presupposition that many people are callling to get their hands on this thing, so it must be something cool. After all, if everybody wants to have one, it must be desirable, no?

On the surface of it, the opposite could have been expected though. Telling people to “call again” is actually inconveniencing them, rather than making it easy for them. But in this case, it worked, because it was done in a very clever way.

When it comes to headlines, it doesn’t get much better than Digg at times:

Mother cooks and eats friend in front of 7year old son..

Pissed off French Workers Kidnap Bosses

BREAKING: Obama Passing Laws to Search Citizens Computer

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