Buy This Now: A Beginner’s Guide to Direct Response ... · You see, the truth is, many ‘writers’ who come into copywriting struggle to ‘get it’ for a year or even longer.

Buy This Now: A Beginner’s Guide to

Direct Response Copywriting

By Glenn Fisher

Text copyright © 2013 Doublen Publishing

All Rights Reserved

To Lin

Who puts up with me talking about copy too much

CONTENTS The stuff you’re going to discover inside

Introduction

Not a Writer? Not a Problem!

So, what exactly is Direct-Response Copywriting?

RULE NUMBER ONE

Always speak to your reader as if talking to a friend

RULE NUMBER TWO

Do not assume knowledge in your reader

RULE NUMBER THREE

Allow small mistakes to improve your copywriting

RULE NUMBER FOUR

Don’t force a headline when it just doesn’t work

RULE NUMBER FIVE

Always give your reader a win/win opportunity

RULE NUMBER SIX

Never ask a direct question in a headline

RULE NUMBER SEVEN

Use simple but varied vocabulary

RULE NUMBER EIGHT

Always be feeding your brain

RULE NUMBER NINE

You must be willing to swallow your creative pride

RULE NUMBER TEN

Make everything about direct response copywriting

RESOURCES

Cool things to check out

INTRODUCTION

Not a Writer? Not a Problem!

So, you want to learn about direct-response copywriting...

But you’re not a writer?

Ah. Yes. That does seem like a problem, doesn’t it?

After all, the very word ‘copywriting’ has the word ‘writing’ in it.

Hmmm. What’s to be done?

Well, nothing. Because here’s the truth...

You don’t need to be obsessed with writing to understand copywriting.

Don’t get me wrong; it helps.

But please don’t think that you need to spend three years on some creative writing degree, half your life ‘learning the craft’ from some wily old newspaper man, and endless nights copying out passages from some three-for-two Dan Brown novel that’s soon to be pulped.

No, the beauty of copywriting is that so long as you’ve got a very basic and rudimentary grasp of how a few fundamental things work... you can get on pretty well.

In other words, you can cheat. But let’s keep that to ourselves, shall we?

Of course, if you DO consider yourself a writer – bravo, and good for you. It will certainly help in the long run. But to be honest, before any writer can become a really good copywriter – and I’m talking here about a copywriter who can demand thousands – they need to forget most of what they ‘know’ about ‘writing’.

You see, the truth is, many ‘writers’ who come into copywriting struggle to ‘get it’ for a year or even longer.

The reason is they THINK they know what they’re doing, they write their little hearts out using every creative writing trick they’ve learned and then when they send out their copy and an actual human person with a wallet and a normal mind reads it, they disregard it out of hand.

So, if you have no writing ability, you certainly don’t need to worry.

In fact, all I aim to do in these pages is give you just enough insider knowledge about direct-response copywriting so that you can:

Feel a bit more confident about your own understanding of direct-response copywriting...

Know how to spot the most obvious errors that even the most experienced copywriters make...

Understand ten key rules to direct response copywriting that you’ll be able to carry with you throughout your career.

If you feel like you’ve accomplished those things after reading through this brief introduction, then I’ll have done my job and we can all celebrate. Hoorah!

So, what exactly is Direct-Response Copywriting?

Once upon a time, direct-response copywriting was considered ‘the Don’ of copywriting…

Not the Don Draper.

Far from it.

You see, Don Draper – the famous fictional copywriter from the TV series Mad

Men – is an indirect-response man.

He writes copy that’s designed to briefly get your attention and then force the product to linger in your mind.

And, if it’s good indirect-response copy, it’ll linger long enough to still be there when you’re in the supermarket or on the High Street and said product is sparkling before you, waiting to be bought.

That’s indirect-response copy – the action is delayed.

Direct-response copywriting is much more…

Well, it’s more direct.

It is copy designed to lead the reader to a buying decision there and then, in that very moment.

With direct-response copywriting – the action is immediate. Hence the title of this book: Buy This Now.

Anyhow, I mention Don Draper for a reason (not just the opportunity to pun on the title/name Don)…

The TV series Mad Men was loosely based on the roaring trade the ad men of the ’60s enjoyed – specifically ad men like David Ogilvy.

Ah, the name of god: David Ogilvy.

Yup, when it comes to copywriting, this guy always gets his name mentioned. And fair play to him: he was a bloody clever man.

(We should also give kudos to the likes of great copywriters such as Claude Hopkins, Eugene Schwartz and Gary Halbert, who have done amazing work for the world of copy – check out the resource page at the end to find out more about these particular greats.)

Ogilvy had hit after hit in the indirect-response world and defined a whole generation of copy.

In fact, we’re still not really out of it: his shadow looms large over a lot of the advertising copy you still see today.

But why was he so good?

Well, this is where direct-response copywriting comes back in.

You see, David Ogilvy knew something very important: that to understand direct-response copywriting was to understand copywriting full stop.

It’s said he refused to employ any copywriter unless they’d spent at least two years studying direct-response copywriting.

Ah, that’s interesting. Why would he say that?

Here’s why:

Direct-response copywriting is easily testable; indirect-response copywriting is not.

This is a great advantage for direct-response copy…

And it’s why you should learn about it…

The fact that you have the ability to test variables in a controlled situation means you can work out what influences the buying decision much quicker (and usually much cheaper) than you can with indirect-response copy.

Take a piece of indirect-copy – let’s say a Coca-Cola advert featuring some Polar Bears having a lark…

You run a print campaign in a national paper for two weeks.

Immediately you don’t know what the effect is. You hope that people notice the advert in the first place and then you hope that the thought of enjoying a coke lingers in their mind long enough to actually buy one when they’re in the shop.

Two weeks later, you know sales of Coca-Cola have gone up, but is it because of the polar bears?

Or is it because of something else?

Who knows?

Sure, you can try to measure the effect the advert has by featuring a website link, or by cancelling any other campaigns that might be running, or by comparing sales to the campaign last year…

But let’s face it, that’s all a bit waffy.

Instead, let’s take a piece of direct-response copy…

And just to show I’m not cheating here, we’ll say it’s for the same product – a can of Coca-Cola.

This time you run an advert in the national paper that offers a coupon to the reader to get one free can with the next can he or she buys.

Ignore for the minute that a free can is a better incentive than a polar bear frolicking – what’s important here is the ability to test response.

You see, now you can get an immediate response to your advert – people will respond or they won’t. Fact.

You’ll know soon enough if the advert works or not.

And here’s where it gets really good…

You can now run two adverts against each other. Hell, you can even run one advert with a picture of a polar bear offering a free can if you like and see if it works better than a bold headline telling you to ‘Claim Your Free Coke’.

The point is, because the reader must now take immediate action, you can much better measure the reader’s reaction to different variables.

Quite simply: you can improve your copy based on facts, not just what a client thinks “would be cool”.

Ogilvy knew this.

“Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving,” he said.

Many of the successful copywriters you’ll come across know this too.

The ability to test variables in a piece of copy is enormously powerful and that is why a good understanding of direct-response copywriting is such a highly-valued skill. I hope to help you develop that skill here through the insight and advice I’ll be sharing in this book and through my free direct response copywriting email: All Good Copy.

If you haven’t subscribed to the email yet, you can do so for free at www.allgoodcopy.com. In fact, if you quickly pop your email address in, I’ll send you a guide I’ve written that shares five immediate things I’ve tested and found to increase response.

RULE NUMBER ONE

Always speak to your reader as if talking to a friend

I blame Dostoyevsky…

Even his name is difficult to read.

Is that even how you spell bloody Dostoyevsky?

Who knows? Who cares?

OK. OK. Yes, I accept – he probably was one of the greatest writers that have ever lived…

And yes, his novels are deeper than a deep thing that’s very deep.

But here’s my problem…

People too often believe only difficult writing is good writing.

For years we study the classics, we build our vocabulary, we learn how to craft our sentences and paragraphs.

All through this period there is an unspoken suggestion – if you don’t understand what you’re reading, it’s your fault. It’s not that the book is difficult to understand, it’s that YOU are too dumb to understand it.

So you read more, you learn more, you waste your time working through impossible literature that means nothing to you.

I’ve done it.

He’s done it. (I’m talking about the imaginary guy sat next to me)

And if you’re a writer of any kind, you’ve probably done it too.

Don’t worry. Stuff happens.

Only problem is, if you decide after all this that you’re going to work in advertising – you’re buggered.

The first thing I had beaten out of me – and the first thing I beat out of any trainee copywriter – is the misapprehension that only difficult writing is good writing.

The crappy flowery language that ‘writers-to-be’ adopt in their early days (to prove

themselves as ‘an artist’) needs slapping down.

In fact, it needs to be slapped down, taken outside and then stamped on repeatedly until it resembles a Jackson Pollock painting.

When you’re hoping to sell something to someone who doesn’t really want to be sold, you need to speak as simply and as directly as possible.

You need to write as though you’re explaining it to a mate.

Be casual. Be long-winded if you need to be. But be natural. Because if you can be yourself in your writing, your message – whatever it may be – WILL shine through, trust me.

Pretentious language slain…

It’s time to spit in Proust’s face.

Hold up. I know Proust was a weak kind of guy and I know he hasn’t done anything to you, but here’s the problem with Proust…

His sentences are too long.

(Glenn, what’s wrong with you – first you’re dissin’ Dostoyevsky… now you’re pooin’ on Proust? What have these poor geniuses done?)

If you printed out some of Marcel’s sentences in standard sized font they could wrap around a bottle of wine fourteen times.

(I may have made that up, but I think I read it somewhere. And look, neither Dostoyevsky nor Proust are going to get upset with me slagging them off. They were brilliant writers – just not copywriters.)

Short, easy to follow sentences are the key to good copy. Really: it’s as simple as that. Don’t get me wrong, use too many choppy sentences and you’ll sound like a robot.

But you should always be conscious of sentences that are getting a bit too long and don’t give the reader chance to breathe and consider what they’ve said because you keep adding new points to your argument and sentences like this mean people get lost and they have to keep resetting themselves to remind where they go and Joyce-like stream of consciousness does not make for good copy, so don’t do it.

And yes, that was one of those long sentences. Avoid anything similar.

In fact, the point is very simple…

When it comes to writing copy that sells, you must write in the simplest and most direct way you can. Speak as though you’ve already had two pints and you’ve got to make a point.

Get out of your mind this strange idea that good writing – and by extension, good copy – should be written in a way that would be well-reviewed by The Guardian.

Speak how you feel and write how you speak and you won’t go far wrong.

(Visit www.allgoodcopy.com for more free copy advice.)

RULE NUMBER TWO

Do not assume knowledge in your reader

There’s nothing worse in direct-response copywriting than assuming too much knowledge…

Sure you need to target your copy. I mean, you can’t sell everything to everyone. But to assume that your potential customers know what you do and why they need you to do it for them…

Well, that’s just copywriting suicide.

I shed a tear for the sheer amount of money that has been wasted on copywriting and marketing that falls foul of assuming too much knowledge.

A perfect example of this error landed on my desk recently.

It’s so perfect that it assumes too much knowledge on TWO different levels…

Not only do you not immediately know what the product or service can do for you (i.e. its benefits)…

Chances are you don’t even know what the product or service actually is (i.e. its purpose).

A double whammy!

I can only assume the copywriter was badly restricted by the client or that the client was badly advised by some insane PR or ‘branding’ agency.

Either way, it’s bad. Capital B-A-D bad.

In fact, let me ask you: do you know what ‘colocation’ is?

No? I didn’t either.

You can guess, maybe. But chances are you’re a bit busy to be guessing – much like every potential customer out there in the real world. So, when this flyer lands on your desk, the next immediate port of call is the bin, right?

I mean look at it:

Now, this is a piece of direct-response copy – make no mistake.

Its single aim (whether it realises it or not) is to make you visit the website of the company it is advertising. That is the action (i.e. direct response) you should take after receiving this piece of mail.

It is NOT a branding exercise. If it is meant to be a branding exercise, it is an even greater waste of money.

So, being a piece of direct-response advertising, why the hell on earth does it not do anything remotely related to the concept of advertising?

Hmmmm.

To be fair, first let’s look at what it DOES do…

It states the word ‘colocation’ (assumes knowledge), lists four locations (assumes they are local to you), incorporates an image straight out of Google Maps (utterly redundant) and details what I assume is the company name (which is irrelevant at this point).

All that is very pointless.

You’re meant to want to find out more about colocation and what it is.

You’re meant to open this little flyer and read about the wonders of how it can help you and your business achieve things only kings and queens can dream of.

You’re meant to give a damn.

Yeah, er… I’m afraid direct response copy doesn’t really work like that.

Sorry.

As I’ve said many times before, the person reading your copy is pushed for time and they don’t give a flying hoot about what you’ve got to tell them about.

(For the record I should also state that I did open the pamphlet to see if any benefit-driven copy was secreted inside or if there was anything that might intrigue me further. There was not.)

Of course, you know that a good piece of copy on the front of the pamphlet would have made far more people take a look than just the word ‘colocation’.

Even an absolute basic personalisation and a vaguely inherent benefit-based headline like “How colocation could transform your business…” would probably do a hundred times more for the effectiveness of this mailing than the abstract word ‘colocation’.

And all this because the copywriter assumed too much!

Even if the marketer tasked with circulating this trash did the best job he could of sending this to people interested in ‘colocation’, the copy still fails because it does nothing to entice colocation addicts to choose 4D Data Systems over the presumably stiff competition in the colocation marketplace.

It assumes (again) that those few who DO know what colocation actually is will ‘just know’ that 4D Data Systems do it better than anyone else.

All in all, it’s a total failure and though it might seem harsh to point it out here, I do so because I think it’s important we learn something from it…

That you should never assume too much knowledge in your potential customers.

Start by assuming they know nothing about who you are or what you do.

Then, by using the research you’ve gathered about the product or service you’re writing copy for and what research exists about the marketplace, put a picture together about what the potential customer will definitely know.

But as soon as you make an assumption, stop yourself.

Be clinical.

If in doubt, take a poll. Ask different people if they know what X means of if they would do Y if you told them to. Don’t just ask people who you think will know – ask people who you can’t second guess. You might be surprised.

Rest assured, though… if you avoid assumptions in your copy, it will be so much stronger and you’ll undoubtedly see better results.

(Visit www.allgoodcopy.com for more free copy advice.)

RULE NUMBER THREE

Allow small mistakes to improve your copywriting

I make mistakes in my writing.

Everybody does.

Thing is, some of my mistakes, I don’t mind.

In fact, I sometimes make them on purpose. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that I let some of my mistakes remain.

I’m not talking about misspelling their as there, or your as you’re – they’re unfortunate mistakes that I try not to let slip through the net.

But many grammatical mistakes I don’t mind. Because the truth is, I don’t talk in proper English all the time and therefore, I don’t believe I should be writing in it either.

As much as possible in my copywriting, I try to write as the sentences form in my mind. Mostly that’s how I talk. But sometimes, it’s not even that.

It’s actually how the creative side of my brain talks.

What do I mean?

Well, I guess if you could put a microphone to the part of my brain that is thinking this stuff up and record what it says before it’s filtered through the more logical part that forms those thoughts into more coherent and grammatically correct sentences… it’s what would be recorded that I’m trying to write.

At least, I guess that’s what I’m trying to achieve.

(I say ‘trying’ as it’s far from an exact science. It’s more just a thing you have to get a feel for.)

But why do I write like this?

Two reasons:

One; it’s faster. Easier even, once you get the hang of it.

But more importantly, I do it because it makes my writing more engaging for the reader.

I don’t believe our brains work ‘grammatically’. Or at least, subconsciously most regular people don’t give a crap if your writing would be highly commended by Strunk and White.

In fact, I think subconsciously we are more drawn to writing that is personal, or rather… writing that is more internal.

By avoiding strict grammatical (traditional?) rules, you’re also able to write with more freedom and more urgency and in turn, more of your personality will come through in your writing.

This is key. You see, it’s my belief that regular readers don’t engage with writing in itself – they engage with the writer through the writing. So if the writing is formal and has no personal flair, it is harder for the reader to connect with the writer.

Interestingly, this idea is echoed by David Byrne in his book How Music Works.

He explains how mistakes that a musical artist makes – ‘the lurches and hesitations’ – which depart from the expected form of a song eventually improve the performance of that song.

People better engage with the song because of the mistakes.

Byrne writes:

“When Willie Nelson or George Jones sing way off beat, it somehow increases the sense that they’re telling you the story, conveying it to you, one person to another. The lurches and hesitations are internalized through performance, and after a while everyone knows when they will happen. The performers don’t have to think about them, and at some point that becomes part of the band’s sound. Those agreed-upon imperfections are what give a performance character, and eventually the listener recognizes that it’s the very thing that makes a band or singer distinctive.”

This is something I’ve believed in for a long time.

It’s difficult to test in direct-response copywriting, but I have tried by split-testing more freely written passages versus passages that are much more formal from a grammatical point of view.

Invariably the nuanced writing wins.

Sadly, it’s an idea that many writers often snub. Instead they prefer to walk a much more pretentious line that mocks writing that isn’t necessarily correct from a grammatical stand-point.

I don’t know why. A campaign for more freedom in writing is surely a good thing? And, so what if someone splits an infinitive? It doesn’t matter.

Seriously…

It. Does. Not. Matter.

Worse than that: such old-fashioned grammatical errors don’t have ANYTHING to do with making a sale. So, as a direct-response copywriter writer, why the hell should you worry about it?

You write to sell.

Not to acquire a GCSE in English Language.

So, what I advise you to do…

In fact, what I hereby give you permission to do…

Is make more mistakes.

You’re allowed. Trust me.

Indeed, not only are you allowed to – it could actually improve your copywriting.

If you start to write your copy in a more natural style and worry more about expressing your ideas clearly, as opposed to dealing with grammar correctly, you’ll see that your copywriting becomes much more personal and eventually readers will not only forgive you your grammatical nuances…

They’ll recognise and respect you for them.

(Visit www.allgoodcopy.com for more free copy advice.)

RULE NUMBER FOUR

Don’t force a headline when it just doesn’t work

I think it was Kurt Vonnegut who said it…

“If you can’t explain your story to a fourteen-year-old in one sentence then you’ve got a problem with your story.”

Something like that. Possibly.

And hell, if he didn’t say it, he should have. It sounds like something he’d say.

Anyway, the point is, it’s a useful little thought.

Indeed, I had it in the back of my mind all through my years studying creative writing and it served me well.

It’s had an influence on my direct-response copywriting too.

The point of the quote (or non-quote, if he didn’t say it) is that even if you think you’ve got a crazy clever idea for a story – if you can’t explain it in a simple way, you’re buggered.

That doesn’t mean you can’t write complicated stories…

I mean, I don’t know if you’ve seen the Rian Johnson film, Looper (you should, it’s really good and he’s a really good movie maker), but it’s a crazy time-travelling story with loads of twists and turns…

But!

If you needed to explain it in one sentence to a fourteen-year-old child you could very easily say: a young man must kill his future self to save the world.

Simple. 12 words. Including the ‘a’, which isn’t a word. Or is it? Who knows? Who cares?

The point is that the idea is simple to understand – you can grasp it very quickly without thinking too much about it.

Cool.

So, how’s this apply to direct-response copywriting?

Well, when it comes to writing headlines, you need to have Vonnegut’s quote (or non-quote) in your mind…

But you need to take it to a whole new level!

Ready?

Here’s the deal:

If you need to explain your headline AT ALL – it’s screwed.

Yup. Sorry about that. You need to write a new headline.

You see, what Vonnegut was getting at (or not getting at, if he never said such a thing) was that if an idea is to be communicated well, even a child should be able to understand it very simply.

A headline is an idea…

It’s an idea expressed in words and therefore it must be simple to understand.

If it requires you to explain it beyond itself, then it has failed to communicate its message.

That sounds fair enough, right?

It almost sounds like common sense.

But be honest – how many times have you written something that you thought was great and then got someone else to read it and they didn’t quite get it and you had to explain it to them?

Hey, it happens to me all the time, so don’t feel bad.

At least, don’t feel bad if you have the courage to do something about it.

You see, if you want to be a good direct response copywriter, sometimes you’ll have to delete stuff you like.

Because what you like isn’t always what works.

I’ve written a lot of headlines that I thought were really good, very clever and were going to do really well…

But then I’ve shown it to someone to get a second opinion and they’ve not got it.

Of course, I ignore them because I’m a genius.

But then I show it to someone else and they don’t understand it either.

I explain it and they say “ah right, that’s really clever,” and I say, exactly!

But the headline’s dead already.

You see, when you’ve written your headline and it’s out there on the frontline trying to attract the customer’s attention, you aren’t there alongside it to explain what it’s MEANT to say.

It has to do that on its own.

So, when it comes to writing headlines, bear this in mind.

Be strong, be brave and be as self-critical as you can…

And when someone else doesn’t ‘get’ what you’re trying to say in your headline, don’t dismiss them and think other people will get it – take the hint and go back to the drawing board.

Trust me…

Though it’s annoying to have to start again, you will write a better headline.

(Visit www.allgoodcopy.com for more free copy advice.)

RULE NUMBER FIVE

Always give your reader a win/win opportunity

One of the most fundamental things you can do in a headline is to make a promise to the reader.

In fact, it’s probably one of the most used techniques when it comes to writing headlines for direct response copy.

With financial copy I’m sure you’ll come across many headlines promising that if you buy stock Y you could make X per cent gain…

And in health copy you’ll no doubt come across a new vitamin supplement that promises to reduce arthritic pain.

Promise-type headlines are very much the ‘bread and butter’ of direct response copy.

But at a copywriting conference in the US, I was interested by a little nugget of advice – shared by copywriting legend, Bob Bly – that added a new dimension to promise-type headlines.

I was at the Marriot Hotel in Delray Beach, Florida to drop in on the annual copywriting conference held by the American Writers and Artists Inc., or AWAI.

During the week I was there I managed to catch up with lots of famous copywriters and it was a pleasure to meet a lot of people just starting out on their careers as copywriters, too.

There were a few interesting insights I took away, but one that sticks most in my mind is this relatively simple observation by Bob Bly.

I guess it’s the simple things that are always the most effective!

But anyway, what was this idea?

Well, in his talk Bob briefly spoke about promise-type headlines and covered the usual advice: they should be bold, they should be specific and as much as possible they should be unique.

Sure, it’s all good advice, but then he went on to speak about a ‘secondary promise’.

This is what caught my attention.

You see, Bob argued that when making a ‘big promise’ in your headline, you should follow it up straight away with a subhead that contains a secondary promise.

And he suggested that this secondary promise should be smaller than the promise you make in your main headline.

Initially you might think this possibly undermines your big promise?

But in actual fact, that is far from the case.

If you do it right, this secondary promise can make your whole headline a lot more effective.

For example, your big promise might be something like:

“If this penny stock company secures its patent on April 14th you could make a 500% gain overnight on every share you buy today.”

All well and good and a speculative investor might be sold on that.

But applying Bob’s theory, think about what would happen if you followed that big promise with something like:

“But even if it fails to get the patent, you could still make a 50% over the next 12 months.”

Now you can’t lose.

If the big promise delivers you make money, but even if it doesn’t you still make money. For the reader it’s a win-win situation and you’ve pretty much sold them in the first few lines of your copy.

The key to using this secondary promise is ensuring that the promise you make is smaller than the one you make in the main headline… whilst still making sure it contains a benefit that would make the reader want to purchase what you’re selling regardless.

I’ve already started looking at ways to incorporate this into my own promise-type headlines and have already increased response in one promotion thanks to this very idea.

I’d highly recommend you take Bob’s advice and do the same…

When you lead your copy with a promise, before you get to the business of proving your promise, offer the reader a win-win situation from the start by making a smaller but equally enticing secondary promise.

You’ll be very pleased with the results…

And that’s a promise!

(Visit www.allgoodcopy.com for more free copy advice.)

RULE NUMBER SIX

Never ask a direct question in a headline

Questions in copy can be so dangerous…

Do you agree?

No.

And there you go, my question is answered.

Just like that, it’s all over.

Sorry to waste your time. I’ll speak to you another day.

OK. OK. What happened there?

Well, I asked a question…

You had an answer, and hell…

I wouldn’t blame you if you couldn’t be arsed to find out why I was asking the question in the first place.

What kind of questions is “do you agree?” anyway? What’s the answer matter to you?

This is the problem with questions…

And this is why – when understanding how to handle them in direct-response

copywriting – you have to first remember that your customer is a seriously busy beaver.

Though more cynical readers out there might argue otherwise, people DO NOT sit around waiting to be advertised at.

Instead, people are busy.

They have limited time.

They have limited patience.

And they don’t want you asking stupid bloody questions.

So, whether you’re planning on using one as a headline for a long copy sales letter…

As a slogan for a poster campaign…

Or if you’re using one as a subject line in an email auto-responder series…

Think twice before you do.

Chances are it’s a mistake.

I’ll use email subject lines to explain why, but the principles are the same no matter what copy you’re writing.

You see, any closed question that can be easily and quickly answered with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ will NOT be very effective.

Imagine, for instance, you open your inbox in the morning and there’s thirty emails vying for your attention. You’re in a rush to go through them, so you do a quick visual scan.

You spot one subject line that asks:

Are you fed up of being ripped off by the bank?

You’re actually very happy with your bank, so you think ‘no’ and that email is deleted.

The copywriter has failed in their mission.

It’s as quick as that.

Alternatively, in such a situation that you DO feel you’re being ripped-off by your bank you’d think ‘yes, I am fed up’ and then that email is deleted.

It’s as quick as that.

The copywriter has failed in their mis…

Hang on!

Why would you delete the email when you ARE fed up of your bank ripping you off?

Because even though you agree with the sentiment, the subject line merely asking the question doesn’t do anything to suggest opening the email will help you stop being ripped-off.

Oh, you though it inherently suggested that?

Get lost.

And sharpen up, god damn it!

Your readers aren’t EVER going to give you that much thought. Don’t pretend they are.

As I said before, people are in a rush. You have a matter of seconds to get a reaction and such a generic question will NOT work half as well as it should.

Yet this kind of question is used so often in copywriting – for subject lines, for headlines, for so many things.

And it’s a real shame.

So, don’t do it.

At least, don’t be so damn lazy and generic.

I mean, don’t get me wrong…

There are rare occasions when a closed question that relies on the natural curiosity of your reader will work well.

One of the best I’ve seen in action is what I call ‘the fake meeting’ question.

It’s particularly effective as a subject line, but the concept can be adapted and used in other copy too.

How’s it work?

Well, when used as a subject line in an email, it’ll look something like this:

Are we still OK to have that chat on Friday?

If the email is from a person, rather than a company name, it’s even more effective, as you can imagine.

You see what’s going on here…

Sure you could answer yes or no to this, but more likely you’re going think: hold on, what chat on Friday? When did I arrange this? Shit, I better check…

And bang… you open the email. Job done!

But alas, this is a rare exception to the rule.

More often than not, despite your better judgement and despite the fact that questions always seem nice and easy and a quick way to pretend to be targeting your customers more directly…

The real answer is…

They’re not.

Where possible you should avoid using closed questions to try to grab people’s attention. Instead, rearrange your question to form an intriguingly bold statement – it’ll almost always win.

(Visit www.allgoodcopy.com for more free copy advice.)

RULE NUMBER SEVEN

Use simple but varied vocabulary

I often compare writing a successful direct-response sales letter to passing your driving test…

Providing you don’t make any major errors and you manage to keep the minors to a minimum – you should be OK.

If figures then that when you start learning about copywriting, you generally tend to focus on avoiding the bigger blunders.

Just as you’d rather not run over the instructor’s wife (and accidentally admit you’re having an affair with her too)…

You’d also be better off to include a clear call-to-action at the end of any direct-response sales letter you’re writing.

It makes sense, right?

But as your copywriting improves, you realise it’s not the big errors that are holding you back…

It’s the little ones.

In isolation, these hiccups don’t seem like a big deal.

But the fact is: too many small mistakes can be as bad as a major one.

Sure, you can get away with clipping a curb once…

And you can probably talk your way out of forgetting to check your rear view mirror on turning into a new street.

But when you do both of those things AND you place your hand on the instructor’s knee instead of the gear-stick and wink in an attempt to make a joke of it…

Well, you know you need to book a re-test.

And it’s the same with direct-response copywriting: there are many things you can get wrong that seem insignificant by themselves. But cumulatively, they can kill your copy.

One such seemingly innocuous error called out to me from a newspaper article I was reading on the train home recently.

Though the piece itself was from the sports pages – don’t worry – it has nothing to do with sport.

Aside from the fact that the sentence is so long it leaves you breathless, the problem is pretty simple: it’s the duplication of the word ‘excellent’:

“QPR have an EXCELLENT chance to build on the momentum gained in their EXCELLENT win at Southampton tomorrow by taking maximum points from Sunderland at Loftus Road.”

As I say, it’s almost trivial and obviously in the context of this very small editorial piece, it’s hardly worth worrying about – hence it slipping past the sub-editor’s eagle eye.

But this struck a chord with me because it’s an error I see so often in direct-response copywriting. And when it comes to long-copy, it can be much more damaging.

Of course, the duplication here is in the same sentence and therefore it’s more obvious. But this isn’t always the case. Sometimes you’ll see the same word repeated in the following paragraph.

This is still a problem.

The reader’s mind will remember it and, subconsciously, it will disrupt its reading of your copy to check back to see where it saw it previously.

Not good. You want your reader’s full attention, right?

(On some occasions you can use this to your advantage to instil key words and phrases in the reader’s mind that you actually want them to remember. We’ll look at how this works another time.)

As much as possible, it’s important to avoid needless repetition like this.

And the best way I find to do that is to read your copy aloud.

Remember, this is all about flow. Good copy is easy to read and should run smoothly when read aloud. But if you have duplicate words close together, a reader is more likely to stumble or hesitate.

Obviously, you don’t need me to tell you that anything that stops the reader progressing through your copy is a problem. They might let you off once or twice, but if they keep having to re-read certain sentences or paragraphs…

Well, you’re going to lose them.

So, to make sure you avoid any lazy duplication, always read your copy aloud, conscious of any needlessly repeated words. As soon as you hear an echo, mark it.

Once you’ve read through the whole thing and you’ve marked any words that might be noticeably repeated too often, use the word processor search function to highlight each word in turn.

This will enable you to see just how often you’ve repeated it. You can then work through your copy, assess if the repetition is unavoidable or if you can replace the over-used word with appropriate synonyms.

Finally, to make sure your hard-work pays off, re-read the piece aloud again to ensure that it now flows smoothly and any needless repetition is banished.

(Visit www.allgoodcopy.com for more free copy advice.)

RULE NUMBER EIGHT

Always be feeding your brain

Ideas are irritating.

Sometimes they’re right there in your face, shouting at you like an arrogant teenage kid who thinks they know best…

Other times they’re nowhere to be seen, like your broke mate Steve who’s always in the toilet when it’s his round at the bar.

I’ll tell you what…

From now on, let’s boycott ideas.

Who needs them anyway?

Not me…

Well. Er. Hmmm. That’s the problem.

I DO need them. And so do you.

If you want to be a top, TOP copywriter the one thing you’ll need in abundance – more than any other skill, in fact – is the ability to come up with good IDEAS.

They are at the root of all good copy.

I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you: without a strong idea backing it up, any piece of copy will be limp, full of waffle and ultimately a failure (or a bomb as it’s known in the trade).

Whether it’s a 24-page direct-response sales letter or a three line PPC advert, it needs an idea behind it or it’s going to suck.

I think most proven copywriters will admit; the ability to come up with good ideas can cover almost any other flaw you might have as a writer.

Can’t spell so good? Don’t worry, that’s what spellcheck is for.

Not too hot on grammar? Who cares, read your copy aloud or get someone to read over it for you.

Struggle to edit yourself? Waffling isn’t ideal but a thumb over each sentence will show you which ones aren’t necessary and they’re easily deleted.

But here’s the catch…

If you can’t think up new ideas… you’ve got a major problem and you need to fix it ASAP.

How?

Quite simply it’s a matter of balance: if you want something new to come OUT of your brain, you’ve got to put something new IN.

You see, your brain is like Audrey II from The Little Shop of Horrors: it demands to be fed.

Or for a less freaky – but still weird – image, imagine it’s like Short Circuit demanding ‘input’.

Despite what some people will have you believe, I just don’t think ideas come out of nowhere. No. I’m sorry. It’s nice to imagine they drawback the curtain and sexily saunter into the room… but no.

Ideas are like those new shops you suddenly notice have opened. You can’t remember seeing the premises being renovated or new signs being put up – just one day it wasn’t there and today it is. But just because you didn’t notice the work being done doesn’t mean it wasn’t.

Ideas are definitely built.

Only problem is they’re built in your subconscious (which is why you don’t see them being built) and it’s difficult – no scratch that – it’s IMPOSSIBLE to know exactly which raw materials you need to build them.

Therefore you need as many different raw materials as you can get your hands on.

The good news is: anything is useful, from high-brow literature to crappy reality television.

In fact, the one thing I would recommend when it comes to feeding your brain with the raw material you need to subconsciously build ideas is this:

Consume equally as much that has nothing to do with copywriting as with what does.

So sure, read Cialdini’s Influence and by all means read whatever colourfully designed paperback the Heath brothers have on the market at the moment…

And yes, as any good copywriter worth their salt will advise, you should read one sales letter a day (or at least one a week) to stay on top of your game.

But don’t stop there…

To give you an idea of how much random stuff you need to consume to come up with new ideas, here’s what raw material I credit with helping me write my two most recent sales letters.

Three graphic novels: one a biography of Fidel Castro, one an account of Freud’s most famous patient (The Wolfman) and one about the famous flapper girl Kiki of Montparnasse.

Three fiction books: The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa and Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem.

Two non-fiction books: How Music Works by David Byrne and Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely (strictly I was actually re-reading this).

In honesty I’ve read about five sales promotions in full: one oldie by Bill Bonner and another by Mark Ford (Michael Masterson), one of my own and two newer ones by friends, one that flew and one that bombed. Oh, and the packs I’ve worked on with my own junior copywriters.

I’ve watched four films: Wreck-It Ralph and Despicable Me, which are both obviously children’s films; Scenes from a Mall, which was a favour Woody Allen must have owed someone and The Squid and the Whale, about a literary couple going through a divorce.

I’ve also been intermittently re-watching the Sopranos, strangely watching a reality television in the UK called Got To Dance, which aims to find the best dancer in the country (and is actually quite good) and I’ve been to see a couple of games of football, in varying divisions.

And finally I’ve been listening to new records by My Bloody Valentine, A$AP Rocky and the Deftones.

Sounds tiring, right?

Especially when you consider that during my consumption of all this random raw material I also spent a week in Amsterdam, where I visited the Rijksmuseum and the slightly less salubrious Hemp museum.

All in all that’s just over a month’s worth of input into my brain and obviously that’s not counting the stuff that I picked up from interacting with people on a day-to-day basis, talking in the pub over a few pints and catching up on phone and email.

I don’t list all this stuff to try to impress you, instead I want to illustrate my point: it’s a LOT of random raw material.

But just think what all that is doing in my mind…

Take a detail I read about how Fidel Castro could have been killed before any of his revolutionary business if it wasn’t for one sympathetic soldier sending him to a public prison…

Think how that might interact with watching a surprisingly emotional performance by a Canadian dancer in Got to Dance.

How – or even if – this information will appear directly in a sales letter, we simply do not know.

The detail about Castro could influence a passage about chance, perhaps, and how small decisions have huge consequences.

The dancer might inspire a passage about ignoring what others think and following your dreams.

Who knows?

What we do know is that my brain now has a vast resource of raw material to delve into and potentially build from.

Once you’ve fed your brain, as a direct response copywriter, you must trust it to do its work.

Yes there are exercises you can do to tease out ideas and by consciously separating the left and right sides of your brain you can encourage new thoughts – perhaps I’ll cover them another time.

But ultimately, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in writing so much copy over the years is that the ability to come up with new ideas is fundamental to your success as a copywriter…

And in turn, the one thing that any copywriter of any level must do to develop and maintain that ability, is to always keep feeding your brain with a vast variety of raw materials.

I hope you take this thought on board…

I hope this book may even contribute to your own raw material…

And I hope you have many new and breakthrough ideas throughout your copywriting career.

(Visit www.allgoodcopy.com for more free copy advice.)

RULE NUMBER NINE

You must be willing to swallow your creative pride

So look…

You might disagree with me here.

You might sneer.

You might even think I’m an idiot for saying what I’m about to say.

But I’m going to say it anyway. I’d be a liar if I didn’t.

Spit it out?

OK…

With direct-response copywriting I think it’s often better to be cliché than clever.

“Eeeeeww, I hate clichés. Glenn, don’t you get it? Clichés are the devil’s work. Don’t you know I’m a creative thinker whose single role on earth is to give birth to the most original ideas that have never been thought before?”

Twaddle.

You write to sell. Fact.

Indeed, good old Ogilvy said that. And so too has every other ad man or woman whose had to talk about the subject for longer than half an hour.

In fact, the phrase ‘write to sell’ has now become a cliché itself.

Does it make it any less true?

Of course not!

Does it make it any less useful?

No.

And does it make it any less arresting as an idea?

No. I don’t think it does.

If you walked past a poster that declared in big bold letters YOU WRITE TO

SELL, you’d have to stop to have a look to see what it’s about, right?

But it’s still a cliché.

What I’m really trying to tell here is a morality tale.

You see, all too often I read copy that is obviously not written with the intention of selling. Instead it is written with the intention of impressing people with its ‘creativity’.

And hey, before you go off on one… that is NOT to say that being creative cannot help to make copy more effective. It can, very much so. But you should never let the desire to be creative force you to forget the real reason you’re writing direct response copy… to sell.

I got to thinking about this when I was asked to do a rush job at the end of last year.

Due to some unavoidable circumstances, a brand new direct response sales letter was needed fast.

Actually, it was needed faster than fast.

It was needed in a day.

Now, attempting to write an effective sales letter in a day is not something I would advise anyone to do. Much more time should be given to such an undertaking.

But in this case, needs must.

So, I set to work.

Well. Er. I got in the bath and started drafting the letter out in my mind. But the less said about my creative process in this case, the better.

Anyway…

Because speed was the key here, I had to call upon as much existing material as possible.

Rather than giving myself time to think and be original, I needed to trawl the world of already thought-up ideas and fit the raw information I had about the product into something that would ‘do the job’.

By the end of the afternoon I was frazzled. Brain and body. Writing a twenty-odd page direct-response sales letter in a day is as physically difficult as it is mentally.

Here’s what was interesting, though: despite a few creative and original flourishes here and there – most of the stuff was formulaic, tried and tested stuff that I knew had worked well before.

And the headline itself was even a cliché!

I’d planned to dump it and write something better, but being short on time meant it stuck and was marketed flirting its cliché-ness to everyone.

More shocking…

It worked.

It quickly generated a huge response at a much better conversion rate than would have been expected, considering the time spent on it.

Hundreds of sales later, I got to thinking about the cliché I’d used at the top of the piece. I wondered why I’d written it in the first place.

The fact is, it was there to do a job: to act as a platform (albeit intended temporary) to get to the next line and the business of making the sales argument.

I’d used the cliché because I was writing to sell.

I wasn’t trying to reinvent the wheel, to win awards and I certainly wasn’t trying to be clever.

I was simply focusing on what I needed to do to sell the product that I was tasked with selling.

Sure, sometimes you’ll need to be clever…

Sometimes you’ll need to be creative…

And sometimes you’ll even be asked to reinvent the wheel…

But please never ever forget that, as a direct response copywriter – first and foremost – you need to sell.

Whether it’s a car, a cream or a concept – your primary goal is to flog it.

So, if there’s an idea that works, no matter how trite or overused it might be, swallow your ‘creative pride’ and use it.

(Visit www.allgoodcopy.com for more free copy advice.)

RULE NUMBER TEN

Make everything about direct response copywriting

My partner hates it…

And I can see her point.

I do tend to go on a bit about copywriting.

Morning, noon and night, there I am, chirping away with a new thought about this or a new angle for that.

At home. In the pub. On holiday.

It’s got so bad, last weekend she started building a time machine in the garden to travel back to the 1920s and murder Claude Hopkins before he can write Scientific Advertising.

OK. I’m obsessed.

But I expect you are too. (You’re still reading this for a start.)

Good news is: I’ve got a bit of solution.

I say ‘a bit’ of a solution as it’s cheating really.

You see, in rule number eight I wrote about how it’s essential to keep feeding your mind with raw material if you want to continue inventing new ideas.

In that chapter I suggested some ‘raw material’ should be about copy; books like Scientific Advertising, existing sales letters, and other advertising material. You know the kind of stuff.

But I also suggested you should equally fill your mind with books and films – and anything else you can get your hands on – that is seemingly unrelated to copywriting.

Because here’s the trick…

When you’re a copywriter:

EVERYTHING is related to copywriting.

Though your other half might think you’re watching a heartfelt romantic drama (undoubtedly featuring Ryan Gosling), what you’re actually doing is digesting raw material, which you can later call on in your copywriting.

What’s that, aiming your new tissue product at 20-something women? Why not show footage of women crying in a cinema watching said Gosling film and struggling to wipe away tears as their inferior tissues fall apart. Then pan to one woman who

seems calm and collected, sad but happy, dabbing away the tears with your new and improved tissue and the strapline: “Kleenose, it’s Notebook proof.”

A silly example. But you get my point.

There is nothing under the sun that cannot be used as fuel for copy.

So, it’s doesn’t matter if it’s your girlfriend, your husband, your friends or even just that random stranger (who for some reason is staying in your house)…

When they declare “Stop talking about copywriting, you’re boring me”

Just smile and ask what they’d like to do.

Of course, you could make some suggestions.

I mean, some things that aren’t seemingly related to copywriting ARE more related to copywriting than other things that aren’t so seemingly so.

(Was that even a real sentence?)

Anyway, I have five suggestions for you…

All cool things that you can quite happily read, watch or listen to without anyone suspecting that in reality you’re actually feeding your addiction to copywriting theory.

So when possible, suggest these…

Actually, I’d go as far as to say that studying these five things can teach you a lot more about copywriting than many of the awful, vague and often downright incorrect manuals that are flogged in the name of good copy.

So, take note!

1. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Ah, Old Papa. The one non-copywriter who pops up in so many articles about copywriting you’d think he’d slept with Ogilvy himself. Strangely, Hemingway apparently tried his hand at copywriting and was pants. But the man knows brevity. Not a redundant word they say. And brevity my friend, is one skill you simply cannot do without. It’s so important, I’ll stop there.

2. Any Stand-Up Comedy by Bill Hicks

The man was a genius and if you’ve not heard of him, stop reading this and go find out more. Funny. Fanatic. But ultimately fragile, Hicks was a master of engagement. The way he was able to bring an audience into his world and get them on his side was incredible. But don’t tell him that. He hated advertising with a passion and would tell both you and me to kill ourselves.

3. Picasso: A Life by John Richardson

Currently standing at three massive volumes that make you look weird if you’re trying to read them on the tube, this biography of the great artist by a close friend of his is magnificent. Magnificent is a stupid word and you shouldn’t use it in your copy.

But I’m a rogue and it seems apt here. And the real point is: reading about Picasso’s life will teach you all you need to know about staying original and ahead of your contemporaries.

4. The Wire (TV Series) by David Simon

I often say never a trust a man with two first names, but here I’ll make an exception. David Simon reportedly aimed this excellent show about drug dealers and cops at drug dealers and cops. In other words, he had his ideal audience in mind and aimed it at them. That made it authentic. And that authenticity is the reason people who aren’t drug dealers and cops love the show. There’s a lesson there and it’s not that you should aim all your copy at drug dealers and cops.

5. Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan

Once upon a time you dressed so fine, threw the bums a dime, didn’t you? People call, say beware doll, you’re bound to fall, thought they were all kidding you. And Bob writes words that flow like birds, doesn’t he. And if you can’t hear the melody, it’s my bad copy, so I’d better stop. Anyway, listen to Bob Dylan more because he’s a master of making language flow and writing in a conversational way.

And there you go!

Five things you can enjoy with others without having to revert to a laborious lecture about conversion rates…

Without boring-on about how brilliant that witty thing David Ogilvy said was…

And without having to waste two hours deciding if five steps is better than seven steps, though unanimously agreeing it should be an odd number of steps rather than a-zzzzzzz.

Sorry. Dozed off there.

A conclusion? Really?! Do I have to?

Right, OK. Something to do with a metaphor about a guitarist who just learns the chords but hasn’t got soul and a copywriter who just reads manuals but hasn’t got an edge. Something like that. You know. That kind of thing… copywriting… fresh ideas… Hendrix… that Ogilvy bloke again…

Look, we’ve spoken enough about copywriting…

It’s now time to go forth and fill your brain with other stuff.

Although, that said… the other stuff will ultimately inform your copywriting. And I guess that’s my point. Ta-da!

(Visit www.allgoodcopy.com for more free copy advice.)

RESOURCES

Cool things to check out

www.allgoodcopy.com

First and foremost, you should visit my own direct response copywriting website and pop your name down to receive even more copywriting advice from me for free.

The website is a resource that’s constantly being updated with new bits of advice, educational videos and reading recommendations to help you hone your skills as a direct response copywriter.

So, if you do one thing right now, make sure you visit www.allgoodcopy.com and pop your name down there.

www.copywritersroundtable.com

John Forde is not only one of the best direct response copywriters working today, he’s also one of the nicest and a good friend of mine.

In his Copywriter’s Roundtable emails he discusses various copywriting concepts and talks at length about his vast experience.

It’s definitely another resource you should tap into as a budding direct response copywriter.

www.thegaryhalbertletter.com

Another copywriting legend here, who sadly isn’t with us anymore. But when he was working, he racked up some of the best direct response sales letter you’re ever likely to read.

This website collates some of the best ones he ever wrote and puts them in one place so that you can spend hour after hour reading how to really engage with your audience (and steal a few copy tricks too).

www.writebettercopy.co.uk

If you enjoyed reading this brief introduction, then I recommend you check out my Write Better Copy book too.

This is something a little more advanced and contains over 20 different ways to improve any direct response sales letter. It includes a number of practical tasks that you can do to develop your skills and there’s also the opportunity to get access to some exclusive videos I’ve record and have me personally review your copy.

So, if you want to take your direct response copywriting to another level...

Make sure you visit www.writebettercopy.co.uk today.