Paging Your Prospect
Today’s tip is a classic (and fundamental) copywriting truth from Claude C. Hopkins:
Claude C. Hopkins on targeting the focus of your advertising to your prospect.
Claude Hopkins wrote in Scientific Advertising:
The purpose of the headline is to pick out people you can interest. You wish to talk to someone in a crowd. So the first thing you say is, “Hey there, Bill Jones” to get the right person’s attention.
So in advertisement. What you have will interest certain people only, and for certain reasons… create a headline which will hail those people only.
Are you calling out to your prospects specifically in the headline of the project you’re currently working on? Is rest of the letter speaking only to that person as well?
Keep today’s reminder in mind as you write to help keep your copy more precisely targeted toward your prospect.
Who are you targeting and how are you calling out to them? Do you have any favorite techniques for “calling out” to your prospect from your copy? Let me know in the comments below!
Keep the pen scratchin’ and the keys clackin’! Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.
The Safest Sales Copy Lead?
I just caught an excerpt from Michael Masterson and John Forde’s recent book Great Leads: The Six Easiest Ways to Start Any Sales Message in the latest edtion of John’s newsletter.
I bought the book through AWAI (American Writers & Artists Inc.) when it first came out and plan on posting a review of it here for you soon.
In the meantime, here’s an opportunity for you to get a peek between the covers yourself. Below you’ll find a reprint of the excerpt, with John’s blessing, as presented in “Copywriter’s Roundtable #561.”
If you buy (or already own) the book and want to discuss it with other readers let me know. If I get enough requests from TWPers, I’ll start up a book discussion group on it in the member’s area.
And now, on to John Forde…
“Cash if You Die, Cash If You Don’t”
According to our friend and famous copywriter Drayton Bird, author of Commonsense Direct Marketing, that was one of the most successful headlines ever written in the insurance industry.
Why?
“Your safest opening,” says Drayton, who has written copy since 1957 and for clients like Ford, American Express, and Proctor & Gamble, “… is your prime benefit and offer… an instant statement, instantly comprehensible.”
About 100 years ago, copy legend John Kennedy told his boss pretty much the same thing. And then wrote it up in a book called Reason Why Advertising, “To strike the responsive chord with the reader… is to multiply the selling power of every reason-why given…”
In today’s terms, a promise your reader cares about is the single best way to grab him by the lapels. To get him to hear your message out, he first needs a reason to listen.
In the 1960s and ’70s, adman David Ogilvy used a list he’d written, called “How to Create Advertising That Sells,” to bring in new clients for his agency. What did he say inside?
“It pays to promise a benefit which is unique and competitive, and the product must deliver the benefit your promise. Most advertising promises nothing. It is doomed to fail in the marketplace… Headlines that promise to benefit sell more than those that don’t.”
Then you’ve got our friend and fellow copywriter, Clayton Makepeace, who once told readers of his Total Package blog:
“The only reason any rational human being ever purchases anything is to derive a benefit from it! That means …any scrap of sales copy that fails to clearly, dramatically, emphatically, credibly and repeatedly present the benefits a product will deliver is destined to fail miserably.”
Or as the writer Samuel Johnson put it, when he was writing about the sales game the way it was back in the 1700s, “Promise, much promise, is the soul of advertisement.”
We definitely agree.
You won’t find many ads of any kind that don’t include at least one healthy promise. In fact, you won’t find one lead type in this book that doesn’t at least imply a promise if not state it outright.
How a Pure Promise Lead is Different
Why single out “Promise Leads” for special focus?
Because there have been times — and there are still times– when a simple, direct promise without any other touches or twists will be your best foot forward.
So, for instance, where an Offer Lead like those you just saw might read…
A Promise Lead might avoid mentioning the offer up front, so it can target readers who are almost ready to be sold but not quite. This version takes away any up-front focus on the deal and puts the spotlight solely on the big claim:
Likewise, Promise Leads are more direct than the other leads you’ll read about here, in that they each get progressively less direct.
When Straight Promises Work Best
For reasons you’ll see in just a moment, it’s getting progressively harder to make pure Promise Leads work. That said, there are times when a direct claim and little else is exactly what you need.
When?
The Promise Lead works especially well for targeting “mostly aware” prospects that are almost ready to buy and are mostly clear on what they’re looking for.
The decision is almost that simple.
I’m sure you remember, famous copywriter John Caples is the man behind one of the most famous print ads in history, written under the headline “They laughed when I sat down at the piano. But when I started to play…”
Even though it seems clear that ad is about the promise of knowing how to play the piano, it’s anything but a direct and simple Promise Lead.
Instead, it’s what we call a Story Lead, a kind of sales letter opening with a different goal entirely… and worth it’s own special focus.
But listen to what Caples gave as an example, as shared by copywriter and blogger Daniel Levis. First, his straight-promise headline and then the body copy…
“Play popular song hits perfectly. Hum the tune, play it by ear. No teacher – self-instruction. No tedious, ding-dong daily practice. Just 20 brief, entertaining lessons, easily mastered.”
Now think: How does that strike you, compared to the original “They laughed…” opening?
For one thing, this straight promise version is more direct, which is the hallmark of promise leads. Yet, does it fall flat somehow?
It seems like it does. At least, it seems like it would have fallen flat with the more distant prospects Caples was targeting.
That’s because Caples ad wasn’t meant for anybody who already desperately wants to be a perfect piano player. It’s more for those who might not have fully considered piano lessons. By using a story, it leaps past the resistance a flat-out promise might have stirred up.
Does that mean everything we’ve said before about “promise leads” is all wrong? Not at all, if you’re talking to the right prospect for that kind of lead.
“A great [lead] has to instantly appeal to the prospect’s self-interest, that’s job one,” said Caples. “It’s got to promise to give him something he wants, and wants badly.”
When you’re talking to a prospect who already knows what that “want” is, very clearly, a flat-out promise does everything you need, as quickly as you might need… whereas the story might feel like wasted time.
So it all depends: How much does your prospect already know about what he needs or wants?
And of course, once you’ve asked that, there’s another something to think about next…
What to Promise
At the Ogilvy Center for Research in San Francisco, they ran a test. They wanted to see if people bought more from TV commercials they “liked.”
It turns out, they did.
But before you start studying million-dollar Superbowl commercials, hang on. Because it turns out how the people asked defined “liked.”
It turns out they remembered and ranked ads higher not if they were clever or funny, but if they were relevant to something important to the prospect.
“Advertising works best,” wrote Drayton Bird in Commonsense Marketing, “if you promise people something they want, not — as many imagine — if you are clever, original or shocking.”
Of course, picking the right promise is fundamental. Because it’s your statement of your intention. In exchange for your customers’ money, what will you do for them?
And we know that ads promise all kinds of things.
To make you thin or bulk you up, to make you stronger, younger, fitter, and faster. To teach you to do something you’ve always wanted to do or make something easier than you ever thought it could be.
They can promise to make you more attractive. They can promise to make you rich. Or to save you money. They can promise you a better ride, a bigger house, more beautiful skin and a beautiful dress, a smart looking suit, or a happy marriage.
They can promise to look out for your interests, if it’s an ad for someone begging your vote. They can promise to look out for someone else that you care about, in the way of a charity for a special cause.
Here’s just a sample of some classic promise-making headlines from leads written by the legendary Gene Schwartz…
- How to Build A Memory In 4 Short Weeks — So Powerful It Is Beyond Your Wildest Dreams Today
- Change Your Life Next Week
- Turns up your Digestive Furnace and burns flab right out of your body
But more often, even the straight promise has more behind it than just what it claims.
Beyond what’s written, Promise Leads often satisfy some underlying emotion.
Respect, love, friendship. Prestige among your peers. Confidence and freedom from worry. Inclusion. Safety and security. A feeling of association and even similarity with people you admire and respect.
Even more specifically, a Promise Lead is not just what it can do for the customer, but what it promises to make the customer feel about himself.
And maybe most of all, how it will let him be seen by others.
Those factors are what make your claims matter to your readers.
That’s the key.
Especially when your most direct promise is your default lead. Because you have only those first few microseconds for the prospect to decide whether or not to give you any of his most precious commodity — time.
Speaking of time (and space), this is an extra long article. So let’s wrap it up.
Hope you enjoyed the excerpt.
(PS: Be sure to visit John Forde’s website at copywritersroundtable.com and sign up for the $78 worth of free gifts he has waiting for you there!)
Credits: The excerpt above was reprinted with permission from John Forde’s COPYWRITER’S ROUNDTABLE #561, and is Copyright 2012, John Forde.
Sell the Sizzle AND the Tingle
Sell the Sizzle Tingle?
Chances are pretty good that you’ve heard the old Elmer Wheeler sales aphorism, “Don’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle.” But you may not have heard about selling the “tingle” too. That can be much more rewarding. Turns out Claude Hopkins found that out with Pepsodent… without realizing it.
Claude Hopkins Pepsodent Ad
Americans weren’t into teeth-brushing before Claude Hopkins’ advertising campaigns for Pepsodent. Hopkins created a national habit– with Pepsodent in the center of it– over a period of a decade through his advertising.
The surface level mechanics of that feat have long been understood. But a key element has been missed until recently.
We now have a deeper understanding of a previously missed key detail in the process that worked so well for Pepsodent. Awareness of that key detail can enable us to purposely take advantage of the same kind of opportunity in a product when it presents itself to us.
According to Charles Duhigg, New York Times reporter and author, that key unrecognized element in the success of Hopkins’ Pepsodent campaign was the tingle.
Duhigg discusses that in his book about the secret key to effectively changing habits, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. I’m riffing on (and quoting from) an excerpt I read over at Slate.com.
According to the author, a basic cycle of CUE > ROUTINE > REWARD is required to change a habit.
Hopkins understood that. But now it is further understood there is a “secret sauce” that supercharges that cycle to make it a highly effective habit changer.
For Hopkins and Pepsodent, that secret sauce was represented by the “tingle.” but that was discovered long after the fact.
First some background, of which you are probably aware:
When Hopkins signed on to promote Pepsodent, he realized he needed to find a trigger for its daily use. He sat down with a pile of dental textbooks. “It was dry reading,” he later wrote in his autobiography. “But in the middle of one book I found a reference to the mucin plaques on teeth, which I afterward called ‘the film.’
“That gave me an appealing idea. I resolved to advertise this toothpaste as a creator of beauty.”
Soon, cities were plastered with Pepsodent ads. “Just run your tongue across your teeth,” read one. “You’ll feel a film—that’s what makes your teeth look ‘off color’ and invites decay.”
“Note how many pretty teeth are seen everywhere,” read another. “Millions are using a new method of teeth cleansing. Why would any woman have dingy film on her teeth? Pepsodent removes the film!”
All habits—no matter how large or small—have three components, according to neurological studies. There’s a cue—a trigger for a particular behavior; a routine, which is the behavior itself; and a reward, which is how your brain decides whether to remember a habit for the future. When Hopkins identified tooth film, he found a cue that had existed for eons. Moreover, the reward that Hopkins was promising was hard to resist. Who doesn’t want a prettier smile? Particularly when all it takes is a quick brush with Pepsodent?
Three weeks after the first Pepsodent ad campaign, demand for the toothpaste exploded. There were so many orders that the company couldn’t keep up. In three years, the product went international. Within a decade, Pepsodent was one of the top sellers around the globe.
“I made for myself a million dollars on Pepsodent,” Hopkins wrote a few years after the product appeared on shelves. The key, he said, was that he had grounded his advertising campaign in two basic rules:
First, find a simple and obvious cue.
Second, clearly define the rewards.
Even today, Hopkins’s rules are a staple of marketing textbooks. They’re cited in boardrooms, advertising offices, and business school classrooms. But that’s not the full explanation of why Pepsodent was such a success. There’s another rule that even Hopkins, at the time, didn’t understand.
It seems that Hopkins’ two basic key rules, coupled with an unintended “secret sauce,” created a hit… by creating a habit:
About a decade after Pepsodent went on sale, competing toothpaste companies launched a massive project to figure out why it was such a success. Eventually they tripped over something interesting: the Pepsodent recipe.
Unlike other toothpastes of that period, Pepsodent contained citric acid, as well as doses of mint oil and other relatively exotic chemicals. Pepsodent’s inventor had used those ingredients to make his toothpaste taste minty and to make sure the paste wouldn’t become gluey as it sat on shelves.
But those chemicals had another, unanticipated effect as well: They’re irritants that create a tingling sensation on the tongue and gums.
When researchers at competing companies started interviewing customers, they found that people said that if they forgot to use Pepsodent, they realized their mistake because they missed that cool, tingling sensation in their mouths. They expected—they craved—that slight irritation. If it wasn’t there, their mouths didn’t feel clean.
Claude Hopkins, it turns out, wasn’t selling beautiful teeth. He was selling a sensation. Once people craved that cool tingling—once they equated it with cleanliness—brushing became a habit.
As soon as other companies discovered what Hopkins was really selling, they started imitating him. Within a few decades, almost every toothpaste contained oils and chemicals that caused gums to tingle. Soon, Pepsodent started getting outsold. Even today, almost all toothpastes contain additives with the sole job of making your mouth tingle after you brush.
*** “Consumers need some kind of signal that a product is working,” Tracy Sinclair, who was a brand manager for Oral- B and Crest Kids Toothpaste, told me. “We can make toothpaste taste like anything—blueberries, green tea—and as long as it has a cool tingle, people feel like their mouth is clean. The tingling doesn’t make the toothpaste work any better. It just convinces people it’s doing the job.”
The bottom line:
Hopkins created a toothbrushing habit by identifying a simple and obvious cue, delivering a clear reward and —most important —by creating a neurological craving.
And craving, it turns out, is what powers a habit.*** If you can identify the right cue and reward—and if you can create a sense of craving—you can establish almost any habit.
*** Studies indicate that anyone can use this basic formula to create habits of her or his own. Want to exercise more? Choose a cue, such as going to the gym as soon as you wake up, and a reward, such as a smoothie after each workout. Then think about that smoothie, or about the endorphin rush you’ll feel. Allow yourself to anticipate the reward. Eventually, that craving will make it easier to push through the gym doors every day.
So while you’re looking deep and wide (and long and hard) at a product you’re preparing to write sales copy for, keep an eye out for any potential “tingle” it may have. You may be able to create more that a sales sensation, you may also wind up creating a national habit.
39 Years for Him to Learn and 39 Seconds for You to Download…for Free!
My dad’s trash can, my treasure chest.
As a young boy, I would often fish around my father’s office trash to see what marvelous opportunities had been delivered to him via the post office.
I was a strange kid like that…
I actually liked to read long copy-rich advertisements of the variety that could be found in the back of magazines or newspapers, scattered throughout comic books, or presented at the doorstep in the day’s mail.
Often those direct mail pieces or long-copy ads were sparsely illustrated. But the text had a way of drawing me in…
…supplying such wonderful mental imagery depicting all kinds of glory, fame, and fortune– not to mention freedom from an alarming number of frustrations and maladies, actual or potential — that I didn’t want to resist reading.
That love for the written hunt, the magic of persuasive words well-turned and carefully crafted, has continued long after my childhood.
Over the years, one of the purveyors of such oft-junked delights has been Richard Armstrong. Have you seen the virtual treasure trove of his work he has made freely available?
If not, you can check it out and get your copy at his website.
This entertaining and enlightening ebook contains scans of his selected works. That’s great in itself. But it gets even better…
Richard also packed this book with all kinds of secrets, strategies, tricks, and techniques he has learned in nearly 40 years of writing direct-mail copy. Each sample comes with an essay explaining why he thinks the package won… or why it failed.
Haven’t heard of Richard Armstrong? You’ve likely seen his work. He has been around and (in his own words)…
Over the years, I’ve rubbed shoulders with some of our industry’s greats and near-greats. Maybe not household names in the usual sense … but they sure are famous if you make your living writing Lift Letters and Johnson boxes. (Yes, I even knew Johnson!)
DICK BENSON: The uber-consultant in subscription promotion. Now that he’s gone to that great mailbox in the sky, I can let you in on a little secret he told me which I never could’ve revealed while he was still alive. Page 55
BILL JAYME: I was his second favorite copywriter. (See the sidebar on this website.) But turn to page 102 if you want to know the unvarnished truth about the most glamorous copywriter who ever lived!
PAUL MICHAEL, the man who invented the lift letter. (Yes, invented it.) He told me how he made so much money selling lucky charms by mail-order that his hobby was collecting antique Rolls Royces! His secret? It’s something you can buy on Amazon today! Page 94
EUGENE SCHWARTZ: Read the funny story on page 94 that explains why I have one of Gene’s own copies of Breakthrough Advertising on my bookshelf — personally inscribed by the author with a message that’ll make you laugh.
ED MCLEAN: One of the nicest copywriters ever to pick up a pen. For Newsweek, he wrote, “Dear Friend, If the list on which I found your name is any indication, this is not the first – nor will it be the last – subscription letter you receive.” I’m proud to call him one of my mentors.
MILT PIERCE: Speaking of mentors, I took Milt Pierce’s groundbreaking seminar on direct-mail copywriting at NYU in the early 1980s – the first of its kind in the country at a major university. Sitting next to me was a student by the name of… BOB BLY! Whatever happened to that guy, do you suppose?
TOM COLLINS, the creative mastermind behind one of the world’s greatest direct-mail agencies, Rapp & Collins, personally taught me a secret I’ll never forget. Page 9
GARY BENCIVENGA: I was one of the 100 top copywriters and other direct marketing maestros who attended the legendary Bencivenga 100 Seminar in New York. But in a roomful of the world’s greatest copywriters, I was one of only a few whose work was discussed by Gary from the podium. (And he said nice things about it, too!)
DAVID OGILVY: Yes, the great one himself. When he read a copy of the speech I gave to the DMAW (see the sidebar on this page), he wrote to me from his castle in France!
There’s a lot to learn from Richard Armstrong — so go ahead over to his site, if you haven’t already done so, and grab yourself a handful of golden copywriting experience!
Take This Copy and Stick It In Your Ear…
I came across a songwriter’s blog today and found the musical equivalent of an important concept for honing copywriting skills:
You’re going to see that your abilities to manipulate musical sounds and structures will begin to improve as your ear improves. You’ll also find that your creative, imaginative mind will be enhanced as you are able to apply names and labels to the musical structures that you hear around you.
The copywriting equivalent of that ability is a treasured goal of anyone with a passion for persuasion-in-print.
And like a songwriter, we can develop our copy “ear” in order to improve our ability to manipulate word pictures and thought structures to produce the desired effect in our readers.
A classic way to develop an ear for great copy is to be immersed in great copy until an intutive “feel” for it develops. One method of immersion is an old technique taught many times over. You’re undoubtedly familiar with it already. If you aren’t you’ll want to be.
The exercise is simple enough. It involves reading examples of great copy written by effective copywriters over-and-over a number of times. Some number, ten times for example, is usually prescribed. Often, the additional step of copying the piece by hand is added.
If you haven’t tried this before, you will be amazed at how much more “in touch” you get with the copy at hand. Twists, shifts, and nuances suddenly reveal themselves as you transfer, word-by-word, copy from your swipe file example to your writer’s notebook.
There are variations to the basic exercise I described above. You may be familiar with some of the variations I like to use. We work through one ad each week in the member’s area.
Are you an old hand at this exercise? What variations have you found helpful? Feel free to share your ideas and experiences in the comments below. On the other hand, if you have any questions about getting started, feel free to ask!
Drayton Bird Singing Like a Canary
Last night I heard Drayton Bird spill the beans… about his decades long, highly-successful, career in direct response marketing.
Drayton “told all” in a great 2-part interview covering his lessons-learned over a lifetime of industry experience. Thought you might like to check it out yourself… he offers up loads of keen, experienced insights. Plus, he’s loads of fun to hear!
Experienced insights and an entertaining sense of humor… the best qualities of a teacher!
Drayton, of course, has been in the copywriting/ marketing/ advertising business since the late 1970s. He started an ad agency which he later sold for a nice sum of money. He also worked with advertising great David Ogilvy, one of the most renowned men in advertising history.
Ogilvy famously said that Drayton “knows more about direct marketing than anyone in the world.” So he’s got a lot to offer… and the interview is free, so make sure you go and grab it!
Michael Senoff conducted the interview and it can be found at this page on his site. You can listen on the page, download the mp3 files, or download the transcript in pdf format.
Michael describes his interview:
Drayton Bird is one of the world’s best direct-marketing copywriters, but he wasn’t always a success. In fact, when he started his agency back in the late 1970s, he was so far in debt, he went by an alias so that tax collectors wouldn’t be able to recognize him…
Although he can laugh about that now, he can also pinpoint the mistakes he made that kept him poor and the steps he took that made him rich. And in this two-part audio, you’ll hear all about Drayton’s amazing story, including exactly how he went from being bottom-of-the-barrel broke to running David Ogilvy’s multimillion-dollar direct marketing agency…
Drayton started his successful agency in the UK with only 700 pounds and a couple of partners. Three and a half years later, they were the biggest direct marketing organization around. And in Part Two, you’ll hear how they did it, along with how Drayton turned that success into the opportunity of a lifetime – working with David Ogilvy…
But the most important thing he did to become successful was that he never gave up. There may not be a magic pill for success, but according to Drayton, if you go about things the right way, you’ll not only make a lot of money in life, but you won’t get bored in the process. And in this informative yet entertaining interview, Drayton tells us exactly how to do that.
It’s a must-hear interview, so be sure to check it out! Also, if you haven’t been to Michael Senoff’s site before, have a look around before leaving– he makes lots of excellent interviews available!
If you like Drayton’s insights, you might want to check out his new book How Even A Business Idiot Like Me Made A Million Or Two which you can get for a 37.5% discount here!
Eugene Schwartz’s Breakthrough Advertising is Here!
It’s here! My “new” copy of Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene M. Schwartz just arrived from an Amazon seller. Great condition for the price I paid, too! But that’s besides the point… it’s what’s inside that counts!
I bought a fresh clean copy for a brand new project I’m kicking off in the member’s area tomorrow!
I’ve pulled out all the Eugene Schwartz ads from my ad swipe file and we’ll be breaking down one ad each week as a regular feature for members.
Some of you already own a copy of the book, so I’ll add value to our study by referring to it from time-to-time to highlight important applications of the master behind the method.
As we drill down, dissect, and scrutinize the master-strokes that went into Schwartz’s million-dollar advertising, we’ll be analyzing what he was doing in light of his written principles.
I won’t be able to provide the the Schwartz text for you, of course. But you may already happen to have a copy available now or want to acquire one somewhere.
When I make reference to the book, it will be from the Bottom Line Books 2004 reprint edition.
But if you don’t have a copy, don’t worry… I’ll make sure to be clear enough in my commentary so as to not leave anyone behind the discussion of the ad for the week. But if you have the book to cross-reference with me, I don’t think you’ll be sorry!
And don’t worry about the ad swipe that we’ll be studying for the week. That I can provide for you. I’ll link to pdf files you can download so you can work them yourself and compare notes with me.
So if you’re a member already be sure to check it out! We get started tomorrow. Not a member? Join here!
