World Copywriting Blog

Advance look at part of what's in a new book on copywriting courses

Copywriter supreme Bob Bly, along with copywriter Joshua Stevens, are putting together a book about copywriting courses.

They asked me to send them some info about one of my courses and what's in it.

I put together a description of Breakthrough Copywriting. I included information about writing copy you might never have seen before, unless you already own the course.

The info is so good I decided to put it up on the Web for you to see.

Here's the link: http://www.davidgarfinkel.com/btc/index.htm

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter

Oh, how speaking the truth hurts (sometimes) ... but I'm proud of this Congressman, because he's from around here and he has the guts to say what he said

I grew up in the D.C. suburbs and now live in San Francisco. Growing up around D.C., you get really used to hearing sanctimonious, self-serving lies along with deep-sounding yet meaningless platitudes, coming from the career politicians on Capitol Hill.

It used to be rare, if never, that anyone would simply tell it like it is.

So it was with great astonishment and delight that I read the following quote this morning in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Congress "is the only business in the world where your colleagues wake up in the morning and try to figure out how to screw over their colleagues," said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena.

St. Helena is in California's wine country, maybe an hour's drive from here.

The quote was in a call-out box on the front page of today's newspaper. The editors there clearly know good copy when they see it.

The accompanying article was about a near-certain government budget deadlock ahead in Washington.

Now, how do you use a quote like this to increase your sales in copywriting?

There are lots of ways. One that comes to mind immediately is: if you sell a proven alternative to something people in your market typically count on members of Congress to provide for them.

You simply put the quote up at the top of your sales copy.

With full attribution, for greater effect (and credibility).

You could deepen the discomfort a quote like that causes through elegant argumentation... or, you could just leave it hanging there, and let people draw their own conclusions.

After all, if what Mr. Thompson says is even partially true about what his esteemed colleagues in Congress spend all their waking moments planning to do to each other... then what is it likely they have in store for you?

Happy holiday season,

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter 

If you can get this mental move down, the rest of your copywriting becomes easy by comparison

Last week I was talking with my friend copywriter/designer Peter Aristedes in Chicago, and we discovered we both have a weakness for buying too many books.  In fact, he took "unfair" advantage of me by telling me about an old out-of-print advertising book he had recently bought, and before the conversation was over, I had tracked it down on the Internet and it's on its way to me now.

Then a few days later, out of my bookshelf I picked my copy of a book originally written in 1945 (I have the 1961 edition) called How Advertising Is Written -- and Why by Aesop Glim (the pen name for the old Printer's Ink columnist George Laflin Miller).

I found a gem in there so good I have to share it with you:

Why does he buy it?

This is the most misleading question of all-- because we have the paradox that what you sell is almost never what your prospect buys.

...

People don't buy soap -- they buy cleanliness.  People don't buy dentifices -- they buy beauty and freedom from toothache.

People don't buy automobiles -- they buy transportation, social prestige, the great outdoors, life, liberty, and the pursuit of the opposite sex.

People don't buy houses -- they buy homes.

I guess most of us have heard some version of this before, so we "know" it.

But, does that matter?

Because, "knowing" and "doing" are two different things.

I still see so many ads that are trying to sell what the business wants to sell, rather than what the customer wants to buy. 

Unsuccessful ads, I might add.

Do you know why your prospect buys?

If you don't, a good place to start is by asking him -- or her.

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter

P.S. I just did a quick search and as of this moment there are about six used copy of the book I mentioned available on Amazon.  You could do worse than to join Peter and me in our unwieldy habit.

It's The Most Amazing Thing About Copywriting Knowledge

Spontaneity just ain't what it used to be, once you are an experienced copywriter. The way people respond to various words, offers, ploys, actions, situations and whatnot becomes highly predictable.  Not 100% predictable... but close.

Why?  Because you have such a good understanding of human nature that your predications make you seem almost like a crystal-ball reader to the uniniated.

The same is true for people who are highly experienced and perceptive in the areas of sales and persuasion.

I have found that, just like with copywriting, there are a lot more supposed experts than real experts. 

Just because someone is a good salesperson doesn't mean they have anything of value to share with others, besides the sales they can produce (which, admittedly, are the most valuable commodity in business -- the very lifeblood of enterprises).

But teaching others to be a great salesperson is a skill unto itself, and immeasurably valuable as well.

And it is far more rare than the ability to sell well.

That's why I'm so excited about the new book Selling: Powerful New Strategies for Sales Success.

The reason this book is so good is because the experts who wrote it are not only extraordinarily high-achieving practitioners of sales, influence and persuasion; they are also supreme experts in explaining and training these skills and understandings.  The authors are: Dr. Kevin Hogan and Dave Lakhani, whom I both know, respect immensely, and have worked with; as well as Gary May, Eliot Hoppe, Larry Adams and Dr. Mollie Marti.

These authors go into the real-world details of selling you need to know, drilling down far more than you would expect in a book of this modest price.  Whether you are a copywriter, marketing strategist, CEO, entrepreneur, or, of course, a sales professional, this is information that can really help you fatten up the bottom line fast!

Get this book soon, and you'll get a wad of bonuses that have real value as part of the deal.  But the books stands solid as a real value in itself.  Chapter 11 alone by Dr. Marti - Sales Strategies, Processes and Routines - could easily pay for the book for you hundreds (or thousands) of times over. 

And there truly is much, much more.

Check it out:

http://www.kevinhogan.com/promo/

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter

This Direct Response Copywriter Sees Two TV Commercials That Might Actually Have Some Merit

What would you call a motionless potato with two eyes watching college football on ESPN from a living-room couch all day long this past Saturday?

You would call that couch potato: me.

As a University of Michigan alum, I can't keep my eyes off the roller-coaster fortunes of my school's tortured Wolverines team. And last weekend's Ohio State and USC games were of peripheral interest to me as well.

So. In between bouts of football came the commercials. I saw the Taco Bell ad so many times I almost know the older brother's rules by now (which I should know, being the older brother in my family). But I still can't remember the name of the product he was trying to sell.

Two other commercials really stood out, however. Even though they thoroughly violate the headline-hook-offer-call^to^action orthodoxy of direct response copy.  Direct response copy is my bailiwick in business and in this blog. Nevertheless, they represented such good examples of selling via media that I have to commend them, rulebreakers that they are.

Listen.

Great commercial #1 was for the Ford Escape SUV, which is a hybrid.  Think "green." I have a retailer client doing more business than you could ever imagine out of a single storefront location. He tells me, "You have no idea how big the green movement is among consumers right now."

I believe him.

Ford's ad rides the Green Wave flawlessly.

A dad with an out-of-sorts teenage daughter walk towards the vehicle.  Girl to Dad: "Could you let me off a block before we get to the theatre? All the people there are on bicycles or hybrids."

Clearly, she's ashamed of her insensitive pig father's gas-guzzling greenhouse-gas-emitting minesweeper.

Cut to a close-up of the back of the vehicle. Focus on word "HYBRID."

This is an SUV, remember.

Hmmmm. Inside, Dad, now pulling out of driveway, to Girl: "But this is a hybrid."

Girl to Dad, "You mean like a hybrid hybrid?"

Dad, laughing, to Girl: "I don't know what you mean by a 'hybrid hybrid,' but, yes, it is."

Girl, thinking. Then, to Dad: "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

Dad: "I didn't think I needed to."

Maybe to you as you read this is comes across as hokey.  On the little screen, it's not. (Dialogue and screenplay from memory.)

This commercial is powerful. Why? Because for Dads (and Moms), it promises social insurance against the embarrassment of being labeled a greenhouse-gas-emitting environmental criminal while still having the status and security (and road dominance) of an SUV.

That will sell a lot of Ford Escapes.  Brilliant.

Great commercial #2: Digitally modified videos of real people talking, made to look like cartoons. They're talking about stockbrokers. They like their broker but they are uneasy about the fees. They feel like they're unfairly charged. You get the impression that their brokers are a private-sector version of the Beatles' Taxman: Ding you if you breathe, ding you if you hold your breath.

Then, the blissfully better comparison: Charles Schwab has no hidden fees. No "inactivity" fees if you don't touch your account. No breathing fees. No hold-your-breath fees.

A classic winning example of the Grudge USP I've written about before, but I'm not sure where.  I introduced this concept for the first time at Tactic 7, the seminar I did with Harlan Kilstein and John Carlton last year.

The Grudge USP works like this:

• Find out what grudges your customers hold against your competitors
• Actively do the opposite
• Tell your customers about it

OK, there you have it -- two great commercials.

But despite those moments of light, it was a lousy day for the couch potato.  The Wisconsin Badgers beat the Michigan Wolverines to a pulp.

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter

Google Takes Over The World, November 2007 Edition: This Campaign Goes One Mile At A Time

Nifty new airline based near San Francisco called Virgin America.  I've flown them twice since they opened in August.  Since I'm an "Are We There Yet???" kinda guy, I'm constantly looking at the personal video monitor flight map.  Who provides it?  Who else -- Google.

And today, November 7, gas station pump maker Gilbarco Veeder-Root announced, in Atlanta, that it will install a version of Google Maps in gas pumps at 3,500 gas stations nationwide, starting next month. This according to a late-breaking story in Information Week.

Yes, you really could conclude Google is taking over the world. And you would be wrong. But not by much. Oil companies and bankers and the quasi-republic of Wal-Mart itself have far more power, in the end, than Google. But it is becoming a major, major player.  Buying up blocks of real estate in New York City; hiring its own lobbyists in Washington, D.C.

OK. So what?  And what in heaven's name does this have to do with copywriting?

Quite a bit, actually. 

You don't typically see 800-pound gorillas like Google emerge out of mere words on a page. 

I'm pretty sure Google is getting a little licensing fee from Virgin America and gas stations everywhere for use of its maps. But, for the longest time, all the revenues that came in, came in because of... Google AdWords!  Little four-line "sponsored searches" on the right side of the Google page!

And last time I checked, the activity that creates those little ads was called...

... copywriting!

So. If you were to say "Copywriting is taking over the world," I have already proven to you that that is just too much of a leap to be accurate.

But... is copywriting gaining directly in overt status and importance?

Indubitably.

So don't let the Copywriting Train pass you by. Make sure you learn something about it, before it's too late.

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter