World Copywriting Blog

Check This Out: A Copywriting Technique That Almost No One Uses, That Could Save You An Enormous Amount of Time and Grief

Why reinvent the wheel?

It's a gnawing question in copywriting, because on the one hand, it's a creative activity...

... and on the other hand, it's a science, a function of statistics, an outcome of successful tests.

That is, so few things really work when you write copy (by "work," I mean: "get results"), that you don't want to go off on a wild creative tear just because of an impulse, or because it feels good, or because it's entertaining.

But... if your copy is in any way shape or form boring, then you won't get any results either.

Now that I've got you on the horns of my daily dilemma, I'm going to take you somewhere you didn't expect to go.

See, at this point, most experts in the field would talk about "swipe files" - using proven models of copy to create new copy.

I'm a strong believer in that myself.  But it's not what I want to talk about here.

What I want to talk about is checklists.  Yes, checklists.

In conversation with this blog's Executive Contributor, Jim Van Wyck, I rediscovered the power and importance of checklists.  In a new book I'm writing, each chapter will have a very specific and valuable kind of checklist.  (In fact, my goal is to make each checklist alone worth the cover price of the book.)

For now, let me say that the only copywriter I know who has told me he uses checklists is the amazing Michel Fortin, who is famous for having created six- and seven-figure sales days on the Internet with his copy.

Coincidence?  You tell me.

I'm going to give you a short checklist just so you can't say I never did anything for you... well, you can say it, but I can always point back to this checklist:

My best current client emailed me this morning and asked me to write a business letter with a particularly personal tone.  His reasoning was sound.  So I am going to give you short checklist you can use to determine if your copy has a personal tone, too:

1) Is it written in the second person (using the word "you," and even the reader's name)?

2) Is the language conversational, rather than stiff and formal?

3) Are the words short?

4) Are the sentences short?

5) Are the paragraphs short?

6) If you read it out loud, does it sound like something you would actually say in a real conversation?

Now, if you have any checklists you have created, or used from some other source, I'd like to invite you to share them in the comments section for this post.  Checklists make up an area of copywriting that has been discussed far too little until now.

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter

Some comical advice on how to make sure your advertising is never bold and effective enough to get you any response

Wisdom comes from the strangest places.  This afternoon, reading my Sunday paper's comics while having lunch, I came across something every copywriter should see:

"Never fear the future... unless there's some doubt in your mind, no matter how small or unfounded, that there could be problems."
--Excerpt from "Stay In Bed, It's Safe Under the Covers"

Just to be sure this was satire, I checked in Google and Amazon and couldn't find that book anywhere.

Of course not.  It resides wholly in the mind of Joe Martin, the brilliant if somewhat twisted creator of one of my all-time favorite comic strips, Mister Boffo.

But in ludicrousness there is truth.  How many times have you had a great idea, but talked yourself out of it because it might ruffle some feathers?

Or better yet, how many times have you had a great idea, only to find your

• partner
• client
• CEO
• attorney
• customer
• kid
• parent
• aunt
• uncle
• Web designer

... or whoever, thought it was a "bad idea" because it might lead to trouble.

To be sure, I'm not advising you to stick your tongue out at danger and proceed full speed ahead... I'm not.  And whatever you do, don't test your fate against advertising copy that could land you in hot water with the law.

But cowbody stupidity and legal imprudence aside, sometimes you gotta make waves.  Take chances.  Risk that someone might - heavens to Betsy! - criticize your ad.  Customers might get mad.  Competitors might make fun of you.  Mom might not approve.

Hey, I have as many fears as the next guy.  More, probably, because I have so cultivated and enhanced my already over-active imagination.

But I'm telling you, sometimes you've got to gird up your loins, be they male or female loins, and bite the bullet.  Stick a stiff arm out, lower your head, and charge full speed ahead.

Because only in that insecure zone of trying something a little off the baseline will you find the big breakthroughs that you've been looking for.

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter

NASDAQ Favorite Son Company DOUBLES revenue, increases profits SIXFOLD -- thanks to copywriting

The investment world is all atwitter today because of Google's financial report yesterday.

And it's pretty impressive.  The company nearly doubled in size in one year, jumping from first-quarter revenues of $652 million a year ago to $1.26 billion as of the end of the first quarter this year.

Even better: Profits jumped by a factor of (almost) six - $64 million 1st quarter last year, $369 million 1st quarter 2005.

So why?

AdWords.

Which is... copywriting.

Think about it.

David Garfinkel
Poublisher, World Copywriting Newsletter

Be Careful How Your Brand Your Business -- Regardless Of Actual Facts, Your Branding CAN Come Back And Bite You In the Butt

You can get some really interesting marketing lessons at the Tennessee Grill in San Francisco... especially if you take your newspaper with you and you happen upon interesting stories.

Now you know that Apple Computer is an emotionally charged subject for me.  I am strongly in favor of Apple's right to find out who leaked the iPod Mini info to the bloggers; I am in the throes of a love-hate relationship with my own new iPod Mini.

That's fair disclosure, and that's not what I'm writing about here today.

This has to do with branding.

Your branding is your identity in the marketplace.  It can be whatever you want it to be, if you do a good enough job telling the story and making it stick in the mind of the public (whether it's the general public or a specific business or consumer public you're going for).

Now, Apple has a really interesting branding.  It's the un-computer.  Utopia with a microprocessor.  A dream come true in a world of disappointing and clunky nightmares.

People buy into that.  Macs have fans.  I've never heard a businessperson rave about their IBM Thinkpad the way Mac people wax eloquent about their Powerbooks.

But... and here's what I want to get into with all this... live by the brand, die by the brand.

Yesterday Apple had its annual meeting in Cupertino.  A dozen protesters, dressed as gigantic iPods, stood outside the meeting -- so says today's San Francisco Chronicle -- in front of a big sign that said "from iPod to iWaste."

The protesters were upset, charging that Apple has been environmentally irresponsible with its recycling program, which it began 4 years ago as a way for its customers to recycle their old Macs.

The Chronicle quotes Apple CEO Steve Jobs: "To say we're insensitive or irresponsible is just bullshit."

Well, that depends who you talk to and in what aspect of their business, but environmentally, that's probably a fair statement.  In fact, for all I know, the protestors may have done more harm to the environment in one day driving their Toyota Prius's and VW Vans to the demonstration than Apple does in a whole year.

For all I know.

But again, facts hardly matter, when branding is at stake.  Listen closely to this next quote from the Chronicle:

Gopal Dayanemi, program director for the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, complained that Steve Jobs refused to meet with his group and then said:

"I'm a little shocked that he doesn't take this problem seriously.  It seems pretty strange for a company that has built its reputation on the images of Ghandi, Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks."

Apple.  The social justice company.  We just happen to make computers.  Oh, not computers.  Un-computers.  Utopia with a keyboard.

Well, that's almost what their ads say, at the subtext level.  Now, that's fine... until you disappoint the faithful.  Once the True Believers feel they have been crossed, you're in for a rough ride ahead.

I don't know if this has happened with Apple.  I suppose not.

But I hope you see how this is still a very powerful object lesson in how your branding can come back with very, very sharp teeth to bite you where the sun don't shine.

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter

What I Learned This Week That Keeps Me On My Game As A Copywriter

Here are some of the things I learned this week:

● Mary-Kate Olsen just took out a $1 million insurance policy on her new puppy.  It's got teething problems, and she's worried about a lawsuit if it bites someone!

● A Bowling Green State University suggests that dogs, monkeys and even rats make sounds that are strikingly similar to human laughter.

● Mimi in Hawaii thinks that any woman who wants to marry Scott Peterson has got to be out of her mind.

● Angela in Wisconsin thinks that people shouldn't talk on their cell phones while they're driving, whether they have a hands-free headset or not.

● Ellen DeGeneres and her girfriend Portia de Rossi were seen wearing matching rings in West Hollywood, and the rumor is that they're engaged.

So where did I get all this juicy information, and what in the world does it have to do with copywriting?

I got it from The National Enquirer (April 25 issue).  Now I've been telling you to get this newspaper and read it, but maybe you didn't really understand why.

Here's why:  It's like a coffee klatch on steroids.

You may not know this, but, people really do talk about the women who have made marriage proposals to convicted wife-murderer Scott Peterson.  Many members of the public really are concerned about Ellen and Portia.  And cell phones while you drive... that's a hot topic for a lot of folks.

All the more reason for you to read the Enquirer.

See, the art of copywriting is putting your sales message in the plain, ordinary, commonplace language that people really use when they let their hair down.

Where did I learn how to do this myself?

I honestly can't tell you.  Just by paying attention in life, I suppose.

But I do know where I go to be reminded and keep myself from getting too conceptual and abstract in my own writing:

I go to the National Enquirer.

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter

I hate my new iPod... I love my new iPod... I hate my new iPod... I love my new iPod...

After stridently coming to the defense of Apple in tracking down the "leaker" on the iPod Mini court case a few posts ago, I feel a bit self-contradictory (though not in the least hypocritical) taking a swipe at my new iPod Mini and Cult Apple in general.

OK, here's the scoop:

I bought a new iPod Mini this weekend at Best Buy.  Then I went through install and learning-curve hell trying to make it work.  The iTunes software, which you must install on your PC in order to use the iPod, tries to take over your whole computer.

You can't access the iPod as a portable disk drive, the way you can any other mp3 player.  It's a closed system locked into the proprietary Apple software.

That's just the beginning of my laundry list of frustrations with this new piece of technology.

Now, why did I buy it?  Because soon, yes soon, dear reader, I am launching big-time into Podcasting.  And it's only right that I have an iPod, in addition to my non-iPod mp3 players, so I understand first-hand how many of my subscribers will be downloading and enjoying my Podcasts.

Anyway... I did finally figure out how to get some content onto my iPod.

(I can hear all you Apple-buffs snickering, even rolling on the floor laughing, as this all-thumbs PC guy describes his trials and tribulations with what my friend Toni Boyle once most aptly described as "trying to learn to drive on the other side of the road."  To all of you I have but two words:  SHUT UP!!!!)

Yeah.  As I was saying, I got some stuff on the Mini and man, oh man, it is the best piece of audio equipment I have ever owned.  Easy, simple, beautiful sound, sharp-looking, small, great to carry around, yada yada yada.

So I see both sides of the issue.

But I'm not looking forward to all the things I have to learn to master the iPod.  And "master" may be the wrong word -- it seems like it's deliberately configured so mastery is not one of the possibilities.

It's like when I took the Civil Service Exam when I got out of college.  I grew up around D.C. and both of my parents worked for the government, so it seemed like the thing to do.

Wrong...

Now I'm considered "bright-average" on most intelligence tests, but I may as well have been reading hieroglyphics when I took the Civil Service exam.  Oh, yes, I understood the individual words.

But I couldn't make sense of the questions.

Different mindset.

One man's meat is another man's unsolved mystery.

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter

Here's Ernest Hemingway, 78 years ago, providing some outstanding advice to you as a copywriter

Check it out:

"... Listen now.  When people talk listen completely.  Don't be thinking what you're going to say.  Most people never listen.  Nor do they observe.  You should be able to go into a room and when you come out know everything that you saw there and not only that.  If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling.  Try that for practice.  When you're in town stand outside the theater and see how the people differ in the way they get out of taxis or motor cars.  There are a thousands ways practice.  And always think of other people."

from By-Line: Ernest Hemingway, pp. 219-20

What does the future hold for copywriters? A lot, if you're paying attention and can stay flexible and proactive

I've recently come across a wad of information from many sources that leads me to believe we are at an "inflection point" in business and social/cultural history that will send shockwaves throughout the world and change life as we know it.

The signs are many:

• Some major developments in podcasting (on-demand "radio" via the Internet and automatically downloadable to your iPod or other mp3 player) that I learned about at Armand Morin's Big Seminar in Atlanta last week (to stay informed about these developments as they unfold, make sure you're subscribed to the World Copywriting Newsletter)
• The ideas in Daniel Pink's new book A Whole New Mind, which essentially prescribes that Americans stop pretending the world is an objective place answering to a fixed reality which no longer exists -- that is, to continue to thrive and prosper, America must embrace and value qualities which have been derided in the past as bohemian, mad-scientist, soft-skill and pansy-ass; qualities like: empathy, story, design and play.
• The sweeping research and conclusions in Thomas L. Friedman's best-seller The World Is Flat, which makes a heckuva lot more sense about the cataclysmic events of the past decade (including the dot-bomb and September 11) than anything else I've seen or heard so far.  Basically, his point is the era of American techno-dominance is over, at the implementation level.

But wait, there's more.  So much more.  While some people, including yours truly (that would be me) are embracing this fast-moving, hard-to-quantify revolution, others are resisting it, loudly and boorishly.  Too bad for them.

The key takeaway from all of this swirling is that, as Friedman says, the world is now more than ever in the palms of the hands of brilliant individuals.  In the business sphere:  Fred Smith of FedEx has redefined "special delivery."  Bill Gates... well, where do we start?  Martha Stewart, Donald Trump, Richard Branson, Herb Kelleher... by now I think you see my point.

And as for copywriters, I've got some good news for you:

You don't have to be a Bill Gates or a Martha Stewart to have your world in the palm of your hand.  You don't need the IQ of an Albert Einstein, either.

"Brilliance" comes from focused action and systematic learning through experience and with the right teachers, as much as from genetics or family/cultural background.  In other words, ya don't hafta be that smart to be brilliant!

Now's the time to seize the moment.  I have a friend I sat three chairs away from at the Big Seminar -- five years ago not only was he bankrupt, but the f***ing judge at the bankruptcy hearing mocked him before granting his request for the relief from his creditors to which he was legally entitled.

Today my formerly bankrupt friend makes five to ten times as much money per year as the arrogant jurist who mocked him.

And he's risen from the ashes by having done exactly what I'm talking about: he discovered and honed his own brilliance, and become one heckuva copywriter in his own right.

So, how about it?  You game?

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter

Of all the other copywriting blogs I have looked at, THIS one is the most extreme...

My friend super-copywriter John Carlton has a blog that's... well... unique.

To say the least.

His prose is pristine, disturbing, brilliant, exciting.  His insights about copywriting are penetrating.  His sense of humor is... devastating.

Check out this PTSD-style description of LAX ("Los Angeles International Hell") from a recent post on his blog:

There are four security points, with four pissed-off guards slappin people around, tossing luggage back into the x-ray machine, wanding little old ladies who look embarrassed to be standing there in their stockings getting prodded.

This line ain't moving, either. I estimate 400 people. I time how long it takes the line to inch forward the space of one person -- two minutes. That's 2,100 minutes wait time to get through security. Two and a half hours.

Not the sort of writing you typically see in a memo or on a recipe site, is it?

Yeah...it really kinda takes you there, doesn't it? :)

You'll learn a lot from John.  Check out his Big Damn Blog at: http://www.john-carlton.com

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter

Some unusual - and very good - advice on how to improve your copywriting

On one of our followup "Momentum" teleseminars from the Breakthrough Copywriting Seminar, host Jim Van Wyck interviewed Dr. Dave Woynarowski, an alumnus of the seminar and an incredible success story (as an entrepreneur) in his own right.

I noted on the call that Dr. Dave has become quite a skilled copywriter, and that accounts in large part for the runaway success of his business, which is Internet-based and mail-order.

I asked Dr. Dave to give the other grads of Breakthrough Copywriting some advice on how they could follow in his footsteps and become better copywriters themselves, and one thing he said really stood out in my mind:

"Read Think and Grow Rich," he said.  (Nothing unusual about that... but then, he advised everyone to read it out loud in their own voice; record it; and listen to themselves speaking the words of think and grow rich on their mp3 player.)

I think that's stunningly clever advice and a great way to speed up your learning curve, because of the mindset that taking in Napoleon Hill's classic will instill in you.  If you're looking for a booster for your skillfulness and your career, give this one a try!

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter