World Copywriting Blog

Stamp out Marketing Narcissism: Stop looking in the mirror and pretending it's your customer you see. Instead, become a mirror for your customer. One of the many things Gary C. Halbert taught me

As you can see, in this blog post I have included the photo of a blue baseball hat with a grey pony-tail attached to the back.

Why have I done this?

Two reasons:

1. In September, 1992, Gary C. Halbert made me buy that very hat and wear it while walking around Key West, Florida.

2. Inside that hat is a story that will help you make a lot of money.

I got the hat at Gary's famous "Hurricane Andrew" seminar and haven't worn it since, until this weekend. Dr. Harlan Kilstein and Chris Tomasulo held a fantastic seminar Saturday and Sunday at the Platinum Hotel in Las Vegas.

The seminar was called "Covert Communications" and all the proceeds were donated to Children's Hospital Los Angeles, a charity designated by the late Gary's sons Bond and Kevin.  Harlan asked me to open the seminar with some reminiscences of Gary.

I donned the hat to tell the story.

Gary made us buy the hats and wear them around town in Key West because, he said, doing so would make us look like a local and blend in better on that island of very eccentric, self-styled people.

In a way it was a joke, but at the same time it was a vitally important marketing lesson. Gary's message (and I paraphrase):

Stop friggin' worrying so much about yourself, your identity, your self- and public image, and your wants and needs.  You are not your market.  You are not the people you are marketing to.

Instead, go beyond the narcissistic boundaries of your own precious and petty concerns.  Expand.  Explore.  Mentally and emotionally move into the hungry crowd that is your market. Become them so you can understand, to the greatest degree possible, who they are, how they feel, what they want, what they think about, and what is going to make them most likely to buy.

It was great seeing so many old friends and making new ones in Las Vegas this weekend. Remembering Gary to such an esteemed crowd of entrepreneurial copywriters and other marketers also put closure for me, in large measure, on the agony and heartbreak of Gary's sudden and unexpected death Easter morning.

On a related note, direct marketing virtuoso Denny Hatch penned an impressive piece and published it this morning in his Business Common Sense e-newsletter about the idiocy of corporate / general-ad-agency attempts at lead generation. I can't do it justice even summarizing what he so brilliantly and incisively said.  I did have fun making a comment, though, which appears in the reader comments section of that issue.

I strongly urge you to read it -- click here.

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter

You Don't Say - The Overwhelming Temptation Not To State The Obvious, And Why Not Doing So, Costs You -- Big-Time

Photo by David Garfinkel. Yeah, it's not as good as the other ones on this blog. You got a problem with that?

Duh. This wonderfully obvious street sign, at the corner of Rivera Street and 14th Avenue in San Francisco, is a shining example of what a lot of people will laugh at you for doing, but you've got to do anyway... if you want to capture the maximum number of sales with your copy.

It's... stating the obvious.

I pass this sign several times a week, driving through my neighborhood.  It's a blatant reminder of what I constantly need to remember to do as a copywriter.

In the back rooms of direct marketing, there are horror stories galore of direct mail campaigns that wasted thousands of dollars because the customer was given no way to order. Zero way to contact the company. The information was never included in the copy before the mailing was sent out to the marketplace. (So don't think it's happened only to you... it's happened to all of us.)

We tend to leave out the obvious because

• It just wouldn't look cool to state the obvious (it would show we're not hip, or we're writing to dweebs who simply don't know the score), or
• We simply overlook the obvious, because it's obvious to us. By doing so, we forget that it's not obvious to the rest of the world, particularly the part of the rest of the world that has money they would like to give us, if only we gave them a reason and a way to do so.
• We're more committed to meeting a deadline (arbitrary, or truly necessary) than we are to getting enough information in our marketing message to give customers everything they need in order to buy.

The next time you have an ad ready to run, or a letter ready to mail, or an email about to go out, or a Web page ready to release... ask yourself, have you included all the obvious things?

If you haven't, take the extra time you need to get it right. Your profit just might depend on it.

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter

Sage Advice for You from a Grand Master Copywriter

Grand Master Don Hauptman (left) with me at undisclosed Calif. location

I caught up with my friend and mentor Don Hauptman recently, during a whirlwind visit he made to California for business and pleasure. Don, based in New York City, is famous for headlines and copy that have lasted and lasted and lasted (and made money and money and money).

Headlines like: Speak Spanish Like A Diplomat… and If You Get Out of the Market Now, You’ll Hate Yourself Later!

Don is the author of the some of the most common-sense, elegant and profitable nuggets of advice about copywriting I’ve ever come across.  With his permission, I’m reprinting the three tips he contributed to Debbie Weil’s Top Copywriting Tips When You Can't Afford to Hire a Pro
(I’m also a contributor), for your reading and writing pleasure:

1. Hauptman's Law: Start with the prospect, not with the product. In promotional copy selling newsletter subscriptions and other information products, a common mistake is a focus on the publication's features instead of benefits to the reader. Solution: Identify your customer's problems, needs and concerns, then "translate" the product's features into irresistible benefits. Pinpoint the ultimate benefit: the single biggest promise you can make.

Anemic: "It's about managing your time better."
Stronger: "You'll be out of the office an hour earlier every day!"

2. Grab attention instantly.  Create a teaser, headline or subject line that's dramatic, provocative, surprising, exciting, unique. Avoid cliché, ho-hum, heard-it-before copy.

Yawner head: "Speak Spanish Like a Native."
Million-dollar head: "Speak Spanish Like a Diplomat." 

Lame: "Get Rich Fast."
Ingenious: "Get Rich Slowly."

3. Bolster every generality with a specific.  It's fine to make promises and claims, but they should always be backed up by specifics. Facts and figures make copy more credible and effective. Always ask yourself the magic words: "For example?" Quantify and concretize each assertion with real-life names, numbers, dates, case studies, illustrations, etc.

For example: See my use of specific examples in the preceding two paragraphs!

~ ~ ~

Great advice, Don.  Every copywriter, marketer, entrepreneur and sales pro should print this post out and pin it up on the wall!

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter