Believe in your gift as a writer

Important message from Nick Usborne. Important for everyone. But especially for writers

Believe in your gift as a writer, and don’t let anyone take it away.

Long John Silver and my new Twitter profile photo

Shiver me timbers....

For those of you who made an association between copywriters and pirates, shame on you. There's a simple story how my new Twitter photo came about.

A few years ago, I was spending the Sukkos holiday with my daughter in Israel. My son-in-law was pet-sitting his friend's parrot.

The parrot needed to exercise once a day. So they had to let it out of the cage to fly around the apartment. The funny thing is that the bird took a liking to me... probably because I fed it and talked to it. So when it got out of the cage it went right for me and sat on my shoulder. The other day, I remembered the photo and thought it would be perfect for my Twitter profile.

The rest of the story: A few days later, I was on the phone with my lawyer in NY about some legal issue and I was getting upset. All of a sudden the parrot landed on my yarmulke and started pecking on my forehead. I was about to freak out altogether. Then, another part of my psyche kicked in. I started cracking up laughing.

"Mordechai...What's the matter?!" The lawyer was getting worried.


I told him, "A little bird told me not to take this so seriously!"

Why to hire a copywriter

When I wrote my post on Mel Martin's Fascinations, I included a link to an article on Mel Martin by Denny Hatch, copywriter, direct mail archivist, editor, and author.

In another article, Hatch takes out after marketers who should know better, but still skimp on professional copywriting. He writes:

I once had a client...who thought very little of copywriters. "Just create some verbiage," he used to say with a dismissive wave. I was reminded of an old story:

"What do you do?" a guy at a cocktail party was asked.

"I'm a brain surgeon," was the reply. "What do you do?"

"I'm a writer."

"Ah," said the brain surgeon. "I've often thought that when I retire I'd like to try some writing."

"And when I retire," said the writer, "I plan to try a little brain surgery."

Read the rest at "Professional copywriters are worth their weight in gold"

Interview With “Junk Mail Junkie” Morty Schiller

Ryan McGrath interviews me:

What I really like about Morty is he’s been in direct mail for 37 years and is still going strong. He’s not just a student of a particular medium – direct mail, Internet marketing, etc. – he’s a student of human nature.

In other words, Morty is a salesman first and foremost, whether with ink on paper, or words on screen.

Read the whole interview…

12 Top Direct Marketers You Might Not Know About, But Need to Study by Ryan McGrath

I just got a lovely note from Ryan McGrath alerting me to a post on his blog:

Just wanted to let you know I mentioned you in a recent blog post titled "12 Top Direct Marketers You Might Not Know About, But Need to Study"...

You can read it here --

http://theryanmcgrath.com/2010/09/12-top-direct-marketers-study/

Thank YOU for all you generously contributed online to the science and art of direct response!

Ryan McGrath

Thanks Ryan. I am honored to be on your list!

Bob Bly is giving it away

Bob Bly has been a friend and mentor of mine for over 20 years.

He's always been ready to help new and old writers and copywriters (and more "normal" people) succeed. For the past few years Bob has been focusing on Internet marketing of information products. Now he's putting his money where his mouse is with an open invitation to join his Internet Information Marketing Club for a FREE 10-day membership "test drive."

"Get Almost Everything I've Ever Written or Said About Making Money with Internet Marketing Absolutely FREE for The Next 10 Days"

Get it while it's hot.

Does SEO copywriting make for good copywriting?

The battle rages on at IAOCblog. SEO expert Dianna Huff throws down the gauntlet with Why Marketing Copywriters Make Great SEO Experts

Do you agree?

Kurt Vonnegut on how to write with style

Copywriters should also learn to beguile with style. Kurt Vonnegut gave some useful pointers:

Newspaper reporters and technical writers are trained to reveal almost nothing about themselves in their writings. This makes them freaks in the world of writers, since almost all of the other ink-stained wretches in that world reveal a lot about themselves to readers. We call these revelations, accidental and intentional, elements of style.

Read the rest of the article: How to write with style

Murder Your Darlings

Steve O'Keefe and I were preparing some handouts for our panel discussion on blog PR tomorrow at PMA University.

One of my blog posts got left out. One of my favorites. Then I thought about it and remembered the old advice to writers: "Murder your darlings."

Being a research junkie, I quickly turned up the source: Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch wrote it in 1916:

Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.

Do yourself a favor. Read the entire essay: On Style. Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur. 1916. On the Art of Writing

Great advice for copywriters, bloggers... or whoever wants their writing to be read.... and acted upon!

Do copywriters just write copy?

The Copywriter Underground offers An Underground Manifesto The Copywriter Underground: Copywriting Beyond the Words

Good reminder. But the copywriter has always worn many hats. Ever since John E. Kennedy told Albert Lasker: "Advertising is salesmanship in print," the copywriter's role has been to sell, market, promote... not just to "write."

As writers, we are always tempted to be "creative." But if you're spending your client's or employer's money you have an obligation to bring a return on that investment.... not to show your friends and colleagues how brilliant you are.

Still fell compelled to be a "writer"? Do what Richard Armstrong did: Write a novel... in your spare time.

Caught by a spam filter

I just wrote a comment to a post on Bob Bly's blog: What, Me Worry About Spam Filters?

Bob asked about what copywriters are doing to deal with spam filters. My answer is below. You won't see it on Bob's blog, though.... It got stopped as spam!

Bob--A few years ago, Chris Pirillo (Lockergnome) declared email dead. And it's partially true. But the solutions out there are part of the problem. They are set to kill anything that moves. My email program (Thunderbird) has flagged my own messages as "email scams." And I was only writing to a friend! Outlook Express routinely zaps email attachments (especially zip files--innocent or not). And some of my mail has gotten blocked because of my web host!
There are filters you can use to test your emails before sending. (Anyone know a good one?) But I think Diana Huff has the right approach. Carefully proofread your copy for likely trigger words and substitute more polite ones. Until those get flagged....
This problem has helped the growth of marketing through blogs and RSS. But the nasties have already muddied those waters with comment and trackback spam. Oh what a world!

Will copywriters be supplanted by perfumeries?

If you think junk mail and spam stink, just wait until junk scents take over the atmosphere. In a summary of new advertising inroads--from college textbooks to supermarket conveyor belts, Chief Marketer reports:

"Play-Doh and Crayola Crayons were hardly aware of the power their aromas represented," Martin Lindstrom, the author of "Brand Sense," told Brandchannel. But because scents are more likely to evoke emotions than are images, companies such as Starwood Hotels are now working on "olfactory branding." (And in fact, you can buy a limited-edition Eau de Play-Doh from Hasbro and Demeter Fragrance Library.)

Coming soon: blogscents?

The "Experience" Myth

How many times have you heard it?... "Well, yes, I can see you do excellent work... but you have no experience writing white papers (or blogs, or selling clothing racks... or smoked fish... or jewelry.... or whatever category you haven't written for yet).

Back in the early 80's I had a few interviews at one of the major direct marketing agencies. Finally they hired another writer who already had experience writing about gold coins. It seemed the criterion was not skill or marketing savvy... just experience writing about the same product.

At the last interview the agency VP shrugged his shoulders and said, "I'm sorry, but you know how it is in this business.... They once hired somebody to write cigarette commercials ... then they fired him when they found out he didn't have menthol experience!"

It was textbook case of CYA.... The first (and sometimes the last) commandment of corporate culture is: Don't get blamed! Better to make a safe decision than take a risk on a good decision.

The truth is, some of the best copywriters had NO experience! They are entrepreneurs who had no experience writing copy, but a wealth of life experience and understanding of their market. Mail order legend Joe Sugarman almost flunked high school English!... But he went on to change the landscape of copywriting and of direct marketing.

You don't need "experience" to write great advertising. All you need is to do your homework to understand your market. A good place to start is a checklist of information to get from the client. . . everything from old ads and internal memos to websites and emails.

After that, crank up Google... or get out of your chair and take a walk to the library. Then do some good old-fashioned research. (Not the focus group kind. The thesis kind.) Read everything you can on the product and--more important--the market. You never know what idea or phrase may become the crux of your copy platform.

I know a man whose only expertise in medicine is that he's a hypochondriac. But, to promote his organization, he once delivered a lecture on oncology to a convention of doctors! All it took was homework.

I once wrote an ad for a diet camp for teenagers. The first draft was lousy. I simply didn't get the hang of writing to teenagers. So I went around the corner to Barnes & Noble and picked up copies of Seventeen magazine, and Dr. Lendon Smith's Diet Plan for Teenagers. Within a day I had an ad that kept pulling with every insertion.

Before working on designing a new catalog, my friends, Joe Goldbrenner and Gene Markowitz, of The Goldmark Group, often go down to the factory of a new client. They study the entire operation from manufacturing to order taking. This kind of homework pays off. I once worked on a catalog with them for a supplier of store displays. The new catalog increased sales by over 17%! The client told DM News: "you quickly got a good understanding of my products and the marketplace. And that shows in my sales."

It's all in the homework.

So next time they tell you "I'd love to work with you, but you don't know about my product."--Just tell the story of the guy at the doctor's office who said:
"Yes, I know you're a big specialist... but you don't know my cold!"

Copywriting course online

Australian copywriters Jesse Forrest and Andrew Cavanagh are offering this FREE audio Copywriting course online

I only got to listen to a bit of it, but I liked what I heard. Let me know what you think.

Do You Make This Mistake in Copywriting?

I started to send an email to a friend the other week and saw it got flagged:

"Thunderbird thinks this message might be an email scam."

My own program thinks I'm a scam artist! How sharper than a serpent's tooth! Email has become a minefield for copywriters. Especially old mail order copywriters like me.

Seems I'm not the only one, though. Tonight I just got this follow-up email from Chris Marlow's Freelancer's Business Bulletin:

"Dear Subscriber,

A few days ago I sent you the email letter below, but what a mistake I made in the subject line!

My subject line was 'A time sensitive message from Chris' and many of my subscribers' ISPs rejected the email as spam!

My newsletter email blasts have a very low 'spam rating' but not with this one...even my OWN ISP didn't let my email through. (I was wondering how I dropped off my own database :)

So if you DID receive my announcement of Clayton Makepeace's and Bob Bly's upcoming teleseminar, I apologize for sending this email message again...

But at least you learned, as I did, to never put the words 'time sensitive' in a subject line!"

MarketingSherpa report from the front

Thanks to Debbie Weil for pointing me to MarketingSherpa's 2006 Marketing Wisdom report-- stories from the front and lessons learned from real life test campaigns. (On the same page, you can also download "ancient" wisdom... from 2005, 2004 and 2003.)

On page 1, the publishers ask not to edit or cut pieces to pass along. So I'll just tell you not to skip the introductory letter from Anne Holland, president of MarketingSherpa. She points out three important trends in 2005.

Trend #1 is a reminder (and wake-up call) for all copywriters and the people who hire them.

But honestly, folks...

I've written several times about my own Sturm und Drang over ethics and marketing.

Digression: I'm supposed to be an advocate of simplicity in writing. So why didn't I just say "conflict" instead of "Sturm und Drang?" Frankly, Sturm und Drang was the first expression that came to mind. I speak "Simple" as a second language. For copywriters, plain talk is a must. "If you confuse 'em you lose 'em." Unlike copywriting, though, here I wanted to emphasize and stress the turmoil. (Thank you, Ben Yagoda, for reminding me that the Tablets Moses brought down from Sinai were not inscribed "Strunk & White"!) Now, back to our show....

While I'm still grappling with integrating marketing and principles, Shel Horowitz has made a career of balancing the two. (See Shel's blog: Principled Profit: The Good Business Blog.)

P.S., I Love You

I sent an email to Steve O'Keefe and, out of direct mail copywriter habit, I saved a main point for the closing "P.S."

Then I added (in a P.P.S.!) that to DM copywriters, the P.S. is the second most important part of a letter. (I even added a P.P.P.S.! But my spell checker balked at that one.)

Steve wrote back, raising an interesting question:

The problem with P.S.'s is that they don't work as well in email as they do in snail mail. Due to "quoting" and "signatures" most folks stop reading when they see the sig. A fascinating study would be into subject lines. Email, voicemail, newsreaders, blogs... the science of headlines has never been so important.

I started to look for an answer and went right to the books: The Online Copywriter's Handbook : Everything You Need to Know to Write Electronic Copy That Sells, by Bob Bly
and Net Words: Creating High-Impact Online Copy, by Nick Usborne

Bob Bly didn't seem to discuss the question, except to include "P.S." in a list of "mechanical techniques you can use to call attention to key words and phrases online." Nick Usborne mentioned the technique in connection with that trusty old tool, the "Johnson Box," adding that its inventor--copywriting pioneer Frank Johnson--"was also the first person to take the P.S. on a direct-mail letter seriously" because readers often read the P.S. first. "So he started writing the P.S. as if it were a headline. And so has everyone else ever since."

Ivan Levinson writes gives tips on using a Johnson Box in emails including a suggestion to:

Use a box at the top of a seminar or Webinar invitation. The top of the letter or e-mail is the perfect place for a box that tells the reader What/When/Where/Why they should attend.

The only reported test results I found came from online strategist Larry Chase who says,

Use a P.S.: After the salutation, the P.S. is typically the most read element of a sales letter. I notice the most amount of clicks from the Johnson box at the top of the sales letter, and the line in the P.S. at the bottom. The P.S. usually restates the entire offer and maybe throws in some added incentive to take action now.

Have you used a P.S. or Johnson Box in your email marketing? Would you like to share your results?

Thanks!
Morty

P.S.: You can email me or comment below.
P.P.S. Thanks to Lee Marc Stein for the title.

Commandments for Copywriters and Clients

Here's wishing you a year of peace, health, prosperity and joy!

In this time of introspection and (hopefully) self-improvement. We’ve all got our lists of things we have to work on. I put together this list of my own after I heard an agency head say, "Sometimes the client is right!" You might say it was a revelation....

Commandments for Copywriters:

1. CARE ABOUT YOUR CLIENT. You have to want the client to succeed...not just your own work.
2. DO YOUR HOMEWORK. Become an expert on your client’s business. Understand why people buy, or don’t buy, the product.
3. KEEP AN OPEN MIND (OR A CLOSED MOUTH). Listen, really listen, to everything the client tells you. If you’re too busy thinking of what to say next, you may miss a key phrase or central strategy statement. Plus, you’ll argue less.
4. ASK QUESTIONS. Don’t be too proud or embarrassed to say you don’t know or don’t understand something. Bashful people don’t learn.
5. GIVE IT YOUR BEST. Tom Collins said, “Advertising is hard!” Work at it. You’ll feel better. Besides, this is direct marketing. We live by repeat business. That means repeat business from clients too. Plus, you’ll sleep better.

Commandments for Clients:

1. FOLLOW THE GOLDEN RULE: Remember that one? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Treat your copywriters with respect. You just might get some in return.
2. SUGGEST, DON’T SLAUGHTER. Sometimes you will not like something. Make sure it’s not just whining. Be specific. It’s not enough to say, “I don’t like it.”
3. TRY TO BE RIGHT, NOT PRESIDENT. President Ronald Reagan had a sign on his desk that said “IT CAN BE DONE!” But he was mistaken. Not everything can be done. Certainly not exactly when you want it. Be realistic, if not reasonable. Don’t ask for your job “yesterday.” And don’t demoralize people with “Hurry up and wait!” When a job is submitted for approval, don’t sit on it. If you don’t treat it as a rush job, nobody else will.
4. WE’RE ALL IN IT FOR THE MONEY. Copywriters’ time is their money. Don’t waste it with unnecessary, rambling meetings. Most important, pay your people. Fairly. On time. They work hard and fast to make you money. Return the favor.
5. THOSE MAGIC WORDS STILL WORK. When’s the last time you said “Thank you!” for a job well done? A warm, sincere thank-you letter (with prompt payment) is the surest ticket to VIP treatment

Cutting Edge Marketer

It's not nice to brag.

Self-promotion doesn't come naturally to those of us who listened to their mothers.

Writers and musicians shy away from marketing themselves. And I think a lot of people look at self-promotion as somehow too crass for professionals. Today it's hard to believe, but until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1977 (Bates v. State Bar of Arizona) to remove the ban, lawyers were not allowed to advertise because

"Once the client perceives that the lawyer is motivated by profit, his confidence that the attorney is acting out of a commitment to the client's welfare is jeopardized. And advertising is said to tarnish the dignified public image of the profession."

So what does that say about copywriters?!

In that kind of atmosphere, you wouldn't expect a religious figure--a respected rabbi and mohel (ritual circumcisor)--to be a sharp self-promoter. Somehow, a "marketing mohel" sounds like a premise for a bad joke.

Enter Rabbi Paysach Krohn.

I had the pleasure of meeting him at a bris (circumcision) recently. The family wasn't religious and they asked my wife to find a mohel for them. A friend recommended Rabbi Krohn. And he was the perfect man for the job. Not only is he highly professional, but he is a master communicator. Guiding the family through the process, he combined instruction, explanation and stories... all with a running patter of jokes!

And that's not all. Rabbi Krohn gives every family a free copy of his book Bris Milah: Circumcision which outlines the whole ceremony. But the marketing mohel doesn't stop there! He just launched a new website dedicated to explaining and promoting traditional circumcision. So what's so cutting edge about that?

He called the website BrisQuest.com!

A few books worth checking out:
Bris Milah: Circumcision (Artscroll Mesorah Series) by Rabbi Paysach Krohn
Become A Recognized Authority In Your Field - In 60 Days Or Less by Bob Bly
Self Promotion Online: Marketing Your Creative Services Using Web Sites, E-Mail and Digital Portfolios by Ilise Benun