If they can't read it, they won't buy

Pardon me while I rant. One of my pet peeves is Un-Readability. (What do you feed a pet peeve?)

I have already written about the need to write readable, simple copy. (See "No Nonsense Copywriting." Also read copywriter Ryan McGrath's interview with me. For geeky information on analyzing text readability, see Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Formula.)

But even if you write compelling copy, misguided design can make it impossible to read. And if they can't read it, they can't respond.

I've had pitched battles with brilliant graphic artists over layout and typography. I am not being sarcastic. In fact, the more brilliant and creative the designer, the more likely I am to have an issue. They tend to see words as design elements—rather than their design supporting the meaning of the words. 

I come from a tradition based on the word, not on images.

I have nothing against pretty. But as direct marketing consultant Paul Goldberg used to say about beautiful ads, "Pretty is as pretty does."

What really rankles me is when some graphic genius takes my carefully crafted copy, words I sweated over a hot keyboard for—to entice and influence—and makes them unreadable by using reverse type, or all caps, or some exquisite typeface that is lovely to look at, but impossible to decipher. (Remember the 1960's undulating psychedelic posters of Wes Wilson? Just reading them was a trip!)

Seeing my copy trapped in illegible type, I'd rant and fume, waving a copy of David Ogilvy's rules of typography. Sometimes I'd win. The problem was that Ogilvy's rules were based on ad results, not Art awards. We live in a world where Pepsi Cola spent over $1,000,000.00 for a logo redesign that looks barely different from their old one. Pepsi  declared the new logo "breathtaking" (I guess they were talking about the million dollars). In this atmosphere, any talk of ROI reeks of crass materialism. (I don't know anything about art. But I know what sells!)

Enter designer/typographer and journalist Colin Wheildon. In 1995, Wheildon published a study: Type & Layout: How Typography and Design Can Get Your Message Across—Or Get in the Way. Ogilvy was so impressed with the hard-nosed statistics backing his biases, that he wrote a foreword to the book:

If you write advertisements for a living, as I do, it is a matter of life and death that what you write should be read by potential customers. It’s the headline and copy that do the selling....The tragedy is that the average advertisement is read by only four per cent of people on their way through the publication it appears in. Most of the time, this is the fault of the so-called "art director" who designs advertisements. If he is an aesthete at heart—and most of them are—he doesn't care a damn whether anybody reads the words. He regards them as mere elements in his pretty design. In many cases he blows away half the readers by choosing the wrong type.

 In 2005, Wheildon published a new edition, with practical advice. Type & Layout: are you communicating of just making pretty shapes?

Get smart. Read the book. Look good. But sell.

Drayton Bird Copywriting Seminar

Drayton Bird is one of the pioneers of Direct Marketing--or as his partner David Ogilvy referred to it, "My secret weapon: Direct Response Advertising."

Ogilvy said Drayton Bird "knows more about direct marketing than anyone in the world. His book about it is pure gold. His speeches are not only informative, but hilariously funny."

Now Bird is making an irresistible offer on his three-hour seminar on copywriting on DVD. (Disclosure: I am not an affiliate and get no commission from this. I'm just a fan.)

So get this while the getting is good:Drayton's Copywriting Seminar DVD

David Ogilvy on Direct Response Marketing

In 1974 I bought a copy of David Ogilvy's Confessions of an Advertising Man in a used paperback shop in Jerusalem. I haven't been the same ever since.

Ogivly still has a lot to teach us. And, like Gandalf the White, the old Wizard of Direct Response Advertising returns--on YouTube--with plenty of magic to offer.

Thanks to Joe Polish for pointing me to this gem.

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!

Free Pollard Now

Disclaimer: This is not a political or "religious" blog. But even a direct marketing copywriter can have a heart and soul.

Whether Jonathan Pollard was guilty or not is no longer relevant. His continued imprisonment for over 23 years--totally out of proportion to those convicted of similar crimes--has turned into cruel and unusual punishment.

Please help. Write to President Bush to Free Pollard Now

Strategies to Increase Sales Now — Free Ebook

Postscript to my last post on how to get more traffic to your website -- Download this free ebook from Dianna Huff (no registration required). It's a marketer's field guide to the unnatural wildlife of YouTube. Twitter. Blogs. Podcasts. White Papers. Search. Direct Mail. Trade shows. Webinars. Networking. TV commercials. Prints ads. LinkedIn. Facebook and Digg.

So download this ebook and get out there.

Five B2B MarCom Strategies to Increase Sales Now

How to Win Customers and Influence People

It's back: the How to Win Customers and Influence People Newsletter.

Subscribe now to get yourself a free Copywriting Checklist before your next copywriting assignment. Read it and prosper! Subscribe at right below (under the "ShareThis" link). Or go to the Newsletter Archive

Book Review: Marketing Maven Magnanimously Mixes Morals and Money

I first discovered Shel Horowitz with his classic Marketing Without Megabucks: How to Sell Anything on a Shoestring.

That book is no longer in print. But not to worry. He completely updated and expanded it into his newer book: Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World. It is a comprehensive from-the-trenches field manual on marketing. If you sell anything you should get this book.

Shel understands marketing and he understands writing. So it should be no surprise that he has also produced a manual for every writer who kvetches "You mean I have to market the book too, not just write it?!" For those of us blessed (or cursed) with the need to put words on paper Shel has now published a guide specifically for writers: Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers. It covers basic marketing truths and new innovations for those who understand (or need to understand) the reality that printed books don't sell themselves.

I good-naturedly sparred with Shel on IAOCblog about blogging ethics. And if there is anything that characterizes his work--in books and for clients--it is a dedicated commitment to ethics. Not all of us are blessed with this commitment. And even many of us who are could benefit from a reminder. Shel provided a gentle reminder in what he seems to consider his magnum opus. Not in size, but in significance. In Principled Profit: Marketing that Puts People First Shel forcefully and convincingly makes the point that you don't have to be a hustler to be a successful marketer. And he backs up his message with a guide to moral marketing.

You don't have to be religious to love Principled Profit. Give it a try. You may never go back to three-card Monte.

Direct to Consumer aka Social Media Releases. They work!

One of the methods I have found most effective lately is what David Meerman Scott calls "Direct to Consumer News Releases." It relates to the core message of David's "New Rules of Marketing and PR." Check out the book and the free ebook.

The idea is simple enough. Today people are just as likely to google for information as pick up a newspaper or magazine. With increasing sophistication of search tools, it has become possible for everyone with something to sell or something to say to become a publisher. It's the pamphleteer's dream come true!

With services like PR Web and Business Wire, you can optimize a news release for specific keywords related to your product (or service or idea). Then you can post it to where it can turn up in a search on Google--side by side with mainstream media articles on the subject.

People reading your release care about the content. Not what publication it appeared in. As David says, "On the Internet, you are what you publish." See David's earlier discussion about the concept of D2C releases at IAOCblog (which I was hosting at the time).

On a similar note, some call Direct to Consumer releases "Social Media Releases." Same idea, similar technique. See this article from MarketingSherpa: How to Create and Distribute a Social Media Release

How to deal with clients to don't pay

Peter Bowerman gives some advice in his WELL-FED E-PUB newsletter on dealing with deadbeat clients.

He quotes me, with an offbeat suggestion. Bowerman refers to it as "levity." I guess is is funny, in a way. But it just might do the trick. At the time, I couldn't say for sure where I read or heard it. Later it came to me that the advice was from none other than Milt Pierce, everybody's favorite copywriting and direct marketing mentor. One more thing to thank "Uncle" Milt for!

Direct Marketing crash course

Seth Godin offers sage advice on when (and when not) to use Letters, brochures and email

Pin this one over your desk!

OK Morty, so who wrote it already?!

Ladies and gentlemen, here's the moment you've been waiting for....

Yesterday, I quoted a futuristic vision of interactive, consumer-based marketing. And I challenged readers to guess the writer. I expected people to guess Seth Godin or Doc Searls. The actual guesses ran from Al Ries, to David Ogilvy to "...it certainly wasn't Lasker or Hopkins."

Ladies and gentlemen, the writer of those words first learned about marketing delivering chickens for Izzy's kosher butcher shop in the Bronx.

He invented bound-in subscription cards in magazines. He changed marketing history by putting a little gold box in record club ads and getting people to hunt for the "buried treasure." (Did I hear somebody say "Interactive"?!)

Those words were written in 1996 by the "Father of Direct Marketing": Lester Wunderman!

What is Mr. Wunderman doing these days? Don't look for him in a shuffleboard game! Retirement isn't his style The king of mail order is still guiding the Wunderman agency. He also started blogging! And in his very first blog post, he said

The Industrial Revolution is behind us, and The Information Age has matured. Many of the old mass media are losing ground as we begin to provide information to smaller groups and even single consumers. The Internet has brought to the forefront the idea of interactive marketing. Millions of sellers and buyers are now involved in an increasingly personal dialogue. Marketing objectives are achieved not only by what we know but more importantly the increasing number of ways that we can use that knowledge.

Keep an eye on this guy. He's going places!

The New Rules of Marketing & PR

David Meerman Scott has a new book out: The New Rules of Marketing and PR and lo and behold I discover on his blog that I am in it.

Actually, he's got a whole list of bloggers he thanks for "helping write the book." My own small role goes back to a "conversation" on IAOCblog.com where David was discussing bringing PR direct to the consumer (the readers), rather than just throwing your stories on the mercy of the media court.

Checklists

Most of the work of writing is in the rewriting. But most of the work of copywriting is done before the pencil hits the paper.

See direct marketing maven Denny Hatch's Method Marketer's 20-point Checklist and Ultimate Direct Mail Checklist, before you even start writing copy.

Also see my Copywriting Checklist.

Aristotle on Marketing

Copyblogger has a nice take on Why Plato Would Have Blown it as a Blogger. And an earlier post on Aristotle.

If I may quote myself, I once wrote a related piece in my newsletter:

ARISTOTLE ON DIRECT MARKETING

Aristotle was one of the great minds of all time. He is best known for his works on philosophy and science. But he also wrote a small book--the Poetics--that is still the prime manual on story writing. In it, he outlines the six elements of drama: spectacle, song, diction, thought, character and plot.

The most important element, Aristotle says, is plot. This is true of a play, a novel... and a direct mail letter. What does "plot" have to do with a letter? I'm glad you asked that question.

Simply put, plot is the pattern or structure of the story, without the trappings of style (song), design (spectacle), etc. And a plot has to build. Just a series of "this happened, then that happened..." isn't a plot. Each step of a plot must be "caused" by the step before it. And each step has to be more and more intense and exciting.

That's what keeps the reader involved... right up to the end.

Aristotle would tell you it's smart to make sure your next letter grabs the reader from the first sentence, then keeps on building... right to the order!

Corner Florist Goes Regional… With Ad Makeover

Samuel Laniado didn't know what a copywriter was. But he sure knows his flowers. He runs my corner flower shop and laughs every time when I say "Gracias!"

Samuel knew I had something to do with advertising. So while I was choosing some roses one Friday, he showed me an ad he was going to run in the community phone directory. (Click on the picture to see the original ad full size.)

My roses almost wilted. I've written before about one of my pet peeves:

How many "pennysavers" and community bulletins do you get? Ever read them? I don't just mean look for the coupons you want. I mean actually read the ads?

Know why you don't? Most of the ads don't offer you any benefit. So you're not motivated to read past the headline. In fact, too many of the ads I see don't even have a headline! Just the name of the store in big letters.

But the worst of it is

You know what's really sad? Most of the mom & pop shop owners who run those little ads are the very people who can least afford to throw out money on impotent advertising.

I took Samuel's ad and rewrote it. (Click on the second picture to read the difference.)

How did it do? Well, unfortunately, Samuel doesn't do database marketing. So he doesn't have precise numbers. But last week he told me that the ad made his holiday season! Since the new ad started running, he's been getting calls from towns outside the area… including upstate (where they publish a local phone directory, but with the same ads).

De nada, Samuel.

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!"

19 Things All Successful Direct Marketing Companies Know

Malcolm Gladwell wrote that the honor of being "the father of contemporary persuasion...belongs...to the wizard of direct marketing, Lester Wunderman."

Wunderman...established himself as the genius...of the small but significant details that turn a shopper into a buyer. He was the person who first put bound- in subscription cards in magazines, who sold magazines on late-night television with an 800 number, who invented the forerunner of the scratch-'n'-sniff ad, who revolutionized the mail-order business, and who, in a thousand other ways, perfected the fine detail of true salesmanship.

....All these strategies amount to a marketing system of extraordinary sensitivity....sophisticated ways of listening, of overcoming the problems of distance and distortion which so handicap other forms of persuasion.

Marketers don't want to spin us. They want to hold us perfectly still, so they can figure out who we are, what we want, and how to reach us.

Lester Wunderman distilled his decades of experience and vision into a manifesto: a list of "19 Things All Successful Direct Marketing Companies Know" (from Being Direct: Making Advertising Pay):

1. Direct Marketing Is a Strategy, Not a Tactic
2. The Consumer, Not the Product, Must Be the Hero
3. Communicate with Each Customer or Prospect as an Audience of One
4. Answer the Question, "Why Should I?"
5. Advertising Must Change Behavior, Not Just Attitudes
6. The Next Steps: Profitable Advertising
7. Build the "Brand Experience"
8. Create Relationships
9. Know and Invest in Each Customer's Lifetime Value
10. "Suspects" Are Not "Prospects"
11. Media Is a Contact Strategy
12. Be Accessible to Your Customers
13. Encourage Interactive Dialogues
14. Learn the Missing "When?"
15. Create an Advertising Curriculum that Teaches as It Sells
16. Acquire Customers with the Intention to Loyalize Them
17. Loyalty Is a Continuity Program
18. Your Share of Loyal Customers, Not Your Share of Market, Creates Profits
19. You Are What You Know

Download the list of 19 Things, print it out, and hang in on your wall.