Copywriting Tricks

Trick #1- Buy this book.

The best copywriter in the business is Herschell Gordon Lewis. His book, “On the Art of Writing Copy” is the finest education your money can buy.

I consider myself the third best writer in the business and there are two rules that I follow when writing good advertising copy:

1. Know exactly what you want the reader to do or take away before you start writing.
2. Write like you talk.

Another trick that I use when a writer brings me their first draft to review is to cross out the first (and sometimes the second paragraph) before I even start reading. And the vast majority of the time, the second or third paragraph is the best lead. That’s because when most people write advertising copy, it takes one or two paragraphs before their brain hits its stride.

Cut and paste is your friend!
When you write copy, you usually try to put your thoughts in order before you write. The problem is that your brain doesn’t work that way. Your brain just shoots out a constant flow of unrelated material. If you try to put it in order before you begin to write, you end up sitting in front of your computer with nothing on the screen. Just write it down! Don’t try to arrange it, just let it spew out as it comes along. You can then arrange your random thoughts into --

A logical progression of thought that leads to a specific outcome.

Here’s the next trick. Go back to the previous paragraph you just read, the one that starts with, “Cut and paste is your friend”.
Count how many “you” and “yours” are in that paragraph. Thirteen, there are thirteen freaking you and yours in one paragraph. And that’s great! Because to the reader,

“It’s all about me”

Your reader is not interested in you, your product or your company. They are interested in themselves and what your product and your company can do for them. Everything you write should relate to your reader. Go back through your copy and wherever possible change every I, me, we and our to you and yours.

If you run into a situation where you can’t seem to come up with the right words to use, try this trick. Pretend that you’re sitting in front of your prospect or customer and you are talking to them. What you say is what you should write.

When I’m reviewing copy, I will often write notes on the side, sometimes they’re nice, sometimes not so nice (it often depends on my mood at the moment). I have grown more diplomatic as the years have passed.

On one occasion, I was reviewing a long and poorly written B2B sell letter and after I realized that editing the letter would take too long, I took my red pen and wrote down the side;

“The ranting of someone who desperately wants to write the great American novel and has failed miserably at it”.

Later that afternoon the manuscript reappeared on my desk with the note, “F@*k you”, written under my comment. What was I to do? How was I to teach a promising young writer with a lot of spunk that he should never mess with the Creative Director?
The solution was simple. I mailed the copy, comments and all to his Mom with a note attached that said, “Look at how your son talks to his boss.”
His Mom was waiting for him at the door when he got home.

That young man, I’m very pleased to say, is today an Executive VP Creative for a leading agency and a brilliant writer. I take some credit for his Mom giving him a good whooping and setting him on the right path.

Jon

Share the Vision

If you can see it, they will buy it.

This is the third installment about RPV Sessions, (Reputation, Promise, and Vision) that we have at our agency. (see the February 14 and March 7 posts) These sessions, when done correctly, help us gain clarity on what the brand and it’s position is. We end up with a list of “power words” tailored to the brand. These power words become the base for concept and copy development that leads to big, ideas that bring tears of happiness to a client’s eyes.

Vision is the third part of the Reputation, Promise, Vision (RPV). For a quick review--
Reputation is what prospects and customers are saying about your brand.
Promise is the tangible attributes your brand gives the customer.

Vision is what people will be or become through interaction with your brand.

Here are some examples of visionary words:
Happier, healthier, prettier, safe, confidant, relaxed, stronger, popular, respected.

When you are considering the purchase of a piece of exercise equipment, how do you envision yourself?
A - All buff and toned up, with members of the opposite sex (maybe even your spouse) throwing themselves at you?
B – All sweat-stained and gasping for air as you crawl off the machine after a 30 minute workout?
If you’re looking to get laid, it’s the first vision that will get you to buy. If you’re looking for a good workout, it’s more likely that the second vision will trigger your purchase.

The right vision will get you to buy the product. And as my example above demonstrates, there can be more than one vision, depending on who you are targeting your message to.
You must be very careful to deliver on one focused vision in a marketing communication. If you try to communicate multiple visions by putting something in for everybody, you will water down your message and response will suffer for it.

Get out a Sharpie and write this on your cube wall:
We communicate to our target audience, to the exclusions of all others.

Different customer groups have different visions. If you try to be all things to all people you will fail.
Today’s technology allows us to target our prospects and customers like never before. You can write one advertisement that delivers on the vision of a specific customer group and write another ad that communicates a different vision to another group. You end up with two ads that generate a better return on your investment.

People’s visions are positive things. I’m always amazed when I see advertising that communicates negative visions in words and/or photos.
Negative ads reflect back on your brand.

Think about it. What makes you feel better?
A little baby seal with its brains bashed out?
A little baby seal playing with its little baby seal buddies?
Showing the positive results of the brand vision will always generate a better response.

If you have been following along, you now have a list of “Power Words” for your brands Reputation, Promise and Vision. Your mind is focused on your brand.

You are closing in on a big hairy, honkin’ idea!

Jon

New Trainee

Starting a new trainee today

He’s your basic, overachiever type that we recruit out of school. 3.8 GPA in Marketing and Digital Art, worked every summer, socially involved. Right now he’s in culture shock. All his life he’s been one of, if not the smartest kid in his class, now he’s surrounded by people as smart as or smarter than him…a lot smarter.

First thing I did was hand him a spiral notebook.
“Jim, write your name and today’s date on the cover, when the notebook is full, write the end date on the cover and start a new spiral notebook. This way, if the beer truck runs you over, your replacement will be able to pick right up where you left off.”

The main reason I do this is to constantly drill into a trainee the importance of taking notes, it’s one of the keys to becoming a good account executive. When a trainee is caught without their notebook, they face a barrage of verbal and physical abuse while they run back to their desk to grab the notebook.

Good notes lead to good client contact reports. Good contact reports mean that the agency team knows what’s going on and can react quickly to the clients needs.

One trainee went home over the weekend to visit her parents. Her Mom called her into the kitchen to tell her something and the trainee showed up with a notebook and pen and started taking notes while her Mother was talking. “Wow,” her Mom said, “that new job is really making a difference!”

Jon

Catalogs

We’re working on a catalog.

It’s targeted to an older audience (65+) so there is a demand for a printed catalog. That’s because this generation has been using catalogs the longest. They were in their 50’s when eCommerce took off.
Once this generation passes on, the printed catalog, as we know it, will pass on with them, going the way of the typewriter and the newspaper.
I’ll say “goodbye” to catalogs with a “thank you” for the money I’ve made on catalog marketing over the years and a “Good riddance” for the insane amount of printed catalogs I get at home that I have absolutely no interest in getting.

Even our older population is moving to the web.
Research tells me that 50% of 65 year olds use the WWW on a consistent basis and that figure is growing by 20% a year. In addition, research tells us that a lot of this generation are sending emails to their family and seeking information on their health and retirement.

One of the problems I run into when we are working on a catalog or website that will have a lot of older people reading it is the type size. There’s usually a 24 year old digital artist with 20/20 eyesight designing the work and I can see that the type is too small.

“Jimmy, I think that type face is a little too small,” I say.
“No it’s not,” he says.
“Older people will have a problem reading it,” I say.
“I can read it,” he says.
“You’re 24,” I say.
“Can you read it?” he asks.
“Not very easily,” I respond.
“I guess that makes you one of those older people,” he says with a sad look.
“Just make the type bigger!” I holler as I walk away.

When our client was considering giving us the creative on their new catalog, they asked me if I had any catalog experience. “Yes,” I said, “I’ve done around a million different catalogs over the years.” Maybe a slight exaggeration, but close enough.

It brought back memories of my first catalog assignment.
When I started out, I had a little art studio. A printing company I did some work with had a catalog they were in a rush to get out. I got a phone call from the owner of the printing company who said, “Jon, if you can turn the copy and art around in three days, I’ll give you the job.” I needed the work more than I needed the sleep, so I took the job.
There were three of us in the studio and we worked for 24 hours non-stop before we realized that there was no way we were going to have that job done in two more days. And by two more days I mean 48 hours, no sleep.
So I called my friend, the nurse. “Hey Peggy, how’s it going? Do you have any more of those little white pills that kept us all awake at your party last month? You do! Great!”

48 hours later three strung-out artists had the catalog done and delivered.

There was an interesting thing about those little white pills; after the second 24 hours you started to hear a little beep inside your head every two or three minutes. It sounded just like your microwave after the timer goes off and you don’t open the door. Which in a way, is exactly what your brain is saying to you.
“Beep. Hello, your brain has been micro-waved and is now ready. Beep-beep”

Jon

Promises, Promises

Let’s talk about your brand’s promise.

Previously I wrote about the RPV Sessions, (Reputation, Promise, Vision) that we have at the agency. (see the February 14 post) These sessions, when done correctly, help us gain clarity on what our brand and it’s position is. We end up with a list of “power words” tailored to the brand and it usually generates some Big Honkin’ Ideas.

The first step was the brand reputation; the next step is the brand promise.
The promise refers to the tangible attributes of the brands product or service. It lets you see exactly what you are selling, what it is and what it does. It lets you understand what you have that the competition doesn’t, and what the competition has that you don’t.

It’s a car, or a vacuum cleaner, a sandwich or a tax service, landscaping or designer jeans.
In addition the product or service has features:
- 26 flavors
- Money back guarantee
- A 10 horsepower electric motor
- Once a day dosing

It’s the brand’s promise to the buyer that clearly defines what they are going to get when they purchase your product or service.

This is where you take a hard look at what you are promising and be very sure that you are paying the promise off. Promise is a very strong word, that’s why I use it.
If your brand breaks its promise, your brand is a liar.
Reputation, Promise and Vision are closely linked together and if you break a promise, it will affect your brands reputation and vision.

Here’s a great saying:
“Nothing kills a bad product faster than good advertising”

The reason customers don’t come back is because a brand failed to deliver on its promise. Great brands always deliver, always. That’s how they became great brands. When I open a bottle of Coke, I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt what that Coke is going to taste like and that it’s going to be refreshing. When I get into a Volvo, I know that I’m safe. When I stay at the Four Seasons, I know that I’m going to get great service.

Now you have a column of your brand’s reputation words and a column of the brand’s promises. The reputation words helped you set a look or tone for the brand. The promise words help you understand exactly what you are selling. Next I’ll write about the Vision and how it brings it all together.

Jon

Everything Is Changing - Part Two

The Philadelphia Inquirer declared bankruptcy.

Ten years ago, our agency was hired to launch what was to be America’s first National African-American weekly newspaper. It was called “Our World News”. A brilliant idea, conceived by a great newspaper man by the name of Don Miller.
When we launched the paper, subscriptions were good, not great, but good. We also created a website called “OurWorldNews.com”. And a strange thing started to happen.
Slowly, over the next year the website traffic climbed while the subscriptions slowed down.

When I went to Mr. Miller and pointed out that there was something happening with the newspaper’s website that we might want to take advantage of, he told me to focus on marketing the printed newspaper. That was understandable, since Mr. Miller was a solid newspaper man. Sadly, Our World News ran out of funding and had to close its doors. I often think about what might have happened if we had focused on the Internet. Our World News might have become the premier on-line news source for African-Americans.
That was ten years ago, when no one could imagine that the internet would bring on the collapse of America’s newspapers over the next decade.

That’s why I was very surprised when I heard that Brian Tierney was putting together a group of investors to purchase the Philadelphia Inquirer. “Why would anybody want to buy a newspaper,” I wondered. “Mr. Tierney is a smart cookie. He must have the big idea,” I told my friends.
Wrong.
He tried to make the Philadelphia Inquirer better and probably did in an incremental sort of way. Big deal. Trying to improve a printed newspaper is like trying to improve a steamboat.

It’s all about the business model.

What if Mr. Tierney and his team moved the Philadelphia Inquirer to the Web? 100% lock, stock and barrel. Just imagine what a team of top interactive developers, designers and writers can do with a national flagship brand like the Philadelphia Inquirer. Instead of chasing a declining local revenue base, they could become a leader in the reengineering of the American newspaper and reap the rewards of a growing national revenue base.

It’s all about the business model.

Jon

It's a Test

Back to training.

Last year I got a call from a client who invited us to pitch for a new product. I sent an email out to our agency team that would fly there for the presentation and copied my new trainee.

In the email I told everyone about the opportunity and ordered my new assistant to make bologna and cheese sandwiches for the team to take with them on their trip.

About a week later, I walked into the agency and there was my assistant, wrapping up individual bags of bologna and cheese sandwiches for the team. “What are you doing”, I asked? “I’m making the sandwiches for the team to take on their pitch”. There must have been twenty bologna and cheese sandwiches on the table. “I was kidding,” I said.
She looked me in the eye and said, “Everything is a test”.

She’s right. She passed that test. The way a person goes about their job, says a lot about what that person is like. If they complain about making a bologna sandwich, someday they will be complaining about writing a marketing plan.
I once told a trainee to go make a pot of coffee and got the, “I’m not here to make pots of coffee,” look.
I replied with one of my “I’m smarter than you”, looks and said, “If you’re not capable of making a pot of coffee, you’re certainly not capable of managing a client’s advertising.”

When I hire a trainee, they get a textbook on direct marketing. Inside the flap I write a message.

Welcome to Roska Direct. Read one chapter a week and be prepared to discuss intelligently. Everything is a test. Knowledge equals confidence.

The focus of training during the first three months is not on advertising or marketing, it’s on self-management, communication and leadership skills. They are the key to a successful career and need to be taught. Things like:
-How to communicate clearly
-How to prioritize and delegate
-Managing pressure
-Speaking up in meetings
-Anticipatory management
(We’ll address all of the above points at another time)

Once the trainee has grasped these basics on how to work in an agency environment, you move to the next level:
You intentionally overload them with work to a point where they start to freak-out.
You then use the freak-out as an opportunity to review the skills they have been taught.
As they gain control over their work, they become more confident.

I tell every trainee, “When you wake from a sound sleep, sit up in your bed, your heart racing because you forgot to do something at work that day that had to be done.
That’s when you know you’ve arrived.”

And it has happened to every one of them.

Jon