Category: Copywriting

By Posted on Posted in Copywriting, Other, Shel's Personal Life

Blog: Absurdist Packaging
I’m writing this aboard a Delta Airlines flight from Atlanta to L.A. Literally moments before beginning boarding, they announced that the supposedly included meal wasn’t free in the coach section. Hmmm–why didn’t they tell me this three days ago when I requested a vegetarian meal? Or even when I’d arrived at the gate with plenty of time to go find a restaurant.

I’m generally not a lover of airplane food, and I certainly wouldn’t pay for it. So I rushed out to the concourse and grabbed a bag of overpriced trail mix.

I’m one of those people who actually reads packaging. It’s an old habit; according to my mother, I taught myself to read before I turned four, using cereal boxes and mayonnaise jars. And since I’m a marketing copywriter, it’s actually a work-related distraction.

And I’ve long been amused by some of the idiocy that’s written on America’s packages. This little bag of trail mix is a prime example:
The second ingredient is peanuts and the fourth is cashews (or so they claim–I haven’t found a cashew yet. But just below the ingredients list are three absurd statements (capitalization and spelling are exact transcriptions of the original):

1. “This product ingredients are from: USA, India and/or Africia and/or Vietnam and China.” Why don’t they just come out and say “we don’t’ know where this stuff is from, and we don’t care.” And where the heck is a country called Africia? Well, at least they didn’t put an apostrophe where none belongs. Instead they simply left it out, along with the s that should follow at the end of “product.”
2. “ALLERGEN INFORMATION: It contains undeclared tree nut traces.” What on earth is an undeclared treenut? One you smuggle through customs? I mean, it says right on the label that there are cashews, even though none exist. Seems to be this is a case of declared untree nuts, or falsely declared tree nuts, or something like that.
3. “PRODUCT PRODUCED IN A FACILITY THAT PRODUCES PEANUT PRODUCTS. MAY CONTAIN PEANUTS AND NUTS.” Well, hello there. Peanuts are the second ingredient, remember? And I can see them through the window in the front of the bag. Tree nuts would be nice. I love cashews. I don’t much like *raw* peanuts, however, which is what’s mostly in the bag. Oh well, at least they did roast the soybeans, thank goodness. Soy, however, is not mentioned in the allergen section.

Am I snarkier than usual today? Airplanes will do that to me. Especially when this whole situation came about because they lied when they told me I got a meal.

(Postscript: my little bag of trail mix was so unsatisfying that I ended up breaking down and buying an airline meal. My choice was a hummous platter with decent hoummous, pita brushed with balsamic vinegar, and a whole bunch of raw veggies, most of them of reasonable quality. So I have to eat a least some of my words about airline meals.)

(I wrote this a few days ago on my way to Los Angeles–and then forgot to post it. I’m still there.)

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By Posted on Posted in Copywriting, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

I recently purchased a copy of Paul Hancox’s ebook, “Secrets of a 10% Conversion Rate” from copywriting superstar Michel Fortin. You probably already know that most direct mail and PPC convert at somewhere between zero and five percent, so getting up to 10 is huge. I tell my clients they should be able to make a profit at half of one percent, even though we usually get much higher responses than that. But just in case…

Though it spends rather too much time at the beginning discussing things I already knew, this turned out to be a nice big juicy and informative product, and worth the $50.

There’s a big chapter on testing, covering A/B split and multivariate testing, as well as something new to me: “flow testing.” You send the reader through a series of short pages instead of one long one, and then track where clicks to the next page fall off dramatically. Fixing those holes plugs the leaks in your copy and ups your conversion rate.

Yes, extra clicks mean fall-off–so the challenge becomes making each unique page so compelling that most readers click to the next one, each time. And if one page loses half your visitors, that’s the one to fix.

My question: I wonder if Paul (or Michel) has tested putting not only a link to the next page, but also an order link. I wonder if people would abandon the letters in order to purchase, if they already feel convinced, rather than simply leave because the only option is to keep going all the way to the (unknown) end. It’s something I would certainly test in that situation.

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By Posted on Posted in Copywriting

Specifically, the emotion of empathy.

I’ve been urging my clients for years to do what they can to be seen as the caring humans they are, and not some faceless corporate monstrosity/bureaucracy.

Chris Haddad gives some very powerful examples, including the wonderful idea of the “maybe bullet”:

What’s a “maybe bullet?”

A “Maybe” bullet is a short statement that “paces” the feelings and emotions that your customer are going through and shows them that you UNDERSTAND them.

He also gives two specific examples of empathic copy. Go read it.

In my own copywriting, I often use “perhaps” rather than “maybe.” It does the same thing but sometimes seems more personal–and sometimes I alternate.

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By Posted on Posted in Copywriting, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

I won’t embarrass this company by naming it, but boy, they could use some marketing help. They really haven’t got a clue.

I found their quarter-page ad in the program guide of a play I attended.
here’s what it contained:

  • An attractive, professionally done logo with the firm name (but no clue either in the name or in the graphic representation about what this company actually does)
  • This very pleasant quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm” (Still don’t know what they do)
  • Street address, phone number and Web URL–which is such an abridgment of the firm name that it does nothing to reinforce brand identity

    • I am guessing I will be the only person to type in that URL on the basis of that ad–and only because I wanted to be able to write this blog post. Turns out it’s a financial services firm, ad even that wasn’t obvious at first glance. the home page is dominated by a picture of a park and skyline in a nearby city–but this company is actually located in a nearby suburb.

    And the copy–oy! It’s the perfect example of what I call “we, we, we all the way home.” See for yourself:

    We are a fully integrated financial services company. Our mission is to help our clients build, protect and preserve wealth to meet their long-term financial goals.

    (Firm name)’s centerpiece is our own unique Process approach, which allows us to offer comprehensive advice to our clients. We have an exceptional degree of expertise across four disciplines, including Wealth Transfer, Investment Management, Executive and Employee Benefits. Each discipline works together to meet our client’s goals.

    Let’s see…out of 74 words, eight are either “we”, “our”, or “us”. That works out to 10.8 percent.

    Now…how many times can you find a “you” or your”? I’ll give you a hint: a four-letter number that begins with z and ends with o. Yup–zero. They do say “clients” or “client’s” twice, d would have been easy to replace those with “you” and “your”, respectively.

    Okay, how about any testimonials? None on the home page. How about anything about what makes the “Process approach” (and whose idea was that bizarre capitalization scheme?) different from/superior to any other agency’s offering? Nope.

    I’m sure this is a well-meaning company and probably does right for their clients–but I think they could have more clients if they stopped patting themselves on the back, stopped assuming people know what they do by their firm name (two last names), and started positioning themselves as people who can help answer your investment questions.

    And yes, I know, the ad that caught my ire was a charity ad that they don’t really expect to bring them any business. But why exclude the possibility?

    It would have been just as easy to make the Emerson quote smaller (it fills fully half the ad) and then add a line like “For enthusiasm about growing your investments, please call or visit.”

    It would have cost nothing more to make the home page you-focused, and to make it obvious on first click what exactly their offering and what their specialization is. (A headline would help; there isn’t one).

    And then people say marketing doesn’t work. Of course it isn’t going to work if you can’t be bothered to even try!

    Unfortunately, this is all too typical.

    I’m sorely tempted to dig through the contact page and send a gratis copy of my book Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World–but I have a feeling it wouldn’t be appreciated.

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    By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Copywriting, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

    Yesterday, I was listening to an interview with a very smart-sounding marketing copywriter. It was all about trust, integrity–the stuff I talk about in this blog, in my award-winning book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, and in my ethics newsletter.

    Thinking that this was someone I needed to know, and thinking about all sorts of mutual-benefit ventures we could do, I went to the writer’s site.

    And boy, was I shocked!

    It was a hard-sell, blowhard, I-know-so-much-more-than-you snow job, and the only credibility builder was the very generous use of testimonials. Let’s just say I did NOT feel ready to trust him.

    Well, guess who I *won’t* be approaching with any partnership offers. We’ll never know what might have been, because he led me in expecting one sort of thing, and delivered something entirely different.

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    By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Copywriting, General Commentary, media-general

    As a copywriter, I love a good turn of phrase that makes you rethink your reality. It’s why I’m a fan of people like Sam Horn, author of books like ConZentrate, Tongue Fu!®, and Take the Bully by the Horns. It’s why I’ve written press releases with headlines like “It’s 10 O’Clock–Do You Know Where Your Credit History Is?” and “The One who Dies With the Most Toys–Is Just As Dead.”

    And it’s why I was utterly captivated to read this on Perry Marshall’s site:

    This whole “recession” thing everyone’s blathering about was merely fabricated by the media (you know, the people we trust to deliver the “news” to us) so they’ll have more to, uh, g-r-i-p-e about while they assault us with election propaganda.

    Did you know that ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN have predicted 40 out of the last 2 recessions?

    I love that: “predicted 40 out of the last 2 recessions.” It’s a completely fresh and interesting way to state that he thinks the media are lousy at economic predictions.

    Do I agree with him? Well…my own business is doing pretty well, but I choose to live in an abundant world, and the world tends to reaffirm that conviction. However, I definitely see some areas of concern about the economy–in housing, in job creation, and other factors, most of which I can easily blame on the Bush administration.

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    By Posted on Posted in Copywriting, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News

    On one of the many Internet marketing newsletters I read, I got this link, and this teaser:

    Over 82% of the people who have viewed this
    video have opted in for more information.

    Must be pretty powerful, eh? So I went to check it out.

    What I found was a short and extremely well-produced video from one of the masters of Internet marketing, someone who has been behind the launches of a dozen or so successful “continuity” programs–where you pay a fee each month until you tell the company you want out. Most of the continuity programs out there sell membership programs; this guy sells software tools, as well as a very popular seminar series.

    And he’s someone who very much understands the power of focusing on benefits, and of delivering value–and has parlayed that understanding into many millions of dollars.

    So it was a shock to watch this video. It’s an exercise in non-benefit-oriented brand-building, and the call to action at the end is extremely week in my opinion–what I call “empty calories marketing.” In other words, the sort of thing you’d expect from a large ad agency that wants to make its client feel good but doesn’t care about actually generating results, and not one of the most sophisticated direct marketers on the planet.

    Well, maybe he knows something I don’t. I wasn’t moved to leave my name of the squeeze page at the end, but if that copy in the e-mail blast is to believed, better than 4 out of 5 visitors do leave their names.

    I’ll be curious to learn what kind of results he gets from this. And also whether other marketers disagree with me and feel the ad is effective.

    Note: the link above is the affiliate link for the people who sent me the e-mail. I am not an affiliate of this program.

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    By Posted on Posted in Copywriting, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Web 2.0/Social Media

    Mark Joyner has deservedly enjoyed a reputation as one of the online world’s most creative and successful marketers, going back many years.

    He and I have become Internet friends after he bought a copy of Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First over my website and I responded with a personal note.

    Now Mark is trying another viral experiment with his new blogging course: giving it to anyone who posts the following text on his or her blog.

    I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

    It covers:

    • The best blogging techniques.
    • How to get traffic to your blog.
    • How to turn your blog into money.

    I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

    That’s Mark’s language. i don’t write like that. I’d just say that anything Mark is giving away is certainly worth exploring. I own three of his books (one of them, The Great Formula, even has half a chapter by me. I’m going to get my copy.

    But anything Mark does is also worth studying. As a marketer, this is what I see:

  • A clear attempt to go viral with the power of free
  • Canned text that will show up on hundreds or thousands of websites, and in most cases without any added commentary
  • My own need to add commentary, in part because I don’t like to pass off other people’s words as my own, and in part because I want to differentiate this page for the gazillion identical pages this will generate

    • If I were Mark, I’d have actually encouraged people to do their own text, and use his link. But that wasn’t my call to make.

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    By Posted on Posted in Copywriting, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies

    It’s not often that I see a salesletter that not only moves me to immediate action, but also makes me laugh out loud.

    Rob Toth’s letter at https://www.buynowwizard.com/report/index.php did just that.

    First of all, Rob got me to his page by having a brief tip in Doug Hudiberg’s Daily Marketing Ace. I was so intrigued by the title of the free report: “Buy Now! How To Get Customers Ordering So Fast Your Bank Account May End Up With a Speeding Ticket” that I had to click on over.

    Reaching the page I see the same headline and a cute cartoon that directly illustrates it.

    After the cartoon and a couple of brief lines, he jumps right in with the zany, humorous tone that pokes fun at the whole genre of sales letters while pulling me further into the content:

    Sorry if I seem a bit out of breath. I was just at the hospital and had to hurry back to be able to tell you about this. You definitely want to hear this.

    Why was I at the hospital? I went to see a friend of mine. (I feel so bad for this). He was rushed in for surgery hours ago. Doctors say he damaged his jaw’s bone structure when it dropped to the floor hard after having read a sneak-peek copy of my new report that I sent over to him.

    Like I said, I feel really bad about it. So let’s have a quick safety meeting you-and-I. Do me a favor and go grab a pillow (or one of those Costco sized bags of marshmallows should do the trick as well) … before you listen to anything more that I say (and definitely before you read my report), please place that pillow (or your baggy) under your jaw. This is for your own good.

    Of course, I read all the way down.

    And then he’s got a really short window to take action, with a visible, ticking clock counting the time–just a few minutes (warning, once you say yes, you have to get back to the confirmation email very quickly as well–something I think could easily backfire). Since it’s a free report and there’s nothing to lose, I took the bait. I haven’t read the report yet, but I signed up.

    I understand why the back button doesn’t work, because he quite correctly wants the time limit to be real. But one thing I’d do differently if I were Rob is make it easier to share the webpage. After I said yes, I wanted to share it, but it wasn’t easy’ the back button didn’t take me there. I finally had to dig through my email trash can and find the Daily Marketing Ace that had the link.

    I think this could go viral if it the you-signed-up, confirm-quickly page had some language like

    “Did you have fun here? If you want to share the page with your friends, here’s the link.”

    For more on great copywriting, BTW, my award-winning book Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World has a huge and informative section.

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