Recommended Copywriting Books

Reader Carlos Cabezas emailed me this morning asking which direct response copywriting books I could recommend.

Rather than reply via email I decided to post a reply for all to see.

Most copywriters seem to be voracious readers with a large collection of reference books in addition to a “swipe file” of copy examples.

Although I don’t write much copy any more, here are some of my favourite reference books (in no particular order):

Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples

A magnificent “how-to” manual that explains the most important and timeless principles of copy that sells. If I could only read one book on DR copywriting, this would be it.

Scientific Advertising by Claude C. Hopkins

Timeless principles of successful advertising and marketing. Because this book is out of copyright and is freely available, I have seen a few people treat this book with less respect than it deserves, calling it “simplistic” and “outdated”. But the principles contained inside are timeless and just as effective as ever, when used judiciously.

Advertising Secrets of the Written Word by Joe Sugarman

This book is a pleasure to read. Sugarman’s prose is sheer elegance. The book also contains dozens of real direct response ads that were successful sales-magnets (plus a few approaches that flopped). Sugarman’s use of short, 1 to 3 word “grabber” headlines is also instructive, especially when working with print media.

Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout

Not so much a book on copywriting per se as a book on how to pitch your product or service offering to the market. Pure gold.

2,239 Tested Secrets for Direct Marketing Success ed. Hatch

As the title suggests, this book contains thousands of tips, takeaways and “rules of thumb” that can make your copy sell more.

The Copywriter’s Handbook by Bob Bly

Most of the tips on copywriting in this book are also in other books (after all, there are only so many timeless principles), but the section on how to get work as a copywriter is useful if you are thinking of copywriting as a profession.

Million Dollar Mailings by Denison Hatch

A veritable encyclopaedia of the most profitable and longest-running direct mail control pieces in history. Fascinating reading and very useful for constructing your own mailings.

Other Great Resources

For online copywriting, I’m a big fan of Michel Fortin’s stuff and I also subscribe to his membership site. And of course, for advice on melding sizzling copy with killer marketing strategy, you can’t go past Jay Abraham.

Do you have any copywriting or marketing books that MUST be included in a Best-Marketing-Books-Of-All-Time Hall Of Fame? If so, leave a comment!

Internal Tags: copywriting books, jay abraham, joe sugarman, john caples, michel fortin and recommended marketing books

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“Free Gift”, and other poor grammar that boosts your sales

Copywriter Bob Bly refers in this post to a debate he’s been having with one of his newsletter subscribers about the phrase “Free Gift”. Although a gift is necessarily free, many direct response ads and sales letters feature this phrase, along with many other instances of poor grammar, like:

• Excessive… use… of… elipsis and other punctuation marks
• “Use of quotation marks around headlines”
• Phrases like, “return the product for a prompt and courteous refund” - what exactly is a “courteous” refund?
• Lots Of Headlines Printed In Sentence Case
• Sentences that begin with “and”, “but” and “so”.

Mr Bly’s correspondent argues that “Free gift” is bad writing, whereas Mr Bly’s position is that you should do what works. Including “Free” has been proven to outsell the alternative - so why not use it?

I’ve conducted tests in the past that use “unconventional” English, and where these outperform the control, it’s not uncommon for a client to argue for staying with the less effective version that features “correct” grammar.

While typos and sloppy punctuation are unacceptable in marketing materials, isn’t this all about greater response for less marketing spend? Whadayareckon?

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15 Ways To Leverage an Article

Friend and client Mike Krsticevic from Advocate Mortgage Corporation recently sent me a mind map called “How to leverage an article found in a magazine that relates to your industy”.

It contains a number of great ideas so with Mike’s permission I’ve reprinted it below. Or if you prefer, here it is in PDF version.

How To Leverage an Article Found In A Magazine That Relates To Your Industry

1. Email a scanned copy of the article to your database preceded by a short commentary (if not already understood by your readers) that you wanted to keep them informed of changes in the industry. Induces reciprocity; builds pre-eminence.

2. Keep a copy of the article on file (preferably in scanned form that is readily accessible or searchable in a database) so that when you meet someone and the conversation you have with them lends itself to you being able to offer to email, fax or post the article to them, you can do so quickly. This will build your pre-eminence with that person.

3. Refer to the article in future emailings to clients generally and quote portions of it that are interesting without needing to send the whole article.

4. Contact the author and build rapport with them with the view to leveraging the contacts this author has with prominent people in your industry that he or she has interviewed and will interview in the future.

5. Contact the author and build rapport with the author with the view to becoming a quoted person/expert on future topics related to your industry in order to build pre-eminence.

6. Use the ideas in this article to realise that if you are trying to create a host-beneficiary partnership arrangement with a particular person or company, you could find a swag of articles that relate to your prospective H-B partner’s industry to increase your own knowledge of that industry AND send to the intended contact, from time to time, articles of interest to your prospective H-B partner - build rapport and pre-eminence via your increased understanding of their industry.

7. Develop a “stadium pitch” opening line using the statistics provided in the article, eg, “There are only two mortgage insurers in the market today and one of them has substantially increased its claim denials over the last 3 months. How will this affect your attempts to get a loan? Does your broker know who this mortgage insurer is? If they don’t know this information, what impact will that have on their ability to help you get the best loan deal when buying your new home?”

8. Use statistics from the article in your own copywriting material.

9. Presentation Aid: Make a copy of the article, highlight portions of the article and then place it in a plastic sleeve and bring it out when dealing with clients. Refer to highlighted statistics to show prospects three things: (1) you keep up with industry developments; (2) show how your knowledge of this information means you will provide them with a better service or the product you are promoting will help them avoid the problems raised in the article; and (3) use it to overcome an objection or pre-frame a prospect to remove a potential objection.

10. If the article is found in a magazine that is read by your prospective clients, you could consider entering into a H-B partnership arrangement with the magazine to access their database of readers (ie, your prospects).

11. If your prospects read the publication in which the article was published, you could prepare an article or two or a series for publication in the magazine in order to build pre-eminence with your target market.

12. Once you write articles that are published in the magazine, keep copies to send to your list of suspects, prospects and clients - massive pre-eminence builder.

13. Consider advertising in the publication you found the article in IF its readers are also your target clients.

14. Use an article or the information you find in an article (particularly statistics) as a reason to contact your database of clients (preferably via email) to conduct your own survey to cross-check the findings in the articles with a promise that you will share your findings with them. This creates pre-eminence again and gives you an excuse to contact your client base at least twice with some interesting and useful information.

15. Create mindmaps which summarise the main points of an article you read and send your database a copy of the full article and your summary so they can choose to read one or the other depending on their desire for a low or high level of detail.

Thanks for the great ideas, Mike!

By the way, Advocate Mortgage Corporation is a Sydney-based mortgage broker with a difference - their property finance consultants are also experienced solicitors, enabling them to offer “your loans and legals in one place”. Advocate Mortgage are specialists in first home loans and mortgage refinance.

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Keep Your Customers In The Crosshairs of Your Ads

Have you ever noticed that despite all that’s been written and said about selling benefits, not features, many if not most ads are not sufficiently focused on the customer. That’s a shame, because a strong customer focus is the number 1 technique for making ads and promotions profitable.

Take a quick look at your ads. Do they effectively communicate the added benefit or result that your customer will enjoy by giving you their business?

Do your headlines project a strong, unique benefit? Does the content of your ad explain the reasons why YOU are the only logical choice, and not your competitor? If not, you may be leaving a lot of money on the table.

Here are a few tips for cranking up your customer focus:

1. Make sure you use the word "YOU", or at least imply it, in your headlines.



2. List "bullet" points of benefits, and where possible pepper them with facts and figures. Don’t just say "double riveted", say "double riveted for 53% more strength."



3. Try to avoid trite, overused phrases, like "Great service and low prices". If your service really is great, take some time to explain the reasons why that’s so, and contrast what you offer with your competition. For example,

"Most smash repairers inconvenience you by taking 5-7 days to get your car back on the road. At Jiffy Smash Repair, our average repair time is 2.5 days, and we’ll even save you a taxi fare by giving you a lift to and from our premises."

Taking some time to reword your headlines and content to be more customer-focused on your customer can be a very high return investment. Or if you have better things to do, ask a professional copywriter to do it for you.

After all, advertising can be expensive. You owe it to yourself to ensure that your ads pay for themselves in terms of increased customers, sales and profits.

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The “YOU” Mentality Sells More

I was on a conference call the other day with marketing genius Jay Abraham, and he said something very simple but powerful that I wanted to share with you.

That is, the single most powerful marketing strategy or mentality available to you and your business is the YOU mentality. Put simply, the YOU mentality means focusing on the needs of your customers over and above your own needs.

“Of course”, you say, “That’s marketing 101 for dummies”. But isn’t it funny how often many businesses ignore this most basic principle? For example, over 50% of websites start by focusing on the company, NOT on the needs of the visitor. They open with something like this:

“ABC widgets is the foremost supplier of quality plastic, vinyl and stainless steel widgets in Australia”

YAAAAAAAWN!

This approach is spectacularly unsuccessful, because

1) people care more about themselves and their problems than about other people AND 2) it’s invariably filled with unsupported claims and meaningless boasts.

All you have to do is turn this around is to focus on why the customer is even interested in your widgets in the first place - that is, their PROBLEM. Once you’ve shown that you understand their problem, you can start to get them interested in your SOLUTION.

A good rule of thumb is, the word “YOU” should either be written or implied in your headline, and it should feature many times over in all of your advertising materials.

Here’s an example: In my work as an advertising copywriter, I recently wrote the copy for a website aimed at helping companies Export to Japan. Notice how many times “you” and “your” are used to engage the reader.

By examining all of your marketing materials and honing your “YOU” mentality, your marketing results can only increase.

If you haven’t already subscribed to the free monthly “Results-Driven Marketing Secrets” newsletter, sign up now so you can start implementing effective low-cost and no-cost marketing strategies in your business. Subscribe here…

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Are You Making These Common Small Business Marketing Mistakes? (Part 3)

Not Making The Most of a Powerful Guarantee

This mini-article is one of a series aimed at helping you avoid common small business advertising mistakes. Many small businesses don’t have a strong guarantee, or they don’t know how to incorporate their guarantee into their ads. This is important, because powerful guarantees have been shown to increase ad response by 50+ percent.

Gurantees work because they remove the risk of purchase from your customer, making it easier for them to buy. When you guarantee your product or service, you’re showing confidence that it will produce the result you claim - customers respond to that.

Here are a few tips for successfully incorporating your guarantee into your ads:

1. Your guarantee should be a specific promise of performance or results.

Don’t use boilerplate phrases like “Satisfaction Guaranteed” or even “Money-Back Guaranteed”. While these are probably better than nothing, they don’t have a fraction of the effect of a specific promise like:

“Be thrilled with your treatment or we’ll pay you to go to the competition”

” Enjoy a minimum 50% increase in website traffic within 60 days or your money back”

“Send $35 to [Your Company Name and Address]. $40 refund if you’re not completely satisfied.”

2. Test Your Guarantee

In my work as a small business marketing consultant and copywriter, I often work with clients to develop a powerful guarantee. Sometimes the business owners are hesitant - what will happen if customers try to take advantage of a money-back offer? The simple answer to this is to test. Test small at first (one ad with the guarantee, versus one ad without). Keep track of the difference in sales results and any returns or refund requests. If it works, keep doing it!

I’ve always found that a strong guarantee generates more than enough additional sales to cover any returns or refund requests.

Also test different aspects of your guarantee (e.g. wording, time period, conditions etc.) The difference in sales generated by a 30 day and 60 day guarantee can be significant.

3. Make your guarantee highly visible

If you have a strong guarantee, don’t hide it away where it won’t be seen. Strong guarantees make great headlines. Visual devices such as a “Money-Back Guarantee” rosette also work well - but remember to enlarge on your guarantee statement.

What powerful guarantee can you offer your prospects to make it easier for them to do business with you?

If you haven’t already subscribed to our free marketing newsletter “Results-Driven Marketing Secrets” newsletter, sign up now so you can start implementing effective low-cost and no-cost marketing strategies in your business. Subscribe here…

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How To Write Eye-Grabbing Headlines That Catapult Your Prospects Into Your Ads

Just taking a break from the “advertising mistakes” mini-article series because I had to write a little something about headlines - without a doubt, the most important aspect of your ads.

A great ad with the wrong headline can bomb, whereas a great headline on an average ad will probably do quite well. Let’s take a look at a few techniques for coming up with sales-boosting headlines.

First things first: Avoid these proven sales-killing “headlines” like the pox

1. Your company name

2. A generic industry or service category (e.g. “Plumbing Contractor”)

3. Or on a website or brochure, “Welcome to ABC Industries”

The points above sound basic (and they are), but it’s surprising how many ads and websites make those mistakes.

OK, so how do you create great selling headlines that practically catapult your readers into your ad? Here are a few tips…

1. Call out to your target audience. If your message is aimed at stockbrokers, mention “stockbrokers” in the headline.

2. Mention specific benefits. Face it - consumers are jaded. We all are. Heck, I can hardly get out of bed in the morning General statements like “Lose weight fast” or “Save Money on ” are no longer effective. Specific numbers and images evoke much more potent images in your prospects’ minds than generalities. That’s why they sell much better.

3. Use vivid, action-oriented verbs. Especially online, high-energy headlines work very well.

Here’s a headline that uses all 3 of the above techniques…

“New Software Boosts Stockbrokers’ Income by 34, 43, even 125% - by Slashing Time Spent Chasing “Dead” Accounts and Lazer-Focusing Your Energies on the Big Players”

OK, it needs a bit of work, but you get the idea. Onward.

1. Use “cognitive dissonance”. That’s a fancy way of saying, make your audience curious. Here’s a headline we’re testing for a client that sells custom bumper stickers:

“Do You Wonder How We Can Sell Full-Color Stickers At A 1-Color Price, with FREE Artwork?”

This type of headline makes people curious - they feel compelled to find the answer and relieve a sense of “dissonance” with this apparent paradox.

1. Include some challenging or surprising information. Here’s another headline that I wrote for a rubbish removal firm’s website…

“Fast, Professional Rubbish Removal, Sydney-wide…We’ll Pay You $1 Per Minute In Cash If We’re Late!”

The “hook” is the guarantee. Also bear in mind that most of the people who see this headline will have already searched for the term “rubbish removal sydney” or similar…That may influence the content of the headline, compared with say a newspaper headline that is designed to appeal to only a few prospects from a large number of readers.

If you haven’t already subscribed to the free monthly “Results-Driven Marketing Secrets” newsletter, sign up now so you can start implementing effective low-cost and no-cost marketing strategies in your business. Subscribe here…

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Are You Making These Common Small Business Advertising Mistakes? (Part 2)

In my last mini-article, I mentioned how many small business ads read more like a shopping list than the benefit-rich, call to action that a good ad should be.

Another very common mistake or oversight that 99% of small businesses are making right now is…

Failing to Test and Track Ad Response

Why should you test and track different ads? Because one ad, sales letter or web page may sell 2, 3 even 21 TIMES more than an alternative for exactly the same product or service. You need to know what’s working and what isn’t so you can cut the losers and optimize the winners.

How to Track Advertising Response

Tracking advertising response is as easy as asking callers where they heard about your company. As you publish more ads and test one ad against another, you’ll need to get a little more sophisticated with your tracking by implementing one or more of the following…

Coded coupons in your ads Different coloured reply-paid postcards Different department numbers Asking your callers to mention an offer or ask for someone by name etc.

Online it’s even easier - there are lots of great tracking software programs that will allow you to compare one page against another or one traffic source against another. We use and recommend ProAnalyzer Tracking Software to do this, but there are other good programs out there as well.

When one of my marketing consulting clients started tracking their ads a while back, they found that $500 newspaper ads were generating almost zero response, while cheap flyers were bringing in loads of customers. So they were able to save a bundle on ineffective advertising.

What To Test

You should test these things in your ads:

Headlines Offers Body Copy Guarantee Price

Hint: You’ll get the greatest return by testing headlines first.

When you find something that works, stay with it until you find something better. It really isn’t hard to improve your marketing ROI if you use this approach, yet hardly anyone does it! If YOU decide to take action on this tip, you can save money, leverage your marketing budget, and put some distance between you and your competition.

Simply making your ads sell harder can boost your business massively - start by testing and tracking your ads, and consider hiring a good copywriter - a small investment in professionally written copy will makes your advertising dollars work much harder.

If you haven’t already subscribed to the free monthly “Results-Driven Marketing Secrets” newsletter, sign up now so you can start implementing effective low-cost and no-cost marketing strategies in your business. Subscribe here…

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Are You Making These Common Small Business Advertising Mistakes? (Part 1)

In my work as a copywriter, clients sometimes ask me to review their ads to help them improve their sales results. In this series of mini-articles, I’ll talk about some of the most common small business advertising mistakes, so you can troubleshoot your advertising and get a better Return On Investment (ROI) from your marketing.

Layout

Too many small business ads read like a list:

Company name at the top (where there should be a benefit-rich headline). Dry, egotistical copy in the middle. No clear or compelling offer. Phone number and address at the bottom.

That layout will kill your sales right there, because your prospect doesn’t care about your company name (or a cute headline). He or she only wishes to know: “What’s in it for me?”

Here’s a better layout for selling that works well in almost any situation:

Headline at the top. (Don’t be tricky: just state the strongest benefit of your product or service.)

Coupon or contact number at bottom right (called the “anchor point” of the ad).

Company name and address at bottom left (where the prospect will find it once they’re convinced.)

Put headlines under photos or illustrations, so the reader’s eye goes from photo -> headline -> copy in that logical order. (Illustration layouts also depend on the size and concept of the ad)

A series of benefit-rich bullet points (long copy is also great, but much more difficult to write.)

How are your ads? Do they read like a shopping list, or a compelling story ending with a call to action? If the former, I know you’ll get great results from changing your formats.

If you haven’t already subscribed to the free monthly “Results-Driven Marketing Secrets” newsletter, sign up now so you can start implementing effective low-cost and no-cost marketing strategies in your business. Subscribe here…

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