Call Stephen Hawking!

I've just proved the theory of multiple, parallel universes to be true!

Hello again,

Who would have thought a copywriter could answer once and for all one of the great imponderable questions of the cosmos? And who would have believed it would be so easy?

I'm sure you know the theory...

Every time something happens, when something else could have happened, both things actually occur and one universe carries on in one way while another carries on in another. Since these maybe/maybe not events happen all the time, new universes are constantly being created.

Although that doesn't give us an infinite number of universes, it does give us an awful lot!

It turns out that copywriting works in exactly the same way. And that's how I proved it to be incontrovertably true.

There I was, pondering on ideas for a headline, when I remembered I really should be saving every idea that came to me, rather than trying to pick a 'winner' straight off. And that the same thing applies to the opening paragraph of the sales letter. And every paragraph that follows. And every decision about how long or short, what benefit to focus on, how to frame the offer, etc, etc... Almost an infinite number of sales letter possibilities could be 'calved' from the original, in just the same way as universes are 'calved' from one original universe.

Now, whether you believe in a 'creator' or 'designer' on a cosmological level, it's probably just as well there is such a thing as a 'creative' or copywriter, in the salesletter cosmos, or we could be here forever, trying to decide.

So, if God exists, do you think he ever has trouble deciding which universe to pick? Or maybe we're all part of one giant, multivariant split test!

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

Copywriter For Hire!

Hello again,

It's been over a week since I posted here, but that's one hazard of being busy and successful, so who's complaining?

And now those big projects we were apparently buried by are finally completed (just a few details to finish off over the weekend), I can finally turn my attention to all the other projects that currently languish half-finished on my laptop.

Which means I'll be removing all the 'Public Speaking' articles in the next day or two, as promised. Then I can get back to posting my regular copywriting, marketing and other advice and tips.

And earning a living as a copywriter!

And, very soon, those major projects that have taken so much of our time will be revealed to the waiting world, the smaller ones that have been pending will be completed and released and we can get our lives back and finally we can get back... to the next major project...

But this one won't take six months - guaranteed!

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

Sign up for Roy Everitt dotcom and you can get the very best of me while I'm back in circulation, plus the free reports, special offers and loads of great resources and products at minimal cost - like FREE. To Join Roy Everitt dotcom, just leave your name and email.

The Death of What, Exactly?

Hello again.

I'll get back to public speaking next week, I think, when we're all back into the swing of things...

Meanwhile, I thought I'd share a couple of lessons I've re-learned during the Christmas lull.

Firstly, when anyone publishes an ebook or white paper titled, 'The Death of....' you'd be very unwise to take it at face value - of course, they just want your attention. But when Michel Fortin publishes a white paper and calls it 'The Death of The Salesletter', you should certainly read it. As one of the world's top copywriters, he certainly knows what he's talking about. Which is why I'll give you 'The Death of The Salesletter', just for signing up to Roy Everitt dotcom...

Secondly, when anyone talks about the death of anything in business, that claim is almost always premature. We've even had 'The Death of The Internet' and yet, here we still are.

The obituary for email marketing has been written several times, despite the fact that emails clearly still work. And they work despite the fact that we're all bombarded with more emails than we can possibly read, with more links to websites than we can possibly follow, and with more downloadable ebooks than we can possibly use. Email marketing still works well in the right niches. And, being more or less free, it still works well enough in some areas where it hardly works at all - a one percent response or less is fine if you can send a million emails at almost no cost.

But when you have a much smaller list to market to, you need a much better response, which means you have to give a lot more thought to your campaign - to your offer and how you present it. That's when you want your response to be in double figures, or better. That's when you need some real expertise on your side.

So, a twenty-four percent response to an email marketing campaign can't help but be pleasing. That was the response we got to our last campaign. So far, about seventy of the roughly two hundred and eighty-odd people we've emailed have signed up for our latest venture. Over thirty of the original two hundred and thirty or so actually attended our first event, despite it being just a week before Christmas. We're almost nervous about inviting any more in case the venue can't cope with the numbers...

What this shows is that we chose the right medium to market our product. Another product might sell better through printed direct mail, yet another by online sales and pay per click. Word of mouth and referrals will almost always work.

But get your offer right, put your message across well and market to the right people, and you can still sell - even in the week before Christmas.

And even by email...

Roy Everitt, Writing For Response.

PS. What you must not do in these circumstances is pay too much attention to the few people who didn't like your marketing method. If it worked, and you got the response you hoped for, that's all the approval you need. Marketing, as someone once said, is a 'numbers business'.

If I Read it in The Papers...

...It must be true.

Apparently, there's a depression on the way. 'Everyone' is saying as much, so I guess it will happen, even if it wasn't going to before.

Sometimes, I think 'everyone' just gets a bit bored with doing okay from time to time...

But anyway, there's a recession on the way and it's great news.

Not for everyone, it's true. But for me, and for you, if we both play it smart.

Because the business I'm in thrives on difficult times and competition and even a shortage of cash. If that sounds counter-intuitive then you may be a marketing executive or the head of a company that's about to 'pull in its horns' in a vain attempt to ride out the recession.

I was born in the 1950's and, although the war was long over, the UK was still deep in debt as a result of it. The UK economy was struggling and a lot of prewar companies didn't survive.

Some, though, thrived.

Mysterious, eh? Some kind of conspiracy? Not really. The companies that thrived during the most difficult periods of the last hundred years (it was much the same in the decade or so after the first war) were the ones who invested in marketing, in a big way. Pretty much all the household names of the fifties and sixties became household names because they advertised - on commercial television, in newspapers and magazines and on commercial radio (mostly 'pirate' stations in the UK back then).

Their goods weren't cheaper and they weren't better - they were just there.

And most of them survived, while the firms who drew in their horns and tried to ride it out, very often didn't.

And, as marketing people, we owe it to our clients to remind them of the lessons of history. When there's a squeeze on, and money is tight, we all tend to spend it on the products that are most visible, and not on the ones that seem to disappear. If there are two items to choose from, we'll choose the one that's put in front of us.

For us, there's a simple lesson:

you must market yourself hard and persuade your clients to do the same. If they want to not just survive the recession, but thrive in it, they must out-sell the competition. Persuade them of that and, for you and your clients, the boom times are here!

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

What's the Big Idea?

Hello again

A question for you: Are you an 'ideas' person?

Me, too.

I find ideas passing through my mind at the most inopportune moments. You know the times I mean: when you're in the bath, when you're driving, when someone or something else demands your attention.

Keeping a notebook handy isn't always an option. A voice recorder is sometimes a better idea. Telling the person we're with can help us remember. I never did tie a knot in my hankie...

So, at these moments, we can sometimes be forgiven for not committing the idea to any kind of lasting medium, and so, sadly, forgetting what it was.

Because the problem with passing ideas is that they so often seem to be just that - passing into our brains on one side and straight out of our brains on the other.

Which is all the more reason why we should all remember to take notes on the occasions when we can. When it's easy, convenient and not impolite to do so. I know that, you know that, we all know that.

So why do we so often forget to do it?

Because it's such a good idea?

That would explain why the brilliant idea I had for today's blog entry is apparently lost forever!

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

PS. Despite that mishap, today has been a very productive day, with a report written, our next major product a few steps nearer completion, another small project ready to send to the customer and a proposal in the air for yet another joint venture.

It keeps us busy...

And it's all such good fun!

Why Long Copy Works

(and why it needn't matter if it doesn't)

It seems to be a perennial debate: long copy versus short copy. But most copywriters know from experience (and from reading the copywriting gurus) that long copy far outsells short copy, especially for high-ticket items.

Why?

Well, first let's look at why short copy might sometimes be better.

Business people are busy people. They don't have time to spend reading page after page of sales material, however excitingly written, before they decide whether or not to spend a few pounds or dollars. It just isn't cost effective – their time is too precious.

They'd be better off buying something a little less than perfect than wasting that precious time.

So, for a low priced item, short copy is the way to go. In fact, it might not be worth investing in a copywriter’s fees for a low cost item. Of course, if the item sells by the million it would be worth every penny, but that's another matter.

In short copy, there's a headline, a story, an offer and a call to action. Call them by other names if you will, but they're the essential elements, and the advantage to the customer is that they know exactly what your offer is, almost at a glance.

For higher-priced items, it's different. When someone is contemplating spending a lot of money (for them) they need to be convinced it's worth it. They may take a fair bit of persuading, but the time spent - yours and theirs - will be worth it if they can save or make the value of that time, plus the price of the product, many times over.

They may not make that calculation consciously, but on some level or other they will be making a judgement on whether you're wasting their time. Even before, that is, they decide whether they'll be wasting their cash buying your product.

Which is why, perversely, it needn't matter. So long as your long copy is constructed properly they can get all the short copy benefits, while you offer all the reassurance and potential persuasiveness of long copy.

You may spend page after page extolling the virtues and numerous irresistible benefits of your product, but a hurried and harassed businessperson needs to be able to scan your copy in seconds and deduce exactly what you're offering, how it can solve their problem and the price they'll have to pay.

Then, if they're interested, they’ll go back and read in more detail. And study after study shows that while long copy outsells short copy, it's the short copy 'scanned' version that the buyer actually sees first and on which they'll most likely base their decision to buy or not buy.

So, when you produce your long copy it needs to have exactly the same elements as your short copy.

In fact, at first sight it should actually look like short copy with a lot of extra detail between the essential bits!

So, you'll need:

· a headline, emphasising the main benefit

· body copy, explaining the product and its benefits

· the offer, which is the price plus bonuses and guarantees

· the close or call to action, made as easy as possible.

Each of these elements must be highlighted with a sub-heading so the busy reader can pick them out at a glance.

And here’s the critical part: those sub-heads must tell a coherent story on their own, to get the message across to the quick-scanning reader.

Here’s how legendary John Caples put it recently: “[Long or short] depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Generally speaking the more explaining you need to do to get your reader to understand the product’s benefits fully, or the more money it costs, the longer the copy you’ll need.
In many cases, longer copy will work best. But remember, it’s not because it’s long that it works. It still needs to be brief and succinct in the sense that it packs maximum meaning and benefit into each sentence … Distil it down as much as possible without omitting any of the points … of interest to the target market …then render the copy in logical chunks prefaced with powerful, curiosity inducing sub-heads that stop skimmers and skippers, drawing them into the copy. Finally … edit your sub-heads into a logical summary of your entire sales argument.”


So the details (detailing benefits remember), the credibility-building testimonials and explanations of why this is such a terrific never to be repeated offer, etc, all fit in between these compelling sub headings.

End with a PS - the ultimate short copy summarising all the above - and there you have it - long copy that works like short copy. But better!

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

PS. I’ll be giving you more tips of the copywriter’s trade right here in the days and weeks to come. But you can make sure you don’t miss a single one by subscribing to this site – it's free and the sign up is top right on this page – AND you’ll also get occasional, exclusive information for subscribers only, PLUS a member’s only free offer in the very near future. But you’ll have to subscribe to find out what that is!

Blame Dating Direct...

... and Jon McCulloch for this post.

I'm unashamedly borrowing from Jon's excellent newsletter today because he reminded me of an analogy I'd almost totally forgotten.

Now, Jon not only writes a mean newsletter and blog (at http://www.jonmcculloch.com/), he is also a damn fine copywriter, although you probably can't afford him.

He'd say you can't afford not to hire him, but then he's very picky whom he works with and has a long waiting list, so the point is moot, you might say.

Anyway, Jon met his partner Sarah through an online dating site, and I met my wife Jacqui the same way.

Jon's point, to get to the point, is that when you post your profile on a site like Dating Direct, or any of the dozens of others, the last thing you'd think to lead with is your name, unless you're Brad Pitt, or Angelina Jolie, perhaps. I can't say I ever encountered either of them advertising on a dating site...

And yet, so many company websites begin in just that way - with their name in the headline. As Jon points out, a company website is really just a commercial version of a lonely hearts ad - where the sole purpose is to persuade likely mates to contact us, or leave us their contact details so we can do the 'chasing'. From there, we'd hope to build a relationship with the ones we like.

Put that way, it's obvious why so many apparently excellent company web sites and sales letters fail. No one wants to know your name - they want to know who you are (which is a different thing) and what you have to offer them.

Names don't come into it until you choose to say 'Hello'.

I've no idea if Jacqui would have fallen for the name 'Roy', or if Sarah would have been bowled over by 'Jonathan'.

But both Jon and I can feel pretty chuffed that we got those particular pieces of 'sales copy' spot on!

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results