Layers of Proof

If I told you I once caught a lot of coho (silver) salmon in Alaska, you’d likely believe me. After all, you’ve probably heard the salmon fishing is good in Alaska.

But what if showed you a photo of the fish I caught (with my brother and best friend). See photo below. Now that’s proof.
Don’t just take my word we caught a slew of fish. See the photo. Yes, that’s me on the right with the Nike hat.

Even better, the photo shows us with our catch, so you can see how big the fish really were. They ranged from 8 to 14 pounds, and that day, we caught 30!

My point is that, in marketing we can make a statement trying to prove a point, but when we back it up with proof, we make a much stronger argument—and ultimately, more people buy. And when you can add layers of proof, you sell more.

This is why the great copywriter Gary Bencivenga says “Unquestionable Proof” is a key part of this Persuasion Equation. The more proof, the more sales.

I once had an assignment to sell a stock newsletter called Ground Floor Stocks.

Fortunately for me, the client had an outstanding track record picking stocks, ranking No. 1 by the independent Hulbert Financial Digest which tracked stock picking newsletters.

As you can see in the envelope below, I trumpeted this proof element right out of the gate, and drew even more attention to it by putting the layout on the side, not in the typical fashion.

Note the copy was flipped on its side to draw even more attention to the key proof element.

But I laid on the proof even further, showing the actual rankings of the top five stock picking newsletters.

Anytime you can show the proof in a chart or illustration or drawing, all the better. It’s another layer of proof.

The results? The promotion was so successful it won The Newsletter on Newsletter Gold Award in 1998!

Find proof elements to sell your products or services, then find more and add the proof on thick. Your sales will likely soar.

Are You Calling Out Your Best Propsects?

In order to write a hard-hitting, money-making “mega” promotion—one that will mail or run for years—you need to make sure you’re targeting your best prospects.

Your ideal prospect needs to know the direct mail piece, space ad, online promotion or TV spot is just for him or her—like a laser zooming in on one and only one customer.

Space ads pose the incredibly tough challenge of getting the prospect’s attention in literally seconds—that’s all the time you have to see if you can get that prospect to stop—read—read on and call to buy.

Combine the calling out of that prospect with a unique benefit, and you have a winning ad.

Eugene Schwartz is considered one of the greatest copywriters of all time, and time and time again, he had the knack of writing a space ad that did just that.

Take for example his famous ad for the book, How to Increase Your Money Making Power. His headline, seen in the ad below, magically reads:

DO YOU HAVE THE COURAGE TO EARN HALF A MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR?





















What man who was ambitious and wanted more money could resist this ad?

Then, this subhead made the ad even more targeted and exclusive: “This is a private advertisement. It is meant for the tremendously ambitious man only.”

Sheer genius.

For a successful ad I wrote that ran in Individual Investor magazine, my target prospect was a frustrated futures trader. In the ad below, the headline calls out:

For Futures Traders Who Hate Losing Money!






















Calling out the prospect’s main frustration was the key to this ad’s success.

The ad promised the reader could STOP LOSING money and START MAKING futures profits, while limiting risk to the exact penny. What kind of profits and risks:

*$975 gain in 2 weeks. Maximum risk: $190
*$3,500 gain in 6 weeks. Maximum risk: $493
*$8,077 gain in 4 weeks. Maximum risk: $1,027

Another very successful ad I wrote that ran in Forbes dramatically outpulled the previous ad by calling out millionaires and a problem many of them faced. The headline:

The 4 Most Costly Estate Planning Mistakes Made By Those Worth $3 Million to $250 Million





















This ad was targeted to the rich—and many of them responded for the FREE Special Report.

The ad revealed four common estate planning mistakes the rich often make, and promised them a FREE Special Report that would help them avoid each one and reduce estate tax costs up to 90 percent. The result? They’d preserve the lion’s share of their hard earned wealth.

How well do you know your prospects? And how well are you calling them out in your promotions?

The Amish Do It Better

At the recent Natural Health Expo, a client and I were talking about successful marketing, and the topic came up about how important is it to “have a story.”

You can have the greatest product or service, but if you don’t have a “story” about it—a story that’s unique, quirky, controversial or attention-getting—nobody will care or buy.

Take the Amish people. You may have seen the full page ads in newspapers offering a “FREE Miracle Heater” if you buy a handmade Amish mantle made from real wood.

Miracle heater ads with handmade Amish mantles have been hugely successful.

The ad even shows a barn where these handmade mantles are made.

Hmmm… a “FREE” heater inside a beautiful Amish fireplace—sounds good right?

Well, I’ve heard from a very reliable source that these have sold like hotcakes—only these sell for about $300 a pop!

This company had a product and created a story to sell it—and people have responded like crazy.
But imagine if the fireplace mantles were built by craftsmen who lived…outside to Topeka, Kansas…or Carson, California…or Atlanta, Georgia. Not much of a story there.

Yet the idea of a handcrafted mantled created by Amish woodworkers …wow…that sounds so authentic, so solid, so beautiful, so long lasting.

Of course you need a great story to sell tons of a product.

Take for example a launch package I wrote for a new breakthrough CoEnzyme Q10 supplement.
The “story” that made this a blockbuster was two fold: One, most typical CoQ10 formulas were hard to digest and therefore worthless and two, a new, scientifically proven form of CoQ10 was three times more bioavailable and therefore three times more powerful.

It was a story based in science and technology, combined with the appeal of a safe, all-natural supplement for strengthening the heart, for keeping blood pressure and cholesterol healthy, for supporting a sound immune system and for flooding the body with natural energy.

The cover drew prospects in with “the truth” angle—like something was being covered-up.

The piece was a runaway success!

One of the greatest challenges as a copywriter and creative director is seeing if I have a “story” that grabs readers. If I do, it can shape the whole piece and make it a big, big winner.

Why People Buy or Don't Buy

One of the biggest challenges I face as a copywriter and creative director is how to tap the “emotional triggers” that cause a prospect to buy what you’re selling.

To be frank, I’m strong on seeking out the unique feature and benefits of a product or service. I love to dig deep into the research to find a story.

But when it comes to finding the “emotion” behind why people buy or don’t buy, I have to work a lot harder.

Yet without understanding and using emotion, sales will be limited.

In this excellent book, Triggers: 30 Sales Tools You Can Use to Control the Mind of Your Prospects to Motivate, Influence and Persuade, direct marketing guru Joseph Sugarman writes that an estimated 95% of the reasons a prospect buys involves a subconscious decision.

And to fire up a prospect’s subconscious mind, you have to hit his emotional buttons.

Two of the strongest emotions that can trigger responses—and a flood of orders—are fear and greed.

Fear is a huge motive, often tied to financial loss, but can also be linked to losing freedom and independence that comes with good health.

Take for example a highly successful piece I wrote for PS—The Ultimate Brain Food™.

The headline was:

The New Pill
For Memory Loss
that helps make sure you
don’t end up a mental “vegetable”

Anybody struggling with memory loss and loss of cognitive decline fears the worse—becoming a “vegetable” and losing freedom and independence.

The inside spread started off with the story of an Arizona woman who was saved from the nursing home with this remarkable natural breakthrough.

This cover and lead-in hit the emotion of fear—and made this piece a big, big winner.

Another dominant emotion that can drive people to read your promotion and order is greed.

The desire for gain can be anything that puts the prospect ahead: Money, health, relationships. To put it another way, people have something good and they want more.

Here’s a good example of a winning piece I wrote selling the book, The Complete Guide to Offshore Money Havens. The front cover featured promises such as…

*How to make, protect and keep MORE OF YOUR MONEY with your own 100% legal offshore wealth haven…

*Make all your dreams come true with profits, privacy, protection and pleasures found offshore…and enjoy tax-free living and secure retirement.

The back cover teased the reader with “greed” copy such as…

*The secret to paying little or no taxes

*A strategy that pays 5-to-1 returns

*“Safe money” yields that are three times higher

*Two ways to keep your assets untouchable from a lawsuit

The theme: How to make more money and keep it from the clutches of the government, lawyers and anybody else.

Both the front and back cover of this wining piece focused on the emotion of greed.

Fear and greed. Greed and fear. Both work like magic to stir up prospects, get them to read and most important, get them to buy.

The King and His Private Secretary (The synergy of great copy and great graphics) Part II

Last week, I wrote about how great copy is enhanced and brought alive by great graphics. You can’t have one without the other.

If “Copy is King,” then graphics, as top designer Rob Davis states, would be the King’s Private Secretary who makes sure the King looks great.

Today, I want to share a few more insights and secrets of Rob Davis that help him create memorable, winning direct mail packages for me and other copywriters.

Big mistakes designers unknowingly make
I asked Rob what are typical mistakes he sees in graphic design.

He said that he often see violations of direct mail basics, such as using too much sans serif type, reversing large amounts of copy out of solid backgrounds or making line lengths too long for the page. Things that obviously impede readability.

Rob says another mistake some graphic designers make is not reading the copy seriously or thoroughly—so they miss some big ideas or graphic themes. As a copywriter, I would hope all of my graphic designers would read my copy carefully—but maybe I can’t always assume that.

A pet peeve of Rob’s is graphic designers who make copy subservient to pictures. No matter how attractive a picture or photo, or how good you think the very faint copy looks over that very beautiful but busy nature scene…readability of copy should never be compromised in favor of a graphic element. Amen, to that!

Rob believes graphics should be there to complement the copy, not vice versa.
Speaking of readability, he says that poor placement of copy and graphic objects that interrupt natural eye flow is another mistake he often sees. Design that creates barriers to how one would normally read or forces the eye to skip haphazardly across a spread isn’t helpful.

Rob says that time is the direct mail designers “enemy,” and the more time you make your prospect spend trying to navigate through your design, the less likely that prospect is to make it to the back of your piece and order something.

Secrets of the best designed direct mail packages
I also asked Rob what elements are common to his best designed (i.e. most successful) packages.

He said that his best packages all share a few things in common.

First off, they all have a very striking cover, with a bold, attention-grabbing headline. They usually have one main, very creative cover image to complement that headline. The kind of cover that just demands to be opened. He spends a great deal of time on covers. (See below for samples of covers for packages Rob designed for me and for other copywriters.)

Another common trait of successful graphic design is some kind of unique story or compelling personality that Rob can build the package around to help us connect with the reader and help drive him through to the end for the sale.
Rob says establishing that connection right up front is critical. If you can do this early, your odds of getting the whole package read and acted on go up tremendously.

However, as important as the first few pages are, it’s important not to try and do too much too soon. Rob’s tips? Ease your reader into the piece with compelling, easy-to-read, uncrowded copy and a few well placed focal point graphics. Once you have the reader intrigued, you can start to throw greater amounts of information.

The next critical element of a successful package, according to Rob, is the offer—I agree! Compelling copy and great design all work hand in hand with a great offer.

The successful packages that he has been a part of generally start to subtly build the offer as they make the case for the product. As the prospect moves along in the package and his confidence and belief in the package starts to build, Rob starts to increase the frequency of little sidebars that show graphically how much the prospect is going to save or all the great things he’s going to get when he orders. At the moment the prospect says to himself, “yep, I’m ready to stop reading and start buying,” he can move immediately to the order form and be ready to act.

Rob says the order form is the last critical element. You’ve worked the whole package to get your prospect to this point so the order form, in Rob’s words, needs to be “simple, simple, simple from top to bottom.”

Ordering options are spelled out clearly with the most desirable ordering option for the prospect (usually a “Best Value”) highlighted in such a way as to make it the most obvious choice. Payment options and modes of ordering are crystal clear as well. Second to the cover, the order form is where Rob spends the bulk of his page layout time.

Like me, Rob Davis loves what he does: To create memorable, winning, highly successful promotions that people pick up, read, enjoy and order!

Two covers of successful packages I wrote and Rob designed

Other winning packages Rob designed for other copywriters

The King and His Private Secretary (The synergy of great copy and great graphics)

As a copywriter, I believe, as many of us writers believe: “Copy is King!” No matter how great your lists or offers, without great copy, you don’t have a winning promotion.

But the truth is, we copywriters usually need great graphic design to make our copy come to life—so it can produce massive sales and profits.

What’s the secret of merging great copy and great graphic design?

To get the answer, I decided to interview one of the top graphic designers in our business, Rob Davis. Rob and I have collaborated on some highly successful promotions, so I know first hand, “Rob gets it!”

Here are a few of his thoughts.

He writes, “If Copy is King, then graphics would be the King’s private secretary. Whoever that guy is who makes sure that whenever the King goes out in public, he’s suitably dressed for the occasion. That his manner and voice are at all times optimally regal and appropriate. If a King were to appear to address his royal subjects in a tattered, wine-stained shirt and spoke in a high, squeaky voice, no matter how great his words were, his message would be lost on those how might otherwise been keen to follow him.”

Geez…I’m a copywriter and I couldn’t have said it better myself. Great insights, Rob!

Rob is right. Great graphics brings great copy alive.

How does Rob go about creating great graphics.

One secret of his—now are you following closely?—is Rob reads the copy. Yep, he actually sits down in a comfortable chair with a pen and bright yellow highlighter and a cup of tea and reads the copy.

He says he’s looking for the story behind the product—whether it be how it’s made or some unique personality behind it. Rob looks for the USP (he defines this a Unique Selling Points) that makes this product different than any other. He says that tapping into the USP graphically is essential to designing a great package. (No wonder this guy’s great—he’s a graphic designer that thinks like a copywriter!)

Rob literally scours every paragraph and identifies as many USPs as possible. Once he’s done reading, ideally, he has a graphic theme and a manuscript of scribbled notes and yellow ink highlighting the things he wants to emphasize.

He believes if you pay attention to the story behind the product and know your target audience, the unique graphic theme tends to emerge.

For instance, here’s Rob thinking behind a promo he designed for direct mail package I wrote for a krill oil product.

Rob says, “The product had a very unique selling point in that it came from krill harvested in the deep, pure waters of Antarctica.

“Of course, I’m going to pick up on the whole Antarctic theme and show lots of deep blue oceans and generally keep my color palette pretty cool, with occasional sprays of beautiful pinky orange color of the krill.

“To choose a lot of those colors, I actually sampled portions of images of blue oceans and krill in Photoshop and brought those color percentages directly into my document color palette.”

The result? Rob designed a package for me that’s been very successful!

Here are some sample pages from the promotion.

Front cover

Opening spread

Key closing section

One thing’s for sure: If you merge great copy and great graphics, you dramatically increase your chances of hitting a home run.

Prospects will read the copy because of a compelling story…promise of benefit…or solving of a problem AND they’ll keep reading because of graphics that draw them in and keep them reading.
More to come on this subject.

How to Write a Blockbuster Headline

If the Big Idea is worth a million dollars, than a Blockbuster Headline may be worth even more.

This week, I was thinking back, reviewing some of the best headlines I've ever written--the question--what do they have in common, if anything? And what can I draw from those successful headlines to make sure my newest headlines are big winners, too?

First, a few of some very successful headlines I've written, some that have been blockbusters:


1) For a unique Co-Enzyme Q10 formula, I wrote:

The Surprising Truth About Co-Enzyme Q10

This piece revealed that while CoQ10 is a vital nutritional supplement, studies showed that in tablet or capsule form, it's not easily absorbed. But there is a new solution--a scientific breakthrough that floods your body with up to three times more CoQ10.


2) For a microsite that's had good online success for a thyroid supplements:

The Secret Cause of Stubborn Fat

The microsite revealed that many people, especially woman, have a underactive thyroid. This causes the build up of stubborn fat, and it dooms most diets and exercise to fail. Fix it, the safe, natural way, and you're on you're way to a slimmer, trimmer you.


3) For a small space ad that produced big results:

They laughed when I poured beer on my lawn. But you should see my golf-course- green grass now!

Jerry Baker is famous for his "crazy" homemade lawn and garden remedies. Beer for greener lawn? You betcha!


4) For a new source of omega-3 fatty acids--the deep, pure waters of Antarctica

The new miracle "heart and brain" saver that's 48 times more powerful than fish oil!

Scientific testing showed this discovery, krill oil, was 48 times more effective at squelching free radicals than fish oil...not to mention 11 times more effective at reducing LDL cholesterol...3 times more effective at improving brain health, 6 times more effective at reducing facial wrinkles, etc.


5) For the "ultimate brain food:

The New Pill For Memory Loss that helps make sure you don't end up a mental "vegetable"!

This natural memory-boosting, memory-saving breakthrough was proven in 64 clinical studies and 2,800+ research papers and by leading experts at Stanford and other medical centers to boost brain power and protect the brain from memory loss.


6) For a natural prostate breakthrough:

The "BIG GUNS" that banish urination troubles and prostate problems for good!

The piece went on to expose how many typical natural prostate products are weak and watered down, "like trying to use a BB gun to stop an elephant"--and how you need something with stronger dosages and stronger nutrients if you wanted relief.


7) For a remarkable green energy drink:

62-Cent Green Energizer keeps you OUT of the doctor's office!

So many people enjoying this drink wrote in thanking the company for super health and less dependence on doctors.

***

Now, what do these headlines have in common?

For one, I think they all, in some degree, meet the criteria for a great headline as described by copywriting legend Victor Schwab in this classic "How to Write a Good Advertisement. "

He says the headline as two main goals: (1) to get attention and (2) to give a reward for reading...that is, reading on.

When I think about writing a headline, I also ask myself, does it offer: News? Benefits? Or spur Curiosity? News, benefits, curiosity.

As a kicker, does it add a Twist--something unexpected, something counter intuitive.

Also, is it specific in making a promise or giving a benefit?

To be frank, I don't always write the best headlines at the beginning of a project. Sometimes the headlines come to me while I'm doing the research and I get the headline from day one. Other times, the headlines come later in the process.

There is no magic formula for a great headline. It takes a lot of hard work and sweat--but as you can see, when the headline is powerful, you're on your way to a blockbuster promotion.