Direct Response Copywriter


Direct Response Copywriter

by Gavriel Shaw

Through the budget squeezing economic downturn, and new global trends, companies must return to ROI metrics and an attitude of diligent optimisation for higher marketing performance.

Gone are the days (at least for now) of splashing money on expensive untrackable broadcast advertising.

And at the heart of modern Direct Marketing is the 150-year history of traditional direct response database marketing along with the incredible shift in what is possible through insight, multi-channel optimisation and extensive segmentation.

In the immortal words of the great David Ogilvy:

You know, in the advertising community today, there are two worlds — your world of direct response advertising, and that other world, the world of general advertising.

These two worlds are on a collision course. You direct responsepeople know what kind of advertising works and what doesn’t work. You know it to a dollar. The general advertising people don’t know.

With my one hundred year background experience taken from studying the history of direct response advertising (mail order, direct mail, and print advertising)…my position on 'creative' advertising is this:

Combining an accurate well researched copy platform with the right mix of campaign execution, is far different from being 'creative'.

This is vitally important to me as a direct marketer and direct response copywriter.

'Creative' agencies often miss the potency and necessity of tying the product with the markets state of awareness (needs/wants) and their level of sophistication (how defined the offer is, how many times the prospect has been exposed to it, or similar offers from competitors).

You might be interested to know that David Ogilvy quoted Rosser Reeves as saying "creativity is the most dangerous word in advertising". Why? Because it is equally important for innovative marketing success as it is a cause for possible marketing failure.

Advertising and marketing must suitably match the buying process of the target market.

It is from that direct response copywriting perspective that allowed me the 510% response increase (1900% ROI) at an Ad Agency – after which the Marketing Director had me prepare copywriting training for her staff.

And "Copwriters are crazy. And you want them crazy. They go for the big kill." – Gene Schwartz

As a direct response marketer, I must approach marketing from the point of view that before you can see customers as numbers and data, you must first see them as humans: people with feelings.

Those feelings are in essence:

  1. Seeking pleasures, and
  2. Avoiding pains.

The marketing numbers must evolve naturally out of dealing with those pleasures and pains. Marketing targets must be true to the dynamics inherent in the marketing funnel.

David Maister has a great way of categorising 5 main areas of marketing activity in a human sense:

  1. Broadcasting – lead generation including seminars, articles, newsletters, etc in the hope to generate enquiries
  2. Courting – engaging with a single, specific prospect on a particular targeted deal-making process
  3. Superpleasing – existing clients on existing matters to make them delighted
  4. Nurturing – bringing extended service opportunities to existing clients
  5. Listening – otherwise known as gathering market intelligence

By conducting the various aspects of Research you will have a very good idea of your prospect. And now we are at the point of communicating with our target audience about the value of our offer.

What kind of copywriter sweats bullets and bleeds onto a blank canvas, cares little about awards, and avoid the word 'creative'?

A Direct Response Copywriter.

The mirror opposite of a creative short copy copywriter.

The DR Copywriter wants a 100% market to message match.  To make the sale.

A short copy creative copywriter wants to entertain his audience, and win his agency an award.

I think the opposing philosophies can be made clear with this one simple test.

Creative copywriting wants big pictures, and very few words.

Direct Response Copywriting uses long copy, and only images where they can directly support the text.

So which is more important? Pictures or words?  Are pictures worth a thousand words?

There are 2 ways to find out.

Test 1:  The Logical Test

Imagine trying to sell a product through pictures alone.  If there was absolutely no text what so ever, just a big bright entertaining picture, would anything get sold?

Only the most simple of products.  And probably only the products that have already had untold millions spent on building 'brand awareness'.  Coca Cola could do ads without words.  Would they help sell more coke?  Perhaps. But who cares, the ads look cool!

Well, smaller companies, with more complex products, could they rely on ads without words?  Just the pictures?  Absolutely not.

So for most products (if not all), the words are by far more important.

But it's test 2 that really takes home the money…

Speak to DR Copywriters, and they'll talk about split testing and conversions.

  • They'll talk about features, benefits, and advantages.  The gains made by the prospect.
  • They'll also talk about possibly buying objections, providing guarantees, removing the risk, adding bonuses (premiums).
  • They'll ask to see previously run ads.
  • They'll ask about USPs of the product or company, and they'll actually probe it to clarify and expand on them.
  • They'll ask about the history of the product.  It's origins.  How it came to be. The full story behind it.
  • They'll ask about the media in which the adverts need to run in.
  • They'll ask about front-end products and back-end products.
  • And much, much more…

Bottom line, they'll ask a gread deal of questions.

The creative copywriter will be different.  He'll want a creative brief, not too long though mind you, life's too short for reading lots of text.  He'll want to know the USP, the main benefits, and then he'll go to work scratching his head with his friendly Art Director, watching cartoons, scribbling slogans on a pad, and trying to be… well, 'creative'.

Rosser Reeves, one of the greats of Direct Response Copywriting said:

"Creativity is one of the most dangerous words in advertising"

I obviously couldn't agree more.

Short copy loses sales. Long copy is king.

Copywriters seek to connect the dominant resident emotions of the prospect with your company and product. And that may not happen in 2 minutes through a 10 word advert and big pretty pictures… Nor with fancy slogans or cutesy graphics.

Direct response copywriters have known that pictures, entertainment, and attention grabbing wow factors can actually kill sales.

I'll say that again… If you study any decent direct response marketing book, such as the UK's Drayton Bird's book Common Sense Direct Marketing, you will very easily come to realise the obviousness of the truth.

Your prospect wants gripping clarity of the exact benefits you have on offer, and the reason why they should choose you rather than any of the rest of your competition. He does not want 'entertainment'. He wants a promise of benefit. Proof. And simplicity.

Originally posted 2009-10-25 01:02:39.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Related posts on GavrielShaw.com: Possibly related from other sites:

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , ,

Leave a Comment


 Powered by Max Banner Ads 

Previous post:

Next post: