"Learn to Sell or Else…"

What’s the best thing you can do during rough times?

According to billionaire Warren Buffet and plenty of others, the thing to do when everything else is at a lull is work on yourself. Constant renewal. Per Aristotle, adopt the habits of virtue. Walk the path.

I’m sure you’ve already got your list of resolutions revved up and ready to go. But just in case you need some career-related suggestions that would work especially well for copywriters, try these on for size: 

Naturally, the list could be longer. But even those seven, you might find daunting. If that’s the case just take them on one at a time.   Whatever you do, though, don’t wait to get started.  And don’t cheat yourself by setting goals that are vague, unrealistic, or under-ambitious. 

With all that said, Happy 2009!

Six months before Christmas, I first saw the signs – shopping malls had traded palm trees for pines.

 By August, “Jingle Bells” from speakers did blare in hopes that the shoppers soon would be there.

 Then came Halloween, with Santas in caps; and merchants wrapped pumpkins in bright Christmas wraps.

 Soon all the newspapers took up the same tack –“Yuletide Joy GUARANTEED… or your money back.”

 Bloomingdale’s offered bathrobes, draped in pink spotted sash. ”Buy one to help Mom greet the day with panache!”

 Kmart sold Barbies, with bleached-blonde perky glow; “Real cute up top” said the ad, “and stacked down below!”

 Toy shops sold tommy-guns for shooting paint at the dog; the supermarkets sold troughs of diet eggnog.

 By Thanksgiving the frenzy had gotten vicious and sick; over the first sale on anything, shoppers would bite, claw, and kick.

 Meanwhile, grandma’s kitchen revived a stale story – like the Phoenix from fire, arose the fruitcake in glory.

 TV showed the “specials,” each one still the same, only now they have action figures (sponsors list them by name!)

 ”Buy DASHER and DANCER!  Buy PRANCER and VIXEN! Get COMET and CUPID and DONDER and BLITZEN!”

 (Maybe it’s venison Grandmom should be fixing.)

 By Christmas Eve, please believe, I’d had more than enough. Go ahead, call me Scrooge — but who BUYS all this stuff?

 All the commercials, the carols, the guilt-laden cards; all the neon-like lights draped in neighborhood yards.

 And here’s me, among boxes, still wrapping my last; with paper cuts and prayers that this season should pass.

 My wife’s finished wrapping; she was done long ago. Her paper’s creased neatly, her ribbons in bows.

 How does she do it? I still can’t comprehend. My presents look lumpy, paper torn at both ends.

 And ribbons I’ve tied show embarrassing slack… like I’d sent presents to Hell, had them wrapped, and sent back.

 By midnight that night — ’twas Christmas Eve — most of my senses had taken their leave.

 So I stepped out back for air and leaned on a car. That’s when I saw it — a tiny white star.

 Cliché? Contrived? A vision too “nice?” I stepped up to see it… then slipped on some ice.

 “Godd*mn it!” I said, even “Humbug!” and worse; every word in the book you could define as a curse.

 A window flew open, my wife shocked by the clatter; “Honey” she called, “is something the matter?”

 And then, a whisper, from a boy four years old “Is that you, Santa?” he breathed out in the cold.

 Dear Reader, perhaps you don’t share my elation, but in that small moment, you see, I found revelation.

 ’twas small like a flicker, far-off as the star. An inkling, just then, of why wise men go far;

 Of why mothers start baking, why carolers sing, and why three once brought gifts to one child king;

 Why, every Christmas, we share things and confections, with the hope of redemption for unspoken affections.

 You see, I realized that while our lives are adrift, we can at least find foundation in one simple gift;

 A gift as elusive as the world she is round, And one I don’t name, for it’s far too profound,

 But you can hear it hinted in phrase that seems right, “A Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.”

In this season of giving, let’s look at that most sanctified of direct mail phrases…  “FREE GIFT!”  How does it work to boost sales? This is actually a very big topic.

Let’s try to tackle it first with a story:

It was lunch time in Paris…

I was crossing a square by the Pompidou Center. French merchants had set up stands to snare tourists and shoppers.  And most of those stands were ignorable.

 But one that caught my attention had two dozen bins of Italian chocolates.  I didn’t want chocolates.  I didn’t need chocolates. So how was it, just a few minutes later,  I walked away with a half pound of them in a bag? It started the moment I stopped “just to look.” The woman behind the counter wasted no time in holding out a chocolate caramel extended in my direction.  “Please,” she said, “Take and try. No charge.”

How could I refuse?  After all, it was “free”… right? And it was good. 

Suddenly, something changed. I felt I couldn’t leave without buying… something. The candy sample couldn’t have cost more than pennies. But I felt obligated now to shell out some cash. And I did. 

Sound familiar?

Why We Sometimes Feel Obligated To Buy

Colleagues of mine call it the “Krishna Principle.”  I’ve also heard it called the “Rule of Reciprocity.”

The idea is that, by giving something or offering to give something, you open up the customer to give you something in return. Does it work?  All the time. Take these examples from Robert Cialdini’s famous must-read marketing book, “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion“…

 Christmas Card Obligation: In a 1976 study, a market researcher sent Christmas cards to complete strangers.  What happened?  He got a flood of Christmas cards in return.  Not one questioned who he was or why he had initiated the relationship.

Gift-driven Supermarket Sales: Why do supermarkets have ”free sample” tables?  Not just to lure you into the store.  But because they skyrocket sales.  In one small case, an Indiana supermarket put out a wheel of cheese and a cheese slicer.  ”Cut your own free samples” said a sign.  Result: The store sold a 1,000 extra pounds of cheese over the next few hours.

Cornell University Study: In another small study, a researcher posing as a student was asked to sell raffle tickets.  To half the sample group, he offered a Coke before giving his pitch.  To the other half, he just started the sales pitch without the Coke.  The group that got the gift first bought twice as many tickets.  Sometimes more.

Door-to-door Sales: Amway Corporation’s career manual states, “… leave the free samples with the customer for 24, 48, or 72 hours… just tell her to try the products.  That’s an offer no one can refuse.” I don’t have to tell you how successful Amway is, thanks to that one technique. 

Giving Throughout History: Archaeologist Richard Leakey credits a social need to give and receive as key to the sharing of technology, food, and other survival skills among our ancestors… all the way back to the caveman.

Point being, when someone gives us something valuable — or even offers to give us something valuable — the sales pitch that might follow is much harder to resist.

Not so long ago, I edited a collection of some of the best direct mail sales letters of all time. 

How many focused aggressively on “free” giveaways in the offer?  Roughly 65% to 70%.

This doesn’t mean “free” has to be the centerpiece of every offer you right.

But when it does, there are a few rules you’ve got to keep in mind.

For instance… 

1) If you have premiums, ask yourself if they’re really worthwhile.  How well do they represent your client’s product? How tightly do they link your prospect’s needs to the benefits the product has to offer?

 2)  If the FREE part of your offer is indeed good, then ask yourself this:  How well featured are your premiums featured in your sales pitch?  You might try polishing that emphasis with a few earlier mentions and more prominent sidebars.

 Of course, questions about how the offer and FREE gifts work will have to be negotiated by marketing managers, not just copywriters. But make sure it’s something you work out before you start writing your first draft.

It’s come to my attention that you, dear reader, might be sorely lacking in proper copywriting “vocabulary.”

Possibly because you don’t read this blog enough. Possibly because I don’t use the terms enough. Or possibly because, well, who wants to sit around talking terminology all the time? Nonetheless, I thought I’d do you a favor and lay down details on the handiest of terms. As follows…

Bluelines – Either (a) the term for the first-run package “proofs” you get from your printing company or (b) the drug they must do in the design department to make them think it’s ever okay to put screened graphics behind printed text.

BRE – (a) A business reply envelope, provided to customers to make it easier to mail back the order form or (b) a funky French cheese that goes well with baguettes, but makes your fridge smell like sneakers.

Break-even – Either (a) the level of orders it takes to recover the cost of your advertising or (b) Hey, no joking about the showing a profit here, Buster!  This is serious!

Bottom line, the – (a) The money and how much you’re making or losing; also, (b) the second or third most common patient issue discussed in the offices of  Beverly Hills plastic surgeons, as in “Doctor, I’m worried about how my bottom line looks when I where jeans.”

Customer Retention – (a) How long you keep a customer after the initial sale; or, loosely defined (b) how long your customer will stay in the bathroom to finish reading your latest promo package.

Deadline – (a) The un-missable, absolute moment when copy must be turned in or (b) I don’t know… I’ve never really seen one, though I’m almost certain they make a whistling sound as they pass.

Full Bleed – (a) When the colors or pictures on a printed page run to the edge.  Expensive.  (b) What your forehead does when you can’t think of a thing to write.

Fulfillment – (a) Everything involved in making good on your promises, especially the sending of promised premiums and the product itself or (b) the thing you hoped for back when you thought you’d actually grow up to be a poet.  And now look at you!

Indicia – (a) Postal information printed on every piece that goes out (b) a small country somewhere in the Pacific where old copywriters go to die… or retire.

Johnson Box – (a) a paragraph or so of copy that appears above the body of the main promo letter (b) where copywriter Gabby Johnson was resigned to living after his control got knocked out of the mail.

Lettershop – (a) the company that assembles, labels, sorts, and mails your stacks of promo letters (b) the people you blame when your “brilliant” mailing flops miserably.

List Broker – (a) specialist service that puts together your mailing lists, from selecting and sorting to deal-making to delivery (b) the people you blame for flopped mailings when the folks at the lettershop stop taking your calls.

Merge-Purge – (a) computerized comparison of mailing lists to sift out duplicate names and “dead” addresses or (b) what new employees do at your Christmas party – come together, get drunk, knock over punch bowl, apologize to toilet the next morning.

Personalization – (a) technique for dropping the customer name into the text or the headline of a package to make the pitch look more personal  or (b) the process by which copywriters take every critique of their “art.”

Response Device – (a) the card or coupon given to the customer so he can mark down his order, payment, and delivery information; gets mailed back to the seller (b) cattle prods, whips, knitting needles and other things used to speed up a sale.

Self-mailer – (a) A promo package that requires no envelope (b) as derived from the phrase, “What?  Does he think the d*mn thing is going to mail itself.”  Typically applied to marketing managers.

 That’s it for now.

Please memorize.  There will be a quiz!

“Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry,” Donald Trump once said, “I like making deals. Preferably big ones.” And indeed, coming up with appealing deals and powerful offers can be an art form unto itself. 

Luckily for those of us who aren’t “The Donald,” there are formulas on how to do it. And books that lay out the formulas in simple yet thorough detail. One, for instance, is “Cash Copy” by Dr. Jeffrey Lant.

As an example, you could build any number of deals using Lant’s most basic premium offer formula, which goes something like this: Successful Premium Offer = FREE + limited time + stated real benefit

But you can get even more fancy, with impressive results. Here are some of the offer structures Lant suggests, followed by details on how marketers might use them… along with added details on how to apply them directly in sales copy:

 Offer Type #1: The Tension Buster

 Challenge: By the time your prospect gets to the sales close, what’s he worried about?  He wants to know if (a) You can solve his problems the way you say you can and (b) If you can’t, can he get his money back.

Marketer’s Solution:  Money-back guarantees are standard fare for all kinds of product offers.  Trial samples work here, too. Personally, I prefer strong guarantees to weak ones.  Clients sometimes fear a flood of refund requests.  But when you’re working with good products and honest sales promises, that shouldn’t be as much of a problem… right?

 Copywriter’s Technique: I usually push for  the strongest guarantee possible.  See if you can get permission to offer 100% of money back, even 110% back for dissatisfied customers.  For the extra 10%, maybe you could tally that up in the form of freebies the refunded customer gets to keep. Make it look substantial too.  Certificate borders help.  So can signatures and a photo next to your guarantee copy.  Also, try putting a strong testimonial in your P.S. or on your reply device.

Offer Type #2: The “Instant Gratification” Deal

Challenge: Immediate action-takers want immediate results.  They want to see the benefits as soon as possible after deciding to buy. 

Marketer’s Solution: Bill-me-later options, installment payments, and trial offers can help scratch the “instant-satisfaction” itch.

Copywriter’s Technique: Emphasize ease of ordering and speed of deliver, with simple phrases like: “You pay nothing up front.  Just let me know where to send your trial sample, and I’ll rush it to your mailbox.”  Tell the customer what they’ll get and, if possible, when.

Offer Type #3: The Coupon-Clipper’s Delight

Challenge: Even with good copy and a good product, sticker-shock can be a problem.

Marketer’s Solution: Quantity offers, limited-time offers, and trade-in deals are a good way to show prospects that they’re getting a good deal.

Copywriter’s Technique:  Emphasize the discount with call out boxes.  Do the math in $$ if the savings is a percentage discount. In the body of the sales close, try showing the cost and efficiency of your product compared to similar, more expensive products. If you can make the offer time-limited, do so.  And put that deadline in a callout-box on the reply page too.  Or another device: Try emphasizing the savings by creating a “price-off” coupon that gets sent back in along with the reply card.

Offer Type #4: The Ticking Timer

Challenge: If you don’t get immediate action on a sales decision, you probably won’t get the sale at all.

Marketer’s Solution:  Seasonal offers have a natural time limit.  But contrived time limits can work just as well.  The “speed-reply” bonus is also a common device.

Copywriter’s Technique: If there’s a limit on the number of customers who can sign up, write about it.  Give specifics. For example: “Frankly, after these 2,000 slots are filled, I’m going to have to close the doors.  If I don’t hear from you by then, you’ll be turned away. I’ll have no choice.  Which is why I hope to hear from you soon..” Emphasize benefits that a prospect sacrifices by waiting too long. Fax and toll-free ordering can be used to help speed up orders too:  “If you want to get started immediately, call or fax your order to…”

Offer Type #5: The EZ Offer

Challenge: Even eager customers can get confused by complex order forms, missing BREs, elaborate information requests, and worse.

Marketer’s Solution: Multiple ways to place an order help. Though, more than three options (fax, phone, mail… or… phone,

mail, e-mail) is probably too much.  These days, the ability to take orders around the clock is a big plus.

Copywriter’s Technique: Try numbering the steps: “(1) Fill out this invitation below, (2) Put it in the envelope provided (3) Drop it in your mailbox.” Add this phrase here and there too: “It’s that simple.” And if you’ve got the leisure of a toll-free number, be sure to put it where the prospect can see it.  Make it large.  Make it easy to find.  And put it on every piece in the envelope.

Offer Type #6: The Private Deal

Challenge: People like to feel like they’re getting privileges. “In a world where everyone is as important as everyone else,” says Lant, ”people are dying to feel more important than everyone else.”

Marketer’s Solution: Create limited editions, clubs, and “societies.”  Frequent-flier miles and favored customer incentives work on this principal too.

Copywriter’s Technique: Use design to make the invitation look exclusive.  Write in “whispered” tones.  The reply device could be constructed like a real “R.S.V.P.” document. When you start the sales close, make sure you summarize the benefits in the form of privileges for exclusive invitees.

Offer Type $7: The Bachelor’s Offer

Challenge: Some people fear commitment.

Marketer’s Solution: See above for talk about “no-money-down” offers.  But for real fence sitters, consider collecting contact details for future use.  E-mail is great for this.  Give non-committal free information up front.  Then use regular contact to deepen the relationship and set the groundwork for a future sale.

Copywriter’s Technique: Here’s where emphasizing freebies can come in handy.  Especially if there’s little or no other commitment. But remember, it’s not worthwhile if (a) the freebie has no benefit to the prospect and (b) you fail to collect personal information for future contact.

A caveat, says Lant, is that “‘Free’ by itself is almost never the strongest possible offer you can make.” However, he recommends, when you’ve got a really strong offer — no matter what kind it is — one of the best things you can do is bring it out right up front.

 Added evidence — many of the most successful direct mail letters of all time lead with a strong sales offer right in the headline or on the first page. By the way, Lant himself credits another old friend of the CR with some of the best insights in his “offer” chapter — our prolific pal Bob Bly, author of the all-time classic “The Copywriter’s Handbook.” 

Pick up a copy if you haven’t already.

According to research collected by the Nielsen Ratings Service, the Washington Post, and several D.C. research groups… 

* Only 17% of all Americans can name any three members of the U.S. Supreme Court.  Meanwhile, 59% of Americans could name all Three Stooges. 

* In the average home, the television is on for 7 hours and 40 minutes per day. 

* From January to September of the 2004 presidential elections, the major candidates spent $342 million on issue-based TV ads. 61% of those ads were centered on attacking the character and track record of the opposing candidate. 

* Those totals ran much higher for the 2008 election.

* The amount of television shown to negatively impact a child’s academic performance is 10 hours per week. 

* The average child between ages 2 and 17, however, watches 19 hours and 40 minutes per week. 

* That’s the equivalent of about 43 straight days of TV-watching per year. 

* 75% of U.S. teenagers know that the Beverly Hills zip code is “90210″; only 25% know the U.S. Constitution was written in Philadelphia. 

* 54% of 4 to 6 year olds report they’d rather watch TV than spend time with their fathers. 

* The brain waves you experience while watching television — almost regardless of what you’re watching at the time — are less active than those you experience while driving on long stretch of straight highway or even while sleeping.

* Your metabolic rate also runs about 16% slower when you’re just sitting there watching TV. No wonder “couch potatoes” are so quick to plump up.

I know this isn’t exactly an issue with a clear correlation to the world of copywriting. The bottom line is, however, we’re better thinkers when we’re less active watchers. Do yourself and the world a favor.  Kill your television.

P.S. Strangely enough, a new study from the University of California shows that Internet use can actually boost your brain power. Especially in people ages 50 and up. Especially if you’re regularly reading sites like this one ; )

After reading all the rosy reports about post-Thanksgiving sales this past “Black Friday”…

Along with the rush of online buying excitement yesterday, it what’s been dubbed “Cyber Monday”…

 Why do I think we should all feel… torn?

 First let me catch up on some of the details.

 A Boom or a Time Bomb?

 You’ve heard, I’m sure, the report that the U.S. is not just “in a recession”… but that it turns out, say those who know best (or claim to), we’ve been in one since December 2007.

 Recessions are hard to call, except in hindsight. But, they say, this one isn’t something in the rearview mirror at all.

 Rather, like the fog on the bridge that’s so thick you’re tempted to cut your driving speed by half —  lest you careen into the chasm below — we’re smack in the middle of this. And not likely to roll out of it until as late as 2011.

 If you’re worried… as a marketer, an investor, or a family bread-winner… maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Then again, we’re now hearing lots of dazzling stories about retail excitement that shouldn’t have been. Strapped homeowners, credit card holders, and the masses of potentially unemployed… rolled out last Friday and shopped their little hearts out.  

Department store traffic — Macy’s, Bloomingdales, and the like — was up 10% over last year. Throngs of shoppers stormed Best Buy shops to pick up tech toys. Toys R Us sold lots of kiddie toys. Old Navy saw clothing sales bump higher over sales at the same time in 2007. 

 Online sales were just as swift, with buyers jamming the The Gap’s website so heavily it slowed to a crawl. The J.Crew site got so many orders, it had to shut down temporarily.

 Frenzied traffic slowed the pages over at Staples.com too. Traffic and sales on Buy.com were running at double-digit percentages above last year’s numbers, by yesterday afternoon.

 Here’s the thing…

 On the one hand, you can credit all this to the ingenuity of marketers who understand what it can take sometimes to get an order. On the other hand, what it took to get the orders doesn’t bode that well for the short-term of selling and marketing. 

 Because what it took was, in a word, discounts.

 Heavy, heavy ones. 

 When Discounts Run Too Deep

 Nearly 85% of retailers offered either big price breaks or giveaways — or both — this past weekend, says the Economist. And traffic on discount “coupon” websites shot up 33%. Meanwhile, the Sears Outlet store, says BusinessWeek, had to give away a free washer with every $700 dryer purchased.

 And those scarves Old Navy sold at a record clip?

They were priced at only $1 a piece.

 Across the board, sales of things like clothing shot up. But not at the specialty shops that focused most on clothing sales. Rather, the discount and outlet stores racked up most of the numbers. Along with related websites.

 That reflects the kinds of products buyers are targeting this year too. The sales on big ticket items are way down. On average, customers spent about a half to a third of what they spent this same weekend in 2007. 

 In other words, the marketers have gotten the people in the door. And they’re making high volume. But they won’t necessarily make money at the same time. The discounts and promotions will eat into the take at the register.

 Now, what’s all this mean?

The “Need-to-Know” Outlook For 2009

 For a marketer, it means it’s time to stay on your toes… or get on them, if you’re not already… and start thinking more carefully about offers and how to write them.

 Whether you’re writing copy that sells your own product or a clients, start studying across markets to see how they word pricing, what kinds of breaks or deals they make, what kinds of guarantees they write, and so on.

 The best place to start, of course, is with the kinds of products that compete directly with what your copy tries to sell. But some of the best ideas can come from a completely different kind of market altogether.

 For instance, this past Friday, my wife and I were on our way out of a large chain supermarket kind of store in Paris (think Wal-mart, but with French accents and escargot in the freezer section). Near the door they had a display rack of “experience” gift boxes.

 These are really just well-packaged gift cards dedicated to things you don’t normally see sold in supermarkets… or in any kind of store, for that matter…

 Bungee jumping and parachuting, weekends at a country chateau, local wine-tastings and gourmet meals, cooking classes. In each gift box, you would find the card that showed you had a credit due for the amount stamped on the box. Plus you’d find a directory showing the place nearest your location (national to France) where you could cash in your gift.

That gave me an idea for gift offers and discount giveaways that I couldn’t wait to get home and send to some colleagues in the publishing business. By the time I’d pounded out my idea, it was a lot different from what I’d seen in the boxes.

 But still worth testing. 

 Keep your eyes open as you read the papers, walk through shops, read ads on subways or hear them play on the car radio. Online, you can try going to those same “coupon” sites I mentioned earlier. One of the heavily visited ones, Black Friday Ads, is still up and running even though Black Friday is water under the bridge. Another coupon and offer-research site that’s open year round is the popular Retail Me Not website. Or you could try Fat Wallet.

 The idea is to go there not with a credit card in hand, but a pen and notepad. Write down what strikes you. You just might find a way to state your offer copy in a way that could make all the difference over the almost guaranteed rough times ahead.

Here’s another thing you should take away from this: there are times it’s especially important for a copywriter to know more than just the details of the product he or she is selling or the customer he’s selling to. And now is one of those times. 

 What you need to know, but might not know already, is something about the overall business strategy that’s directing what you’re about to try to do as you write your next sales piece. That is, what’s the aim of the business owner (and that includes you, if you’re your own marketing and sales team)?

 Are they trying to pump up total revenues? Are they looking to give great deals to loyal customers to keep them on board? Or are they trying to get as many new customers in the door as possible?

 Each strategy is a little different.  And each is going to change the way you write your pitch. It’s also going to radically change the products — and clients — you choose to work with.

In fact, even after the worst of the market froth is well behind us, getting to the level where you’re part of the business strategy conversation is the next important step once you’ve honed your chops as a copywriter.

 In good times as well as bad.

 Will there ever be good times again? Of course.

 If you count the tumult of ’92, the lull of ’94, the scare of ’97, the Internet bust of 2000-2001, and the gutter-gouging market of 2002… this latest staggering market blow is just one more of those moments when it feels like nothing will ever go right again. Granted, by comparison to all the rest, it’s a doozy.

 But this too shall pass. 

 One good thing, by the way — and maybe this is why I’m really torn — is that over-indebted consumers seem to want to think before they buy again. And is that really such a bad thing?

Sure, we all love a capitalistic feeding frenzy. But if nothing else, hard times keep marketers honest. And nimble. To survive, you’ve got to offer a good product. With a good offer. And do it all without breaking your own bank.

 Meanwhile, it’s not just lip service — or shouldn’t be — to say that good marketers want what’s best for their customers. And that includes watching them do what’s best for themselves. Which, right now for many of them, is to buy nothing at all. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still write copy that’s engineered to sell. And laden with as much promise and ambition as ever. I hope you will too. But hey, should we go through a few months where we have to work harder than usual to make it all happen, let’s try not to take it personally… shall we?