“You will never know exactly what brought each person [to your website], but that is not a bad thing.”

They’re not my own, profound words.

They’re actually the words of Samuel Scott, lifted from an article over on thedrum.com.

Scott is a global keynote marketing speaker who is a former journalist, newspaper editor, and director of marketing and communications in the high-tech industry. But, please, don’t let the self-aggrandisation put you off.

Because Scott’s article actually makes quite a lot of sense.

Obviously, I wish it didn’t. As marketers, advertisers and communications professionals, it’d be really quite helpful if we could track the precise results of every promotional campaign we run.

The fact is we really can’t… which is what makes Scott’s article worth reading.

(The article also makes fun of growth hackers and man buns if you need any further convincing.)

Should you choose to read it, though, be a bit careful. Because there’s one point in particular that seems way off the mark.

We mustn’t blame Scott. He’s surely a busy man.

As a global keynote marketing speaker, Scott was probably tapping the article out on a plane to LA while ignoring the cries of a screaming nearby baby and simultaneously exchanging pleasantries with several of his in-flight companions, perhaps after one too many complimentary glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon.

Because how else would the sentence, “Maybe someone [who bought something] saw a TV commercial, remembered it weeks later, and then drove to Walmart or Tesco [to buy it]” have ever made it into the final draft?!

I’m Sorry, Scott.

Most of us live in the real world. We struggle to recall what it was we were even doing a few weeks ago. Most of us would be hard-pushed to accurately recall a 60-minute long TV programme we went out of our way to watch a few weeks back, let alone the advert that may or may not have aired during the bathroom break.

Because I am not a global keynote marketing speaker (and therefore have too much time on my hands), I’ve taken the liberty of rewriting the above to make it a little more accurate.

Here’s what I reckon Scott was probably getting at:

“Maybe someone needed some food and drove to Tesco or Walmart to get some. Maybe, while shopping, that person saw the washing powder aisle and remembered they needed some washing powder. Maybe, because they were scared of wasting money on something rubbish, they bought a brand of washing powder they know is sometimes on TV.”

The two amass to the same thing: a purchase thanks to advertising.

But one reached hundreds – maybe even thousands – of professionals working in marketing, advertising and communications.

The other reached a handful of people reading this blog.

Is it really any wonder Bob Hoffman felt compelled to write the below?

Once upon a time, I was offered three months’ worth of home workouts for free.

The guys who run my life insurance contacted me.

“Chris!” they said. “You need to stay at home lest you contract a deadly disease called coronavirus. We don’t want you to contract coronavirus, cause if you contract coronavirus and die, we lose money!”

It was a sweet message. They were looking out for me.

“But Chris!” they said. “We still need you to exercise! Because if you stay at home to avoid contracting coronavirus but don’t exercise, you might still die anyway, and if you do, we lose money!”

They were very concerned.

So they’d weighed it all up.

And they’d decided the best solution was to offer me three months’ worth of home workouts for free.

All I needed to do was download a fitness app. With a special code, three months’ worth of home workouts were mine. For free!

And if I liked the app, I could carry on using it for £9.99 a month.

It seemed like win-win-win.

I could stay in, avoid coronavirus and exercise. A win for my insurers.

I could get a fitness app for free. A win for me.

And, if all went well, the fitness-app people could get a new customer. A win for them, too.

But it didn’t work out so smoothly.

The fitness app was new.

The workouts were glitchy. And the presentation was poor.

I abandoned the app quickly. It just wasn’t very good.

Over the next few weeks, the app improved.

They kept emailing to tell me.

But by that point, I’d started using another home workout app. It costs a bit. But I still use it today.

In my case at least, the promotion did nothing for the fitness app other than drive me towards its competition.

Here’s the moral of the story, for which Bill Bernbach gets credit.

If you want to build a strong brand, build a good product.

Because there’s no faster way to kill a bad product than advertising.

Despite being a 30 year old male into pizza and beer, I’ve been reading a magazine targeting female gym goers for a while now (for research purposes. Honest.).

The magazine is called Healthy and it’s sold in Holland and Barrett for £1.99. I can’t imagine the publishers make that much money from magazine sales, but they’re wise business people. They fill the mag with ads.

Some of the ads are good. Some are OK. And some are a lesson in how to make sure readers miss your ads. Here’s an example of the latter:

Above: How to make sure magazine readers miss your ads

I’ll hold my hands up and admit (maybe for the only time ever) that, despite my arrogance, I don’t actually know everything there is to know about advertising. But I do know that the above ad probably cost the advertiser a few hundred pounds. And I also know it won’t be read much at all.

Why?

As you can see, the headline these guys eventually settled on (probably after multiple meetings and conference calls) reads ‘Charcoal is the new black’.

Imagine that line without any body copy. Picture it plastered on a billboard with nothing else.

14 foot high, 48 feet wide.

Charcoal is the new black.

From that billboard, do you have any idea what’s on offer?

If you had to guess, you’d presumably guess charcoal. But it’d be a big guess, you’d be wrong and, even if you were actively in the market for charcoal and happened to walk past the billboard multiple times on a trip to the charcoal store, the line ‘Charcoal is the new black’ still does nothing to stop you in your tracks.

It fails to do the only thing a headline should do. It gives you no reason whatsoever to want to find out more.

What should the headline really say?

From behind this here computer screen, it’s easy for me to point out poor copy. What’s a bit harder – and probably much more useful – is to suggest an alternative.

Like I say, that’s harder. But it’s far from impossible.

Following decades of A/B testing, copywriters know what cultivates interest. Generally speaking, you have three criteria you can work with. In order of effectiveness, they are:

1. Appealing to self-interest
2. Offering news
3. Invoking curiosity

If you want to be really clever, you can attempt to write a line that meets two or more of the above criteria at once, which makes your headline even more inviting. If the line says something unexpected or surprising, that’s better still.

By playing around with the above, you can soon come up with dozens of lines that attract the attention of people who might be interested in buying charcoal mouthwash – which, incidentally, is what the above ad is for.

The line, ‘For white teeth, swill black charcoal’ is lazy – but it’s a solid starting point. The white teeth appeal to self-interest. The idea of swilling with charcoal is unexpected. Swilling with charcoal for white teeth is even more odd. It demands an explanation… so it interests readers into the sales message.

Copywriters have known about and used the above three criteria for decades. They were all developed through A/B tests. They’re proven to work.

What’s most depressing is the writer of the above ad probably knew of them, too. Look again at the ad’s subhead.

‘Bring about an insta-worthy smile with Ecodenta’s new charcoal mouthwash.’

An insta-worthy smile (self-interest). New mouthwash (news). Made from charcoal (surprising).

As a headline, the sub-head would attract readers. The trouble is, very few people will ever read it.

Most readers miss this ad entirely.

Because charcoal is the new black.

---

Note: It’s possible this ad was subjected to the same kind of treatment that killed this ad’s results.

If you work in marketing, you’re probably incompetent.

That’s according to research by the Fournaise Group, whose April 2014 report found that

• 67% of marketers don’t believe ROI requires a financial outcome
• 64% cite brand awareness as their chief ROI KPI
• And 31% think audience reach is marketing ROI

“April 2014?!” you might shout, “by a company who make their money by tracking ROI? Why, this report is clearly both biased and outdated!”

Both valid concerns, but, for me at least, the gist of their research isn’t that difficult to believe.

When was the last time you heard of a colleague reading a marketing text in an effort to learn?

Sorry. Anecdotal 500-word blog posts do not count.

Al Ries. Drayton Bird. Steve Harrison. Byron Sharp. Do any of these names mean anything to you? If not, great news!

Most of your colleagues – freelance copywriters included – are incompetent. Instead of learning from others, they’re guessing. Which means you can very easily be better than them.

Just look up Al Ries, Drayton Bird, Steve Harrison and Byron Sharp. Then look up Karen Nelson-Field, Howard Gossage, Lester Wunderman and Claude Hopkins. Luke Sullivan, Jeremy Bullmore, David Ogilvy and Jack Trout, too.

Read their books and you’ll pretty quickly join the minority.

How long might the texts take to read?

100 hours, I’d say, if you read them swiftly. A book a month is what Steve Harrison (mentioned above) recommended I aim for.

If you don’t have that much time then it might be worth hiring yourself a freelance copywriter for the interim. But remember…

Most of us are incompetent. Shop with care.

A short while ago ex-agency boss Paul Kitcatt wrote an article on how to make sure your ads get noticed.

“Make ads people like,” he concluded. “As easy and as difficult as that.”

A valid point, I’m sure you’ll agree. But one that leads to some pretty terrible work – like the below print ad I stumbled across recently:

An ad that goes unnoticed

The above hasn’t been written to sell anything, so it must have been written to be liked. But, as far as I can tell, it’s failing rather dismally – because the team responsible have clearly guessed what people might like. And, as is par for the course, they’ve landed on “something a bit clever. Yes, something clever. That’s what people like.”

It’s not.

What people like, as the Ogilvy Centre for Research discovered back in 1985, is “not something original or clever but something relevant.” So let’s judge the above ad by that criteria.

Look at it again. Is it relevant?

Unless you’ve ever woken up with a burning desire to find out why working in partnership works well for everyone, the answer is no, the ad is not relevant.

So what makes an ad relevant?

Quite simply, an ad is relevant when it promises to solve people’s problems.

For thermal socks, the line “cold feet” worked well – because it highlighted the prospect’s problem.

For the same product, the line “warm feet” did even better – because it promised to solve the problem.

Were the ads liked?

Of course they were – by people with cold feet; the very people a thermal sock company is looking to talk to.

An ad that’s relevant

Now ask yourself this:

Are your communications relevant?

Are they convincing your prospects to buy what you offer?

If either question makes you feel uneasy, ask me how I think your communications could be improved. I’ll answer quickly, free of charge.

I hope to sell you something at the same time, obviously. But it’ll be copy that helps you get noticed and sell more stuff simultaneously.

It’ll be something that solves one of your problems.

In other words, I’ll offer you something relevant.

An ad for LG’s new TVs.

What makes the print ads for LG’s new TV good?

According to some commentators – who feel the concept has been done before – not a lot.

But just because something has been done before, it doesn’t mean it’s no longer able to sell stuff.

If anything, it probably means it’s more likely to sell stuff.

But that’s not what makes the ads good.

What makes them good is the fact they highlight the prospect’s problem, quickly and simply.

Be honest, can you tell the difference between HD and normal TV?

If not, then you’re certainly not going to be able to tell the difference between HD and ‘ultra’ HD – which is what LG claim their new TV has.

So instead of highlighting the benefits of their new TV, Paulo Monteiro, Pedro Cavalcanti and the rest of the team at Young & Rubicam have chosen to highlight the shortcomings of existing models.

“Most TVs are of inferior quality. If you need a new TV, you could do worse than buy ours.”

It’s just a shame about the name. The LG Ultra HD 4K TV is a bit of a mouthful, isn’t it?

At the other end of the spectrum, we have this…

A still from the Minerals Council of Australia’s ‘Coal is Amazing’ campaign

The Minerals Council of Australia’s ‘Coal is Amazing’ campaign attempts to highlight the benefits of coal.

Sadly, though, it was met with hostility from social commentators, who simply refused to believe the campaign’s #coalisamazing strapline.

Promoting coal was never going to be easy… which is why a savvier campaign would’ve instead aimed to highlight the drawbacks of alternatives.

No, coal isn’t great. But as things stand it’s the best we’ve got.

When you can’t position the product, reposition the competition.

[Update: Since writing this, the Minerals Council of Australia has attempted to remove all traces of its campaign.]

 

Down in Brixton in South London, there’s an old, faded ad on the side of a building.

Bovril.

That’s all it says.

For about a month when I lived just round the corner from the ad, I walked past it pretty much every day.

And every day it made me smile.

What, I wondered, must the people behind the ad have been thinking?

“We need an ad for our new meat extract paste,” I can imagine the client saying. “It’s thick and it’s salty and it’s sold in a distinctive bulbous jar. Ideas. Anyone? Anything?”

“Wait, I think I’ve got something!” says a senior creative.

“Go on…”

“Well… what’s the product called again?”

Every day, I deemed the ad ineffective.

But I was wrong.

It turns out that even the ads we don’t notice influence what we buy.

Robert Heath’s work proves it. As he puts it, ads that go “unnoticed” work on a subconscious level.

We pass an ad for hot chocolate once or twice. We take no notice. But, a few days later, we chuck some hot chocolate in the trolley at Tescos. 

Pretty incredible, isn’t it?

All you need to do is advertise. 

You don’t need to overthink it.

You just need to do it.

But then, if you’re going to do it, is it not worth doing well?

I can help you do it well. So well you get the double-whammy: subconscious seduction and rational persuasion.

So if that’s something you’re after, shout.

…and a simple definition you may wish to memorise.

Have you ever been asked to define marketing? Would you be able to?

Try it now. What is marketing?

You probably skipped past that pretty quickly, didn’t you?

If so, admit it to yourself!

You’d struggle to define marketing.

To be honest, I wouldn’t blame you if that were the case.

As far as I can tell, marketing, advertising and copywriting are all pretty straightforward. But there are lots of people out there complicating things.

I haven’t worked out why just yet. But then it doesn’t really matter, does it?

All that matters is you know what marketing is. If they don’t and you do then you’re winning, right?

So here’s something for you for free:

Marketing is an approach to business that seeks to anticipate, identify and satisfy changing customer needs in order to add value*. If you want to sound smart, you can learn that by heart.

If, on the other hand, you want to know and understand what marketing is, then remember this:

Find out what people want and need, give it to them, and you’ll get rich.

And by the way, if you know what people want and need and you have it, then all you need is a good copywriter.

My shameless and self-promotional advice to you? Choose one that knows what marketing is. You can do so over here.

*Amazingly, I learnt this back at school and can still recall it. After consideration, I’m not sure that’s a good thing…

You may currently be considering hiring a freelance copywriter.

If so, you probably need better copy. So here’s a simple way to improve yours:

Put your copy through ‘the conversation test.’ It’s fairly simple to do.

Just imagine you’re sat opposite someone you’re trying to interest and ask yourself if you’d say to them – aloud – whatever it is your copy says.

Would you say ‘maximises revenue streams’ or would you say ‘makes you more money’?

Would you say ‘preserves your schedule’ or would you say ‘saves you time’?

If your copy fails the conversation test, it’s usually worth going back to the drawing board. Why?

Because doing so will make your copy easier to read and net you more readers. And if more people read, more people learn, remember and, ultimately, buy.

Does your copy fail the conversation test? Would a quick polish make it easier to read? If so, give me a shout here.

After all, my copy maximises revenue streams and preserves your schedule.

Doesn’t that sound positively delightful to you?

Here’s a question for you – what is it that makes someone open a marketing email?

Conventional wisdom, and this recent article in ClickZ, takes it as given that it’s a good subject line.

In fact, so accepted has this become that the ClickZ article opens with the line

“If a subject line is low quality, it will achieve a poor open rate, so it’s really important to get it right.”

No empirical evidence, no independent comment. It’s just… well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?

Tragically, though, I spend more time than most alone – and therefore occasionally engage in independent thought.

And, post ClickZ article, I started thinking…

What if, when assessing the factors affecting open rates, the subject line plays second fiddle to a much more influential variable? What if the thing that really gets your email opened is – wait for is – the sender?

I should say that, like the Clickz writer, I haven’t even bothered to search the web to come up with a one-sided case supporting my hunch.

But I can’t help but think this’d have important ramifications. Namely, as opposed to sending relentless promotional offers to an audience not ready to buy, helpful emails would be sent bolstering sender credibility.

And we’d stop sweating over whether sending ‘20% off EVERYTHING’ would outperform ‘20% off ANYTHING’, and we’d start sending emails people look forward to opening – much like direct marketing sage Drayton Bird preaches.

Of course, we’d tag a quick promotional line towards the end:

In need of a copywriter to get more from your marketing? Contact me now – my copy pays for itself and comes guaranteed.

It’s an age-old question. Or, at least, an old one – and one that most people seem to answer quickly, easily and incorrectly, all in a single word:

“Short.”

Such people reckon no-one in their right mind likes reading copy, and that advertisers should shy away from anything of any length.

But split tests – where two versions of an email, letter, web page or otherwise are tested against each other – almost always reveal that long copy outsells short copy. So here’s the real answer:

Copy should highlight every possible benefit of the advertised product or service and overcome every possible reservation the prospect might have, concisely.

When advertisers read their own copy, they’re not prospects.

They’re not interested in buying from themselves. Or if they are, they know everything they need to know already.

They don’t need information.

But when a prospect reads copy, they’re hungry for information.

And once they’re interested, they have reservations.

After making your promises, your copy must overcome every reservation they might have.

Prospects are concerned they might get a better deal elsewhere. Explain why what you’re offering beats everything else.

Prospects are concerned about quality. Highlight your guarantee.

Prospects are concerned about price. Highlight the value of what’s on offer.

Strip out any of the above and your copy will be shorter.

But it won’t work as well. And it will artificially limit your profits.

If you suspect that’s what your current copy is doing – ie, if you think you should be selling more than you are – then give me a shout.

I’ll dissect your copy and let you know where you’re going wrong.

You’ll have your concerns about contacting me, I’m sure. But don’t worry.

My advice is all free of charge. Contact me now.

I was reading through the trade publication Campaign this week when I noticed something alarming.

“Adspend takes hit after Brexit vote” was the headline.

Depressing but understandable news, I thought. The Brexit vote has paved the way for a downturn, hence a cut in spending.

But then I thought for myself for a second (a handy exercise to undertake before writing a self-affirming blog post, I often find). And I thought about how advertising really works.

Advertising first works by ensuring your existing customers aren’t tempted by rivals. And second, it works by tempting new customers away from your rivals.

This isn’t opinion, by the way. Marketing science professors have done… y’know… studies on the subject.

So why would people be cutting adspend before a downturn – a time when advertising would surely be needed most?! And then it hit me.

The cutters weren’t viewing their advertising as an investment at all. They were viewing it as a luxury cost.

If that seems a bit of a leap, then bear in mind what this Fornaise Group research recently ‘revealed’:

• 67% don’t believe marketing ROI requires a financial outcome
• 64% use brand awareness as their top marketing ROI KPI
• 58% place “Likes”, “Tweets”, “Clicks” and/or “Click Through rates” in their top 5 marketing ROI KPIs

As I say, marketers are viewing advertising as a cost – and that explains a lot.

It explains why so much advertising is so poor. And it explains why so much of it fails – repeatedly.

Because today’s top marketers are still unaware of how advertising works. Even worse, they’re perfectly happy running advertising that fails. Now let me ask you:

Are you perfectly happy for your communications to fail?

If not – and, of course, you’re open to hiring a freelance copywriter – then get in touch now.

Your competitors are currently cutting their adspend.

Now’s the time to steal yourself some of their customers.

A few years ago Sony brought out the latest version of their Xperia mobile phone. As is the often the case with tech, the latest version was Sony’s most powerful yet.

The phone’s new specs outstripped those of the latest iPhone by a fair margin. So the Sony people were keen to get the word out via a series of posters, like this:

Although I can’t find it online, I remember one of the posters well. It was a shot of the phone with copy that said something like ‘20.7 MP camera. The most powerful mobile camera ever.’ The point was clear. You couldn’t get better anywhere.

Under the circumstances, you might have expected those who valued the quality of their phone’s camera to rush out and buy. The trouble was, at the time, the Apple guys were running stuff like this;

The two campaigns are a masterclass in advertising.

To stand any chance of success, ads must demonstrate or dramatise the proposition.

The iPhone campaign quite arguably demonstrated and dramatised the iPhone’s powerful camera.

The Sony campaign did neither.

You can learn from both of these campaigns. What to aim for – and what to avoid – when advertising.

But flick through any magazine, newspaper or Facebook feed and you’ll see: few people ever will.

If you fancy working with someone who has, give me a shout. And bear in mind:

One of the above campaigns still runs today.

The other can no longer be found online.

Would being more creative help either you or your business?

Because if so, I’m pretty sure creativity can be learned.

I’ll reveal exactly how in a sec. But before I do, let me drive the point home by telling you this:

Fairly recently, I was tasked with communicating the importance of health and safety at work to the employees of a multinational FMCG company. To be honest, it sounded pretty dull.

But then I found out the firm’s employees weren’t simply suffering from lower back pain. In some cases, employees were dying through failure to take adequate precautions.

I gulped on learning this… y’know, like they do in the cartoons. This was clearly much more serious than anything I’d ever worked on.

So you can imagine how the boardroom reacted when I proposed we combat the problem through something similar to the (watch all the way through before reading on – otherwise you’ll completely spoil this):

Yep. I wanted to boost awareness of health and safety by waltzing a gorilla through a basketball court. Why?

Because not many people spot the gorilla, so I thought the phenomenon demonstrated what can happen when your attention is overtly focused on a single task. When preoccupied with thoughts of an upcoming meeting, a spillage on a stairwell is easy to miss.

It might seem weird, but for me that demonstrates that creativity can be learned. Because creativity isn’t much more than making connections between two existing concepts.

The more concepts you’re aware of, the more creative you can be – and the more chance you have of your marketing campaigns standing out.

Of course, that’s a lot easier said than done. Which is why quite a few companies like working with us freelancers.

Because lots of us have trained ourselves to make connections, so we can sometimes come up with good ideas.

If you’d like to make your marketing more effective then you may wish to hire a freelance copywriter.

Conveniently, you can hire one here.

Have you ever been to the V&A Museum of Art and Design in London?

I went for the first time just yesterday and noticed something interesting – and it wasn’t something the V&A were exhibiting.

The exhibitions, of course, were all well and good. But what really caught my eye was this little box here.

Unspectacular? Maybe. But not when you compare it with this little guy.

Look at that! Two boxes! Placed at two different entrances! Both suggesting different admission prices! Now do you see the magnificence?!

I’m sure you do. But just in case you don’t let me tell you what was so lovely about the boxes.

The boxes suggest the folk at the V&A are up to something:

They’re running a test.

At least I hope they are.

I hope the V&A are monitoring the total each box brings in so that they can work out their most profitable price point.

Perhaps when charging people £4 they get a great many more donations – and therefore make more money – than when charging people £5.

If that’s the case, then the little boxes at the V&A are direct marketing in all its glory, and they can teach marketing folk a valuable lesson.

When you’re wondering how much to charge, or which headline to run, or which call to action to use, or which proposition to promote, or how long your guarantee should be, don’t sit around a board room table debating.

Get out there and test your alternatives, then let the results dictate your actions. Because in doing so, you guarantee yourself better results.

By the way, on the subject of bettering results, you know what you could do to improve yours?

Yep. Contact me here and ask me a question, such as ‘is my website copy turning customers off?’ or ‘what would you do to improve these Google Ads?’.

I offer free advice to all prospective customers.

There’s been a lot of debate in the advertising industry of late on ad blocking software.

For the uninitiated, ad blocking software applies to digital advertising, and does exactly what it says on the tin. That is, it blocks certain digital ads from appearing on websites.

Publishers are understandably stumped. Without ads, they have no revenue. And without revenue, they have no business.

And whilst they’ve been working out how to respond, advertising pundits have been quick to wade in.

It’s our fault, they say. If our ads were better and if they entertained as well as sold, ad blocking wouldn’t a problem. The solution, they say, is to create better digital ads.

Now, I may only be a freelance copywriter mulling things over in an armchair at home, but there’s something that bothers me about their argument:

I can’t quite overlook the fact that no matter how good you make your digital ads, unless everybody else’s standards increase, people will continue to employ ad blockers.

For me, that means that whichever way you look at it, it’s out of our control.

Despite ad blockers, poor digital ads are still being produced.

And because of ad blockers, they’re reaching fewer people.

Which means if you go ahead and book a display ad (or similar), you better make it decent to get yourself some return.

The ‘hangman’ banner ad for Amnesty International was perhaps the finest there’s ever been

Internet users were invited to play hangman, decoding the advertising message themselves

On completion, users were asked to sign an Amnesty International petition promoting human rights

For help with your digital advertising, give me a shout.

A few days ago, I prepared a headline that I was quite pleased with.

For the time being, I’m not going to tell you what it was.

Instead, I’ll tell you it was one of the below, nestled under the following picture.

Headline 1 – Toni’s Fitness “Secret” Revealed

Headline 2 – Eat Your Way To A Top Bod

Any ideas which is the one I was happy with?

Although casual onlookers might think the two similar, there are at least 4 differences between the two that make headline 1 a hell of a lot stronger than headline 2.

1. With the word “secret”, Toni’s Fitness “Secret” Revealed appeals to curiosity. Eat Your Way To A Top Bod does not.

2. By using quotation marks around a key word, Toni’s Fitness “Secret” Revealed dials up the curiosity further, commanding more attention. Eat Your Way To A Top Bod does no such thing.

3. Cunningly, Toni’s Fitness “Secret” Revealed does not reveal itself as a commercial message. Eat Your Way To A Top Bod, by contrast, very much does.

4. And Toni’s Fitness “Secret” Revealed leverages celebrity. The picture is of none other than Toni Terry, wife of at-the-time Chelsea captain John Terry. You wouldn’t know that with Eat Your Way To A Top Bod.

There’s a final difference between the two headlines which is the most important of them all.

Eat Your Way To A Top Bod was the headline printed in the Metro on the 27th of April, after the lovely people running the paper whimsically decided to change the copy I submitted moments before everything went to print.

To the person that made the change, the lines were one and the same. Eat Your Way To A Top Bod may have even been deemed an improvement.

To those in the know, the difference is heartbreaking.

The trouble is, few people really are in the know.

If you’re after a copywriter who is, then drop me a quick email now.

As you probably already know, Buffer is fairly well established social media management platform. As part of their marketing, the company runs a podcast called The Science of Social Media.

I’ve written before about how and why social media marketing in it’s current form will never work. Social media advertising, on the other hand, does work – so I try my best to keep on top of social media ad developments. It’s for this reason that, on the 17th of September last month, while walking to London’s Walthamstow Central tube station, I was listening to Buffer’s podcast.

Specifically, I was listening to an episode entitled 752,626 Facebook Ads Analyzed, How One eCommerce Store Generated 41,000 Emails and 10,000 Followers, New Social Media Tools, and More!

At around 7 minutes into the podcast, something strange happened. The show’s hosts started discussing specificity.

“I’m also wondering if it helps with headlines to actually put a specific number, like 37,259, versus a general, like, 37,000 number,” said one of the hosts, while the second made an “ooohhh” sound, almost worshipping the genius of the question.

After a brief back and forth, the hosts were unsure. In the end they asked the listeners to clarify.

The answer is specificity unequivocally improves advertising copy.

Being specific in your advertising convinces skeptical readers what you’re saying is true. Take the following two headlines.

This razor offers a quick shave.

This razor offers a 78-second shave.

Which one makes you lean in?

Which carries more weight?

Which do you believe?

Although your gut tells you the answer, you don’t need to rely on your gut. The great copywriter Claude Hopkins devoted a chapter of one of his books to specificity and gave advice following the results of his split tests.

As Claude put it, “Platitudes and generalities roll off the human understanding like water from a duck. They leave no impression whatever.”

He went on: “But a man who makes a specific claim is either telling the truth or a lie. People do not expect an advertiser to lie. They know that he can’t lie in the best mediums. The growing respect in advertising has largely come through a growing regard for its truth. So a definite statement is usually accepted. Actual figures are not generally discounted. Specific facts, when stated, have their full weight and effect.”

He then offered a series of examples.

Claude’s book was titled Scientific Advertising. 95 years on, it seems like the hosts of a podcast entitled The Science of Social Media aren’t aware of its existence. If they’re the ones giving advice to your competitors… well that’s pretty handy, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, have a read through this – it’s free. If you’re able to use Hopkins’ advice in your copy, your advertising will improve and you’ll sell more stuff.

Alternatively, if you’d prefer someone to inject the principles into your marketing with no effort on your part whatsoever, I might be able to help. Just give me a shout here.

A while ago, I wrote this piece entitled How to ensure your advertising gets noticed.

In essence, the article pointed out that ads that promise to solve problems get more attention.

Seems reasonable, doesn’t it? But if that’s the case, why do so few advertising agencies bear this in mind when producing advertising?

Why do they create print ads with headlines like ‘Who knows what might happen next.’ (Volkswagen; yes, it should have a question mark) or ads with headlines like ‘7:45’ (Onurair)?

Volkswagen ad. The headline may as well read ‘Who cares what happens next?’

And why do so many ads run without headlines at all?

The answer’s pretty simple.

In general advertising, it’s very difficult to monitor what is and isn’t getting noticed. So general advertisers run advertising they like – and that’s the end of the story.

Because of things like the economy, changing consumers preferences, package designs, competitor activity and hundreds of other factors, they can’t connect the dots between the adverts and product sales. So wasteful adverts continue to run.

Onurair ad. The headline ‘Daytime flights, nighttime prices’ would have gained attention. ‘7:45’ does not.

There’s really only one way to avoid such a situation. And that’s to work with people who have worked in direct response advertising.

In direct response, everything is tracked. Direct adverts ask people to buy things immediately. Each advert has a unique code that must be quoted on purchase, so advertisers know when adverts work

Direct response advertisers know what does and doesn’t get noticed. And they know what does and doesn’t boost sales.

They know that headlines increase readership. They know that surprising, news-based and curiosity invoking headlines increase readership further, and they know ads that promise to solve problems make sales. They know ignoring such principles will soon leave them out of a job.

After working in direct response, advertisers can create general advertising that gets noticed – even when results cannot be tracked.

That’s why David Ogilvy, one the most successful advertisers ever, believed every ad-person should spend two years in direct response before being allowed to work on general advertising. And it’s how you can ensure your advertising gets noticed.

Simply by working with people who have worked in direct response.

Clearly, I wouldn’t be able to write this piece if I hadn’t worked in direct response. And even more clearly, I’d like to work with you.

Because if you’re reading this, you probably have an interest in running advertising that works. Is that the case?

If so, contact me now. There’s a good chance you and I will get on.

People advertise to influence how other people behave.

For example, a government might advertise to persuade more people to use public transport.

A charity such as Animal Aid might advertise to persuade more people to become vegan.

Commercial brands are the world’s biggest advertisers. They advertise to encourage people to buy their brands.

Some ads contain no sales message. Even so, they influence people’s behaviour.

Interestingly, more than a few ads contain no sales message whatsoever. Even so, such ads can still influence people’s behaviour.

In this post, I’ll explain how ads with no sales message influence people’s behaviour – and why they sometimes don’t.

Let’s begin with a quick story…

A few years back, before I’d even considered advertising as a career, I spent some time occasionally studying economics at the University of Southampton.

One of my lectures, one day, was on advertising.

The topic of discussion was this:

Why do people advertise?

The question was marginally more interesting than the usual stuff, so I paid attention.

The ultimate conclusion went something like this:

People advertise to sell more stuff

(At least, that’s why commercial brands advertise.)

The above might seem obvious, of course. 

But look at this ad for Tovaritch! vodka:

This ad offers almost no sales message at all

Setting aside four words, the ad above offers nothing in terms of a sales argument.

So can it be true that people are running this advert (and others like it) to try to sell more stuff?

Apparently so. Because, as I learned in my lecture that fateful day, advertising is a signal.

Advertising is a signal

Here’s how the ‘signalling’ theory of advertising goes:

Advertising is expensive.

So brands that pay to advertise probably believe in the quality of their product.

People (or, in marketing talk, ‘consumers’) realise the above. So when they stand in a shop wondering whether to buy Tovaritch! vodka or a non-branded equivalent, they understand Tovaritch! is probably not completely terrible. The brand runs expensive ads, after all.

They deliberate. Then they pick up a premium-priced bottle of Tovaritch!, just to be on the safe side.

If you remain unconvinced, ask yourself (UK-folk) if you’d prefer to buy Tovaritch! vodka or Absolut.

Tovaritch! – the world’s most awarded vodka – isn’t advertised here in the UK… and that’s why we prefer Absolut.

Plus, brands that advertise can charge a premium

As an added benefit, brands that run expensive ads can usually charge a premium and still make sales, just because they’re advertising.

Their ads require no sales argument whatsoever.

There are no shackles.

You can go ahead and run an advert depicting a cartoon astronaut drinking vodka on the moon. 

You’re still advertising. So you’re still OK.

So long as advertising is expensive.

Cheap, online advertising is not a signal

Of course, in the digital realm, advertising isn’t particularly expensive.

In fact, you can get started for just a few pence.

So online advertising is not a signal.

And that means the mere act of running online ads is not enough to change people’s behaviour.

It’s not enough to convince people to buy.

Online advertising must try to sell

So to be of any real use, online ads (that are unsupported by offline advertising) must try to sell.

That probably explains why people like Eric Visser believe online ads are typically less ‘creative’ than TV or print ads.

Online ads can’t just be branded entertainment.

Instead, online ads usually attempt to get people to buy.

No astronauts drinking vodka on the moon. Just sales messages attempting to get people to do something.

Online advertising unsupported by offline advertising cannot simply be branded entertainment. It must get people to do something.

Can ads build brands and sell at the same time?

Now – here’s where things get really interesting.

Is it possible to create ads that build a brand (so you can charge a premium) and that sell stuff at the same time?

Again, apparently so.

Here’s an ad from a (D&AD award-winning) campaign that did neither:

This Pepsi ad (yep, it is for Pepsi and, tragically, it is an ad) did nothing for sales

And here’s an ad from a campaign that did both:

This campaign for M&G investments increased enquiries by 32.5% and market share by 14.8%… with a 31.7% reduction in media costs

Not many creatives shoot for the latter. Why?

Why so few ads attempt to strengthen brand messaging and sell

My guess is ad people, determined to be seen as ‘thought-leaders’, prefer coming up with their own theories to actually doing their homework.

The upshot is few ad people really know how advertising works. Which is handy for people like me and you.

Advertising is hard enough as it is. The last thing we need is tougher competition.

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Footnote: for simplicity, this post sets aside Ehrenberg-Bass research. But don’t both the research and signalling just fit together beautifully?

Print ad headlines serve a simple purpose:

To grab people’s attention.

The purpose, of course, is simple enough. But achieving it is far from easy.

All copywriters know this (it’s especially apparent to those who’ve worked in direct response advertising – where results are measured). So, invariably, good copywriters keep a log of successful print ad headlines that have been.

When we’re stuck for a headline, we can turn to the print ad headlines we’ve recorded and adapt them, safe in the knowledge that our new headlines – while they might not be groundbreaking – will at least achieve the only aim that really matters.

If you’re stuck for a headline, here’s some inspiration to get you going.

1. Do you make these mistakes in English?

Some consider the above headline – which was written by Max Sackheim, who mentored the great Lester Wunderman – to be the most effective headline in advertising history.

The line was aimed at people looking to improve their spoken and written English. It singled out its prospects, and invited them in to the body copy.

The key word in the headline, by the way, is ‘these’. As you’ve no doubt noticed, it creates an information gap in the reader’s mind – encouraging them to read on to close the gap, as is human nature.

Of course, the body copy then proved to readers they had a problem that the advertiser could solve – which is a pretty effective advertising technique.

2. “At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”

The above headline was written by David Ogilvy, and is considered by many his masterpiece.

The ad was part of what Ogilvy considered ‘general’ advertising – which is what you might call brand advertising today. Still, the headline uses techniques from Ogilvy’s ‘first love’ – direct response advertising – to get people’s attention.

Specifically, Ogilvy used the word ‘new’ deliberately, because humans are hard-wired to take an interest in the novel.

Notice the word ‘this’, too. It’s the same technique used in the headline above – the word ‘this’ creates an information gap that readers feel compelled to close.

(Ogilvy did the exact same thing in the ad’s subhead – which opened with ‘What makes Rolls-Royce the best car in the world?’)

The real magic of the headline, though, is just how surprising it is. At 60 mph, you’d expect a car’s engine to be roaring and its gears to be clunking. The headline subverts expectation – and earns attention as a result.

A final point of note on the headline, by the way, is it’s origins: Ogilvy himself adapted a historic headline to write it.

The headline Ogilvy ‘adapted’?

‘The only sound one can hear in the new Pierce-Arrows is the ticking of the electric clock.’

3. I wish my son had cancer

We discussed the power of subverting expectations above, and headline number 3 takes the technique to the extreme.

The line was written to advertise a charity – Harrison’s Fund – which supports research into Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

The disease is little known, but debilitating.

When preparing a fundraising ad for the charity, the creative team behind the ad interviewed the father of 6-year-old Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy sufferer Harrison, to help them come up with something effective. During interviews, Harrison’s father muttered that, rather than Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, he wished his son had cancer.

It’s a harrowing line – and the team used it, unedited, to come up with one of the most powerful print ad headlines of all time.

4. The writer of this ad for William Lawson’s whisky would like to stick two fingers up to the team at William Lawson’s whisky

Should what you’re advertising be a little simpler than a charity or car, don’t panic. With a little effort, you can write headlines that subvert expectations for even simple products – like the print ad headline above, which I once wrote for William Lawson’s whisky.

It’s probably worth mentioning the tone of your print ad headline at this point – which is a much misunderstood concept.

Many believe adapting tone is simply a case of selecting the right synonyms. But that’s not the case.

When writing copy – for headlines or otherwise – it almost always makes sense to use the simplest words and sentence structures you can. You don’t build a ‘professional’ tone by using complex words. Instead, you develop tone through the pictures your copy paints, through the stories and jokes you choose to tell and withhold, and through the subjects you discuss.

The tone of the headline above works for a whisky brand that advocates flouting rules, but little else.

When writing print ad headlines, think about the brand you’re advertising and how it’s perceived.

5. The lazy man’s way to riches

Are you starting to see a pattern here?

A surefire way to grab attention with a print ad headline is to subvert people’s expectations.

Riches, of course, are assumed difficult to come across. The above line subverts the notion – suggesting you can be lazy and become rich. It’s an enticing claim that demands scrutiny.

It’s not solely the subversion of expectation that makes the above headline so powerful, of course. What really makes it work is the fact it appeals to self-interest.

It promises riches – which is precisely what its target audience are after.

Doing so while also subverting expectation simply turbocharges its power.

6. Deaf people now hear whispers

You can see the subversion of expectation once again at work in the above – but we’ve covered that in enough detail already.

What I want to focus on in the print ad headline above is a single word: ‘now’.

We discussed what makes words like ‘now’ so powerful above, when analysing David Ogilvy’s ad for Rolls-Royce:

Word like ‘now’, ‘new’, ‘finally’ and ‘introducing’ all imply news – and humans are hardwired to pay attention to novel concepts.

(The reason, by the way, is evolutionary: prehistoric humans who paid attention to the novel were far more likely to escape predators and procreate than those who didn’t.)

Should you ever find yourself stuck for a print ad headline, see if there’s some way to offer readers news.

Ideally, offer them news that also appeals to self-interest.

And if you can do so while subverting expectation and/or arousing curiousity, even better.

If, however, you find yourself really stuck, it might be worth partnering with a copywriter.

Writing attention grabbing headlines for all kinds of media is what we’re trained to do.

Plus, we have swipe files far more extensive than most.

Working in advertising is terrifying.

Every day you need a new idea – and, as the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun.

This became starkly apparent when my copy failed recently. Twice.

Here’s what happened.

For around a year or so, I’ve been working on an ongoing e-marketing campaign. Each week, I talk to the same people with (invariably) the same objective: to get them to pay money for the product I asked them to pay money for the week before. You’re probably familiar with the situation.

How the hell do you keep them interested? They know your email is coming. They know what opening it might lead them to do. How the hell do you convince them, time and time again, to do it?

You need new ideas, and they need to be good. And for two consecutive weeks, mine weren’t.

Naturally, my client asked me to explain. I had no answers. But there was a ridiculously simple solution.

The solution I stumbled on was tucked away in a book – which is always a source of new ideas.

The book in question was Lester Wunderman’s Being Direct. Mid-way through, Wunderman explains that he found buyers of art were interested in the stories behind their art – because they enjoyed relaying the stories to friends.

Perhaps the same thing would work for my audience?

It did, and I managed to survive another week. Next week, a new idea will be called for. Have you ever faced a similar problem? If so, you have two options:

You can either find yourself a new idea (perhaps in a book like Wunderman’s).

Or you can deprive a freelance copywriter of some sleep – by asking them to find one for you.

You can do the latter here.

You may have seen this new thing called ‘testing’.

It’s pretty awesome – and it works like this.

You write some copy. But you don’t let all your prospects see it. That would be madness!

Instead, you let, say, 10% of them see it. You just dangle it in front of them, to see how they react.

If they respond favourably, you’re in business! You can roll your test out to the other 90% and make lots of lovely money.

If, on the other hand, your prospects respond unfavourably to your test…

Well, 90% of them never see it, so no harm done! You haven’t lost anything, have you?

Have you?

… haven’t you?

Actually, you have. You’ve lost is the opportunity to test something that may have made you lots of that lovely money I mentioned above.

So before you run your next copy test (which you must always be doing to improve, by the way), ask yourself this:

What makes you think your test will work?

Testing, as it happens, pre-dates the internet. And through testing, copywriting legends like Claude Hopkins, John Caples and David Ogilvy discovered certain tweaks almost always boost profits (even when costs go up).

• Like using bullets in your copy.
• Or offering something for free.
• Or extending your guarantee.
• Or including your target’s name in your communications.

These are the money-makers you should want to test quickly. Not changing the colour of a sales button, or decreasing your word count, or anything else the jury is very much still out on.

Because if your tests don’t uncover wins, you’ve fallen behind. Make sense?

If so, ask yourself this:

Do you want to stack the odds in your favour when trialling new copy?

Then ask me to write some copy for you.

I’ll make sure you run something proven to work. So you take a step in the right direction.

Whilst your competitors play around with the colour of their buttons.

I opened Shortlist magazine today.

It turns out the footballer Dele Alli has been crowned one of the magazine’s Guys That Matter. Apparently, Alli is a “bright prospect for England’s future.”

Exciting news, isn’t it?

Steven Gerrard was once a bright prospect for England’s future. As was Frank Lampard. And even some guy called Michael Owen at one point.

But all of those bright prospects are now retired.

And if I’m not mistaken, England flopped out of all competitions each of the above played in, more often than not after being dominated by lesser opponents.

It’s analogous to something that happens pretty often in advertising.

People talk about the future.

Then when they future arrives, they continue talking about the future – usually because the initial future is now the present and their predictions were actually really quite off.

A few years ago lots of people were talking about social communities and brand conversations.

Earlier this year, a Harvard Business Review scrutinised 16 studies and found no evidence that following a brand on social media changes purchasing behaviour. Today even Facebook themselves admit fans are largely irrelevant.

So today, those who made the predictions – and made money out of them – are still talking about the future.

In the here and now, though, advertising, PR and direct marketing – whether applied to social media or not – continue to build brands and make sales. Is that not a little bit more important?

If you reckon so, then get in touch. I generally don’t plan on helping you out ten years from now.

But I’d be more than happy to help you in the present.

Certain words amplify your copy’s potency. How do we know?

We know thanks to direct response copy.

Direct response copy aims to get prospects to do something immediately – like clicking, subscribing or buying. As such, direct response copy’s results can be measured.

Direct response copy can also be tested: you can run two sets of copy simultaneously and, by monitoring results, you can work out which is best.

Copywriters have been ‘split testing’ their copy for decades now. And we’ve realised certain words have the power to get people to pay attention and act.

Here are three such words.

1. New

The word ‘new’ promises readers new information. And, as humans, we’re evolutionarily wired to pay attention to new information – because doing so helped our ancestors first survive then thrive.

So if you can tell your reader something new, do it.

It’s a very simple way to attract attention.

2. You

The word ‘you’ (or ‘your’, or other variations of the second person) doesn’t just get people’s attention.

It keeps people’s attention.

That’s because us humans are largely self-interested. We’re therefore far more likely to pay attention to copy that mentions us repeatedly. 

More than a few copywriters fail to grasp this – and insist on running lines like ‘we’re passionate about cleaner dishes.’

The mistake is easy to rectify. ‘Your dishes. Cleaner.’ depicts the reader in the copy, which makes things more engaging.

3. Free

Very few people actively seek out marketing communications.

People will, however, seek out something that’s free. Which is why using the word ‘free’ in your copy is so powerful.

Of course, using the word ‘free’ usually means you have to give something away. Direct response copywriters realise, however, that giving something relevant away almost always pays for itself thanks to a combination of the reciprocity principle and the halo effect.

New, you and free. They’re three words you can use to remedy failing copy.

Of course, putting the theory into practice isn’t always easy.

If you could do with a hand, give me a shout.