“can anybody tell what is copywriting, i know nothing about it”

There were the expected sarcastic comments that the person should have just used Google to look it up.  It did seem like a pretty simple thing that someone could have found on Google or Wikipedia.

In fact, the Wikipedia entry for copywriting is comprehensive and even includes an explanation of the term copywriter.  Click here to see how Wikipedia describes copywriting and copywriter.

However, that message board post got me to thinking, “What if someone stumbled across this site and had no idea about copywriting or copywriters?”

It’s Not A Silly Question

I’ve even experienced this curiosity with other people when I mention copywriting.  I’ve been asked, “What is that exactly?”

To me, copywriting is the act (and art) of using written words to persuade someone to take action (or not take action).

Those words can be used in a variety of ways like radio or TV commercials, direct response letters, infomercials, print ads, catalogs, brochures, press releases, and a wide array of other marketing and communications uses.

There’s An Art To Copywriting

Above, I said it’s not only the act of using those words, but the “art” of it as well.

There really is an art to copywriting.  It’s important to understand how to put those words together in a way that will actually persuade someone to take an action such as picking up the phone to place an order.

There’s also an art to knowing that you can’t arrange the words in a radio ad the same way you do in a print ad or in a web page.

For example, in a radio commercial people are only listening to the words and they can’t go back in the ad if they missed something or didn’t understand it.  They have to wait to hear it again, and they may not pay attention or even be listening to the radio the next time the ad plays.

In print advertising, you may have the advantage of pictures to help explain what’s being sold.  Someone looking at the ad can re-read something if they need to clarify what’s written.  However, those words still need to sell the idea.

Web pages, of course, are entirely different things altogether.  Not only do the words need to persuade, they should also be SEO-friendly.  In other words, optimized for search engines.

Just like those three examples, there are different techniques for writing direct mail copy, brochures, TV commercials, press releases, and all the other ways that copy can be used.

The entry in Wikipedia says, “Copywriting is the use of words to promote a person, business, opinion or idea.”

Knowing Where To Hit It

The real trick here is knowing how to use those words.  Here’s a little joke (one you’ve probably heard before) to illustrate this point:

A guy brings his car to a mechanic and says the engine is making a funny noise.  The mechanic takes a listen, goes to his toolbox and returns with a hammer.  He hits the engine with the hammer, the noise stops, and the mechanic says, “That’ll be $500. ”

The customer says, “Five hundred dollars to hit it with a hammer?”

The mechanic replies, “No it’s $10 to hit it with a hammer.  It’s $490 to know where to hit it.”

So, copywriting is not just a matter of stringing some words together.  The copywriter has to know how to string those words together.

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This summer, my wife and I went on vacation and spent a few days at The Golden Nugget in Las Vegas.  The first night we were there, we ate at Grotto, a restaurant in the hotel.

Their menu of Italian food was very appealing and featured a lot of great looking dishes.  However, when we noticed some other folks getting one of the wood fired pizzas, we decided to do the same.

Before the pizzas arrived, our waiter delivered a basket of delicious bread and a plate of olive oil to our table.  The pizza arrived in just a few minutes, and it was as tasty as it looked.  Noticing the now-empty basket, our waiter quickly returned with another loaf.

The food and the service that evening was excellent and we left knowing that we would be back at least once more during our stay.

A couple of nights later, we decided we wanted another of those delicious pizzas, but we wanted to take it to our room.  We stopped in to Grotto and they were happy to accommodate our take-out order.

While we sat at the bar, we asked the server who had taken our order if we could get a loaf of that bread to go as well.  He said, “We’re really not supposed to do that, but let me see what I can do.”

A few minutes later, he brought over the pizza box, and on top was a bag with a loaf of bread and a little plastic cup with some olive oil.

Now, I’m not sure if he really “broke the rules” and gave us some bread, or if that was said just to make us feel special.  Either way, though, it did make us feel like special customers.  It also made us go back to Grotto to eat again.  In all, we had four meals there.

For my copywriting clients and my voiceover clients, I’ve always tried to give them more than they expected.  “Exceed expectations” is my goal for every project I work on.

Are there little extras you could give your customers?

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1. Two Questions For Your Business
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You don’t have to be Ernest Hemingway, Henry David Thoreau or even David Ogilvy to be an effective copywriter. However, using some of their ideas along with other proven methods will make your radio commercials more effective.

First, remember that no matter what product or service you’re selling, there is a limited market available. No amount of advertising will create a market for you. All of your efforts should be aimed at capturing as large a share of that market as possible. An effective, well-written piece of radio ad copy will go a long way toward helping you get your share of the pie.

Remember too, that not everyone who might buy your product is ready to buy right now. People may be in the market for a new house once every ten years. They may buy a new car every five years. They probably buy milk once a week.

When writing your radio copy, figure out how frequently your customers buy what you’re selling.

Also you can’t expect a commercial to sell the product for you. Your goal is to generate interest in what you’re selling. You want the commercial to get people through your front door or get them to pick up the phone.

To do this, you have to decide specifically what you’re going to advertise.

Don’t waste your money using so-called institutional commercials, which merely talk about your business:

” … We’ve been in business 42 years. So when you’re looking for quality, stop in to see us. Our friendly, knowledgeable staff can take care of all your needs … ”

This kind of commercial will do nothing to generate traffic. Instead decide what you can spotlight that will bring people through your door.

Know your USP — your Unique Selling Proposition — it’s what separates you from your competition. You want people to know why they should buy from you.

Stick to one thought!

Whatever you do, avoid the trap of including all your specials, all your products, everything you do. Remember, with a radio commercial people are listening in “real time.” If you confuse them with too much information, they’ll just tune you out.

The following rules make effective radio copywriting easy. Just follow the steps like a recipe and you will have a commercial that will generate interest in your business.

1. Grab their attention.

To break through the advertising clutter grab the listener’s attention in your opening line. Sometimes this is as easy as using a line such as “Attention, Car Buyers” or “Homeowners, did you know … “.

These types of headlines grab the attention of the market you’re trying to reach. People who are looking to buy will self-select themselves. People who aren’t planning to buy a car or who don’t own a home will tune out your message. Let them, you didn’t want them anyway … they’re not your customers.

Headlines don’t have to be as abrupt as this, but they should get the attention of the people you’re trying to reach as soon as possible. Remember you only have a few seconds in which to make them want to hear more.

2. Make an offer.

Now that you have their attention, you must give the prospect a reason to continue listening. Tell them what you’re selling.

Let’s assume you own a travel agency and you want to sell families on the idea of going to Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Remember, get their attention and then tell them what you’re selling.

“If you’re planning your vacation, you can be a hero to your kids. ABC Travel has a great package to Florida’s Disney World…”

See, you’ve attracted the attention of people who are thinking of vacationing and you’ve gotten right to what you’re selling. Now those vacationers want to know more, so:

3. Give them a price.

“If you’re planning your vacation, you can be a hero to your kids. ABC Travel has a great package to Florida’s Disney World, for as little as $500.”

You don’t have to give them every price and you don’t have to give the details of the package. Phrases like “double occupancy” and “you must fly only on Tuesdays when it’s raining in Death Valley” do nothing to help your message. They add extra clutter and confuse the listener, making it easy to stop listening to the rest of your commercial. If you have to include some sort of legal information, do it at the end as a disclaimer, not within the body of the spot.

Now if the phrase helps to sell your message, something like, “kids stay free” by all means be sure that gets in there.

4. Make it urgent.

Even if the deadline is one that you decide, you must get the prospect to act quickly. Get them to make a decision as quickly as possible. “You must make your reservations by November 10th.” Now the listener knows that there is a limited time to this offer.

5. Ask for action.

As any salesperson knows, you have to ask the prospect for action before you have a customer. The same holds true with your commercial.

“Call ABC Travel TODAY and we’ll get you on the way to Disney World.”

By asking them to call today you’ve taken the listener from just thinking about a vacation to getting them to pick up the phone.

There are a few DON’Ts you should keep in mind when writing your copy.

1. Don’t confuse the listener.

As mentioned above, don’t use phrases that do nothing to help your commercial. Along the same lines, don’t give phone numbers and addresses in such a way as to confuse the listener.

Most people don’t listen to the radio with pencil and paper in hand. Unless you have an easy number to remember, 555‑5555 or a number that spells a word like 555-TRIP don’t put too much weight on getting the number in the commercial.

If you have time, mention the number but, remember, a phone number is seven words, not just one number … it takes the announcer additional time to read the number. You need to decide whether mentioning the number is the best use of your 30 or 60 seconds.

A line such as “Look for ABC Travel in the white pages” is just as effective, since the listener will most likely have to look up the number anyway. Don’t mention the Yellow Pages. This only helps to advertise your competition.

With addresses, a specific address is usually a waste of time. Rather than saying, “We’re at 18572-B Johnny Appleseed Boulevard” just say, “We’re at the corner of Colfax and Appleseed.” A landmark that’s well-known to most people will also help. “We’re just a block east of the purple elephant.”

If you have an easy to remember website address you can mention that. But with a web site, just give the main part of the URL: A B C Travel dot com. You don’t need the w-w-w. And stay away from complicated web addresses with lots of slashes and other characters.

2. Don’t expect instantaneous results.

I’ve often seen clients run two commercials a day for five days and then get upset because they haven’t seen a substantial increase in business. Getting results from your radio advertising takes time. A consistent, well-planned schedule is just as important as an effective piece of copy.

In addition, some of your business may be a direct result of your commercial without you realizing it. For example, a listener who’s planning a business trip may hear ABC Travel’s spot about Disney World and call to make plane reservations to San Francisco.

Did the commercial work? Of course, ABC Travel gained a new customer which was the ultimate goal of the commercial. Most people won’t even mention your commercial.

But if you’re advertising your travel package to Disney World, avoid the temptation to say, “we also handle business travel arrangements.”

Remember: one thought per spot.

3. Don’t include things that are merely designed to boost your ego.

Unless you have money to throw around, your radio commercial isn’t the place to puff up your chest and say look at me. Take satisfaction in knowing that you’ve written a commercial that will get people in the door or get the phones ringing.

Back to Hemingway, Thoreau and Ogilvy (sounds like an ad agency, huh?). Both Hemingway and Thoreau had advice for writers that also works well when writing advertising copy.

Hemingway said the best rules for writing were those he was given as a cub reporter on the Kansas City Star. Those rules included: Use short sentences; use vigorous English; be positive, not negative.

When writing your commercial remember these rules. Short sentences keep the pace of the spot moving. And they help in your goal of not confusing the listener who doesn’t have the luxury of rereading a line he didn’t understand. Remember that you’re writing for the ear not the eye.

Using vigorous English means using words that capture the listener’s attention it doesn’t mean using words the listener will need a dictionary to understand.

Keeping a positive tone throughout the spot will help keep them listening to the end.

Thoreau advised writers to Simplify! Simplify! Simplify!

Great advice for copywriting too. Make it easy for the listener to understand your message. You’ve only got them for 30 or 60 seconds and you don’t want them spending part of that time trying to figure out what you mean.

David Ogilvy, the advertising genius said, “Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating.” One of his most well-known headlines explains it all: “At 60 miles per hour the loudest thing about the Rolls Royce is the ticking of the clock.” This headline is powerful because not only is it true, but fascinating as well.

Before you send off your copy to the radio station or your voice talent, read it aloud to yourself a few times. Be sure it gets the point across in a simple, understandable manner. If not do some editing. Don’t worry about throwing away some of your words. It’s better to cut some words than to throw away some customers. When it sounds good to you, read it aloud to someone who’s opinion you value and who’ll be honest with you about how it sounds.

Let’s take a look at ABC Travel’s commercial now that we’ve applied all these rules:

If you’re planning your vacation, you can be a hero to your kids. ABC Travel has a great package to Florida’s Disney World, for as little as $500 and kids stay free! With vacation packages starting at $500 you’ll want to start packing today. You must make your reservations by November 10th so call ABC Travel now at 555-TRIP. Look for ABC Travel in the white pages or stop by our office at Colfax and Appleseed, a block east of the purple elephant. Or visit us on the web at A B C Travel dot com. Your kids will never forget their trip to Disney World … and neither will you.

By following the recipe, we’ve created a commercial that targets people with kids who are thinking about vacations. We’ve told them exactly what ABC Travel has to offer and how to reach us, plus we’ve given them a deadline which adds urgency to their decision.

Use this commercial recipe for your business and enjoy the taste of increased profits.

This article was published previously on my voiceover website.

On Copyblogger I found one called 101 Ways to Make More Sales Online.

While this article is targeted to businesses that sell online, many of the tips are very appropriate to any business.

A lot of these tips are just good common sense marketing and communications basics.

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3. The Man in the Hathaway Shirt

What do we do best?

How can we best communicate what we do best?

Remember, the first question is not, “what business are we in?” Instead you have to ask what your business does best.

Why is it important not to ask what business you’re in?

The Railroad Mistake

Here’s why. In the late 1800s the railroads dominated overland transportation and shipping. Today, the railroads are struggling to stay competitive with airlines, trucking companies, and the family car.

One of the main reasons is that the railroads looked at their business and said, “We’re in the railroad business.”

If, instead, the railroads had said, “What do we do best?” they would have seen that the answer was, “We are best at transportation and shipping.” If they had taken that approach, today we might have been flying Union Pacific instead of United.

What Do YOU Do Best?

You have to figure out what you do best.

If you have a restaurant, you don’t serve food, you provide a dining experience. If you own a music radio station, you don’t play music, you provide entertainment. If you’re a clothing retailer, you don’t sell clothes, you make people look good and feel better about themselves.

Step back and look at your business and decide what you really do.

Communicate What You Do Best

Once you’ve determined what you do best, you need to figure out how to communicate that to the people you’re trying to reach.

There are so many ways to get the word out: advertising, promotions, marketing, sales promotions, improved customer service, word of mouth, coupons, promotional items, press releases, free samples, and the list goes on.

Deciding exactly the right mix of communications methods is a complicated process and is beyond the scope of this article. However, the best place to start is to look at your current communications strategy and determine what’s working and what isn’t.

Track Your Results

In order for you to determine if what you’re doing is working you have to be able to track the results of your current effort. The simplest way to do that is when you have a new customer, ask that person how they heard about you.

Be sure that everyone in your company asks every new customer that question. Have your employees write it down and be sure that you keep track of the information. Analyze the information every way you can.

When you know what part of your communications mix is working you can begin to fine-tune your communications. You can increase the areas that are working and get rid of the things that aren’t. Don’t, I repeat, don’t make any changes to your communications strategy until you’ve done a good, thorough study of your existing communications mix.

Remember, too, that you have to continue to track where your customers are coming from. If you run coupons in different magazines or newspapers, be sure to code the coupons in each publication differently so when they’re returned to you you’ll know which magazine or newspaper they came from. If you’re running ads on different radio stations be sure customers tell you what station they were listening to; same thing with ads on TV. (These two are tough because people will often forget what station ran the ad. Try asking what show they were watching, or for radio, what type of music the station plays.)

What do you do best?

How can you best communicate it to customers?

Ask yourself these two questions and you’ll go a long way toward making your revenue climb.

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You have to be aware of all the messages your company is sending. And you absolutely have to ensure that your employees know that every action they take — or don’t take — is part of the message your business gives customers.

Lack Of Information

Here’s an example that you may have experienced yourself.

Jack takes one of his most important clients to dinner, hoping to finalize a deal he’s been working on for months. He’s picked the restaurant based on the suggestion of a friend who had dined there to celebrate a birthday.

The setting is perfect. The table where Jack and his client are seated is in a quiet location so they can discuss business. (Jack took care of that by calling ahead.)  The aromas are wonderful and Jack can see that already his client is impressed.

Jack and the client order their meals and begin discussing the proposal Jack gave the client earlier in the week. The discussion is going well until Jack senses that the meals are taking an incredibly long time to arrive at the table.

He glances around at other tables and sees that other people are also waiting. Jack starts to worry that the deal is going south, not because of anything he’s done, but because of what’s happening at the restaurant. Jack looks for the server, but the server is nowhere in sight.

Finally, after what seems like an endlessly long wait, the meals arrive and Jack and his client begin to eat. Still, Jack is tense because what should have been a pleasant meeting has been made difficult by the delay. Fortunately, Jack is able to close the deal with the client.

On the way out, Jack was asked how everything was and he says, “Fine,” because he doesn’t want to complain in front of his client, but he vows that he’ll never go back to the restaurant, and he tells five other people how bad his experience was.

Behind The Curtain

Now, here’s what happened behind the scenes in our story.

Just as Jack and his client walked in, one of the restaurant’s ovens went on the blink. By the time Jack and his client placed their orders the kitchen was already backed up. The chefs were running in high gear getting all the meals out, and even though things were crazy in the kitchen they didn’t make any errors in the meals being served. Everyone got just what they ordered; it’s just that the orders got to the tables later than they should have.

Jack and his client didn’t know there was a problem in the kitchen.

Why?

No one told them.

Whose fault is that?

Who Is To Blame?

We might say it was the fault of the server, who should have told Jack and his client. However, it’s really the fault of the restaurant owner or manager for not impressing on the servers that in the event of a problem like this they should inform the customers.

In our little story, all it would have taken was for the server to come to Jack’s table and say, “Folks, I’m sorry but we’ve had a problem in the kitchen. One of our ovens is on the fritz and we’re running a little slow in getting the meals out.”

That’s it. Just a simple bit of communication would have saved Jack and his client some stress. More importantly, the restaurant would not have lost future business from Jack and the five people he told. Plus, if each of those five people told five people who told five people …

Well, you get the idea.

It Starts With Employee Communications

Impress upon all your employees how important they are to your overall communications plan. Let them know that whatever they do — whether they’re answering phones, taking orders, solving problems, serving food or whatever — their actions are communicating more about the business than any advertising, marketing or promotions ever could.

Review with them what’s expected of them in dealing with your customers. Be sure that employees are aware of all your advertising and marketing efforts. You never want a situation where you run an ad on radio or TV or in the newspaper and someone calls to inquire about the ad and one of your employees says, “I don’t know anything about that.”

Anyone in your organization who may answer the phone should available copies of all advertising you’re running so they can answer questions. Your employees should know of any sales promotions you’re conducting. Keep them informed of everything the business is doing so they can speak intelligently to customers.

No matter what business you’re in, the one thing you have to remember is that everything your business does is part of your communications strategy. At first it may not seem that way, because we often think of communications as things like marketing and advertising and promotions. However, you have to remember, that to your customers and your potential customers whatever your business does sends them a message. The message your business sends is your communications.

This is why it’s so important to include all your employees in your discussions of marketing, advertising, promotions and anything that sends a message. You also have to impress upon all employees their role in the communications message your company is sending. Employees need to understand that everything they do as a representative of that business communicates something to customers.

Remember, everything is communications.

“In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.“
David Ogilvy

The Man in the Hathaway Shirt
By Michael Masterson

{guest post}

Have you seen The Most Interesting Man in the World?

I’m referring to the TV commercials for Dos Equis beer. They star a rugged-looking, silver-haired man who is always surrounded by beautiful women.

In one version of the commercial, he arm-wrestles a Third World general and releases a grizzly bear from a trap. In another, the narrator relates that even his enemies list him as their emergency contact and that the police often question him just because they find him interesting.

If you are a student of advertising, you know this is a knockoff of David Ogilvy’s famous ad campaign: The Man in the Hathaway Shirt.

If you don’t know the history of this ad, you should.

In Brief: It was 1951. Ellerton Jette, a shirt maker from Waterville, Maine wanted to grow his little business into a national brand, but he didn’t have much money. He had heard about the advertising prowess of David Ogilvy. So he booked a meeting with him.

“I have an advertising budget of only $30,000,” he told Ogilvy. “And I know that’s much less than you normally work with. But I believe you can make me into a big client of yours if you take on the job.”

If he’d stopped there, Ogilvy would have thrown him out of the office. But then he said something that sold the great salesman.

He said, “If you do take on the job, Mr. Ogilvy, I promise you this. No matter how big my company gets, I will never fire you. And I will never change a word of your copy.”

There is a big lesson here. So let’s stop for a moment and talk about it.

What Ellerton Jette did was a little bit of genius, in my opinion. In two short sentences, he changed the mind of one of the most powerful men in the world of advertising. At the same moment, he made himself a very rich man.

Not a week goes by when I don’t get a letter from a complete stranger who sees me as his David Ogilvy. They are direct and to the point. “I know I can get rich if you help me, Mr. Masterson,” they say. “So how about it?”

What makes them think I have the time, if not the inclination, to help them? It never even occurs to them to offer me something in return for what they are asking.

Jette’s $30,000 budget might have put $3,000 in Ogilvy’s pocket. Though it was a paltry sum then and a mere pittance now, at least it was something. But what really cinched the deal was the two promises Jette made.

Going into the meeting, Jette knew he had one chance to forge a relationship with Ogilvy. He somehow understood that Ogilvy, as successful as he was, had two big problems. He worried that his biggest clients would walk away from him. And he hated it when his clients screwed with his copy. So, instead of thinking only of his own goals, Jette took the time to figure out how he could offer Ogilvy something that would be of immense value to him. (This, by the way, is one of many lessons I teach in my Special Theory of Automatic Wealth.)

When Jette made his two promises, Ogilvy realized that he was talking to a businessman who would eventually become a partner. He could see that Jette was a man of good faith who would let Ogilvy be in charge of his marketing. And that he would reward Ogilvy with a lifetime of loyalty.

Now, let’s get back to the story of the Hathaway shirt ad …

After accepting Jette’s offer, Ogilvy spent days doing in-depth research on Jette’s client base. He came up with dozens of ideas. The one he settled on was a campaign built around the image of a distinguished man in a romantic location dressed in a Hathaway shirt. He selected a model that looked like William Faulkner and booked the first photo shoot.

On the way to the shoot, he passed a five and ten cent store where he bought a few cheap eye patches. At the shoot, he asked the model to wear an eye patch for a few shots.

The moment he saw the photos with the eye patch, he knew.

The Man in the Hathaway Shirt campaign was an instant success. The ads were carried in papers around the country, and were mentioned editorially in Time, Life, and Fortune. Before long, hosts of imitators appeared. Other companies ran ads featuring eye patches on babies, dogs … even cows. A cartoon in The New Yorker shows three men looking into the display window of a shirt store. In the second panel, they are coming out of the store, with eye patches on.

Ogilvy got the idea for the patch, he said, from a photo of Ambassador Lewis Douglas, who had injured his eye while fishing in England. But he got the idea itself – the idea of this aristocratic man with a romantic life – from the James Thurber story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” (Actually, Kenneth Roman pointed out in The King of Madison Avenue, it could have been from the secret life of David Ogilvy. As a young executive, Ogilvy was prone to wearing capes and bowties while everyone else was in grey flannel suits.)

Of course, it wasn’t just the eye patch that made the ads work. It was the combination of the model, the situation he was in, and the copy itself.

And the copy was brilliant. Here’s the first line of the first ad:

“The melancholy disciples of Thorstein Veblen would have despised this shirt.”

Most readers of the ad had no idea who Thorstein Veblen was. But they got the idea. Veblen was some sort of snobby aristocratic. By posing a handsome, silver-haired model with an eye patch in a Hathaway shirt and putting that line underneath the photo, Ogilvy struck a chord in the American imagination. We all hate aristocrats, but we would like to be one.

There was another brilliant thing about the ad. Putting the model in a romantic location gave the pitch a fictional element. It had “story appeal,” as Ogilvy put it.

Ogilvy said he discovered the concept of story appeal in a book by Harold Rudolph, a former ad agency research director. This was the first time, Roman says in his book, “that shirt advertising focused as much on the man wearing the shirt as on the shirt itself.”

And now, back to The Most Interesting Man in the World …

I am a fan of these Dos Equis commercials. I like them both because they are a salute to David Ogilvy and also because they successfully replicate the key elements in Ogilvy’s ads for the Hathaway shirt. They have the handsome, silver-haired model. They have the eye patch. And they have the anti-aristocrat touch. (The product is beer, after all.)

They also have the romance and the story. Each new edition of the commercial is another episode in this most interesting man’s life.

They fall short only in one respect. They don’t do a great job of equating the product with the concept.

When I remember a Dos Equis ad, I remember the actor’s face. I remember the pretty girls in the background. I’m aware that he is a man that women find irresistible. And that when he drinks he drinks … Wait a minute. What does he drink?

There’s the rub.

We find out that The Most Interesting Man in the World drinks Dos Equis. But he could just as well drink Pabst Blue Ribbon. The creative people behind this very good ad campaign get a big demerit for that. Ogilvy, on the other hand, put the name of the product in the headline. The fact that his man was wearing a Hathaway shirt was integral to the story.

Grabbing the prospect’s attention with an entertaining story or idea or photo is essential for any sort of advertising campaign. But you have to do more than that. You have to sell the product. And to do that, you must link the initial sentiment created in the headline with the final emotion needed to close the sale at the end.

In AWAI’s copywriting program, I call this “the Golden Thread.” It’s pretty simple. The product is at one end of the thread. The prospect’s heart is at the other end. Every element of the copy must be connected to the product as well as to the prospect. And the connection must be taut. If the thread goes slack, even for a second, you lose the sale.

I will end this essay by saying this: You have just read about half a dozen of the most powerful marketing secrets I know. If you put this essay down and forget about it, you will be making a terrible mistake. Read it at least half a dozen times and think about it. If it doesn’t make you a multi-millionaire, I’ll eat my shirt. Hathaway, of course.

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Click on the picture to see a larger, easier-to-read version.

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