Internet Direct Marketing Tip of the Day

Whether people are aware of it or not, they often draw pictures in their head. This is one of those DM copy secrets good copywriters call upon in certain cases. “Float Fat Out of Your Body,” is an example of a piece of copy that worked like gangbusters because it triggered the visualization action in the reader’s mind.

Sometimes copy is provocative, sometimes it’s soothing, while other times it’s designed to make the reader anxious (think financial ads). When you write copy, try involving the reader by getting her mental movie projector to show graphic images of the problem or solution that you’re selling. This tactic is often the first step in getting your reader involved in what you have to say.

As they say in Missouri, show me. LC

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All the product benefits in the world don’t mean squat if you don’t stimulate the reader’s imagination. The way you do that is with words that paint a picture. Remember, it’s all about them, not you. Help them see (literally see in their mind’s eye) how your service or product prevents harm or embarrassment, or makes them look smarter or more prosperous. Just imagine how satisfied you’ll be when your response rates rocket as a result of copy that truly resonates with your readers. You get the picture. LC

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Whenever possible, make your copy draw pictures or emotions in the mind of the prospect. So much copy just throws out feature sets or benefits, both of which are needed and appropriate. But typically a bunch of bullet points won’t get you emotional buy-in. You have to trigger something in the mind or the heart or the guts of your reader, after which all the other copy points will serve to support the commitment to buy or call or click. LC

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If you’re planning a special promotion, really ask yourself if you’d jump at the offer you’re putting in front of others. I mean really ask yourself, no faking it. If you don’t get excited about your own offer, don’t expect anyone else to either. That “same ol’ same ol’” tired feeling will bleed through in your headline, subject header, copy, etc. LC

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How many page views your site gets may well be less important than how many conversions or commitments you get as compared to your number of unique visitors. Before you overwhelm yourself with site statistics, ask yourself what the mission of the site is and how effective you currently are at getting visitors into the right bucket or funnel. Also ask yourself if what you expect is truly reasonable from a first-time visitor, or if it might not be more likely that he or she will “pull the trigger” after getting to know you or your company’s offerings better. In short, shoot for the moon, but don’t expect the unattainable. You may only wind up frustrating yourself. LC

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When writing copy, it’s a good idea to not only visualize who your reader is, but to give him or her a name as well. Most copy I see is what I call “Dear Name” copy, since it doesn’t really resonate with anyone in particular. It seems to be written to a demographic or an imaginary audience. Then the writer or client wonders why it didn’t pull well.
This isn’t just true of ad or sales copy. In the early days, radio variety show host Arthur Godfrey actually had a picture of a person’s face right over the microphone so he could talk to it. Listeners to his program always said they felt like he was talking directly to them. This doesn’t mean ad or sales copy has to be chatty. Sometimes bullet points speak louder than paragraphs because the reader is scanning instead of reading. The bottom line is to think about who you are writing to and how they’re reading you. LC

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There’s a primeval side to all of us that reacts pretty much without thinking. DM copywriter David Garfinkel calls this the Lizard Brain. If you can stimulate the Lizard Brain and get your target audience to respond without too much thought, you’re probably onto something.
Selling Rolex watches to the Lizard Brain probably won’t work. Products and services that appeal to the instinctive side of us might appeal to some type of anxiety (think insurance) or fear (think airbags). Can you write a “lead” for your product or service that appeals to this side of human nature? LC

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When writing copy for email, or any medium, I find it’s helpful to single out a reader and give him or her a name. Sometimes it’s a real person. Sometimes it isn’t. By doing this, I mentally visualize that person reading my copy. I “write” to that person. This newsletter has 48,000 subscribers. But I don’t visualize 48,000 people reading it as if you are all in an amphitheatre. You’re reading this to yourself right now. That is the true environment in which this information is consumed, which is why I write just this way — to be read by one person at a time. LC

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FIFO is an old inventory term meaning “first in, first out” and it applies to search marketing. When writing your keywords for your site and for your Google AdWords campaigns, first examine how people search for the type of thing you are offering. If there is a particular keyword phrase that is used often to find your kind of thing, then try beginning your copy with that keyword phrase. There is, after all, a certain satisfaction from the user’s experiential point of view in finding exactly what he or she is looking for fed right back to him or her verbatim in the search results. LC

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