Introducing Andrew Wood. Direct Response Copywriter Email Archive. August 2019 2.

From the desk of Scott Martin, direct response copywriter. Aspen, Colorado.

Copywriters You Should Know. Part 7. Andrew Wood.

I very much doubt that anyone who receives this email knows Andrew Wood. Yet Andrew played a very big role in my copywriting journey and he's one of the top direct marketers anywhere.

Andrew calls himself "The Legend" and when you ask, "Andrew, how's it going?" you'll get this answer: "Legendary."

You have to ignore all that stuff. We have a lot of characters in our business and that’s a good thing (mostly).

Despite the “legendary” stuff, Andrew flies under the radar … sort of.

He's Andrew Wood and he has a point.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Andrew is from England and left for southern California in his teens. He opened a karate school in Orange County and sat there waiting for customers to walk in the door. He waited a long time before realizing he had to take some action.

So he went to the library looking for books about marketing. His first marketing book? Ogilvy on Advertising.

Many direct marketing books followed. Andrew started to write his own ads. But instead of the typical Karate school newspaper ads Andrew wrote ads based on what he learned. The usual Karate school ad showed a young child flying through the air plus some type of discount. These never worked for Andrew.

Andrew wrote headlines like …

DO YOU WANT YOUR CHILD TO CLEAN UP THEIR ROOM?

Then you’d see some copy linking Karate with tidiness, respect, good manners, and the like. His school was quickly jammed with students.

Fast forward a couple of years and the Andrew Wood Karate School Empire included well over 100 schools.

Andrew loves golf and it wasn’t long before he took his direct marketing skills to the golfing world. He quickly became the world’s #1 authority on golf marketing. He still owns that title today.

In 2002, I saw a post from an agency that was looking for a copywriter. It was Andrew’s agency and I started writing copy for his group.

Within a few days, Andrew said, “Scott, if you want to write for us, you have to write direct response copy.” And that’s how I got into writing direct response copy and moving from branding to direct marketing. Andrew was my first and only mentor. Andrew got me going and I owe him a huge thanks.

These days, Andrew consults, writes books, speaks, and sometimes writes copy. He’s an epic direct response copywriter and, by his own admission, his grammar and spelling are poor.

“Your customer doesn’t care about your spelling and grammar,” he’ll say. “They care about themselves.” I might argue the first point, but not the second. That’s fodder for another day.

Andrew’s book, The Golf Marketing Bible, was the first book about full-on direct marketing I ever read and it totally changed everything in my professional career. I strongly encourage you to read this book even if you have no interest in golf.

You can see Andrew’s site and his books and other stuff here.

My love for direct marketing and direct response copywriting comes directly from Andrew Wood.

What can you learn from The Legend?

The power of direct marketing. I tell people to use direct marketing and they ignore me. If only they would listen to Andrew. And me.

Salesmanship. Andrew knows how to sell … so read his books about selling.

Following up. Andrew is huge on this.

Andrew will always tell the raw truth and he doesn’t care about what anyone thinks. As such, he’s a genuine rebel and not always popular. Some people find him obnoxious. I find him gregarious, fun, knowledgeable, and a source of inspiration.

If you’re a direct marketer, you like Andrew. If you’re a branding type or a marketing phoney, you don’t like Andrew.

The story about sitting in that Karate school and not having any clients should inspire everyone in business.

Andrew spends 3-4 months of the year in Europe because he wants to. He leads the life he wants to lead.

Again … outside the worlds of golf, resorts, and martial arts, Andrew isn’t well known. But if you’re keen to learn a lot about direct marketing and direct response copywriting, study all his work.

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I just started my campaign to contact a lot of clients … potential, former, and the like. And I’m getting rejected. THAT’S GOOD.

I’ll find some great work soon plus I’ll avoid the clients I don’t need to work with.

Scott Martin