Books for the copywriter

I've always got books about direct response copywriting and marketing around. Two I'm diving into right now.

2,239 Tested Secrets for Direct Marketing Success: The Pros Tell You Their Time-Proven Secrets. By Denny Hatch and Don Jackson.

One day on The Golf Channel, the powers-that-be decided to have the top 5 golf teachers on the show at the same time. Mistake. They have big egos and were all talking at the same time and all have different approaches. I was worried this book would be a big mish-mash of direct response techniques and thus be confusing.

I could not have been more mistaken.

While there are well over five ways to teach golf, all of them proven, there's only one way to get direct response right...follow the same proven techniques. So this book buttresses all of these. The copy chapter beginning on page 72 is especially brilliant...a superb digest of techniques from the best.

The book is also good because it provides a good road map for the parts of the direct response universe I rarely visit...lists...sweepstakes...graphic design...back-end marketing...etc.

I'm enjoying this now and I'll be dipping into it more.

I'm also dipping into Perfect Phrases for Sales and Marketing Copy by Barry Callen. There are some good ideas in this book but I'm not sure I agree with the notion on page 161 that a headline on a sales letter is optional. There's not a lot of pure direct response in this book. One book always open on my desk is Dan Kennedy's The Ultimate Sales Letter. It has the ugliest cover of any book I've seen but it's tough to beat the content...especially the headline templates on pages 42-47.

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I'm rebuilding my site to help me sell more. In the interim, here's my Krop portfolio.

I specialize in the clinical and creative execution of proven direct response copywriting techniques to make the reader pull out their credit card, write a check, hand over hard-earned cash, and happily provide their email address and additional valuable data.

Why a copywriter is a must

I've been working with new client...a pure direct response marketing agency. They are great...more about them in a later blog. Something they said in a training video...EVERY WEBSITE PAGE MUST SELL WHAT YOU HAVE TO OFFER.

It seems obvious but few web sites do this...

Ask a marketing executive or business owner this question..."do you believe every page of your web site should sell what you offer?" I think the answer would be, "DUH...yes!"

But very few companies hire a writer to write pure sales copy (direct response copywriting) for any of their pages. These companies are losing money as I write.

When you want your website to sell what you have to offer, hire a direct response copywriter, who will...

• Keep potential clients and customers on your site


• Make them take the next step in the sales process


• Explain the benefits of your product or service


• Answer the most important question the customer is asking, 'what's in it for me?'


• Help you sell more...

The investment is always a good one when you hire a direct response copywriter...

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I'm rebuilding my site to help me sell more. In the interim, here's my Krop portfolio.

I specialize in the clinical and creative execution of proven direct response copywriting techniques to make the reader pull out their credit card, write a check, hand over hard-earned cash, and happily provide their email address and additional valuable data.

Copywriter almost spills coffee...or (the) beans

Periodically I like to spend an afternoon writing in the coffee shop. Today, it was crowded and I was sitting next to a couple of guys around my age (24.5).

Well...you know how it is...you overhear the conversation...they were producing a web page for a seminar and were writing the copy. Some of the conversation...

"Let's give it some punch."

"Cute but not too cute."

"Let's make it just like the names of the softball teams when I was in law school."

"I want to make it appealing."

"It has to jump out at people."

As a direct response copywriter, I was tempted to join the conversation. I might have earned a cup of coffee. I would have said, "use the type of headline that's worked before."

Better still, they should have hired a professional copywriter.

The clinical execution of direct response copywriting techniques is what they needed.

They were running a seminar for lawyers. I imagine the seminar cost around $500. Let's say they hired a copywriter for the landing page and it helped them get two more people to attend...great copywriting is ALWAYS a great investment.

For my copywriting site, go here. For my portfolio, go here.

The first step for the successful copywriter

A lot of copywriting is technique...especially direct response copywriting. However, the first step, and perhaps the most important step, is getting into the shoes of the person I want to motivate. As Andrew Wood says, people buy for emotional reasons backed by logic. So I have to get to the prospect's emotional core and then discover how they logically process information that will lead to a sale. It's a fascinating part of the "work" that's never really work to me.

People also buy to solve problems...again, I have to learn about their problem(s).

To get into the shoes of the prospective purchaser, I use a series of techniques. It starts with my "pre-copywriting checklist." When you want to see this, go to my direct response copywriting contact page.

For my direct response copywriting site, go here. For my direct response copywriter video, go here.

Copywriter gets 100 per cent response

At a recent marketing boot camp, I asked a member of the "audience" what a good response rate is. She said 40 per cent. A great response to a direct mail letter is one per cent.

I'm pleased to say a recent email campaign I wrote got a 100 per cent response.

OK...it was just one email but it got the response I wanted.

A former intern asked me to write an email to a person at a TV station; the former intern wanted an interview with a news director. Instead of the standard "please may I be so humble as to recommend..." I thought about what the person at the TV station would be looking for and wrote a direct response letter with 17 reasons my former intern should get an interview. The intern got the interview and the internship.

100 per cent response!

The key was getting into the boots of the news director and thinking about what he/she would want from an intern.

For my direct response copywriting site, www.scottmartinwriting.com, go here.