In High School, I Interviewed Margaret Thatcher. And Lived.

In High School, which I attended in London, I was an editor of the school newspaper. I loved it and it’s a reason, I suppose, that I’m a writer. I’m certainly NOT a journalist. One of my fellow editors was Simon Sebag Montefiore, who has become a famous author in the United Kingdom.

Simon’s bibliography includes massive biographies of Stalin and Potemkin and you’ll read his writing in UK newspapers.

He wrote a book about Stalin; I wrote one about Caddyshack. Enough said!

During the early 1980s, for the school newspaper, we interviewed Ken Livingstone, who was essentially the Mayor of London. His nickname was ‘Red Ken’ and it was a fascinating interview. A little later, I told Simon we should try to interview Margaret Thatcher, who was then Prime Minister.

So we wrote to Robin Butler, now Baron Butler of Brockwell, who was Thatcher’s Personal Private Secretary. For those of you in the United States and elsewhere, perhaps, the Personal Private Secretary (PPS) doesn’t take dictation: the PPS is essentially the Chief of Staff and head of The Civil Service.

I have to admit we had an ‘in’ as Robin Butler had attended our school and Margaret Thatcher’s son, Mark, also attended the school.

So, in the Autumn term of 1983, Simon and I took the tube to Central London, and interviewed the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street.

We went to the barrier at the Whitehall end of Downing Street where a policeman told us to see the policeman at the door of number 10. That policeman let us in and we were ushered into a waiting room. After a few nervous minutes, we were walking up the stairs next to the portraits of former Prime Ministers. Then we were there, in her office, sitting down with Robin Butler, Margaret Thatcher, and a tape recorder.

We had planned some ‘tough’ questions plus some easier ones. I’m not sure what the Prime Minister was expecting but she quickly realized that we were trying to be ‘big time journalists’ and treated us as such. Which meant she was in no mood to take any prisoners. I left with jellied legs.

Here’s the interview—edited for brevity.

The other day, while cleaning out some stuff in my house, I discovered the cassette of the interview and had it transferred to a CD. One of these days I’ll upload the full audio interview. I can barely listen to it—I’m so gobsmacked embarrassed. I can’t believe I was 18 and went into 10 Downing Street to ask The Iron Lady some ‘hardball’ questions.

WAS I OUT OF MY MIND?

Whatever your political persuasion, you’ll enjoy the interview. Please remember that I was just 18 and totally out of my depth. But with all the palaver going on over the movie, I thought it was a good time to write about the interview.

In the school newspaper, Simon wrote the piece after the interview—about going to #10.

Meeting Margaret Thatcher was enormously intimidating. She was at the height of her power and was rock-solid about her politics.

In the almost 30 years since the interview, a lot of people have tried to intimidate me during interviews or simply in the course of daily life. I’ve never been brave enough to say this, but here’s what I always think…

“Look, pal, if you’re trying to intimidate me, give up now. I once interviewed Margaret Thatcher.”

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I'm a direct response copywriter based in Charlotte, North Carolina. I specialize in providing copy and content for the direct marketing environment for clients around the world. I increasingly specialize in sales pages and landing pages. Enter your info to the right for my free series: Seven Steps to High Converting Copy. Or contact me here.

Copywriter Critiques Audi Super Bowl Ad

For the first time in a long time, I watched the Super Bowl from start to finish. At a Super Bowl party, no less.

As someone who works in advertising, I was curious to see the ads. There was only one that asked for action: Go Daddy.

So the commercials weren't exactly a clinic in direct marketing.

One ad, for Audi, made a huge mistake.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’d love an Audi. I’ve been a VW driver forever and so I’ve always longed to step up to an Audi S4.

Back to the ad. A guy driving an Audi shows up at a vampire party. His headlights are so bright that all the vampires die.

Here’s the ad.

The message is: buy an Audi because it’s got great headlights.

How many people buy a car for the headlights?

Based on my (unscientific) research, people buy cars for: 

• Engine power
• Comfort
• The warranty
• The low monthly payment
• Specific need (off road, big family, etc.)
• Brand loyalty
• The stereo
• Gadgets
• The color 

But do people buy a car for the headlights?

One of my jobs as a direct response copywriter is to work out what’s really important to the reader. If I was writing copy for a car and I presented a draft to the client that emphasized the headlights, I think I would be fired. And with good reason.

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I'm a direct response copywriter based in Charlotte, North Carolina. I specialize in providing copy and content for the direct marketing environment for clients around the world. I increasingly specialize in sales pages and landing pages. Enter your info to the right for my free series: Seven Steps to High Converting Copy. Or contact me here.

Has the Direct Response Copywriter Become a Commodity?

Has Copywriting Become a Commodity?

I spent 30 minutes with a guy in my office building I know from the neighborhood. He was interested in using direct marketing to find new clients. So I started talking about direct response copywriting techniques.

“There’s no great secret to what we do,” I said. “We execute the proven techniques and they almost always work.”

My neighbor thought for a minute.

“Doesn’t that make what you do a commodity?”

Great question.

Advances in technology in the last decade have turned everything from insurance to flying into a commodity. In the airline industry, nobody really cares about service; they just want the lowest fare. Fair enough.

Gas is a commodity. A gas company may try to differentiate themselves but only a very small number of people care about a brand when it comes to gas. They just want gas. It’s the same for orange juice. I’m looking for the lowest price...the brand that's on sale.

Websites like Elance and Odesk have tried to turn copywriting (and other creative disciplines) into a commodity. And you can get a full-on 10,000 word sales page written for $50 if that’s what you want.

A direct response copywriter will use the techniques and follow ‘the plan’ but the 15% skill that’s required to write a sales letter will keep copywriting from becoming a commodity. It’s not easy to find the benefits that will really appeal to the reader. It’s not easy to get the reader to imagine themselves in a certain place. It’s not easy to get the ever-suspicious reader to become a buyer. It’s hard.

And while nobody is going to pay a small fortune for orange juice, plenty of people are paying big money to the top direct response copywriters. Why? The return more than justifies the investment especially when you consider lifetime value of a customer.

The ‘buyer’ of direct response copywriting who sees us as a commodity is always going to save a ton but is more than likely going to see their landing pages and websites flop. However, the serious marketer understands that investing in the highest level of creative talent pays on the front end and the back end.

Can copywriting be a commodity? You bet. But only if you don't care about conversion.

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I'm a direct response copywriter based in Charlotte, North Carolina. I specialize in providing copy and content for the direct marketing environment for clients around the world. I increasingly specialize in sales pages and landing pages. Enter your info to the right for my free series: Seven Steps to High Converting Copy. Or contact me here.

Landing Page Copywriter Critiques Superb Landing Page Part 3

In a couple of previous blogs, I wrote about the first half of this awesome landing page from Creative Direct Marketing Group and their client, Brainy Baby.

Let’s dive down further toward the end.

We’re getting to the business end of the landing page where they're trying to persuade the reader to buy.

The reader is here because they didn’t buy in the part of the landing page above the fold. So, well below the fold, the persuasion volume is at 11.

Note that the testimonial sidebar continues for almost the entire length of the page. You just can’t have enough testimonials. And the photos are well-selected.

We’ve got three panes to go before the end, let’s take a look at what’s going on. It’s all good.

Two windows from the bottom of the page, we're getting the FREE stuff, including a couple of bonus items.

Click on the image for full size.

Then we have the double guarantee and a photo of everything you get...and it's a TON.

Click on the image for full size

The order form at the bottom of the page is crisp and the order form isn't an order form, it's the ONLINE SAVINGS CERTIFICATE.

Awesome. Note also that the little bit of white space at the bottom of the sidebar has been filled with a guarantee certificate.

Click on the image for full size

It's not easy putting together a landing page like this. Everyone has to be at the top of their game.

You need:

• An awesome client
• Traffic (in this case from TV)
• A direct response copywriter who knows how to write a landing page
• A graphic designer who understands direct marketing
• The development team
• An account exec to put all the pieces together

Let's remember that this page came from nothing.

Perhaps the people at CDMG will at least give us a range for the conversion. 

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I'm a direct response copywriter based in Charlotte, North Carolina. I specialize in providing copy and content for the direct marketing environment for clients around the world. I increasingly specialize in sales pages and landing pages. Enter your info to the right for my free series: Seven Steps to High Converting Copy. Or contact me here.

Seth Godin gets it wrong in blog, says direct response copywriter.

Yes! I dare to disagree with the great Seth Godin and his coruscating heid.*

* Scottish slang for head.

Godin wrote a blog titled “Direct response and the coarsening of culture” and this caught my attention seeing as I’m a direct response copywriter.

I disagree with almost all of the blog.

Here’s the blog with my thoughts below.

Godin's blog in bold with my comments in italics.

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Direct response advertising to strangers is demanding. You pay for your click or you pay for your stamp and then you get a shot at making a sale. No sale, no revenue, no revenue, no more stamps.

If you know what you’re doing in direct response, you sell plenty of stuff and have plenty of money for stamps. And yes—direct response IS demanding which is why most advertising agencies avoid it and the fact that there's nowhere to hide in direct marketing is the main reason a lot of marketing people think it's 'coarse.'

Sorry, Seth, you've got it all wrong about direct response.

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As a result, direct marketers sometimes race to the bottom. They sell what sells the first time, and use the words that work right now. If the largest conversion rate is for a flat belly diet, then it's the flat belly diet that gets sold. The public gets what it wants.

No. In direct marketing, we sell solutions. Just like everyone else. We don’t ‘race to the bottom’ because we’re always trying to improve conversion. We're racing to the top.

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And what does the mass public want? Shortcuts. Discounts. Claims. No room for subtlety or even innovation.

You’re right about innovation. We execute the tactics that ALWAYS work when executed properly. Creativity is about 5% of the deal.

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Yes, there are great products sold by direct marketing, but in most cases, those products were dreamed up and refined and beloved in a less measurable world.

Absolutely wrong. For decades, direct response has always been about measuring. Haven’t you read Scientific Advertising?

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In a world that was 90% retailers and pr and word of mouth, the direct response around the edges was no big deal. It brings us the Veg-o-matic and bald spot hairspray, but it doesn't really direct the culture.

In direct response, we’re not trying to direct the culture. That’s better left to The Rolling Stones and Lady Gaga. We’re trying to sell stuff. It’s what you do in marketing. Direct response has always been a big deal to the people who rely on it for their livelihood...and this includes a wide range of companies.

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Here's the thing: going forward, just about all the growth in marketing spend is happening on the direct response side.

Why? Because you can measure ROI and there’s no place to hide anymore. And bean counters run big companies these days and demand accountability, not prizes.

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Google ads, email campaigns--these are measured in percentage points and in clicks. Without the tastemaking sensibilities of the buyer at Bloomingdale's or the quality guys at Fisher Price, the urge to compromise/shorten/cheapen/overpromise/dumb down is almost overwhelming.

No. The inference here is that direct marketing is all about selling junk. Plenty of ‘upmarket’ sellers use direct response. There’s no urge in direct response to dumb down anything. In fact, direct response is an excellent way to sell a complex product. I’m writing copy right now for a product that helps to heal horses faster. It costs around $600.

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It's already happening to TV and music. (The label doesn't have to please the music-loving program director. It has to please the YouTube clicking teen.) It's likely to happen to your industry soon as well.

There’s always been plenty of dumbing down in music but the availability of information makes everyone more intelligent...at least in theory.

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People who have never sold advertising sometimes point out that a new form of advertising is better because it's more measurable, because it provides exact data instead of clumsy diary systems.

There’s NOTHING new about direct response. As Dan Kennedy said: it worked 100 years ago and it will work 50 years from now.

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Do you see that most advertisers don't actually want better data? If you're not sure what's working, you can't get blamed.

Got that right, pal.

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And since you can't get blamed, you get to decide, to be creative, to create stories and fables, instead of merely being Mr. Ronco selling the bassomatic, at the mercy of anyone with a telephone.

What do you want, Seth? Creativity or sales? With ‘creative’ ads, you get creativity. With direct response, you can actually have both. SEE: GoDaddy.com TV ads which aim to drive people to their website.

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Measurable isn't always the only thing that matters.

As a direct response copywriter, measurable is ALL that matters. I’m not here to provide flowery phrases and advertising awards; I’m here to provide my clients with sales by persuading the reader (creatively, of course) to pull their credit card out of their wallet.

Here's the original blog.

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I'm a direct response copywriter based in Charlotte, North Carolina. I specialize in providing copy and content for the direct marketing environment for clients around the world. I increasingly specialize in sales pages and landing pages. Enter your info to the right for my free series: Seven Steps to High Converting Copy. Or contact me here.