Word of the Night from Direct Response Copywriter: Verisimilitude

Verisimilitude. A word with six (count them) syllables. An important word for the direct response copywriter. Here's legendary copywriter Herschell Gordon Lewis on verisimilitude.

For direct mail copy to work, it must have verisimilitude. Verisimilitude is the appearance of truth. Raw truth has weeds in it; verisimilitude is an unblemished garden.

Verisimilitude DOES NOT mean lying. It means putting the product in the best possible light...truthfully and with total veracity.

There was a car recently with an ugly rear end. The advertising agency built an entire campaign for the car aound the beauty of bottoms. Here's the ad.

I can truthfully say 'I've been writing copy for top companies for 23 years.' I've also written copy for some 'non-top' companies but there's no need to mention those.

I have written copy for a local restaurant that's in a hard-to-find location. The place is tucked away in the bowels of a suburban shopping center and there isn't even a sign on the door. Really. I could write: 'you'll never find this place, even with NASA level navigational equipment.' Instead, I wrote: 'Sir Edmond Halley's is tucked away near the rose garden at the famous Park Road Shopping Center. Think of us as a special hideaway that's a locals only secret.'

If you're in direct response marketing then it's VITAL to understand verisimilitude.

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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.

Word of the Night from a Direct Response Copywriter

I'm going to start a nightly series I'm calling 'word of the night.' I thought about titling the series 'word of the day' but that seemed a touch unoriginal. Hope you enjoy this.

Tonight's word: SHUBRINESS.

Def: The warmth left in a seat or chair just after someone has been sitting in that seat or chair. "Jack Nicklaus was just sitting in this seat. I'm getting his shubriness."

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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.

Direct Response Copywriter on Results

I've been working with a local restaurant to help them boost their business. The owners are friends and I'm planning strategy and executing the tactics. It's not really what I do. I'm a direct response copywriter and, as such, I'm usually just the writer but I like the restaurant and I like the owners and staff so it's fun to run a campaign.

Six months ago, they had no opt in email database. In fact, no database at all. To build the database, I used the oldest trick in the book: something free on your birthday. For the restaurant, you get a free dinner and dessert on or near your birthday.

In six months, the restaurant has 1,421 opt in emails and people are taking advantage of the irresistible offer. Here are the benefits to this small restaurant in a hard-to-find location that needs a steady flow of business:

• Friends tell friends. Viral marketing.
• Friends bring friends to their free birthday dinner. This means a steady flow of people who are discovering, or rediscovering, the restaurant. The 'newbies' join the database to get their free dinner.
• At least four parties--with more than 10 people--a week.
• Increased sales of 'refreshing' beverages. High margin business.
• The ability to promote specials and events to the database. It's an excellent and inexpensive way to keep the name of the restaurant in front of people.
• Very soon, they'll be able to start selling gift certificates. Gift cards really help a restaurant increase revenue.

The manager regularly has a wad of receipts from people who are taking advantage of the free birthday dinner. Most restaurants use 'branding' advertising; these restaurants waste money on advertising in magazines and mindless coupons.

I'm using some simple direct response techniques. Direct response copywriting is part of the equation. While the emails we send to the database are fun, they also request a specific action. Here's an example of an email. If you live in Charlotte, here's the opt in form so you can get your free dinner.

Open rates for the emails are 31%. The average on the email provider we use is 15%.

It's really exciting to help this wonderful business and to see the delight on the face of the owners. They are seeing actual results from the investment in the promotion and in my services.

Whatever the size of your business, use direct response marketing techniques.

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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.

Direct Response Copywriter Meets the Next Generation of Direct Marketers

I read a lot about direct response marketing and direct response copywriting. Most of the authors of the ‘must reads’ are reaching retirement age. One book was originally published in the early 1990s and there’s a somewhat tentative chapter about the Internet in the tome.

Back then, the Internet must have terrified the lions of direct response which, back then, was predominantly direct mail.

But here’s an extremely prescient excerpt from the book. (Written in the 1990s).

“The Internet has stormed into the marketing consciousness of uncounted companies…someday in the future, once a secure payment system has been embedded in the Internet, it will become the interactive medium envisioned by its current proponents. However, until it is better organized, with some controls in place, it is unlikely to blaze new trails in sales. When that time does come, as it is sure to do, concern is going to centralize on the ‘reach’ of the new medium. That alone makes it the most interesting medium to come along in decades for direct marketing practioners.”

And then the chapter concludes with:

“The Internet is going to be a major player in the future.”

That's prescience.

A number of people in their 20s and early 30s are quietly making a big splash in marketing—using the Internet alone. Remember—these people are late to the party: when the Internet got hot, they were in diapers or worrying about acne.

It’s tempting to think of these ‘bright young things’ as being the ones who are changing everything. Yes—they’re using a different medium but the ones I know who are really successful understand direct response and pay extremely close attention to the big names of direct marketing…those lions of direct response who are now grey and getting senior discounts at Wendy’s.

The ‘youngsters’ are especially interested in testing and response metrics…just like the old guard of direct response. Their testing shows that using direct marketing is the most effective way to market on the Internet. No real shock to me.

Many ‘new’ marketers succumb to the temptations of branding advertising—which, because it can’t be measured, is essentially dead. Some youngsters are trying to persuade everyone that social media is going to change everything but statistics prove that social media provides a tepid response—at best. GM pulled all their advertising recently from Facebook.

For what it’s worth, I believe these ‘bright young things’ are going to discover something astonishing in the next couple of years…this amazing direct marketing tool called direct mail. They’re going to try it—and they’re going to execute the techniques flawlessly—and discover that ROI is higher than their beloved Internet with a cost per customer acquisition that’s lower than the Internet. The cost of traffic on the Internet is moving upwards...rapidly.

It’s interesting being a direct response copywriter now. The youngsters who understand the Internet much better than I ever will are thankfully intelligent enough to know that direct response techniques still rock.

P.S. The book I mention is Denny Hatch’s classic: 2,239 Tested Secrets for Direct Marketing Success.

Direct Response Copywriter Provides Tips from Top Copywriters: Clayton Makepeace.

The importance of perception.

What’s the difference between a salesman who struggles and one who makes the sale every time? Does the client perceive the sale as fair or unfair? A successful salesman has clients who believe they are working with a professional who cares about the product and backs the sale. Clients can sense a salesman who has a vested interest in repeat business and ensures client satisfaction.

Clayton Makepeace is a resourceful salesman: he gives the impression on his website he cares about his clients by investing in his own time in helping his clients. The relationship starts with ‘freebies’ and ‘bonuses.’ He begins his relationship with his clients (and colleagues) by sharing and giving.

The Makepeace website is organized, accessible, and even academic:

1)    Archives. You can search his website for information and track how the business has changed.

2)    A Direct Response Glossary: Almost every term and explaining countless words associated with copywriting.

3)    Interviews with Six Top Copywriters: We learn what Makepeace feels is important to conduct a successful copywriting business.

4)    A Recommended Reading List. Resources to help answer many of the questions writers and clients have about the copywriting industry, advertising, marketing, and sales.

5)    Recommended Links: To help your writing and your business.

6)    Testimonials and Reader Responses: Learn from the work others have done and see what they are saying about Makepeace!

Makepeace helps his clients educate themselves and ‘do their homework’ using the tools he provides. Overloading your site with complicated flashing messages and images or weighing it down with thick, textbook like passages that a reader will never read is counterproductive. Harsh fonts and colors make the viewer anxious and look unprofessional. A website that’s a valuable resource means better business. The goal: make your website so approachable and well-stocked with useful information that people instantly bookmark it!

http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com/

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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.