Word of the Night from Your Direct Response Copywriter: CYBERTRAMP

CYBERTRAMP

A great word and one I have to admit, shamlessly, that I created.

I have no shame because, for a while, I was, myself, a cybertramp.

The typical cybertramp habitat is the coffee shop. The coffee shop must have free wifi. Must. In the coffee shop, armed with nothing more than a 'vintage' laptop with a falterning hard drive, the cybertramp will buy a cup of coffee, take advantage of the free refills, and sit for hours in the same space, sucking up bandwidth and electricity, buzzed on a potentially lethal dose of caffeine.

These days, you'll also find cybertramps in fast food establishments, restaurants, donut shops, and bars. Pretty much anywhere with a wifi connection.

Many cybertramps have manners and will not clog up space when their chosen habitat is busy. But some cybertramps are rude and will take up several tables--even when the location is heaving with people looking for a place to sit. Some cybertramps smell but don't care.

Some cybertramps have full-time jobs and simply don't like to work at home. Fair enough. But most cybertramps are under-employed (at best). Some cybertramps are direct response copywriters and SEO copywriters who get paid to stuff blogs and articles with keywords like: direct response copywriter and SEO copywriter.

Occasionally, a cybertramp, to everyone's surprise, will get a full-time job where they have to show up at an office. This means they no longer need to be a cybertramp.

From time to time, the ex-cybertramp will visit their old 'office' and make fun of the people who are still cybertramps and still spending hours applying online for jobs for which they are not qualified.

Strangely, perhaps, many coffee shop managers are incredibly tolerant of cybertamps.

Where have you spotted cybertramps? Do they annoy you? Do you even care?

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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 Word of the Night: FREE

FREE

Easily the most important word in direct response copywriting. You had better have it somehwere in the copy, even if you can't use it due to legal reasons. The reader is always looking for a deal and the epic offer...even if the reader is stonking rich.

And if you can't write FREE directly then you can write 'complimentary' or 'just pay the low shipping and handling fee.'

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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 Word of the Night: Cargo

I love slang. Especially Scottish slang. So word of the night is: Cargo.

The definition: take out drink from the supermarket or different location.

"Have you got the cargo?"

"No."

"I told you to get a twelve pack."

"OK I'll go to the supermarket now."

So...if you see something like the airplane below, you know what's on it.

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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 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.