Dear Marketing Top Gun:
In the last Bullet I shot at
you, I promised to bring you my favorite tips on how to multiply
your productivity. Well, I now stand before you to utter four
words spoken (or at least thought) by every copywriter
who has ever lived … "I need more time!"
Characteristically, I plunged into this topic of how to
leverage your productivity and have been busily researching the
best minds in the world on this subject, including renowned
experts in psychology, creativity, goal setting, time
management, and even personal happiness (as that has a lot to do
with how well you use your time).
What treasures I am finding!—remarkable secrets for boosting
your productivity to an astonishing degree. Top Gun, I promise
that all these tips will be yours in due time, no charge, of
course, as is true of all these Bullets. I assure you that they
will change your life and veritably explode your productivity,
as you'll see.
In the meantime, however, it's been a while since I've shot a
Bullet your way, so today I've decided to share with you my
answers to several questions I was asked by another copywriter.
Truth be told, I receive an extraordinary amount of feedback
from readers, usually after I send out a new Bullet. I try to
read each of these inquiries, but I don't have time to respond
to all.
So starting today and every now and then, I will answer a
representative sampling of FAQs in a special Q&A issue of the
Bullets.
Here then are some questions I was asked by a copywriter who
interviewed me not long ago. I've never before made these Q&As
public, and I hope you find them instructive …
Question: You have achieved great success in copywriting. What
unique quality in your writing was most responsible?
Answer: The short, self-serving, yet accurate answer is
results.
Once you get a reputation as a direct marketing copywriter who
can consistently win split-run tests against other top writers,
your phone rings and doesn't stop. That's what happened for me.
In this business, as with the gladiators of Rome, winners are
rewarded with survival and fresh opponents.
But I didn't become a consistent winner until after I was in the
business for more than ten years.
When I got my first job as a copywriter more than 40 years ago,
I didn't have a clown's clue how to generate higher response
consistently.
I'm a slow but persistent learner, and it took me about ten
years of learning from such masters as John Caples, David
Ogilvy, Dan Rosenthal, and a few others I was blessed to work
with.
Question: What did you learn?
Answer: I had to learn three main lessons, the same three
lessons anyone who aspires to successful direct response
copywriting must learn.
First, I had to learn that effective copywriting is salesmanship
in print, not clever wordsmithing. Some writers never learn
this, but I was lucky to have a few ogres for copy chiefs early
on.
My first one, at Prentice-Hall Publishing, made sure after my
first transgression that I never again showed him a pun or joke
in a headline, or anything that I felt was so impressively
clever of me. He hated "clever" and assured me, in no uncertain
terms, that I am not the star of the ad. The prospect and the
product are.
He told me that no one cares to see my verbal tap dance or ooh!
and ah! at my linguistic fireworks. Copywriters who seek
applause, as I did at first, have cost advertisers more money
than the national debt. The more self-effacing and invisible
your selling skill, the more effective you are. Copywriters who
show off their skills are as ineffective as fishermen who reveal
the hook.
Question: OK, what was the second big lesson you had to learn?
Answer: The second thing I had to learn is that writing is not
spontaneous creative combustion.
When I began, I'd stare at the blank sheet of paper in my
typewriter for days, not having any idea what to write, waiting
for the muses to alight on my shoulder and whisper
something—anything!—in my ear.
I thought I must be suffering from writer's block or must have
sinned against the muses, because they were giving me the silent
treatment. So I enrolled in an evening course in New York City
on "Overcoming Writer's Block"—along with a motley collection
other hapless writers from various fields: aspiring novelists,
copywriters, songwriters, and playwrights.
In our first class, to our dismay, our instructor cheerfully
informed us that he was the most constipated among us, didn't
have a clue of how to cure this problem, and was actually hoping
that we could help him, as he had a psychology book to write,
not to mention several articles, so how about we all "meet once
a week and share!"
At each class we "shared" and whined about writer's block, but
no one had a solution. I soon dropped out and in time had to
discover on my own that "writer's block" is just a symptom of a
rather easily cured malady—"LRS," or Lazy Research Syndrome.
It took me a while to realize that the best copywriters are the
most tenacious researchers. Like miners, they dig, drill,
dynamite, and chip until they have carloads of valuable ore.
John Caples advised me once to gather seven times more
interesting information than I could possibly use.
I learned that good copywriters get to know so much about the
product and the prospect and his or her wants, fears,
assumptions, and lingo that the copy soon wants to burst forth
as if a dam is breaking. I learned that research is the
infallible cure for writer's block.
Question: And your third major lesson?
Answer: Finally, I had to learn how to leverage the power of my
mind. This is where you get the largest payoff in advertising or
any other field.
For starters, I had to realize that great marketing and
copywriting require thinking—the ability to keep turning things
over in your mind, in a relaxed way, probing, searching for
better options until it all comes together.
Writing is thinking on paper. To do it well, you must be able to
think things over before you put pen to paper or fingers to
keyboard.
That sounds simple, but most people, just as I did at first,
will go to any length, surrender to any excuse, run off on any
suddenly urgent errand, and seize any flimsy opportunity to
escape having to think.
Everyone wants to just cut and paste, not think!
But every situation is unique, and especially when the product
or the marketplace is different from what has gone before,
cut-and-paste won't hack it.
To discover what will work, and then be able to write clearly
and persuasively about it, you must be able to think clearly.
And to think clearly, you first have to be able to relax so that
all the monkey chatter inside your head quiets down and you can
have an ongoing dialogue with yourself—a series of pleasant,
quiet conversations about what makes sense for this market at
this time with this product.
After you've had an ongoing conversation with yourself, sleep on
it and then, each morning, let your subconscious speak its mind.
This is why writing soon after arising is so productive and why
you should always sleep with a notepad and pen on your night
table. Keep a flashlight nearby, too, if you sleep with someone,
so you won't wake the person up if you get an idea in middle of
the night.
All this goes to my third lesson, the importance of harnessing
your mind's great power. Another way is to regularly and vividly
imagine yourself to be a great copywriter, to see and feel this
as your identity even though you may not be there yet.
See yourself in the theater of your own mind winning new
assignments, writing successful ads, collecting big bucks,
feeling the joy of financial independence, winning the respect
of clients and colleagues, starting to build an industry-wide
reputation, etc. Envision the glory and independence that you
want, the life of an in-demand copy star. First in mind, then in
fact.
Doing this will inspire you to live out your vision. For one
thing, it will inspire you to always keep learning. There are so
many things a copywriter can learn in order to be more
effective, and I cover lots of them in these Bullets. But in a
single second—right now!—you can take a giant leap toward
greater success by merely committing yourself to ongoing
learning. View the abundant knowledge you lack not as a threat
but as an infinite supply of new abundance for yourself—rocket
fuel for your rise in our profession.
Socrates said it best: "The key to living is always learning how
to live." Applying this to copywriting, we can say,
"The key to copywriting is always learning how to be a
better copywriter."
I consider it a wasted day if I haven't learned something new.
And I've found that the three most rewarding sources of
copywriting success are the three foundation lessons I've just
covered.
To sum up, they are (1) your knowledge of good salesmanship …
(2) your thoroughness and tenacity as a researcher … and (3)
your desire to harness the great power of your mind—to turn
ideas over in your head in a relaxed way; to noodle out and play
with a range of solutions instead of just one; and, most
important of all, to vividly see yourself as the star you were
born to be, to envision and feel yourself living a big life, not
a small one, a life filled with achievement, the respect of your
industry, the security and freedom of financial independence …
all the rewards that copywriting, one of the world's most
lucrative professions, can and will bestow upon you if you are
willing to keep drinking thirstily from these three
inexhaustible founts of knowledge.
* * *
Here are a few of the questions I'll address in upcoming
Bullets:
- What is the first thing you do when you sit down to write a
headline?
- Do you have a checklist for writing strong headlines?
- Can you recommend a formula for writing headlines?
- What is the best headline you've ever written and why?
- Could you write a headline that would make even Donald Trump
stop in his tracks?
- Can you give an example of “rule breaking” where the results
were so successful, they surprised you?
- If you were to hire a copywriter to write an ad for you, whom
would you choose (besides yourself?) and why?
- What are the best books ever written on advertising?
- How can aspiring copywriters land their first assignments?
- What are the best ways for established copywriters to get new
business?
Do you have other questions you'd like me to answer? Write me at
Gary@BencivengaBullets.com … and though I can't answer each one
personally, I will address those of greatest interest.
And speaking of being in touch …
* * *
A Housekeeping Note
Pauline and I will be traveling on a Mediterranean cruise for
the next month and will be out of touch.
So while I began this Bullet with a sentence spoken by every
copywriter who ever lived ("I need more time!") … I'm now going
to end with eight words never before written by any copywriter
since the dawn of creation: Please don't order my product any
time soon.
I'm referring to my "Reveal-Everything-at-Once" DVD course
("Gary Bencivenga's 7 Master Secrets of Wealth Creation for
Marketers and Copywriters").
You see, Pauline and I lovingly handle every little aspect of
this product, including personally sending it out and warmly
welcoming each new customer as my officially deputized Top Gun.
So if you have been thinking of ordering this, please just drop
me an email at Gary@BencivengaBullets.com and I'll let you know
when it's again available, as soon as we're ready to open our
doors again.
Or if you'd simply like to receive information about this
course—no obligation, naturally—please drop me an email as well
and I'll email the info on our return. As of now, our website is
closed. Gone fishin'… (or more accurately, Gone cruisin').
That's it for now, my friend, so until we're back…
Sincere wishes for a good life
and (always!) higher response,
P.S. If you know any copywriters or marketers who would enjoy this
P.P.S. Your e-mail address will never be shared. And if you ever wish to
unsubscribe, just let me know and I will vanish from your life like a shadow in the night.
To Visit Gary's Arsenal (Bullets Archive), click here.
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click here.
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