The copywriter’s secret

Good direct response copywriters are wildly successful. They pull in billions of dollars in sales (Eugene Schwartz sold over 6 billion dollars worth of self-help books through his direct response ads). As a matter of fact, really good copywriters are not available for hire because they create their own companies to sell their own products. Rather than make others all that money, why not keep it for themselves.

David Ogilvy, in a famous speech extols the virtues of direct response copywriters. He explains that if all marketers’ had only one chance to make a sale, and the results are fully tracked -like direct response marketers are- marketing would be much more efficient and productive.

Following David Ogilvy’s advice, I set out to study direct response marketing. I discovered there’s one huge secret all direct response copywriters have -and it has nothing to do with how compelling, long or succinct their writing is.


Direct response marketing usually comes in the form of a long letter. It makes huge promises. It explains how this product can turn your life around without any effort on your part whatsoever. It then goes on to heap a bunch of add-ons included free and explains how you’re really getting a $5,000 value for only $49. It usually has a money back guarantee and leaves you thinking, “Although this sounds totally outrageous, let me give it a try. Maybe, just maybe, it is really as good as it sounds. Maybe this is God’s gift to me and it will really change my life around. I shouldn’t pass it up.”

While reading direct response copy, people are often in a hypnotic state. They’ll read through 10 pages of copy, getting more excited with each passing paragraph until they are bursting with an uncontrollable desire for the product. And while logically, a little voice whispers this is too good to be true, a thunderous urge to try the product right now, often leads to a sale.


The copywriter's secret I'm about to tell you was revealed when one famous copywriter asked a bunch of marketers: If you had a hamburger stand and you could ask for anything you can think of to generate sales, what would they be? Give me all of your ideas and I will ask for one and only one thing that I guarantee will generate more sales than all your ideas combined. So, he drew up a list of all their ideas; posters, billboards, positioning statements, advertisements etc, on the left side of a chalk board and made a line down the middle. On the right side, he wrote his one request. It was two words. They were “starving people”. “All I need is a group of starving people" he explained, "and I’ll sell out every last hamburger in my stand.”

With all David Ogilvy’s hype and accolades on direct response marketing, the real secret to direct response marketing is they only sell products people are starving for. No, direct response cannot sell ice to Eskimos or sand in the desert. They never try to. Eugene Schwartz said, “Don’t try to create demand- you’ll tire yourself out. Figure out how to channel it”. Schwartz realized people always demand or starve for, a few basic things: Beauty, Fame, Health, Wealth and Intelligence. He figured out how to channel it his way.

Although there are tactics utilized by direct response copywriters to get you all excited about their product and force you to read without letup the entire copy, the main reason you are excited is because the copy promises this product will help you attain one or more of your greatest desires. In other words, it is the food you are starving for.

How do you figure out what people are starving for? How can your product or service really be the solution that people demand? You need to listen. According to Eugene Schwartz, a great copywriter is a great listener. Listen to what average people are saying. What bothers them? What do they wish for? Position your product as the answer. Copywriter John Carlton, in his Simple Writing Systems has a method of doing this. He calls it “the bar conversation”. It basically goes like this: Picture yourself in a bar. Someone walks in, sits down and asks the bar tender for a drink. Bar tender: “How was your day Bob?” Bob: “Lousy, I …..” Stop right there. Now you need to think, what kind of problem can Bob bring up, where you can then turn to Bob and say, “Bob, I have the solution for you”. In other words, what real problem or wish do real people have, that your product or service solves? Create all your marketing, branding and copy around that and sales may just fly through the roof.

Engage the senses with the brand

As you may be well aware, neuromarketing, publicized by Martin Lindstrom in his book Buy-ology, is the scientific method of measuring the brains reaction to marketing stimulus. It is based on the assumption that people cannot really articulate the reasoning behind their purchasing decisions or desire. The way someone responds to a survey and the way their brain responds to a survey can be very different. Since the brain is not subject to an ego or theatrics, it is assumed to be the one telling the truth. Sort of like a lie detector. Taking this idea a step further, it follows that there may be all sorts of outside influences affecting our decisions which we aren’t even aware of. Those influences though, will always reach us either through logic or emotion. And, the path to emotional engagement is the senses. Will you buy something because it smells, looks, feels, sounds or tastes hits a raw nerve within you? You bet!

According to Lindstrom, sneakers placed in a room with a scent so subtle it was considered subconscious, outsold sneakers placed in a room without the smell by 84%. Additionally, people were willing to spend on average $10.33 more for the sneakers in the scented room! Lindstrom suggests using scent to evoke childhood memories. Vanilla scent is naturally found in mother’s milk and is therefore the earliest childhood memory we can evoke through the senses. Baby powder scent as well creates a strong emotional reaction, taking us back to our earliest childhood memories. Many companies specialize in scent marketing. They can literally recreate any scent imaginable.

Sound is a powerful stimulus. Consider the fact that Harley Davidson sued Honda, claiming Honda’s Shadow Ice 1,000 sounded similar to Harley’s Fatboy. Obviously, Harley felt the “potato, potato" sound of their engines was an integral part of the Harley experience.

Consider this: In 1998, Adrian North, David Hargreaves and Jennifer McKendrick ran a test in a British wine shop to determine the role of background music in purchase decisions. For a number of days they piped in French and German music, alternating between the two. The results: on French-music days, the French wine outsold the German wine by a ratio of four to one. On German-music days, German wine outsold the French by a ratio of three to one. The same team also discovered that customers are likely to tolerate long waiting times (both on the phone and in the real world), if and when the hold/background music is enjoyable and fits our expectations. [From Building Brand Value Through the Strategic Use of Sound by Noel Franus.]

What about looks? Consider the back label of Listerine Purple: “the bottle design and purple color are trademarks of Johnson & Johnson”. Remember Crystal Pepsi? Somehow, colorless cola did not feel right. What about Heinz’s green ketchup, for that matter?

And, by the way, the smell of that new car you leased- It’s entirely artificial according to Lindstrom. Actually, it is sprayed in to the vehicle with an aerosol can right before coming off the assembly line and is designed to last 6 weeks after the purchase. What would buying a new car be like without its accompanied new car scent?