Oct 20
19
How To Make More Money
Using Three Competing Types of Professional Copywriting!
I’m writing this in response to a question about becoming a copywriter. The question was asked by a young man who was inspired by the HBO series Mad Men so the first thing I want to do is pop a few bubbles.
The show Mad Men is based on Maddison avenue agencies. While these agencies do hire copywriters, the agencies often focus on what is called image advertising, unlike most people in our Facebook group who focus on direct response copywriting. We also have several content copywriters.
As I describe the basic differences between these three types of copywriting it’s important for me to note that there is no right or wrong form of copy.
If you can make a great living as an image copywriter, a content copywriter or a direct response copywriter, good for you!
Image or traditional copywriters write ads which for the most part are not precisely tracked. The firms they work for usually get a piece of every dollar they spend on advertising so there is less accountability than there is for direct response copywriters.
As accurately portrayed in Mad Men, image ad agencies spend a lot of energy into getting clients to sign contracts and have less reason to prove they are helping their clients make money.
So imagine CocaCola loves your campaign and wants to spend $20,000,000 running your ads in radio spots, TV commercials, and billboards, you get $2,000,000.
If the company sales go up 5% you can say, “See, look how well the campaign we created worked. Hire us again!”
Sales could have gone up because a TV show made Rum and Coke a popular drink or because there is a trend where more soda is being sold because the convenience stores are increasing the size of their soda cups.
If the sales drop, you can blame it on a trend that favors healthier diets. Therefore, the best way to increase sales is by having more advertising; which, of course you would get ten cents for every dollar they spend.
Most image advertisers will say they are very scientific and use focus groups to determine if an ad campaign is good. However, the number of people in any focus group is never what we call a large enough sample to accurately measure the effectiveness of an ad.
Now, before you think I am anti-image advertising, give me a second.
Direct response copywriting asks for the sale right when the ad copy is seen, read or heard.
There is always a call to action which ranges from calling a number for more info or clicking a buy button.
The results of each ad are measured to the point where we know how much profit came from an email list, radio ad, TV commercial, website copy or any other form of advertisement.
We can split test ad copy to see which headline or set of bullets works better in bringing in more sales.
This is what makes direct copywriting very competitive.
Copywriters are often hired to see if they can beat the control which is the best ad the company has until someone writes better copy which, when tested against the current control, brings in more sales and becomes the new control.
The best quality of direct response advertising is that it is best for growing a small company.
If you can make $500 profit nearly every time you pay $1,000 to run an ad, you can reinvest those profits then spend the $1,500 in order to bring in $2,250. This would give you a profit of $750 and quickly grow your company by repeating the process.
Even better, with proven results, you can borrow $1,000,000 and turn it into $500,000 profit (minus a few thousand dollars for interest).
You can’t do that when the people loaning you money can’t see if your sales jumped due to your image ad because your ad is great or because your product was given free PR on a large podcast.
Lastly, let’s talk about content writing which has the goal of making those who read or hear your words, want to hear or read more of your words.
These include blogs, articles for websites, newsletters etc.
Now, let’s go over how these three different types of copywriting can all work well together.
My father had very little respect for Madison Avenue agencies because most of their jobs of selling were often done once they got a contract from a client.
There is so little competition and measurement of how effective ads are that the agencies all got together and created their own awards called the Cios.
Cios was established by Wallace Ross in 1959 and it was later sold and turned into a for profit company which made money from people submitting ad campaigns they were nominating.
The board created a bunch of categories and almost all the agency’s won an award so they could then tell prospective clients they are an award winning ad agency.
As proof of the ridiculousness of this system, my father always cited the $250,000,000 Chevy Heartbeat of America ad campaign in 1987 which was nominated for 10 Cios awards despite Chevy sales dropping 12%.
Of course you could again blame the lower sales on the economy or consumers buying fewer trucks.That’s the beauty of advertising with no accountability. It should also be noted that by 1987 not all ad agencies are on Madison Avenue. This is where I’m going to disagree with my pop.
I think there are a lot of valid arguments for mass media campaigns which don’t have a number to call or way for potential customers to immediately respond. But these ad campaigns should be tested in places where the results are measured in dollars and not likes or focus groups to determine which campaign has the best chances of success.
This has been done with coupons, where customers could bring in one for a discount but once a coupon ad brought in more customers than another, the company could drop the coupons and just run the winning ad.
As for content writing vs direct response advertising, The Gary Halbert Letter is a perfect example of both.
Some issues of his historic newsletters just gave valuable advice or even simply endeared the reader to my father’s open nature and willingness to let newbies peak behind the curtain of what it was like to be a top direct response copywriter.
Now someone can get paid to write email series which alternate between providing entertainment, valuable info, and offers.
All three types of copywriting take different skill sets and they also have a few things in common.
What Image, Direct Response, & Content Writing Have In Common
Research makes you better.
Knowing what people want to buy, hear, read, or how they talk about subjects, gives you an advantage over your competition when it comes to writing riveting blog posts, creating jingles, or putting together an effective sales page.
Storytelling is key. Whether it’s a fast five line story designed to get people to become loyal fans of a brand, a story that entertains readers, or a story which makes an offer more believable, the ability to tell a tale is a huge asset.
The differences are these.
This will hurt some feelings but the truth always does.
Direct Response copywriters are worth more money per hour than the other two but there is more demand for content writers and both could use the skills of an image advertising agency to get more clients.
Copywriting for sales requires salesmanship which is a lot harder to come by because so many people have practiced or studied creative writing in school while everyone associates salesmanship as something just for sleazy and cheesy used car salesmen.
Creative writing is fun and while you can be creative and fun in a direct response promotion, injecting humor in an ad for a children’s cancer hospital has very little chance of working out well.
Image advertisers have to be impressive in person and their goal is to create memorable ad campaigns which don’t often translate to sales.
There is a famous ad campaign everyone in my generation remembers. The catch phrase was “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” but when I ask the people who do remember the phrase what the ad was for, over half of those people can’t remember what brand the ad was associated with or what it sold.
The answer is Alka Seltzer and everyone does remember the slogan “plop plop, fiz fiz, oh what a relief it is.”
So what the Madison Avenue style agencies do well is make their customers feel like they understand the brands the clients want to promote.
The Madison Avenue clients are just big versions of small businesses in that they would rather play it safe and not risk a brand’s reputation than make a lot of money so closing client deals is easier if you mirror your client’s concern about how they will look in the marketplace.
Once a client feels comfortable that you will not make them look cheap, you should outline that you want to alternate between giving prospects content and offers.
For example, your facebook ad can simply reinforce their feelings, offer great advice, and then educate the readers or viewers on the benefits of signing up on your list, joining your Facebook group or following you or visiting your website.
Once the content copywriting builds the trust between your customers and your business it’s time to make offers using direct response copywriting.
Today’s market is more sophisticated and buyers with even the oddest interests are more connected, than ever before. Reputation management is critical, easy access to reviews, and building trust among the entire market is key.
This all means you should be using all forms of copywriting to get prospects to know, like, trust, and buy from you,