Giants of Direct Marketing

Copywriting · 04

Copywriting fundamentals

Direct-response copy is not fine writing. It is useful writing — the kind that survives being read once, in a hurry, by a tired stranger.

The received image of the copywriter is theatrical: a raincoat, a cigarette, a thunderclap of inspiration. The actual practice is quieter. Direct-response copy is an accumulation of small, conservative choices. Its ambition is not to impress the reader but to be read to the end, then acted upon, then forgotten.

The headline does the heavy lifting

A widely-quoted rule of the trade holds that most readers get no further than the headline. Whatever the true proportion, the working implication is the same: if the headline does not earn the second sentence, nothing else in the message will matter. Headlines that work tend to share a small number of properties:

  • They promise something concrete. A benefit, a method, a piece of news — described in words the reader would themselves use.
  • They are specific. Numbers, times, places, professions. Specificity signals that the writer has done their homework.
  • They imply relevance. The reader recognises themselves in them within a second.
  • They earn the second sentence. Not by cliff-hanger but by opening a question the body copy is prepared to answer.

Write to one person

The old letter-writers' rule still holds. Address the message to a single reader, imagined in ordinary detail, and use the second-person singular. Copy written to "our customers" reads as institutional prose. Copy written to a named, imagined reader reads as private correspondence, and private correspondence is read differently.

Body copy: the reader's questions, in order

Effective body copy is not organised around the writer's message; it is organised around the reader's questions, answered in the order they arise. A working sequence:

  1. What is this, in plain words?
  2. Why should I care today, not in general?
  3. How do I know it works? Who has tried it? What did they find?
  4. How does it work — in enough detail to be plausible?
  5. What does it cost, in every sense?
  6. What happens if it doesn't work for me?
  7. What, exactly, do I do next?

Copy that answers these questions in this order tends to feel inevitable. Copy that answers them out of order — cost before proof, instruction before understanding — tends to feel pushy no matter how polite the sentences are.

The small habits

  • Short words, most of the time. Long words are for the occasional emphasis, not the norm.
  • One idea per sentence. Compound sentences smuggle in claims the reader has no chance to weigh.
  • Read it aloud. If a sentence cannot be spoken in one breath without embarrassment, rewrite it.
  • Cut the throat-clearing. Most first paragraphs are the writer warming up; the true beginning is the second one.
  • Show, then claim. Evidence before the assertion it supports; the reader is more generous with claims that have already been earned.

The finish

A direct-response letter ends where it began — with a single, plain instruction. Copy that has done its work does not need a flourish; it needs a doorway. Tell the reader what to do next, describe what will happen when they do it, and stop writing.