21 great headlines from trashy tabloids

Want to read some great headlines? Check these out:

Man’s head explodes in barber’s chair.

Woman with 4 legs opens dance studio.

Skiing squirrel dies trying to break 196 m.p.h. speed record!

Cow crashes domino game.

Inflate-a-Boob. New breast implants take gals from flat to fabulous … in seconds!

And these are just the beginning. Alex Eckleberry from Sunbelt Blog turned me on to a collection of Weekly World News back issues preserved in all their eye-popping glory by Google Books.

This stuff is like a Barnum and Baily nightmare. But they hold a treasure of incredible headlines that, while weird and over-the-top, work like money machines. I mean, they certainly sell these publications.

Read more

Spam scam copywriting secrets

I get them. You get them. We all get them. E-mail scam spam. And you probably just delete them like most people do.

But did you ever take a few minutes to read these messages and consider why some of them work?

There are some key copywriting lessons to be learned here. Let’s look at one short scam spam e-mail I received a few months after tax season a couple years back (I collect these things).

Subject Line:

IRS Notification - Tax refund (Internal Revenue Service)

Message:

After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $249.30.

Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 3-6 days in order to process it.

A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.

To access the form for your tax refund, please click here

Note: For security reasons, we will record your ip-address, the date and time. Deliberate wrong inputs are criminally pursued and indicated.

Regards,
Internal Revenue Service

Copyright 2007, Internal Revenue Service U.S.A. All rights reserved.

First, the subject line gets your attention. It says it’s from the IRS, which is a government department everyone is familiar with. There are no wild claims, just the suggestion that you may have a tax refund, something everyone wants.

Read more

Quick online writing resources

I have an old, crumbling Roget’s Thesaurus on my desk along with a variety of other well-worn writing resources. A bookshelf on the other side of my office holds even more.

I will never give up these beat-up books because when I’m in serious need of a synonym, grammar rule, or other tidbit, these loyal references never let me down.

But when I’m in the heat of writing, I often don’t have time to peruse my reference library. I need something quick. That’s when I turn to a variety of handy online writing resources that can give me what I need in a minute or two.

Here are a few of the best. Bookmark these sites, especially Thesaurus.com, which is so fast and simple I find myself visiting it nearly every day.

Read more

Semantic noise: the copywriter’s curse

“Semantic noise” is the term communication professors use to describe what happens when words mean different things to different people.

Here’s one notorious example. A copywriter wrote the following slogan for a cough syrup company:

“Try our cough syrup. You will never get any better.”

You can see what the poor copywriter meant to say, but his slogan can be understood in two ways. It creates major semantic noise and you are left wondering why anyone would buy a product that promises to NOT work.

Here are other examples of semantic noise caused by writers from around the world.

Sign in Norwegian cocktail lounge: “Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.”

Detour sign in Japan: “Stop. Drive Sideways.”

Hotel in Vienna: “In case of fire, do your utmost to alarm the hotel porter.”

Elevator in Germany: “Do not enter the lift backwards, and only when lit up.”

Dry cleaner window in Bangkok: “Drop your pants here for best results.”

And my favorite from a Japanese hotel: “You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.”

Read more

Do customers see what you see in your ads?

Is the woman turning to the right or to the left? That depends. Some will see her turning one way while others will see the opposite.

This animation is a visual trick, but it illustrates the idea that two people can look at the same thing and see something entirely different.

Selling is largely about perception. And everyone’s perception is a bit different. To be successful at writing or designing direct mail, ads, or other selling tools, you must grasp this simple idea.

Every person comes to your advertising with different experiences, knowledge, language skills, attitudes, preferences, and prejudices. Even something as simple as a headline can create a totally different response for two people. Read more

The 6-word copywriting challenge

Recently, in a four-way e-mail conversation with friends, someone mentioned talking to a teacher from our high school days. When my name came up, the teacher described his memory of me in six words: “wavy hair, glasses, big into theater.”

Wow. I didn’t know how to take that - the very core of who I am, or was, compressed into six highly descriptive words. When I shared my dismay, one of my friends referred me to a book that dealt with this very idea.

It’s called Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure.

Here are some excerpts from the book, which I’m quoting from Amazon.com:

Some writers tell their stories with humor and self-deprecation:

>> Woman Seeks Men–High Pain Threshold.
>> My first concert: Zappa. Explains everything.
>> Aging late bloomer yearns for do-over.

As you would expect, there are many bitter or bittersweet references to relationships gone bad:

>> Girlfriend is pregnant, my husband said.
>> Just in: boyfriend’s gay. Merry Christmas.
>> Let’s just be friends, she said.

Some lucky people sent memoirs that radiate contentment.

>> Alone at home, cat on lap.
>> Hope my obituary spells “debonair” correctly.
>> Wasn’t born a redhead; fixed that.

There is the contingent who describe themselves without judgment:

>> Gave commencement address, became sex columnist.
>> Mormon economist marries feminist. Worlds collide.
>> Still lost on road less traveled.

And last but not least, the philosophers who distill life experience into a greater truth:

>> Palindromic novels fall apart halfway through.
>> Cheese is the essence of life.
>> Wandering imagination opens doors to paradise.

I occurred to me that this would be a top-notch copywriting exercise. No, I won’t ask you to write about yourself. That’s just too hard. Instead, pick a product, any product, and try to describe it in exactly six words.

Here’s one for beer: “Low carbs. Makes date look great.”

You can do this on your own, but I’d really like to see what you come up with. Post your six-word masterpiece below.

How to write the “classic direct mail package”

Advertising direct mail takes many forms: envelope packages, self-mailers, catalogs, magalogs, flyers, postcards, and more.

That’s one of the advantages of direct mail. You don’t have the format restrictions of magazine print ads, the time restrictions of radio or TV ads, or the technical restrictions of e-mail and Web site advertising.

As long as you comply with basic postal guidelines, you can send pretty much anything through the mail. This is good for products and services that require a lot of information to convince people to buy or try. But it can be a challenge for copywriters and designers without significant experience in creating ad mail.

Let’s take a quick look at how to write and design the granddaddy of all direct mail formats, the classic direct mail package.

The most important principle to understand is “divide and conquer.” That means that when you’re creating a direct mail package, you should understand the purpose of each element and allow that element to do its particular job.

Outer Envelope. This is the distinctive feature of the classic direct mail package: an envelope that carries all the other elements through the mail. It’s called the “outer envelope” or OE to distinguish it from the “reply envelope.”

The appearance of the OE can be anywhere on a scale from plain, with little or no copy or graphics, to bold, with lots of “teaser” copy and images. Plain or bold is a strategic choice based on what you believe will get the most people to open the envelope and read the contents. Read more

“Bite the wax tadpole,” said the copywriter.

Writing clear copy is hard.

One reason is that everyone speaks a different language. Something that seems clear to you may not be clear to someone else. Let me give you a few extreme examples:

• Coors created the slogan “Turn it loose.” It made sense in the U.S., but when it appeared in Spanish, it was understood to mean “Suffer from diarrhea.” Not good for beer sales.

• Clairol introduced the “Mist Stick” curling iron into the German market, but later found out that the word “mist” is slang for “manure.” Turns out few Germans wanted a “manure stick.”

• Pepsi’s upbeat slogan, “Come alive with the Pepsi Generation” translated poorly in China, where it meant “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave.” Not so upbeat.

• Ever heard of Perdue’s chicken? Their slogan, “It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken” translated into Spanish as “It takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate.” I won’t even comment on that one.

• Coca-Cola is pretty savvy at global marketing. But when they took their product to China, the name was read as “Ke-kou-ke-la”, meaning “Bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed with wax.” Huh?

• Maybe the most outrageous example is from the Parker Pen company, which sold a ballpoint pen in Mexico with ads bragging “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you.” Unfortunately, it was translated to say, “It won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.” I should hope not!

Read more

Next Page →

• Recently Written

  • 21 great headlines from trashy tabloids
  • What does “freelance” really mean?
  • 23 thoughts to survive any crisis
  • 6 secrets of buyer behavior in a recession
  • 30 Timeless Direct Marketing Principles
  • Generating sales leads with TV ads
  • Spam scam copywriting secrets
  • Quick online writing resources
  • Eye tracking study reveals 12 website tactics
  • Why “corporate” ads waste money

• Categories

  • Advertising
  • B2B
  • Book Reviews
  • Branding
  • Copywriting
  • Creativity
  • Design
  • Direct Mail
  • Direct Marketing
  • Direct Response
  • E-Mail Marketing
  • Fundraising
  • Interviews
  • Lead Generation
  • Miscellaneous
  • Online Marketing
  • Print Ads
  • Radio Ads
  • Selling Psychology
  • Success
  • Television Ads
  • Web Sites

• Blogroll

  • A List Apart
  • B2B Lead Generation Blog
  • Ballantine Blog
  • Click to Client
  • Copyblogger
  • Copywriter Underground
  • Copywriting Maven
  • Direct Marketing Blog
  • Duct Tape Marketing
  • Email Marketing Reports
  • Freelance Folder
  • Golden Pencil
  • Graphic Design Blog
  • MarketingProfs
  • Naked Idea
  • ProFreelancing
  • Seth Godin’s Blog
  • Ted Grigg’s Reflections
  • Wealthy Freelancer
  • Web Shop’s Best Practices
  • Write to Done

Copyright © 2007-2009 Direct Creative • Design based on theme by Brian Gardner