From: Reno, NV
Thursday night, 9:26pm
Subject: Going off on The Man, Part II
Howdy…
One of the talents I’m most proud of is my knack for naming stuff.
I’m good at it because I love all forms of language, and I’m not afraid of mixing up forbidden slang with fifty-cent words to arrive at something fresh and compelling.
I could, for example, have called my first course “A Really Good Tutorial on Creating Ads” and written it in proper English … and it would have promptly (and justifiably) sank to the bottom of the barrel of courses on advertising.
Fortunately, I eschewed mediocrity and — instead — went for the jugular.
And the slang-ridden, take-no-prisoners course I did write — “Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel” — hit a nerve among entrepreneurs and small biz owners world-wide.
The lesson: Words matter.
Never confuse “smart sounding speech” with real Read more…
Howdy…
Let me share with you an important re-discovery I was just bludgeoned with about the nature of what is “true”, and what is manufactured bullshit.
It’s a version of “truth” I believe is critical for all marketers and seekers of success (both in life and in biz)… and yet remains shockingly elusive and hard to nail down.
Why? Because some very dedicated people do not want you to get hip about it.
Here’s the story: Technically, I just got to share a stage with Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines/Virgin Records this past weekend.
Maybe “virtually” is the better word, though. I was in Phoenix, at Joe Polish’s stunning Super Conference, and I pulled a shift onstage chatting with Joe and then putting the audience of 700+ though their paces writing some headlines.
Branson was “on” the following day, via satellite. Very cool technology — totally live (well, almost, with a 3-second delay bouncing the images and sound off the orbiting junkpile up there) — and amazingly intriguing for a live audience. I had no idea a real audience could be held captive so effectively by someone’s huge head on a screen, broadcasting from half a world away.
But it works.
And I gotta tell you: I was prepared to NOT like Branson, and was ready to bolt the room the second he bored me.
Why? I’ll get to that in a moment. But by the third or fourth minute of his talk, I found myself really liking this guy… and thoroughly enjoying both what he had to say, and how he said it.
By the time he finished his “speech” and generously began to answer questions from the audience, I felt bad that he and I would never have the opportunity to hang out together. I felt that simpatico with him.
Later on, I thought about my prior feelings about him… and how they had been formed.
Bottom line: I was duped.
By the media, and probably also by corporate monsters who hate his message of independence and responsibility for taking care of the world.
The Man (the icon of the beasts who control this world) loathes rich people who attain success by alternative means, and then insult the Power Structure by challenging the “pillage and rape” methods they use to acquire and hold dominion over markets, populations and the “reality” most of us experience through media. (The beasts really, really, really want us sedated and mollified by the value-less aspects of such things as Youtube and Facebook, which act as opiates to keep the bulk of society from questioning anything The Man is doing.) (There IS some value to Youtube and Facebook, of course… but they’re not exactly sterling examples of enlightenment.)
Branson’s main ventures have all been centered on his experiences in modern life… and how he found them lacking and in dire need of updating or complete revolutions. Air travel has sucked for several generations, and so he created Virgin Airlines, which apparently rocks. (I’ve never had the pleasure, but my partner Stan gives it 10 out of 10 stars.) He created his record label to fill the huge gap of taste and relevance that the Big Ugly Record Companies left open… and they have despised him for it ever since.
Now, of course, he’s doing amazing things to try and make the world better… and The Man is apoplectic with rage for the effort. (Branson had Nelson Mandella and Kofi Anan of the UN ready to go to Iraq and convince Saddam to step down and go live in exile in Liberia — which would have been a bloodless, peaceful coup that accomplished everything the Bush administration said it wanted — but the day they were ready to leave for Iraq, the war started and it was too late. I remember this getting scant media attention — at least here in the US — and being completely squelched soon after. The Man hates being second-guessed.)
All this has reminded me, yet again, of the unpleasant responsibility of enjoying the privileges of a free society: We can NEVER take the word of those in power as gospel… and we are saddled forever with the need to stay vigilant and challenge authority on every major point.
The media has not been totally unkind to Branson… but the general attitude about him (if you never actually listened to his side of the story) was skeptical and sneering. Rich do-gooder guy, who was a self-admitted “party animal”, trying to ignore the rules the rest of us have to live by. Deserves to be taken down a notch or two, the little bastard.
Which, of course, is an ABSURD notion for a guy like me to have in his head at all. Heck… I never play by the rules, and I distrust authority with the best of them.
In fact, my entire teaching style is centered on “waking up”… ditching the zombie lifestyle The Man prefers you to stumble though life with… and claiming your place at the Feast.
So what I’ve come away with — from this little exercise in awareness — is the POWER of the media in this regard. I hadn’t bothered to go deep, and get the story myself. To be fair, I’m a tad busy to be doing my own research on everybody in the news… but in this case, we have a guy who is knocking himself out trying to do the right thing in many, many ways that require courage, vision and piles of his own money… and I allowed the snarling media to gobble up his basic message and keep the BEST part of it away from me.
Entirely my fault. I dozed, and got snookered.
The truth will always be slippery, hard to nail down, and subject to misinformation and propaganda.
Still, it’s worth remembering who’s in charge of most of the “news” you are spoon-fed. Rich people who have a stake in you NOT becoming rich, too. They got theirs, and aren’t too happy about you getting yours.
It’s a good thing to spend just a little more energy to get a better view of any story by uncovering alternative news outlets.
And it’s also a good thing to remember how nasty The Man can get when riled. I have zero interest in any kind of “real” fame specifically because of this. I’m fine with the very minor celebrity status I enjoy on the seminar circuit, and among my subscribers and clients and customers. It’s like having a big, raucous, fun and interesting extended family to hang out with.
But the kind of fame that would regularly get you on the front page? Forget it. You instantly become canon fodder for a heartless media that doesn’t care a whit about truth or serving the Greater Good.
Me? I’m gonna get Branson’s book and read it right away.
The dude has me intrigued… and I feel I owe it to him.
Stay frosty,
John Carlton
www.carltoncoaching.com
News flash: If you are neither on, nor in need of, attention-deficit medication… you’re probably at a serious disadvantage marketing your business online.
I’m not judging anyone here — I’m just making an observation.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting at a big sloppy banquet hosted by one of the top online entrepreneurs. Very nice restaurant, and we had a back room all to ourselves.
Seated around me were a dozen other rich, respected online entrepreneurs — mostly men in their thirties, and one or two women in the same age group. Everywhere you turned, there was another fun and invigorating conversation going on.
I really like my colleagues in the online marketing world. And I appreciate the fact that, while I’m much older (and I’ve been around the block about a thousand more times), we all have so much in common that we treat each other like equals.
Which mostly means we engage freely in totally uncensored conversations that are hilarious, revealing, and often amazingly profitable.
At this particular dinner, however, I had a sudden realization… and was able to field-test it immediately with the people sitting around me.
That realization was this: While we have much in common as marketers and advertisers and just being cutting-edge creative types… we ALSO share another trait that I almost NEVER used to see in the pre-Web days of direct response advertising.
Once I tell you what this trait is, it will seem obvious.
But few of us have ever put a finger on it before.
Wanna guess what this trait is that so many online entrepreneurs share?
It’s…
… being a misfit.
And not just a run-of-the-mill misfit, either.
I started asking my table-mates, point blank, if they had ever been diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), OCD (obsessive/compulsive disorder), or any of the other less common “social outsider” categories that doctors seem to love using to catalog people.
Everyone started sharing their private histories… and it was eye-opening.
I’m not gonna name names here. (Insiders will probably be able to guess who I’m talking about… but then, they probably also share the same diagnosis.)
I just think this is an important insight to online marketing success.
There were brilliant people at this table… and at least one honest genius, IQ-wise. There were technical wizards, stunningly talented thinkers, writers with breathtaking talent, and lots of super-savvy guys who had learned to “game” the online system so massive quantities of moolah flowed in their direction.
Often with little extra work.
And yet, in the offline world, nearly all of them would be STRUGGLING to hold down a regular job… or, in some cases, possibly forced out of “polite” socieity altogether.
These people were misfits. Literally, they didn’t FIT in the mainstream world very well at all.
Some of the brightest ones had common memories of being forced into “special needs” classes in school. Many were dropouts, because their intelligence was overlooked and understimulated.
For the ones who were most successful… the birth of the Web presented SALVATION.
Many started online as gamers — staying up late (or for days at a time) dodging dragons and shooting aliens, sharing the new fantasy worlds with an ever-growing community of other misfits. They got to know each other, started exploring the capitalist possibilities of the Web, and traded in games for marketing.
While the Web frightened and confused traditional businesses, these younger guys were fearless about code, software, building sites and everything else in the new virtual world-wide city center.
I got into freelance copywriting because I was a notoriously bad fit in the corporate world. I can’t stand wearing ties (they literally chafe my neck), and I’m a flagrant night owl — which, I have now discovered, is something else I share with many of the best online entrepreneurs out there.
As far as I know, I do not have any attention deficit problems… yet, I can enjoy long and chaotic conversations with the worst of them, and I even enjoy the non-linear thinking.
So, I dunno, maybe I’m ADHD, too. Can you have a mild case of it?
Actually, I kinda doubt it really exists. Getting to know these brilliant, wacky online entrepreneurs leads me to believe that — in the bad old pre-Web days — there simply wasn’t a place for them.
“Normal” society hates misfits, cuz we make uptight people uncomfortable. (I’ve been fired from almost every “real” job I’ve ever had.) (With good reason, too — I refused to play by stupid rules, and I still consider the REAL insane people to be the ones who surrender their individuality to The Man for a paycheck.)
The Web has nurtured a fabulous explosion of entrepreneurial opportunity… and now smart misfits can work their own hours, dressed however they like, from chaotic home offices, doing whatever funky project they dream up.
You can make your own rules, and change them daily. You can obsess to your heart’s content, or be as lazy and distracted as you like (once you’ve set your systems in place) and still rake it in.
The entire playing field has changed, drastically. In traditional corporate environments, the people who rise to positions of authority and power (and high salaries) are often the jerks who know how to play “the game” at work. Kiss ass, take credit for other people’s efforts, avoid responsibility for failure, stab co-workers in the back, etc.
The biz-as-usual soap opera.
Online, however, you’re essentially naked except for your brain. There’s no corporate game to play… and none of the skills that normally shoot a person up the ladder are relevant.
Online, being good looking, or suave, or a good worker, or even likeable won’t win you any victories.
Online, the misfits have the advantage. They can create their own attention paradigms, set their own standards, and take their biz directly to people who want what they offer… with nary an intervening newspaper, magazine, television standards and practices attorney, politician, store shelf position, billboard or sweet talking salesman to harsh anyone’s mellow.
I don’t know if anyone else has fully understood the implications here. Maybe I’m slow getting on the band wagon… but the other entrepreneurs I’ve talked to have all agreed that no one’s really noticed how many true misfits there are at the top of the online world.
There’s room for everybody, of course.
But I think I now see why so many wannabe entrepreneurs I counsel are having trouble getting traction onine — they need to get in touch with their Inner Misfit.
It’s a brave new world… and I, for one, welcome it.
Misfits of the world, unite!
And stay frosty,
John Carlton
www.marketingreble.com
We live in a nice joint, in a nice neighborhood.
The house is big, comfy, secluded (somewhat), wired… and full of technological whoop-de-do’s that break down with alarming regularity.
Last week, it was the dishwasher.
Now, for most of my life I was old-school about cleaning up. I have an old R. Crumb cartoon of Mr. Natural doing the dishes — it’s hilarious to a certain demo from my generation, but somewhat obscure to everyone else. He just rolls up his sleeves and does the dishes, in frame after frame of a page-long cartoon. The last panel has him walking away drying his hands and saying “Another job well done.”
That’s old school.
However, I quickly fell into the trance of having a dishwashing machine once we moved in. Load ‘er up, punch a button, go do something else.
So it was discombobulating when the little bastard broke down. We had to run off to Target to get a dishrack, and I was re-aquainted with the old Zen mindset of washing by hand.
After a few days of that, though, we made the modern decision to replace the automatic beast under the counter.
It’s a beauty, too. Brand new ’08 model, bristling with gadgetry and options, yet efficient and quiet (like a little troll that sneaks into the kitchen at night to tidy up).
It’s also another electricity-eating robot… and after the first couple of cycles, it just went HAL on us. (HAL being the evil narcissistic computer in the movie “2001”, of course.) Then it appeared to burn out completely.
Mocked by unresponsive blinking lights, we called the repairman, who said he might make it by the house at some point, while insisting we not “try anything” to fix the machine ourselves. And no, he said, there is no “reset” button. We needed to wait for him, Mr. Expert.
Screw that. I immediately did two things: (1) I tried every tactic I could think of to trick the damn thing into working again… and (2) I asked my assistant Diane for advice.
Diane has been with me for years, and understands the “real” world in ways that only a smart, fearless single mother can.
“Did you unplug it?” she asked, without hesitation.
Uh, no, I hadn’t. I didn’t even know where to find the plug.
Under the sink, it turns out. Obvious.
Diane learned this trick of unplugging, waiting a few beats, and re-plugging electrical monsters long ago. It works with computers, printers, phone answering machines, televisions, cable boxes… and dishwashers.
Works like a charm, too. We’re washing a big damn load of dishes right now. Told Mr. Expert to forget stopping by.
This “unplug and reset” thing reminded me of a critical lesson from Eben Pagan’s killer “Altitude” seminar from a few weeks ago: One of his guest speakers was a sports shrink (as well as a biz consultant)… and he emphasized the need for “recovery” in everything humans do.
Top athletes know how to relax during every pause in the action of their sport. Rookies stay tensed up, and often collapse in exhaustion, while the pro’s dance in elation after the most grueling contest.
Bodybuilders certainly know the necessity of recovery — you can’t build muscle without lots and lots of rest between workouts. In fact (important point here), you will DESTROY muscle if you overwork your body.
In business, I long ago learned the lessons of burn-out: I did it exactly once, frying my brain with workaholism, lack of sleep and a refusal to take vacations around 15 years ago.
It sucked, and I became a relaxation junkie. Part of what I teach freelancers, in fact, is the glory and necessity of weekly massages and monthly mini-vacations. Plus a routine of frequent “Miller Time” breaks to end your day. (Doesn’t have to include booze, but very much DOES have to feature real relaxation and complete brain shut-down.)
Miller Time means: Work, done for today.
Not another conscious thought about the office is allowed until morning.
I can’t count the number of up-and-coming copywriting stars I’ve counselled over the years who ignored my advice and just piled on the jobs until they literally collapsed. A young man should not suffer a physical or mental breakdown. An older dude should know how to avoid it, too.
Sadly, most don’t. The American mindset is suspicious of anything that smacks of slacking off… and that’s just a dumb way to live. (Most of the successful entrepreneurs I know are shockingly lazy, though capable of intense bursts of short focus and disciplined work.)
Burn-out is not your inevitable fate. It is, in fact, a CHOICE people make. They mostly do it unconsciously, denying they’re pushing themselves too hard… but it’s a choice nonetheless.
You can choose to install GOOD habits, instead.
Like unplugging from the grid on a regular basis.
Find ways to turn your mind off. It needs the recovery period, and needs it every day.
Washing the dishes by hand reminded me of the Zen “no thought” mode I’m able to slip into, when I give myself the opportunity. It took years to develop, and I forget about this skill often. (I tend to rely on weekly massage to take me there, which makes me lazy about doing it myself.)
So it’s VERY worthwhile to be reminded, regularly, about the need and the joy of unplugging. Find ways to do it without technology — no Playstation, no websurfing, no staring at the tube.
Find an old school way to do it. My buddy Frank Kern surfs for real in the ocean. My buddy Stan gorges on the live music in his town. Last night, I just stood in my yard staring at the full moon cruise across the sparkling autumn sky for a while… not lost in thought, but alive with no-thought.
Unplugged.
Even a moment or two of it can reset your system.
You can play at being a cyborg with video games, but in real life you’re in dire need of very human recovery periods.
Take the advice of a dude who experienced burn-out and figured out the alternatives. You don’t ever have to experience it yourself to learn the lesson.
The number one rule of living well has always been “First, be a good animal.”
Words to live well by.
Stay frosty,
John Carlton
www.carltoncoaching.com
Bulletin from the powerful Altitude event in Los Angeles last week: Testing equals Big Bucks.
This shouldn’t be news, but it is for an alarming number of even veteran marketers. (I’ll certainly cop to being guilty of not testing anywhere near enough.)
The bottom line is that, at some point, you’ve got to step away from what you “believe” to be true about your market, your advertising, and your sales funnel… and test the critical parts of your pitch. Price, headline, bullets, voice, attitude, layout, guarantee, name capture, email follow-up, freebies, all of it.
The rewards of dedicated, focused and obsessive testing have never been made more obvious to me… than when, smack in the middle of the seminar, Eben asked the room how many people tested “regularly” on their Websites.
Bunch of folks raised their hands.
Then he asked how many tested EVERY DAY.
About half a dozen kept their hands up.
Then… and this is where it gets good… he asked each of the “every day testers” how much they were grossing.
Wow.
The low end take of that small group was over $12million/year. The mean average was over twenty million.
Moral: Testing rocks.
You will, of course, continue to do what you want to do. It’s your biz, after all.
However, you’ll never know how much moolah you’re leaving on the table until you test. And test often. And learn from your results.
Just a small tidbit from the vast mountain of stuff I learned (and re-learned) at the Altitude seminar. Eben really threw himself, and his entire organization, into making that event a shocking success… and you know you’ve done well when grizzled, cynical, “seen it all before” veterans like me give you an enthusiastic thumbs up.
Everyone I talked to — and the room was packed with movers and shakers — was ecstatic over the material presented and the opporunities offered.
Well done, Eben.
I’ll be synthisizing my notes over the next weeks, and sharing more soon.
My head is still buzzing from the overload of input…
Stay frosty,
John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com
Howdy.
Just finished up the much ballyhooed second-ever Copywriting Sweatshop. It was fun, invigorating, and a shuddering success.
And — hey — I learned some cool new stuff, too.
My old pal David Deutsch was in the audience. I’d asked him to fly out, as a fellow “A List” copywriter, to sort of watch my back while I rambled and ranted and did my schtick on the stage. David and I have been discussing copy for almost twenty years now, and we’re dead serious about it. (At last count, he had six controls for Boardroom, which has got to be some kind of record.)
Anyway, after lunch on the final day, I asked David to grab a mike and join me under the bright lights up front… because I wanted the crowd to hear what we’d been talking about during breaks.
This was a subject that caused a curious reaction in people. For veteran pro writers, our eyes all lit up like Xmas come early. For non-writers, it seemed… a bit weird.
The subject? Improv.
More specifically, improvisation… as in attempting comedy without a script.
It’s definitely an art form (and one dominated by British and American actor/comedians). On TV, you may have seen the Drew Carey-hosted show “Whose Line Is It, Anyway?” (which was a rip from the English original, as most of the good stuff on the tube is these days). Actor/director Christopher Guest (the gum-smacking lead guitarist from Spinal Tap) has put out a major Hollywood release about every other year that is primarily improv — no actual scripts, and lots of spontaneous brilliance from the crew. (“A Mighty Wind”, “Best In Show”, “Waiting For Guffman”, and of course “Spinal Tap”.)
Monty Python worked a lot with improv.
So the pedigree is golden. Most actors fear improv, though, cuz you gotta think fast and rely on your wits. (Something many actors lack. Without a script, they are helpless.)
Yet, there are nevertheless some fundamental rules to doing improvisation… and it is the #1 Rule that copywriters get kinda excited about.
That rule? Whenever you are teamed with someone to create a bit, spontaneously… you NEVER contradict your fellow actors. The line you rely on is: Yes… and…
In other words… you build on what the other guy just said. As David illustrated at the seminar, one guy might say “Gee, it’s cold here in the Artic”. And it would be verboten for the other actor to then shake his head and say “No, we’re not in the Artic, we’re in a desert.”
That would be “bad comedy”… and leave the first actor out in the cold, scrambling to figure out what the hell to say next. Contrariness throws the whole scene off the rails, and while it may be odd and absurd, it ain’t funny.
No. What you might actually say is: “Yes. And look at those penguins over there. They seem… hungry.” Or something like that.
The key is to build on the previous entry. The reply then might be something like: “Yeah… hungry and looking at us funny…” Now, the story is going somewhere.
Improv scares most people even more than simple public speaking (or handling snakes, the other top fear). There’s a sense of being so… naked and vulnerable.
No script. No road map. No way to predict where the scene is gonna go.
For trained comedians, heaven. For most folks, hell.
For people addicted to contrariness and stubborn negativity, it’s like entering another universe.
I took exactly one improv class, around three years ago. Loved it. Chicago’s Second City improv group came to town, and after the performance, they offered an one-time workshop. On-stage. It was easily the toughest class I’ve ever attended.
But that single rule — yes, and — intrigued me.
Turns out it’s intrigued many other marketers and writers. David is serious about it, and well into a months-long study of improv. My pal Eben Pagan (of Altitude fame) studied it, too. The list goes on.
Why the fascination with improv… a bizarre art form that seems miles away from the dreary and unfunny world of advertising?
Dude, it’s all about facing the blank page.
Sitting down at your desk with an ad to write… and not having a clue how to begin.
Well… in improv, nearly every second of performance time brings that identical problem to your plate. What are you gonna say now?
And you can’t plan ahead, because you must wait for your fellow actor to finish before you open your mouth or engage your brain. Which you gotta do, like, immediately, to keep the flow going. Bang, bang, bang.
It’s the ultimate blank page.
The concept of using “yes, and” to move ahead appeals to all writers… because it’s so friggin’ positive. It’s easy to be cynical and jaded — it’s the refuge of all scoundrels who can’t create anything, but consider knocking stuff down to be just as valuable a skill. (It isn’t.)
I realized, smack in the middle of that class, that I’d been using that same kind of positive “move it along” tactic myself… every time I sat down to write copy.
You can almost feel the enthusiasm in the simple words “yes, and“. Salesmanship thrives on enthusiasm, and shrivels under the cruel heat of negativity.
A great ad may indeed start with a not-so-good platform — in fact, most ads address some kind of urgent, dire problem. And yet, the greased slide of the sales pitch MUST steer the process into positive territory. A solution. The restoration of hope. A pleasant picture of better days, resolution, redemption, and success. (You didn’t know advertising was a distant cousin of epic drama?)
“Sure”, you might write to your skeptical prospect, “things are tough right now for you. But soon, you can start doing this. Yes, and also this. And this. And that. And also this other thing…”
You build on the tenative spark of hope your hook or USP offers, and keep building until you’ve presented the promise of a whole new life to your reader. A positive, enthusiastic transformation. (Yes, even if you’re just selling dumb little widgets.)
I’m not convinced that David and I convinced the audience at the Sweatshop of the critical nature of “yes, and“… but we at least made them more aware of the role of positive action while creating ads.
The way to break through the paralysis of the blank page… is to get high on the happy hormonal flush of building toward something nice. You can start small… but make your promise, your presentation of benefits, and your entire sales process heave and swell with each new paragraph. Bring on your hidden goodies with panache and enthusiasm and unexpected revelation.
People out there are bored, worried and clueless. As a writer, you have an opportunity to reach out and give negativity a wedgie.
And it won’t be able to get you back, if you’re climbing up and away on cool drafts of blooming good vibes.
“Yes, and” is all about working with your reader.
And anyone with a drop of salesmanship in their veins has got to be nodding right now, thinking “Yeah… and thanks for reminding me.”
Stay frosty… and watch out for penguins bearing silverware…
John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com
P.S. The other top copywriter in the audience was my longtime friend David Garfinkel — another “ringer” I asked to hang out so I could bounce things off him, and know that I had multiple professionals in the room keeping me in line.
“Garf” and I are teaming up to do a presentation at another upcoming seminar down in Los Angeles starting Wednesday, October 17th. More details to come. The seminar host insists on all speakers doing hands-on workshops, so in many ways this will be a condensed version of the Sweatshop concept. (The good thing about a real Sweatshop is that it lasts all weekend. David and I will not have that luxury, but we are plotting evil ways to force-feed advanced skills into a large, startled crowd in less than two hours. It’s a spectacularly high-wire-act tactic that only super-creative types could ever come up with…)
This will be an event for the history books.
I’m also gonna jet down to the Altitude event, right after finishing my speaking gig at the Big Seminar in Atlanta this coming weekend.
No peace for the wicked, and all that.
This Fall has become a major season for stunning new revelations in advertising and marketing. It’s always been the “main” seminar season, but this year is just nuts with opportunity and specific direction. Even if you can’t make any of the many events being held, at least be hyper-aware of any post-event material being released.
Just don’t risk falling behind, all right? Things are moving faster than ever, especially online. Watch this site, and your other “go-to” sites, to stay hip to what’s happening. It’s always a good idea to stay current, but it’s now a hard-core requirement for serious marketers.
Exciting times.
Plus (warning: blatant pitch here)… we’ve still got a free “look” equal to two months of content down at the Carlton “Radio Rant” coaching club. No risk, killer info and advice, a chance to get your copy personally critiqued by me, and much more… this month, for example, I did a shocking co-critique show with Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero, who brings a unique female-based attitude to copywriting. Important stuff, presented with flair, mystery and fun. (That show is still posted, but you gotta hurry.)
Check it out: www.carltoncoaching.com.
Happy trails…
I hate it when I discover a show on TV that forces me to watch it compulsively.
See, my private vision of myself is of a suave, worldly guy who nurses a beer in an overstuffed leather chair while reading good literature and expanding my mind with Big Thoughts.
In reality, I keep finding my ass welded to the couch instead, riveted to mindless visual crap on the tube. (I love “Whacked Out Sports”. So sue me.)
I’m so ashamed.
But, heck, I gotta stay involved in the culture (or so I keep telling myself).
So, every late summer, I check out the new offerings. Besides, HD is so bitchin’ to watch, it’s like television has been reinvented all over again.
The new show that’s got me obsessed is “Mad Men”, a rare series on AMC (the cable channel that usually shows old movies, mostly from the MGM catalog). It’s not on HD — big minus — but it IS the brain-child of a former Soprano’s producer. (How HBO lost the bid on this show, I’ll never figure out. It’s getting shockingly-good press, and the water-cooler buzz is amazing.)
The “mad” part refers to Madison Avenue — circa 1960. Easily the most classic year of the most classic period of advertising seen by our civilization. It’s a period piece, and they’ve paid excruciatlng attention to detail: Everyone chain smokes, the guys wear thick glasses, globs of Brylcreem, and fedoras (the hat disappeared from fashion right after John Kennedy got elected prez in the autumn of 1960 — part of his “youth appeal” was his habit of not wearing a hat)… and racism, sexism and religious bigotry is so ingrained, there is zero self-consciousness about behavior that — today — would be considered at best offensive, and at worst criminal.
You keep finding yourself stunned by passing comments, by the treatment of women (who are called girls and regarded as intellectually inferior), by the casual alpha male refusal to take ulcers, sobriety or fidelity seriously on any level. (Trust me — the drug and sex fueled immorality of the 1980s have got NOTHING on 1960.)
I love period stuff. I was just a kid back then… but this was the golden age of the super-agency, when John Caples was still around, Rosser Reeves was just getting reved up, and David Ogilvy was writing his most famous copy. Most of the ad and copywriting books on my shelf are from this period.
Sure, the ads are all about slogans, with lots of graphics (mostly paintings by damn good illustrators, since photography didn’t print so hot yet)… but salesmen were still in charge.
It was a different world back then… bad in many obvious ways, oblivious of psychological and physical health concerns (doctors smoked in the exam room), and you gotta wonder how anything ever got done when nearly every guy in the agency started drinking — heavily — at noon every day. In fact, you were regarded with suspicion if you weren’t a lush. (No promotion for you, Mr. Teatotaler.)
You can draw a straight line from the online advertising of today, clean through those late-fifties/early-sixties days, on back to the “official” beginnings of direct response in the heydays of the late 1800s.
You can laugh at how naive they seemed back then… but these are your ancestors, working away at the new-fangled IBM Selectrics after the exact same goals you’re after with your plasma monitors and laptops. (And really, we aren’t all that smart today… and a good case can be made that we’re going backwards intellectually, Devo-style, in spite of technological spurts.)
People often ask me for “extra” secrets to getting really good at marketing and copywriting and advertising in general. What they usually expect to hear is some overlooked secret about technique or some hidden tactic I’ve been keeping from everyone.
But you wanna know one of the really juicy, extra-advanced secrets to getting really good?
It’s becoming a student of history. Not just advertising history, but the history of our culture, of language and art and war and technology. We do very much live in exciting times, and the online adventure is as much a sci-fi story as anything else humans have ever experienced before.
But nothing has happened in a vacuum.
There are precendents to every detail of modern life. We tend to take things for granted… but that’s thinking inside the box, and that kind of stunted non-imagination is for losers.
History is the easiest way to expand your consciousness (without drugs, even), and to get the Big View of life (where all the truly mind-blowing revelations like to gestate).
Most folks fear history because they can’t see how it’s relevant to modern life. (Plus, it seems to be centered on lots and lots of reading, and that scares Americans.)
Just get over it. History is where genius finds inspiration, and where the most creative among us can put their ideas to the test.
Just catch a couple of “Mad Men” shows. It’s got a good series of plots going — ala the Soprano’s — and it’s a joy to watch. Well written, tightly edited, just a blast to veg out and absorb. I was years away from being a teenager back then, but I sort of remember the Zeitgeist of the period. So I’m mostly watching it as a stranger to the era, too. Don’t think it’s not for you just because you weren’t even a glimmer in your daddy’s eye in 1960.
Expand your horizons. Get a well-studied, documented taste of what life was like for your immediate ancestors in advertising.
The show comes with my highest recommendation.
Stay frosty…
John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com
Have you ever figured out your own personal learning style?
We all have one, you know. This inconvenient fact is the bane of educators everywhere… because the teaching strategy that does so well creating a love of reading in Suzy, also puts Timmy to sleep (and makes him hate books).
I was discussing IQ with a buddy of mine recently — very smart guy, who’d just discovered his lovely wife had the exact same IQ as he did (this might be a bad thing in some marriages, but it was good news in his) — and I suddenly remembered the disorientation and stomach-churning confusion I had felt when taking my first IQ tests back in high school. I scored high enough to give the finger to all those grim, humorless teachers who were sure I was stupid (how could it possibly be their fault I wasn’t learning much under their obviously excellent guidance?)… but the actual score had to have been wildly off, because I distinctly recall never having encountered many of the words used in the test (which the creators took for granted that I knew).
It wasn’t that English was a foreign language to me… but rather that I’d somehow escaped learning a whole bunch of math, and was extremely vague on what a verb was. Among other embarrassments.
Now, I’ve trashed the U.S. schools before, and I’m not gonna do it again here. Too easy a target.
And I happen to know a couple of dozen teachers personally… all of whom are wicked smart people, dedicated to teaching, and universally upset that bureaucrats and politicians interfere with the process of filling semi-empty minds with the fodder of academia.
Nevertheless… it is ABSURD to think there is any single way to teach anything to everyone.
It’s simply not true. There may be a finite number of ways to teach effectively… but there are certainly more than a tidy few.
This was one of the main reasons I got into teaching entrepreneurs. I noticed, way back when I first started producing marketing and copywriting seminars, that there were always a number of people in the audience who simply didn’t “get it” when I tried to explain some specific salesmanship tactic or copy strategy.
We both got frustrated, because we seemed to be living in different worlds, where one man’s communication was another man’s Tower of Babel.
I was curious enough to look deeper into this… and discovered that among those people who didn’t get it, there were further sub-cultures of folks who couldn’t understand me no matter what I did or said or explained.
Some of these people were just aggressively stupid. Others could only “value” what I tried to teach through their need to control the message — they were offended by any show of cockiness, they were insulted by any kind of humor (especially the raw kind employed by the likes of Halbert and me), or they were aghast at the lack of democratic input I would allow into the conversation. (I’m sorry, but if you insist on wasting my time arguing about whether anyone reads long copy or not, we’re not gonna get anywhere special as far as learning new stuff. You don’t get equal time with your untested bullshit.)
At first, this bothered me. I felt I was a failure for not somehow possessing a super-broad array of teaching skills that would conquer any barrier put up by a student.
Then I got over it.
I stumbled through my own educational days mostly clueless about everything. If I hit the books at all to study, it was only from the mad hope that somewhere in one of the many classes I was taking, a clue might appear on how to live my life in a meaningful way.
I wish someone would have told me “Good luck on that quest, Bucko”… because it wasn’t gonna happen.
So I grew up thinking there was something wrong with ME — first, because I couldn’t find the value in what was being shoved down my throat at school… and later, because I kept encountering people who insisted they wanted to learn what they’d heard I had to teach about marketing and advertising and copywriting… but couldn’t seem to understand me at all.
And then, when I finally looked at the problem in a different way, it dawned on me: I was amazingly effective as a teacher… with the right student.
The “right” student was often an entrepreneur or small businessman who had a few unique things going for him. He could put his ego aside. He had an open mind about new ideas, even when these ideas contradicted his prior belief systems. And he had the ability to “translate” what I was saying, into language that worked for him.
I had always suspected I wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea… but now I finally realized that it was pointless to pay ANY attention to those good folks who didn’t “click” with me.
Because those people I DID click with stood to benefit enormously.
This is why my first course was titled “Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel”. I still, to this day, get outraged emails from certain people who are deeply insulted by the term “kick-ass”. Many demand that I change it immediately. All decree that they would NEVER deal with a teacher like me, as long as I used such foul language.
What they do not realize… is that using the term “kick-ass” is a big damn cleaver I use to separate those folks who will NEVER learn from me in any meaningful way… from those who are PERFECT students for my teaching style.
Their learning style matches up.
I can’t pretend to be someone I’m not, and be an effective teacher. I’m never gonna wear a tie, or go to bed at a decent time so I can get up early, or create an academically-approved syllabus for anything I teach. Not gonna happen.
I’ll stand behind my balls-to-the-wall, street-savvy teaching method anytime… because I’ve got a loooooong line of people willing to testify that my style worked with them, where other styles failed. There’s often a brief jolt of pain from my methods, as the bullshit falls away and you enter, new-born-like, into the world of honest salesmanship and wicked-good copy… but it’s invigorating, not scary.
And for the right student — a savvy, independently-minded realist, who embraces the world for what it is, and doesn’t waste time wishing it was something else — this re-birth can be the start of anadventure that changes everything. Forever. In your business, and in your life.
The world is big, and people are wired with all kinds of kinks and passions that — when you’re playing it smart — fit into your sales funnel perfectly. You just gotta know what to say.
I liken it to teaching a foreign language. I suffered through six years of “formal” Spanish classes… and I still couldn’t have a real conversation with anyone fluent in the language. They tried to teach me by boring me to tears first, and wilting vast areas of my brain with useless info. (Who CARES where the friggin’ library is, already?)
However… had the program started out by teaching me how to make it through a day in Tijuana buying firecrackers, scoring booze and negotiating my way into strip bars (and out of trouble with the federales)… man, I would have studied overtime.
Teaching the advanced levels of marketing and copywriting aren’t much different. Most of the books you can read on the subjects tend toward the snooty “let’s look at this scientifically” angle… not that there’s anything wrong with that.
But in my long years as a successful copywriter, I’ve learned that getting “real” with your reader whenever possible increases your odds of breaching the skepticism and hostility most prospects bring to reading cold copy.
And no, you shouldn’t tell naughty stories to bank presidents when you’re writing B2B… but you DO need to write in a voice that rings true to him. (Dirty secret: I happen to have known some bank presidents in my time… and they are, sometimes, wild and crazy guys who are just as bored with formal business dealings as you are thinking about them. If you’re real good, you can sneak into their good graces through a side door no one else is using…)
My teaching style is vicious, fun, and shockingly effective… with the right student.
With the wrong student… not so much.
So one of my first jobs when pitching a seminar is to discourage the “wrong” people from attending. No sense of humor? Stay home. Indignant about being taken apart by a mere copywriter? Go get an MBA.
Can’t wait to roll up your sleeves, put your ego on a shelf, and get down and dirty with the reality of what it takes to write world-class advertising?
You’re my man. Or woman. Or extraterrestial, I don’t care.
My small, workshop seminars are such a hit because I let people self-select themselves as candidates to attend. I make no secret of my teaching style… so it’s up to you to decide if I’m the guy you really can learn from or not.
There are enormous, and very broad, marketing lessons in this attitude, by the way. If you use a lot of personality in your marketing, you’re going to offend some people. It’s unavoidable.
You could — if you’re the suicidal type — make yourself so bland and inoffensive that you blend into the background. No one will get insulted… but then, no one will consider you a “go-to guy”, either.
On the other hand, if you let your freak flag fly — and you’ve got the chops to back it all up — then while you may forever deal with smaller lists than your competitors… the intensity and passion and acceptance of that smaller list will dwarf the bottom line of your nearest Mr. Milquetoast competitor.
I’m not pitching you on my upcoming Copywriting Sweatshop here. (There probably isn’t room for you, anyway… but if you care to see what’s up, go to www.marketingrebel.com/cws.html.) (Better hurry, though — as of this afternoon, there are only 2 spots left…)
It’s just that the process of teaching and learning is a hot topic right now… as more and more people enter the online business world, and discover they need to get hip — fast — to a whole bunch of insider stuff no one warned them about.
The most successful marketers subscribe to the “student for life” concept — and are forever searching for the right kind of teacher to help them discover the shortcuts and little-known cutting-edge breakthroughs that will KEEP them successful.
And I’m not saying I’m that guy, for you. Sure, I’ve helped a MOB of people break the code on creating wealth and living life with more gusto.
But I’ve easily offended many times more that number.
And I couldn’t care less.
The truth will set you free… but only if you find someone willing to TELL you the truth, in a way you can understand and use.
Okay, I’m done.
Stay frosty…
John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com
P.S. Hey, one more thing. I almost forgot.
I just did my very first video. Well, not my first video overall — I’m on dozens and dozens of videos and DVDs, from my participation in seminars and other events. (Nothing naughty, either, I assure you.)
No. This is my first “home office” video… just me and the Webcam, at my desk, delivering a short message to marketers.
If you’ve ever wondered what my secret cave-office looks like, check it out. Short video. Online video is, of course, a force that’s quickly taking over marketing (excellently, when shot using good copy, and boring when too much winging takes place), and I’m getting into it heavily.
To see my first one, hop over to www.marketingrebel.com/cws.html.
Beware — there are opportunities lurking…
Howdy.
There’s a small brouhaha in the copywriting/salesmanship world. If you put all the participants in a room together, fisticuffs might be thrown.
If you want to join the fun, start by getting hip to these valuable skills over at John-Carlton.com/copywriting-secrets.
You may as well grab my free report while you’re at it. John-Carlton.com/blunders.
But the gist of it all concerns the role of salesmanship in the real world.
There’s a poster who insists that top copywriters should be able to sell anything to anybody. No matter what. This view has been offered by him after multiple professional copywriters (including myself) have both elegantly and inelegantly told him there’s no market for what he’s selling.
He’s adamant about being right. And that’s a whole other issue. (I often run into stubborn marketers who would rather lose everything chasing a failed scheme, than ever admit to being wrong.)
But what he perceives as the “motto” of pro copywriters is somewhat bothersome. If I have ever said I could anything to anybody, no matter what, I don’t remember saying it. And shame on me if I ever did, through some lapse in my thought process. Throughout my long career, I have been careful to qualify the limits of my abilities.
I may have said I could sell almost anything to almost anybody… and that’s something I can stand behind.
But anything? To anybody?
Naw. No one can do that, and keep his soul safe from brimstone.
There’s an old compliment that goes “He could sell ice to Eskimoes.” The image is, of course, that Eskimoes, surrounded by ice, would have to be subjected to one hell of a pitch to buy ice.
It’s a backhanded compliment, though, in many ways… because it implies an unethical transaction.
The joke about “I got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you” is based in truth — during the time America was being flooded with refugees and immigrants from Europe (just before WWI), con men actually took money from gullible newcomers who thought they were buying the bridge.
That ain’t funny.
In my course “Kick Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel“, I clearly make the point (in the introduction) that great advertising has the power to defy reason. A world-class piece of copy can sell the bejesus out of a bad product… in fact, it can (and sometimes has) sold a non-existent product.
But I make that shocking point as a counterpoint to the other side:
Bad copy can’t sell the best product on earth.
The marketing graveyard is crammed with truly fabulous products that failed because the marketing sucked.
I am also careful to admonish anyone burdened by the notion that learning great copywriting skills gives you the sudden voodoo to be able to jack people around. I write in the introduction that I very much hope you rot in hell if you use the power of salesmanship to do unethical things.
There is no lack of great products out there. There is no lack of niches desperate for new stuff, for information, for another way to indulge in their passions.
If you sell junk, you’re doing it because you’re a lazy sociopath. With the tools and advantages of the Web and new global ecomony, it is just as easy to create a valuable product as it is to work up a con. You have zero excuse for shirking your duty as a marketer to provide something of value and worth… especially if you sell it by promising such things.
Are we clear on this, then?
However, the fuss on the forum brings up another point:
Can great copy sell a product the market really doesn’t want?
The answer is: Yep.
You can sell it. You can write a blind ad that stretches the truth, inflates the worth of what you offer, and ignores the flaws.
You can sell it.
But you can’t make the sale stick.
And no copywriter with any self-respect would take on a job like that. It truly is whoring out your skills.
I’ve seen TV commercials for used cars where the blustery, evangelical salesman points at the screen and declares that no one walks home without a car at HIS lot.
And you know what? If you don’t count the homeless drunks who get tossed, his claim might be true.
And, if driving home in a car that is marginally “yours” is something you desire, then that can happen. You won’t have a very good deal going, you may stand to lose all the collateral you had to put up, and have the car repossessed in three months… but you won’t walk home.
But, really.
Part of the guy’s clownish behavior and shouting schtick is meant to scare off the part of the market he doesn’t want to deal with.
A rational, middle-class car enthusiast who insists on having a mechanic check out the ride, and who knows the standing market value, will give that salesman a headache.
He prefers the easy pickings.
The whole notion of being able to sell anything to anybody is silly.
And it keeps direct response advertising’s black eye shining. People understandably get royally pissed when they decide they’ve been “sold” on something they don’t really want, or have just bought something that doesn’t begin to live up to expectations.
I’ve known marketers who — either by design or by circumstances — have allowed shoddy product to go out under their name. You gotta have a thick skin to withstand the blowback from frustrated, angry buyers. This is why the classic con games involve lots of moving around — after you dump your evil payload on the local populace, you gotta leave town.
An ethical marketer will make good on all guarantees and bend over backwards to fulfill on all promises.
And, if he hasn’t learned the lesson of being clear (even on bold, outrageous promises) about how he’s going to meet expectations… he will soon learn it.
I run a damn good operation, myself. I’m the bottom line for most of the offers, through critiques and consulting and the exhausting fact that I write everything that goes out under my name. So when someone complains about something, there are only two reasons why it’s happening:
Either he has a legitimate reason to gripe (such as not receiving his package, due to some shipping problem either with us — hey, it happens — or with the shipper)… and we jump on fixing it.
Or the complainer is unclear on reality. (As in, yes, if you order something, we do actually expect you to pay for it, as agreed.)
There is a percentage of the population that is unclear on most concepts of modern life.
And there is a larger percentage of the population that feels entitled to exercise their drama queen behavior with your staff, just because they bought something from you. It’s the old 80-20 rule. And there’s no way around it… except to spot the trouble as soon as it pops up, and whack it down asap. (Yes, even if it means refunding a customer who didn’t ask for a refund. If you’re spending too much time with someone because their gripes never seem to cease, you may have been snagged in a high maintenance web. It’s fair to say you simply cannot work with that person, and offer a fair refund to end the relationship.)
So let’s be clear on this:
Salesmanship is powerful.
That power can be used for good, or for evil. The buyer in any capitalistic transaction has a responsibility to perform due diligence — “let the buyer beware”.
This is why I stress finding someone you can trust as a resource to help you stay on the shortest path to success (however you define success). There are several copywriting and marketing forums out there, and I recommend many of them because I know the guys running them.
These forums are such a great tool because — even if you’re trapped in the hinderlands, isolated from other marketers — you can still enjoy the brainstorming and the power of the collective. Working alone sucks. The virtual “family” of a damn good forum can change your life.
But you’ve gotta get over your idealistic stubborness, if it’s holding you back. Many people suffer from glaring ego problems, and are actually energized when the crowd disagrees with them. I know, I know — history is stuffed with people who were ridiculed for their ideas at first, who later succeeded wildly. So there’s always the chance that you’re right, and everybody else is deluded.
But the other part of that history lesson is this:
You may yet succeed… but you’ll do it without your detractors ever being convinced.
A lot of people died smug in their conviction that man could never fly, that electricity was a cheap parlor trick, and, well, fill in the blank with your favorite contrarian victory.
But really… if you can’t convince veteran salesmanship experts that what you have is worthwhile, then you’re kinda out in the cold. The advantage of brainstorming includes the very common realization that you need to dump the project you’re so in love with.
The thing is… while mastering salesmanship isn’t exactly like learning how to perform brain surgery…
…it nevertheless is a skill set that you do NOT understand until you take the time to be taught the lessons.
(You can learn them the hard way, as I did, over a very long time… or you can shortcut the process by trusting a good teacher.)
As I pointed out in earlier posts about the sales-challenged geeks… your belief systems can foul up all the incoming data, so you hear what you want to hear. The advantage of dealing with veteran copywriters is that they’re completely jaded about being pitched on “the next best thing since sliced bread”. All it needs is world-class copy, and we’ll all be rich!
You betcha.
No credible top copywriter I’ve ever known has ever claimed to be able to sell anything to anybody, no matter what. Not because they couldn’t actually do it, though. Because it’s stupid and wrong to distort or manipulate salesmanship in a way that creates unhappy buyers.
Learning great salesmanship includes learning how to judge markets and products.
Most of my longterm clients quicky included me in all discussions about future products, because they knew I was outside their echo chamber, and could see clearly what they might miss.
That’s the job of a copywriter who works beyond just slamming out ads.
The whole mix includes the vialbility of the product, and demographic value of the target market, and the hooks that will hit the sweet spot of the prospect.
Hope my logic in this post wasn’t too twisted for folks to follow — the point is worth making. It seems like it should be obvious, but my experience tells me it’s not (at least not in a way that people “get” easily).
People who understand salesmanship lead better lives.
Yes, the whole concept of being a good salesman carries some unwanted baggage — including a well-deserved black eye for all the scamsters out there abusing their skills. But that doesn’t negate the fact that salesmanship is the foundation of capitalism. The world isn’t perfect, nor is it always fair. Learning salesmanship at a deep level includes massive and continuing reality checks about human behavior… and after the initial shock, you discover it’s a good and necessary advantage to drop the idealism and see people as they truly are.
The human race is still loveable and the world is still full of fun and wonder.
But sometimes, even that product you know, in your heart, is fabulous and a boon to mankind… will be refused by the marketplace. It happens.
Successful marketers acknowledge the reality of the situation, and move on.
Yes, they could probably use blind ads to sell it anyway… but then they would have to deal with overwhelming returns, refunds, and pissed off buyers.
Life’s too short. Learn the lessons of the marketplace, and adapt.
You don’t need to sell anything to anybody.
You just need to master the basics of providing great value to a niche that appreciates it…
…and make sure you tell your story through the wonders of great salesmanship.
Do so in a way that your market gets the message and feels good about acting on your offer.
Okay, I’m done.
Stay frosty…
John
P.S. If you’re looking for even more resources to help you succeed as a marketer, look no further than this checklist right here.
P.P.S. Hope you’re enjoying your winter. Another one almost gone, but ain’t it a sweet season? Life truly is too short, and I’ve been reminding myself to slow down and experience the way the world is shifting through the heat toward autumn. It’s always High Definition outside, even in the melancholy gray days…
Dateline: Miami, FL — The one-time juggernaut Amercian Media, Inc, announced that they will cease to publish the Weekly World News tabloid in August, after 28 years of faithfully delivering the most delightfully outrageous crap imagineable.
I, for one, will shed a tear and lift a toast.
When I began my career, one of my copywriting-skill-strengthening rituals included frequent jaunts to the local newsstand… where I would pick up a stack of headline-heaven magazines like Cosmo, Reader’s Digest, Playboy… and of course the Weekly World News, the National Enquirer, and any other tabloid rag that threatened to rattle my cage with weird, beautiful, titillating cover copy.
All the top copywriters I knew were devoted to these beastly publications. We never had to read further than the headlines on the front page, either, to get what we wanted — truly wicked phrases and Power Words artfully arranged to amuse, intrigue, delight and enrage.
In other words: Hooks.
Anyone who has heard me lecture knows that I urge everyone with advertising dreams to adopt the same reading rituals. If nothing else, you’ll learn about the power of finding a good angle.
When the tabloids strike a nerve with a killer headline, the publications fly off the shelf.
Boring heads, however, mean slow death from being ignored.
It was — and always will be — a fundamental lesson that even the most cocksure writer needs to keep being reminded of, over and over and over again.
The staff writers at WWN were “money scribes”… meaning, they were deadly serious about goosing the American unconscious with their “Vegan Vampire Attacks Trees”, “Man Bothered By Martian Telemarketers”, “Abe Lincoln Was A Woman” (and killed by a jealous Booth), etc., headlines. Because there was cash on the line.
They knew where the soft spots in people’s defenses were, and they knew how to skewer them.
Fabulous stuff.
For copywriters, there was no better lesson in delivering a verbal sucker punch that will not be ignored.
My favorites: “Boy Eats Own Head”, and “Preacher Explodes On Pulpit”. Super tight writing, almost minimalist haiku that tells a story you just gotta find out about.
I’ve been aiming at the very high bar set by those crazy headlines ever since I wrote my first ad with a real hook.
It’s an insight that can create fortunes: A great hook isn’t always pretty… but if it inflames curiosity and desire, then you’ve done your job.
With a great hook, the rest of your sales pitch is just mop-up duty.
Oh, you really didn’t want to buy that tabloid. It was just too embarrassing to be seen even picking one up. You couldn’t hide it in your cart, and even the most jaded check-out clerk would glance up to see what kind of person you were, buying this crap. (Or, just as often, they’d stop the register cold so they could finish reading the entire front cover. I always knew there was a writing lesson waiting when that happened.)
Standing in line at the grocery, I know you’ve snuck peeks at it, maybe picked an issue up if no one was watching… but buy a copy?
Did anyone actually plunk down cash for the Weekly World News?
Yep. In its glory days, hundreds of thousands of people paid good money for the ol’ WWN every week (and its sister publication the National Enquirer had weekly sales in the millions). Millions more ogled it while in line, or stole friend’s copies.
More than a few famous writers have copies framed on their office walls.
Ah, but all printed publications are having a rough time of it, now that the Web has won the attention-deficit wars.
And so, we bid adieu to probably the best-written trash in publishing history.
We hardly knew ya, kid.
You shall be missed.
I’m sure there will soon be sightings of Elvis reading a classic issue, perhaps while strolling through crop circles in the shape of Bat Boy…
John Carlton
www.carltoncoaching.com
P.S. Small bit of good news — apparently, the WWN will contine to exist in some form online. I hope that’s true… but trips to the grocery store will never be the same…
P.P.S. Got a favorite headline? Leave it in the comments section, will ya?
