Dear Marketing Top Gun,
If I were on my deathbed about to wheeze my last breath and you asked me to sum up in a single sentence the most important marketing secret I could bequeath to you before I kick the bucket (or bedpan), here is what I would whisper in your ear, hopefully without giving you anything contagious.
It's a 9-word sentence I first read in the book Reality in Advertising by copywriting genius Rosser Reeves. He said that he had learned it from a legendary copywriter whom he didn't name. This one sentence made fortunes for Reeves's clients, as well as my own, and for scores of other marketers wise enough to apply it rigorously, as I hope you will.
Ready?
Bend close now as I whisper. Oops, let me raise myself up a bit first. OK, here goes...
A gifted product is mightier than a gifted pen.
That's it—the 9-word secret so powerful that it has built more fortunes than any other principle in marketing.
To explain its profound insight, let me quote advertising luminary Bill Bernbach, creative director of Doyle Dane Bernbach, the renowned ad agency responsible for the brilliant and enormously successful Volkswagen Beetle ads of the 1960s, voted the all-time greatest general advertising campaign in history. Bernbach was also named No. 1 on Advertising Age's 20th-century honor roll of advertising's most influential people.
Said Bernbach, "The magic is in the product," not in the copywriter's pen. Or as he put it another way, "Advertising doesn't create a product advantage. It can only convey it...No matter how skillful you are, you can't invent a product advantage that doesn't exist."
If you're involved in marketing in any way, this 9-word sentence may well give you an "Aha!" moment, because it instantly clarifies the roles of everyone involved.
The Surest Road to Riches for Marketers
For example...
If you are the client (the advertiser), it means that it's your job, not your copywriter's or ad agency's, to come up with a brilliant product, one with a clear-cut, built-in, immediately understandable, unique, and highly desirable advantage. It means that if your "research and development department" responsible for coming up with such blockbuster product advantages resides only in your copywriter's keyboard, you're already in big trouble.
It means that if you're settling for a "me-too" product and hoping that a gifted copywriter will carry you on his or her back to the winner's circle, you're kidding yourself. Your product is the horse; your copywriter is only the jockey. Yes, good jockeys are worth their weight in gold. But champion racehorses are worth much more. It's your job to breed champion racehorses.
Remember that most businesses make real money only on repeat sales. While a good copywriter can make a prospect hopeful enough to try a product, he or she can't make that customer delighted enough to buy it again. Only you and your product can do that.
Our 9-word rule means it's your mission to come up with a product so inherently superior that, as soon as it's effectively explained, demonstrated, or sampled, your prospects have no conclusion to draw except "I want this!"
Create "Wow!" products like this, add in great customer service, and something magical happens. Your customers become your auxiliary sales force—a large, unpaid, ever-growing army of raving fans who extol your product to others, causing your market and profits to grow far more effectively than any copywriter can.
This is where real marketing magic is born—in the product itself.
What If You're a Copywriter?
If you are the copywriter, our 9-word rule means that the star of your ad should always be your product and how it uniquely benefits your prospects.
It means that your job is to research the product thoroughly to uncover its unique advantages. Research—deep research—is the launchpad of copywriting breakthroughs.
It means that you should never even think about writing a word of copy until you've done your homework and become an expert on the product and its market.
It means that you should begin every assignment like an investigative reporter, asking your client and his or her best salespeople a torrent of questions, starting with these 10...
- Why is this product made the way it is?
- What consumer problems, desires, and needs is it designed for?
- What's special about it—why does it fulfill a consumer's needs better than the competition?
- Who says so besides you?
- What are your strongest proof elements to make your case believable?
- What are all the product's best features and how does each translate into a consumer benefit?
- If you had unlimited funds, how would you improve this product?
- Who are its heavy users—the 20 percent who generate 80 percent of sales?
- What irresistible offers might trigger an explosion in sales?
- What premiums can be tossed into the mix to press your prospects' hot buttons?
Likewise, since the product itself is the star of your ad, you should fiercely resist all temptation to be clever, cute, or entertaining, all of which only call attention to your creativity and away from the star. Puns in headlines are advertising malpractice. As David Ogilvy warned, "If you spend your advertising budget entertaining the consumer, you're a bloody fool. Homemakers don't buy a new detergent because the manufacturer told a joke on television last night. They buy the new detergent because it promises a benefit."
The Secret of Getting
Rich and Famous as a Copywriter
If you're a direct response copywriter who seeks fortune and fame, knowing this 9-word truth will reward you immensely. Here's why...
Your career success is tied directly to the performance of the ads you write. Write for great products that drive consumers wild with desire, and their success will make you seem like a genius. Write for weak ones, and even when you do a respectable job, the smell of the product's failure will rub off on you.
Think of it this way. You are a jockey. If you want to win more races, by all means hone your craft. But even more important, learn how to spot and get yourself assigned to faster horses. That's a big part of building your reputation and career success.
You want your name associated with winners, not losers! Cultivating a jockey's eye for winners and then campaigning to ride them is one of the most rewarding skills you can develop.
As a jockey, you can't do the horse's job. You can't carry your horse across the finish line. The best you can do is guide your pony to win, using every trick of your craft. Even if you're a great jockey, if you're teamed too often with milkwagon nags, you'll be labeled a loser.
While you can't carry a flawed product—or a slow horse—on your back to glory, great products, like champion racehorses, will put you in the winner's circle consistently.
And that will work wonders for your career. When you win, your entire industry notices. Even if your horse is a Secretariat, you will be credited as the brilliant jockey who rode him home to victory. You'll get a rep as a winner, a hot hand—a Top Gun! If you work in an ad agency or in-house copy department, you will earn more generous raises, faster promotions, high praise at meetings—all the things that make work fun. If you are a freelancer, the demand for your services will rise exponentially, and you can start to command some of the highest fees and royalties in the profession.
All from hitching your fortunes to this potent 9-word insight—a gifted product is mightier than a gifted pen.
There Are Four
Additional Benefits As Well...
First, learning to spot great products also forces you to see the world through the eyes of your prospects, which is the single most valuable trait you can cultivate as a marketer or copywriter.
Second, knowing what great products look like and asking, "How can this one be better?" will inspire you to help your clients create much stronger products, making your counsel exceptional, perhaps indispensable.
Third, as a copywriter, your life will be mercifully easier when you work with great and worthy products. When a product has a clear-cut, built-in, unique superiority, your ad often writes itself. As Bill Bernbach said, all you have to do is convey the advantage, not create it out of thin air.
Having to invent a nonexistent product advantage puts a tremendous strain on you because that's not your job. You should not have to carry your horse!
Your job is to get the best possible ride out of your horse. If it's a milk-wagon nag, you won't win any races...or the fortune and fame that follow.
Finally, with a great product, you'll feel so much better about yourself and your work because you can be a master of selling without fibbing or exaggerating. Your copy will sing and your integrity will shine like a beacon because your honest enthusiasm will illuminate every word.
Take my advice. Develop an eye for great products, those with a clear-cut, built-in, unique superiority supported by powerful proof elements. Then all you have to do is focus your headline and body copy dramatically on that inherent superiority and the proof behind it and in no time, you'll find yourself atop a winner, galloping like the wind around the far turn and heading for home ahead of the pack, with the crowd going wild. Your biggest strategic question—what should I write about?—is already answered for you by the product's unique advantage! That unique advantage will, by itself, speed you to the winner's circle much of the time, which is where a Top Gun like you belongs.
To sum up, if you want to become a successful copywriter, hook up with brilliant products, focus your headlines and copy on their unique advantages, and let them carry you to glory.
And if you aspire to be a copywriting legend, learn to spot winners and become a master of your craft. In all of marketing, there is no combination more powerful than a gifted product and a gifted pen!
Here's a little rhyme to help you remember...
To be a master marketer, remind yourself again—
A gifted product is mightier than a gifted pen.
Well, after talking this through with you, I feel much better. So what am I doing lying here in bed, whispering in your ear? The sun is shining...life is so beautiful...and time's a-wastin'! There are ambitious jockeys to coach...fast horses to cheer...thrilling races to catch...and big money to win. Hand me my socks and shoes, Top Gun, and let's go!
How to Subscribe to These BULLETS...
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The Bullets are always free...always short, fast, and powerful (like bullets)...and include sage advice about succeeding in all areas of your life as well as marketing.
When you subscribe, you'll also gain free access to all back issues, which include:
- The Two Most Powerful Words in Advertising. (No, they're not FREE and NEW.)
- How to Be Lucky—in Marketing and in Life.
- The Secret "Trigger Word" That Makes More of Your Prospects Say Yes Than Any Other Word in the English Language. (This "secret word" is a priceless gem of persuasion, according to research conducted by a psychologist. In one test, this little word won compliance from 93 percent of all research subjects. Take the word out of the request, and compliance plummets! And, no, it's not "please" or any other word you'd ever guess. If you have time to read only one Bullet, let it be this. You will instantly become much more persuasive and will reap the rewards whenever you want to influence others.)
- How to Get Anything You Want in Life.
- The Most Persuasive Tool in Advertising and How to Use It.
- Can You Pick the Winning Headline? (Think twice. This one's tricky.)
- The Secret of How to Turn a Setback into Triumph—in Marketing or in Life.
- The 7-Letter Word That Instantly Multiplies Your Creativity 11-Fold. (Not 10-fold. Not 12-fold. Exactly 11-fold.)
- The Secret of the Red Shirts (and How It Can Make You See So Many Things You Never Noticed Before).
- The Most Revealing Advertising Question (and How It Can Revolutionize Your Marketing).
- The Secret of Happiness.
- A Simple 7-Step Formula for Succeeding Online.
- How to Name Your Product. (If you're trying to come up with a great product name, make no decision until you read this.)
- The "Fuzzy Dice" Secret for Exploding Your Sales.
- Six Little Words That Invariably Boost Your Response and Sales.
Why Am I Doing This?
No, I don't write the Bullets to attract clients, as I no longer accept clients. After 40 years of direct response copywriting, I am retiring. Maybe "semiretiring" would be more accurate, as I still love to write, and the Bullets give me that opportunity.
Over the last four decades, I've worked side by side with America's top direct marketers, testing literally thousands of headlines, copy elements, offers, and graphics to discover what triggers the highest response, both off-line and on.
It would be a shame to let this body of tested advertising results, earned at the expense of hundreds of millions of dollars, fade into oblivion with me.
You'll get no relentless sales pitches for anything. I push nobody's products, and I am not an affiliate for anyone or anything. If you subscribe, you'll receive no spam, and your name or email address will never be shared with anyone. As you'll see, the Bullets are a hype-free zone.
Advertising has been good to me. I offer these secrets of higher response with sincerity to any interested copywriter or marketer, just as legendary advertising masters (including legends John Caples, David Ogilvy, and others with whom I've worked) so generously shared with me. My mission is to teach what I've learned and leave a legacy of reliable, proven, scientifically-tested advertising knowledge...to help anyone boost response, build a thriving business or practice, and make each advertising dollar do the work of $5 and occasionally even $9 or $10.
To see what others (including Caples, Ogilvy, and modern masters such as Gary Halbert, John Carlton, and Ted Nicholas) have said about my work and these Bullets, I invite you to visit this site now and sign up for your free subscription:
www.BencivengaBullets.com
Sincere wishes for a good life
and (always!) higher response,
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