Sample Issue - Issue 3, Volume 1

Testing Headlines

A correspondent to AdBriefing has posed a very sticky question. How, she asks, can you tell whether a headline you have written is a good one…or not? What she means by this, I imagine, is whether the headline will actually help to make sales, rather than just act as a passing amusement to its readers.

Obviously, there is no absolute test. If there were, we benighted copywriters would be earning ten times what we are earning now, on the grounds that our work would be foolproof.

But there is a test - a very good test - that you can apply to any headline you create. I call it the 'So What?' test.

Allow me to give you an example of 'So What?' in action. If you produce a headline that says: Our Widget works twice as fast as any other Widget, and then ask yourself 'So What?', it immediately becomes clear that the line is bereft of a sales proposition. Because there is no obvious benefit to the potential customer.

On the other hand, if you write: Our Widget works twice as fast, so you do the job in half the time, then the 'So What?' has been answered. Your customer can cut his production time by 50%.

Likewise, were you to write: Our Widget is so small, it fits into the palm of your hand, you simply invoke 'So What?'. Which results in: Our Widget fits into the palm of your hand, so it goes wherever you go. In this case, the benefit is portability.

Over the years, I have found the 'So What?' test to be invaluable. You might care to give it a try yourself.

Language; A Communication Tool

I think I am revealing no great trade secrets when I say that the way to a consumer's heart is through his intellect. You tell him something new and interesting about a given product or service, and you hope that you have explained matters succinctly enough for him to have grasped it at one sitting.

This is called communication.

Why, then, do some promotional writers feel the need to fill their copy with polysyllabic jargon to which nobody but a masochist would give the time of day? It seems to me that quite a few writers set out, with malice and aforethought, to confound and confuse their readership.

By way of example, I reproduce a paragraph lifted straight from the website of a well-respected international management consultancy. It runs: "Taking an account-centric, issues oriented approach means that you can leverage our skills for general business and tax advantage…."

Account-centric? Issues oriented? What does it all mean? And the word leverage may well be a noun, but used in this way, it displays a shocking lack of grammatical nous.

Without even trying, I found on that same site several more phrases worthy of quotation in this context: "…feedback loops from the primary to the periphery." and "…the motivation of the agents of diffusion…" and also: "…a properly integrated and viable infrastructure solution promulgated from the standpoint of our knowledge base…"

As everyone knows, I am not terribly bright - I even had to take a job washing dishes in order to pay my way through Reform School - but this stuff is an abomination. This is not authorship, it is the work of a computer. No, it is the work of a committee of computers.

As advertising people, our job is to put sales messages across to largely indifferent audiences; and to make those messages stick. Deliberately setting out to talk down to your market is one of life's less sensible occupations. Well, it is if you want to stay in business for longer than ten minutes.

Therefore, leave us run a mile from such egregious nonsense. Let us call a spade a spade, instead of a manually operated earthmoving artifact offering integrated landscaping solutions.

For my money, Mark Twain had it right. Asked his opinion of the most perfect sales proposition in the English language, he replied: "Cold beer sold here."

Any questions?

Cuff Note 5

I am now going to scotch a universal fallacy. The fallacy is this. No matter how mediocre a product or service may be, you can always make sales if you throw money at it. In other words, the more money you spend on promoting it, the more sales you will make.

The promoters of this fallacy ignore a simple truth. if you have a bad product or service, throwing money at it to bring it to a wider audience will only increase the number of times that said audience is reminded how bad it is. Advertising will advance the sales of a good product, but will unerringly bring about the demise of a bad one.

The moral is clear. If you can't improve upon your product or service, go think of a better idea!

Quote Of The Month

"Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out."
James Bryant Conant

Cuff Note 6

If you are planning a response promotion using an incentive, the promotion will be far more effective if you send your prospects something tangible from the outset.

Let's say, for instance, that you are giving away a set of six coffee mugs with every order for your Widget. You'll get far more response if you send a mug to your target before he orders. The other five come after he places the order.

Like they say, a bird in the hand works wonders.

If you're stuck with copywriting problems, or suffering from writers block or can't quite come up with that elusive headline may I recommend our own sales writers' resource e-book Word Power III?

You'll find ready-made copy such as headlines, tag lines, link lines, calls to action, price defenders, guarantees and more, which you can lift straight from the page and adopt or adapt.

You'll also discover a sales writers' thesaurus in the form of a theme finder, which will cure writers block forever. You can see it at: http://red.jwhco.net/1fcf00

<< Read Issue 2 or Go Forward to Issue 4>>

<Back to Top>