Bob:
Bob Bly speaking.
Michael: Good morning Bob. It’s Mike Senoff. How are
you doing today?
Bob: Good, how are you doing?
Michael: Good. Did you have a good weekend?
Bob: I did.
Michael: So, we’re going to be answering exactly
what the marketers and the copywriters want to know.
Bob, the first question is from John Rostoli in
Norway and he wants to know how did you setup your
copywriting business in the early days and how did
you get your first assignments? Did you do any spec
work to get testimonials? And this was one of the
most common questions that I got from people and I
think it goes back to the fear that copywriters
don’t have credibility and they believe they need
testimonials from others to prove their credibility.
How would you answer that?
Bob: Well, I wasn’t smart enough to think that way.
So, when I started I had no testimonials. I had
worked in corporate America in the corporate world
in junior level advertising manager type positions
for a couple of year for two different companies.
So, when I went into copywriting, I still had a job.
Michael: Were these newsletter publishers?
Bob: No, not at all. The first one was Westinghouse
Electronics and Aerospace. My division made radars,
like you go to the airport and you see a radar,
that’s what we made. And the second company was an
engineering firm that made equipment for chemical
plants.
Michael: So, what were you doing in relation to
advertising with them?
Bob: Well, all those types of companies have to
advertise and I was managing their advertising
program. The job at the engineering firm, for
example, we would run ads in trade journals and we
had an ad agency who created those ads and I managed
their work. And this was in the early 80s. When an
engineer would respond to one of those ads, they’d
want some technical sales literature, so I would
actually write it and I’d hire a designer to design
it and then we’d print it and mail it out. We also
did a lot of marketing in trade shows, so we had to
create exhibits and set those up at various trade
shows. So, I still had that job and what I did, as I
was real simple minded about it. I went to a book
called The Red Book, the standard directory of
advertising agencies. Since I was the advertising
manager of an industrial company, I sent a one-page
sales letter to 500 creative directors at 500
different advertising agencies, who in the Red Book
indicated that they had one or more industrial type
accounts and that’s how I started.
Michael: What did you offer basically say?
Bob: The letter is reprinted in full in my book,
Secrets of a Freelance Writer, but the headline was,
how an engineer and an ad manager can help you write
better ads and brochures. And the letter basically
said I’m a freelance copywriter, specializing in
industrial advertising and I will write your ads or
brochures or whatever else you need and if you’d
like to get a copywriting information kit, more
information about my services and some samples of my
work -- and again, this is before the Web, so you
couldn’t send them to a website -- just mail back
the enclosed reply card and I’ll send it to you.
That was the offer.
Michael: Were you a student of advertising at that
time? Were you studying Capels or Eugene Shorts or
any of these guys?
Bob: I started out being more a student of writing.
I was interested in writing per se. At that time,
which was I guess 1980, ’81, what happened is when I
got this job at the engineering firm, the first day
I was there my boss walked in and he said I get some
marketing magazines. I don’t read them. Here they
are. If you want them read them. If not, throw them
out. And it was direct marketing in there. And prior
to that I had not been exposed to Capels, Ogilvy,
and the direct marketing mindset. I came from a
technical background. I’m a chemical engineer by
training. I worked for technical companies. We
didn’t practice any of these principles. I’m sure my
bosses were unaware of all of these things. But then
I read articles in direct marketing that were
written by some of the then top copywriters and
agency people and direct marketers and then I got
very interested and began to get my hand on
everything I could find. This was at the time in New
York City and this is before Amazon. So, I went to
the Strand Bookstore and all the old bookstores in
New York City and I would hunt up these books. On a
Saturday that was my great excitement. I’d be
banging around these bargain bins. I still have it
today. I found an original hardcover of Claude
Hopkins, Scientific Advertising…
Michael: Oh, wow.
Bob: …for a dollar. Now you can download it free on
the Internet, but then it was such a treasure. Like
everyone listening to this program, I would read and
study it. I was like the kid in a candy store when I
found one of those. I immediately went out and
bought Ogilvy on advertising, Confessions of an
Advertising Man. Back then Prentice-Hall had in
print the original Capels books. I bought and read
all the Capels books, so I was getting very much
into it and my interest was shifting from pure
writing, which was always an interest to direct
marketing and advertising. So, I would answer yes,
but I was a beginning student.
Michael: So, what happened? I’m sure you remember.
You mailed out 500 letters.
Bob: Yeah, I remember exactly. I mailed out 500 and
within four or five weeks, I had 35 people respond,
which was a 7% response and I was on my way. I had
35 people who were interested in learning to some
degree about my copywriting services and I began to
respond to those as best I could in my limited time
because I was already employed. And they began to
become clients.
Michael: So, how was your confidence level at that
time as a writer and compare that with what you
would charge then and then now? I mean did you have
the confidence to charge a hefty fee back then?
Bob: No. My strategy, which was probably a huge
mistake in retrospect, I charged a very low fee. My
logic was I’m a beginner, so I will charge low fees
to get the business. I was not as sophisticated as
many of the people listening to this today who would
say hey you charge a low fee, people perceive you as
a low value. I thought what’s going to work, a low
price, so I charged very little money. It’s not that
I wasn’t confident. I thought I could because I was
going after mainly industrial accounts. I knew how
to write industrial copy. I was confident I could do
the work.
Michael: So, when you worked it out per hour, you
had your time and you had one _____. You weren’t
making anything on the backend on these accounts.
Bob: None of these accounts paid anything on the
backend, so what I would say is that I really didn’t
calculate the hour, but to give you an idea, my last
full year of employment was 1981 and back then I was
earning I think $27 or $28 or $29,000 a year, which
was not a bad salary then. It’s not a lot, but I was
a couple of years out of school and in my early 20s,
so I was earning $28-$29,000 a year. And in my first
full year of freelancing, which was ’82 in which I
actually worked ten months because I started at the
end of February, I grossed $39,000 a year.
Michael: What do you love about copywriting? You
just love the work…
Bob: There’s a lot of things I love about it, but I
would say if I listed the top two or three, I love
the actually work. It is interesting. I need to be
intellectually stimulated by my work and it’s at the
right level for me. Designing cyclotrons for fusion
reactions would be too high a level for me. It would
be too difficult. I wouldn’t be stimulated. I’d go
blank because I couldn’t do it. There are other jobs
that I’ve had that were too little stimulus, like
being an advertising manager to me was largely
boring; placing insertion orders and doing
forecasting and putting together a budget and a plan
and going in meetings and going to trade shows. It
bored me. So, copywriting gave me intellectual
stimulation. My great driver in life actually is to
not be bored at work and that’s why it’s perfect for
me. I’m never bored at it.
The second thing I like about it is the whole
lifestyle. I mean I’m talking to you and I’m alone
in my third floor office in an office building in
Northern New Jersey and there’s no one up here and
it’s totally quiet and that’s just the way I like
it. I really didn’t like when I worked in the
corporate world. You hear the knock on the door and
they’d say can you come in for about a half hour,
we’re going to talk about the widget. Get the hell
away from me. I don’t want to talk to you. I want to
do my work and be left alone. And here I can. I mean
I do have people who work for me, but we have a
virtual office. They’re not here. I had to do a
revision of a package this morning and I finished it
just before you called and I just wanted to work on
that and nothing else. So, I got three, four calls
and I didn’t pick them up. I see caller ID and I
said I don’t have to take that and I’ll call them
back this afternoon.
Michael: Describe your office? Are you a one-man
office or do you have a staff?
Bob: Here’s my situation. I don’t actually have
employees, but I do have a lot of people that work
for me, freelancers. Let me go over the setup.
I have an office. It’s in a rented office building
in Bergen County, New Jersey. It’s about nine, ten
miles from my house and I’m on the third floor and
it’s isolated. It’s a pretty nice space. It’s not a
fancy building, but it’s a nice big office in here
and it’s real comfortable and I have a bunch of
different people who work for me part time. They’re
probably the equivalent of one and a half to two
full time people. This isn’t related to my
copywriting, but I have a publishing company. We
sell information products on line like a lot of
people do today. And I have someone part time who
handles that. She handles everything. If I need a
landing page put up, I don’t call the web designer,
I give her the copy and say go get it designed. If
you told me tomorrow hey I want you to promote my
product as an affiliate to your list, I’d say go
have your affiliate manager call Jodi, my affiliate
manager who handles all that. So, I have her. I have
someone from my copywriting business, my project
manager. She handles all incoming leads and
inquiries because we get a lot of them and I don’t
have time to talk to them.
Michael: Pertaining to leads, another question from
John is what kind of lead generating system did you
use in the early days? From that direct mail, was
everything referral or were you out there cold-call
prospecting for new business?
Bob: In the early days, for better or worse and it’s
probably stupid on my part, I never made a cold
call. What I did in the beginning is I did two
things, only two things and that’s what worked for
me. I sent out sales letters. These were one-page
sales letters with a reply card in a #10 envelop and
I would get lists of advertising managers and I
would mail them this letter. And the first time I
did it, I mentioned I got a 7% response. Then I
rewrote it a bit and got it up to 10%. So, if I had
a list…and lists were easy to get and they still
are…any time I needed business, I could send out
just 100 letters and have ten good leads.
Michael: So, you knocked on doors with direct mail?
Bob: With direct mail. Yeah, I didn’t cold-call
people. I sent to people I did not know with direct
mail and the second thing I did is I wrote articles
for trade publications. At the time the leading
trade publication for industrial marketing was
actually called, Industrial Marketing, and then they
became Business Marketing a year after. And I tried
to get in there to write articles and finally I did.
And I must have had a dozen articles published in
there over a two to three year period. That combined
with the direct mail is mainly how I generated
business.
Michael: And your articles were on copywriting.
Bob: On copywriting or some aspect of industrial
marketing.
Michael: And you got to put your tagline at the end?
Bob: Yeah. Now, again, this is before the Internet.
You couldn’t put your website address, you couldn’t
put your email address, but you could put your
tagline and say Bob Bly is a freelance copywriter in
-- at the time I was in a different town in Dumont,
New Jersey. I can’t remember if he let us put the
phone number in or not. But see that was a bug-a-boo
back then. You would write these articles and you’d
want to promote yourself and you’d put the phone
number in and the editor wouldn’t include it because
he thought it smacked of self-promotion. But in the
Internet, they encourage you to put your email
address and your website address. So, now articles
are more effective than they were back then and you
can get more business from them. But they were still
very effective back then.
Michael: So, in retrospect, compared to how you
started with your example of the letter, this
question has come up over and over again, what’s the
first thing I should do as a freelance copywriter to
get clients?
Bob: Here’s what I would do if I were starting today
and it’s hard to give you one first thing, so if I
had to give you the first two or three things,
number one, decide what your market is and what your
specialty is. As a rule of thumb, you’re better when
you’re starting off a specialist than to be a
generalist. And there are all kinds of specialties,
so if you edited the newsletter for the Cerebral
Palsy Foundation or the Red Cross, maybe you should
start with fund raising, non-profit and make that
your specialty.
The first thing I would do is decide what niche do I
want to work in and what type of services do I want
to provide.
Michael: Before you move onto that because this
question came up, as well, what in your opinion are
the best niches and the most lucrative niches to
approach? Any advice on that?
Bob: I will give you some of them. First of all
direct response in itself is a niche. Now, maybe
everyone of your audience is into direct response,
but there’s a huge world outside of direct marketing
and the majority of people in the world who do
advertising don’t want to do direct marketing. They
want to be on Madison Avenue writing the next Super
Bowl TV commercial. So, the better field is not to
do that.
Direct marketing is a good niche. Online marketing
is a good niche…to write online copywriting. Within
those fields, information publishing is a good
niche. The highest paid niche is probably writing
promotions, direct mail and online for consumer
newsletters. That is basically travel, health, and
investment newsletters. Those guys pay more than
just about anyone. Another good niche is writing for
healthcare, particularly alternative medicine,
nutritional supplements. Although, and this is not
direct marketing, pharmaceutical and medical
advertising is a very lucrative niche. That’s
another good area. Speech writing, another
non-direct marketing area, in which I’ve done very
little work, is a very well paying niche. And I
would say then direct marketing of information
products, in general, not just newsletters, which is
almost a separate niche, but audiotapes, audio
learning systems, seminars, conferences, that’s a
good niche. High-tech direct marketing, particularly
software, is a very good niche; writing about
software, IT products and systems, that’s a good
niche. And business-to-business is a good niche
today.
Michael: Let’s go on to your track on what you would
advise someone to do.
Bob: Pick a niche, which means what type of service
or product that you are covering, what industry, and
also what are you writing for them. If you pick
computers, are you only writing data sheets or are
you writing websites. What are you going to write
for these clients?
The second thing I would do is I would go find and
identify good lists of prospects in those areas.
Maybe there’s a trade association that has a local
chapter where you live that you should go to and
network at and become a member of. Maybe there’s a
newsletter or a magazine subscription list you
should be renting. Identify how you’re going to
reach these people. If you determine that my market
is marketing directors of pharmaceutical companies,
to reach them you need a list and there are lists.
So, you’ve got to identify and find and get your
hands on the list.
The third thing I would do is I would contact them
and guess what, direct mail is still very, very
effective. There are other methods that people
advocate today. You will hear some people say oh it
doesn’t work, but it does work. If I were starting
out today, that would still be the first thing I’d
do. I’ve composed a really good lead generating
sales letter to generate inquiries from my
copywriting services and then mail 100, 200, 300,
400, 500 to a list of prospects in my market and
then wait four or five weeks and see. I mean I do
other things during those four or five weeks, but
see what happens. If that letter works and you can
get a 1, 2, 3,4 5% response, you’re going to be able
to fill the pipeline with leads and if they’re good
leads that percentage of them is going to reliably
convert to business and you’ll be set.
Michael: You’ll never need to cold prospect again or
worry about referrals.
Bob: Absolutely. By the way, referrals I think are a
great way of marketing and I encourage people to do
that. But you’re right. If you can generate a steady
flow of sales leads -- I call it a lead generating
machine -- and you can create a sales letter that
every time you mail 100, you get 3 good leads or 5
or 2, you’re really not going to ever have to worry
about having business as long as there are
sufficient lists and your market is broad enough. If
you tell me I want to specialize in writing copy for
people that are readers of Asian cats, then you have
a problem because I don’t know that those people
hire copywriters and it’s a pretty small list if
there is one. But if your market is newsletter
publishers, it’s easy for me to help you find a big
directory of lots of newsletter publishers.
Michael: It should be a prerequisite because if you
can’t generate leads for your own copywriting
business and you’re going into the copywriting
business to generate sales and leads for other
companies, what’s the point.
Bob: Exactly.
Michael: You should do it first for your own
business to prove that you’re able to do it for
other businesses.
Bob: Yes. Maybe your lead machine is something
different. You can do it online, for example. But
you need at least one promotion that every time you
dump it in the mail or turn it on, you get back a
reliable, consistent number of leads. And I actually
talk about this on one of my product sites,
www.theleadmachineonline.com, which is all about how
to generate sales leads.
Michael: Here’s a question from Kye _____, “What
kind of books, Bob, magazines, books, periodicals,
and journals do you currently read for inspiration
and for writing?”
Bob: I read a lot and I think most copywriters who
are successful, not all of them, I know a couple who
don’t, most of them are big readers. So, in terms of
books, I read very broadly. I read lots of books on
business marketing, copywriting, writing, and
advertising. I read lots of non-fiction books on a
variety of subjects and I also read fiction. And in
terms of publications, again, I read a lot of
different publications online and offline. For
example, I have a lot of clients in IT, information
technology, so I read Information Week. That’s a
good publication to read to keep up with that.
Computer World is another one. In general business
what I do is always rotate them. Right now I’m
getting Fortune Magazine. In a year I may let go of
that and get something else. I tend to vary it a
little bit. Every copywriter who is in direct
response should order at least one publication for
most of the major direct marketing publishers like
Boardroom and Filbert Publishing and so I always get
at least one thing from one of them because if you
do that then all their promotions are going to flow
to you and you can see what they’re doing in the
mail and online.
Michael: He also asks what kind of mental,
emotional, and spiritual exercise or mind power
meditation does Bob do to obtain his creative juices
for writing his copy content.
Bob: I have to admit I don’t do two things that
everyone says you should do. The first is what you
just described. I don’t do any kind of meditation
and the reason I don’t do that is because that
sounds like you have to rev yourself up to do it. I
don’t have to rev myself up. When I wake up in the
morning, I want to come here because I enjoy it so
much. So, I don’t really do anything deliberate.
There is one thing I do, but it’s different than
what he suggested. I tend to work on a lot of
projects rather than one or two projects. And the
reason I do that, and this is a trick I got from
Isaac Asimov, not personally, but something he
wrote.
Michael: Who is he?
Bob: Isaac Asimov is a science fiction writer and
science writer who had the record of being one of
the most prolific authors of the 20th century. He
wrote and published about 480 books during his
lifetime, sometimes as many as a month or more. And
I just liked him. He’s sort of my role model for a
very productive writer. And he said the key is not
to try to pump yourself up, but work on a lot of
different projects. And the reason that worked is
because if you get tired of one, you could move onto
the other. But if you’re only writing a promotion,
let’s say, for a product that you’re selling and
that’s all you have to do in terms of writing -- you
might have other things that you have to do, but
that’s your big copywriting, you only have two
things to do -- if you burn out on those today, what
else are you going to work on. But I always keep a
large number of projects and in different fields.
So, if I get tired of writing a big direct mail
package like I did this morning, I won’t go back to
direct mail, I’ll go do a landing page.
Michael: So, give me an example. How many client
copywriting projects do you currently have?
Bob: Probably around 15, 16.
Michael: Do you set the deadlines where the stress
and the pressure of deadlines don’t kill you?
Bob: I try to do that. It’s not always possible
because my demand is very high. Theoretically I
would like to schedule projects so the deadlines are
always convenient for me. You can’t always do that,
but I try. Yet I would say that I personally am
under a lot of deadline pressure. It’s probably the
biggest negative of my existence as the way I’ve set
my life up is that there is constant deadline
pressure and I don’t dislike it as a rule, but
sometimes you can get weary of it and that’s always
a danger.
Michael: But having the multiple projects helps you
get through everything.
Bob: Yes and also the diversity or the variety of
projects. They’re not all direct mail packages.
They’re not all email marketing messages. They’re
many different things in many different industries.
So, if I just say ah, God, I’m sick of talking about
the stock market today, I’ll go write a white paper
for a computer company on cyber security or I’ll
write a white paper on wastewater processing or
whatever it is.
Michael: Where do you draw the line? Will you take a
project that bores you or that you don’t believe in?
Bob: I don’t take any project that bores because one
of my primary drivers is I don’t want to be bored.
And I don’t take any project that I strongly
disbelieve in. Like there might be a project for a
financial newsletter. When I first see it, I’m not
convinced that it’s the greatest thing since sliced
bread, but I know that if I study it and take it on,
I’ll be able to get what I call temporarily
enthusiastic in order to write a good package. But
if it’s something that’s distasteful to me, like for
example, I’ve never in 25 years or more of
copywriting written a sweepstakes. It’s not because
I’m against them or I think they’re immoral or
unethical, but I personally hate them. I don’t see
why anyone looks at them. And that doesn’t mean they
don’t work, but I wouldn’t be able to do a good job.
They’re not in my repertoire. I could give you the
name of someone else who could do it for you.
Michael: Here’s a question from Paul. He says,
“certainly long-copy outpolls short-copy as long as
it’s interesting. How does Bob keep his readers
entertained through the long-copy?”
Bob: Well, let me just back up. I don’t actually
agree with his statement if he’s saying long-copy
always outpolls short-copy. It does not and I’ll
give you proof. You’ve noticed in direct mail, for
example, for magazines, which is an information
product, what’s the most popular mailing format.
It’s that voucher. Open up the envelope, looks like
an invoice, that’s extremely short-copy and that’s
beating four-page letters in traditional packages.
Michael: Are those on soft offers?
Bob: They’re on soft offers, yes. Normally if you’re
selling an information product to a consumer on a
hard offer, normally long-copy was better, but not
always. So, there are tools that I teach and have
and some of them are on my website for determining
copy length. One of them is called The Copy Length
Grid, which I could go into later if you want, but
the statement isn’t true. It doesn’t always. You
could say it often outpolls it, but it doesn’t
always. And that’s one of the things you certainly
can test. But when you are writing long-copy, there
are a number of devices or tricks you use to make it
interesting, but the one that’s not a trick and is
just overriding is totally understanding your
prospect. Often copy gets boring because you’re
packing in information. The client gave you a bunch
of source material and it all looks credible and
interesting, so you’re packing it in, but you’re not
really thinking about -- the reader is always more
interested in themselves than you, so you’re not
thinking about well if I was this person, let’s say
you’re writing a package to sell a medical magazine
to pediatricians. I’m not a pediatrician so I had to
talk to a bunch of pediatricians and what are they
interested in. The lay copywriter might have tended
to talked about cute little kids and they’re so
adorable, but maybe that’s not what motivates a
pediatrician.
Michael: Let’s do this. Why don’t we take that as a
case study? So, last year you got that assignment.
Was it to create a direct mail piece?
Bob: It was a direct mail package to sell some
newsletter for pediatricians.
Michael: So, you took on the project. So, for the
listeners, take us through your process of how you
handle a project. You accepted the project and
before you go into exactly what you did on the
research, what are you thinking in terms of what are
you going to charge, do you ask for backend, do you
make money on pieces mailed; how do you structure
the money part of it?
Bob: So, let’s talk about that. You’re really
talking about fees.
Michael: Yes.
Bob: So, at this point here’s what I do for a fee. I
have two standard fee schedules. One is for online
copywriting. One is for offline copywriting.
Basically if I get an inquiry, I say to the person,
I will email you the PDF of my fee schedule or
schedules depending on what they want. When they
have it, I’ll point out the item they want on it and
what the price is. And if they can pay it, I’ll do
it provided they can wait long enough, which if
often not the case.
Michael: Is it always the same or will you customize
it for each project?
Bob: The answer is it’s pretty much the same. If my
fee schedule lists $10,000 for a direct mail package
and someone tells me his budget is $500, I don’t go
okay. But it basically depends on the nature and the
complexity of the project. I did a direct mail
package for a guy a year ago whose product was a
telephone answering service for small businesses.
There’s no complexity in that. It took a certain
creativity to do a package that was good, but to
understand it was pretty simple versus someone could
want a direct mail package with the same number of
components, of the same length, on something to do
with complying with HIPPA Regulation 72.50. That
might be very difficult for me to understand or take
a lot of study, so the fee for that would be more
than the other one.
Michael: All right. So, you mail your fee schedule.
Bob: Yes, I give them my fee schedule. I point out
what the fee is and if they have the budget and the
time to wait and I’m interested and they want to go
ahead, I’ll book it and I send them a little
confirmation, which they have to okay and send back
with a check for half. And then it’s booked. And if
they don’t, we let the time go.
Michael: So, currently have far are you booking
ahead of time?
Bob: I do have some projects that we’ll book four or
five months ahead of time, but normally I’m booked
solid or 99% solid because you could always choose
to give up Sunday. But I’m booked normally pretty
solid three to four months in advance.
Michael: All right. Let’s go back to the magazine
for the physicians. So, you took on that project.
Now, you’ve got a project in front of you, the time
has come, you’ve got to get to work, what’s the
first thing you’re going to do if you don’t know
much about what physicians want? How are you
handling your research?
Bob: Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll do it in two or three
ways. First there will be various facts that I want
to know that the client maybe can’t tell me. Like
I’ll want to know how much money does a physician
earn per year compared to the general practitioner,
an internist, an oral surgeon, and it happens
pediatrician earnings are on the lower end of the
doctor scale. How much did they earn 20 years ago?
So, there will be some factual things that the
client doesn’t have. Those I’ll just give to my
researcher. I have someone who works for me on a
freelance basis, so I’ll make a list of five, six,
seven questions, email it to her, and within 48
hours I’ll get back all the research, documented
with sources.
Then I’ll have more of the emotional questions,
which are do pediatricians really love kids or do
they just like kids and happened to go into this
specialty for some other reason. Do pediatricians,
who my research shows don’t earn as much as other
doctors, do they resent it? Do pediatricians, like
other doctors, resent managed care? Is it ruining
their lives? I’ll ask the emotional questions. And
I’ll definitely ask the client, who will probably
find someone like the editor of their magazine to
speak to me and I may be satisfied with those
answers or I may get the feeling that the editor
really doesn’t know, in which case I’ll say can you
give me the names of three to six subscribers who I
could talk to for 15 minutes or 10 minutes. With a
doctor it usually has to be shorter rather than
longer to ask a few questions. And then I’ll do
that.
Michael: So, you intuitively or over the years and
experience knew to ask emotional questions and
there’s probably a very good reason for that. So,
what would you tell the listener why you are looking
for emotional questions and from someone who maybe
doesn’t have your experience, you know it through
experience, but what advice could you give for a
copywriter to look for those important emotional
questions and why are they going to be important to
your copy?
Bob: The reason they’re important…one of my clients
once told me you reach people on three levels. The
weakest level, which is where most copywriters try
to reach them is factual, intellectual. To write a
letter that says Dear Pediatrician, would you like
to know how 20,000 of your fellow pediatricians are
keeping current with the industry today? Then read
Pediatrician Today. That’s intellectual or factual.
The much stronger level is what you said, emotional.
If you can get to something that has an emotional
resonance from them, that will be many times
stronger. And the slightly above that is actually a
variant of emotional is what we call personal. In
other words, emotional -- let’s say we’re doing fund
raising. Emotional is here’s Timmy. Timmy has
cancer. That’s very emotional. That’ll really grab
you. But personal is here’s Timmy. Timmy has cancer
and did you know that within your lifetime, your
chances of you or someone in your family getting
cancer are 1 out of 3. In other words, related to
you personally.
Clayton Makepeace, who publishes, The Total Package,
a great newsletter on copywriting and who’s one of
the great copywriters of all time says that if you
can tap your lead of your promotion into the
dominant resonant emotion, what is a personal
feeling right now, your chances of success are much
greater.
Michael: Your lead meaning your headline?
Bob: Meaning your headline and the beginning of your
piece. Normally the emotion actually isn’t a
headline. The headline is a device really to get
them to read the lead and the lead is where you can
start at getting to the emotional issue of it.
Michael: That answers that on why you’re choosing
emotional questions because that’s the most powerful
part.
So, we’re still on the track of research on what
you’re going to do with your client. So, you know
these questions to ask. Like for the magazine you
wrote, did you actually talk to physicians for part
of your research?
Bob: I talked to the editor, I talked to my client,
and I talked to a couple of physicians. They are
hard to get and they were very reticent to get
physicians so I spoke to one of their subscribers
and I spoke to my child’s pediatrician. And they
were hard to get so you take what you can get.
Michael: Do you record the calls when you talk to
them?
Bob: I don’t record them. I’m a very fast typist and
I take notes on the keyboard.
Michael: I got you. Okay.
Bob: Occasionally for certain projects I will
record, but not usually. I record when I want to
quote them verbatim in the written piece, which I
don’t want to do in these interviews. I want to gain
an understanding of what they’re thinking. Now, what
I’ve done before I’ve done these interviews is I’ve
given the client a list of stuff that I want to
review and I’ve already reviewed it. And that list
includes, let’s say a magazine, their control
mailing piece, a bunch of their past and recent test
mailing so I can see what’s worked and what hasn’t,
a least a years worth of issues if it’s a monthly
magazine, and if they have a file of subscriber
testimonials, I want that.
Michael: So, as you’re reading and wading through
all this content, are you taking notes?
Bob: Yes, I’m taking notes in Word, single-spaced on
my computer. So, after I do all this and then have
the interviews, I might print it out. I might have
nine single-spaced pages of notes. I might have 19
single-spaced pages of notes.
Michael: So, you’re categorizing it?
Bob: What I will do is, in many cases, I will print
it out and start clipping it apart with a scissor
and tape it onto a large index card. I’ll be reading
my notes and if I read ten lines that I can see are
on one topic and then it starts another, I stop, I
clip that out, paste it on the index card and I
write the name of that topic at the top of the card.
So, when I’m done, I have a stack of 50 or 60 index
cards or however many, 20 or 40 that have all this
content on them and are headed by category.
Pediatrician compensation, dealing with terminal
kids, dealing with kid’s family, dealing with
Mothers, dealing with Fathers, getting office space,
malpractice insurance. And then I’ll figure out some
kind of rough outline at the computer or on a piece
of scrap paper and when I have an outline I like, I
will order the content of those cards in that order.
And now I have all the information I need to write
the package in the order that I need it.
Michael: Let’s move on to another question. Here’s a
question from Andrew Cavanaugh. He’s a health writer
out of Australia. He says, “Bob, where does most of
your income come from today, writing copy for
clients or selling your own information products?”
Bob: My income is 90% or more writing copy for
clients. I am not really primarily an information
marketer, although I do have products that I sell
online. But I’d say over 90%, maybe 85%, most of it,
I am a traditional freelance copywriter or what
people call a contract copywriter. That is how I
spend almost all of my time.
Michael: Here’s a question from Sherri Fields. “Bob,
before you became well known, what did you do to
convince clients to take a chance on you?”
Bob: Well, here’s one strategy that I use. I
mentioned writing articles. After the articles, I
wrote books on marketing and I’ll give you a perfect
example. I had a guy years ago from IBM call me and
said I need you to give a seminar on
business-to-business marketing to my marketing
people. And he was in a division at IBM and they had
like 20 or 25 people. And he said what would you
charge to come for two days. I quoted him a fee. He
goes, well you know what, that’s higher than some,
it’s lower than others, but it’s higher than a bunch
of others. There are a lot of people out there who
do this, why should I have you instead of them. And
I said I’ll tell you what. Give me your address.
I’ll FedEx you my new book. I had just had a book
come out called, Business To Business Direct
Marketing, published by NTC Business Books. I said
I’ll FedEx you the book and you look at it and if
you think they’re better, they can do the job as
well, call them, don’t bother calling me back. If
you read my book and you think I’m the guy for you,
you call me back. So, one of the ways I prove
credibility, and it was real helpful, is to write
books and articles.
The other way is when anybody was interested in my
service, and again this is before the Internet, I
would offer them a copywriting information kit. And
one of the things in that kit was a typed list of
two or three pages of testimonials from client that
I had done work for. This was fairly at the
beginning of my career, but any time I had a client
that liked what I did, I said would you mind sending
me a short letter and this was before email. Some
people would be willing and some people because it
was work didn’t bother. But I would get whatever I
could and I would type them onto a sheet of paper
and mail it out. And so, people would see that and
they’d look at my copywriting information kit and
they’d say look at all these testimonials, he must
be good, and that gave them confidence. I had more
clients that didn’t give me testimonials. Not
everyone will. I typed their names on another sheet
of paper alphabetically, just a list of clients and
the products they made and it was a client list. I
included that as a separate page and people would
look at that and say well look there’s 22 companies
on this client list and we’re industrial
manufacturers and 8 of them are industrial
manufacturers. That also gave them confidence.
Michael: What about the guy just starting. He’s got
no clients. Would you recommend doing some free work
just to hopefully gain additional work or do you
recommend always taking some kind of fee to know
that your prospects qualified upfront? What would
you recommend for one starting out?
Bob: Here’s what my advice always is. I say the
first thing you need and that you should concentrate
on is getting three satisfied clients and three
projects. So, therefore, you want to get however you
can get them. If it’s on spec, do it on spec. If
it’s for a fee, do it for a fee. If it’s for Uncle
Ned who has a dry-cleaning store and he’ll let you
write his neighborhood door hanger, do it for Uncle
Ned. Get three samples from three different clients
who will write you three different testimonials and
act as three different references. Then you can go
out to other people confidently and they say well
can you give me the names of your clients, you go
well I’ve done work for A, B, and C, among other
companies. You can send them three samples and you
can have three testimonials in your letter. And
people don’t need to see a lot of samples or
testimonials to hire you, but they do need something
and once you have those three real samples, you’ll
feel much more confident. And in the beginning you
do anything you can. If you try to get a fee, he
goes no I want you do it on spec, do it on spec.
Michael: This is a question from Ron Hayness and it
says, “Which of your books on copywriting do you
most highly recommend for freelance copywriters just
starting out?”
Bob: There’s two books. If you want to learn how to
write copy, I recommend The Copywriter’s Handbook,
which has just come out in a revised third edition.
Michael: Was that one of your first books?
Bob: It was early. It was in 1985, so maybe my fifth
or sixth book. The other book is Secrets of a
Freelance Writer. That’s doesn’t tell you how to
write copy. That tells you how to succeed in the
copywriting business. Those are the two books that
most people who come to me and are getting into
copywriting buy and use.
Michael: How many books do you have total?
Bob: A lot of my books have nothing to do with
marketing. At this point, I guess I have 70 books.
Michael: Seventy books.
Bob: Yes.
Michael: Is that all with that publisher?
Bob: No, no, no. Different publishers will be
interested in different things, so no.
Michael: How many are use you self-publishing?
Bob: Books. None. They’re all by regular publishers.
Michael: They’re all by regular publishers.
Bob: Yes. I sell publish in my online marketing
business, I sell about half a dozen e-books, but I
didn’t write those. I hired people to write them. My
name is not on them, their name is. And the other
thing I sell is I sell audio CD albums as
information products.
Michael: How many of your books, the 70 books, have
been sold? Do you know total?
Bob: I don’t know, but certainly the average have
sold 25,000 copies, it’s in the 1.25 million or
more. Well over a million, but that’s not a big deal
because again if you only sold 10,000 each, you’d be
up to 700,000. So, it’s well over a million copies
of my book, probably over two million.
Michael: Are they different languages, as well?
Bob: Well, they are. I mean I don’t really track
that, but I’ve got editions that are in all kinds of
languages. I don’t keep track. I know we’ve got
Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, whatever language they
speak in _____.
Michael: Are you getting inquiries to do copywriting
work from China and Japan?
Bob: No, I rarely do. I confine my copywriting to
the United States, Canada, the U.K., and Australia.
Michael: So, I guess what I’m asking is if you’ve
got a million books out there, how many leads are
these books producing for you?
Bob: Well, a lot of them, of course, don’t produce
any leads because a lot of them have nothing to do
with copywriting.
Michael: Oh, I got you. Okay.
Bob: I mean I have a book; the title of it is the I
Hate Kathy Lee Gifford Book and I don’t get any
inquiries from that. And I’ve got a lot of books
like that. However, the answer is that between
everything I’ve done in my life, books, articles,
and just being around a long time, I get one to two
to three unsolicited good inquiries come in here
every day of the year. Much more work than I could
ever hope to handle. Of the stuff we get, we accept
20% of it.
Michael: So, what do you do with those leads? You
have colleagues that you refer over?
Bob: Well, it depends on the situation. If we get a
lead where I just think it’s a bad quality lead, I
wouldn’t then give it to a colleague if I thought it
was crap.
Michael: That’s true.
Bob: Because you get leads from people that are just
not good potential clients. So, those I just say I
can’t handle it and if they say do you know someone,
I say no because I don’t want to wish bad stuff on
my friends. If it’s a lead that I don’t want to
take, they can’t afford me, they’re not a good fit
for me, I’m too expensive, then I will refer it. I
keep a list of people, but I’m almost hesitant to
tell you this because people listening, I would not
advise them to email me to get on this list because
it’s already too large.
Michael: That’s fine.
Bob: But I have a list of people who I refer stuff
to and I give them referrals. And then there are
people who will contact me and I want them. They’re
a good potential client, they can afford me, but I
tell them you’ve got to wait and they don’t want to
wait. Them I’m not giving referrals to. I want to
train them to wait. If I can’t do them for a year,
I’d say I understand you can’t wait that long. I’ll
say to them, if I’m booked for three months, I’d say
well now you can book me, it’s June, you want to
book me for October you can, but I don’t want to
give that lead away.
Michael: I noticed on your site, you make it a point
to differentiate yourself by saying, “You do not
take work and farm it to copy cubs or
sub-copywriters in your office.” And there’s a lot
of that going on. There’s a lot of opportunities
being sold to teach copywriters how to create copy
cubs and make a lot of money out of that. Why don’t
you do that? Can you give the listeners a brief
background on what that’s all about?
Bob: Well, what you’re referring to, of course, is
one negative of freelance copywriting is like a
dentist. He will say dentists make a lot of money,
but the dentists have an old saying, “You only can
bill if you drill and fill.” They only get paid for
when they work and a traditional freelance
copywriter is that way. So, what are your options?
One option is to sell information products; write
copy for your own products. Another option is to
start an ad agency. A third option is to take on a
lot of work and then subcontract it to other
copywriters. And I have chosen not to subcontract
work for two reasons.
Number one is ethical. I’m not saying that anyone
who does it is unethical. I don’t think they are.
But for me, when someone says well if I hired you,
do you write all your own copy or do you farm it
out. I want to be able to say I write every word,
which is true.
And the second reason I don’t do it is to me, I mean
I know people who do it and say it works for them,
to me it seems like a pain in the ass. You get
somebody who’s junior; well they’re not you. I’ve
seen copy that some beginning people have written
that’s pretty good, but a lot of times I look at it
and I say it’s worthless to me. I’d have to start
all over again. So, I don’t even want to be involved
in that.
Michael: Here’s a question from Darrin Philips,
“Bob, is it possible to teach the average person how
to write killer copy.”
Bob: Well, here’s the thing. On one hand this isn’t
brain surgery. On the other hand, can you teach
everyone to do it? You probably can teach average
people to do it, but you can’t teach everyone.
There’s a theory -- you may have heard this --
Michael Masterson from the American Writer’s and
Artist’s Institute says, “If you do anything for a
thousand hours, you’re going to get good at it.” But
I think yes, but you have to have some type of
inherent attitude or interest. So, there are people
I’ve seen in various classes I’ve taken who they’re
either not going to get good at it or it would just
be too much of an uphill battle. Having said that,
there are a lot of people who become copywriters
that you wouldn’t have thought would have. I have a
friend who does a lot of freelance work for Agora
and he had no interest in copywriting. He’s name is
Paul Hollingshead and he’s a terrific copywriter.
When they found him, he was stacking cans in a
grocery store. He had no interest. I always thought
copywriters would have to be people who were writers
to begin with and interested in writing like I was
and that’s how I came to it, but no. So, there are
people who do it and surprise you. They decide to do
it for a second career, they study it, and they do
it. So, can an average person, yes. I’m an average
person. But can everyone, I say not everyone.
Michael: Here’s a question from Perry, “Bob, do you
feel it’s best to pick one writer to follow as a
mentor and stick with him or her so as not to
confuse your writing style voice or do you think it
matters?”
Bob: No, I think it’s best not to do that. There’s
all kinds of people out there and usually what
happens is you’ve got to read a lot of books or go
to a lot of boot camps on any topic. Forget
copywriting. I mean this applies to copywriting
also. Usually if you want to learn the subject, say
copywriting, there’s a lot of books, a lot of
seminars, a lot of boot camps, a lot of website, a
lot of newsletters. You should go to a lot and read
a lot. What’ll typically happen is for each person,
90% of this stuff either you’ll reject, it doesn’t
work for you, or you already know it. But you’ll
pick up from each of them one gem that you wouldn’t
have gotten elsewhere and that’s how I’ve learned
from various people. I don’t want to name people,
but there’s a very famous copywriter out there who’s
teaching courses and he’s got massive amounts of
material and I read all of his material. And I said
it’s all good, but I knew all this, except there is
one thing he does that I knew it, but I wasn’t doing
it and now I do it all the time.
Michael: Well, can you tell you that is and what it
was?
Bob: I’d rather not name him. Basically his stuff is
great. I’m just saying for me I knew a lot of it.
And I wouldn’t say it’s the only thing I got from
him, but the one thing that stood out is
traditionally in a direct mail package, you have
your headline, you get attention, then you state the
problem, then you start getting into the product,
and then you build the credibility of the company,
of the author. He says you should do
pre-credibility. You should get some credibility up
there right upfront because people are more
skeptical today. So, like if you take a look at my
product websites and I’ve got one on copywriting.
We’ve got a program called, The World’s Best Kept
Copywriting Secrets, and it says, “Now, Bob Bly, the
man McGraw-Hill calls “America’s Top Copywriter”
reveals…” Now, I get into my credentials much later
in the promotion. The promotion starts with the
importance and the benefits of becoming a great
copywriter and the content I teach, not who I am.
But I get that upfront real quickly because people
look at something and they say, yeah that’s great,
but there’s a million of these. So, right away you
want to differentiate yourself with some upfront
early credibility.
There’s lots of technique like that. I learned one
or two things from this guy and one or two or three
things from that guy, like Michael Masterson at the
American Writer’s and Artist’s Institute. I’ve
worked with him for many years. He’s been a client.
He taught me a lot of stuff, but the one thing that
stands out, he has this little trick, he has for
headline writing, which you may have heard called
Four U’s, and it’s a little mnemonic device to judge
is your headline strong. And it says basically is
your headline urgent, ultra specific, useful, and
unique. It’s not that that’s never been said before,
but that combination in that way has never been
explained quite that way and it’s amazingly
effective.
Michael: How about personalities and writing? I mean
every writer has an individual personality. Do you
see a style or a personality in your writing, in
Clayton’s writing, in a lot of the different
copywriters? Can you identify that personality or
style of writing like a thumbprint?
Bob: I generally can, but what I tell you is more
important is you want to have the personality of the
person you’re writing for and through. If you’re
writing for Rush Limbaugh, you want to sound like
Rush Limbaugh, not Bob Bly.
Michael: Good answer. Here’s a question from Dave
Rice from Canada, “Bob, I find I have quite a
difficult time doing my own copywriting. It would
help if there were somewhere that I could go for
examples of different industries or products that
have worked for other people. Is there such a
reference source?”
Bob: Yes, it’s basically the websites of successful
copywriters. Today, people put their portfolios
online. _____ Rosenblum was one of my early mentors.
Milt Pierce. Here’s what I would say. I actually
don’t keep copywriter’s websites bookmarked because
what I do is another method and the method I
suggested is good. You can do copywriter’s websites.
I keep very expensive swipe file. A swipe file is
samples of control promotions. I subscribe to all of
the newsletters from the big publishers and buy
nutritional supplements from some of the big
marketers, so I get all the promotions and the ones
you get three times in a row, you know are the
controls. Also, I know most of these people, so I
can ask them and say what can you send me. Sometimes
I go to big publishers who know me. I say can you
just send me your most successful package you did
this year and I keep those and study those.
Michael: Have you ever used Benny Hatch’s resource?
Bob? Denny Hatch’s resource is good. If I didn’t
have these contacts myself, I would use it. But I
can go to Nightingale Conant and ask what’s the best
promo you did in the last 12 months and she’ll send
it to me. But, yes, you can look on Denny Hatch’s
mailing webservice. It’s an archive.
Michael: Here’s some questions about being a new
copywriter. Question from Hugh in Australia, “Bob,
I’d like to know how the best way to get started and
I don’t mean what books I should read, handwriting
letters, etc. I mean how can I startup a business
even though I don’t currently have any existing
clients, testimonials, etc. What steps can someone
who is starting out take to start to build up a
business, clients, credibility?”
Bob: When I started I didn’t know anybody in the
industry. I didn’t have any clients. I had no
testimonials. I had no business lined up. I started
cold. Now, I did have a couple of corporate jobs
under my belt and I had some samples from that.
Assuming you had some samples of things he’s
written, do what I did. You can just pick up the
phone and cold-call or what I did was I mailed a
bunch of people and there’s other promotional
techniques that you can use. But you can just put
together a sales letter, mail it out to a list, and
you can start getting clients.
Michael: So, when the phone rings and someone calls
you and they say I got your letter and you’ve got a
qualified lead on the other phone, what are you
looking for? What kind of process do you do to
decide whether this is a good client? How do you
handle that inquiry?
Bob: There’s a formula I teach called -- it’s not a
swear word -- MAD-FU. It’s doesn’t stand for what
you think it stands for. There’s five
characteristics that makes someone a good client.
So, you run through the list of these and if they
make three or four or five of them, they’re good. If
they don’t, they’re not.
Number one in MAD is money. Do they have the money
to afford me?
Michael: Do you ask them right upfront?
Bob: Different people can say different things. When
they contact me, I say, I’m interested in talking
with you, but I am one of the most expensive
copywriters you can hire. Is that a problem? And if
they continue talking, I’ve sort of gotten that out
of the way. That’s number one, money.
Number two, is authority. Is this the person who can
write the check or make the decision?
Michael: How do you handle that?
Bob: You say, is there anyone else that we need to
talk to who is involved in making this decision? And
they’ll either say no, I can buy this, or yes my
boss or my committee and then you only talk to the
committee.
So, it’s money, authority, and the D is desire. Do
they really want to have a successful promotion? Do
they want good copy? And you can sort of tell that.
That’s sort of instinctual. There’s no question I
have for that.
Then the F is fit. Are they a good fit for me? So,
when I started, since my background was industrial,
someone called and they worked for a company that
manufactured values, that was a good fit. If they
told me, oh we sell cosmetics and jewelry; I didn’t
think it was a good fit, so I would kind of shy away
from them.
And the U is urgency. Did they really need this done
within a specific timeframe and when is that or are
they just calling for their health?
Michael: Okay, that’s great. Here’s a question from
Andrew Cavanaugh, health writer out of Australia,
“Bob, what’s the biggest mistake new copywriters
make trying to get a new client?”
Bob: It’s very simple and it’s directly related to
what we just said. They don’t do that MAD-FU
pre-qualification. They treat every lead like
they’re a great lead. They chase after everyone when
if they would have asked these simple questions,
they would have found out in two minutes the guy has
no authority to hire you and he has no budget and
thinks copy is worth nothing. And you chart $1,000 a
letter and you’re selling him as hard as you can;
it’s a waste of your time.
Michael: Give me a personal case study where you
didn’t follow this rule, maybe even in your earlier
days and what affect it had on you?
Bob: It wasted a half a day of my time. I was in New
York City. A guy called me. He had a small ad agency
in New Jersey. I was so excited because I wasn’t
getting many leads and that’s what happens when you
start out. You’re not getting many leads and you get
excited every time the phone rings, which is a huge
mistake. So, he called me and I was so buoyant and
he said why don’t you come on out. So, I rented a
car. Didn’t ask him any questions. Drove out and we
talked and this dinky little ad agency in a crappy
building and finally we had a nice meeting and he
looked at my samples and they were okay and we were
somewhat a good fit. And so, he said all right, for
one client I need a sales letter and at the time I
was charging $500 for a letter and I told him well
it’s $500 and there’s dead silence. He said, $500
for a letter. And I said well what did you have in
mind? He says $35. To them, real advertising was
magazine ads and a letter was crap work. I could
have saved myself $30 for renting the car and an
hour driving out there, an hour meeting with him,
and an hour driving back. I wasted half a day.
Michael: If I were a new, talented copywriter trying
to get work with one of the big names like Agora
Publishing, what approach would you suggest I do?
Bob: If you’re trying to reach a big name direct
response client, the best thing you could do would
be to start with smaller, easier to get ones and do
great work for them and send them something that’s
somewhat related to their industry or area that got
great results. That would be one thing I would do.
The second thing is I would suggest to them that hey
you don’t know me; I don’t expect you to start me on
a full package or a magalog. Why don’t you start me
out on a small basis? Maybe let’s do a renewal
letter and if you’re happy with that, maybe I’ll do
an insert after that. Start with a small project and
then move upwards. And then, because they’re testing
you out, when they ask you how much, say you tell me
what you want to pay. So, if you show them that
you’ve done good work for others, gotten good
results in direct marketing, especially for
something at least related and you’re willing to
start small on a test basis and money is not a key
issue right now, although you say to them obviously
if I’m successful for you, I’d want to be paid what
your successful writers get paid, that’s the way to
start.
Michael: Very good. If I were a talented copywriter
and I wanted to be a copywriting cub, what would be
the best way to approach one of the larger
copywriters to do that?
Bob: Well, there are people who do that regularly.
Some of them are known. Some of them are not known.
So, Clayton Makepeace, _____, for example, both of
them do that. You could approach them. I think Jim
Rutts used to. I don’t know if he still does.
And then I had a guy recently approach me and he
apparently sent out a letter to a bunch of
copywriters he got from some list and I bet you that
approach probably worked. I really didn’t ask him.
If I’d know you were going to ask me this, I would
have asked him. Now, I didn’t hire him because it
was kind of embarrassing for him. I said have you
ever been to my website. He said yes. I said well
did you notice on the home page it says I don’t
subcontract. So, it was a mistake to mail to me. He
didn’t do his research. But he went to a mass list
of copywriters and I’m sure that worked.
Michael: Very good. Here’s another question from
Mary Hudson, “Bob, if you were starting over as a
copywriter, let’s say you had no clients, no money,
nowhere to live, and you were starting over, what
specifically would you do today, tomorrow, this week
to generate an income as a copywriter?”
Bob: Well, first of all I don’t know if I’m quite
answering her question, but my philosophy was always
don’t become a freelance copywriter unless you have
at least one year or at minimum six months worth of
living income in the bank because you don’t want to
be in the situation she described. If you are
desperate and you absolutely need the income, you’re
going to do all the wrong things. You’re going to
take work for clients that are not a good fit for
you according to the MAD-FU formula, that are lousy
clients to work for, that pay bottom dollar, which
is doing sales letters for $35 instead of $500 or
$1,000. So, you basically want to have enough money
that you can pick and choose. Your business will
always be better if you can pick and choose clients
rather than them choosing you.
Michael: Here’s a question from Karen Myers, “Are
there any good agents or agencies that represent
freelance copywriters that you would recommend?”
Bob: There are a couple of agencies. I really don’t
keep up to date on this, but the big names are --
there’s Finn Communications, John and Kevin Finn,
who represent copywriters and a lot of copywriters
have had great results with them. On Long Island,
New York there’s the Copywriter’s Council of
America, run by Roger Dexter. Those are the two
major ones as far as I know. There’s another one,
Direct Marketers On Call, that is fairly well known.
And then there’s a bunch of smaller ones that come
and go.
Michael: And so, these agencies take a percentage of
the…
Bob: They all take a different percentage. Their
formulas are all different. I think the Copywriter’s
Council takes 20%. I’m not sure what the others take
or how it works.
Michael: Bob, can you give us your best tips
regarding copyrights, for example, when, if you
retain the copyrights to materials, which you write?
How do you do that?
Bob: Very simple. I never do. I say to the client
they own the copyright. It’s their stuff. When they
pay me and as long as they can pay me, and if
there’s a royalty, continue to pay me the royalty,
it’s their stuff. They can do whatever they want
under the terms of our agreement. There is a move or
a belief that if you write it, you own the copyright
and you’re just loaning it to them. That’s certainly
not their understanding and my philosophy is always
do your business in a way that the client comes out
ahead.
Michael: What advice would you have, let’s say
you’ve got copywriters that are producing leads,
they’re getting work, but I’m sure every client
isn’t a picnic. What advice would you give a
copywriter as their copywriting business matures in
dealing with clients, in dealing with egos, in
dealing with the ego of maybe the client who wants
something that you don’t recommend? What’s your
philosophy on that?
Bob: The best advice I ever got was from my friend
Jim Alexander, now retired, who ran a great
business-to-business ad agency in Grand Rapids,
Michigan. He said to me, “Bob, I can deal with the
client who is ignorant. I can deal with a client who
is arrogant, but I cannot deal with one who is
both.” If someone is arrogant, but they know what
the heck they’re doing, keep them. You’re going to
learn a lot. If someone is ignorant, but they’re
willing to have you guide them, you can be
successful. If you have a client who is both
ignorant and arrogant, they don’t know what they’re
doing and they dictate how to write the copy, you
should fire them.
Michael: Great. Do you have any personal case study
or experience you could reference that?
Bob: For that, I mean I’ve done it all the time for
many years. The best advice, which I don’t follow
myself, is to fire them just because they’re
ignorant and arrogant. I always felt I had to have
more work in the pipeline so that not only did they
not fit, but I didn’t need them. I would only fire
clients when I felt I was so flushed with work that
I could afford to. You really should do it at any
time. You should never continue working with those
people, but I would only do it when I got to the
point where I could afford to.
Michael: So, you’ve got a lot of client who you are
working with. How often does a client stay with you
for repeat copywriting business? I can imagine three
or four or five good clients who have successful
businesses will use you over and over again.
Bob: I would say that the rule of thumb that I have
here and I tell people to strive for, approximately
80% of your work should come from repeat business
and 20% should come from clients you have not worked
with before. Eighty percent repeat, you make more
money on the repeat business because you’re familiar
with the client and their personnel, their staff,
and their products and their methods. But you don’t
want it to be 100% because you’re going to tend to
get bored. So, I use the 80/20 rule. Sometimes it’s
70/30, maybe sometimes it’s 85/15, but never much
more of variation than that.
Michael: Here’s some questions about pricing
structure. A question from Tom Vargan, “I’d like to
learn more about structuring compensation for
copywriting, flat fee plus royalties. I’m still a
bit lost with the pricing structure.”
Bob: Basically, although there are other people who
do it differently, I usually work on a flat fee
basis, except when working for a client that is
setup and accustomed to paying royalties. So, the
best royalty clients are people who are large volume
mailers and consumer marketers. Specifically they
sell nutritional supplements, they sell home study
courses, they sell investment newsletters and health
newsletter because they’re mailing in large
quantities where they can afford to pay you the
royalty. If you’re writing a package for
Endocrinologist Today Magazine and there’s only
15,000 endocrinologists in the United States, the
rollout potential of that mailing is very slim.
They’re not going to pay you a royalty. So, let’s
say someone comes to you and they publish an
investment newsletter, their potential market is one
or two million hard-money investors. Depending on
what list they go to, they could mail one or two or
three million packages a year. If your package is
successful, in that case, you would charge an
upfront fee, plus what’s call a mailing fee, which
is you would get somewhere between a penny and
five-cents. I normally get two or three-cents and
more often than not two-cents per piece mailed when
they roll that out after the test. They will test
say 50,000 to start and if your package is
successful and then they rollout, on each one they
mail after that, you get two pennies, which works
out to $20,000 per million pieces mailed.
Michael: Can you give us a successful case study
with a client that you’ve done -- you don’t have to
mention the client’s name -- but…
Bob: I have a client, they sell a commodities
trading course, and I wrote their mailing a couple
of years ago, three years ago, and I’m up to $65,000
or $70,000 on that package.
Michael: So, they’ve mailed out three or four
million.
Bob: I guess, however it works out to. I guess I’m
up to $80,000.
Michael: When do they cut you the check, right when
they mail?
Bob: They cut you the check when they mail. They
send you an email and say our plan is we’re going to
rollout with 83,000 pieces, which means we owe you
$3,222. Please email us an invoice and we’ll get it
out right away.
Michael: Who are you dealing with in that
department? Is that accounting?
Bob: You’re dealing with the marketing publisher,
the marketing director.
Michael: Here’s a question from Dave Rice from
Canada, “Do you ever offer performance based
copywriting assistance as in ask for a percentage of
the increased revenue and if so, how do you
structure it to be assured you’ll get paid?”
Bob: No, I only do what I’ve just described, which
is the mailing fee royalties. The reason is I don’t
think it’s a bad idea, but I’ve always said it’s
very difficult to track and make sure clients know
what they’re actually making. I mean some people
tell me they do this all the time, but I don’t
really know what my client’s sales are and I hear it
bandied about a lot, but I’ve never found that it’ll
work, especially with smaller companies. It’s very
difficult to know you’re getting an accurate figure.
So, I only like to do performance based arrangements
with major mailers that are in the business of
paying royalties because if the company doesn’t do
it and you push them into it, they’re going to look
for a way not to do it. They’re going to hope you
forget. Then you’ve got to be chasing them all the
time.
Michael: Has that happened to you? Have you had a
bad experience where you…
Bob: I’ll tell you a funny experience. I had a guy
who said he wanted me to write a package and this
was years ago and it was like $7,000. And I said I
wanted a mailing fee and he goes I’ll give you a
bonus. I’ll give you $7,000 now and $7,000 if your
package becomes the new control. So, we mail out my
package. Beats the control by 50% and I send him an
invoice. He goes well no I’m not going to pay this
invoice. I said why not? He said well your package
isn’t the new control. I said you told me it beat it
by 50%. He goes well I’ve got to do this three or
four times before I’m sure. I didn’t get paid for
two years. Finally he paid it. But that’s my fault.
My agreement said when it becomes the new control.
Now, it says, when I beat your control by X percent
or more.
Michael: So, do you have a file of all your
copywriting agreements and contracts and do you sign
contracts or letters of agreement or what?
Bob: They’re confirmation forms. They aren’t really
formal legal contracts. You could call them letters
of agreement. They’re more like a standard form
confirmation. You can actually see that on
www.bly.com. If you go to my website, www.bly.com,
click on methodology and click on terms and
conditions, you’ll actually see my standard
agreement. They either sign it or email it back and
say okay we approve. And then when I have that and
their check, we begin. And yes, we keep them on
file. My assistant does that.
Michael: We’re still on pricing. This maybe a little
bit repetitive, but maybe you’ll have something new
here. It’s a question from Mark Spangalow, “How do
you determine, Bob, the amounts and fees to charge a
client for any specific assignment without it being
perceived as too high or too low?”
Bob: I’m going to give you a real easy answer to
that. And the answer is this. What you could do is
you say to the client -- let’s say they want you to
quote a price -- what this guy could do is say to
the client, Mr. Client, let me ask a question. Do
you have a budget for this project? Not what your
budget is. Do you have a budget? And people will
either say yes or no. If they say yes, you say to
them would you mind sharing with me what it is. If
they say no, I wouldn’t mind and then they say well
my budget is $5,000 or $6,000, you know whether your
fees are in the ballpark or not and you can tailor
what you offer them accordingly. On the other hand
if they say no, we don’t have a budget, you then say
well do you at least have a dollar figure in mind of
what you’d like to pay? And many people who said
they didn’t have a budget in mind will say I don’t
know, $2,000, $3,000. So, they’ll give you some
idea. And then based on what their budget is, you
can say well I can do a magalog for you because you
have the budget for that. Oh well, I can’t do a
magalog, but based on your budget I could do an
insert. I could a sales letter. I could do an email
blast or whatever. So, you can figure a quote within
their budget. That way you’ll know that the quote
you give them can be acceptable.
Michael: That’s great advice. Get them to reveal it
first.
Bob: Get them to reveal it. Now, if they won’t
reveal it, there’s another technique. If they won’t
reveal it, you give them not one price, but three.
You give them three options. My friend Andrew _____,
the copywriter, calls them good, better, or best.
So, good might be for this much money, I’ll write
two email messages for you. Better is this much
money, I’ll write two email messages and a
conversion page. And for this much money, I’ll write
three emails, a conversion page, a pop-under, and
five banner ads. You give them different packages
with different pricing. Then you say do you want to
choose the good, better, or best. And experience
shows that most people will choose the middle
option.
Michael: Here’s another question from Ron Hoss,
“Bob, do you require a signed contract and if so,
are there any special or unique provisions in your
contract that you would recommend other freelance
copywriters to use as well?”
Bob: Well, I don’t want to recommend them because
I’m not a lawyer and I can’t give legal advice and I
don’t want to be responsible for someone using my
provisions and then saying well I used it and I
still didn’t get paid. So, I don’t want to do that.
But if he goes to www.bly.com and clicks on
methodology and then clicks on terms and conditions,
you can see my standard agreement. It’s right on the
website and I require people either to sign it and
fax it back or just to reply by email we approve
these terms.
Michael: A question from Greg McPherson, “Is it
necessary to have a hundred percent passion for the
subject you are writing? Do you think it would come
through in your writing if that passion was not
there and do you have a basic knowledge of the
subject you are writing or can you acquire it during
the research stage of writing?”
Bob: Let’s divide that up into two parts. The first
is about passion or enthusiasm. And what I would say
is it’s necessary to have a hundred percent
enthusiasm. What is necessary…the term I like to use
is I’m able to get temporarily enthusiastic about
any product for which I’m going to write copy on. It
has to interest you enough that you can become
engaged and become the advocate for that client.
It’s like an attorney. An attorney may take on a
client and forget the issue of guilt and innocence,
he’s not crazy about the person, but it’s his job to
be the advocate for that client and so he shouldn’t
take it on if he can’t do that job. For me to do
that job, I have to become temporarily enthusiastic
about the product, which for me isn’t hard and if I
can’t do that because it’s something I don’t like or
I loath, then I wouldn’t take it on. A good example
is a publisher approached me a few years ago and
said we need a bunch of direct mail packages. That
was a really good possible assignment and I said
what about. And he said we have a series of books on
hunting. Well, I don’t hunt. I’m not telling you if
you hunt you’re wrong or it’s a bad thing, but for
me it has no appeal and I dislike it so I had to
turn it down. There’s no way I could get
enthusiastic about that. If you gave me the job of
promoting a book or a magazine on vegetarianism, I’m
not a vegetarian, but I could get temporarily
enthusiastic about that idea. There’s a lot that
appeals to me about it.
Do you have to know about the topic? Yes and no. You
really don’t have to know and you can research it.
That being said, remember we talked earlier about
the 80/20 rule; 80% of your time it’s a repeat
business.
Michael: Yes.
Bob: If you follow that, then you’re kind of writing
mostly about stuff you’re somewhat familiar with. I
take it further and even though 20% is not the
repeat business, of that 20% most of it is in
product areas that I have some experience in. I do a
lot of stuff in IT, so if a guy comes at me and
needs a brochure on a certain software package, I
may never have done any software in that industry,
but I’ve done similar things so I know how software
should be sold.
Michael: Here’s a question from Andrew Cavanaugh,
“Is there really more copywriting work than current
competent copywriters in the market could handle or
is that just hype designed to sell copywriting
courses?”
Bob: I worried about this for a long time and I was
concerned that those of us who are teaching others
to do, me through my books, for example, are we
flooding the market and creating too many
copywriters. I would say that in my opinion no, but.
And that means no. There’s not too many copywriters
because there’s so much work out there. In the
United States there are over 10 million businesses
and if you take the small portion of that, the tip
of the iceberg, the big companies produce tons of
material and so they had a large demand or need for
copy. Having said that, not every company needs
copy, so you may run into individual companies or
even individual market niches where the opportunity
doesn’t seem so great so you may have to fan out to
other businesses or other niches or other
industries. But overall, I think the answer is no,
we have not flooded the market for copywriters yet,
but we are heading slowly in that direction. I don’t
know that we could ever reach that, but I think it’s
a valid concern.
Michael: He also said, “With all the great
copywriting courses sold on the market, including
your own, why do you think there are so few really
good copywriters coming out of these courses?”
Bob: I actually don’t think that there’s so few
copywriters coming out of these courses. But
remember we talked about Michael Masterson, who
created what is probably the biggest course in the
market, the AWAI, American Writer’s and Artist’s
Institute, a six figure copywriting course. He says
you have to do something for a thousand hours to get
competent and five thousand hours to be a master.
And there are a lot of people out there who are not
willing to put in that practice and don’t, in fact,
follow what they’re taught to do in the course. They
don’t follow through. They don’t do the assignment.
Masterson, in his program, will say here’s a great
promotion, I want you to copy the sales letter word
for word and it’s an eight page sales letter. 99.9%
of the students never do it. So, one reason there
are not so many great copywriters is they don’t
follow the instructions, they don’t follow the
courses, and the more relevant reason is they don’t
put in the time required to become a master at it.
Michael: On that subject, copying out a sales letter
in longhand, do you believe in that? I mean is that
something that you think is a good exercise for
copywriters and how do you think it helps one?
Bob: I haven’t done it a lot, but I have done it and
I think it is a helpful exercise. I find that to
copy a 24-page or a 36-page magalog, it’s too much.
What I will do, though, and I have done, is copy the
leads of great sales letters. Like if there’s a
client six page or eight page sales letter to sell
Psychology Today or News Week, what I do is I don’t
copy the whole thing. I read the whole thing
carefully several times. I probably copy the lead,
which is the first half of page one or all of page
one, but then I outline the rest. This is more
useful to me. I break it down, so I say okay first
we discuss the product in this type of letter. Then
we discuss the cents off. Then we get to the
objection. Then we go to testimonials. Then we get
to the articles that are published. Then we go back
to some testimonials. I look for letter models
within these controls that I can knock off or
duplicate for other clients.
Michael: Here’s a question from Sherri Fields, “Bob,
do you believe headlines have to be outrageous to
catch the reader’s attention? For example, how a
broke, homeless, 28-year-old learned to earn
millions?”
Bob: It depends on the market niche and in the
industry. And my simple answer is I don’t think they
have to be outrageous or absurd. I do think they
have to make a fairly big promise. Now, what she
means by outrageous, it’s a little crazy, it’s a
little goofy like a one-eyed sailor smoking a
corncob pipe learning health secrets of living to
100. That works. You don’t have to go in that
direction.
Clayton Makepeace in one issue of his Total Package
gave an example of a headline that was enormously
successful for nutritional supplements based on the
concept of improving vision. What was the old
thing…you were supposed to eat carrots to see better
or something? And the writer’s headline -- it wasn’t
his copy -- was why bilberry and lutein don’t work.
That’s not outrageous, but it was so effective he
said because people getting these promotions have
read 8,000 of these promotions where they’ve been
told lutein, bilberry are the key ingredients and
they probably ordered some of the products and they
probably didn’t work. So, that’s going to grab you.
You can start where the prospect is. The classic
Dale Carnegie; how to win friends and influence
people. That’s not outrageous.
I’ll answer more concisely. The answer is no, you
don’t have to be outrageous, but yes you do have to
make or imply a big promise.
Michael: What are the two most important rules for a
headline that you would advise a copywriter to keep
in mind?
Bob: The two most important rules. One of them is
that you have to understand what the purpose and
what you want your headline to do. And headlines can
have a number of functions, but the main two are to
get attention and draw the reader further into the
copy. So, when you’re looking at a headline, you
want to ask yourself if I was the prospect, would
this stop me? Not to get me to buy the product.
That’s the wrong question. But would it stop me.
Would it get me to stop and catch my attention?
The second question you want to ask is, assuming it
stopped me, okay I’ve read it, would it compel me to
read further. Would it draw me into the body copy?
And so, those are the two most important rules. You
have to write something that’s going to get their
attention and you have to write something that’s
going to -- if it’s direct marketing -- draw them
into the body copy.
These rules don’t necessarily apply to other types
of advertising, like consumer advertising for
packaged goods. Often there is no body copy or the
body copy is very minimal. So, in that case you
might have a headline that -- and this is another
function a headline can perform -- is some headlines
just deliver a complete selling message. Just to
come up with an example of one that delivers a
complete selling message, Crest Toothpaste, it used
to be “caught early enough, using Crest can actually
stop and reverse tooth decay in 80% of children,” or
something like that. That’s the whole message. It
doesn’t really compel me terribly to read on,
although I might want to know how, but it’s not that
compelling, it’s not even that powerfully attention
getting, but the main thing it does, it tells me the
complete story. I might just read that if I get it
versus a more direct response headline. Duncan Hines
used to run ads for years for their chocolate cake
mix and the headline was, “the secret to richer
moisture chocolate cake.” That lures me into the
body copy. It sounds like it’s promising to reveal
some useful information. That’s the difference.
Michael: Can you think of a case study from one of
your clients where you crafted a headline that just
smashed a previous control?
Bob: Well, I’ve done it, obviously, like anybody
who’s been writing copy for any length of time has
done this or you wouldn’t be in business, but if I
can one specific one, I had a client approach me and
they had a product -- do you know what a Day Timer
is?
Michael: Yes.
Bob: So, everybody knows what a Day Timer is and
this is a product that was one of the Day Timer
knock-offs of which there are several. So, they had
a direct mail package that had been their control
for many years. Their headline was, “how many times
have you told yourself ‘next week I’m going to get
organized,’” which I thought was pretty good. I
wrote a headline that was as follows: “inside: now
you can get at least one more hour of productive
time each day than Day Timer or other planning
systems can give you guaranteed.” And that headline
beat theirs by 50%. And that’s a good example of
something that was specifically crafted to beat a
control as we direct response copywriters do; we
look to see how we can beat the control.
Michael: This kind of brings me to testing. What’s
your take on testing? I mean obviously you don’t
have the luxury of spending a year on a client’s
project to test all different variables…headline,
body copy, offer; things like that. So, you’re
limited with your time, but how do you use that time
limitation and use testing to benefit your client’s
copy that you write them? What’s your take on that?
Bob: Well, offline in print, specifically direct
mail, typically the client is testing my package
versus if it’s any client of any size or
sophistication, they’re testing my package versus
their control, so the only test that’s being done is
a split-test of mine. If it’s a client that does not
have a control or is not that sophisticated, then in
direct mail because of the time and expense, most
clients do very limited testing. So, I’ll say let’s
test the most important thing and that may not be
the headline or the creative. If the client is
introducing a new product, I might say the biggest
variable with this is the price and I’d say the
first thing we need to test…and that usually is the
most important thing you should test. Well, first
you should test with…that’s a given. But in terms of
the actual package, it would be probably price.
Should we sell this newsletter on commodities
trading for $99 a year, $199, or $299? We do a
three-way split and if $299 works, then we do
another AB split of $299 versus $399. And as you
know from your own experience, surprisingly it
shocks beginners and it shocked me when I started,
the low price often doesn’t win. And so, you have to
test to find which price point is most profitable.
The other thing you would want to test is the offer.
I had a guy talk to me today, he sells a membership
in a professional society for technical people. He
said well right now we charge $200 or $300 a year
for membership. And the question is well should they
pay $300 for one-year membership? Should he give
them a 30-day trial period? Should he give them the
option of quarterly payments, monthly payments?
That’s going to make a huge difference, so pricing
and offer, that’s what I test first.
Once I had done enough testing to say I have the
right offer and the right price, then I would do
creative testing and the two most important things
there in direct mail are the headline or the outer
envelope teaser and the lead to the piece, the lead
and the headline. And number two, the format. Should
I test a jumbo envelope versus a snap-pack versus a
#10? So, format and lead/headline are the most
important creative elements. Overall, it’s price and
offer.
Online it’s a different story. There are systems
now…you’re probably familiar with the term Taguchi
testing, which will allow you to test multiple
elements of a sales letter online and these tests
will allow you to test many permutations. So, at
minimum you can do an AB or ABC split-test of the
landing page headline, but really you can test five
or six elements. You can test headline, you can test
placement of the letterhead on the first screen. You
can test a picture. Let’s say you’re selling an
audio CD program. Is it better to show the author, a
picture of the CD product in its case, or a woman or
man enjoying the benefits of the product? That can
make a huge difference. I saw a test recently where
this guy, the only thing he changes was the color of
his order button and split test a traditional bright
red order button versus an orange order button and
the orange beat the other by 27%.
Michael: Have you used any of the Taguchi stuff?
Bob: I don’t get involved in that. I have clients
that do online testing, but I certainly know where
you can go get it and I certainly recommend to
people that they do that. Normally if they’re doing
this, the only element that I’d be asked to provide
is three or four different headlines. In terms of
the placement of the logo or picture, the client
will do that without me.
Michael: Do you have any feedback on offers that are
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