The Copywriter’s Handbook

1 ALSO BY ROBERT W. BLYS ecrets of a Freelance WriterSelling Your ServicesBusiness-to-Business Direct MarketingThe Elements of Business WritingThe Elements of Technical WritingHow to Promote Your Own BusinessHow to Get Your Book PublishedWrite More, Sell MoreDirect Mail ProfitsAds That SellCareers for WritersCreating the Perfect Sales PieceTargeted Public RelationsKeeping Clients SatisfiedTHE COPYWRITER S Handbook THECOPYWRITER SHANDBOOK3RD EDITIONA Step-by-Step Guide toWriting Copy that Sells Robert W. Bly An Owl BookHenry Holt and CompanyNew York Owl BooksHenry Holt and Company, LLCP ublishers since 1866175 Fifth AvenueNew York, New York Owl Book and are registeredtrademarks ofHenry Holt and Company, 1985, 2005 by Robert rights in Canada by H. B. Fenn andCompany of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataBly, Robert copywriter s Handbook : astep-by-step guide to writing copythat sells / Robert W. Bly. p. bibliographicalreferences and : 0-8050-7804-5 ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-7804-61.

2 Advertising copy. 2. Businesswriting. I. 2006808'.066659 dc222005050345 Henry Holt books are available forspecial promotions andpremiums. For details contact: Director,Special published in hardcover in 1985by Dodd, Mead & CompanyFirst Owl Books Edition 1990 Designed by Kelly S. TooPrinted in the United States of America1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 For Fred Gleeck On writing a matter of you work out with weights forfifteen minutes a day over the courseof ten years, you re gonna getmuscles. If you write for an hour anda half a day for ten years, you regonna turn into a good writer. Stephen King,Time (October 6, 1986) No one writes as well as heought. He is fortunate if he haswritten as well as he could. Bliss Perry,Bedside Book of Famous BritishStories (1940) CONTENTS Preface to the Third EditionPreface to the First EditionAcknowledgments 1: An Introduction to Copywriting 2: Writing to Get Attention: TheHeadline 3: Writing to Communicate 4: Writing to Sell 5: Getting Ready to Write 6: Writing Print Advertisements 7: Writing Direct Mail 8: Writing Brochures, Catalogs, andOther Sales Materials 9: Writing Public Relations Materials10: Writing Commercials and MultimediaPresentations11: Writing for the Web12: Writing E-Mail Marketing13: How to Get a Job as a Copywriter14: How to Hire and Work withCopywriters15: Graphic Design for CopywritersAppendices: Appendix A: Glossary of AdvertisingTerms Appendix B: Periodicals Appendix C: Web Sites Appendix D: Books Appendix E.

3 OrganizationsSourcesIndexPREFACE TO THE THIRDEDITION At a meeting of the Direct Marketing Clubof New York held a few years afterpublication of the first edition of TheCopywriter s Handbook , the clubawarded a certificate to me declaring thebook to be a mini-classic of directmarketing. I don t claim that this book is a classic,but over the years I have had hundreds ofbusinesspeople from entrepreneurs andFortune 500 executives, to novicecopywriters and some of the world s topdirect-marketing pros tell me they readand were influenced by the when my publisher, Henry Holt,asked me to prepare a revised thirdedition, I was conflicted: I d alreadymessed once with a classic. But at thesame time, there were new techniques Iwanted to add. And of course, the firsttwo editions, published in 1985 and 1990,respectively, had nothing in them about theInternet and the Web has here s the approach I took topreparing the updated new edition:1.

4 In those chapters containingcopywriting techniques that have, for themost part, withstood the test of time, I keptrevisions to a minimum deleting someextraneous text, cleaning up language,updating old Where appropriate, I ve selectivelyand judiciously added important newcopywriting techniques. Example: the 4U s for writing headlines in chapter I ve added two new chapters tocover electronic marketing: chapter 11 onwriting Web site copy and chapter 12 one-mail that s it. So if you ve read or ownthe first or second edition, you know whatto expect. And if you haven t welcomet o The Copywriter s Handbook . Fordecades, thousands of copywriters andother marketing professionals have reliedon this book to help them produce morepowerful, compelling, and persuasivecopy. Now you can, TO THE FIRSTEDITION This is a book for everyone who writes,edits, or approves copy ad agencycopywriters, freelancers, ad managers,account executives, creative directors,publicists, entrepreneurs, sales andmarketing managers, product and brandmanagers, Internet marketers, marcomprofessionals, and business owners.

5 It islargely a book of rules, tips, techniques,and big agency copywriters andcreative directors will tell you thatadvertising writers don t follow rules, andthat great advertising breaks the so. But before you can break therules, you have to know the book is written to give youguidelines and advice that can teach you towrite effective copy that is, copy thatgets attention, gets its message across, andconvinces the customer to buy the will learn all the basics theyneed to know: what copy is, what it cando, how to write copy that gets people who have been in thebusiness a few years, The Copywriter sHandbook will serve as a welcomerefresher in writing clear, simple, directcopy. And, the book contains some newideas, examples, and observations that canhelp these folks increase the selling powerof their copy. Even old pros will getsome new ideas or some old ideas thatthey can use profitably for their approach is to teach throughexample.

6 Numerous case histories andsample ads, commercials, mailers, andbrochures illustrate the principles ofeffective copy. Guidelines are presentedas short, easy-to-digest rules and the copywriters who don tknow the rules do produce greatadvertising one time out of onethousand. But the rest of the time theycreate weak, ineffectual ads ads thatlook pretty and read pretty but don t sellthe product. (And the reason they producebad ads is that they don t know whatmakes for a good ad!)If you master the basics presented inthis book, I can t guarantee that you ll goon to write great advertising or winprestigious advertising awards. But I canbe fairly certain that you ll be writinggood, clean, crisp, hardworking copy copy that gives your customers reasons todig into their wallets and buy your product.. and not someone else s!As you read The Copywriter sHandbook, you ll discover what you vesuspected all along that copywritersaren t literary people or creative are salespeople whose job isto convince people to buy don t be disappointed.

7 When youbegin to write copy that sells, you lldiscover, as I have, that writing wordsthat persuade can be just as challenging and exciting as writing a poem,magazine article, or short story. And itpays a lot better, do have one favor to ask: if you have acopywriting technique that has workedparticularly well for you, why not send itto me so I can share it with readers of thenext edition? You will receive full credit,of course. I can be reached at:Robert W. BlyCopywriter22 E. Quackenbush AvenueDumont, NJ 07628 Phone: 201-385-1220 Fax: 201-385-1138E-mail: site: I d like to thank the following people andcompanies for contributing samples oftheir work for publication in this book:Jim Alexander, Alexander MarketingLen Kirsch, Kirsch CommunicationsWally Shubat, Chuck Blore & DonRichman IncorporatedBrian Cohen, Technology SolutionsLen Stein, Visibility PRSig RosenblumRichard ArmstrongHerschell Gordon LewisJohn Tierney, The DOCSI CorporationSandra Biermann, Masonry Institute ofSt.

8 LouisI d also like to thank my editors,Cynthia Vartan and Flora Esterly, for theirpatient and dedicated work on thisproject; my agent, Dominick Abel, for hisusual fine job in finding a home for thebook; and Kim Stacey, for her valuableeditorial AN INTRODUCTION TOCOPYWRITING A copywriter is a salesperson behind atypewriter. *That quote comes from Judith Charles,president of her own retail advertisingagency, Judith K. Charles CreativeCommunication. And it s the bestdefinition of the word copywriter I veever biggest mistake you can make as acopywriter is to judge advertising aslaypeople judge it. If you do, you ll end upas an artist or an entertainer but not as asalesperson. And your copy will bewasting your client s time and me explain a bit. When ordinaryfolks talk about advertising, they talkabout the ads or commercials that are thefunniest, the most entertaining, or the mostunusual or provocative.

9 Geicocommercials with the talking lizard,Budweiser s real men of genius radiospots, and the annual creative TVcommercial extravaganza broadcastduring the Super Bowl are the ads peoplepoint to and say, I really like that! But the goal of advertising is not to beliked, to entertain, or to win advertisingawards; it is to sell products. Theadvertiser, if he is smart, doesn t carewhether people like his commercials orare entertained or amused by them. If theyare, fine. But commercials are a means toan end, and the end is increased sales and profits for the is a simple and obvious thing, butthe majority of copywriters andadvertising professionals seem to ignoreit. They produce artful ads, stunninglybeautiful catalogs, and commercialswhose artistic quality rivals the finestfeature films. But they sometimes losesight of their goals more sales and thefact that they are salespeople behindtypewriters, and not literary artists,entertainers, or artistic in nature, advertisingwriters naturally like ads that areaesthetically pleasing, as do advertisingartists.

10 But just because an ad is pretty andpleasant to read doesn t necessarily meanit is persuading people to buy the cheaply produced ads, writtensimply and directly without a lot of fluff,do the best job of m not saying that all your ads shouldbe schlock or that schlock always sellsbest. I am saying that the look, tone, andimage of your advertising should bedictated by the product and your prospects and not by what is fashionable in theadvertising business at the time, or isaesthetically pleasing to artistic peoplewho deliberately shun selling as if it werean unwholesome chore to be avoided atall a column in Direct Marketingmagazine, freelance copywriter LutherBrock gave an instructive example ofcreativity versus salesmanship inadvertising. Brock tells of a printing firmthat spent a lot of money to produce afancy direct-mail piece. The mailingfeatured an elaborate, four-color, glossybrochure with a pop-up of a printingpress.