The Power of Prose

Whatever media outlet you frequent, it's likely filled with relentless prognostications of doom and gloom. High gas prices…home mortgage foreclosures…I could go on and on.

As reported here last issue (“On the Rebound,” August), marketers must focus on DM basics and employ emotional appeals if they want to succeed in a tough climate. But there's another fundamental you can't forget: copy.

When crafting mailing pieces, print ads or Web banners, you have to focus on the specific words you choose to get your readers involved. This will stimulate them to overcome reluctance — and respond the way you want them to.

POSITION IT RIGHT

• A rose, with a different offer positioning, would smell even sweeter

  With apologies to Shakespeare, let's remember that offer positioning is responsible for at least 30% to 40% of any direct program's success. You can't afford to be lazy. You can't get away with doing the obvious thing simply because it's what you've always done or because it worked in the past. “Thinking outside the box” is a cliché, but that's what you have to do when positioning — or repositioning — offers in difficult economic times.

  For example, look at what the car companies have been up to recently. With dealer lots full of gas guzzlers and no expectation that the unprecedented oil prices will go down anytime soon, the tried-and-true “rebate” approach to traffic generation has lost much of its pulling power.

  So how to move the unmovable? Instead of offering, say, $2,500 back at the time of purchase, why not capitalize on the current consumer mindset with this: Guaranteed $2.99 gas for three years! The buyer saves about as much as with a traditional rebate but the perception is entirely different. And you can bet the response will be, too.

  Granted, the automobile business is in a bad way even by comparison with the rest of the economy, and drastic marketing innovation is needed. But anyone selling anything these days had better be prepared to look at alternative offer positioning — even when an item is considerably more mundane than a shiny new car.

  Then consider the humble magazine subscription. Let's say a publisher is faced with stagnating sales and needs to generate new subscriptions immediately. The magazine normally offers 12 issues for $48. To juice subscription sales, the marketing team decides to run a promotion offering 12 issues for $24 — a hefty 50% savings.

  CHOOSE YOUR WORDS CAREFULLY

  Would you believe there are at least six different ways to position that offer? Which of these options would most likely prompt you to subscribe?

• Present the savings as a percentage

  Get 50% off now, when you buy a one-year subscription.

• Present the savings in monetary terms

  Save $24! Buy The Kern Monthly at half the price of a full year's subscription.

• Present the value over time

  Save $2 a month — a total savings of $24 — when you subscribe today.

• Present the quantity of savings

  Get six issues FREE of The Kern Monthly… or Get 12 issues for the price of six.

• Present the minimal cost over time

  Get 12 issues of The Kern Monthly for less than 7 cents a day… or Get 12 issues for just $2 a month.

• Present the new cost per unit

  Now just $2 an issue (regularly $4).

Most readers probably will have to remind themselves the savings are exactly the same in all six. All of which supports the theory of copywriting guru Herschell Gordon Lewis, who notes that good salesmanship is a combination of communication and psychology. The action we take as consumers is a psychological reaction to what the copy is telling us to do. No logic involved. Well, not much, anyway.

One of Lewis' favorite rules to write copy by is the “generic determination rule,” which maintains people react more to the generic form of something than they do to its numeric form. Which is why one month (generic) seems longer to folks than 30 days (numeric). Half an hour seems longer than 30 minutes. One pound seems heavier than 16 ounces. Conversely, 60 minutes seems like less time to wait around than one hour. And 4 ounces of food seems like a smaller portion than a quarter pound of the same serving.

This means if you want to position an offer as delivering something that's comparatively less or shorter, you'd be wise to express it in its numeric form. (Example: In just 60 minutes, you'll have all the answers you need.) If, on the other hand, you want to present an offer as delivering something more or longer, you'll want to couch it in generic terms. (Example: We'll spend an hour together reviewing your issues.)

Nowhere is this dichotomy brought into sharper relief, as it were, than in the promotion of pain medication. Consider the following choices:

• Get fast headache relief in just 1 minute! vs. Get fast relief in just 60 seconds! Doesn't 60 seconds sound much faster then a minute?

• 24 hours of pain relief vs. Relief from pain all day long. While 24 hours sounds plenty long, “all day” is the relief I'm reaching for.

• In just under an hour you could be skiing! vs. In less than 60 minutes you could be on the slopes! OK, these offers are more about stress relief than pain relief — but if you tell skiers they could be on a chair lift in less than 60 minutes, you've definitely got their attention.

“Apt words,” wrote the poet John Milton, “have the power to suage the tumors of a troubled mind.” They didn't call 'em recessions in Milton's day, but hard economic times troubled the minds of consumers in the 17th century just as they do today. “Apt words” are what the direct marketing writer uses to offer hope, delight, praise, joy, relief, safety, wealth and warmth — easing today's troubled minds and motivating even the most reluctant consumers to take us up on our offers.

The challenge is to do it quickly. Very quickly.