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What Novelists Know about Storytelling that (Most)
Copywriters Don’t!
By Richard Armstrong
© Richard Armstrong, 2018
EMAIL: [email protected]
WEB: www.freesamplebook.com
BOOK: www.thedoncon.com IMPORTANT: Please be advised that this booklet contains general advice about the use of storytelling in writing advertising copy. Remember, you are always responsible for the accuracy and truthfulness of any claim you make or story you tell in copywriting. If you are in any doubt, check with your attorney.
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FIRST, A CONFESSION
I’m actually embarrassed to tell you how long it took me to realize how
important storytelling is to marketing and copywriting. I was at least twelve years
into my career as a copywriter and eight years into freelancing before I stumbled
upon a fact that most of us nowadays simply take for granted.
In my defense, you have to remember that times were different back then. I
got my first job as a direct-‐mail copywriter in 1976 and I went freelance in 1980, so
we’re talking about forty years ago—nearly a half century. At that time, we had a
very different idea about what was effective in writing copy and what was working
in the mail. Although storytelling had been around for at least a hundred years as a
copywriting technique, back then we direct-‐mail copywriters were all in love with
computer personalization!
At the time we were just learning how to use computers in direct mail. And
we were like kids with a new toy. We couldn’t stop playing with it. So we’d write
letters that went something like this:
Dear Mr. ARMSTRONG,
I have some good news for you, Mr. ARMSTRONG and the entire
ARMSTRONG family living in the lovely ARMSTRONG home located at 2500
Wisconsin Avenue, NW in Washington, DC.
Pretty silly, right? But you know what? Those letters actually worked!
Because computer personalization was new to our customers, too. And when they
got a letter like this in the mail, they said to themselves, “Gee, this isn’t a typical form
letter, this letter was written just for ME!”
The overuse of computer personalization occasionally led to some stupid
mistakes. I remember one letter I got from Smithsonian magazine that went
something like this:
Dear Mr. ARMSTRONG,
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Now, at last, you and the entire ARMSTRONG family can enjoy all the
treasures of the Smithsonian Institution without ever leaving WASHINGTON,
DC.
Ooops. Last time I checked, the Smithsonian Institution was actually in
Washington, DC! At any rate, these were the kind of letters we were writing when I
broke into the business in 1976. Of course, I had read a number of books about
copywriting—particularly older books written by people like John Caples, Victor
Schwab, and Maxwell Sackheim. I was well aware of storytelling as a copywriting
technique. But like most of my contemporaries I thought that kind of copy was
hopelessly old-‐fashioned and obsolete. I’m thinking of such classic ads from the
1930’s and 1940s as:
They laughed when I sat down at the piano— but when I started to play!
Again, she orders “A chicken salad, please”
“Last Friday ... was I scared!—My boss almost fired me!”
In fact, if you’ll take a look at the classic book on copywriting by Victor
Schwab, How to Write a Good Advertisement, you’ll notice that at least 25 of his “100
Greatest Headlines” use storytelling leads. You’d think I might’ve been smart
enough to try this technique myself, wouldn’t you? But I wasn’t. Instead, I kept
plowing along with copy that said, “Dear Mr. Smith: Are you completely satisfied
with the Smith family toilet in the lovely Smith family home located at 110 Main
Street in Terre Haute, Indiana?”
But one day in 1988, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I got a client who had a
great story to tell and I simply couldn’t think of a better way to start the letter than
just by telling their story. It was a fundraising letter about sea turtles. Specifically,
the organization was concerned with how beachfront lighting was distracting
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newly-‐hatched sea turtles and causing them to wander away from the ocean and die.
The story was dramatic. It was powerful. It was easy to understand. So I simply sat
down at my typewriter and told as simply and straightforwardly as I could. And
here’s what I came up with:
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When we mailed that letter, the strangest thing happened:
It worked!
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It worked like gangbusters. Not only did it make a lot of money and make me
a hero with the client, but it also won “Best in Show” at the Caples Awards, plus a lot
of other awards. It even snagged me a feature-‐length profile in Advertising Age
magazine where I was described as the hottest young direct-‐response copywriter in
America.
So the next day I sat down and wrote a letter that went like this:
Dear Mr. Jones,
I have some wonderful news for you, Mr. Jones, and the entire Jones
family living in the beautiful Jones family home on 110 Main Street in Gary,
Indiana.
That’s right. I’m a slow learner. I thought the sea turtle letter was the
exception that proved the rule. The client had dropped a wonderful story in my lap,
so I told it. It didn’t even occur to me that this technique could be used more than
once. Again, in my defense, I must remind you that storytelling had fallen out of
favor at the time. The greatest copywriters back then were not using stories for the
most part. Gene Schwartz was writing headlines like “Rub Your Stomach Away!”
Gary Bencivenga was writing “The Little Black Book of Secrets!” Bill Jayme was
writing “Do you close the bathroom door when you’re home alone?” The folks at
Boardroom were having great success with an envelope that said, “What Never to
Eat on an Airplane.” Storytelling leads like “They Laughed When I Sat Down at the
Piano” were considered old-‐fashioned, too slow, and not particularly effective
anymore.
WRONG!
As the years went by, I would occasionally try another storytelling lead from
time to time, and guess what? They worked every time! Eventually, I said to myself,
“Either this technique works really well, or I happen to very good at it—or both—
but I think it would be a good idea for me to use it more often.”
So I stopped treating storytelling as a last resort and started using it as a first
resort. Nowadays, in other words, it’s the first approach I take rather than the last.
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When I review a client’s research and background material, I’m always looking for
the story I can tell. It has become my way into the project. And in all humility, I
think I have some natural talent for it.
In fact, I believe I’m the only A-‐List copywriter who has two published novels
to his credit. Now you could argue that I’m not an A-‐List copywriter. In fact, I might
agree with you. (I consider myself the king of the B-‐List.) But I have written
controls for virtually every major direct-‐response client in America over the past
forty years, including Boardroom, Agora, Weiss, Kiplinger’s, Reader’s Digest, and,
most prominently, Rodale (Prevention)—which was the white-‐hot center of the
direct-‐response creative world in the 1990s, Rodale was where Bencivenga,
Schwartz, and Jim Punkre did most of their greatest work. I didn’t beat those guys
very often, but I was a contender.
Meanwhile, both of my novels—God Doesn’t Shoot Craps and The Don Con—
were conventionally published. By that I mean I didn’t publish them myself. I chose
the traditional route of finding a literary agent, getting rejected, finding another
literary agent, getting more rejections, and eventually finding the one editor in a
thousand who was willing to take a chance on an unknown, inexperienced, and only
modestly talented novelist. Getting a novel accepted by a legitimate publisher is like
climbing Mount Everest in your bare feet without oxygen.
And I did it. Twice.
I say that not to brag, but simply to make the point that I am one of the few
direct-‐response copywriters in America who understands storytelling from both the
copywriter’s and the novelist’s point of view. I believe there’s a lot that novelists
can learn from copywriters ... and also a lot that copywriters can learn from
novelists. That’s what this booklet is about!
The Greatest Storytelling Copywriter in America
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Okay, having done my share of bragging, let me—as Richard Nixon used to
say—make one thing perfectly clear: I am not the greatest storytelling copywriter in
America. I believe that title belongs to a copywriter by the name of Josh Manheimer.
You may not recognize that name. He keeps a somewhat low profile
compared to most of the raging egotists in this business (including myself). He
doesn’t write many articles. He doesn’t give many speeches at copywriting
seminars. But he does have a website: www.directmailcopy.com and he recently
launched an e-‐zine. If you look at his website you’ll see that his track record—
especially with consumer magazines, which are his specialty—is almost
unparalleled in the recent history of direct marketing.
This guy doesn’t just beat controls, he bludgeons them to death with 100%,
200%, even 300% victories. More to the point, his most successful packages almost
always use a storytelling lead. (Not all of them, but the majority.) There is, quite
frankly, nobody in the world who’s better at it. I’ll be using some of Josh’s work as
examples, in addition to my own, to make various important points in this booklet.
Well, enough about Josh (for now). As Gary Halbert used to say…
“Onward!”
Are You Thinking with Your Johnson Box?
Speaking of Gary Halbert, Josh and I weren’t the only ones who continued to
use storytelling leads throughout the seventies, eighties, and nineties when they
were out of favor. Halbert was great at it. The entire Agora Empire was launched
when Bill Bonner used a story lead for his first “International Living” letter. Some of
the freelance copywriters who were old-‐timers when I was first getting started like
Tom Collins, Hal Walsh, Hank Burnett, and others kept telling stories in their copy.
But one of the very best storytellers of that era was a copywriter by the name of
Frank Johnson.
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Now there’s a name you probably do know, although you probably only know
his last name. Because Frank Johnson was the guy who invented the “Johnson Box.”
Here’s what a Johnson Box looks like:
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Frank Johnson, by the way, was a modest guy who always said he didn’t
really invent the Johnson Box and didn’t know who did. But it got named after him
anyway because he used it so often. Why?
Because he loved to tell stories, that’s why!
One of the reasons storytelling fell out of favor in the seventies is because
there was a widespread (and fallacious) belief that consumers would no longer sit
still for a long story like they might’ve done 30 years earlier.
“This is the age of television and computers!” they said. “People don’t have
time to read stories anymore.”
The irony is that if you go back and look at the trade press in the early 20th
Century, the so-‐called experts at the time were saying the exact same thing. They’d
say, “This is 1917, for heaven’s sake! People nowadays are busy. They don’t have
time to read long copy anymore!”
And what has happened over the last 100 years?
Sales copy has continued to get longer, and longer, and LONGER! I remember
when my boss used to warn me never to use more than one side of one sheet of
paper. Nowadays, my typical sales promotion runs at least 50 pages long.
Frank Johnson loved to tell those long, slowly developing stories in his sales
copy. But he realized that if he did that, he was pushing some important stuff back
to page two—or even further. The product. The offer. The price. The premium.
The guarantee. And so on.
So he came up with the idea—or he borrowed the idea—of putting all this
stuff upfront in a box surrounded by asterisks. Take another look at the sample
printed here. (Johnson didn’t write this letter, by the way, but it’s a good example of
how to use a Johnson Box.)
The copywriter here wants to start his copy with a story (“I was having lunch
the other day with some friends...”). But he realizes that if he takes that approach
he’s going to have a problem. If you take a page or even two pages to tell your story,
you’re going to leave the reader wondering, “What the hell is this all about?” And
that’s not good. You’re burying the benefits, the product, the offer deep into the
copy, and some readers may not make the effort to get that far. So he uses a Johnson
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Box to immediately tell the reader about the product, offer, and guarantee. Then
after the salutation he launches into his story.
Are you a “natural” storyteller?
Like Frank Johnson and Josh Manheimer, there are some copywriters who
are just natural storytellers. They’re good at it. They know they’re good at it. So
they work to their own strengths and use this technique over and over again. But
there are others who don’t have that natural talent, so they rarely use it.
Nevertheless, I strongly believe storytelling is a learnable skill. I also believe
every copywriter should have this particular arrow in his quiver. Because there are
going to be times when a great product story lands in your lap, and you’d be guilty of
professional malpractice if you didn’t use it!
Moreover, I believe storytelling is going to become more important in the
years ahead. We’re already seeing Video Sales Letters (VSL’s) become less like
direct-‐mail letters and more like short films. Which means the job of a copywriter is
getting less like a salesman and more like that of a Hollywood screenwriter. In the
years ahead, as we move into virtual reality sales letters ... augmented reality sales
letters ... and video-‐game sales letters, copywriters who can’t tell stories are going to
be left behind by those who can.
Which leads me to an important question:
Why do stories work so well in sales copy?
9 Reasons Why Stories Sell
We do a lot of things in direct-‐response copywriting because we know they
work—even if we don’t always know exactly why they work. For example, nearly
every magazine subscription promotion for many years contained a YES/NO sticker.
Why? Because they worked. Why did they work? We had some theories, but
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nobody knew for sure. The only thing we knew for sure is they increased response
rates. So we kept using them.
Nevertheless, I believe it’s useful to expend some time and some brain cells
trying to figure out why things work. Because if you do that, you can take
meaningful steps to making them work better. So why do stories work in
copywriting? Here are 9 reasons:
First, stories are hard-‐wired into our DNA
You’ve heard this point made many times so I won’t belabor it. Suffice it to
say we are a storytelling species. You can imagine some prehistoric caveman sitting
around the campfire with his tribe and telling them the story of how he killed a
mastodon down by the river. By doing that, other people in the tribe learned where
to find mastodons and how to kill them. Gradually, the tribe gets better and better
at hunting mastodons because of what they learn from each other through
storytelling.
So from an evolutionary standpoint, good hunters will pass on their genes to
the next generation. But here’s the interesting point. So will good storytellers!
Even more significantly, so will people who are good at listening to stories and
learning from them.
Other animals communicate, too, of course. Some of them, like dolphins and
chimpanzees, are quite skilled at communication. They can identify specific dangers
and warn others about them. Even bumblebees can communicate the location of
flowers to other bumblebees. But human beings are the only ones who can
communicate about things that are not real and not present. Which means that
humans are the only ones who can communicate goals and aspirations. That’s
where storytelling intersects with copywriting.
Second, stories are memorable
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My wife thinks I’m slowly losing my memory. Which is not true, by the way.
The truth is that I’m losing it rather quickly. So she gives me a lot of impromptu
memory tests to try to be helpful—NOT!
One of the things she does is that when we drive home from church, she
always asks me which parts of the sermon I found most interesting. Inevitably, I
can’t remember a single word of it—except for the stories.
I’ll say, “Well, I liked the story about when he was in seminary school. And I
liked the story about his granddaughter. And I like the story about how he first met
his wife. That’s all I can remember.” It was a 20-‐minute sermon and all I can
remember is three short personal stories. So if I were a pastor, here’s how I’d write
a sermon:
I’d decide on ONE MAJOR POINT that I wanted to get across. Then I’d tell
about five or six stories to illustrate it. One from the Bible. One from my own
personal experience. One from history, or literature, or movies and television. One
from the current news. And one with a funny or ironic ending. Then I’d sit down.
That’s not a bad formula for copywriters either. I have a copywriter friend
who says he uses the “ABS” formula, i.e. “Always Be Storytelling!”
Third, stories make sales points without “selling”
It’s an ironic aspect of human nature that we LOVE to buy stuff, but we HATE
to be “sold” on something. Which is why a bad salesman can actually take a person
who’s eager to buy a product and talk him out of it!
Have you ever gone to a car dealership to test-‐drive a car you really wanted
to buy, but the salesman was so aggressive and obnoxious you decided to walk out?
Well, that happens in copywriting, too.
Now, to be fair, I’ve known a few copywriters over the years who were so
good at hammering benefits that they could get away with it. One guy I know in
particular practically pummels his customers with benefits. You’re going to get
THIS, then you’re going to get THAT, then I’m going to give you THIS, then I’m going
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to give you THAT, etc. etc. Customers don’t respond to his copy as much as they
surrender to it. But this kind of copy doesn’t work as well nowadays as it used to.
These days you can be much more successful if you take a more subtle approach.
I’ve always believed that the best copy makes the reader think it was entirely
HIS idea to buy the product. When the reader clicks on that order button, I want to
him to think, “Gee, it’s a helluva coincidence I got this email today because I’ve been
looking to buy something exactly like this”—even though he may have had no idea
something like this even existed! I want him to think that buying my product was
entirely his idea and his decision. I don’t want him to think that I “sold” him on it or,
even worse, that I persuaded him to buy it.
And guess what? Storytelling helps you do that so much better than
browbeating the customer with benefits.
Fourth, stories capture and hold attention
I’m sure you know that long copy generally works better than short copy.
But the problem with writing long copy is that your reader’s attention has a
tendency to wander. If it wanders too much, you’ll lose him. But telling a story
helps to hold his attention. Because people always want to know “what happens
next”—that’s the essence of suspense.
In fact, you can literally say something in your copy like, “I’ll tell you what
happened next in a moment, but first let me tell you a little about...” They’ll bear
with you for a page or so while you talk about product features or benefits or
whatever you need to say to make the sale.
Or you can do the reverse. You can write a letter that focuses on features and
benefits ... but breaks it up now and then with brief stories.
In a recent Video Sales Letter for a financial newsletter, for example, I broke
up a long section about deflation with a little personal story that went like this:
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Speaking of deflation, I was on an airplane the other day and I sat next
to a dairy farmer from Minnesota.
He said milk prices have fallen so low he’s now milking his cows 3 times
a day just to break even.
I said, “I didn’t even know you could milk a cow three times a day.”
“You can milk them four times a day,” he said. “But when am I supposed
to sleep? And if I produce that much milk, the prices will go down even
further.”
It’s a classic deflationary spiral—the first sign of a coming Depression.
That’s a true story, by the way. And it’s a perfect example of using a story
about real people and real problems to break up a promotion that’s mostly about
numbers, charts, diagrams, and financial projections.
Fifth, stories stimulate emotions
Again, this point is so obvious I won’t belabor it. You already know that
people buy because of emotions and justify their purchase with logic. That’s a basic
tenet of copywriting. The problem most copywriters have—especially less
experienced copywriters—is that they try too hard to MANUFACTURE emotions
with a lot of sturm und drang, angry words, screaming and yelling ... which often falls
flat on the reader for the simple reason that he is not actually feeling that emotion
himself. This kind of copy is like running into a crazy person on the street. You can
tell he’s worked up about something. But you have no idea what. It certainly
doesn’t involve you, and your first instinct is simply to run away from him.
But by telling a story that triggers the emotion you want in the reader—
whether that emotion is anger, fear, pity, etc.—you are now in a position to leverage
the reader’s emotion into a sale.
Sixth, stories “show” rather than “tell”
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This is the advice that is so often given to budding novelists! Inexperienced
novelists (or untalented ones) have a tendency to explain what’s going on instead of
simply showing it. They might say, “Joey got really angry with Mary” when they
should say, “Joey turned his back on Mary, threw his cigarette on the sidewalk, and
ground it out with his shoe.”
That’s a pretty lame example, but I’m sure you know what I mean. It’s not
hard to do, by the way, but as a novelist you have to keep reminding yourself to do
it. When people read a novel, they see a little “movie” in their minds and you have to
keep thinking in terms of pictures and actions instead of mere words. The same is
true in copywriting, only more so.
Demonstration is one of your most powerful tools as a copywriter. That’s
why television is such a powerful advertising medium. That’s why Ron Popeil is a
multi-‐millionaire. Even if you’re working only with ink and paper, you still have to
demonstrate rather than explain. And telling stories helps you do that.
Seventh, stories help make points that are difficult to explain or hard to grasp
There are some points that are just hard to get across without using a story.
For example, you’ve probably heard the marketing truism that people will do more
to protect something they already have than to gain a benefit they don’t have.
I always struggled with this idea. I never quite understood it, so I didn’t
believe it to be true. As a result, I lost many opportunities to make use of this
strategy in my own copywriting.
But when I attended the famous “Bencivenga 100” seminar, Gary told a story
that drove this point home for me once and for all. It was an apocryphal story, but it
doesn’t matter.
A guy named Joe hears his phone ring in the middle of the night. When he
answers it, his next-‐door neighbor is on the line.
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“Hey, Joe, I just wanted you to know that Sears is having a midnight tire sale
and you can get four Michelin radial tires for just $100 if you go down there right
now.”
Joe says, “Are you nuts? It’s three o’clock in the morning. I’m not going
shopping for tires in the middle of the night.”
So he slams down the phone and goes back to bed.
A few minutes later his other next-‐door neighbor calls and says, “Hey, Joe, I
just thought you should know. Two guys have got your Cadillac up on blocks in your
driveway and they’re stealing all four of your tires.”
All of a sudden, Joe is interested in tires!
He grabs his shotgun, runs downstairs half-‐naked, and is prepared to protect
his tires—with his life, if necessary.
When I heard Gary Bencivenga tell that story, I went, “Okay, now I get it!
People will, in fact, do more to protect what they have today than to gain something
promised to them in the future.”
Sometimes stories are the only way to drive a subtle point like that home.
Eighth, stories make great leads
We copywriters are always agonizing about our leads. I’ve heard
copywriters talk about spending a whole day, or a whole month, trying to write the
first line of their copy. But when you write a story, writing the lead suddenly
becomes easy!
You can jump right into the story if you want to (and we’re going to be
talking about that technique in a moment), but it also can work well if you set your
story up with a simple line like this:
Dear Reader,
Let me tell you a story.
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That’s it! That’s all you need. And, believe me, you’ve got the reader hooked.
Nobody ever read that sentence without going on to read the next one. And that’s
the goal, isn’t it? That’s why it’s probably the single most effective lead line ever
written, and you can use it to your heart’s content without ever being accused of
plagiarism. But you can do some intriguing variations on it, too.
Back when I was just started my career, there was a great copywriter by the
name of Harry Walsh who was nearing retirement. We both lived in New York, and I
met him on one or two occasions. Harry was a terrific storytelling copywriter. And
he came up with an introductory line for a story that was a real classic. It was so
good, in fact, I think he used it more than once.
Dear Reader, A friend of mine once told me a curious story I would like to share with you.
Intriguing, right? What it makes it so compelling, I think, is the word
“curious.” That’s a word everyone knows, of course, but it’s kind of strange to see it
in this context, isn’t it? It conjures up images of “curiosities” and “curios”—kind of
like the old Ripley’s Believe It or Not! column that used to run in the funny papers.
It’s even reminiscent of the word “curiosa,” which is an old-‐fashioned word for
pornography. I believe “curious” is a word we should use more often in
copywriting (perhaps we should give the word “secret” a bit of a rest).
The second thing that makes this line intriguing is the fact that it comes from
a third person. In a moment, I’m going to be talking to you about the power of
writing stories in the first-‐person voice. If you look carefully, you’ll notice this copy
is written in the first-‐person voice. But there’s a mysterious third person mentioned
as the one who told the story to he writer. This kind of reminds me of the opening
of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” which is one of the most intriguing narrative
leads of all time:
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It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. 'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
Finally, there’s the phrase “I would like to share with you.” It sort of implies,
does it not, that what you’re about to hear is confidential and for your ears only. All
in all, it’s just 17 words that creates a compelling aura of mystery and intrigue that
will make it virtually impossible for the reader to ignore. Can you use these exact
words in your own sales letter? Why the hell not! You can’t copyright 17 words. But
it would be even better if you came up with a variation of your own.
Here’s a variation I came up with what I was given the assignment of writing
a travel insurance policy we were offering to members of the American Legion in an
affinity group mailing:
Dear Fellow Legionnaire, Some guy sat down next to me at the Legion Hall bar the other night, ordered a beer, and started to tell me one of the strangest and scariest stories I’ve ever heard in my life. Tall tale? You decide.
Don’t you want to hear that story? Even if it turns out to be a “tall tale.”
Pretty hard to resist, if you ask me. And, in fact, this letter remained the control for
this client for many years.
Finally, stories add perceived value
Clayton Makepeace likes to tell a story about the time he got a job with a
collectible coin company that specialized in selling silver dollars. (Clayton tells the
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story better than I do, but I’m sure he’ll forgive me if I have some of the details
wrong.) Until Clayton arrived, the company was very straightforward about how
they marketed their coins. They’d write copy that said the silver dollar was this old,
and it was in this condition, and it contained this much actual silver, and so forth.
When Clayton showed up he said to hell with that. Let’s romance it a little bit.
So he wrote copy that said something along these lines:
Just imagine, dear reader, where this silver dollar might’ve been after it was
minted a hundred years ago. It might’ve been in Doc Holiday’s pocket during the
shootout at the O.K. Corral. It might’ve been on the poker table when Wild Bill
Hickok was shot in the head for cheating at cards. Maybe Mark Twain used this
silver dollar to buy a beer when his riverboat docked in New Orleans after a long
trip down the Mississippi. Etc. etc.
Do I need to tell you that the sales of these silver dollars went through the
roof?
Why?
Because telling a story about the product—even if it’s obviously an imaginary
story like this one—adds perceived value to the product itself. Nobody in their right
mind would pay more than a few hundred bucks for a used 1975 Cadillac Coupe de
Ville, for example. But if the Cadillac used to be owned by Frank Sinatra, it might be
worth $500,000 to the right buyer. Nothing changed about the Cadillac; all that
changed was the story.
This was the strategy that made the J. Peterman catalog so successful for all
those years. J. Peterman’s copywriters were instructed to tell stories about the
products for sale in the catalog. For the most part these stories were completely
fictional. But they were safe from a legal standpoint because they were never
offered as factual claims. (In other words, they didn’t say the material of a jacket
was hand-‐sewn in a small town in Texas when it really came from a plant in China.)
Instead they talked about a fictional character who wore the jacket and what kind of
a fascinating person he was. Here’s what John Peterman himself told the Harvard
Business Review about his most famous product, the product that launched the
whole business, the “Duster” coat:
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I can sum up the concept of the business in six words: “unique,” “authentic,” “romantic,” “journey,” “wondrous,” and “excellent.” The items we sold—the ones that were most successful—were all of those things. The duster, for example. It would definitely have been unusual on the Upper East Side. At the same time, though, it wasn’t contrived; it certainly wouldn’t have been unusual on a ranch. It evoked a sense of romance; cowboys are romantic figures. Worn outside the context of a ranch, it implied that the wearer was on a journey, intellectually and emotionally. With that implication came a certain sense of wonder.1
Here’s a typical J. Peterman catalogue entry using his classic storytelling
technique to sell a rather ordinary pleated woman’s jacket:
She’s flown in a hot air balloon over the Grand Canyon.
Led a search for Bigfoot.
Camped out in the mountains of El Salvador.
A party isn’t a party unless she’s on the list.
Told Oprah, not this month.
She’s…
Well, the truth is, I spotted this unusually interesting jacket on
a woman walking through the lobby of “the” hotel in New York City.
And just imagined the rest.
(It was that interesting.)
Built-‐in cache´.
A good thing to have going for you. Curved Placked Jacket.
After much searching, I tracked it down in Paris, at one of those
exclusive shops that Homeland Security is studying as a model.
1 “The Rise and Fall of the J. Peterman Company”; Harvard Business Review, September/October, 1999: https://hbr.org/1999/09/the-‐rise-‐and-‐fall-‐of-‐the-‐j-‐peterman-‐company
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Eventually the copywriter gets down to talking about the features of the
jacket itself. But after this story, they’re almost irrelevant. The story is what gives
the jacket value. What’s also unusual about this story is that it’s not really about the
strange woman in the hotel, it’s about the woman reading the copy! That’s why so
many of J. Peterman’s catalogue entries were actually written in the second-‐person
voice.
Nine Tips on Writing Better Stories
Okay, now that we know why stories work in copywriting (or at least we
have some reasonable theories), we’re now in a position to figure out how to make
them work better. Here are nine important points to keep in mind when using a
story in your sales promotion.
First, start in the middle
In his book The Poetics, Aristotle was the first person to dissect and analyze
the basic underlying structure of a successful story. One of his first discoveries was
that stories work better if you begin them in media res—in the middle of the action.
I realize I just suggested you start with “Let me tell you story” or some
variation on that, but whenever possible it’s even better to just jump right into the
middle of things. If you choose to jump right in, do NOT jump in the beginning. You
can do that in a novel if you want. (Although, frankly, I wouldn’t recommend it.) But
in copywriting, it’s much better—as they say in Hollywood—to “cut to the chase.”
Find the single most dramatic, action-‐packed, emotionally intense, conflict-‐filled
moment of your story ... and start there.
Here’s a great example of what I’m talking about from—guess who?—Josh
Manheimer. This sales promotion from Prevention Health Books (Rodale), which
came to be known as “The Trigger Package”—was one of the most successful
promotions they ever mailed. Here’s how it started:
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You’ll notice that Josh uses a Johnson Box to reveal the product (a book) and
the offer (21-‐day free trial), plus three quick benefits. But starting with the main
headline, he’s ready to begin his story. Notice how he jumps right into the action, in
media res. Aristotle would’ve loved it!
A lesser copywriter might’ve been tempted to set the stage a bit. “Dear
Reader: I was over at my neighbor’s house the other day. We were just sitting down
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to chat when all of a sudden something frightening happened. My friend started to
cough and choke. He was having an asthma attack ... etc.
That’s not bad. But the way Josh did it is so much better. Just jump right into
the deep part of the pool, whether you can swim or not. You’re in a life or death
situation from the get-‐go. The danger is real. The stakes are high. The reader is
fully engaged from the beginning.
Second, follow Aristotle’s storytelling “formula”
Here comes Aristotle to our rescue again. He worked out all the basic rules of
storytelling 2,600 hundred years ago, and yet still many novelists, screenwriters,
and, yes, copywriters have never bothered to learn them.
Your story must have a HERO, or what Aristotle called a “protagonist.”
The hero has something he WANTS, whether it’s a goal (like making enough
money to retire early) or the solution to a problem (like how to lower his
cholesterol without taking drugs).
There are ANTAGONISTS standing in his way. Those antagonists can take
the form of a conventional “villain” ... such as the con men on Wall Street or the
crooks who work for Big Pharma. Or they can simply be obstacles that are
preventing your hero from reaching his goal. They can even be interior obstacles in
your hero’s own mind. If your hero is somebody who wants to lose weight, for
example, the main obstacle might his own love of food, dislike of exercise, or lack of
self-‐discipline. Antagonists, in fact, can be a combination of both human villains
and psychological barriers. The important point is that there is something, or some
combination of things, standing in the way of your hero and his goal. This is the
essence of CONFLICT, a subject we’ll return to later.
Third, follow the “hero’s journey”
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If you’ve never read The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell or
read the excellent application of Campbell’s theories in The Writer’s Journey by
Christopher Vogler …
Then what I’m about to tell you will blow your mind.
If you are familiar with the concept of the hero’s journey, you probably have
a strong opinion about it. Either you are a true believer who thinks it’s the secret to
unlocking the structure of any story. Or you’re skeptical about the whole thing. You
may think it’s overused, formulaic, clichéd and has little or no application to your
own storytelling—especially if you’re a copywriter.
The truth is probably somewhere in between. But it’s hard to read any
gripping novel, watch any entertaining movie, or follow any suspenseful television
series without noticing the “hero’s journey” at work.
Basically what Joseph Campbell discovered by going back thousands of years
to analyze the myths, legends, folk tales, epic poems, plays and novels produced by
human beings over the centuries ... is that they all follow a surprisingly recognizable
formula.
To show you this formula, I’ll use one of the famous and beloved movies
Hollywood ever made, “The Wizard of Oz.” (For the basic structure of The Hero’s
Journey, I’m going to borrow the outline found on page 65 of Steven Pressfield’s
excellent book about writing, Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t.)
There are ten steps in the hero’s journey:
1) Hero starts the in ordinary world. Dorothy is happy on the farm, but she’s
yearning for something more. Something is missing in her life, something
she thinks she’ll find “somewhere over the rainbow.”
2) Hero receives the Call to Adventure. The tornado strikes. This is often
called “the inciting incident.”
3) Hero rejects the Call. Once in Munchkinland, Dorothy just wants to get back
to the farm in Kansas as quickly as she can. She’s not up for an adventure.
But she’s going to get one whether she wants it or not.
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4) Hero meets Mentor. Mentor gives hero courage to accept the Call. The
good witch Glinda tells Dorothy that she’ll find the way home if she simply
follows the yellow brick road.
5) Hero crosses the threshold into a special world. Dorothy embarks on the
yellow brick road ... and things start to get really weird really fast.
6) Hero encounters enemies and allies, undergoes an ordeal that will
serve as his (or her) initiation. Dorothy meets three allies (Strawman,
Tinman, and Lion), plus minor villains like the trees who throw apples at her,
and one major villain, the Wicked Witch of the West.
7) Hero confronts the villain and acquires the treasure. Dorothy kills the
Wicked Witch of the West and grabs her talisman, the broomstick, which the
Wizard has promised is her ticket back home. (I called the broomstick a
“talisman,” by the way, but novelists and screenwriters often refer to this
device as a MacGuffin. Don’t ask me why. Alfred Hitchcock came up with the
word. It’s usually a physical object that both the protagonist and the
antagonist want to get their hands on—not because of its intrinsic value, but
because it symbolizes their ultimate desire or goal. The Maltese Falcon, in
the movie of the same name, is a classic example of a MacGuffin.)
8) The road back. Hero tries to escape the special world trying to get
home. Dorothy thinks she’s home free now, but not quite. There are a few
more twists and turns ahead of her. Foremost among them, the Wizard
welshes on his deal with her.
9) Hero must fight/escape again. At first, the Wizard is unimpressed with the
broomstick and tells her to come back for more instructions tomorrow. She
gets angry (for the first time in the movie!) and exposes the Wizard as a
fraud. Chastened, he tells her he’s going to take her back to Kansas himself.
But he can’t control his hot-‐air balloon and it takes off without her. Now it
seems as if ALL IS LOST! But the good witch Glinda shows up and tells
Dorothy she’s always had the power to get back home. She just has to click
her heels and say “There’s no place like home.”
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10) Hero returns home, reintegrates into the ordinary world, but now as a
changed person, thanks to his ordeal and experiences on his journey.
Dorothy is happy to be back on the farm. But she’s not the same girl she was
before the tornado. She’s learned an important lesson, namely: “If I ever go
searching for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own
backyard. Because if it’s not there, I guess I never really lost it in the first
place.”
The screenwriters on “The Wizard of Oz” followed the hero’s journey
structure to a “T,” didn’t they? But guess what. “The Wizard of Oz” was released in
1939. Joseph Campbell didn’t write his book until ten years later. The interesting
fact is that this basic story structure had been around for thousands of years. Once
you’re familiar with this formula, you’ll start to see it everywhere. In the Odyssey
and the Iliad. Hamlet and Macbeth. In “Casablanca” and “Pulp Fiction.” In “Breaking
Bad” and “The Fugitive.” Everywhere.
Of course, there are variations. Sometimes a writer will skip a step, or put
the steps in a different order. But once you learn to recognize the basic pattern,
you’ll notice that successful stories usually follow it pretty closely and unsuccessful
stories (i.e. bad books and boring movies) usually stray too far away from it.
Can it be used by direct-‐response copywriters?
Absolutely!
Even in the two or three opening paragraphs of Josh Manheimer’s “Trigger”
package above, you’ll see some of these story elements at work.
The “ordinary world” is when a group of people get together in someone’s
kitchen for coffee and conversation.
The “inciting incident” is when one of these people suddenly has a terrifying
asthma attack.
The “mentor” is the person telling the story, the person who has already read
Prevention’s book and knows exactly what to do in this situation.
And so on.
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Or take a look at this short email from A-‐List freelance copywriter Kim
Krause Schwalm whose e-‐zine (which I highly recommend) is called “Copy Insiders.”
(www.kimschwalm.com) Try to see how many times she touches base with the key
steps in the hero’s journey with this story:
It was a Saturday night in Oxford, Ohio back in the 1980s. One of my sorority sisters and I made our way uptown in this hopping college town after hitting a few parties.
The line to get into one of our favorite bars, The Balcony, was way too long. So we went around the building and climbed up the rear stairs, entering the upstairs bar from the back.
Back where the pool tables were. There were 3 or 4 tables, all with guys swigging beers and smoking cigarettes and shooting away.
I asked my friend Gail, "Wanna play?" She was like, "I'm no good."
I told her not to worry.
You see, back in my youthful preteen days I'd learned from an old guy named Leo how to shoot pool.
I hadn't really kept up with it in college, but I thought I could still play okay.
So I went up to one of the pool tables where two guys were playing, plunked down a few quarters and said, "Winner".
They both looked at me, half-smiles on their faces. Like they were thinking, "Yeah, right...she'll be easy to beat."
And to be honest, I'd had at least a few beers. Not falling down drunk, but definitely a bit buzzed.
They finished their game, and I suggested Gail and I play doubles against both of them. Since they had the table, one of the guys shot first. He did the break, but nothing went in.
It was my turn next. First shot--solid into one of the side pockets. Okay, so we were solids.
Gail and I high-fived each other while the guys shrugged and looked on.
Then I shot another solid and it landed in the corner pocket. And another. And another. And another.
By this time the guys had gotten pretty quiet.
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It was still my turn. I'd gotten all the solids in--one right after the other. Now it was time to call the pocket for the 8-ball.
In it went--I long-shotted it exactly where I wanted it to go.
Game over.
Let's just say the guys were a bit stunned. I don't think they expected this young, slightly inebriated sorority girl was going to run the table.
Don't let people underestimate you
Look, I can't tell you how many times people I looked up to and respected tried to talk me out of being a copywriter.
I'd hear how "hard" it was, how "no one gets any good until they're in their 40s or 50s", and other such nonsense.
I always had to rely on my own inner belief in myself to take the leap--and keep trying even after failing a few times (some quite "bigly").
Ordinary life. Just another weekend night on the town with one of her
sorority sisters, looking for something to do and have some fun—like college kids
everywhere.
Hero crosses the threshold into a special world. Kim and her friend sneak
around to the back of a bar, climb the stairs, and find themselves in a poolroom
surrounded by guys swigging beers, smoking cigarettes, and shooting pool.
Hero rejects the call. Not Kim in this case, but her partner in crime. She
doesn’t want to play pool against the boys because, she says, “I’m no good.”
Hero meets mentor. Actually, this happened years earlier when Kim met a
mysterious “old guy” named Leo who taught her how to shoot pool.
Hero encounters enemies and allies as undergoes an ordeal. The male
players smile at her condescendingly when she challenges the winner. She’s a bit
drunk, but with her friend at her side, she undertakes the challenge anyway.
Hero acquires the treasure. Kim runs the table and sinks the eight ball into
the corner pocket to win.
Hero returns to ordinary life, but she’s a changed person because she learned
an important lesson. In Kim’s words, “I always had to rely on my own inner belief in
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myself to take the leap”—despite the many skeptics and cynics she’s met along the
way in her career.
Now, am I saying that you must always follow this precise structure when
you’re telling a story in copy? Absolutely not. But I am saying that if you can touch
base with some or all of these steps, your story will be more compelling,
entertaining, and easier to read.
Why?
Because your reader is familiar with this structure, that’s why. It will remind
him of hundreds of books, movies, and television shows he’s enjoyed before. He’s
with you from the beginning and he’ll stick with you to the end. Because he’s been
down this road before and loved every minute of it.
When you read a bedtime story to a small child, what does she usually want
to hear—a new story or a story she’s heard a hundred times before?
She wants to hear the story she’s heard before! In fact, she may have heard it
so often that she can practically recite the words herself. Adults are the same way
about stories. Yes, they may want some new characters, some new details, and a
fresh approach. But what they want most is to hear a story that is structured in the
same way as the ones they’ve read a million times before! That’s why the world’s
bestselling novelists tend to write in a series ... Lee Child’s “Jack Reacher” novels,
Michael Connelly’s “Harry Bosch” novels, James Patterson’s “Alex Cross” novels.
Readers like to read the same story over and over again—as long as it’s different
this time!
Fourth, use the three “C’s” of storytelling
Three fundamental elements combine to make a story. I call them the three
“C’s. They are: 1) Character; 2) Conflict; and 3) Change. This is not a formula or
outline for writing a story. It’s a list of three things you must have in order to create
a story—just as you need Carbon, Oxygen, and Hydrogen to make the molecular
compound we know as “sugar.”
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Your story must have a single leading CHARACTER who is either your
prospect or someone whom he or she can easily identify with—someone, in other
words, about whom your reader can say, “Hey, this guy is just like me.”
That character must have some kind of CONFLICT—whether it’s with
another character (such as we often see in novels, television, and movies) or with
some kind of obstacle, frustration, or illness (which is the most common kind of
conflict in advertising).
As a result of resolving this conflict, your character must CHANGE in some
way. He was poor and now he’s rich. He was sick and now he’s healthy. He used to
have an irritated butt and now he doesn’t. (Because he bought Preparation H.)
To see how this works in practice, let’s look at one of the most best-‐known
advertisements in history. I’m talking about the “97-‐Pound Weakling” ad for Charles
Atlas’s bodybuilding program. When I was a kid, this ad was on the inside back
cover of nearly every comic book published in America. If you’re my age, you’ve
probably seen it 100,000 times. So many times, in fact, that you may have never
stopped to marvel at how brilliant it is.
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What makes it so brilliant is that it has all three elements of story in spades,
using just seven illustrations and a grand total of 120 words (not counting the small
block of body copy and coupon copy at the bottom):
First there is the CHARACTER we can all identify with—the 97-‐pound
weakling who gets sand kicked in his face. He’s disrespected by the bully on the
beach (the antagonist) and, perhaps even worse, pitied by his own girlfriend who
doesn’t even think he’s a “real man.”
Ouch!
Second, there is the CONFLICT with the bully when he makes an attempt to
stand up for himself. Because the weakling does indeed have some strength of
character, he also has the courage to make a change.
The CHANGE occurs when he buys the Charles Atlas bodybuilding course,
pumps up his muscles, and suddenly turns the tables on his antagonist. The bully
gets his nose broken and the girlfriend finally comes to understand that our hero is
“a real man, after all.” Happy ending. (Except for the bully.)
Again, this is not a formula or an outline for writing a story. Although, come
to think of it, it’s not a bad one. It’s merely a list of the three things every story must
contain. If your story does not have all three of these elements, it’s NOT a story.
Your reader will find it boring, unsatisfying, and pointless ... and it won’t help you
sell your product. If you can’t come up with all three of these things, it’s time to
drop the storytelling lead and use a different copywriting tactic for your
advertisement.
Fifth, know when to say when
This is a simple point, but it’s an important one:
Don’t get so carried away with your story that you forget to SELL!
You’ve got to know when to stop storytelling and start selling. Generally
speaking, a story is an excellent way to start an advertisement, but not a good way
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to end one. Don’t fall so deeply in love with your story that you go on and on until
you wear out you’re welcome. A story doesn’t have to be long to be effective.
Ernest Hemingway, for example, was once challenged by a friend to tell a
story in as few words as possible. Hemingway came up with this:
For sale: Baby shoes. Never used.
This has come to be known as “Hemingway’s 6-‐Word Story.” But if you look
closely, you’ll see it’s not a story after all. It’s an advertisement!
Here’s another Josh Manheimer letter I love. Look how Josh sketches out the
story with just a few words, then quickly dives into his sales message. The
storytelling here is so spare and efficient that it reminds me of the work of an
impressionist painter.
Have you ever noticed how a great artist can depict something like a sunset
or a forest with just a few quick brushstrokes? It might take a less talented artist
hours of painstaking work to paint every tiny detail of each branch and leaf—yet the
finished painting actually winds up looking less convincing than the one
accomplished by a few brushstrokes. That’s why this copy by Josh Manheimer is
such a great example of how to use storytelling in copywriting without letting the
story get in the way of the sale:
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This is a bit off-‐topic, but take a moment to look at that headline: “Now at a
price so low—it’s like getting six issues free!” That sounds like you’re getting six
free issues, doesn’t it? Guess what. You’re not. You’re just getting a discounted
price on a hard-‐offer subscription—50% off, to be exact. The poor schlub who
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wrote the control package Josh beat with this letter probably said something along
the lines of “Now you can get HALF OFF the regular price!” Josh came along and
restated the offer, without actually changing it, in such a way that it sounded like a
soft offer of six free issues. Clever. And effective.
Sixth, keep your eye on the ball
Remember to stay focused on the benefits of your product. Whether you
choose to work those benefits into the story itself, or whether you drop the story
after the first few paragraphs, you can’t forget to keep your eye on the ball. Keep
focused on the benefits of your product to the reader.
Here’s another sample from Josh. What I love about this one is how
seamlessly he’s worked the benefits into the story itself. In the “Writer’s Digest”
letter, he started with a story, then quickly dropped it and began the letter after the
salutation with a conventional benefit-‐oriented lead. Here he weaves the benefits
right into the story:
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So, yes, you want your story to be seductive. But you don’t want your story
to be so seductive that you’re the one who gets seduced by it. Either tell the story
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quickly and drop it (as Josh did for Writer’s Digest) … or work the benefits right into
the story (as he did for Cooking Light).
Lest you start to think Josh is the only copywriter in the world who can do
this, here’s an example of me doing the same thing for an organization called “The
Good Sam Club”—which is kind of a “Triple A” for owners of recreational vehicles:
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This package was a 10+ year control for the Good Sam Club, beating back
dozens of attempts to beat it. The letter goes on for ten pages, by the way, so forgive
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me if I don’t reproduce it all here. If you’d really like to read the whole thing,
download my free sample book at www.freesamplebook.com
Seventh, keep your story accurate and truthful
All things considered, it’s better to use a true story in copywriting nowadays
than a fictional one. Not just to get your copy past your client’s lawyers and stay out
of trouble with the government, but also because true stories usually work better
than fictional ones.
Having said that, I do believe there’s still some room for dramatization in
advertising—even in today’s highly-‐regulated environment. Certainly there’s a lot
of dramatization in television advertising. Mr. Whipple is not a real person, after all.
Neither is Betty Crocker or the Pillsbury Doughboy. Even the GEICO gecko does not
actually exist, although he’s more familiar than members of your own family at this
point. (I hope I didn’t upset you with these revelations!)
We all want to stay on the right side of the legal line. The problem is, they
keep moving the line! Take a look at the following ad, for example, which may be
the most famous, admired, and widely imitated piece of copy in the history of direct
marketing:
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Guess what? I believe this ad probably would not pass legal muster
nowadays. Why? Because the entire advertisement is basically a false testimonial,
which is against the law. Unless John Caples (known here as “Jack”) really was
unable to play the piano ... really did order this correspondence course ... and really
was playing the piano like Vladimir Horowitz in a matter of days—all highly
unlikely—the whole story is false and misleading.
“They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano” is the equivalent of writing a
first-‐person story that says you had Stage 4 metastatic lung cancer, then you took
one sip of Dr. Brown’s Miracle Elixir, and the next day you walked away completely
cured. You can understand why an advertisement like that might attract unwanted
attention from the Federal Trade Commission and the United States Postal Service.
On the other hand, a dramatization in which one character has a problem,
and another character comes along and says, “You might want to try this new
product to solve your problem”—that kind of fictional story is probably okay. (If it
weren’t, every copywriter on Madison Avenue would be in jail by now.) My story
for the “Good Sam Club” was written along those lines. But keep in mind it was
written more than 20 years ago, and I’m not sure I’d choose to take this approach
today. You can always label your story a “DRAMATIZATION” in a disclaimer or
write it in such a way that the reader clearly understands it’s fictional. Government
regulators tend to use something they call the “reasonable person” standard. They
ask themselves, “Would a reasonable person believe this story to be true?” No
reasonable person, for example, believes there’s a little lizard who travels around
the country selling car insurance. So GEICO is probably on safe ground.
The second question to consider is if the fictional elements of the story are
material to the claims being made. Is the writer telling a flat-‐out lie about what the
product will do for the customer, as he is in the Dr. Brown’s Elixir example above?
Or is he just using a fictional story as a scaffolding to hang a series of truthful claims
about the actual benefits of the product in order to make the advertisement more
engaging and entertaining—as I did in the Good Sam Club letter.
Keep in mind I’m not a lawyer and I’m definitely NOT offering you legal
advice. Moreover, the regulatory environment changes every day—usually for the
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worse. So check with your attorney before you write any kind of dramatization in
your copy. Better yet, why not use a story that’s 100% accurate and true? I’ll show
you how to find such stories in a moment.
Eighth, write in the first-‐person voice if you can
One surefire way to tell truthful stories is to use a first-‐person voice and talk
about your own personal experience with the product. This is what I did when I
was hired to write a subscription-‐promotion package for the conservative magazine,
The American Spectator.
In this unusual copy I actually told the story of how I came to write the sales
letter. I told folks I was a direct-‐mail copywriter and I specialized in writing
magazines. Here’s how I started it:
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Again, this letter is too long to reproduce in its entirety here. If you want to
read the whole thing, download my sample book at www.freesamplebook.com This
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is probably my favorite letter of my whole career—not just because it was fun to
write and entertaining to read ... but it actually generated fan mail. Every time the
folks at the American Spectator mailed it, several people would enclose little notes
with the orders to say how much they loved reading the letter.
There’s something about writing in the first-‐person voice that has a peculiar
power to it. It’s the reason why we often tell jokes as if they happened to us. If we
say “I walked into a bar the other day and the bartender said...” we’re likely to get a
bigger laugh than “Some guy walked into a bar...”
But again, be careful about your truthfulness. One thing you do NOT want to
do, for example, is to talk about how you took your client’s nutritional supplement
and it cured your diabetes. One person’s experience cannot be used as proof, or
even evidence, that the product will work for anyone else. The same goes for
financial copywriting. Unless you’ve got the brokerage account and bank
statements that prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that your investment system
made you a millionaire, I would advise you to avoid the first-‐person story approach
when writing financial copy.
Finally, make good use of dialogue
You may have noticed what a big role dialogue plays in both Josh’s letters
(especially the Cooking Light letter) and mine (especially the Good Sam Club letter).
That’s no accident.
The famous novelist Elmore Leonard once said that one of the keys to good
writing is to avoid writing the passages that readers tend to skip. He went on to say
that readers tend to skip long, boring passages about the weather, the landscape, the
interior decoration of rooms, the character’s physical appearance or his clothing,
etc. etc.
But they never skip dialogue.
Plus, dialogue is a great way to reveal both character and conflict—and do it
in a way that “shows” rather than “tells.” Rather than telling the reader that two of
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your characters had a vehement argument with each other, for example, you can
show the argument take place with dialogue.
Everything Is Copy
“Everything is copy,” said the famous novelist, screenwriter, and film director
Nora Ephron.
By that she meant that everything that happens to you, your family, your
friends, your neighbors, your co-‐workers can turn out to be the grist for a good
story.
For example, something really awful once happened to my own father.
One day, he had a terrible stomachache. And since the pain was located in
the lower right corner of his abdomen, he was afraid it might be appendicitis.
So he called his doctor, described the pain, and the doctor said, “Come in
right away and let me take a look at you.”
The doctor poked and prodded my father’s stomach. He took my father’s
temperature. (He was running a slight fever.) And he decided appendicitis was a
real possibility. So he sent my father to the Emergency Room and called ahead to let
them know he was sending them a possible appendicitis patient.
At the ER, more doctors poked and prodded my father. They ran some tests.
They, too, decided he needed an emergency appendectomy. They sent him up to the
surgical suite. The surgeons cut open his abdomen. They took a look inside. And
you’ll never guess what they found there:
Nothing.
That’s right, his appendix was perfectly normal. No sign of infection. No sign
of inflammation. No sign of any problems at all. So they sewed him up and sent him
home with some Pepto-‐Bismol.
Ooops!
Well, needless to say, this became a rather memorable story in the
Armstrong family lore, and I filed it away in my head because, as Nora Ephron said,
everything is copy.
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Then one day I got a chance to write a direct-‐mail letter for a travel insurance
company—the kind of travel insurance where they’ll take care of you if you ever get
sick or injured while you’re away from home. They’ll send a helicopter for you,
make sure you get to the right hospital, consult with your doctors about your care,
and so on.
So I decided to tell my father’s story. And my letter started out with a
headline that went like this:
The Strange Story of the $17,000 Stomachache!
The letter went on to become a multi-‐year control package for the client and
sold a ton of insurance policies.
Dig, Dig, Dig!
When I got my first job as a copywriter back in 1976, I had a certain
methodology that I used. I’d get a big stack of research material from the client and
I’d start to work my way through it. As soon as I got my first good idea, I’d stop
researching, run to the typewriter, and begin writing my direct-‐mail letter based on
that first good idea. The results that I got from using this method were...
Awful.
After many years of failure and frustration, I gradually learned that the best
ideas are not at the top of the stack of research material, but may be at the bottom of
it. In fact, sometimes you get all the way through that stack of material and you still
haven’t found an idea that’s good enough to sustain a sales promotion. In which
case, you have to go back to the client—or to the library, or to the factory, or to
wherever you need to go—in order to find the story (or stories) you need to write a
powerful letter.
Case in point.
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One day I got the assignment to write a fundraising letter for an organization
called the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). I was having a hell of a time
coming up with an idea because the organization consists of a bunch of
environmental lawyers who bring lawsuits against polluters. Worthy work, I guess,
but not very dramatic. I had gone through my whole 3-‐foot high stack of research
and I still hadn’t found any interesting stories to work with. So I went back to the
client if they had anything else to send me. They said they didn’t. But then they
said, “Would our annual report be of any interest to you?” I didn’t think so, because
annual reports are mostly just numbers. But I was desperate, so I said, okay, go
ahead and send me your last ten annual reports.
I went through the ten annual reports. I was reading the last one when I
noticed it contained a short section where several of the attorneys at NRDC talked
about why they found their work meaningful. One of them in particular talked
about how he had a hard time explaining to his 3-‐year old daughter what he did for
a living. The result was this really sweet and very effective lift letter:
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So how do you come up with true stories to use in your copywriting?
Answer: You dig, dig, dig.
And if that doesn’t work, you dig some more.
I guarantee you there are stories in that research material somewhere. If you
can’t find them, it’s only because you don’t look hard enough. Don’t be like the gold
miner who gave up and sold his claim when he was six inches away from striking
the Comstock Lode. Just keep digging and digging with your pickaxe until you find
that first nugget of raw gold.
Then polish it until it starts to look like a story.
The Copywriter’s Most Valuable Tool
You’d think, would you not, that the copywriter’s most valuable tool would
be his typewriter or keyboard. Or maybe nowadays you might say it’s Google. But I
disagree. I think the copywriter’s best tool is a tape recorder.
I’m like the Richard Nixon of copywriters. I record nearly every business call
that comes in or out of my office. I do that because my clients are constantly coming
up with these little gems of stories, ideas, headlines, bullets, benefits, features, and
other things I can use in the copy.
When people ask me about my working method, I tell them that I turn on my
tape recorder ... ask the client “What makes your product so great?” ... listen to him
talk for 90 minutes ... turn off the tape recorder ... transcribe the recording on typing
paper ... do a little editing ... add “Dear Reader” at the top and put “Sincerely Yours”
at the bottom ...
Then I sell the client’s own words back to him for $25,000!
I’m kidding, of course. (But not really.) The problem is that when you sit
down for a formal interview with a client, they usually clam up and can’t think of a
single story to tell. But sometimes when you’re talking on the phone about
something else entirely, they’ll drop a little nugget on you that will make your copy
come together in an instant. So I just keep recording all the time.
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But yes, you should have a formal interview with them anyway. And you
shouldn’t stop there. You should interview as many people as you can who are
involved with making the product, marketing it, distributing it, selling it ... even
using it. Customers and prospective customers—especially the people who are
suffering from the problem your product is intended to solve—should all be
interviewed until your stack of research material goes from the floor of your office
to the ceiling. Then don’t run to the typewriter when you find your first good story.
Wait until you find your best story!
Five Surefire Story Formulas
I’m a big believer in using formulas and outlines in my copywriting. Some
people put more emphasis on “creativity” and “originality,” but I couldn’t disagree
more. Spending your client’s money on a sales promotion is serious business.
You’re not just talking about the ten to twenty thousand dollars he’s paying you.
There’s also the hundreds of thousands he’s paying for postage, printing, and
production. Even email promotions and video sales letters are expensive to
produce.
How would you feel, for example, if you had to have open-‐heart surgery and
just before you went under, the surgeon said to you, “I’ve got a great idea for a brand
new way to approach coronary bypass surgery. My colleagues say I’m crazy, but
guess what? You’re going to be the first one I’m going to try this on. I’m winging it,
baby! So when you wake up, if you wake up, get ready to be thrilled with the
results!”
Would that instill you with confidence?
I’d be more inclined to hire a surgeon who believed in best practices and due
diligence. Someone who knew what had been done in the past, how well it worked,
and how to make sure it worked again. So, with that said, here are 5 basic story
templates that have worked many times before for a variety of different clients and
products:
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#1: I couldn’t find it, so I invented it. This is the old “Hair Club for Men” approach. “I’m not only the owner of Hair
Club for Men, I’m a customer, too!” In other words, I was bald. I couldn’t find a
toupee that worked for me. So I came up with this new technique for restoring hair.
This approach is being used (quite successfully) by Mike Lindell for his company
“My Pillow.” Mike’s story is similar. He couldn’t sleep. He was getting neck pain
and backaches. So he invented a whole new kind of pillow. It has a variety of
different features that will help you get to sleep faster and wake up with no pain in
the morning. What’s more, it’s 100% American-‐made in Mike Lindell’s own plant in
Minnesota. Great story. This kind of story works particularly well with the “Hero’s
Journey” storytelling formula.
#2: Company spokesman runs into a skeptical customer.
This is my own personal favorite. You may recall it from the Good Sam Club
letter. You simply put somebody who works for your client’s company—or maybe
just an avid fan of your product—and have him accidentally run into someone who
really needs your product badly. This prospective customer, however, is very
skeptical and asks a lot of questions. So your spokesman can persuasively answer
those questions. Or maybe he can ask some questions of his own in a Socratic sort
of way. (“Tell me, do you ever feel sluggish or tired in the morning?”) This formula
is almost like dramatizing a “Frequently Asked Questions” sidebar. One of the
strengths of this formula is that it uses a lot of dialogue, which, as you’ll recall, is
easy and entertaining for people to read. [Be sure to re-‐read my comments about
the legal use of “dramatization” above before you use this approach.]
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#3: Wise mentor shares his or her secret story
This is the most common story you see in television commercials. One
housewife tells another housewife how she gets “ring around the collar” out of her
husband’s shirts, etc. Again, if you use a dramatization like this in a highly-‐
regulated market like financial, health, or business opportunity, be sure to check
with your attorney to make sure you’re not crossing the line.
#4: Discovered in the lab (or the manufacturing plant) story Have you ever heard the story about how penicillin was discovered? Dr.
Alexander Fleming was a scientist who was doing some experiments in his lab with
bacteria. One evening he accidentally left the window of his laboratory open and a
leaf fell off a tree, floated into the lab, and landed in a petri dish filled with bacteria.
When Fleming arrived for work the next day, he discovered the leaf had killed all the
bacteria. How did that happen? Because the leaf was covered with mold, which
turned out to be the chemical precursor of penicillin—perhaps the single most
important medicine ever discovered. Wow! Talk about a killer story. If you were
given the assignment to write about a new drug called “penicillin,” wouldn’t you
want to use that story?
In fact, many “Unique Selling Propositions” in advertising come from the
initial Research & Development work on a product, or perhaps from some kind of
innovation that takes place in the manufacturing process. Claude Hopkins’s famous
discovery that Schlitz beer was put into “steam-‐cleaned bottles”—I’m sure you’ve
heard that story—is a classic example of this formula.
#5: The “origin” story.
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This is the similar to the first formula, but not quite the same. Because it
doesn’t have to be told in the voice of the company founder. In fact, the founder may
be long gone, dead, and buried. Many older companies have fascinating origin
stories that are lost in the dim and dark recesses of history where few people know
about them. You wouldn’t believe how dramatic and bizarre the story of Kellogg’s
Cornflakes™ is, for example. (I haven’t got time to tell it here, but look it up.)
I once wrote a speech for an executive of the Angostura Bitters company and
was given access to the company’s library and archives. It turns out Angostura
Bitters is one of the oldest consumer products continuously for sale in the world.
It’s been around for nearly 200 years. Going through the company’s original papers,
advertisements, press releases, and documents was more entertaining than reading
Treasure Island. Were there some great stories in there? It was like striking a
gusher of stories!
Just remember one thing:
Once you start looking for stories, just be persistent and patient … and they
will find you!
* * *
If you enjoyed reading this free e-‐book about storytelling in copywriting, I
hope you’ll take a moment to check out my new novel THE DON CON on
www.amazon.com THE DON CON tells the story of a washed-‐up actor who hit
the peak of his career when he played a walk-‐on part on The Sopranos. Now he
makes a meager living signing autographs at fan conventions. One day there’s
real gangster in his autograph line, and he makes the actor an offer he can’t
refuse. (Yes, the novel touches briefly on the subject of direct-‐response
copywriting!) Please click here to find out more about it.
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