The Corruption of Direct Response Copy

I read a letter from a large financial publishing CEO later with a comment I strongly disagree with and I wanted to both share and refute here.

The notion presented was that “direct response copywriting” is to blame for all of the snake oil, hype-driven promises and general corruption of marketing we see online today.

That when you see marketers and companies do this…

• How to Lose 30 Pounds and Get Six Pack Abs Eating Anything You Want!

• Discover the Secret Strategy Donald Trump is Using to Pocket 43% Per Week with Cryptos!

• …But You Have to Get in Today, We Only Have 5 Spots Left!

Direct response copy and marketing is to blame because it teaches a “get sales at all costs” approach to marketing.

I call bullshit. (Mostly)

I certainly agree with one implied part of this…

Some companies and gurus teaching these tactics have progressively gone farther and farther to the point where they are not just “persuasive” but downright deceptive and fraudulent.

And the FTC has noticed, taking more and more online businesses to task for their marketing.

But I also think the notion above grossly mischaracterizes what direct response marketing is really about.

Yes, it’s about targeting human emotion rather than logic and reasoning.

And yes, it’s about getting to know your customer better than they know themselves so you can sell them a product or service.

But it needs to be done in an honest, ethical and transparent way. ALWAYS.

True scarcity is fine. False scarcity is not.

Selling a transformation is great. As long as it hasn’t only been achieved by a small handful of people.

Creating a killer offer is essential. But thinking someone will believe you’re really giving them $110,000 worth of “stuff” for $97 is ludicrous.

I’m going to avoid getting into a discussion of FTC regulations today (maybe another time, lol)…

But I do want to get to the essence of what direct response marketing is really about…

Without Data, You Have Nothing

Dr. Williams Deming was a 20th century economics, industrial engineer, and management consultant, among other positions.

He’s also the father of this quote…

As a former engineer myself, with thousands of hours doing experimental testing and data analysis, I can tell you without a doubt…

Making decisions without sound, statistically significant data is a fool’s errand.

That’s what’s at the heart of direct response marketing — AND it’s the biggest difference between DR marketing and brand marketing…

The ability to collect and analyze marketing data, then use it to make sound decisions about what to do next.

GEICO spends over $1.5 BILLION a year plastering a cute little lizard and a caveman all over the world…

But nobody there can tell you how many new policies each commercial or billboard generates.

Sure, they can estimate the impact of the brand mascots to company revenue, but they can’t attribute sales to any one channel or piece of marketing.

Just imagine if they could… every man, woman and child in America might have Geico insurance.

So if you’re a founder, company executive, or marketing leader, I want you to ask yourself this question…

Can you trace EVERY… SINGLE… DOLLAR... of revenue back to a marketing campaign, landing page, commercial, email or other asset?

I get it… maybe that’s too aspirational.

But the goal of a growth marketer is to understand as closely as possible how every dollar is generated and how to generate more.

Data is the starting point.

Thursday I’ll take a deeper dive into some of the metrics Chris and I track on a weekly basis…

And some of the most shocking mistakes we’ve seen companies make.

Jon