Do You Make These Mistakes in Copywriting?

Next to John Caples's “They laughed when I sat down at the piano,” Maxwell Sackheim's “Do you make these mistakes in English?” is perhaps the best known in mail order history.

The ad with this headline ran for 40 years. Many of us have done take-offs on the line. In the early '80s, a control package at Standard & Poor's asked, “Do you make these common mistakes in investing?”

The fulcrum of the headline is the word “these.” Without that word, we have a “yes/no” question, and a “no” answer absolutely kills response. With “these” you absolutely must read further to find out what the mistakes are.

Recently, I made this copywriting mistake #1: in a concept presentation to a client, I used Sackheim's shell for an envelope tease. My version was “Are you on top of all these dramatic changes in employment discrimination law?”

The client never saw the word “these” and therefore commented, “I thought questions with a ‘yes/no' answer don't work as teasers.” I was sitting right across from her as she read it and was able to point out the key word. But her mind was elsewhere, and I lost the battle.

The point here is that in the age of epidemic ADD the subtlety of this Sackheim prototype headline is lost, and so the prototype should no longer be used. Even literate people skim and don't read properly because they are so busy.

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Lee Marc Stein is an internationally known direct marketing consultant and copywriter. He has extensive experience in circulation, insurance and financial services, high tech, and B2B marketing. Read more of Lee’s articles at www.leemarcstein.com.