{"id":137,"date":"2008-07-10T23:39:26","date_gmt":"2008-07-10T23:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/why-copy-is-not-king\/"},"modified":"2008-07-10T23:39:26","modified_gmt":"2008-07-10T23:39:26","slug":"why-copy-is-not-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/why-copy-is-not-king\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Copy Is Not &#8220;King&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just got back from seeing &#8220;The Hulk.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Holy crap I love these comic book movies!  (And my &#8220;fanboy&#8221; hairs are all a <em>tingle<\/em> about the upcoming &#8220;Batman.&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p>Funny thing about &#8220;Hulk&#8221; though&#8230; is how much it reminds me of certain copywriters.<\/p>\n<p>When I hear some of the mega claims certain copywriters make about &#8220;their copy&#8221; bringing in millions of dollars (without any mention of list, offer, positioning, company credibility, product quality, market place timing, ad design, etc), I see this image of the copywriter ripping off his shirt, pounding his chest like the Hulk and screaming at the top of his lungs&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;COPYWRITER SMASH!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><big>&#8220;COPYWRITER KING!&#8221;<\/big><\/p>\n<p><big><big>&#8220;COPYWRITER RULES WORLD!&#8221;<\/big><\/big><\/p>\n<p><big><big><big><big>&#8220;RRRRRAAAAAARRRRR!&#8221;<\/big><\/big><\/big><\/big>  <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And let&#8217;s face it.<\/p>\n<p>Just like the Hulk, the more excited they get&#8230; the STRONGER their <em>hype<\/em> gets.<\/p>\n<p>Which is kind of a pity.<\/p>\n<p>Because no matter how much we copywriters think otherwise, copy is merely a sales <em>multiplier<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not going to make a crappy product better.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not going to <em>magically<\/em> force people to buy something they don&#8217;t want.<\/p>\n<p>And it&#8217;s sure as heck not going to &#8220;hypnotize&#8221; someone into buying something against their will.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, copy IS extremely important.<\/p>\n<p>And if you have the right traffic, positioning, product and offer it can blast your profits through the roof.<\/p>\n<p>But copy is not &#8220;king.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Heck, it&#8217;s not even <em>queen<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>(It&#8217;s more like a jack or 10 of spades.)<\/p>\n<p>In fact, <strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/free-ken-mccarthy-copywriting-interview\" rel=\"noopener\">Ken McCarthy<\/a><\/strong> nails it in his &#8220;System Club Letters&#8221; book:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>&#8220;&#8230; All things being equal, the prize goes to the person who writes the best ad.  But the reality is &#8216;all other things&#8217; are rarely equal&#8230;and the so-so letter to the hyper-responsive list is going to wipe the floor with the brilliant letter sent to the so-so list.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Words to live by for ANY copywriter.<\/p>\n<p>Even if your copy really is &#8220;super.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>P.S.<\/strong> If you&#8217;d like a free MP3 of the interview I did with Ken McCarthy about copywriting (that he contributed to my &#8220;Copywriting Grab Bag&#8221; book), simply buy &#8220;The System Club Letters&#8221; from his site at:<\/p>\n<p><center><strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.RealMarketingBooks.com\" rel=\"noopener\">www.RealMarketingBooks.com<\/a><\/strong><\/center><\/p>\n<p>And then send your receipt to:  <strong>ben [at] bensettle.com<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>An no&#8230; I am NOT an affiliate for his book.  I just think it&#8217;s one of the single best marketing books I&#8217;ve ever read, and I think the marketing world would be a much better place if everyone owned (and read) it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>P.P.S.<\/strong> Speaking of &#8220;The Copywriting Grab Bag&#8221; book&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday I got a testimonial for it from Internet marketing &#8220;legend&#8221; <strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/terrydean.org\" rel=\"noopener\">Terry Dean<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>You can hear what he said in a 30 second MP3 clip here:<\/p>\n<p><center><!--media#http:\/\/www.copywritinggrabbag.com\/mp3files\/Terry-Dean-Testimonial.mp3--><\/center><\/p>\n<p>It was a real honor to get a testimonial from Terry.<\/p>\n<p>Frankly, if anyone has the right to be called an Internet marketing &#8220;guru&#8221;, it&#8217;s him.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I&#8217;m soon raising the price considerably (probably to $97) when I write a &#8220;real&#8221; ad for it.  So if you want the book while it&#8217;s still relatively inexpensive, just go to:<\/p>\n<p><center><strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.CopywritingGrabBag.com\" rel=\"noopener\">www.CopywritingGrabBag.com<\/a><\/strong><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just got back from seeing &#8220;The Hulk.&#8221; Holy crap I love these comic book movies! (And my &#8220;fanboy&#8221; hairs are all a tingle about the upcoming &#8220;Batman.&#8221;) Funny thing about &#8220;Hulk&#8221; though&#8230; is how much it reminds me of certain copywriters. When I hear some of the mega claims certain copywriters make about &#8220;their copy&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-copywriting-and-sales-letters"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}