Everyone is told to “think outside the box.”
Kids are told to “think outside the box.” Employees are told by their bosses to “think outside the box.” Advertising copywriters are told to “think outside the box.”
I say the opposite. “Think inside the box.”
Tiger Woods is not a great golfer because he has an original golf swing. Sure, if you look closely, there are some differences between his golf swing and that of Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan, or Bobby Jones.
Most of these differences have to do with the way these men are built. But basically they all hit the ball about the same way.
They all have sound fundamentals.
These men are the greatest golfers of all time because they mastered the basic fundamentals of golf better than their competitors—not all the time, but most of the time.
The same holds true for direct mail marketing.
Like golf, direct mail is very humbling. In golf I can occasionally hit as great a shot as Tiger Woods. And just when I think I’m starting to master the game, suddenly, and seemingly inexplicably, I find I can’t hit the ball anymore at all. I’m back to playing my usual game.
I’m then forced to go back to the pro for another lesson to find out what the problem is.
Even Tiger Woods needs a teacher to keep his swing on track, to make sure he’s not veering off course in some subtle way, to make sure his fundamentals are sound.
The same is true for the writer of sales letters.
You can write a blockbuster letter that breaks the bank with orders one day. And then, just when you think you’ve figured out the game and can’t fail, your next letter crashes. And it’s not always apparent exactly why it crashed.
I mean, I wouldn’t have written the letter and spent all that money to mail it if I thought it was a bad letter.
If one of my packages flop, I’ll give a copy to my copywriting peers and ask for their assessment of what went wrong with my letter.
We’ll do an autopsy. We’ll analyze every aspect of the package. We’ll look at what lists we mailed. We’ll see if there were mistakes in the way the package was assembled and produced. We’ll usually come up with an answer, or at least a theory for why the letter failed.
Almost always the reason for a package performing poorly is that the writer has made some fundamental mistake, violated some basic marketing principle tied to the iron laws of human nature.
To be the biggest and most successful you usually have to be the first. But I prefer not to be the first because to be the first to market with a new idea is incredibly risky. Coke is #1 because it came first.
Pepsi came second, so it will always be #2. But it’s not bad being Pepsi.
No one could have predicted the success of Coke. But once Coke proved successful, this paved the way for competitors such as Pepsi, RC Cola, and so on.
I prefer not to be the first to do anything. I would rather watch others and see what’s working and then follow in their wake.
Maybe I’ll try to do it a little better and make some refinements. But I’m very happy to watch others spend their money blazing new trails. Most of the trailblazers will fail.
A few will succeed. I will then learn from them. I will copy what they are doing. I will be very happy being #2, #3, or #4. And I will have taken far less risk. I’m not much of a gambler. Pepsi will always be the #2 behind Coca-Cola. But it’s not bad being Pepsi.
I’m happy to follow along behind the pioneers. I’m not interested in being Lewis or Clark. I would much prefer to learn the lessons of success and failure from the trailblazers who came before me.
I study these courageous people—these geniuses and pioneers—carefully.
If I have one original idea in my lifetime, I will have made a contribution to the advancement of Western Civilization. I doubt I will ever achieve this milestone.
Einstein had an original idea: The Theory of Relativity.
But I am a person of average intelligence. I don’t plan to develop any new theories in my lifetime. I will be very happy just to learn the great ideas that have already been developed—especially in the area of marketing.
For this reason, I read the great Claude Hopkins over and over again. Hopkins was perhaps the greatest advertising writer who ever lived. I also study Bob Stone and David Ogilvy. Any aspiring marketer who reads Hopkins, Ogilvy, and Stone will know most of what anyone knows about marketing today. All marketers today are still following the principles, maxims, and precepts carved out by these marketing giants. I am content to learn everything I can from these pioneers who came before me.
It took me a long time to get into Internet marketing. I spent years studying the Internet before I did much with it. I’m just starting to get into it now by carefully following the systems developed by the few who have been successful.
And guess what. The marketing principles are exactly the same as those articulated by the great ad writer Claude Hopkins at the start of the century—the last century. It’s just the technology and mechanics that are different.