This is PART 1 of a 10-part Micro-Series with legendary copywriter, Drayton Bird:

"THE 10 COMMANDMENTS OF COPYWRITING SUCCESS”

Drayton’s 1st Copywriting Commandment:

Imagine your ideal prospect:

Marketing jargon is a curse.

You are not talking to a "target audience" but to people, with loves, hates, fears, hopes, likes and dislikes.

Over 50 years ago, Irving Wunderman defined your challenge with this question: “To whom are you offering what ultimate benefit?”

Imagine a likely customer. Maybe even someone you know. You are sitting in front of them. You must persuade them to do what you want, or they'll shoot you.

Too dramatic, perhaps. But you must have a burning desire to persuade — and a keen fear of failing. 

How will you start the conversation?

Say something they cannot ignore! You must seize their attention and take them to the next step.

Devote most of your thoughts to how you begin. If you don’t grab people, you’ve failed at the first fence.

What you say to your ideal prospect will be relevant, to a degree, to less ideal ones. Do not waste your time trying to persuade those who are never likely to respond. You are pushing water uphill.

Let’s analyse a famous advertisement by David Ogilvy:

That headline was lifted, word for word, from an earlier one for the Pierce-Arrow car.

Amateurs imagine original, quirky approaches work best. Not so: what matters is to say the right thing. Something that promises a strong benefit or escape from something people dislike.

In a luxury car, silence is a measure of quality — and that was a striking way to promise it.

Ogilvy said that when you have written your headline you have spent 80% of your money, as 8 out of ten possible readers never read on.

This principle applies in all media:

The heading to your webpage. 
The subject line in your email. 
The start of your video. 
The visual and heading in your poster.

Therefore, devote most of your effort — no matter what the medium — to how your message begins.

DRAYTON BIRD
March, 2021

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