Great Teasers

How to get them to read your copy

Direct mail’s copywriting guru, Herschell Gordon Lewis, maintains there are four prime motivators that come into play every time we try to persuade someone to respond to our offer:

fear

greed

guilt

exclusivity

With those in mind, I read the following envelope teaser copy:

How is it possible that many ­people with less intelligence, ­ability and ambition consistently achieve more than you?

That is a rare piece of copy, indeed, for it actually uses all four of Lewis’s prime motivators, in the following order of emphasis:

1. Guilt — Who hasn’t felt at sometime that they weren’t doing all they could to achieve the kind of success they want in life? Can anyone say they have fully tapped their potential?

2. Exclusivity — You’re being told you’re smarter than those others who are making it, others who are less intelligent, able ambitious than you.

3. Greed — If only you could achieve according to your potential, you could have all the things success brings — all the things those other, less capable people have.

4. Fear — You’re losing out. If you don’t do something soon, you’ll never have the success you want. You’ll be a failure!

Now, it’s a golden rule in direct marketing that if you pose a problem, you must also show that you have the answer to it. In this case, a second block of teaser copy states:

Inside: surprising results from a Harvard experiment shows you how to perform better... with less effort — and, achieve your goals... faster!

Well, I admit I’m hooked. I may not order what’s on offer inside the envelope, but I’ve simply got to find out what’s in there. And that’s the whole purpose of the carefully crafted teaser: Get the envelope opened.

All the foregoing was pretty much the result of my first reading of the envelope, which otherwise was a drab #10 manila window, with my name and address showing through.

I’ve looked at the envelope several times since, with a more critical eye. That resulted in one quibble: perhaps the language is too difficult: too many abstract nouns (intelligence, ability, ambition) and some awkward punctuation. But then I considered the target: people who feel they are above average.

Whether or not the copywriter set out deliberately to stroke their egos, he or she nonetheless achieves that subtly by casually throwing in just a few tough words.

They may not seem tough words to you, but with a functional illiteracy rate of 1-in-5, and an average reading comprehension level of grade 6 to 8, they are tough to a majority of North Americans.

The offer was a hassle-free 30 day trial of a set of six cassette tapes. The whole package consisted of an 8-page letter an unusual reply form, a reply envelope and a unique, photocopied testimonial.

PS — How do you feel about your untapped potential?