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Copyright to Robert Hayes-McCoy
It's gotta be said somewhere... "Direct Marketing Copywriters are absolutely wonderful people."
And if you're a humble copywriter reading this, let me hasten to add that this is something that you've probably known for yonks! Naturally, nobody else in the business shares your high esteem of yourself. But please don't worry!
This has absolutely nothing to do with how truly wonderful you are. It's just that if they admit - even for a second - how valuable you really are, they won't be able to afford to pay you anywhere near what you're worth.
But they never will, you know!
And, of course, the reason why they'll never recognise how precious you are is not out of sheer nastiness or anything like this. It's just that they don't understand! Not at all!
They simply haven't a clue how your creative mind works. Actually, deep down, they suspect that you don't work at all. And I don't blame them a bit. Because you don't even see things the same way as they do, never mind think in the same language.
So when you come up with something quite extraordinary, something so amazingly clever that it's light years ahead of the rest, don't get upset if they just look at you with blank (kind, sympathetic, but definitely blank) faces.
After all, you've already got more than your fair share of enjoyment out of creating it in the first place. Creating it out of nothing!
Truth is that most copywriters get more joy out of their creative concepts than anybody else does. And that's your payoff.
You see, you and the way you think and see things, are quite unique! But how on earth do you do it? Where do those priceless little gems of creativity come from? Even more to the point... how do you keep on producing and creating them day after day, hour after hour? I bet you a King Size Mars Bar that even you don't know the answer to this question.
Nobody knows! Least of all you, because they just come!
That's why when they slowly explain to you that the 'list' in a direct mail campaign is far and away the most important ingredient of success, you tend not to argue with them.
Or when they tell you that a good illustration is worth more than a thousand words... what can you say? And, of course nothing - nothing at all - moves without a good lettershop.
And let's be practical - for every one of you, there's usually about ten other people actually working on the job. Hard to disprove any of this.
But you're the 'thinker'! You are the most important part of the entire direct mail package.
As Alan Rosenspan - who is definitely one of the leading creative thinkers in the direct marketing world - says 'I can prove it!'
'Picture' to use Alan's own words, 'a blank direct mail package.' This direct mail package will go to the most responsive, most accurate, most targeted list in the world. The highest grade of paper will be used and the finest inks and laser technology. No expense will be spared. Everything will be beauty and perfection personified.
Only it will be blank!
Hey! Now you can see where you fit in the value of things! Quite simply, without you everything will grind to a halt. A gloriously blank mail package is going to produce a gloriously blank response.
So next time they are all, pen in hand, evaluating your work and telling you how much better it would be if you approached it a different way entirely, think of the wonderful question that one great writer put to his critics
... 'where were you when the paper was blank?'
Think it - whatever you do, don't say it! After all, you've already got more than your fair share of enjoyment.
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