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My wife thinks I’m crazy, but I love to read junk mail and watch late-night infomercials. She’s constantly asking me to mute the commercials, but I listen to them, all the way through.

Why? Because I’m amazed by what I read and hear. Who do these companies think are buying their products and services? Why are they letting these direct mail and infomercial broadcasts go out the door?

This isn’t a case of writer’s envy–believe me. I just can’t believe that anyone would ever buy stuff based on this material.

I have this little pet theory about sales situations (what I like to call the “sales dialectic”). A lot of sales situations are set up as contests or fights–the salesperson versus you. Test it out for yourself and see what happens.

Let’s say that you are sitting at home, relaxing with a nice bowl or Rocky Road ice cream. The phone rings. A stranger’s voice asks for the man or woman of the house.

You immediately get suspicious. You say something like, “Are you trying to sell something?” or “What do you want?” You can bet that you’ll be hanging up pretty soon. First-round knockout, fight over.

Craftier callers might start out a bit friendlier–too friendly, perhaps. “Hey, buddy! How are you doing! I’m Bill Blah-blah from XYZ. Can I talk to you about a great opportunity?”

Same thing happens. You’re put off my the schmaltz and you say no (or not) and then hang up. Back to enjoying your Rocky Road.

Or, it takes several minutes to realize you’re being sold. They may start out by asking you to take a poll, and it ends up as an infomercial for their product. You hang up, knockout in Round Three.

Or you go to a Chamber of Commerce mixer, and as soon as you walk through the door, the resident networking shark bumps you and finds out if you want to buy his Ginsu knives.

You’re thinking, “Crap, I’ve just walked through the door, this guy doesn’t even know me, and already he’s trying to sell me crap that I don’t want or need.”

Big turn off, right? Let’s translate all this to the world of copywriting. If you look at most direct mail pieces, they’ll have these basic components:

• Some method of getting your attention, be it a headline, image, or combination.
• Some body copy that speaks to your problem or introduces a service or product.
• A list of testimonials that try to convince you that the product/service is great.
• Repetition of the offer (sometimes as much as three times) and then some kind of P.S. which mentions extra bennies or free stuff if you order NOW. Sometimes there may even be 3 or 4 P.S.’s.

Granted, there are times in my life that I want to be sold to. When I have a cut on my finger and I walk into Walgreens, I don’t want to chit-chat, I want the guy behind the counter to get me to the bandages.

When I don’t want to be sold to, I find salesmen (and sales pitches) annoying interruptions. My feeling is that they don’t even know me, I don’t know them, why should I give them money? Also, I haven’t given them permission to sell to me.

Let’s go back to our Chamber of Commerce mixer example. You walk into the meeting, start mingling, and during conversation with a nice person, you find out that they do bookkeeping. You mention that you’ve been having trouble keeping your books up to date and have been thinking about hiring a bookkeeper.

Now that person has permission to sell you on his or her services. They can tell you their rate, what they offer in terms of bookkeeping services, even that they give Quickbooks classes for the fearful new business owner. You exchange business cards, set up a meeting, and boom, capitalism lives on.

And not through a sales dialectic–the tension of opposing, conflicting forces (you vs. the salesperson), but through conversation.

Conversations build trust. Trust greases the wheels of commerce. Conversations are better than contests. Contests have a winner and a loser. With conversations, both sides can win.

So…how do we translate all this to our copywriting?

First of all, you have to understand who the target audience is. Get to know them very well–or at least, as well as you can. Find out where they vacation. What keeps them up at night. What they read on long airline flights. The last time they’ve bought a good product or cried in a movie theater.

Use this information to get their attention–not by trickery, or by shouting, or by using some wantonly stupid creative trick. Get their attention by giving them information or an offer that they really need.

Think about it. Let’s do an example that catches people’s attention, but may seem hinky or shady.

If I wrote you an email or letter telling you that there was a sack of money in a locker at the bus terminal, and I had the combination or key…you’d at least read it, right? You’d probably wonder if I was tricking you, but you might just read it.

Now let’s go a little deeper, beyond just getting your attention. What if I wrote you a letter or email telling you that your business was losing a lot of money on advertising and marketing–I’m not talking about general statements, but ran some numbers by you that were credible and matched your experience. And after that, I kept writing that, for free, I would sit down with you for an hour and show you how to stop losing money? Would that keep you reading? Would it maybe lead to a meeting or further discussion? You bet.

Do you think I would get your business in the future, if I did a good job in that first meeting? You bet.

So think of copywriting as an opening gambit in a conversation–not as the first strike in a sales battle. Conversations are good–they lead to sales.

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