Direct response copy

What direct response copy is

Direct response copy asks a reader to do one specific thing now, and is judged by how many of them did it. The responses are counted. A piece that produced none has failed, whatever anyone in the room thinks of the writing, and that verdict is the whole point of the discipline.

It is not a format. A letter, an email, a web page, a postcard, an insert in a parcel and a paid ad can all be direct response, and any of them can also be written the other way. What makes it direct response is that one action is named, one number is agreed before the writing starts, and the piece is settled against that number afterwards. It is a discipline, and it can be applied to almost anything you send out.

It is not brand or awareness writing, which is meant to be remembered rather than answered, and it is not conversion copy, which is this same discipline applied to a page you already send visitors to.

When you need one

You need it when you are about to spend money reaching people and want to know afterwards whether the spend came back: a letter to lapsed customers, a piece going into every parcel you ship, a seasonal push with a start date and an end date.

You need it, too, when the writing has become an argument. Three people have opinions about the headline and none of them has a number. Direct response ends that by running both versions and counting.

You do not need this if nothing is counted yet. If a response arrives on the same phone line as every other call, or through a form that does not record where the visitor came from, the piece cannot be judged and I would be selling a promise I cannot keep. Sort out the two or three numbers you will actually watch first. It is cheaper, and it takes a week.

What has to be in place before I write it

I will ask for all five of these on the first call, and if any of them is missing we fix that before anything is written.

• One action. Call, book, reply, order, return the card, scan the code. One. A piece that asks for three things gets none of them, and cannot be scored anyway.
• A way to count it. A phone number used nowhere else, a web address used nowhere else, a code to quote, a form that records its source, or a person at a desk with a tally sheet. Any of those will do. Nothing is not on the list.
• A number to beat. What the last comparable piece produced. If there has never been one, the first run sets the baseline rather than pretending to pass or fail.
• An audience you are allowed to contact. Your own customers, or a rented list with terms you have read. For email that means consent under Canadian anti-spam law, which I work within and do not advise on.
• Something worth answering. A real offer with a price and a reason to act now. Direct response makes a good offer visible. It cannot make a weak one worth a reply.

What you get

The piece, written to its medium. Copy in order, every line of it in the document: headline, body, the ask, the reply device, the postscript if it is a letter, the button label if it is not. Nothing is left for whoever lays it out to improvise.

Two challengers. An alternative headline and an alternative closing ask, written to run against the first version rather than instead of it. I cannot say in advance which will win, and neither can anybody else.

A measurement sheet. One page: what counts as a response, where the count comes from, how long it runs, and what result means the piece worked. Written so the person who owns the number can use it without me.

A worked example

An illustration, not a client. A commercial landscaping firm outside Moncton wants snow-clearing contracts for the coming winter. It has the addresses of two hundred and forty small commercial properties in its service area, gathered over eleven years, and has never written to any of them.

The piece is a two-page letter with a reply card. The action is one thing only: book a site visit before the end of October. The counting is a phone number printed nowhere else, plus a note on each returned card. The letter opens with what an uncleared parking lot costs a tenant at seven in the morning, states the price band, names the cut-off date and asks twice. The count runs for six weeks and the tally sheet lives by the phone. The decision that came out of it was not about snow at all: most of the visits booked were at properties already paying somebody else, so in the spring the same letter went to two neighbouring towns with a rewritten opening, and each town was counted separately.

How it runs

1. A half-hour call. What you are selling, who you are writing to, what one action you want, and how a response would reach you today. No charge.
2. A fixed price in writing. The pieces, the challengers, the revision rounds and the measure we will judge it by, agreed before a word is written.
3. Setting up the counting. If there is no tracked number, no clean landing address and no code, that is fixed first. One to three working days, usually your phone provider or your web person rather than me.
4. The draft. Five to eight working days after the call. You tell me what you cannot say, what you will not promise, and what the price really is.
5. Final copy and the measurement sheet. One round of revisions included, then a short call with whoever sends it and whoever keeps the count.

Two to three weeks from first call to a piece ready to go out is typical.

What it costs

Direct response copy is quoted as a fixed price in CAD after the half-hour call. The price depends on the length of the piece, how many versions are being run against each other, and whether the counting already exists or has to be built. It never includes postage, printing or media, which stay on your side of the invoice. The pricing page explains how quoting works for services without a published band.

What happens next

Once the count is in, three things usually follow. The winning version is adapted into a paid advertisement, since a line that earned replies on paper tends to earn clicks. The people who responded but were not ready go into a series of follow-up emails rather than being left to cool. And the same discipline gets pointed at your own site, which is the rewriting job above. This piece of work is complete on its own, the count belongs to you, and nothing further is assumed.