HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS explores the perceived wisdom of the use of negatives in copy.

In my callow youth, I taught English literature at a minor US university. There, I solidified my impious opinion that Wordsworth should have been considered a minor poet. But Wordsworth had a line in his ode, ‘Intimations of Immortality’:

‘The sunshine is a glorious birth.’

So OK, Bill, maybe you weren’t all bad. Maybe. Uhhh . . . what does that line mean, anyway?

As is so often true of poetry, those six words make little sense in their original context and make happy sense out of context.

As a parallel, here in the sunny days of midsummer we can re-examine some basic concepts of direct marketing and have them ready for use as we plan holiday mailings, emails, and arguments with associates.
So, a point: Folklore and fact aren’t always in sync. Survival in our hypercompetitive world is fact-driven, and theories based on personal likes and dislikes may temporarily salve the proclaimer’s ego . . . and even in a short competition, eventuate into ‘What I really meant was . . .’.

An example
Worthy of exploration is the latter-day adoption of a negative as selling theory. Someone, somewhere, decided that starting an email subject line with ‘Don’t’ is a grabber.

Well, yes, just as any imperative is a better grabber than a declarative.

But a dire warning isn’t usually as effective as a positive instruction, especially now that we’re navel-deep in the Age of Scepticism.

One sees a plethora of negatives in social media. Hmm. Are social media genuine media?
I’ll cheerfully qualify as my own opinion/proclamation that social media (I detest that term) compete poorly against outright sales weaponry.

The darling of mid-2009, Twitter, joins Facebook and MySpace as ego-boosters hanging on the fence that separates salesmanship from self-image.

Depending on the periphery isn’t a professional attitude. YouTube may produce results, although reports to which I’ve been privy say the results aren’t always arrowed to the bottom line and when they are, the CPA (cost per action) is greater than the cost of properly targeted email. Too, YouTube can bite. A marketer is a passenger who can’t control the direction of the chariot.

The easiest rule you’ll see all day . . . or all week . . . or all month . . . or all year . . . or whenever: The most effective media are those which reach and influence positively your specifically targeted prospects at the lowest per-reach cost.
(Note the key words: ‘reach and influence’, not just ‘reach’; and ‘influence positively’, not just ‘influence’.)

Measuring sticks
While I’m outraging you, another point I regard as fact and you may regard as opinion: CPA is no more valid a measuring stick than was the old – if any aspect of Web marketing can be considered old – adoration of CPC (cost per click). What matters is positive action, not just unmodified action. And positive action is action that either is a transaction or leads directly to a transaction.

I’ve used just about all the space to which I’m allotted, and the notions basket still is half full. I have space for just one more pointed point:
When an outsider – think ‘conventional advertising agency’ – says direct mail doesn’t work for customer acquisition, the proper four word response is, ‘Get another list company.’