Columnist Herschell Gordon Lewis takes a quick look at tiny but effective words and their usage among marketers.
First published in DMI, August 2003.
The World Wide Web has brought fresh emphasis to the value of proper word selection. Emailers who don’t know the difference between ‘eager’ and ‘anxious’, or, for that matter, the impact-difference between ‘a’ [...]

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Herschell Gordon Lewis hurdles exhaustive obstacles in the hunt for a successful email offer.
 
An intriguing email invited me to check a list of local real estate foreclosures for which I might want to make an offer.
Well, all right. It’s worth a look. No, it isn’t. 
Why not? 
Because the marketer obviously isn’t a direct marketer. He, she or it [...]

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Herschell Gordon Lewis shares a little copy class. 
What is wrong with this snippet from a product description for a traditional electric typewriter, lifted word-for-word from a current catalogue?
“Includes 1 black ink ribbon and lift-off correction spool; refills available. Rush delivery not available . . .”
What caught my eye was that this is the first offer [...]

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And how effective can a marketer be in just 140 characters, wonders Herschell Gordon Lewis.
The word ‘advocate’ is too thin to describe many Twitter followers. A better appellation: ‘disciple’.
Twitter is the current darling of what aptly are called ‘social media’, a latter-day addition to the wonders of electronic communication. Social media include Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, [...]

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Herschell Gordon Lewis shares a little copy class.
William of Ockham should have been a direct marketer. Maybe he was. Many of us moonlight openly or surreptitiously in a second pseudo-profession. And, in the 14th century, media choices were sparse enough to assure readership of anything that appeared in what then was considered ‘print’.
We all have [...]

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 . . . according to chapter 36,407, says Herschell Gordon Lewis.
We assume we’re professional communicators. The very word ‘professional’ implies knowledge beyond that of someone who aspires from outside our little half-world to join us.
So when an email shows up in our daily batch, and the email is headed, ‘22 Quick Tips for Better Email [...]

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Herschell Gordon Lewis shares a little copy class.
Assumption: You’re a sophisticated marketer. Parallel assumption: You aren’t surprised to see junk-authoritarian statements by junk-authorities, in trade publications.
An absolute ‘given’ is that when a technique or a medium   or a procedure or a development becomes the darling of self-proclaimed avant-garders, we can anticipate sniping as the next step. [...]

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Hershell Gordon Lewis adds copy class to the back page of the new newspaper: DMI News Extra.
May I superimpose what I hope is a redundant supposition onto any preconceived notions or prejudices you may harbour?
That supposition: Copywriters are wordsmiths.
I hope you agree that’s redundant. After all, what are we other than glorifiers? What we glorify [...]

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Yes, it is. And let’s not kill it, says Herschell Gordon Lewis.
Advance your time machines 100 years. Will a marketing historian — or an anthropologist — deliver a lecture on the ongoing developments in direct marketing and begin the discourse with: “Do you remember a substance called ‘paper’? Your grandmother may have told you about [...]

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. . . in as many words as possible is something that infuriates HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS.
If you’re a veteran reader of this publication, you know I’ve been pouting and spouting in its pages for some 20 years – and more recently online.
During that period, I’ve attended numerous conferences (and, in later years, Webinars) in which the calibre of information ranged [...]

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