Verisimilitude:

Verisimilitude is not only a great sounding word that literally rolls off your tongue when you say it ... it represents a great idea when creating direct mail.

Verisimilitude is the appearance of being true or real.  Direct formats with verisimilitude are convincing and engaging, as well as response-generating,

An example of this is the direct mail letter at left that's convincingly disguised as an email. It appears to have been sent to and printed out by Curtis Walls, New Car Sales Manager at a the Independence Honda dealership where Jessica Best bought her 2010 Honda Fit.  It looks like it was an email from his general manager.
  
The piece is artfully personalized starting with the subject line (Subject: Jessica Best's 2010 Honda Fit) and the handwritten note (Jessica, My manager emailed this to me.  Check it out--you can upgrade your vehicle with no money down.)

Here's the copy in full:

Curtis, 

We desperately need pre-owned vehicles-especially any Honda Fit in good condition we can get. I was looking at previous customers who bought one from us and want you to get a hold of Jessica Best asap.

Make sure you let Jessica know that by trading in the 2010 Honda Fit, it's quite likely they can upgrade their vehicle with no money down.

I ran some numbers and created a list of vehicles on our lot Jessica qualifies for and included the new payment, terms and conditions.  You can check it out at this secure webpage:  (PURL goes here)

I need you to get on this, though, because these deals are only good through the end of the month.

It's signed by the general manager.  The only small flaws I found were first,  the reference to "they" and "their" in the second paragraph.  Since Jessica bought the car and she's obviously female, the pronouns should have referred to "she" and "her."  The second flaw is the super long PURL that isn't a hot link.  The longer the URL you ask your reader to enter into his or her browser, the more likely a mistake will be made.  And mistakes kill response.

Other than that, the concept is brilliant.  I wish I'd thought of it. 

A toast to chocolate, scanners and readers

Since it's Valentine's Day it's appropriate that I should write a brief post about the word chocolate.

Chocolate happens to be one of my favorite words because of the way it rolls off my tongue. The sounds tumble out as they do when I say a couple of my other favorite words ... verisimilitude and synchronicity.  The only problem with all three of these words is that they have multiple syllables. 

As a writer, I know that multi-syllabic words are difficult to scan.  And since most writers of copy and content write first for scanners, then for readers ... we limit our use of words with more than one syllable.  Yup.  When you only have a few seconds to snag some one's attention online or in print, it's best to keep words, sentences and paragraphs short and easy to scan.  We call it reeling in the reader.

I was reminded of this today as I wrote a lead generation letter targeting people of high net worth. Yes, these people are financially successful and probably well educated, but they're also busy.  And if I'm fortunate enough to get them to open my envelope and take a glance at my letter, I'd better make it easy for them to pick out the most important points that compel them to call or use the PURL to get more information.  In the process, they may or may not read every word I write.  So I'd better be darn sure their scanning eyes pick out the most powerful words and benefits.  Writing is about more than the words you choose to use ... it's also about how and where you use them.

But back to the word chocolate.  According to Wikipedia, chocolate was first enjoyed as a drink.  Maybe even the ingredient in an alcoholic drink.  Around 1100-1400 BC.  Just more reason to love the word chocolate and the deliciousness it represents.  Cheers and Happy Valentine's Day!    

Dear Client(s),

I'm writing to ask you to do me a huge favor as part of my ongoing cross-channel writing education.  As you know, I love learning about results so please continue sharing them with me.  Here's why. I recently learned a direct mail letter I wrote had been re-purposed (literally word-for-word) as a wildly successful email ... and one of my blog posts for another client went out as a one-off email in which the headline was used as the subject line.  And got a 51% open rate. For me this confirms that best practices for writing strong direct response copy AND content really do work across channels.  It's one thing to say it ... another to have results prove it.