A few years ago, some­thing hap­pened that pro­vided incon­tro­vert­ible proof of the impor­tance of an infal­li­ble rule in copy­writ­ing. I knew it all along but never saw it proven to me in such a per­sonal and direct way.

What am I talk­ing about?

No, it’s not the head­line. It’s not being emo­tional. It’s not ben­e­fits. And it’s not split-​​testing, either. In fact, my open­ing para­graph gave you a clue.

Sure, the head­line, the ben­e­fits, and all those things are impor­tant. Very impor­tant. But the one ele­ment I’m refer­ring to, the one ele­ment that can trans­form flimsy, “yeah-​​right” copy into a sales-​​inducing pow­er­house, is…

… Proof.

Other than poor tar­get­ing and shoddy copy, the lack of proof in your copy is what prob­a­bly (and most likely) causes it to fail. But when I talk about “proof,” I’m not just talk­ing about one or two types, but seven. Yes, seven dif­fer­ent types of proof!

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Thought is the only power which can pro­duce tan­gi­ble riches from the form­less sub­stance. The stuff from which all things are made is a sub­stance which thinks, and a thought of form in this sub­stance pro­duces the form.

Orig­i­nal sub­stance moves accord­ing to its thoughts; every form and process you see in nature is the vis­i­ble expres­sion of a thought in orig­i­nal sub­stance. As the form­less stuff thinks of a form, it takes that form; as it thinks of a motion, it makes that motion. That is the way all things were created.

We live in a thought world, which is part of a thought uni­verse. The thought of a mov­ing uni­verse extended through­out form­less sub­stance, and the think­ing stuff — mov­ing accord­ing to that thought — took the form of sys­tems of plan­ets, and main­tains that form. Think­ing sub­stance takes the form of its thought, and moves accord­ing to the thought.

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Pic­tures in adver­tis­ing are very expen­sive. Not in cost of good art work alone, but in the cost of space. From one-​​third to one-​​half of an adver­tis­ing cam­paign is often staked on the power of the pic­tures. Any­thing expen­sive must be effec­tive, else it involves much waste. So art in adver­tis­ing is a study of para­mount importance.

Pic­tures should not be used merely because they are inter­est­ing. Or to attract atten­tion. Or to dec­o­rate an ad. We have cov­ered these points else­where. Ads are not writ­ten to inter­est, please or amuse. You are not writ­ing to please the hoi-​​polloi. You are writ­ing on a seri­ous sub­ject — the sub­ject of money spend­ing. And you address a restricted minority.

Use pic­tures only to attract those who may profit you. Use them only when they form a bet­ter sell­ing argu­ment than the same amount of space set in type.

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The greater por­tion of my career has been in copy­writ­ing, sell­ing and direct mar­ket­ing. And one of the com­mon denom­i­na­tors I’ve found in any suc­cess­ful piece of copy is the power of risk rever­sal. That is, tak­ing more of a risk from the sale than the pur­chaser of your product.

The greater the guar­an­tee, the greater the sales. This has been con­sis­tent in almost every indus­try in which I’ve worked, and with every split-​​test I’ve con­ducted. For exam­ple, a 30-​​day guar­an­tee will out­sell no guar­an­tee. A 90-​​day guar­an­tee will out­sell a 30-​​day one. And so on and so forth.

How­ever, there are some excep­tions to this rule.

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