Copywriting No-Nos
DONT start to write until you have the facts.
Dont start to use the facts until you separate the important from the unimportant.
Dont fix your own opinion of the value of a fact until you have tried it out on average people.
Dont try to gather all your copy ideas inside the four walls of your office. Get out. Mix with the trade and with the public. You will save time.
Dont assume that all your useful copy facts are bound up in merchandise. Some of the most successful advertising campaigns talk mainly about the service behind the product.
Dont miss taking in an occasional sales convention. It will stir up your thoughts.
Dont overlook the problems of the advertisers sales force. They may furnish the vital clue to your advertising.
Dont expect an engineer to be lucid. Keep patiently at him. In time you will discover what he is driving at.
Dont assume that your reader is sitting before you in a buying frame of mind. He may be half asleep. He may be worrying about his own troubles. In either case, you will have to hook him hard with some quick point of interest.
Dont fail to make a special study of headlines. The headline makes or breaks many an advertisement.
Dont imagine that a short text solves the problem of getting a reading.
Dont forget that the public is chiefly interested in its own troubles.
Dont talk about your product as if it were in the factory. The public wont go there to see it.
Dont talk about your product as if it were in the retail store. So long as it is the dealers property, it wont give the public much service.
Dont forget that the products real advantages come out in use. Talk about your product in use.
Dont fail to bring out the virtues of your product in meeting some trouble common to your possible buyers.
Dont leave your product to prove its own case in use. In many lines only an expert can tell the good from the bad. Explain the merits which are not obvious.
Dont expect your public to read successive advertisements, unless each in turn contains some fresh bit of interesting information.
Dont expect delicious to sell candy. Almost any candy is delicious.
Dont expect nourishing to sell food. Most foods are nourishing.
Dont expect warm to sell overcoats. Almost any overcoat is warm.
Dont expect becoming to sell hatshalf your readers will know it is hopeless.
Dont talk too much about what your product is. What it does is more important.
Dont imagine that your reader has never heard good claims about articles similar to yours. Choose a line of thought which will reawaken his tired interest.
Dont address your message to the thin air. Talk to real people.
Dont let familiarity with your subject lead you into technical terms which the green reader doesnt understand.
Dont get discouraged when the ideas fail to flow. Keep on trying. The happy thought may wake you up in the middle of the night.
Dont exaggerateunless you are willing to plant mistrust.
Dont expect to get a fair-minded hearing, if you employ unfair claims and phraseology.
Dont whine. State the facts and trust to the readers sound judgment.
Dont figure that any product of itself makes a tame subject for advertising copy. A good writer can put a thrill into the nebular hypothesis.
Dont assume that people wont read long advertisements. Rather admit to yourself I dont know how to be interesting.
Dont imagine that any combination of words will take the place of a real thought.
Dont look down on Rhetoric textbooks. They hold many valuable practical pointers on force, clearness and precision.
Dont fall back on the word best. Its a sign you are slipping.
Dont consider your job finished when you have brought out the merits of the product. Make your reader like the Company which offers it.
Dont convince your reader and leave him guessing at where he can buy.
Dont lay too much stress on the value of a trademark figure. By the time it gets established, it is liable to give a chestnut flavor to the whole advertisement.
Dont work too hard over a trademark style of lettering for your display line. The trademark style will never make or break a campaign.
Dont waste too much time over slogans. Most of the notable advertising slogans cropped up as happy phrases in copy. Few have sprung out of cold-blooded thinking.
Dont agonize over a distinctive type for your text matter. If it is too distinctive, it will hinder reading. If it is quickly legible, its individuality will be scarcely noticed.
Dont quarrel with the artist. If you reason with him, he will come aroundor perhaps he is right.
Dont take too seriously the criticisms of the star salesman. If you want to see what he really knows, ask him to write an advertisement for you.
Dont put the advertiser in a position where he sits in cold judgment on your copy. Make sure you are mentally together before he looks at the words.
Dont be fooled by dumb advertising which has succeeded. Look behind the scenes for expensive sampling, clever sales work, an extraordinary product or some other important factor which turned the trick.
Dont figure that you have rounded out your experience till you try copy dictation. It saves time. It stimulates a flow of thought. It runs out too long, but cuts down easily.
Dont become hide-bound by ruleseven these.