Just A Grumpy Old Man?
Superb copywriter and direct marketer Denny Hatch has a new “must read” book out, called The Secrets of Emotional Hot-Button Copywriting.
I just read his latest e-article, Think Old, Not New. He was distressed (that’s an understatement) that one of his purchasers asked for a refund … on the grounds that the book told him nothing about how to write for the internet.
What does Denny really think?!
“That ignorance-is-bliss philosophy resulted in $3 trillion disappearing down the sewer in the dot-com bust, and legions of those smug, self-important kiddies wound up moving in with their parents and going back to school.”
Denny’s article makes the case for certain “eternal verities” of copywriting and direct marketing.
What do you think?
Is Denny’s disgruntled reader right … writing for the internet is intrinsically different. And is Denny just a behind-the-times grumpy old man?
Or is Denny on the money?
Tom
4 responses to “Just A Grumpy Old Man?”
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Just a grumpy old man? Methinks he’s a smart old man. He’s savvy enough to know that a comment like that will raise curiosity — or hackles. It motivated a “skim” reader like me to take a few minutes, dig deeper and learn a little more about this Denny.
Hmmm…what was the title of his book again? — “The Secrets of Emotional Hot Button Copywriting”. Oh yeah, he’s superb.
“Overstatement” is what marketing is all about. And Denny is a master at it.
It depends on whether “writing for the internet” means making money writing for the internet, or making “friends” on the internet.
Grumpy? He (and me, close to 62 yrs old) have a right to be. I see timeless lessons from fundraising being lost, buried, forgotten – a wholesale direct marketing collective amnesia – in the cock -sure ‘there is nothing these old timers can teach me!’ arrogance of newbies who seem sometimes barely toilet trained. I work in the data/base datamining/analytics field, not copywriting but the same is true in my chosen field. Was I guilty of this all those years back? No – we sat at the feet of the then masters (I am a Brit so names would not be instantly recognisable to the US reader) and we LEARNED, boy did we learn. Keep it up Denny Hatch.