Who Wins In A Fight: Copywriters Or Marketers?

Got this controversial, potentially explosive email in my inbox today. Comes from Ben Settle. You can see the full blog post here.

[Reposted with permission of Ben Settle... who said I could only post this if I left Mr. Subtle's name in. ]

"A couple years ago I saw a funny cartoon.

Basically, it was from Mr. Subtle — the guy who has designed a few of my book covers — and he was making fun of how copywriters think compared to the rest of the marketing world (specifically, people who actually understand the principles of direct response).

Anyway, it went something like this:

He put up a cartoon image of two human brains.

One of the brains was a copywriter’s brain.

And the other a marketer’s.

Both brains were sectioned, like pie slices, with each “slice” being representative of what’s most important by the size. So, for example, in the copywriter’s brain, it had the copy being a big piece of the marketing pie, while the offer and list were smaller slices.

And the marketer’s brain was the opposite.

His brain showed the offer and list being most important.

(With the copy being much smaller.)

Anyway, kinda funny stuff.

And very true, too.

It’s amusing how many copywriters think they’re little “gods”, responsible for “millions of dollars in sales” when, in reality, their client’s offer, product, list, etc had FAR more to do with all those bags of money than their little lame killer headlines or whatever were.

Not saying copy isn’t important.

But it’s not the sales “panacea” it’s hyped up to be.

This is why I teach both email writing AND marketing in “Email Players”.

The one without the other is like a car without a steering wheel.

(Which is why so many emails crash & *burn*…)"
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What ch'all think? Is Ben right?

I think most copywriters would agree that the list and offer are more important than the copy. But this line particularly stuck out to me:

It’s amusing how many copywriters think they’re little “gods”, responsible for “millions of dollars in sales” when, in reality, their client’s offer, product, list, etc had FAR more to do with all those bags of money than their little lame killer headlines or whatever were.

Copywriters always tout their copy made their client millions of dollars. But, really, how can a copywriter actually prove it was his or her copy that did most of the selling?

Feel free to agree and disagree. From what I gather, Ben loves haters.