These are just a few of the direct response copywriting portfolio pieces I’ve created. Go back to my main content creator portfolio when you’re done. 

A “surviving summer” direct response postcard with a quiz

This was an oversized postcard I wrote while at the ad agency Insight Out of Chaos in New York City. The mailer has a quiz and several coupons. I leveraged my gardening knowledge to write a quiz that went just a little bit beyond what most people know about plants and lawns so the quiz would be interesting. 

A brochure for a craft product, “The Original Christmas Gift.” 

This portfolio piece served two purposes: It was a mailable brochure and an informational brochure that was put inside the box of a craft product I created and sold from 2004-2007. The product was called “The Original Christmas Gift.” It was a gift box of edible gold dust, frankincense incense, and myrrh-infused shea butter. I eventually sold the business a few years later, but I loved this little product and created a lot of other copywriting for it. 

A postcard for a national hardware store chain announcing their branded product line.

This is another direct mail copywriting sample I did for the national hardware store chain. It was “just” a postcard, but it went out to tens of thousands of people. The call to action was to use the coupon to try a new line of branded hardware products. The client was extremely pleased with the results – their product launch did well, and we could quantifiably prove this postcard was part of why the launch was a success.

Direct mail Christmas promotion for a national hardware store chain

This is my favorite piece in my direct mail copywriting portfolio. I wrote it almost as a joke to keep myself busy during a blackout that happened one afternoon while I was at work. But then it fell together so nicely that I showed it to my boss, who showed it to the client, who loved it on the spot. 

This went out to hundreds of hardware stores across the country. The poem in it has a couple of pieces of dynamic copy. It was written so we could personalize each postcard for each store that was sending it. The piece performed extraordinarily well – well enough that it was mailed again the next year. We kept getting reports from store owners that their customers were so delighted with the mailer that they had brought the mailer to the store to talk about it with the owners.

Book catalog copy

I worked at the now-defunct book catalog company A Common Reader for several years. One of the jobs I had there over the years was writing copy for the catalog. The image below shows some of my “greatest hits” of catalog copy for A Common Reader. These are write-ups that sold more books than any others I wrote.

If you would like to see more pieces from my direct mail copywriting portfolio, contact me.