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The first act had gone fine. The audience members hadn’t leaped to their feet in an ovation, but at least they were still there when the intermission lights came up, and most of them showed signs of consciousness. So far, so good, I thought from my self-imposed station on the lighting grid catwalk, where many playwrights prefer to hide during a production of one of their works.

My playwriting teacher knew where to find me, of course. “They like the play,” he said. “The only thing you need is a new curtain line.”

“New curtain line?”

“Yes. The closing line of the act isn’t strong enough. You need to put something else there that will really resonate with the audience on the way out, something that will draw them back for Act Two.”

“Uh…okay.” I wouldn’t have minded having this conversation sometime before the midpoint of opening night, but sometimes you really can’t tell what’s working in a script until you put it on its feet in front of an audience. So after the show I went home, thought up a new line for the leading character to end the first act with, and the next night the whole scene — in fact, the whole show — worked noticeably better.

Copywriting has its own version of the “curtain line.” It’s known as the call to action.

The call to action consists of that final compelling statement in which you force the readers to react to what they’ve just absorbed in a specific way. Maybe it’s time for them to pick up the phone and place their order. Maybe it’s time for them to fill out the request form for more details. Maybe it’s time for them to whip out their credit card and make that payment. The point is — it’s time. You’ve delivered a compelling message to them; now it’s time for them to respond appropriately.

A good piece of copywriting has a shape to it, much as a well-written act in a play has a clear structure. An effective act grabs the audience from the beginning, ratchets that interest level higher and higher, then leaves them in the most powerful, congruent emotional state possible — the precise emotional state you want them to experience. Copywriting builds in a similar manner, ending with such an emotional punch that the reader feels compelled to take the next step.

So when you write that marketing piece, save the best for last. Rally the troops — your readers — with a rousing call to action. Challenge them to act on that feeling you’ve just planted in them. Turn those prospects into customers, and customers into repeat customers. Get what you want the easy way — by asking for it.

Curtain!

Barton Fink is a serious author, and therein lies his problem. In this 1991 film by the Coen brothers, Barton (John Turturro) has just made his first big splash as a New York playwright. It’s 1941, and Barton has a burning desire to write meaningful plays about “the common man.” He has high ideals, so it’s no wonder that he hesitates over an offer to write screenplays for Capitol Pictures in Hollywood. When he shows up at the studio’s gates, the manic, overbearing head of the studio, Jack Lipnick, immediately assigns him to a wrestling picture for actor Wallace Beery. The premise: “Big men — in tights!”

In the course of the film, alongside a series of bizarre, surrealistic events that I wouldn’t think of spoiling for you, Barton takes it on himself to bring a little “common man” nobility to the wrestling-picture genre, crafting a literate, sensitive story of the wrestler’s inner struggle — a man “wrestling with his soul.” He delivers the finished script to the studio as the finest thing he’s ever done.

And of course Lipnick hates it. “It’s a wrestling picture. The audience wants to see WRESTLING, and lots of it!” He all but fires Barton, keeping him on the payroll on the odd chance he can be molded into the kind of writer the studio can use — one that makes the product he’s asked to make.

And you know what? Lipnick is right. He’s right because he understands that his audience is right.

We have to give audiences what they want, not what we think they need — or what we think is profound or brilliant or funny. Playwright George S. Kaufman once recalled being furious with an audience for never laughing at a “hilarious” line, until it finally dawned on him that maybe it would be easier to fix the line than to fix the audience. He ended up doing all right for himself.

If the writing gets the desired result, then it’s right. If it doesn’t, then it’s wrong. This simple rule holds true for playwriting, for screenwriting — and for copywriting.

Heck, it’s even true for wrestling. They use writers too, you know.

It would appear that Leonard Nimoy, a.k.a. Star Trek’s Mr. Spock, has announced his intention to “hang up the ears” and retire, not only from the character but from a six-decade career as an actor.

Sure, I watch Star Trek. Writers spend a lot of time cooped up at home, and yes, most of us are okay with that. I enjoy cruising through the galaxy at warp speed with the Star Trek gang, mainly because it allows me to pretend that I’m getting out of the house occasionally. But even if I couldn’t care less about the franchise, there’s no denying that it has developed into a formidable chunk of pop culture over the past half-century. So even those of us who don’t know about it kinda-sorta do.

Anyway, Nimoy’s announcement got me thinking about the show, and about Mr. Spock’s home planet, Vulcan. You see, Vulcans have this ability to “mind meld” with people. They grab your head and perform a kind of telepathy on you, reading your thoughts and feeling your emotions (which must stink on ice for Vulcans who mind-meld with humans, since they really aren’t into the whole emotion thing). For a moment, the Vulcan sees the meld-ee’s point of view in perfect clarity, “becoming” that person long enough to achieve a deep level of empathy.

Vulcan must have fantastic marketing departments. Want to know your target audience? Invite a representative of that demographic into your office, plant a hand on the subject’s noggin and blam, instant market research.

We poor humans have no such skills, at least not readily on tap, as far as we can measure. Yet we who market ourselves must perform this very task — we must get inside the heads of our audience, as best we can, and see through their eyes. We must feel their pain or frustration, recognize the things that make them smile, or look at that product or service as if we’ve never seen it before and have no idea what it could do for us.

It’s an acting technique of sorts. Actors train long and hard to learn to inhabit another person’s skin, to make that fictional character move and talk and feel as a flesh-and-blood person by first asking, “How would I feel, what would I do, if I were this character, with this background, education, physical condition, mental state, et cetera?” Writers have to go into this mode as well. When we write fiction, we have to understand our characters so clearly that we can empathize with them from cover to cover — even if we don’t like them. We also have to understand our readers and know what’s most likely to make the right impact on them. And marketing writing requires no less.

So my challenge to you, when you’re planning that email blast or brochure or website, is to try to read the mind of your ideal prospect. Picture that person in your mind as completely as you can. Try to “become” that person long enough to get a crystal-clear idea of what that person wants, fears or needs. Then write your marketing piece to that person.

Live long and prosper.

In 1966, Yoko Ono exhibited a now-famous artwork called the “Ceiling Painting.” It was more than a painting, really — viewers had to climb a ladder and point a magnifying glass up toward the ceiling, where a framed sheet of paper awaited their gaze. On the paper was written a single word: “YES.”

Why “YES?” According to the artist, it was a reaction against the prevailing negativity in the world, an attempt to fight back with a positive attitude by “activating the ‘Yes’ element.”

I like that way of putting it, because the “Yes” element may well be the most important one in the copywriter’s Periodic Table. “Yes” carries power. “Yes” affirms. “Yes” indicates agreement. “Yes” gives permission.

I hear a lot of “pain and reward” talk when people discuss copywriting techniques. “Create the pain, then take it away.” Paint a dismal picture of the reader’s current problem, then part the clouds to reveal the radiant glow of your solution to the problem. But during the recent economic crisis, I found that the last thing people wanted from a marketing message was a pain statement — they had plenty of pain already, thank you. Adding yet another dismal picture to their gallery of misery served merely to turn them away.

What worked instead? The power of “Yes.” Going against the prevailing funk to snap people out of it. Starting positive and staying there, while cranking up the excitement level until it was the reader’s cue to buy or call or whatever. A pain statement can work well in a relatively cheery economic environment, because there you’re going against the grain to get the reader’s attention. But when people want to feel better, give them what they want!

“Yes” also gets people agreeing with you. A string of “Yes” answers to your questions can prime your audience for the big “Yes” at the end: “Do you need a change?” YES. “Are you ready for that change to happen?” YES. “Do you want to make that change happen today?” YES. “Then whip out that credit card and call us right now!” YES!

Does the “Yes” element work? John Lennon thought so, in recounting his first glimpse of the future Mrs. Lennon’s painting: “I would have been quite disappointed if it had said ‘NO.’”