Article: Ask me a question ... and you've grabbed my attention. (using questions in direct marketing)

If you're asking yourself as you write a direct response message, "Why should anyone pay attention to this?," recognize that a question, even one such as you've just asked yourself, is automatically reader-involving.

One of the always-available but strangely underused (never "underutilized" if you have genuine communications credentials) rhetorical tricks available to direct marketers is the question.

Questions trap the message-recipient in an absolute snare. That same reader or viewer or listener who can turn the page or toss the mailing or switch channels or click a mouse is stuck...on the tip of your punctuational rapier.

Okay, we've all known that ...

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