Bad copywriting is everywhere once you learn to see it. It's a curse. I can't watch a commercial or flip through a magazine without rewriting the ad in my head. A concrete contractor mailed this postcard to my house last week. I read it twice, trying to figure out who it was for. The front shows a highway construction crew in hi-vis vests on a paving project. "Strong Foundations, Stronger Relationships." The back lists driveways, curb and gutter, asphalt, paving, exterior repairs, dump truck hauling, and more. That "and more" is where the mailer died. I almost tossed it. Then I picked it back up because of something John Caples wrote in 1932 that should be tattooed on every business owner who has ever paid for a mailer. "I have seen one mail order advertisement actually sell, not twice as much, not three times as much, but 19 1/2 times as much goods as another. Both advertisements occupied the same space. Both were run in the same publication. Both had photographic illustrations. Both had carefully written copy. The difference was the one used the right appeal and the other used the wrong appeal." Same money in. Nineteen and a half times the money out. Tiny changes move enormous numbers. Caples once lifted a mail order ad by twenty percent just by changing "How to repair cars" to "How to fix cars." One word. So I sat down with this contractor's postcard and reviewed the copywriting.