• Spying On John Carlton
  • Full Tilt Boogie
    Sunday, 9:08pm Reno, NV “Hit me.  Hit me again.  Again.  Arrrgh…” (Blackjack dude going down…) Howdy. One of the truly fun parts of being in business are the Life Lessons you get to learn. Or, rather, you’re forced to learn (if you don’t want to spend your career blundering down the same blind alleys time after time). Early on, I took […]
  • Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies, & Choosing The Right Weapon
    Monday, 11:34pm Visalia, CA “I never drink… wine.“  (Bela Lugosi, “Dracula”) Howdy. Special treat today.  I’ve asked an old friend (and killer copywriter) to guest post on the blog here. Jim Curley and I go way back (to, gasp, Before The Birth Of The Internets As A Marketing Force)… … and he’s one of those Web-hip veteran copywriters who brings a […]
  • Confessions Of A Story Junkie, Part One
    Sunday, 10:19pm Reno, NV “There are eight million stories in the naked city…” (Jules Dassin film noir classic) Howdy. Here’s a nice little piece of insight for writers. And by “writers”, I’m referring to those ink-stained wretches (of whom I share a proud bond) who really care about the craft of writing.  For whom the act of stringing words together […]
  • The Quiz, Resolved. And Prize Awarded…
    Tuesday, 4:06pm San Francisco, CA “I left my heart…” (Tony Bennett) Howdy. By the time you read this, I’ll be back home in Reno… a better man for having spent a week in San Francisco. Even though it was all business, I still get invigorated just from hanging out in that city by the bay.  It’s one of the few […]
  • Quiz Time. With a prize!
    Wednesday, 8:40pm Reno, NV “Money, money, money, money, money, money…” (Cabaret) Howdy… Hope you enjoyed the last post, where I offered up 3 observations about moolah. For this current post, I promised to reveal the 4th observation… … which is so powerful, it can instantly change the way you move and get things done in the world. However… … I’ve just had a [ […]
  • Money, money, money, money…
    Sunday, 4:24pm Reno, NV “… keep your hands offa my stash…” (Pink Floyd) Howdy… Let’s talk about money. Do you have enough? Do you know how much “enough” is, for you? Most folks are pretty clueless about moolah.  They desire it, they fear it, they respect and hate and love it… and they assign all kinds of magical powers to it. So here […]
  • Congratulations, And Now Stop Being A Wuss
    Monday, 7:55pm Reno, NV “But it’s all right… in fact it’s a gas…” (The Stones, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash“) Howdy… Nobody’s ever asked me to give the commencement speech for a graduating class. That’s probably a good thing.  I’m pretty pissed off at the education system these days, and I might cause a small riot with the rant I’d surely deliver. See, […]
  • Takin’ It Too Far…
    Thursday, 11:49pm Reno, NV “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” (Talking Heads,”Psycho Killer”, ca. 1979) Howdy. Quick lesson today, which should help you understand one of the fundamental truths of kick-ass marketing. That truth: There is almost always a way to fix or solve a marketing problem. Actually, that truth is also functional in every-day life… … but that’s a muc […]
  • Night Of The Living-Dead Sales Letter…
    Thursday, 8:06pm Reno, NV “Here come Johnny Yen again…” (Iggy Pop, “Lust For Life”) Howdy… Oh, my God! They killed the sales letter again! Will this horror never stop? Actually, you can relax.  Just like Kenny in South Park, the traditional sales letter is on some kind of perverse “Permanent Hit List”… … where every marketer trying to claim he just invented […]
  • There Are 2 Kinds Of People In The World…
    Monday, 3:29pm Reno, NV “You’re either on the bus, or off the bus…” (Ken Kesey) Howdy… Quick lesson here I thought you’d enjoy. The phrase “there are two kinds of people” is used by comics, politicians, and just-plain-folks trying to set up a point with an easily-understood little story. It’s an over-simplification, most of the time, of course.  Life is too […]

When you surf the web, every once in a while you notice an AdSense up showing up somewhere.

And then you notice it again on another site, and again on another site, and again, and again…

… and that’s when a little lightbulb should go off in your head.

Because there’s a high likelyhood that the ad copy that they use in that ad is pulling like magic, specially if that ad leads to a direct response style salesletter that either converts into sales, leads, or wasted money. These guys measure, track, test and analyze everything, and if they put a lot of money into an ad that shows up all over the web all the time, then it means: this ad works. And it probably does so like gangbusters. So study it and learn from it.

When writing the easy way is always to stick with general words that can mean a lot of things. It’s a comfortable fuzziness to rest your brain in – much easier than digging for just the right word in your vocabulary.

There are times when general words are a good choice – and there are times when specific words are a much better choice.

Read John’s article to see for yourself. He’s illustrated it really well.

I just read one of the most boring ads of my life – but incidentally, it’s a very successful ad that has been running for around ten years straight.

So it’s worth studying.

It’s very plain, very simple on the surface. But the fact that it works so gangbusters show’s that we copywriters should focus on what works, instead on what is exciting.

(Plus – to the target audience, people who collect coins, this IS an exciting offer).

You can download the ad itself directly here.

Here’s a great way to use a piece of news about a major development in the world to make a point that supports your case. Copywriter Daniel Levis just wrote a post about the end of socialism in Europe, and while I read it with interest, I was kind of wondering where he’s getting with it all.

(Because while I do believe that Daniel has a genuine interest in politics, I also know that he usually isn’t someone who goes into a long  ramble about his opinions and views).

He wrote about the bad work-ethic that exists accross wide parts of Europe and the Western world (basically saying that there are way to many lazy people who are stuck in jobs they disgust and just put in their time so they can get to retirement as soon as possible). He then makes the point that this way of working won’t work much longer – and that there will be massive and crass changes in society.

And then he points to the huge opportunity this presents…

What’s one of the most powerful psychological triggers in using the written word to propel people to buy?

It’s tapping into a desire that resides deep within everyone of us.

And that’s the desire to be someone special, to be part of a special and exclusive group of people.

Paul Maxey recently wrote about this in the Total Package, and it’s well worth checking out. (Also, specially the swipe that goes along with that post!)

You can check out some of the wording that is being used to create the illusion of exclusivity:

“NOT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE …”

“Normally, these ‘forbidden’ breakthroughs are seen by HSI members only – in our privately circulated Members Alerts and daily e-mail updates …”

“We’ve granted you a temporary Guest Membership …”

“Please use this privilege immediately …”

“Just accept our RISK-FREE invitation to register as a permanent Member of HSI …”

As you can see, it’s not rocket science, but simple psychology. We all feel that we’re better than the average, then the large masses of people. And if you can sincerely acknowledge that perception of your readers, then it can form both a deep emotional bond, and a desire to get more of it – and you can channel that desire to create a buying impulse in them.

Sometimes it’s good to make things seem more difficult and troublesome. When writing salescopy, we often focus on simplyfying things and making them more easy. But sometimes just the opposite is true.

One example is the case of Colleen Szot who recently broke a 20-year sales record of a popular homeshopping channel.

One crucial element of that record was changing the call to action. The usual call to action would have been: “Operators are waiting, please call now.”

She changed it to “If operators are busy, please call again.”

This little change created a huge difference in responsiveness. Why? Simply because it included a presupposition that many people are callling to get their hands on this thing, so it must be something cool. After all, if everybody wants to have one, it must be desirable, no?

On the surface of it, the opposite could have been expected though. Telling people to “call again” is actually inconveniencing them, rather than making it easy for them. But in this case, it worked, because it was done in a very clever way.

Over at John Carlton’s blog all hell broke loose. He asked people to write about their biggest copywriting challenge in the comments section… and… well… go see for yourself. This is crazy, so far 66 people have commented – and it’s not “hey John, I have writers block” kind of comments. No, people bleed through their fingers. They really are at it.

I mean, really – you should just read the comments for market research reasons alone. Anybody who is involved into marketing, or copywriting, can get A LOT of insights there. It’s almost like you can wiretap on people’s thoughts and frustrations – which of course provides a great potential to offer solutions that can be marketed to the starving croud It’s like the market is giving you an instruction manual that says: here are my hot buttons, push them and get rich. (I added my biggest copywriting challenges there too).

But the real reason why you should go over to John’s blog now really is to also share YOUR biggest copywriting obstacle. Because John is providing so much great value on his blog totally free. And this is a great opportunity to pay him back at least a bit.

And as if that’s not good enough in itself… you might actually end up with the new version of Kickass Copywriting Secrets 2.0 that John is giving away.

So, what you waitin’ for? Click here!

Dean Jackson is known to be a marketing genius – and he wrote down Dean’s formula to creating sales letters that make you rich.

We all have heard that sentence… but Michel Fortin points out that as a copywriter, that’s really not enough. You want to “do unto others as they would want to have done unto them.” That’s a quote from Tony Allessandra, the behavioural psychologist and sales trainer.

If you have anything to do with copywriting at all, you probably know the names Gene Schwartz, Robert Collier, Gary Bencivenga, Gary Halbert, John Carlton, Clayton Makepeace, etc.

A lesser-known copywriter is Mel Martin, who created lots of mindboggling successful sales messages for Boardroom Boards.

First time I heard of him was when Michel Fortin recently wrote about him, mentioning his name in line with the aforementioned.

Over at the InfoMarketingBlog you can get a little Mel Martin Swipefile for free.

And then there is a little, tiny threat with some sparse information over at the Copywriters Board.

Apparently Mel Martin locked himself up in a room for a month when writing copy.

He’s the one who’s mostly credit for “fascination bullets” in copywriting.

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• Spying On Clayton Makepeace
  • Lovable Scoundrels - Part Two
    Confessions of a veteran white-haired artist: The Anatomy of a direct-mail WINNER! Subject of the autopsy: Digest-size bookalog; 48-pages, full-color Client category: Vitamins and Health Supplements Writer: Carline Anglade-Cole Designer: Larry Owen “The Shocking Truth About Chlorella” (download the bookalog here) I chose this direct-mail Bookalog to examine […]
  • The Triad of Entrepreneurial Truth
    Fellow Business-Builder, It is an honor to be writing this one as the Total Package celebrates its 1,000th post this week. I feel even more privileged to have you here reading my posts, and (hopefully) seeing enough value to post your comments below. Some weeks I bomb and don’t seem to connect, other weeks, like last, I struck […]
  • The Amazing Influence Secret of a Desperate Philosopher …
    Dear Web Business-Builder, In 388 B.C., Plato urged the ruling politicians of Athens to banish all storytellers beyond the city walls, claiming they were a danger to society … “They deal in invisible ideas,” he argued, “concealed within the emotion of art, thus influencing people without their knowing.” Indeed, every effective story sends an emotionally char […]
  • 5 MORE reasons to read The Total Package
    Dear Business-Builder, Well, here it is – our 1,000th issue. So today, we’re going to celebrate this milestone by giving you a quintuple shot of TTP. See, we generally publish five kinds of issues here: First, we deliver precisely what we’ve promised you since Day One: Our stock-in-trade is and will always be proven direct response strategies and […]
  • 999 Reasons to be a Total Package Reader (and still counting!)
    Dear Business-Builder, If, in the summer of 2005, you’d told me that some day, I would one day publish the 1,000th issue of what was then my brand-new semi-monthly e-zine, I’d have figured you for some kind of nutbag. After all; even a high-school dropout like me knows that, at two issues per month, it […]
  • Lovable Scoundrels Part One
    My Secret Weapon: The “unfair advantage” that has helped me beat the competition into submission since 1995: How you can have it, too … Dear Business-Builder, They say the ultimate in “chutzpah” is killing your parents, then asking the judge for mercy […]
  • Is there such a thing as a magic success pill?
    Fellow Business-Builder, Last summer I was in Vancouver speaking at the Canada Marketing Summit. They had a great lineup of speakers … covering everything from lead generation, copywriting, teleseminars, information publishing, right through to motivational content.  The audience MORE than got their money’s worth.  … If they implemented what they learned. Ho […]
  • The Story of My Wife, and Red Fife …
    Dear Web Business-Builder, For normal people, writing and speaking are a means of expressing their point of view. For you and me – on planet copywriting – we have an entirely different objective. We write to create an effect in people that compels them to want to purchase a product or service when we ask them to […]
  • The Ninja Turtle Marketing Strategy
    Dear Business-Builder, About 15 years ago, traveling to California with K and Number Three Son, I met one of the originators of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He was sitting next to my son. We got to talking. My son was a big fan of the turtles back then. This guy, I forget his name, drew a […]
  • How to Create Grand-Slam Winners for the World Wide Web
    In this special interview issue, Clayton Makepeace and Daniel Levis reveal the differences between writing for the web and direct mail, the #1 secret for creating maximum readership in web promotions, and how to make your first web promotion a winner. Plus, how to avoid the three costliest web marketing blunders... […]
• Spying on Michel Fortin
  • A Disturbing Trend in Internet Marketing
    A recent blog post has stirred quite a lot of controversy. It specifically made some stark accusations about a certain number of marketers who appear to be colluding. Some call it unethical. Others call it smart business. And a few go as far as calling it an illegal cartel that should be charged with breaking […]
  • Five Ways to Turn No into Yes
    No is a very powerful word. It’s one too easily spoken, as any parent of a small four-year-old will tell you. It’s also detrimental to effective copywriting and sales, because it’s an absolute brick wall of resistance. The minute a potential customer says no, you’ve either lost the sale, or you have to pull out […]
  • Declaring My Independence From Smoke
    After 30 years, yesterday, which was Independence Day, I declared my own independence… from cigarette smoke. If you’re a non-smoker, this may not be a big issue. But for me, it’s huge. And it’s all because of one ingenious little tool I would have never thought I’d like. Until now. You see, during those 30 […]
  • Why People Are Addicted to Info-Products
    Have you ever wondered why people buy dozens of info-products… and yet never seem to get around to consuming them, much less using them? I have. And for a long time I just blamed it on people being lazy. In my own case, I blamed it on being too busy with client work to get […]
  • 12 Awesome Resources For Design and Copy
    One of the things I do is spend about 30 minutes a day reading my RSS feed reader — which is Google Reader. And I have it set so that, when I share a feed I like, FriendFeed picks it up and reshares it on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and many others. I also click “like” […]
  • The Need For Long Copy and Other Stupid Myths
    Recently, Terry Dean wrote an awesome article, entitled “Copy is King and Other Common Lies.” The article boils down to the fact that the market and the offer come first. Copy is still important. Design plays an important role, too. But copy is not king. The market is. And I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, after […]
  • Earn While You Learn... With Us!
    Wow! After several weeks of delivering high-impact webinars, we just finished our first live business build. It was amazing! Our first business is now live and making money for our students. The interaction was phenomenal, and our students are raving about this new training model. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, let me […]
  • Are Product Launches Peddling For Profits?
    After participating in a recent product launch (something I very rarely do), our Platinum Group was discussing the issue and I wanted to share those insights with you. Considering the recent hysteria behind the massive Apple iPad launch, it got me thinking about how most Internet marketers conduct their product launches. Most of them work […]
  • Get in Touch With The Future
    An interesting thing is happening lately, and it’s giving me a lot of fodder. I wanted to share a few opinions with you. First off, as you know I love predictions and making some of my own. For example, I wrote a controversial white paper several years ago, called “The Death of The Salesletter.” In […]
  • How to Become a Recognized Authority
    Next month (in mid-April), I’ll be speaking at Armand Morin’s Authority Event in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is part of the Brave The Wave series of specialized events. (And yes, that website was designed and the copy written by yours truly. And yes, those are my affiliate links.) Of course, Armand will be speaking mostly, […]