• 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 […]

How To Build A Successful Copywriting Business

Michel Fortin just pointed out a step-by-step system on building a copywriting business. Check it out if you have half an hour of free time.

Interview With Copywriter Richard Armstrong

Richard Armstrong is one of America’s top copywriters (with 25+ years of experience) who has written for Rodale Press, Kiplingers Personal Finance Magazine, Smithsonian, Belvoir Media Group, National Review, The New Republic, The Limbaugh Letter, Phillips Publishing and others. Read his interview here.

Clayton Makepeace is celebrating (and he’s excusing himself for the champagne, confetti, and funny hats).

He just beat a control that made the advertiser a 52.9% ROI with one that he wrote and boosted the ROI up to 169%.

(Not bad, eh?)

Now, he changed that copy a bit and (again) boosted it from 169% ROI to 227%!

(I wouldn’t mind wearing a funny hat neither).

But you know how he did it?

With a bribe.

Yep.

You see, big business isn’t as "clean" as those "make money from home" gurus want you to believe.

There’s all kinds of stuff going on in those big-bang meeting rooms.

You think only African policemen take bribes?

Nope.

It’s also the people in those thousand dollar shoes, with the $700 briefcase.

And even those nice apple-pie moms who hand their kids a lunchbox with a warm, loving smile.

What’s the bribe Clayton Makepeace used?

He told them: if you read this ad, you’re gonna get something that is of a lot of value to you!

(Of course, he worded it much more elegantly and specific than that).

Just like telling a policeman: if you forget about that stop sign, I’m going to forget that I had this envelope with 30,000 guine francs underneath my drivers license.

But there’s an art to bribing.

If you bribe the wrong way it can send you straight to jail (or into bancruptcy).

First: when to bribe?

Bribe while you can! If you bribe in an ad, the only change you get to bribe your reader is usually in your headline.

(Btw. the only difference between the copy that broughtin 169% ROI to the one that brought in 227% ROI was… the headline!)

And there are three very powerful techniques (in fact, according to Makepeace this are THE most powerful headline writing techniques of all):

1. Pure Benefit Headlines
2. Pure Emotion Headlines
3. Combined Benefit/Emotion Headlines

Now those 10 words are not gonna make you rich. And they won’t even mean that much to you unless you read Clayton’s post .

What’s better yet – he now only explains what each headline is… but he even gives you (totally free) four (remarkable) ways to supercharge any headline.

Frankly – I love this post. You should read it. I like it so much – I printed it out so I will read it again and again. I think you can learn a lot from that.

It really seems like different copy addresses different parts of your brain.

Daniel Levis wrote It Wasn’t Until I Stopped Thinking of Myself As a Copy “Writer” That My Income Exploded! .

And having just come from Carline Anglade-Cole’s "How to be a Confident Copywriter" the contrast was clear as crystal.

Carline’s copy was very easy to "digest" – it’s almost like all I had to do was move my eyeballs along the lines of text.

Now, reading Daniel’s post I can see little dark clouds forming in front of my head – the thinking machinery is working full-tilt boogie.

The first sentence already forces me to stretch my mind quiet a bit. It’s actually a 47 word-sentence.

The next sentence? Not much easier: 42 words.

It’s like meat and porrdige.

Porridge goes down very easy (that’s Carline). Meat… well, you really gotta chew it and then it’s still a tough job for your digestive system.

Daniel also puts lots of words into it that I – shame on me – actually have to LOOK UP IN THE DICTIONARY.

"neuter".

No idea what that means.

<quick search on dictionary> "Neither masculine nor feminine in gender." Aha… so, ok, I get it. It’s what I call wishy-washy.

Let’s see how Daniel continues:

It’s simply a matter of positioning the right person … communicating the right message … to the right audience … at the right time … and in the right way.

Funny enough… that doesn’t read so simple to me for some reason (I’m not even sure which) – but I just noticed that I have a very vague understanding of what it means after reading it, kind of cloudy in my mind.

Suppose you’re a fledgling freelancer copywriter.

ok… repeat… "fledgling" dictionary says: A young or inexperienced person.

Now, Daniel knows what he’s doing here… maybe he uses that kind of language because he addresses copywriters, and they (normally, with the exception of people like me) have a pretty good vocabulary.

(I noticed the same thing with John Carlton – lots of words I don’t know).

But here’s something where he sucks me in again:

Before I started using it, I was a flat broke and disillusioned commission sales rep. I was pounding the pavement, burning up shoe leather, facing rejection after rejection – going nowhere fast.

"pounding the pavement, BURNING UP SHOE LEATHER" – ha, I know that, been there, done that!

It’s a systematic application of timeless, unchanging principles of human nature that can be adapted to virtually any theater of persuasion.

Ok, lots of words that kind of leave me hanging in space somehow again – and then he finishes with THEATER OF PERSUASION.

Somehow, that again sucks me in totally.

And yes, you’ll probably pick up some work — piddly ass little jobs here and there if you’re persistent enough.

Piddly ass little jobs? I didn’t know the world piddly, but gee, I surely won’t have to look that one up. Just the sound of it makes it crystal clear!

put you in a creative straightjacket

Who could miss the meaning of that?

advertising your services directly to every Tom, Dick, and Harry you can on Google and in trade mags and directories

haha, I did that!

Scrounging around for customers in the dirt like that is the epitome of dumbness. It’s downright masochistic!

Yeah, it felt like it!

Having come to the end of the post, I felt like I got "pitched" too much, and like Daniel didn’t share enough to get me to take action. (That concept of moving the free line). I felt too much like somebody dangling a hook in front of my face.

However, I wonder how much can be learned be introspection (watching your own reactions to reading copy).

Do I have your attention?

Good. (No, this isn’t just a sneaky trick, I’m actually gonna make a point).

You should read "How to be a Confident Copywriter".

Again – this was something I wasn’t particularly interested in (I figure I don’t have to worry that much about confidence at this point but more about competence).

But then look how she started out:

"Right now, I’m about to get naked."

Well, if Gary Halbert would write that I guess it wouldn’t be that much of an enticing read… but Carline is a beautiful woman… (Am I sexist?)

What struck me the most was how much pictures popped up in my mind when I read the post.

(Maybe that opening line put the visual part of my brain on overdrive?)

Look at what else she wrote:

I’ve made more money from words than doctors with scalpels!

Pretty vivid, no?

a copywriting boot camp on steroids because it’s going to pump up your copywriting muscles and blow your socks off

I just love the imagery in good copywriting. It gives me joy, really. I hate TV, but I guess that’s because I got my own 3d-dolby surround cinema stuck between my ears.

This is your opportunity to meet face-to-face with me for 2 ½ days for an intensive copywriting workout.

Copywriting workout… again, I picture myself in a gym, working out with Carline Anglade-Cole…

(Yesterday I read Victor Schwab’s "How To Write A Great Advertisement", and he mentions a split-test where they boosted response for a product by 200something percent by linking it to better appeal to the opposite sex. And since then, I’m thinking of ways to connect products with sex appeal, and think of famous advertisements that already use that – you know, like the AXE advertisement? – so maybe that’s why my mind is on that naughty track right now… or maybe it’s just because I’m a young fellow and it’s hard to NOT think about sex).

But anyway, do you want to see what Carline is like naked? Then check out her post…

You remember those old kung fu movies? Shin-zueng wants to learn kung fu, so he goes to the Sacred Water Mountain temple. The monks reject him. But he’s not one to give up easy. He sleeps outside the temple and waits for the monks to come out the next day. They tell him to go home. He doesn’t, he just waits. And waits. And waits. He spends several days in front of that temple… nothing. Weeks… nothing. Months… his hair grows long, his beard grows, he’s getting thin and skinny and smelly… but he just waits. Finally, the head monk is so impressed (… or takes pity) that he accepts to train him.

I think it’s never been easier to learn from the masters.

Look – if anyone’s a wannabe with writing copy, it’s me.

Yeah, I write here, but I’m not delusional – my writing stinks.

But hey, you gotta start somewhere and take it from there.

And look what happens.

I asked one of best copywriters in the world a question – and he actually replied. A real reply (that’s: answering my question in a way that I understand, giving me a new insight).

Now how cool is that?

I don’t think there ever has been a time in history where it was so easy to get access to the worlds best teachers.

Great times.

(And if you also did not fully understand the concept of GAP analysis or Problem, Tease, Agitate & Solve then head over there).

Troy White just wrote a great article on how to write lead generation display ads.

There’s a little snippet of wisdom that I wanna quote here, but you should read the full article so it really falls into place:

Which is the reason why only 3% of the population ever succeeds – the 97% does what everyone else is doing.

You probably know that movie with Danny Devito where he talks about OPM (Other People’s Money)Now the movie Other People’s Money is based on the book Other People’s Money and How the Bankers Use It by Louis Brandeis.

You know that to get rich you need OPM.

But Dan Kennedy says to get rich you also need to get rid of OPT.

Because most people are way to busy thinking about what other people think about them, and they never get anything done. And what they do is mediocre so other people approve it.

But better read it from the man himself – “The Power Of Conquering Fears”.

He talks about how much power we give away because we are obssessed with what other people think about it.

Look, this one’s great, I gotta quoet it here:

the famous exchange between Churchill and Lady Astor; she said to him, “You are disgustingly drunk” and he said, ‘Yes, madam, I am drunk, but you are ugly, and I will be sober in the morning.”

I just read John Carlton’s last blog post “Shutting People Up”.

Now, he’s writing about cars there. Mostly cars I’ve never heard about and features I can’t imagine what they look like.

But the funny thing is: it still sucked me in. Reading about cars is an interesting to me as reading about accounting (maybe even less). But the way he writes is just so “juicy”…

next thing I did was went over to Michel Fortin’s blog and read “Apply The Law of Contrast to Build Desire“. And it’s about copywriting – something I want to learn. But it reads so boring to me! It reads like a textbook… and what I got out of this lenghty scholarly post was really just that I should spray a little sand in the customers wounds and tell them about how good the relief feels once you put that magic balm on, if I want to sell them my soothing balm…

but then Michel sold I-don’t-know-how-many-millions with his writing compared to my I-never-sold-no-nothing-writing, so that just shows me I still got a long way to go if I can’t even find a gold nugget in front of my nose.

Gary Bencivenga recently posted one of his bullets on Clayton Makepeaces blogs…

it’s all about the question “What Are We Really Selling”?

I thought I’ll let it run through my mind with some companies/products… and found it REALLY hard to come up with ONE thing per company/products… if you really think about it, it gets very blurry, there are different overlapping aspects… it’s kind of like in an archeological excavation where you dig out a statue: first you just see some part of it, and you digg around a little more. Then you see other parts, and you start to have some ideas what might actually be under there, but it’s not yet clear. Then you get to a point where you have the whole statue in front of you out in the open. But it still is covered in dust and you have to polish it so the details actually become visible until you finally have the whole thing in front of you…

another challenge I had with this is not to make it too general… cause what’s the point in saying “happiness”, “good feelings” when these terms pretty much can be applied to everything? Actually, I’m pretty much sure I got it all wrong, and will encourage some feedback on Claytons blog.

• Starbucks: self-image of being successful & busy
• Disneyworld: a happy family
• Facebook: friends
• Amazon.com: easy shopping
• ebay.com: excitement of competing for a bargain
• Google: fast access to relevant information
• YouTube: being cool
• Coca-Cola: Being part of a happy bunch of people
• Apple: Being somebody who knows quality instead of being part of the “herd”; (& maybe a bit of David vs. Goliath)
• Wholefoods: healthy feasting
• Sony: easy entertainment
• Canon (consumer products): reliable gadgets with features
• Bose: being an “educated consumer”
• Mercedes Benz: affluence
• BMW: intelligence (smart engineering)
• Gilette (shaving appliances): skin that looks and feels good
• Axe (deodorants): being popular
• Kellogs: a good start in the day
• Vogue: being a hip woman
• FHM: stuff to talk about with your buddies
• Firefox: surfing the web better
• Internet Explorer: easy surfing
• Brita (water filters): safety & health
• Samsonite: being organized on the road
• Exxon Mobil: fuel so you can use your car
• Verizon: communication
• FedEx: fast & safe shipment
• Netflix: convenient entertainment at home
• Walmart: bargains, getting more for your money
• dishwashing detergents:
  Palmolive Dry Skin With Aloe: beautiful hands for the housewife
  Palmolive Scrub Buster: convenient cleaning
  Palmolive SpringSensations: washing with joy
  Palmolive Antibacterial: security
• vacuum cleaners: a clean home
• canned beans: cheap nutritious food
• toothpaste: good breath
• toothbrush: clean mouth
• airlines: fast transportation
• gaming consoles (Wii/Playstation): adventures
• McDonalds: familiarity
• Obama: heroism
• McCain: security
• John Reese: honest success
• John Carlton: copywriting skills & companionship
• Gary Halbert: copywriting skills & entertainment

http://www.stunning-stuff.com

http://www.reuters.com/news/oddlyEnough

http://www.buzzpage.com/

http://news.aol.com/weird-news

http://www.verystrangenews.com/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7730018.stm

http://www.theweirdsite.com/

http://www.newsoftheweird.com/

http://www.randysweb.com/weird/

• 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, […]