Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
October 31, 2005
Issue #15
- 3 Golden Rules for avoiding most legal nightmares …
- 4 MORE secrets for KEEPING the millions you're going to make as a savvy business owner, marketing exec or copywriter …
- And MORE!
Dear Business-Builder,
One year before 9/11 – almost to the day – I was cooling my heels on the 86th floor of Manhattan's World Trade Center, waiting to be grilled by a team of government investigators and wondering how IN THE HELL I'd ever wound up there …
I flashed back to the moment, two years earlier, when a FedEx truck had rolled up to my office and disgorged an innocent-looking box. Inside the box, I found a bunch of investment newsletters written by a guy I'd never heard of – and a letter from my agent asking me to "take a look."
As I read the first issue, I felt like somebody had just poured ice water down the front of my shorts. What the editor was saying shocked me … chilled me – and ultimately, electrified me!
This guy was saying truly outrageous things about President Clinton's past and making extreme, negative predictions about the future of the economy and the stock market.
In short, his audacious, uniquely powerful message was in stark contrast to the Pollyanna pabulum I was seeing from other financial publishers.
The fact that I disagreed with most of the editor's views was immaterial to me at the time. If ad agencies and copywriters only worked with clients and media whose opinions we agree with, there wouldn't BE any ad agencies or copywriters!
To me, the editor was simply …
- A U.S. citizen, expressing his (admittedly outrageous) opinions, and …
- An American businessman, attempting to attract new customers.
Now I feel it's only fair to remind you: I did NOT graduate Harvard Law School – or any other attorney assembly line for that matter.
… But I am a proud graduate of McKinley Elementary School in Tremonton Utah. And when Mr. Walden tested my sixth-grade class on the U.S. Bill of Rights and Constitution back in 1962, I passed with flying colors (OK – so maybe it was just a "C+").
I distinctly remember those dusty documents saying – and I'm quoting from memory here …
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Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
October 24, 2005
Issue #14
(… And Great Copy Into A WINDFALL
For Copywriters And Our Clients)
"There are certain prime human emotions with which the thoughts of all of us are occupied a goodly part of the time. Tune in on them, and you have your reader's attention. Tie it up to the thing you have to offer, and you are sure of his interest."
– Robert Collier
The Robert Collier Letter Book
Dear Business-Builder,
In the 35-plus years since I created my first little piece of direct response sales copy, I've written considerably more than a thousand direct response ads, television spots and mail pieces.
Because nearly all of them were direct response promotions, each produced an easily measurable and almost immediate result. And over the years, as I studied those results, my approach to strategizing and creating sales promotions began to evolve.
Today, my work process is very different than it was in those early years. My first thought is no longer about the product benefits or even the product's USP. Nor do I begin each project by thinking about all the rational "reasons why" my prospect should buy.
Please don't get me wrong: It's not that I've discarded any of these techniques. They still have prominent places in every promotion I create. But something else has risen to the top of my "to-do" list when creating a promotion – and that change has produced the closest thing to sales miracles I have ever witnessed.
Dinosaurs still roamed the earth when I started my writing career. Back in the early 1970s, there were no computerized mailing lists, no toll-free order hotlines, no affordable fax machines, no FedEx or other overnight delivery services – and no personal mentors or coaches for aspiring copywriters.
Thankfully, I had The Giants to instruct me. I read, re-read and re-re-read the wonderful guides left for me by those who had come before – particularly, Claude Hopkins' Scientific Advertising, Rosser Reeves' Reality in Advertising and John Caples' Tested Advertising Methods.
Thanks to these Giants, I "knew" every ad was supposed to begin by identifying the benefits my product offered to prospects – the ways in which it made their lives easier, richer, and more rewarding.
I knew I should use the most powerful of these benefits to craft a compelling Unique Selling Proposition … establish it right up front … and turn it into a mantra throughout my copy.
And I understood the importance of fully developing every "Reason Why" my prospects should buy.
But there was a problem: My only assignments were from fund-raising organizations – groups that had no product to sell and offered little if any direct benefit to the donor!
Giving them money wouldn't relieve your rheumatism, banish bad breath, give you whiter teeth or make you attractive to the opposite sex. Nor would it help you avoid a disaster in the health or wealth departments, or even save you time in the laundry room.
In fact the only tangible, personal result of forking over a ten-buck contribution was that you'd wind up $10 poorer!
Sure – there were vague benefits in the selfless act of giving away money to a worthy cause – like feeling good about the good you were doing. But even at that early age, I suspected that writing an appeal letter or TV spot saying, "Give me money – it'll make you feel good" – wouldn't exactly set the world on fire.
Here again, fate stepped in for me …
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Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
October 17, 2005
Issue #13
Your #1 obstacle to turning dreams into reality
– and how to kick its fanny …
Dear Business-Builder,
I love people who have the audacity to dream big dreams – and who have the courage to actually follow those dreams through to fruition.
And in the last few days, I fell in love 200 times.
I’m writing this on Monday morning, October 10 (one week before you’ll read it) – after returning from attending and speaking at the American Writers & Artists Institute’s (AWAI) Boot Camp in Delray Beach, Florida.
This was a big first for me. For one thing, I don’t “do” conferences. I attended my first – and last – marketing conference in 1975 … that was 30 long years ago, and I hated every minute of it. It was a cattle call: Hundreds of hungry writers, artists, list brokers, printers, and other vendors desperately mobbing anything that resembled a potential client. And since acting like a teenage girl chasing rock stars through hotel lobbies isn’t my idea of fun, I never did it again.
But I’m impressed – no, that’s wrong – I’m utterly BLOWN AWAY by the whole AWAI Boot Camp experience. AWAI’s Michael Masterson, Paul Hollingshead, Katie Yeakle, Denise Ford and their staff are some of the greatest folks on Earth. They made The Redhead and me – and everyone else there – feel right at home.
The organization was flawless. The programming was inspired. The speakers were brilliant. And every one of the attendees proved to be the kind of people I admire most: Everyday folks taking action to turn their dreams of freedom and wealth – of a better life – into reality.
If you were there, I know you’re nodding your head right now. And frankly, if you weren’t – and if you really are serious about sharpening your copywriting or copy-chiefing skills – you blew it.
For every business owner, marketing exec or copywriter in America looking for ways to produce more effective ad copy, the annual AWAI Marketing Boot Camp is simply a “must attend” event. I strongly recommend that you begin making plans now to be there next year.
I’m going to be – NO MATTER WHAT!
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Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
October 10, 2005
Issue #12
In this special interview issue …
- How to get a mature, skeptical market to buy your products like crazy …
- The critical elements every winning direct mail package MUST have …
- Conquer the curse of the blank page with Carline's powerful twist on swipe files …
- The simple secret to smashing creative blocks that helps you create million dollar ideas …
- The critical mindset that will help you create more controls than you ever thought possible …
- The smartest thing Carline ever did to increase her copywriting income …
- And much, MUCH MORE!
Dear Business-Builder!
Words can fail even the most experienced writers at the worst possible times. Like when you're trying to describe the indescribable: The perfect beauty of a fiery sunrise or a fine diamond, for example … or like right now – as I'm attempting to find words that adequately describe Carline Anglade-Cole.
Some folks, you just fall in love with the instant you lay eyes on them. Carline Anglade-Cole is at the top of that list for me. Now, I know what you're thinking: Sure Clayton adores her. He's a guy and Carline is drop-dead gorgeous. What's not to love? And yeah … I've got to admit – it's hard not to admire someone as stunning as Carline. No photo could possibly do her justice.
But beauty, as they say, is only skin deep; Carline has a unique beauty that radiates from deep inside each one of the 20 trillion cells in her cute little frame.
You can tell a lot about a person by looking at the people who are closest to them. Carline's husband Mick is a certified hero – a firefighter who has received commendations for saving strangers' lives at the risk of his own and suffering serious personal injury in the process. He is quite possibly the strongest, most confident, most dignified and bravest man I know, and has a mind like a steel trap. If I ever found myself in a foxhole, fighting for my life, Mick would be my #1 choice to watch my back.
Mick and Carline have blessed us all with four of the finest kids the world will ever see. Each of their three daughters, Milan, Tiara and Jael – and their not-so-little-anymore guy Chadam – is an absolute gem: A living, breathing testimonial to the amazing balance of love and discipline, as well as the twinkly-eyed fun and serious work ethic that their parents have instilled in them.
Carline herself is, as I have said so many times, a force of nature. She exudes more energy than Three-Mile Island and has the metabolism of a marathoner. As “The Redhead” says, "Carline burns 10,000 calories a day just being Carline!" (Oh – and a helpful hint: If you are ever so fortunate as to share a meal with Carline, guard your plate carefully; because as far as she's concerned, "share" is the operative word. Once her food's gone, yours is fair game!)
When you meet her, you're going to love her, too: For her raucous, often, ribald sense of humor, her astonishing creativity, and the blinding brilliance that rocketed her to America's top rank of "A" copywriters in a fraction of the time it took me. In her very first year as a freelancer, Carline raked in well over six-figures in royalties – and she has never looked back.
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Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
October 3, 2005
Issue #11
- Why Sidebars Matter
- Dumb Sidebars – Where Even Seasoned Copywriters Go Wrong
- 21 Smart Sidebars That Invariably Increase Readership and Response
- And MORE!
Dear Business-Builder,
I didn’t create the first-ever magalog. That dubious honor – so far as I can tell – goes to Jim Rutz and Ed Elliott.
I’ve tried to forgive them. Really, I have.
Before they invented this dynamo of the direct response marketing world in the 80s, “long copy” meant a 16-page sales letter: One w-i-d-e column of text, set in a nice, fat, space-eating Courier type.
But Mr. Rutz and Mr. Elliott changed that forever. Their 24-page magalog – packed with dense, columnated 12-point type – doubled and in some cases tripled or even quadrupled the amount of copy the rest of us had to write just to keep up.
And even worse, it meant we had to begin thinking about more than just writing a coherent sales letter and letting the designer worry about making it look like the Rutz/Elliott grand slam.
It meant we also had to create sidebars and stick them on every spread. Why? Because that’s what “Rutliott” did. And their “magalog” – as Gary Bencivenga later christened it – kicked the living daylights out of every other kind of direct mail package out there.
So essentially, the magalog made us work three times harder to produce three times more copy … and then made us work even harder by confusing the entire process of organizing our sales pieces – forcing us to decide what goes in the running copy and what belonged in our sidebars.
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