Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
August 14, 2006
Issue #56
In this issue:
- How a new copywriter wrapped up a fat cat client (ME!) with just two quick phone calls …
- The single most powerful response-boosting secret in any successful promotion …
- How people-watching can make you rich …
- The unparalleled power of writing to the whole brain …
- How trying to be creative can kill great sales copy – what to do instead …
- The #1 blunder new copywriters make that sentences you to blank page block – and how to blast through and write better copy faster …
- The two most common mistakes made in financial promos today …
- How to give your headlines an “unfair” advantage over the competition’s …
- How “writing in layers” can multiply your response rates …
- And much, MUCH MORE!
Dear Business-Builder,
Greetings,
I’ve got some great stuff for you in this issue – a candid interview with a young man who has knocked my socks off, and who’s about to make you some serious money, AND the most exciting announcement I’ve ever had the pleasure to make in this e-letter!
We’re talking to Anthony Flores – and for my money, he’s one of the two greatest students of direct response copy I’ve ever met.
In fact, Anthony impressed me so much, I hired him – both as a copy cub and to help me bring you an exciting new tool for writing better copy faster and getting bigger winners more often!
I can’t tell you how thrilled we are to have Tony’s incredible research skills on our team – skills he honed while attending Stanford University (one of his good friends even dated Chelsea Clinton; but we won’t hold that against him!)
After college, Tony’s business savvy, marketing wisdom and sales copy helped double a friend’s natural health company in 2004 and then doubled it again in 2005 to nearly $3 million in sales. That’s when copywriting legend (and notoriously tough critic) John Carlton praised his writing as “damn good”.
Recently, I had the opportunity to spend an hour picking Tony’s brain … getting the secrets he’s used to become a highly paid copywriter virtually overnight … and his ideas for ramping up your response …
(more…)
Posted by:
Daniel Levis
August 9, 2006
Issue WMA #10
In this article:
-
How to attack the competition without weakening your integrity in the eyes of the prospect …
- 4 ways to strengthen a promise …
- The mechanics of the direct attack – how to float like a butterfly & sting like a bee …
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And more!
Dear Web Business Builder,
Online marketing is a contact sport.
Only the strong ultimately survive, and that's healthy. It keeps everyone on their toes, constantly striving, developing, innovating, one eye on the market, and the other on the competition, whether that competition be other businesses offering similar products, or the simple status quo.
Let's talk about some of the competitive weapons you can use to stay in the game and thrive. Your first weapon as a copywriter is to create a superior promise. A stronger promise, felt more deeply and passionately. A wider promise that touches more people within the target market. A more believable promise, that brings in the skeptics as well as the susceptible.
Also at your disposal is the identification element. What kind of roles can you give your prospects to play in your copy? Can you create a convincing characterization that is more exciting, more rewarding, or more prestigious than your competition?
And of course there is the delicate direct attack, where you make straight comparisons, offering evidence of your superiority. Unless you are the dominant player in your marketplace, you may well want to take this approach. As the little guy, or the new kid on the block, it may be necessary to channel desire away from entrenched players, and on to your product.
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Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
August 7, 2006
Issue #55
- 5 Reasons why prospects stop reading your promo before they buy
- 16 tricks for making your copy nearly impossible to put down
- Much more!
Dear Business-Builder,
Couple of weekends ago, I got a wild hair, packed my Harley and set off to try my luck at Caesar’s Palace in Elizabeth, Indiana.
It’s not that I’m a masochist, mind you – I just figured putting 1,000 miles of asphalt under my butt would clear my head.
Plus, losing a few thousand samoleans at blackjack always motivates me: Seems to make me eager to report to work on Monday to begin restocking the larder.
So I gave myself Friday off (me: the best boss in the world), sprang out of bed before sun-up, snagged a quick cup of Joe, fired up the ElectroGlide and roared west on I-40.
The rising sun caught up with me as I careened through Great Smoky Mountains National Park towards Knoxville. I wish I could say I was thinking profound marketing thoughts as I buzzed blissfully along. In truth, my mind was obsessed with how bone-chilling cold the mountains are when it’s dark … when you’re doing 70 … in the wind.
In fact, the only thing that took my mind off of the cold was the army of 18-wheelers that, just after sunrise, began screaming by me on those shoulderless roads and in the dark, winding tunnels.
“Buck up!” I told myself. “It’s not getting any colder. Besides – I’ll be in the lowlands soon – on I-75 with its three wide lanes and luxuriously apportioned shoulders. My two hours of chilly misery – interrupted by moments of sheer truck-inspired terror – won’t last forever.”
And sure enough, I was soon well into the Kentucky Piedmont – and it was hotter’n Hell at high noon. But I forged on; tired, sweaty and covered in road grime. Only a couple hundred miles to go – and each one would be hotter than the one before.
Finally, mercifully, I saw Caesar’s Palace gleaming before me in that Indiana corn field … looking as out-of-place as a hooker at a revival meeting.
Before I could say, “Hallelujah,” I’d restored blood flow to my aching arse … checked into my suite … scrubbed several hundred miles of grit off my body … and was begging the dealer to let me buy insurance every time she drew a six. (The girl, bless her heart, could not bust. Obviously, she never read the book.)
I’ll spare you the rest of the tawdry gaming details – let’s just say I’m not quitting my day job.
Thankfully, I ran out of time before I ran out of money. Sunday morning dawned and it was time to begin making my way home.
It rained. Drops the size of ball bearings stung my face. My sunglasses fogged. Water pooled in my crotch and flooded my boots.
When I began ascending the Smokies again, I grew colder and wetter with each upward mile – and once again, the semis showed no mercy.
By the time I slogged up my muddy, quarter-mile-long driveway and into the shelter of the garage, I was a soaked, shivering, exhausted mess.
… And I can’t wait to do it again.
Crazy, huh? I know. But sometimes, being a biker isn’t about the perfect ride.
Sometimes, it’s about gutting it out over long, hard miles … pouring yourself a stiff drink … and collapsing exhausted and elated into bed as you bask in the warm glow of your Herculean accomplishment.
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Posted by:
Daniel Levis
August 2, 2006
Issue WMA #9
In this article
- My corollary investigation …
- Prostpects with electrodes attached to their heads …
- Why Pavlov'e Bell works on humans too …
- A fascinating experiment on YOU …
-
And more!
Have you noticed? Everywhere you turn it seems people are making buying decisions that don’t make sense at all …
Poking around, Princeton researchers believe they’ve found something new that will explain it.
Decisions are made primarily in two parts of the brain they tell us. The first part is the Prefrontal Cortex. This is where deductive reasoning is supposed to take place, such as when a person decides on which automobile is the best value.
The second one, deeper down in our melons is the limbic system – where we actually decide which car to buy – usually the one that makes us “feel” good.
Eureka! A clue… Feeling good = Open wallet?
Let us examine this “feel good” phenomena …
If you fancy yourself a manly man (or woman), they say, chances are you’ll go for a full size pick up truck, even though you’ve got nothing to haul from here to there but your own ego (or twisted sexuality). Ridiculous I say …
I make a point of getting in my car to conduct a corollary examination.
Obviously I don’t drive much, because sure enough, I am confronted with it… Evidence.
MONSTER TRUCKS! Legendary HEMI POWER! Enough muscle to move Mount Olympus, but not a cement mixer to be found… no lumber… no scrap metal… not even a trace. I am duly impressed.
If you prefer to think of yourself as an intellectual they say, perhaps a German car is the way to show the world? Maybe behind the wheel of an Audi, or a Mercedes… finally you’ll feel at one with Nietzsche and Goethe. Several snooty encounters with motorists in uncharacteristically luxurious Volkswagens leave me suitably convinced.
Or if you’re a trendy environmentalist they say, you’ll want to publicize that too. In a sleek new Smart Car, you’ll feel as smug as a Vegan at a Texas barbecue as you bob to and fro among the eighteen-wheelers. I take them on faith …
The researchers tell us our limbic system is a throw back to primordial times, before the evolution of the rational mind. It decides our likes and dislikes, and tells us how to react immediately to external stimulus.
I come face to face with the phenomena …
A RAM truck cuts me off in traffic. Automatically my limbic system springs to action. It raises my left arm out the window in reflexive execution of the middle finger salute. Luckily, before I can complete the gesture, my Prefrontal Cortex intervenes.
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