Posted by:
Daniel Levis
February 28, 2007
Issue WMA #39
In this special interview issue:
- The “council of elders” secret to sparking your creative intelligence and solving business problems …
- How a wet behind the ears kid pulled off a 3,900% ROI mailing …
- The crux of the research biscuit …
- The real reasons people buy – six core motives that spur people to action …
- How to use reverse psychology to gently lead your prospect to an immediate decision …
- A priceless lesson in information marketing, from one of the world’s best …
- And much more!
Dear Web Business Builder:
One of the most remarkable passages in Napoleon Hill’s book “Think and Grow Rich” talks about Hill’s Council of Elders. Hill had a very unusual, and unusually effective way of sparking his creative intelligence and solving problems. It went something like this …
Each evening in the quiet of his study, Hill would close his eyes and enter a council chamber in the theatre of his mind. Next, he would take his seat as Chairman at the council table, and welcome 9 elder advisors (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Luther Burbank, Thomas Paine, Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison) who gradually entered the chamber to take their seats.
Hill would then lay the challenges of the day before them, and seek their advice. Hill’s study of the records of these great men’s lives was so intensive that the characters actually came to life, engaging in vigorous dialogue over the topics he put before them.
As a copywriter, if you were to engage in such a practice, there’s no doubt that one of the men you would include in your council of elders would be Robert Collier.
So this week I decided to take some of the most common copywriting challenges, and interview Mr. C. for the answers.
Here goes …
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Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
February 26, 2007
Issue #83
Dear Business Builder,
I been berry, berry busy lately.
Don’t worry; it’s not your fault. My job is to write one issue of The Total Package per week. The Redhead and her team do all the rest.
So it’s not you; it’s my agency: Response Ink.
Every working day, “Team Makepeace” and I create real-world promotions for real-world clients that generate real-world profits.
- Like our web-based new customer acquisition campaigns that are generating ROIs of up to 600% and masses of new customers for one client …
- And like our multi-channel customer-file promotions for another client that are making him as much as $1 million in a single week.
The thing is, though, web marketing is a bear – especially when you compare it to the good old days, when we wrote exclusively for direct mail.
Back then, we had four to six leisurely weeks to crank out a 24-page magalog or tabloid. I had plenty of time to think and re-think my strategy, theme and tone, and to carefully polish every word until it glistened.
For better or for worse, the web has changed all that. Today, a single web campaign can contain multiple drafts of multiple banners and e-mail blasts … squeeze pages … long-copy landing pages … bump pages … “save” pages … shopping cart copy … and endless autoresponders.
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Posted by:
Daniel Levis
February 21, 2007
Issue WMA #38
In this issue:
- Why your prospect’s nervous system can’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality …
- How symbolic archetypes are used in mass influence and persuasion …
- How to do the Vulcan mind meld with your target prospect to see what he sees, and feel what he feels …
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And more!
Dear Web Business Builder,
As copywriters and marketers, the more we understand about the basic functioning of the human brain — how it “sees” the world around it, how it processes, stores, and retrieves information — the easier it is for us to harness our own creative intelligence, while successfully influencing the minds of others.
The mind, at its most fundamental level, thinks in pictures — it sees and then stores information, even the most complex of information, as simple picture-symbols. This holds true whether the brain is taking in information through the eyes, or any of the other senses — hearing, smell, taste, or touch.
Try this experiment: Ask a friend to describe a violin. After searching for words to describe it, observe how he or she will invariably draw pictures (symbols) of it with their hands.
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Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
February 19, 2007
Issue #82
PLUS:
- How to find the best emotional tone for your next promotion
- Secrets of web design that generates maximum readership
- How to use punctuation to ramp up readership and response
- How to beat blank page paralysis every time
- And much more!
Dear Business Builder,
A few days ago, Natalie Judd of the Internet Masters Series (http://www.internetmasterseries.com/home) called to pick my brain about on-line marketing and copywriting.
We covered the waterfront together, and I’m betting some of this stuff will put a shekel or two in your pockets in the months ahead…
Natalie Judd: Clayton, welcome so much to the Internet Masters Series, and we thank you so much for being here today.
Clayton: It’s my pleasure.
Natalie: Tell me what makes powerful sales copy.
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Posted by:
Daniel Levis
February 14, 2007
Issue WMA #37
In this issue:
- The three ancient pillars of persuasion, and what they mean to you more than 2300 years after they were first delegated to document …
- Seven ways to strengthen the “Ethos” of your spokesperson …
- How to trigger just the right “Pathos” to motivate your prospects to action …
- A case study in the art of “swipe” …
- And much more!
Dear Web Business Builder,
Over 2300 years ago in ancient Greece, Aristotle documented a complete strategy of rhetoric. To this day it remains a remarkable handbook to the art and science of persuasion. For starters, look at Aristotle’s analysis of persuasive appeals, and you’ll see how relevant they are to copywriting today.
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