Posted by: Daniel Levis
March 28, 2007
Issue WMA #43

How Much Courtship
Is Enough?

In this special interview issue:

• Ask for the sale too soon and the answer will be “No”! Here are seven “timing” rules of thumb …
• Four proven ways to initiate the multi-step sales process online, and the pros and cons of each …
• Sage advice from the Masters Of Copywriting for getting it right …
• And more!

Dear Web Business Builder,

One of the most fundamental questions when you’re putting together a campaign is: “Should I go for the sale in a single step, or break it apart into two or more discreet steps?”

In all honesty, this is almost always worth a test. There is no hard and fast rule. But here are a few guidelines …

Higher priced items… items that are very new to the market… items that require a significant adoption curve… and items that demand a significant change in behavior on the part of the prospect… are generally good candidates for the multiple step campaign.

On the web, there are essentially four proven methods of initiating it.

1. The Squeeze Page

2. The Entry Pop-Up.

3. The On Page Form.

4. The Exit Pop-Up, or Pop-Under.

Here are the pros and cons of each as I see them.

The Squeeze Page – This is simply a web page with a single mission: to get the visitors contact information.

With a squeeze page, you have to realize that every prospect you fail to convert into a lead is a prospect that won’t see your sales page or be exposed to your offer. For this reason, you need a very high conversion rate to have a breakeven lead generation campaign with this strategy.

On the other hand, you will grow your opt in list much faster this way, and my tests also show that when using a squeeze page, you will usually see your sales page conversion go up relative to sending traffic straight to the sales page.

I don’t know definitively why this is, but my guess is that if someone is unwilling to give up their e-mail address on your squeeze page, they are also less likely to buy when exposed to your sales page.

If you know your lifetime customer value, a squeeze page campaign can be particularly attractive.

The Entry Pop – With the entry pop strategy, you have another problem altogether. Here you run the risk of reducing your sales conversion by presenting the opt-in offer over top of the sales page.

Generally I don’t go with this approach too often for this reason. From my experience, it’s almost always better to run your marketing objectives in a series rather than in parallel. There are exceptions to every rule, however.

Be sure to test sales conversion with, and without the pop-up. Another draw back of pop-ups, of course, is the fact that it’s a constant battle staying one step ahead of the pop-up blockers.

The On Page Form – With the on page form, you have some flexibility. You can place the form anywhere on the page. Generally, the higher you place it, the higher the opt-in rate.

However, with the form prominently displayed above the fold you may run into the same problem you have with the entry pop. There is a chance you will lower your sales conversion, so the same caveats apply.

The Exit Pop – And finally, you have the exit pop. This is a form that pops up when people abandon your site. This and the squeeze page are my preferences, because they keep the prospect focused on one thing at a time.

Of course with all of these multi-step campaigns, you are following up with an autoresponder series of canned messages. These autoresponder messages are generally most effective when they offer some type of value added material that further demonstrates the credibility of the seller and the product, followed by a gentle nudge back to the sales page or order device with each touch.

Offering an excerpt or sample of the actual product for sale positively impacts both the opt-in rate and the follow on sales conversion rate as the autoresponder messages kick in.

Now that you’ve got my position on multi-step and hybrid campaigns, I thought it might be fun to get some other expert views …

Sage advice from the
Masters Of Copywriting Faculty …

Dan Kennedy – “I rarely encourage clients to sell via one-step, because leads; people who’ve raised their hands can have so much value worked well over time. I have clients I work with who feed on leads as much as 16 months old, from first inquiry. But if selling in one step I would never undercut that sale by simultaneously offering free information as an option.

Having said that, I must also say: be careful of stepping in anybody’s dogma, even mine. Direct marketing answers are situational, and the best, most lucrative business models are complex, and worked out through very careful testing…”

Timothy Warnock – “There are several factors to keep in mind, but the ultimate answer is to test.

A question I ask when helping a client to decide on which strategy to use is: What is the potential lifetime value of the visitor?

The higher the value, the more sense it makes to go for the lead generation solution as the primary initial goal. It’s easy to “tease” the visitor into signing up if there is a good quality special report, or something of value to trade for this action. It’s common to get as much as 20% CR (sometimes even much more)

Another factor is knowing where the traffic is currently coming from, and how much trust is developed before the visitor even sees the sales page.

For example, if the traffic is arriving strictly through JV’s (joint ventures), or affiliates, then this traffic is usually very targeted and more likely to immediately convert to sales.

If the offer is limited, or scarce, then you probably want to go for a direct sale…”

Harlan Kilstein – “I’m a big believer in doing two-step advertising if the client has the patience to do the follow through.

I’ll call in and order all the free videos and reports I hear advertised on the radio. I want to see the follow through. Most people never follow through. They spend all this money on lead generation and don’t follow through on conversion.

It’s even worse online. Typically no one is capturing e-mails and following through with a good autoresponder series…”

John Forde – “Honestly I’ve done mostly one-step advertising. And that suits me just fine. Lead generation work can be great, as long as no one drops the ball. But it’s so easy for those leads to be neglected or mishandled.

But of course, I know that mastery of the two-step sale is key to a top copywriter’s repertoire. A funny thing has happened online. Some free e-zines, now, have become the longest running lead-generation ads in history.

Through all kinds of distribution channels, you gain access to people that care about your kinds of products. And through great editorial in the e-zines, and well-placed ads for related products, you’re getting those second step customers. It’s my own interpretation, I guess. But I think that’s the most interesting thing going on in lead generation direct response these days…”

Clayton Makepeace – “There are two parts to this answer. The first part is a marketing answer. The second part is a creative answer. They have to work together.

The marketing answer is: A two-step program makes sense when you have a product with a high enough margin to justify the cost of multiple steps, or when you have a medium that costs so little that the number of steps doesn’t matter.

From the creative side, I use multiple step programs in two ways.

First, when I have a huge but not well-defined mailing list, or e-mail list, or other media, I use a first step to call out my customers, and a second step to sell them.

And second: when I have a very inexpensive media and a captive audience…”

David Garfinkel – “I’ll cover my hindquarter by saying ‘test everything.’

Now that that’s out of the way I’ll tell you what I really think:

If you have a very specific and unique product for a niche that is already familiar with the current alternatives available in the market — or even better, familiar with you and/or the company doing the advertising — then a one-step can work great.

If you have a general product for a general market that instantly recognizes and understands the product, and you have great credibility devices that you can use in your copy (testimonials, media mentions, well known awards won) a one-step can work for you very well there, too.

Otherwise, use a two-step. And I’ve often found that multiple steps work better than going for broke and putting all of your chances on a single piece of copy…”

Scott Haines – “Generally, you can single-step low-ticket, front-end items. And you usually have to two-step more expensive — say above $50 — items.

Typically, the higher the cost of the product or service, the more intricate your sales process has to be. A free report/sample will get you the most leads… which… may or may not be best for your situation. It’s a numbers thing each company/person has to figure out in their own situation and market through well-crafted tests.

I don’t think there are any circumstances where it makes sense to try and go for a sale and a lead in the same piece of copy. You are just watering down your results for both objectives. Pick one or the other, and then do everything you can to get them to take that one action. Remember; sell one thing, to one person, at one time. Learned that from Halbert. It’s sage (and profitable) advice …”

Richard Armstrong – “This is actually not a question about creative strategy, it’s a question of financial strategy. If you can afford to buy a full-page ad in the National Enquirer with an allowable cost per order, then by all means sell it off the page with a one-step ad.

But if you find it’s more cost-effective to take out a classified ad in the Enquirer offering “free details” about the watch, then follow up with a direct mail letter to the people who raise their hands and say they’re interested, then do it that way.

It’ll often come down to the cost of the product and the homogeneity (is that a word?) of the advertising medium. If you’re selling your watch in “Watch Aficionado Magazine” the one-step full page ad will probably work best.

If you’re selling it in a general-interest publication, you’re probably going to need the two-step in order to get your target to ‘self select’ by responding to an ad for more information …”

Isn’t it interesting to hear how different experts approach the same question? Personally, I find having a variety of different people’s perspectives on the most fundamental copywriting and marketing questions incredibly valuable.

Imagine having 44 of the “top money” marketing minds of all time at your beck and call… ready to answer your most pressing marketing and copywriting questions.

Click here to download the web’s most extensive searchable archive of copywriting answers to your most pressing copywriting questions.

Until next time, Good Selling!

Daniel Levis
Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE™

Looking for resources related to this article? Try some of these.

Looking for more of Daniel’s articles? Check these out.

Looking for past issues of The Total Package? Click here for our archives.

P.S. For a limited time, you can now cram your hard drive full of control busting copy at a $100 savings with the Steal These Secrets Swipefile. Stop racking your brain needlessly for creative ideas when you can have a treasure trove of proven winning concepts at your fingertips – guaranteed to open the profit floodgates – or your money back! Check it out!

Daniel Levis is a top marketing consultant & direct response copywriter based in Toronto, Canada and publisher of the world famous copywriting anthology “Masters of Copywriting” featuring the selling wisdom of 44 of the “Top Money” marketing minds of all time, including Clayton Makepeace, Dan Kennedy, Joe Sugarman, John Carlton, Joe Vitale, Michel Fortin, Richard Armstrong and dozens more! For a FREE excerpt visit http://www.Sellingtohumannature.com

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Posted by: Clayton Makepeace
March 26, 2007
Issue #87

My Favorite Magic Trick

The Secret to Turning Ordinary Ink and Paper
Into GREEN MONEY
(Without getting thrown into the hoosgow)

Dear Business Builder,

I’m in a damn good mood.

For the first time in months, the sky is blue, the sun is shining, the temperature is balmy, the robins and cardinals are flitting past my window and tiny green, white and pink buds are beginning to decorate the trees.

After pretty much hibernating since late November, I’m ready to get back outside. So on Saturday, I put 150 miles on my Harley. And yesterday, I spent the day putting my Porsche through its paces up on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

And if that isn’t enough to make a fella happy, just about everything else is right with the world …

• Response Ink is going like a house afire. My clients are growing, making money hand over fist and sending me six-figure royalties every 30 days …
• My new in-house copy cub John Newtson is doing a bang-up job and making my life a lot easier …
• Our web guys – David and Graham – are cranking out new websites like there’s no tomorrow. And because my clients’ only complaint is that we can’t churn out the work faster, we’re recruiting two new web programmers and buying a new building to house our rapidly expanding staff …
• The Redhead just told me she’ll be adding more than 20 new products to The Total Package’s online store in the next 30 days – each one painstakingly designed to give you tons of explosive response-boosting strategies, tactics and tools at ridiculously low prices …

And just now, Wendy announced our brand-spanking new TOTAL PACKAGE website launches next week – and I’ve got a grin on my face a mile wide!

Everything You Like About The Total Package
… ON STEROIDS!

My vision for The Total Package™ has never been just to publish an issue whenever I felt like it – or even one issue a week.

(more…)

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Posted by: Daniel Levis
March 21, 2007
Issue WMA #42

The Ultimate Direct Response
Marketing Weapon!

In this special interview issue:

• Three tips for ramping up your copywriting business by helping your clients make the leap to online direct response video …
• Steps you can take right now to begin making your own highly professional online video infomercials …
• How to swipe the winning formats, phrases, and layouts of the 1 in 20 infomercials that are actually successful …
• How to dig for the power testimonials that drive order pulling video …
• And much more!

Dear Web Business Builder,

Put the power of full motion video and audio together with the trackability, economy, and interactivity of the Net, and you’ve got a force to be reckoned with. One by one the barriers to using sophisticated infomercials to persuade people online are toppling, and it’s high time we all sat up and took notice.

That’s why I’ve invited Ken Calhoun, owner of Day Trading University to join me here today at Web Marketing Advisor. Ken is an absolute past master when it comes to the fine art of creating stunning video infomercials to enhance the selling power of any website.

Take five and listen in …

Daniel Levis: Ken, recently you sent me a nice little note raving about one of my products. And I have to confess I didn’t know who you were at the time. But I was blown away when I googled your name and discovered the tremendous success you’ve accomplished with your day trading university website and your other sites.

And I couldn’t help but notice that almost all of your sites had a video clip on it. And when I watched the videos, I was mesmerized. These videos were incredibly polished and they used just about every time proven direct response principal I’ve ever seen.

My immediate impression was: this is the way of the future, and this guy’s got it down to a freakin’ science. I have to know more about this. And my Web Marketing Advisor members have to know more about this too. So thank you very much for agreeing to let me pick your brain for the inside scoop on creating powerful, direct response infomercials on the web. Welcome.

Ken Calhoun: Well, I’m very glad to be here Daniel. And it’s certainly a wave of the future. And one of the things that you’ll find about in interviewing me is I like to be very direct. I know some of the tele-seminars tend to ramble. I welcome the toughest questions and I give you the shortest, most effective answer possible.

And I think you’re right, direct response video on the web is definitely the wave of the future. And I’ve been using video on the web since the year 2000 back when we had to use real media streams to sell my trading related products. And it’s definitely the best and fastest way possible to achieve breakthroughs in conversion and higher sales.

Daniel Levis: Well, why don’t you start by telling us a little bit about your marketing story, your sales sites and your successes? Give us your background. Give us some context for this conversation.

Ken Calhoun: Yeah, absolutely. After I graduated from UCLA and Cal State Long Beach, I became a Statistician and Quality Engineer for Rockwell International, McDonald Douglas and Ford Motor Company back in the eighties. And I was a TQM, Total Quality Management Team Facilitator.

I went from there into sales training. I got tired of the Dilbert cubicle life and I moved to Hawaii where I lived for ten years. And I was the number two sales trainer in the state with over a hundred and forty clients. So I’ve got a strong background in sales and quantitative statistics, which is helpful when it comes to things like setting up sales conversion matrices and so forth and web design. So that’s my background.

And then I taught college MBA and did some consulting. And from there started online with Day Trading University because at the time back in the late nineties that was a very popular topic. And I made a fortune with that and have been expanding ever since into new markets.

Daniel Levis: It seems to be such a common thread. So many people in the direct marketing business and the Internet marketing business have sales backgrounds. With Internet infomercials though, this seems to be a new development that marketers and copywriters or scriptwriters as they are known in the infomercial biz can capitalize on.

Ken Calhoun: Uh-huh.

Daniel Levis: What do you see as being the major developments coming up in this area that copywriters and marketers need to know about? And tell us a little bit about how scriptwriters are compensated and whether It’s as lucrative as copywriting.

Ken Calhoun: Well, that’s a great question. I know from working on Internet infomercials and developing some of the top selling ones for my own industry one of the keys that I think most marketers and copywriters would be well advised to start doing is watching some of the top selling infomercials.

If you go to the site, http://www.jwgreensheet.com/, it has the top rated infomercials in terms of sales conversions. So that’s important to know because only an estimated one out of twenty infomercials is successful. So you need to know which ones are pulling the best. This is a kind of swipe file approach.

You need to then go watch those infomercials and manually transcribe and study those. It’s the only TV I watch other than DVD’s of old shows that I like. And I jot down phrases from the best selling infomercials, and study them to see what grabs my attention. And then I work that into the script and the copy for Internet infomercials, which I then produce. And as with any script writing process it’s very laborious. You have to take time to identify your USP and your marketing hooks and the sequence and the timing of when to introduce certain sales elements into the pitch. It’s a very involved process.

I’m not familiar with scriptwriters’ compensation. From what I understand it’s anywhere from ten to thirty thousand dollars for scripting a thirty minute or twenty-seven and a half minute offline direct television infomercial.

With Internet copywriting, typically they’ll take a percentage of gross sales in addition to an upfront fee for writing the copy. So it’s an emerging market for copywriters and marketers and certainly a lot of green field out there in terms of doing it right and making a lot of money at it.

Daniel Levis: I’m really excited about seeing this move forward. A big question I think that’s going to be on a lot of people’s minds is what’s the difference between long copy sales writers and Internet video infomercials? How are they different? And how are they the same?

Ken Calhoun: That’s a very good question. When we take a look at the technology of video infomercials we have to remind ourselves it’s in service of the pitch. It’s in-service of and not a replacement for your sales process. So with long copy where we have maybe a prehead or a credentializing block of copy at the top. Then you have your headline, your subhead and then your deck copy or your main body copy that then goes through your long copy sales process. We need to accomplish the same type of salesmanship in print but this is salesmanship in video with infomercials.

So what I like to do is I will first create my long copy sales letter. Then I will take what I put in that long copy sales letter and distill it for the small screen. Many of my letters are as long as a hundred and forty-eight pages in length. And they sell hundreds of thousands of dollars of my info products. So they work very well. Obviously, I’m not going to do a thirty minute web commercial online because people aren’t patient enough to watch that as they would be on a television while sitting on a couch.

So what I need to do is then condense the long copy sales letter and that’s where one of the key differences is- we put the same elements in, such as a pre-head, your headline, your subhead, your bullets, your credentializing copy, your call to action, your grabbers, your callouts, sidebar elements; all of that goes into the script for an Internet infomercial, but it’s in a condensed version.

And in terms of timing I’ve used anywhere from as short as say five to seven minute Internet infomercials to as long as twenty minutes. But that’s the top end. You can see one for one of my best selling products at http://www.tradingvideos.com/.

That video helped produce nearly a half million in sales for us in less than eighteen months.

Write your long copy sales letter as you normally would. Then condense that into a script for your Internet infomercial, which you can deliver yourself, or hire professional talent to do it.

Or use a hybrid. I will have people read some of the elements and I will combine that with what I say and then have a strong call to action at the end that closes with a time limited offer and all of the rest of it.

With an Internet infomercial your key is to keep building an excitement level throughout the five, ten, fifteen twenty minutes of the Internet infomercial to where they get to the end of the video they’re at a fever pitch and they say wow I’ve got to buy this now. And of course you want to put in some type of urgency factor.

You can’t really do the “for the next seventeen minutes only” as people do on television infomercials, so you have to support that with the text copy in which the infomercial is embedded. I typically use a quantity limit.

I’ll have a price that’s only good for the next three hundred and fifty units sold and I update that with a countdown over the course of several weeks until we’re out of those three fifty.

And then I really do raise the price and repeat that. So people are trained to purchase the product because they have a genuine time urgency or quantity urgency. And I really do raise the price forever. I don’t go back. People need to respect your urgency and you need to be honest and believable and credible with that. So I do that and it produces absolutely phenomenal sales.

So those are some of the things that people should give some thought to as they’re looking at adding video.

Daniel Levis: So let me see if I’ve got this straight. We’re not talking about replacing long copy with video. We’re talking about adding video to long copy, is that right? Is that the idea?

Ken Calhoun: Right, because people respond to different stimuli. Some people like to read. Some people like to watch video. There are kinesthetic, auditory and visual learners, and it’s important to address as many different types of learning. And this fits in well with that whole web 2.0 theory of having more interactivity or more personalized experience online.

Certainly having a pitchman or woman or combination and adding that video as a choice element to the pitch is important. So that if they want to read they can read. If they want to skim and scroll they can do that. Or if they want to watch and listen they can do that as well.

So yeah it’s important to realize that – I would never just have a page that has a video and that’s it and an order button at the bottom. It has to be embedded into a long copy sales letter. It’s just a way to beef things up. I always like to look at ways to kick the competitors to the curb or out of the competition. And so adding video gives me a whole new area in which I can out compete for my customers’ dollars and attention.

Having multiple ways to engage the prospect, as anyone who’s done direct face-to-face selling knows is absolutely critical. You need to have product samples. You need to match and mirror and so forth and speak the language of the prospect at the speed in which the prospect speaks. Adapting as much of that as possible to Internet salesmanship and video and print is essential.

Daniel Levis: Here’s the million-dollar question I think for anybody listening to this. Have you done any spilt testing where you took a long copy web page and just added video, then run those two against each other in an A/B split? What kind of results did you get?

Ken Calhoun: Great question. Let me give everybody a quick and handy way to split test because I think most people’s eyes glaze over when they hear the phrase because they don’t know how. Here’s how. And I used to show this to people at my marketing seminars. You don’t need to go buy a script. You don’t need to become a PHP coder. You don’t need to go install things on a UNIX server and blah, blah, blah.

All you need to do is get two similar sounding domain names for the same product and have different order links on each one. So you might have loseweightnow.com versus losingtheweightnow.com. And on one you put the video and on the other you don’t. And of course you have different order links on each one so you can see which one converts best. And maybe put those on Google and on MSN ad center and run them at the same frequency, the same timeframes and see sales conversion differences.

In my own actual experience, and this was over many years, I have a minimum of eighteen percent outpull with video versus the non-video version.

So I will never have a product online without some kind of video either in production or on the site. A minimum eighteen percent outpull with video and as high as 53% for one of my products. So it’s absolutely critical, and I’ve never yet in my life not sold with video and had it not outpull the non-video version. The key is and this is really important for everyone to understand.

Remember when Web Audio came out how crappy sounding a lot of the amateurish audio is out there? Or when people figured out they need to start putting their photos of themselves on their websites?

Well, there’s a trick to that. If you have amateurish audio, video, or even images that are incongruous with what the prospect expects to see, it can actually kill your response.

Daniel Levis: Sure.

Ken Calhoun: You don’t want to have an amateurish u-tube or Google video looking video on your website. That will probably hurt conversion; all other things being equal.

Daniel Levis: I think there’s a lot to be said for that. And it’s not just video. I mean it’s everything right down to the actual look and feel of the copy itself.

Ken Calhoun: Uh-huh.

Daniel Levis: If it looks incongruent with what the prospect expects from a reputable vendor, and I see this every single day on the Internet, it’s definitely bad for conversion. Same with e-book covers. If you have a bad e-book cover you might as well have no e-book cover.

Ken Calhoun: And most of them are bad too by the way, which just blows me away. Why would you put something out there that looks like that is my gut reaction when I see a lot of info products. I mean, unless it looks professional well what’s the point. And what that means by the way to people is, you need to work really hard and buy a lot of books and study.

I work eighteen-hour days. I make millions. There is no magic bullet or magic software answer to this. So many people are lazy. If you want to be world class you’ve got to work your butt off. And that’s fine, that’s the way it should be. Those of us who do work hard reap the rewards.

Daniel Levis: Now here’s a question that copywriters and marketing strategists are going to definitely grapple with. In helping a customer to enter this brave new world, there are a lot of hurdles – a lot of technical hurdles, a lot of cost hurdles. I mean how difficult is it to create a stunning, kick ass, highly professional video?

Ken Calhoun: It’s hard. I’m not going to say well that’s the best part. It’s easy just go buy this affiliate link mentioned software and it makes it easy. No-no, that’s not the answer. The answer is if you want to succeed in life, work hard.

I’m a big fan of Brian Tracy – I’m a huge fan of Brian Tracy and I love his forty plus rule in which he says your success is determined not by the first forty hours you work – I’m paraphrasing here, but by all of the hours beyond the first forty that you work.

I’m a workaholic. I love what I do. I love the money I make. I love the difference it makes in my customers’ lives. So it’s a lot of work. There are plenty of DVD tutorials out there on the various software programs that you can buy. And you have to educate yourself and take the time to learn it. And it’s an investment in yourself and in your customers and in your business that can pay dividends and will for many years if you have the metal and the work ethic to work hard.

So many people I see on forums, they whine a lot but they don’t say well hey I worked seventy, eighty hours a week for two years and I’m still not successful. I don’t hear that a lot. I hear a lot of people saying well I bought this program that promised me the world and golly gosh it didn’t work.

I’m sure the world class copywriters like the John Carlton’s and Clayton Makepeace’s and Michael Fortin’s and Dan Kennedy’s of the world when they sit down and they write a control and you look at their controls you can tell the amount of work and perspiration and genuine sweat and expertise that went into it. And it’s one of my personal kind of soapbox’s is that there are a lot of people out there that expect wealth without work and that’s not the way the world works folks. You need to work really hard at it. And it’s worth it.

I mean I can – as somebody who’s been on both sides of it I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich and rich is a lot better. But the price is you need to educate yourself and learn from the best. Go deep into learning from the best and work very hard by reading, studying, practicing, and continually testing until you make it. And that’s really where success is; it is on the other side of a lot of work.

Daniel Levis: Exactly. I agree with you a hundred percent; although, I think the question was more along the lines of, how can you best harness the expertise of other people that have that same work ethic, bringing them together to actually create the video? To shoot the video. To do whatever needs to be done to get it into production.

Ken Calhoun: I do all my own videos start to finish myself. I mean I don’t work with anyone else on that. I’ve taught myself everything from lighting to video shooting to using the non-linear editors. I use Sony Vega and all the different audio and video elements that go into production. So I think the first part of that answer is: even if all you are doing is coordinating the activities of others you still need to have first hand knowledge of what goes into a successful video production.

You still need to teach yourself from start to finish what it takes. And there are plenty of books and videos and tutorials out there that people can get.

And then you’re in a much better position to vend out to other people. You’ll have first hand knowledge from start to finish of what a successful process looks like so that you know the right questions to ask, and the right activities to parse out to other people that you want to work with on developing your own video infomercial.

Daniel Levis: So you need to be an educated consumer in other words?

Ken Calhoun: Yeah, well, an educated producer. I produce everything myself because I don’t like the time delay or the communication burden involved in communicating requirements to others. I would prefer to put in the thirty, forty, fifty hours it takes to produce a five or ten minute video infomercial because of the sales I get. I mean I make so much money I love it.

And the great thing is being able to produce it yourself. You have the pride of workmanship of hey I created that. And hey by the way it’s converting like gangbusters and I’m making a lot of money with it as well. So it’s a great feeling to be able to accomplish that.

Daniel Levis: Well, let’s drill down into that a little more then. What is the process that you go through for developing an Internet infomercial? How do you go from script to the small screen? How do you do your research, your writing, your storyboarding and the video production and whatever else goes into it?

Ken Calhoun: Okay. Yeah, we can go straight through the process. The first thing as I said was to go ahead and this is a good point of comfort for everybody is to go ahead and write your long copy sales letter and print that out. I still like writing everything long hand because I’m more creative that way than sitting in front of a monitor. I do editing on the computer. I like to take my pads of paper out to a local coffee shop or sit in bed and write copy or whatever. But I do it long hand.

Anyway, after you write your long copy sales letter you need to create the script. And one of the keys that you need to think about is what the goal for each element of the script? So for each paragraph I like to break it down. The most important thing is the attention getter or the grabber or the big promise on the front end that you’re going to make to the person who hits your site because you’re only going to have say ten or fifteen seconds to get their attention before they’ll say yeah click interested or not interested.

So you have ten or fifteen seconds to get their attention at most. Just like writing a headline, put most of your work into the intro for your script. Once you’ve created the script and you have your script ready to go I like to do some storyboarding. A lot of what I do is off the computer. My best work and my best sales results come from when I’m not sitting in a chair in front of monitors. I like to be able to look out the window and see the mountains while I think on and develop my products.

Anyway, you create a storyboard of major design elements for what goes into your video infomercial. And a lot of that involves the images that you want to paint. Think about in copy how we want to create compelling, vivid fascinations or bullets that grab the prospects attention and deliver immediate benefit. We need to do that in our video infomercial.

So I like to create visual images of success and that might be for example the stock trader image of him or her in front of a monitor shaking their fist at this guy saying hey I made a lot of money.

Or if you’re going for pain on the front end, you can get lots of royalty free video clips which I use all the time of somebody frustrated and making facial expressions and gestures that suggest losing a lot of money. And you solve that pain or solve that problem by having a visual image of somebody being successful or wealth images of sports cars and dollar bills and bank vaults and all these other wealth imagery elements that you add into the infomercial.

So you create a storyboard that links together those visual images that support your script points. We have the script on the left column of the piece of paper and the visual image on the right column or vice versa if you’re left or right handed. So you can create a storyboard. And so you have each of the design elements mapped out from start to finish.

Then it gets fun. Then you go into video production. And that’s where you can do green screen shoots and you have to use soft boxes which are big lights. You can get them for a couple hundred bucks on eBay. Use a good three-chip camcorder. And again I don’t want peoples’ eyes to glaze over on the technology but just make note 3-CCD is a camcorder that captures better quality color.

And you can get it for six, seven hundred bucks at Best Buy or wherever. Then you’ve got your script. You may want to use a teleprompter or what I’ll do is I’ll just tape the script to the bottom of the camcorder, and I can read it while I’m in front of the camcorder. And then you film each element on your storyboard.

Then take that to your editor, capture the video, put it on a timeline, add your royalty free audio and video clips and then render it out into a format that’s suitable for streaming for the web and you’re set. I can do a whole weeklong course but that’s the overview of the steps that are involved. It’s not really that difficult once you’ve done a couple. And it’s definitely the way that selling will be done on the Internet from now on.

My challenge is to use my copywriting skills to stay there and create Internet infomercials that are even more compelling than those that my competitors can put out which thankfully none of them have done a decent job.

Daniel Levis: It’s still the early days, so anybody still has a tremendous ground floor opportunity to get into this. Let’s say we had copywriters that wanted to write scripts and go to their customers and encourage them to get into this bold, new world, could they create a script and then come to you and either introduce you to the customer or pay you directly to do all of the nuts and bolts.

Ken Calhoun: No, actually I don’t offer any info products in that arena or services, mostly because it’s a competitive advantage. And I’m not going to be a shovel seller in that arena. But there are plenty of providers out there.

There’s one recommendation if I may make for somebody that I have absolutely no financial or other relationship with. His name is Tim Hawthorne. And he’s got to be one of the top, real world infomercial producers. He’s got a DVD that’s only fifty-nine bucks called Anatomy of a Winning Infomercial.

And it’s a highly recommended resource. Visit http://www.hawthorneinfomercialguide.com//Public/HOME/index.cfm. Tim’s guide explains a lot of the process steps behind creating a regular infomercial for TV.

If you’re a copywriter and you’re out there trying to figure out how you can get involved, the main way in which I would position myself where a copywriter for hire would be as someone who can write short scripts.

And then you can also upsell or offer additional tiers of pricing for a longer length script that you write. But that would be one, key service that I would offer in addition to things like storyboarding. You can get as involved as you want into the production process. But it’s absolutely the wave of the future and it creates remarkable sales. I love it. And I’m able to communicate with my customers more directly because I’m talking to them. Another key here for video infomercial is to make sure you have video testimonials embedded as well.

For all of my infomercial videos I always lead them off with or start by having five or six video bites or sound bites of satisfied customers saying hey this is a phenomenal product. Hey I was able to make X number of dollars in X number of weeks with it. I was able to be successful this way. I loved it blah, blah, blah.

You have a specific video testimonial to lead it off because that’s credentializing. With television infomercials you see a lot of success stories and video testimonials as being at least half of the content. That’s an important thing that you might want to work on as a copywriter or marketer in terms of offering a service to get that together for your clients and be able to add value to their business by making that a success story for them as well.

Daniel Levis: Yeah, one of the things that I often do with my clients is work really hard to get the right testimonials to support the various points that are in the running copy, and to mate the two together. Very often you go to a webpage and you see just a blob of testimonials and they don’t really advance the sales process because they don’t relate to the sales argument that’s going on the running copy. And yes you’re right I do notice that most of these infomercials are very heavy on the testimonials.

Ken Calhoun: Yeah. You bring up a good point too. You make your pitch much stronger by organizing the testimonials by benefit area. So that if you’re saying ease of use in your pitch then you support that with three quick video or audio testimonials that speak to that saying hey this was so easy I couldn’t believe it. I was a complete newbie and now I’m a pro and I’m making all this money and blah, blah.

It’s a quick, supporting organized grouping of testimonials that logically follows the sales process so that you build the sales case and overcome – and again anticipate and overcome objections throughout your body copy and the script. And then support that with appropriate video testimonials so that you can close the sale more effectively and boost your conversions.

Daniel Levis: Not only that but actually digging for the great testimonials if you don’t have them because a lot of these clients out there have client bases – customer bases that are not being mined for testimonials.

So that’s another area where whether you’re a scriptwriter or copywriter where you have a tremendous opportunity, because remember folks – people believe their peers way before they believe somebody who’s trying to sell them something.

Ken Calhoun: Right. One thing that I’ve found really helpful is to give people examples of good versus bad testimonials. And point them to a testimonial that is very specific, you know, I was able to make X number of dollars in X number of weeks or whatever. Testimonials with numbers are always more believable and credible than those without. And then say, please don’t send me something that says hey I loved it.

Customers need to be trained. They have no idea. They don’t talk our language unless they’re in sales or direct response. They don’t know that specific testimonials are important. So they think – again if you think of your average friends and family and you were to talk to them on the topic they would think that saying hey I loved the product, it was great, makes for a great testimonial but it doesn’t. That’s a worthless testimonial.

Daniel Levis: So true. And I think it’s an area that a lot of copywriters neglect. How can copywriters as professional people prepare their clients to develop their own Internet infomercials? What should be their role and what kind of a role should a customer expect from a copywriter?

Ken Calhoun: That’s a great question. One thing I’ve advised people to do is create a quick outline or a flow chart of the steps involved in the development process. And also the roles in which people take. One common frustration for many scriptwriters or even copywriters in general is hey I wrote the world’s best sales letter but the customer is complaining because it’s not selling.

But that’s because that sales letter was not part of a well-integrated marketing process that has traffic going to it. And it may be something as basic as not having qualified traffic. So it’s not the copywriter’s fault it’s the product – or it’s a wrong product, wrong message to market match or an incorrectly positioned or incorrectly priced product. So a lot of those common client copywriter relationship pitfalls need to be documented and put as a checklist for client education.

In terms of Internet infomercials and the role in which copywriters can take in helping their clients, what I would advise them to do is to just say hey here is my collaborative role with you. But before even taking on a client you need to assess the viability – you have to assess the viability of their market.

And it’s one of the things that I liked about Clayton’s approach from what I understand of it is that he advocates working more closely with more established people versus just freelancing to everyone and their brother out there who wants a copywriter. And I agree with that because it positions a copywriter for much higher probability of success because they’re working with somebody who has a track record and is well established and can be counted on to do their role as a marketer while you’re doing your role as a copywriter.

And all too often you have a clueless client, right? They want a copywriter to come in and save a product that has no chance of succeeding regardless of the quality of the copy. So when it comes to Internet infomercials the same exact issues are very much true. Copywriters need to talk to their clients and prescreen them to make sure they are people that number one will pay you at least fifty percent upfront and are reliable and trustworthy and credible and so forth. And have good quality products or services that you’re pitching and that you feel comfortable pitching.

And then put together a collaborative process with that client such that you identify your role. So those are some of the considerations that a working copywriter needs to take into account when helping a client to develop their Internet infomercial.

Daniel Levis: Yeah, that’s one of the things that I’ve learned from Clayton. That’s probably the most – there are so many things I’ve learned from Clayton but one of the most important things is that he goes even further than what you describe. I mean you talked about qualifying and understanding that you’re just a copywriter, and if your client doesn’t have qualified targeted traffic, if they don’t have a kick ass product and a kick ass offer, well, their project is not going to succeed no matter how well you write. Even if you write it better than Clayton Makepeace that project isn’t going to succeed.

But he goes one step further. He actually looks for a client that’s malleable and will actually work with the client on the product, on the offer and on the targeting – which goes beyond just qualifying a client that has a brain.

Ken Calhoun: Good point. Yeah, you need to seek out clients that aren’t as stubborn as we are as entrepreneurs sometimes. We always think we have the best product and best process. And the more successful you are as an entrepreneur and a marketer and a product developer the more malleable you are and the more open to intelligent dialog and ideas for improvement.

So yeah I think that’s a great point you bring up. And I agree you need to select clients that are open to trusting your knowledge and experience as a copywriter, and being able to work with them to help improve the entire marketing chain from start to finish.

Daniel Levis: Okay, well we’re just about out of time. Last question for you.

Ken Calhoun: Uh-huh.

Daniel Levis: What are the tips that you would suggest marketers and copywriters in particular start using right now today to prepare themselves for successfully writing and producing Internet infomercials because like it or not it’s coming?

Ken Calhoun: The first thing I would certainly have people do is again look at the successful infomercials on television right now and again to assess which ones are successful which is critical to know. Remember more than 80% of them are not successful. You need to know which ones are. There are ones like Proactive and Total Body Workout, the ones that have Chuck Norris and Bowflex and others that are doing well.

I write out by hand the entire scripts and see which elements are most resonant to me as a prospect, and pay attention to some of the phrases that are common to successful infomercials.

So that’s the first thing in terms of market research is looking at what’s working now. Your swipe file equivalent is looking at those infomercials. Late night and weekends and be sure not to buy everything either. Resist the pitch but look at which ones really make you want to reach for the telephone and order now.

And then start integrating the positive elements into the way in which you write scripts for your clients or for yourself as you produce your Internet infomercials.

And another thing is to look at what’s online. You might want to look at a website called http://www.livemercial.com/ and they are the leading producer of landing pages for Internet infomercials. And they do typically very short two to three minute infomercial clips that are taken from the twenty-seven and a half minute regular, long form DRTV spots.

Go to carltonsheets.com and look at one of them. They’ve got a gallery of live mercials that they have; short two to three minutes spots. Study all those and then borrow and adapt the elements that you believe in and that you see from test results are doing best.

Make a lot of money out there in service of your customers’ needs and dominant desires. And be able to convert those sales and those clicks into dollars and make a fortune. It’s a lot of fun.

Daniel Levis: Well, this is fantastic. I’m pumped up about going out there and doing my first online infomercial. I want to thank you very much Ken for stopping by Web Marketing Advisor this afternoon. And I hope we can do this again.

Ken Calhoun: Well, absolutely, glad to be here Daniel. And I wish the best to all of our listeners out there and the parting thought is, the dominant thought is, make sure that you take the time to learn and make it professional so that you differentiate your products from the junkie free video that’s out there on the free video websites.

If your video looks like that it’s probably not going to sell. So you need to take the time to add some sparkle and professional polish to what you’re doing. It doesn’t cost anything other than your time and energy but take the time to do it right.

Until next time, Good Selling!

Daniel Levis
Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE™

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Daniel Levis is a top marketing consultant & direct response copywriter based in Toronto, Canada and publisher of the world famous copywriting anthology “Masters of Copywriting” featuring the selling wisdom of 44 of the “Top Money” marketing minds of all time, including Clayton Makepeace, Dan Kennedy, Joe Sugarman, John Carlton, Joe Vitale, Michel Fortin, Richard Armstrong and dozens more! For a FREE excerpt visit SellingToHumanNature.com

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Posted by: Clayton Makepeace
March 19, 2007
Issue #86

The Trials, Travails and Triumphs
of My Newest Copy Cub

in this issue:

• How taking calculated risks can light a fire under your career …
• The three most crucial lessons a new copywriter can learn …
• The #1 mistake too many new copywriters make …
• How to turn criticism into money …
• Much more!

Dear Business-Builder,

I want you to meet someone very special this week – someone who’ll encourage and inspire you, and help you take your copywriting to the next level …

His name is John Newtson – a young copy cub who’s just beginning his career in direct response marketing.

Last year, John and his wife Katrina decided to take a huge gamble: To spend $5,000 plus expenses to attend my Power Marketing Summit.

At the time, John was an office manager for a market research firm in Virginia. He had completed both AWAI courses and was eager to begin his new career as a copywriter.

John figured the Summit would give him the chance to network with other writers and with potential clients. And our Copywriter’s Challenge gave John the opportunity to test his copywriting chops.
So John and Katrina swallowed hard and put the $5,000 registration fee on a credit card.

John’s entry in the Copywriter’s Challenge was for a health product called Super CoQ10™. And wonder of wonders, his entry won the Grand Prize and $25,000 in copywriting assignments from my agency, Response Ink.

Not only that – my client has now mailed John’s promotion to his customers twice and it has earned us both some nice royalties!

Then, a couple of months ago, Wendy and I decided we needed a full-time copywriter here in our offices to help me with my clients’ work – and John was my #1 choice.

And so, John and Katrina took another huge gamble. They put their Virginia home on the market, packed up their worldly possessions and moved here.

I’m hoping John’s experiences as a young writer – and the lessons he learns as we work together on direct mail and Internet promotions – will help you accelerate your learning curve and get you bigger winners, more often – and sooner …

––––––––––

Clayton: Hey John, thanks for joining us today.

John: Thanks for having me.

Clayton: Why don’t we begin by having you tell us a little bit about your background: growing up, your parents, your education, and so forth?

John: All right. Well basically I was a military brat. My dad was enlisted in the Army for 20-some-odd years. And so I was born in Japan; grew up in Germany—kind of lived all over. And my mom’s from Greece, where I still have family.

So we lived all over the place. And then education-wise, I was a high school drop out. And then went back to school to get my high school diploma. I did go to a couple of years of college but nothing business or marketing related. It was pretty much religion and philosophy.

Clayton: Interesting. Was your father in the military the whole time you were growing up?

John: He retired when I was about in the sixth grade, so right through elementary school. And we actually lived in Germany for a year after he retired because my mom’s family was in Greece and that made it easy to get over there and see them. And then we came back here and he went to work for the government here.

Clayton: So neither one of your parents really were involved in entrepreneurship or marketing or anything like that.

John: Not really. I mean my dad always had some ideas. And before I was born he’d had a couple of auto shops, briefly for about two years. And then he went back into the military because it was a good way to move back overseas. But that was about it.

But he always made the point to me growing up that, “You’re never gonna really be able to make a lot of money if you’re working for someone else.” So it was one of those things, a tradeoff that he made is he kept jobs that gave him a lot of security for the family growing up. And made it easy to go visit family overseas. But he never really got to chase down some of those other dreams. But he really encouraged me to.

Clayton: Did you ever get involved in sales when you were growing up?

John: Not really. I think the closest to actual sales experience was when I was in high school I had a telemarketing job for about a week. And that was about it. Didn’t really care for that too much though.

Clayton: Didn’t work out too well for you?

John: Not at all.

Clayton: So like me, you’re a high school dropout?

John: Oh yeah, I took it almost all the way to the end. I was about halfway through my senior year. And I just didn’t really feel like school was for me. So I just stopped going.

Clayton: Well it worked out okay for me and I think it’s working out okay for you too.

John: Yeah, it looks that way.

Clayton: So when did you first hear about copywriting in direct marketing?

John: Well it was funny. After I met my wife—up until then I hadn’t really thought much about a career because it wasn’t really essential to any of my plans. But then after I got engaged I realized, “I need to really work this thing out.” And so I had a friend who had a bunch of different small businesses at different times and did some marketing online. And he put the bug in my ear because he thought it was a good fit for me but I didn’t think much about it. At least not until I saw an ad for the AWAI course in Early to Rise. And it had the headline: Can you write a letter like this one?

And so I read through it and it seemed like, “Yeah this is me. This is something I could really get behind. I really liked the idea behind it. And that when you’re writing sales letters success has little to do with other people’s opinions because it’s results based.”

And so I asked my friend about it. And he told me, “Yeah copywriting is really one of those areas that’s still a real meritocracy in America. There are not a lot of other things that are quite as result oriented.”

And that’s what I was looking for because I didn’t have a degree and that closed a lot of doors to me. So I just fell down the rabbit hole from there. I got the course material and then started getting every book I could on the subject. I read everything I could find and probably spent $2,000.00 on books and courses and stuff just trying to really understand everything I could about the business.

Clayton: But the AWAI course was your first big introduction really to how to do this, right?

John: Oh yeah. And in retrospect I’m glad it was because most of the other stuff out there doesn’t really give a strong basic structure the way that the AWAI course does. Which, I think, is really fundamental.

Clayton: I hear that a lot, we get a lot of very positive comments about the AWAI course. And I’ve found that when I’m working with Copy Cubs, the ones who’ve completed both courses, the beginner and the advanced, tend to move along a lot more quickly than those who haven’t.

So I met you a year ago at our Power Marketing Summit in Washington, DC. How did you hear about that and what made you decide to spend the $5,000.00 plus to attend?

John: Well that was definitely a big decision for me. I remember I had subscribed to The Total Package. And it was probably the most significant newsletter to me, personally, of all the ones I’d found. I felt like – finally! Here’s someone who knows what he’s doing, but is also really sharing his experience in depth and really giving a broad and detailed perspective on the business on multiple levels. And it was just fantastic.

So then when I saw you were having the Summit, two things struck me. One, I knew you were someone I wanted to learn from because it was obvious you were one of the top in the field and then two, you had this copywriting contest where, basically you’d get the opportunity to write a package, submit it, and the winners would get a chance to apprentice under you or one of your other past Copy Cubs like Carline or someone.

And it was that right there that really just appealed to me. To have the chance to actually learn in the real world from somebody who’s already successful at this and get that kind of experience. Because even taking the courses and reading the books and stuff, you’re so much on the outside of the business. And you have no true frame of reference so you don’t even really know whether you know what you’re doing or not.

And so that was just such an appealing concept to me and I couldn’t let this chance go by. Even thought I hadn’t actually done any copywriting before this. And I didn’t have the money for it either, so I threw it on a credit card and crossed my fingers.

Clayton: And wonder of wonders you won the grand prize in the copywriting contest.

John: Yeah that was quite a surprise, actually. I remember when I had met John McCrea earlier that day, and he ended up winning the first prize spot. And so we were sitting there talking at dinner. And I remember when he got called up and I was so thrilled for him and thinking, “That’s fantastic.”

And then you were talking about how the person who won the grand prize wasn’t really even a copywriter. So my first thought went, “Oh, it was somebody who has a business who happened to submit an entry.” So I’m thinking, “I’m out. I didn’t even get honorable mention. I got nothing.” And then you called my name and I’m sitting there, I’m like, “Did he just call my name?”

Clayton: Well at the time you were working as what?

John: An office manager, actually, in a market research firm.

Clayton: But you weren’t really involved in the market research that much, were you?

John: Not too much. I mean a little bit; you get to see a little bit of it, help out here and there and stuff, but nothing that required any real brainpower. I mean it was interesting to read a lot of the stuff and see what they were doing but it was not a hands-on thing at all.

Clayton: I remember when you came up to the stage and I presented you with your grand prize trophy that you were visibly shaking. You had a smile from ear to ear.

John: Yeah. It was quite an intense experience.

Clayton: And then immediately you disappeared; nobody knew where you were. And it turned out you were calling your wife.

John: Yeah. ‘Cause I mean it was really, it was a big step for her too—we had to talk about our finances for me to put $5,000.00 on a credit card to go to something like this. And it was just—I just wanted to share it with her immediately. And it was great; she was so excited and it felt fantastic.

Clayton: I understand that after the Summit, you and John McCrea arranged to critique each other’s copy. Is that right?

John: Yeah. Actually it was John McCrea, Caleb Osborne, who was one of the honorary mentions there, and I. The three of us started critiquing each others copy and to this day we still do. We send each other our copy and critique it and give each other ideas. And that’s been just so helpful for all of us, I think.

Clayton: It’s something I highly encourage especially with the interconnectivity of the Internet today, there’s no reason in the world why younger writers shouldn’t be making friends with others and sharpening each others copy—even in the absence of a mentor.

Clayton: And since then you’ve been freelancing for me and for Carline and other people I work with. How has that experience affected your approach to copywriting?

John: Well first, it was definitely a reality check for me. When I wrote the package for the Summit, I had all the time in the world to do it. But then I remember the first thing after the Summit I wrote was a newsletter insert for Carline. And time-wise it was a couple weeks to get the first draft to her—which was much faster than I had for the contest promotion.

And then by the time she wanted the first draft I was like, “This is not in very good shape but I have to send something over to her.” And so I felt like she should get some combat pay for that because she really had to tear that first draft to pieces. And I loved the fact that, though she was very nice about it, at the same time she was not going to pussyfoot around. She had no problem saying, “This sucks; this sucks.” She wrote “lame” on everything, which was hilarious.

And then she gave me some direction and it helped so much to have someone like her go through and say, “Look, your line of reasoning here sucks. This is not the right way to go.” Or, “Why are you writing more like an editor rather than a salesman?” And things like that.

Just doing one package with her just totally changed everything—the way I thought about how I approach a project. And it was such a great experience and that was just from one package. So I did, I think, three drafts on that. And I was really impressed by the time I was done with what she could pull out of me. And it did really well when it mailed.

And so the speed factor really came in fast because now I stopped writing editorial style in my first drafts. Now I could start to look at things immediately from how they should lay out in the sales message and that helped a lot.

Clayton: Well yeah, – it’s quite a shock. That’s why I quite often recommend that people look at the AWAI basic course as their bachelors’ degree and the advanced course as their masters’ degree. But to go from there into an internship with live copywriters, so they can experience the challenge of approaching a product and a market and a prospect in a real-world promotion that’s somebody’s actually going to invest money in. And the experience of doing it is instructive. Also the experience of seeing the results afterwards is a great way to focus your energies—especially when you get a loser.

But then we took the copy that you had submitted, that won our copywriters challenge, and we did a few nips and tucks. And one of Response Ink’s clients mailed that promotion. And lo and behold, it worked. It made money for the client. And yesterday I had the pleasure of presenting you with your first-ever royalty check. How did that feel?

John: That was a great surprise and it was just a great feeling to know that something that I had thought I put to rest so long ago is still paying - that was just phenomenal. I did that work months and months and months ago. And it was such a great feeling. You always hear about royalties. But until you get that first check in your hands it doesn’t really feel real. It’s all kind of theoretical. But then as soon as the cash comes in it feels really good.

Clayton: And it feels like free money, doesn’t it?

John: Yeah it does, that’s exactly what it feels like.

Clayton: And since your freelance experience with Carline and your freelancing experience with us, as part of your award for winning the copywriting challenge, you’ve come to work with me full-time.

And, in fact, as we speak right now, everything you own in the world is in boxes on the floor of a house here in Western North Carolina. And your wife is headed down here; she’ll be arriving tonight to begin unpacking and getting you established here.

That’s quite a big step. What made you decide to accept my offer of a full-time job rather than pursue your freelancing career?

John: Well for me it was basically an IQ test —I mean when we were on the phone and you said that you’d be interested in bringing me down here to write for you full time. I had a choice, I could continue to build my freelance business and hope one day to break into the top rungs of the business. Or I could come do this full-time with one of the best in the business. And from the experience I already had working with you my copywriting and my understanding of the business has improved fast that it just seemed like a no-brainer. I knew there was no better way to do this than to come and actually work on a day-to-day basis with you and just see the business as a whole.

And it’s amazing how much stuff besides just the copywriting there is to learn. And, I think, that’s one of the big motivators for me, when I hear you talk about being the “total package” – doing not just copy but strategy and planning and all these other things. And outside as a freelancer you’re more separate from those kinds of details and it’s kind of opaque to you.

So the chance to come in here and work with you and see everything, was a no-brainer. If I’m going to succeed in this business then that’s exactly the kind of experience I want to have. And I know that pretty much everyone I look up to in this business, you and Gary Bencivenga and others; you’ve all worked for someone else in either an agency or for a client early on to get that total view of everything and the input from experienced pros.

Clayton: I remember a conversation you and I had when we first started discussing you coming to work here in which I said, “Here’s how things work, okay? You come to work for me. We’ll spend a couple of years sharpening your approach to copy and getting you a bunch of winners and plumping up your portfolio. So you can eventually unceremoniously quit me and become a $1 million a year freelancer. But between now and then I’m gonna make a buck or two off of you.”

John: Yeah, exactly.

Clayton: And I think that’s a great synergistic relationship. And throughout history that’s the way the apprentice approach to learning a craft has worked; it’s economically helpful to both parties.

Okay so you’ve been here in the office now for a few weeks. What differences have you noticed between your budding freelance career, prior to accepting this job, and being around copywriting eight hours a day, six days a week?

John: Well I think going back to the earlier point that now I see so much more of what’s going on. I see not just the final copy delivered, but I see more of the strategy behind promotions, why we’re doing one thing as opposed to another, the numbers behind the whole plan and how it all fits together. And that is so instructive.

And then there’s also the fact that since coming here things are going at full speed every day. There’s just so much to do—you feel that you get that experience so much faster because you’re just working on so many more things.

And it reminds of something Claude Hopkins said. He was talking about how he’s worked twice the hours every day than other advertising men of his age. And so it wasn’t that he was so much better it was that he had two lifetimes of experience because he put in double the amount of time. And so I think having the volume of work, having that experience of doing so much more and working on so many more things, it speeds up your learning curve dramatically.

Clayton: Yeah absolutely. That’s great stuff.

All right well you came to us with some momentum, some wind in your sails, because of the studying that you had done and that $2,000.00 that you had spent on courses and books. And since then you’ve experienced both, life as a freelancer and, for the last few weeks, life as a fulltime staff copywriter. And you’ve collected your first royalties and you’ve produced a winner that’s making my client money.

So I’d like you to spend a little time and tell us about the two or three or four lessons that you’ve learned over the past year about persuasion in print, that you think would be most helpful to young copywriters.

John: All right. I think the very first one—and this one was the one that really struck me when I was writing the package that ended up winning the grand prize at the Summit and it was one of those real “a-ha” moments—was that I’d been hearing so much about using formulas or swiping and writing headlines and what not and all this technical stuff about the copy itself.

And when I was writing that promotion I was reading through issues of The Total Package. And the one thing that really came home to me was that it wasn’t about the copy itself, it was about the prospect. And that’s something that you said over and over again but it didn’t really come home to me until then. And it wasn’t about writing a how-to headline or this type of headline or about the technique – it was more about what the prospect was actually feeling, where are they mentally in their life, and how are they feeling when they get this promotion—and actually really trying to visualize that and understand that.

And the copy, the theme or the idea that’s going to flow from that is really what’s going to win. It’s not going to be because you had this really great way of turning a phrase or using some whiz-bang word that’s going to really impress someone. Those are such minor things. It’s all about the prospect. And the formulas and everything are great but they don’t really get you there; they’re just crutches.

Clayton: Great, what else?

John: Well one of the things that really struck me more than anything else is maybe less about the copy and more about the business. And that was, both from you and then from listening to a call with Martin Weiss not too long ago, was that integrity matters quite a bit.

And that there’s a lot of stuff out there telling people that it’s all about manipulating and tricking people and squeezing your clients or your list and prospects. And you and Martin, you both just have a completely different take. You honestly care about your prospects and customers. You realize that they’re people and that you’re trying to do something for them and you’re not trying to just squeeze a nickel out of them. You’re trying to provide them with some real, honest value.

And so I think it’s that difference between the churn and burn approach where you just want to cycle through your list or your prospects and get as much money as possible as fast as possible, versus building a long-term business where you’re actually providing things to people that they want and that they enjoy the experience. And that the business itself is about delighting people rather than just getting money from them.

Clayton: Absolutely. This is all about customer lifetime value. The people, who follow the churn and burn approach, make money. But for every $1,000.00 they make, the people who run businesses that are committed to developing long-term relationships and actually improving their customers’ lives, make tens and tens of thousands of dollars.

So it just makes sense. It’s rational selfishness to treat customers with dignity and with respect and to deliver on the promises in your copy.

Are there any other lessons that you’ve learned?

John: Oh there’s so many. Again there’s the idea that you’re most effective when you really understand the marketing side of the business besides just the copywriting. The copywriting is one piece of the puzzle. And the more you understand the business as a whole, the more valuable you are to clients and the more success you’re going to have. Rather than just pigeonholing yourself and thinking, “I just need to learn how to write good headlines,” you’re thinking about the whole business and the front end and the backend – everything. And that seems to be a huge thing that is easily missed, especially in the beginning. Because I know I did. I didn’t really think about it in terms of the business a whole, initially.

Clayton: All of those are great insights. If you were giving advice to a young copywriter who is maybe just starting out or maybe even still taking the AWAI courses, what would it be?

John: Don’t rush through it. Don’t try and just get to the end of the course or the books and check the box that you’ve done it. It’s not about finishing the course. It’s not about having read the books or even just knowing what the principles are. It’s about actually mastering the skills they’re sharing.

I mean, it’s one thing to be able to quote Caples and Reeves and Claude Hopkins. You hear people treat them like bibles, “Claude Hopkins Chapter 12 Verse 10 said this.” Quoting a principle is not the same as having mastered it and being able to use it. And so it’s really focusing on developing the actual craft and the skill.

I’ve noticed as a freelancer before I came down here after working with you, I could send a letter with a couple samples to some of the major mailers. And they’d call me back up and they were like, “Hey this is great. We want to hire you.” And I had to turn work down because I ended up not having the time right now because this opportunity came up. But that was because of the strength of my copy after having worked with you. The point is though copy, if it’s strong, will open doors. It’s not that complicated. Once your copy is strong people will hire you. So focus on the skill rather than just trying to rush through things and get started as fast as possible.

Clayton: There’s a principle there, I think, that’s really important, that what we do is a combination of what has gone before—which is essentially what you pick up from Claude Hopkins and Michael Masterson Masterson and from me and from all of the available books and courses that are out there. That’s the first ingredient.

But the second ingredient is your own genius. Applying those principles and even breaking them selectively at the right time, in order to move our industry ahead and to continue innovating indirect response.

And you and I have noticed recently that there are people who believe a computer is all the brain they’ll ever need and that simple copywriting software will produce those kinds of winners. But all copywriting software can do is to help you replicate what has gone before; it doesn’t help you innovate or move things ahead. And because of that, its ability to produce grand slam, out of the park winners is really limited.

John: Right. And that actually reminds me of something else I’ve noticed when I started working with you. You allow this incredible freedom where I’m not worried about trying something new. There’s a lot more room to explore. Because you’re much more open to ideas. You let me be a little creative. If it’s not a good idea then you just explain why.

But it’s not that you’re trying to fit my writing into a certain mold and so it allows me to express ideas and think outside of the box. And you’re open to it and that just lets me grow, I think, much faster because I’m not just trying to replicate something else. I’m able to think more and try to apply what I understand in different ways. And if it works, it does; and if it doesn’t you just smack me upside the head and say, “Hey, that’s a stupid idea. Try again.”

But there’s no judgment like, “What a horrible copywriter you are to even begin to consider that.” There’s this feeling that I can explore and not be considered an idiot.

Clayton: (Laughter) Well my job with you, and also with anyone who reads The Total Package, is not to create Clayton clones. My job is to help you free the genius within you and try to combine what you know intellectually, the left-brain stuff, with your natural creative side that will give you the real, the grand slam winners in the future.

What is your reaction—we joke around the office that Carline has a rubber stamp that say “this sucks” and another rubber stamp that says “lame” with an exclamation point after it. How do you respond internally to criticism when you submit copy?

John: Well I don’t take it personally, I guess. I think that when I submit to you or to Carline, I want those critiques. I want somebody who is experienced and at the top of the game to tell me, “This is probably not the best way to go about this,” or “this is really not the right approach,” because I don’t want someone to spare my feelings and then hurt me by not letting me advance my craft. I want someone to go ahead and be as hard of a critic as possible with it.

And sometimes you feel like, “Oh man I really suck today.” But just because somebody’s critiqued your copy, even if it’s Carline writing LAME! All over it – it’s never a criticism of you personally. Because at the same time, you get a lot of encouragement and whenever there’s something good that you’re doing, you’ll say, “Hey this is good; this is not.” And it’s more of just a working document.

And so I don’t take it personally. I really enjoy it when somebody experienced critiques the heck out of my copy and makes it stronger.

Clayton: Great. I think that’s a great attitude. Although, I have to admit, even after 35 years of doing this, a negative crit to me is something that evokes an emotional reaction. And I have to deal with that before I can continue and produce the next draft.

Whenever you’re working a piece of copy you have one thing at stake and that’s your ego and, by extension, your hopes for the future. But the client has real dollar bills on the line. And the difference in the longer-lasting importance of a young writer’s ego or the client’s money is a gulf as wide as the distance from here to the nearest star.

And so with that perspective and understanding that the worst thing that’s going happen for the young writer is that he’s going to learn and be a better writer after this project is over. Whereas the worse case scenario for the client could be the loss of tens or even hundreds of thousands dollars if the promotion doesn’t work. I think it really puts things in perspective and can help you through those times of self doubt or those times of feeling insecure because somebody said something naughty about your copy.

John: Right. I was surprised, I guess, that the first time that somebody told me, “Well you know, it’s going to cost me $50,000.00 or $60,000.00 to test your copy.” And I hadn’t really considered that before. All of a sudden I’m realizing, “Yeah, I can see why you’re hesitant to work with new writers.”

Clayton: Right, right. And the responsibility only gets larger as you become more established because pretty soon you’ll be in a situation where somebody will test your copy with a 200,000 piece mailing which is going cost them $100,000.00 or more.

Well is there anything else that you would like to add? Any other piece of advice you’d like to add for younger copywriters, before we close?

John: Yeah well I guess especially when you’re starting out. And whether you haven’t gotten any jobs or you’ve just gotten a few, there’s a lot of self doubt or, “Can I really do this or am I just kidding myself.”

I remember when I first came into the Summit. I’m walking into this room with gaggles of million dollar copywriters, famous names in the industry, business owners and all this stuff. And I had this feeling, “I’m a fraud walking in here and calling myself a copywriter because I was really just someone who wanted to be a copywriter.” But everyone in this business is so nice and they’re very encouraging to you if you’re trying.

And so one thing is not to think that just because you haven’t succeeded right away that the door’s closed to you. If you keep working on getter better and keep learning the business and trying to connect with people —whether through networking with people or sending out sample letters or whatever, if you keep at it you’re going find success. And so don’t give up so easily just because you haven’t gotten there right way. And the most important thing is really, really hone that craft and get better and better.

I know I’m not an A Level copywriter yet. But I don’t have to be yet. I have to be good enough that someone like you is going find value in having me around. And so it’s a process.

And I think it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking of copywriting as the lazy man’s way to riches and thinking real skill comes easily and quickly. Because nothing else in life is that easy. You’re not going to be a master pianist because you took a course and three weeks later you’re a concert pianist. You have to develop your craft. It takes time and so don’t be afraid of the fact that it takes work. Copywriting isn’t the one area in life where you don’t have to work to succeed.

Clayton: I think that’s a great analogy.

John, thank you so much for helping us today.

John: Thanks for having me.

Clayton: And I know that your insights and your experience will be both an inspiration and very instructional to the younger writers who read The Total Package.

John: Well thanks. I certainly hope so.

Clayton: Thanks again, buddy.

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Yours for Bigger Winners, More Often,

Clayton Makepeace
Publisher & Editor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE™

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Posted by: Daniel Levis
March 14, 2007
Issue WMA #41

Make ‘em An Offer
They Can’t Refuse

In this issue:

• Is it possible to sell sand in the desert?
• What every online marketer ought to know about price …
• 10 sure-fire ways to enhance perceived value, conversion and dollars per click …
• Plus more!

Dear Web Business Builder,

Most business people don’t realize it, but playing around scientifically with your offer is one of the most powerful ways to increase sales. In fact, it’s one of Clayton Makepeace’s secrets of success…

He doesn’t talk about this much, but I’ve been watching. He’s a master at expanding his role as a copywriter to include the crafting of powerful offers that stack the deck in his favor when it comes to writing world beating controls.

So today, we’re going to roll up our sleeves and stuff your kit bag full of tricks for crafting irresistible offers online. Study this page carefully and you’re almost guaranteed a boost in both response, and revenue per click.

Shall we start at the beginning?

At the core of your offer, are your product, your price, and your terms of sale. Let’s take a look at each …

Is it possible to sell sand in the desert?

You may be able to sell sand in the desert and refrigerators to Eskimos once, but it’s no way to build a business …

No amount of honest copy can compensate for a lousy product, or a product that nobody wants. A winning offer starts with a great product!

That said, a great product doesn’t sell itself. Copy is critical to getting people to try it. The perception of value must far outweigh the perception of price.

It’s your job as a copywriter to make that happen, and when you do your job well, you can actually INCREASE the price point at which a given product can be sold.

But at the end of the day — when the copy is doing its job — there’s always a right price.

What Every Online Marketer
Ought To Know About Price …

Of course, only the market can tell you where the pricing sweet spot is. And before you test, it’s important to first understand your business objectives. Your goals should be different, depending on where in the customer lifecycle you’re working.

If you are working with a front end product, your goal should NOT be to maximize profits, but rather the number of customers you can acquire at break-even. With a back-end product however, profits are paramount.

Let’s suppose your net profit margin is 40% on a back-end product. If you could increase the price of your product by just 20% without seeing a drop in sales, you’re profit margin would jump by a third!

Or let’s say you decrease the price of a front end product from say $67 to $47 and your sales double. You’ve not only increased your profit margin, you’ve doubled the number of customers to sell additional back-end products to. Over time, the increase in profits could be staggering!

But there’s more to the pricing story. There is a psychology to the numbers …

You already know people buy on emotion, and defend their decisions with logic. Let me show you how this applies to pricing …

What if I believed the romantic getaway guide you’re selling would make me look smart on a date? Would I be open to the suggestion that it costs something meaningfully less than $10, if you offered it to me for $9.99?

The answer is oddly enough, yes. That 1-cent can have a significant impact on sales according to tests conducted by The Professional Pricing Society. And the reason is simple …

Because I’m emotionally hooked on the prospects of impressing my date (I’ll leave the rest of my desires to your imagination), I’m more than happy to believe the absurd notion that $9.99 is somehow meaningfully less than $10.

What about $9.95? Four times the impact? Not according to the Professional Pricing Society — just 4 cents less margin (a full 2%) – for you.

Some other findings …

Above $10, .99 is perceived as “greedy”. Better to go with .95 or .75. Above $100? Better to stick with whole numbers.

And believe it or not, sometimes sales actually go UP when you raise the price.

Now let’s talk about some ways you can tinker with your terms of sale.

10 sure-fire ways to enhance perceived value,
conversion and dollars per click …

Here are some proven formulas …

The Bonus Pile On Offer – After making your product presentation, you pile on a number of related premiums for ordering now. The premiums you choose can have a dramatic impact on sales. The most effective premiums are tools that help your prospect to capitalize on the promise of your product even more quickly and easily.

Wherever possible, attach a believable reason for making these free extras available. Put a value on them if you can. And find a credible way to limit their availability by time or quantity.

The Free Suit of Cloths Offer – This offer turns the Bonus Pile On Offer upside down by selling the premiums first, and then presenting the product as a vehicle for obtaining them.

You sell the premiums as through they were the primary attraction, and then tell your prospect how he can get them by simply taking a risk free look at your product.

The prime benefit of this approach is readership. The lure of something valuable accompanied by the repeated assertion that it is free, has a tendency to disarm the prospect and keep him reading. Again, be sure to include a reason why the premium is being offered.

The Alternative Choice Offer – Give your prospect a choice between yes and yes. Instead of asking him “if” he wants to buy, ask him “which” option he wants to buy. No matter what he chooses, he’s bought. Three options almost always works best.

Offer them on your order device. Simply spell out each option and put a check box beside each one. There are two ways you can play it.

You sell the deluxe version in your body copy, and then take away from it to create lower priced alternatives. Or you sell the standard version in your body copy, and add to it to create higher priced alternatives.

The Up Sell Offer – When the prospect clicks to order, instead of the expected order device copy, you surprise him with an offer to upgrade to an enhanced version of the product, and then give him a choice at the bottom of the page to either take the gold version, or the standard.

The Down Sell Offer – With this one you are trying to salvage a lost sale. I like to do this with a pop up. Anyone who abandons your order page receives a pop up that offers to take something away from the product to make it available at a reduced price. The law of contrast works in your favor, because the reduced price seems lower than it would have had it been the only one offered.

If you are working with google pay per click (where they do not permit pop ups), you can test a “no thanks” button at the very bottom of your sales page. People who click on the button are presented with the down sell offer.

The Better Together Offer – With this offer, when the prospect clicks to order the product, you present him with the option to add a second product to his purchase at a reduced “package deal” price.

The Forced Continuity Offer – Here, a continuity program with a free trial period is bundled with the product on the order device with no option to decouple the product from the continuity billing. The prospect must accept the “until forbid” add on, or he is unable to order the product.

The Bounce Back Offer – This option makes a secondary offer on the fulfillment page where the prospect downloads the product, or alternatively in the confirmation email that is sent immediately on purchase.

The Installment Offer – This offer is usually used with high-ticket items to reduce the perceived cost. You simply divide the purchase price up into monthly installments, perhaps adding a small finance charge.

$259 a month for four months sounds a lot less than $997 one time. This is especially effective with moneymaking products. You can make a very compelling argument that the product will actually pay for itself each month and more, so it really doesn’t cost anything at all.

The Risk Free Offer – It should go without saying that you should always offer a strong guarantee with everything you sell. There are several ways a powerful guarantee that’s tied to the actual results you are promising can help you …

First, it removes roadblocks to the sale. If your prospect is teetering on the edge, very often, using your guarantee as a way of implying his decision is not final will topple him onto the buy side of the fence.

Second, if your guarantee is aggressive, and particularly if it is tied to results, it communicates your confidence in the product. If the penalties of non-performance are steep, risk is not only relieved, it is reversed. As a seller, you better deliver, or else! This naturally gives your offer more power. If your guarantee is truly audacious, put it right in the headline.

Third, a results-based guarantee gives you yet another opportunity to reinforce all of the reasons your prospect should buy. It’s a golden opportunity to plant even more vivid images of imminent satisfaction in his head. Avoid the lazy guarantee that simply says: if you’re unsatisfied you can get your money back.

Tip: The longer the guarantee, the higher the response, and the lower the returns.

Mix and Match For Mega Results!

Finding the right offer can have a remarkable impact on sales and profits, and it should be one of the very first things you test. You can easily combine several of these ideas to come up with hybrid offers to try.

Almost all of them leverage the law of commitment and consistency. Remember, as human beings, we are all powerfully conditioned to remain consistent with our prior commitments.

When we make a decision to buy — even if that decision is tentative — our tendency to stick with that decision is very high, and our resistance to being loaded up with more of a good thing is very low.

Are you leveraging this immutable law of human nature to the max in your marketing?

Until next time, Good Selling!