Posted by:
Michael Masterson
March 10, 2009
Issue #626
I received an interesting letter last weekend.
The envelope was hand-addressed in blue ink. The letter itself was 12 pages long and printed on quality, cream-colored, individual sheets of paper. At the end of the letter was a signature, also in blue. I recognized it as the name of a copywriter I had once met at an AWAI seminar: Brice K.
So far, it looked like a personal letter. But, unlike a personal letter, it began with a headline, followed by a salutation that was both generic and plural: "Dear Friends."
Normally, I would have dismissed this letter as an amateurish effort and tossed it. But the headline, though misplaced, did its job. It intrigued me:
The Amazing True Story
of the Incredible Disappearing Copywriter
… and How You Are Helping Him to Reappear
As a rule, I abhor commonplace intensifiers like "amazing" and "incredible." But in this case, they worked. Perhaps it was the way they enhanced the sentiment of the headline’s promise - that I was about to hear an old-fashioned kind of story. (Everybody likes a good story.)
That certainly wasn’t the best headline ever written, but it was good - good enough to get me to read the first paragraph of the letter:
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Posted by:
Michael Masterson
January 20, 2009
Issue #593
“I saw the most amazing movie last night. You’ve got to see it,” Jane says.
“Tell me more,” says Mary.
“Well, Brad Pitt stars in it. And also Angelina Jolie.”
“My favorite actors,” says Mary.
“They have a hot romance going on in the movie …”
“Sounds great …”
“And there’s this scene where Brad has his shirt off and …”
“Say no more,” says Mary. “I’m going!”
“And he takes his shirt off and all of a sudden this horrible thing pops out of his chest and …”
“What?”
“This creature from another dimension pops out …”
“What kind of movie is this?”
“Sort of science fiction/horror …”
“Ugh. Forget it. I hate horror movies.”
What’s wrong with this conversation?
In an attempt to persuade her friend Mary to see the movie, Jane made a big mistake - a mistake that is very common in the world of business: She continued to sell the product after the customer was already sold.
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Posted by:
Michael Masterson
December 23, 2008
Issue 573
"For disappearing acts, it’s hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work."
Doug Larson
Of all the ETR essays I’ve written about self-improvement, the ones that get the most response - both positive and negative - are those that have to do with saving time. I don’t know why that is. You would think ETR readers would be very happy to get advice about how to be more productive by spending less time doing routine tasks. You would think.
The biggest fracas was in February of 2005. That’s when I suggested that ETR readers could save time by spending less time in the shower. I have friends, I told them, who spend a half-hour in the shower every day. That’s crazy, I said. Two-minutes is usually plenty for me. Five-minutes tops.
Readers were outraged by this. They scolded me for my insensitivity. They accused me of being arrogant, sexist, and downright dirty.
Many people are apparently quite attached to their showers. For someone to even suggest they limit their time under the hot water puts them into a rage.
But that’s not what this article is about. It’s about stealing time for yourself. So I am going to make a number of suggestions to help you find more time to invest in your future health, wealth, and happiness … if you are willing.
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Posted by:
Michael Masterson
November 25, 2008
Issue #553
"This may seem simple, but you need to give customers what they want, not what you think they want. And, if you do this, people will keep coming back."
John Ilhan
I believe that for every business, at any given time, there is an optimum strategy for acquiring new customers - and that the primary marketing obligation of the company’s CEO is to make sure that strategy is discovered and implemented.
What do I mean by an optimum strategy for acquiring new customers?
I mean a marketing and sales strategy that will produce the greatest long-term benefit to the company. Usually, that means finding and converting the greatest number of high-lifetime-value customers, i.e., customers who will continue to buy products from the company for years into the future.
Here’s an example …
Since its inception, EarlytoRise.com has recruited almost all its customers through Internet advertising. Of the many conversion strategies we have tested, two have so far proven effective:
- Selling informational reports on other websites and then giving buyers a free subscription to our daily e-zine, which then sells them all sorts of "back-end" products.
- Targeting search engine users on a pay-per-click basis with a free special report, and then giving them a free subscription to the e-zine with its back-end selling.
What we found - over and over again - is that those who had purchased our informational reports were worth considerably more over the long-term than those who had responded to our free report offers.
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Posted by:
Michael Masterson
September 16, 2008
Issue #504
If you’re lucky, loving your job is its own reward. But when it comes to satisfying your sense of self-worth - and building wealth - the size of your paycheck can have a big impact. In fact, a 2006 study commissioned by the American Business Collaboration found that 49 percent of respondents listed salary as the factor that’s most important to their satisfaction at work.
So if you’re not making as much as you think you should be, is it time to start looking for a new job?
Before you start scanning the "Help Wanted" section of the newspaper, take a good hard look at what you do. Is your work really worth what you think it is?
I had a conversation yesterday with a writer - a friend I’d hired to work on a newsletter I consult on. It was contract time, and I had promised him "the best deal possible" - which is exactly what he got. He wasn’t satisfied. "Let’s face it," he told me, "The success or failure of the newsletter’s renewals depends on me - and my writing is good."
"I agree that your writing is good," I told him, "but in the business of newsletter publishing, my opinion doesn’t count."
What does? As JDG, a colleague of mine likes to say, there are three sacred letters when you are in business - ROI (return on investment) - and they are the jury when it comes to determining the quality of what you’re selling.
Writers - screenwriters, novelists, magazine writers, and advertising writers - are valuable in business if and to the extent that they can generate positive ROI.
Writers who understand that can become very skilled very quickly and make a ton of money. Writers who refuse to believe that are doomed to spending the rest of their careers unhappy and underpaid.
But it’s hard to explain this to a writer who’s new to the business world. He feels, understandably, that since he’s smart and clever and works so hard, his writing is - or has to be - supernal.
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