Breakthroughs in The Making
Two innovations with the power
to boost your response as much as twenty-five times over
Dear Business Builder,
This is going to be a short one.
One of the best friends I’ll ever have is going to arrive here in my office in precisely two hours. I haven’t seen him in 15 years. So when he shows up, this article is DONE.
I first met Denny Koska in the early 1970s in Anaheim, California. He was a sound man and recording engineer. I was a TV producer/director, video and film cameraman and lighting director. We became fast friends.
A couple of years later, I moved to Tulsa to take a full-time job with an ad agency there. When the agency was unable to support a full-time video guy, I bugged out. I left my eight-month-pregnant wife and two-year-old daughter with family in Oklahoma and made a beeline to L.A. to look for work.
Denny and his family put me up – and put up with me – for several weeks while I beat the bushes in Hollyweird. To honor him for his friendship, I named my newborn son – who is now 30 years old – after Denny.
When I abandoned television production for a career in copywriting and moved from L.A. to Prescott, Arizona, Denny sold his house, pulled up stakes and moved his family to Prescott, too.
And a few years ago, Denny followed me again – into direct response marketing.
Today, Denny is Vice President of Production for Script to Screen (eighth bio down). His clients include Orek vacuums and air filters, Dremel tools, Dirt Devil vacuums, NordicTrack, InvesTools, Body by Jake, Complete Gym, HealthRider, Time Life Music – not to mention direct response ads for Sharp Electronics, Bose, Vermont Teddy Bear, Amway, Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem and a gazillion others.
So for the next few days, while I catch up with my pal, I’m also going to be picking his fertile, soon-to-be tequila-soaked brain for ways to make infomercials work better.
Which is cool – because I’ve been watching
a LOT of infomercials lately …
It all started when Geraldo Rivera shoved a microphone into the face of a man whose wife and unborn child had just been found murdered and asked, “How did you feel when you heard the news …”
See, I’ve been a Fox News freak from Day One. As a libertarian who believes that both major parties are 100% full of crappola at least 75% of the time, I was sick to death of CNN and other networks only reporting only the liberal side of the story. Presenting panels of experts made up of six liberals all mindlessly regurgitating Democratic party talking points ain’t news; it’s propaganda.
So when Fox came along – and made it a policy to feature both sides of things in their newscasts – they had me from the get-go.
But over the past year or so, I began noticing that Fox was spending less time reporting news that matters and more time obsessing over trivial garbage. Like Paris Hilton’s latest porn video. And Lindsey Lohan’s latest drug bust. And whether Brittany Spears’ crotch was covered or uncovered last night.
Fox’s growing obsession with the Bimbo Patrol and other superficial fluff annoyed me. But they lost me forever when Mr. Ailes and his crew began exploiting cold-blooded murder just to raise their ratings.
Every time an attractive female turns up missing or murdered, she gets her own logo … her own theme music … her own team of reporters incessantly reporting, re-reporting and re-re-reporting even the tiniest and most insignificant developments in the case and wallowing in the most maudlin, morbid, ghastly, grisly, revolting details.
Why? To make a buck.
By appealing to viewers’ prurient interests, Ailes is looking to raise his ratings … which lets him charge more for every second of airtime he sells advertisers … which causes Rupert Murdoch to him cut bigger bonus checks at Christmastime.
Now, maybe I’m the only one who feels this way; but to me, exploiting the agony of families who have lost a loved one is sick.
It’s also not that bright.
Because although appealing to our baser instincts may cause Fox’s audience to grow in quantity, it also causes it to decline in quality. If you’re looking to fill your audience with 400-pound redneck women in K-mart Mu Muus who dropped out of school in sixth grade and don’t have two nickels to rub together (or with which to buy your advertisers’ products) tabloid journalism and Geraldo Rivera are definitely the way to go.
But hey – your advertisers have no idea whether or not their ads are working anyway – so who cares? So long as Neilson and Arbitron say you’re delivering the eyeballs, you’re good as gold.
And so a few months ago, instead of keeping Fox News on 24/7, I began tuning out. I tried just watching Messers Hume and Cavuto and the fetching Brenda Butner. But I quickly found that even their excellent programs were frequently interrupted with “Breaking News” trumpeting the grisliest details of the murder case du jour.
Now, I’m a big believer in the “garbage in, garbage out” school of things. Feed your brain garbage and it returns the favor. Plus, I believe in the school of thought that says my subconscious brain can’t tell the difference between something that really happened to me and something I witnessed on TV. I don’t figure living in a constant state of subconscious emotional trauma is the best way to unlock the creative genius inside.
So when Geraldo Rivera asked that grieving husband and father how he felt about his wife being brutally murdered, it was the straw the broke the camel’s back.
I vowed to never watch cable news again.
And so, as I said, I’m watching a LOT
of infomercials these days.
I wake up at 4:00 AM every morning. I trudge down to the little cedar cabin on our property where I keep my home computer. I make a pot of coffee, turn on the TV and check my e-mail. And while I begin work, I listen to TV.
But for the past three months or so, instead of keeping tuned to the Fox News slaughterthon, I’m listening to The History Channel. Or more accurately, to the endless parade of infomercials that marches through The History Channel in the wee hours of the morning.
And I’ve been noticing stuff.
Like how the best of these infomercials are a balance between product demonstrations and testimonials.
And how each of them is really three or four shorter infomercials, each of which presents all the reasons to buy and all the credibility elements.
But most of all, I’ve been watching how different the offer structures are.
My favorite right now is The Computer Professor’s softer-than-soft offer: You get your first lesson free – you pay only postage and handling. If you don’t like what you see, you tell him and you get your postage and handling back. Otherwise, I understand he begins sending you lessons and banging your credit card on a regular basis.
In fact, I like this offer so much, I borrowed it a few weeks ago for a promotion of an information product – and so far, the results are blowing me away.
Now, two components determine how successful a soft offer is. The first is the response rate – how many folks accept what amounts to a free trial offer. Writing for Boardroom and others who offer a 60-day free trial of a book, I’ve had response rates between 6% and 12%. That’s up to three times higher than the very best hard offer promos I’ve ever written.
So care to guess how well our super-soft offer for our Six-Figure Copywriting Business course did?
About 50 times better than our last promotion for the product.
I swear.
Now, we’ll see how many people pay up at the end of their free trial. Typically, I’m used to pay-up rates of about 85%. But heck; if even just half stick with me, the campaign will blow away just about everything else we’ve ever tried for that client.
The Web is a great place to test these kinds of offers. And yet, the vast majority of web-based promos I see are plain old cash with order promos. Getting outside of your box testing new offers can create truly massive breakthroughs.
InvesTools is using infomercials in an entirely different way. They’re not selling anything; just producing leads. Their half-hour program invites you to register for a free seminar – a seminar where they sell a high-dollar investing program.
So I started to wonder – “What if we did an infomercial for a financial client designed to drive prospects to a free one-hour video seminar ONLINE?” Prospects would have to register for the seminar by giving us their e-mail address. The seminar would be an advertorial – spend the first 45 minutes or so delivering valuable, actionable information on a particular topic; say, investing in foreign stocks. The last 15 minutes would be a pitch for a product.
We’re going to do this for a client in the next 90 days – and I’ve got some pretty impressive ruffles and flourishes we’re adding to the campaign and the offer for good measure. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Well, Denny just walked in, so I’m done.
Lessons for this week …
First – looking for more productive ways to spend my down time gave me two great offer ideas, each of which is going to make me heaps of moolah in the weeks ahead.
Second – studying successful copy and offers in media other than your own is a great way to bring new life to your online promotions.
Third – stepping away from the way you’ve always done things and trying something new is the ONLY way to create breakthroughs.
Hope this helps …
Yours for Bigger Winners, More Often,
Clayton Makepeace
Publisher & Editor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE™
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5 Comments »
Join the Discussion!
Let us know what you think. Or ask us anything. Or offer your own sage advice.
The only rule: RESPECT THIS HOUSE! Postings that contain abusive language and/or personal attacks will be cheerfully VAPORIZED. One cross word and – POOF! – your well-thought-out post will be gone in a puff of smoke.
– Clayton
Comment by lawton chiles — September 10, 2007 @ 4:12 pm
Clayton, this was very educational indeed. As I begin to write copy for paying clients on a daily basis, I feel like I can learn something new everyday, and the soft offer sells me more than a super hard offer mainly b/c i don\’t have access to a large amount of instant cash flow.
Great work
Comment by Rob Metras — September 10, 2007 @ 4:42 pm
Claytons folksy style and down to earth advice always gives me value and more ideas. He is a great teacher and a fine sharing individual.
Now in Clayton\’s own style, thats what partners are all about folks
Best wishes
Comment by Senen Pousa — September 10, 2007 @ 6:58 pm
Would you please add me to the waiting list of that free investment video seminar as I am looking to invest both locally and abroad and would welcome the opportunity to view the free video.
Comment by Andrew Cavanagh — September 10, 2007 @ 8:12 pm
Nice insights. I\’ll be interested to see how driving offline prospects to an online seminar goes.
My tests with this have been less than impressive but that was a couple of years ago and more and more people are getting online now.
Comment by Scott — September 12, 2007 @ 5:07 pm
I often watch my laptop while I work. Internet video lets me kill two birds - work and awareness of lessons and products.
If you saw Faux News laughing at Ron Paul during the 9/5 debates, you\’ll want to strangle Hannity and Giuliani yourself. Just Youtube it. Faux news is a manipulative joke.