Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
June 23, 2008
Issue #443
Plus …
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Four hot new freebies for you (no strings, no pitch, nothing to buy) …
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The most exciting announcement in Total Package history …
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Two huge new opportunities to swing for the fences in 2008 …
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And more!
Dear Business Builder …
Lots of new stuff to report this week — things we’re doing to get you richer, faster …
FIRST, we’re celebrating our third birthday this month — and like always, you get the present! Can you believe it? With more than 440 response-boosting articles in our archives and more than 1,000 pages of “Thank-You” letters in our testimonial file, you’d better!
But there’s a problem …
Unless you discovered us a long time ago — or spent weeks poking around in our archives — you’ve missed many of the best articles on copywriting I’ve ever seen anywhere (I know, I watched me write them!).
And since I’d rather have bamboo splints jammed under my fingernails (or worse: Sit through an entire Obama or McCain campaign speech) than to repeat myself, I’ve been laying awake nights worrying that you’re missing tons of timeless strategies and tactics that would otherwise be getting you bigger winners, more often.
But never fear, dear reader, your team at The Total Package has your back!
Here’s the deal: From now on, Thursdays will be “The Best of The Total Package” Day — the day we reprint one of our timeless and most highly acclaimed articles on copywriting, building a copywriting business, getting better work out of a copywriter — and more.
So I’ll continue publishing my new articles on Monday each week as always …
Tuesdays, you’ll get our guest articles from luminaries like Drayton Bird, Gary Bencivenga, Michel Fortin, Bob Bly, John Forde, Michael Masterson, and many others …
Wednesday is still reserved for our token Canuck and all-around swell guy and brilliant marketer and copywriter – Daniel Levis …
Thursdays, you’ll be treated to the very best response-rocketing articles from our archives …
And on Fridays, you get Troy White’s ingenious insights on growing your small business.
Clear as mud – right? Just hang in there … you’ll get used to the new schedule in no time flat.
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Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
June 16, 2008
Issue #439
In today’s special issue, Internet marketing legend
FRANK KERN grills me to discover …
- How I create e-mail sales campaigns that generate up to $80 million in online sales each year …
- Two essential components of every great e-mail sales campaign …
- The missing ingredient that makes my e-mail copy up to four times more profitable than even the top online marketing gurus’ …
- The massive business opportunity the biz-op experts are completely missing now — and how it could make you millions in 2008 and 2009 …
- And much more!
Dear Business Builder …
I’ve been hearing about and watching Frank Kern work for over a year now and so has pretty much everyone else who works for me.
The guy is astonishingly prolific … a leading light in the Product Launch Formula arena … and a darned good copywriter in his own right.
Plus, Frank is known for having the most outrageous sense of humor in the entire online marketing space.
So when the great Frank Kern asked if he could interview me last Friday, I jumped at the chance.
And now, the recording of that interview is today’s issue of The Total Package!
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Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
June 9, 2008
Dear Business-Builder,
Great sales copy doesn’t matter anymore.
Sure — it was important back in the Stone Age, when you had to pay a half-million dollars or more to mail your magalog to a million prospects. But now with the free Internet, the strategy you use to build your list is everything.
And if your strategy’s right, your copy doesn’t have to even be good — let alone great.
… Or that’s what some online marketing gurus seem to be saying these days.
And who’s to argue with them? After all — their online marketing works like gangbusters — right?
Absolutely. And most have Jeff Walker to thank. Jeff is a certified marketing genius who has developed a kind of template for introducing new products online called Product Launch Formula.
Product Launch Formula teaches you to create sales campaigns that combine a story line replete with controversy and conflict … tons of freebies … I’ve lost track of how many kinds of proof elements and emotional triggers … blogs to identify and eliminate objections before any product is offered … plus scarcity selling, deadline selling and lots of other whistles and bells to create massive buying desire in prospects.
Brilliant — right?
Why Product Launch Formula (really) works …
Now, I can’t say I’ve studied Jeff’s Product Launch Formula — but plenty of people on my staff have, and they’ve explained it to me. And you know what? Most of what Jeff teaches isn’t new at all. Most is just plain old marketing common sense. And frankly, I think Jeff would be the first to agree.
Jeff’s genius has been to meticulously bring tons of time-honored, tried-and-true marketing principles, strategies and tactics together into one comprehensive package that helps you make sure you tickle every hot button in your prospects’ heads and hearts.
You know: The stuff well-trained copywriters do instinctively.
So when I hear that Product Launch Formula works great even with anemic copy, I’m not surprised. But wouldn’t any sentient marketer also ask …
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Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
June 2, 2008
Issue #430
In this issue:
- The unparalleled power of writing to the whole brain …
- The #1 blunder new copywriters make that sentences you to blank page block – and how to blast through and write better copy faster …
- How “writing in layers” can multiply your response rates …
- And much, MUCH MORE!
Dear Business-Builder,
Remember how, when you first learned to drive, you had to THINK about every little thing you did?
You know: Ease off the gas. Depress clutch. Move gearshift. Release clutch. Press the accelerator.
Before you knew it, though, you’d taught your brain to do all that automatically – right? You never really had to consciously think your way through that process in such painstaking detail again. So you were free to think about other things – like how to avoid that oncoming tractor trailer.
Well, guess what? Copywriting’s like that, too.
When I wrote my first direct response promotion, I had to think my way through even the tiniest decisions in every page, paragraph and line and even in my word choices.
But that was nearly 40 years ago. Today, it’s all second nature to me. And that’s good. Because I’m able to tear thought my clients’ copy at near light speed.
But it’s also not so good; because the other part of my job is helping younger writers achieve greater successes than I have – and to do it in far less time than it took me.
That requires a fresh set of eyes, a mind for detail and the ability to analyze the copywriting process … to dissect copywriting strategy … and even to parse word choices … all in ways I haven’t had to for decades.
What I really needed in order to pass these secrets along to you was a brilliant student of copywriting with tremendous energy, the academic background I lack and the knack for dissecting the copywriting process in ways that make it easy for new writers to understand.
Enter Anthony Flores …
Tony – a highly talented copywriter in his own right – is a genius. One of the most intense students of direct response marketing and advertising I’ve ever met.
I can’t tell you how thrilled we are to have his incredible research skills on our staff, skills he honed while attending Stanford University (one of his good friends even dated Chelsea Clinton!)
After college, Tony’s business savvy, marketing wisdom and sales copy helped double a friend’s natural health company in 2004 and then doubled it again in 2005 to nearly $3 million in sales. That’s when copywriting legend (and notoriously tough critic) John Carlton praised his writing as “damn good.”
There is no doubt that Tony has been a godsend to me; helping me pass these proven response-boosting techniques on to a new generation. But the greatest value Tony brings has been to thousands who have used his analysis of many of the world’s most successful direct response promotions and his easy-to-understand, plain-English teaching style to hone their copywriting skills.
I can only imagine the difference having Tony’s brilliant insights back in 1973 or 74 would have made in my life and career.
You don’t have to imagine.
Tony has taken the copywriting strategies I taught him and created the long-awaited, much anticipated Ultimate Desktop Copy Coach. It’s the clearest, most comprehensive, easiest to read, understand and USE course on direct response copywriting I’ve ever seen.
With a course like this in your marketing arsenal, you’ll be spared many of the blunders and disappointments that punctuate most writers’ climb to the top – and you’ll have hundreds of tools to take your response and your career to the next level.
The Ultimate Desktop Copy Coach will be available soon. Watch your inbox for more information – AND for the chance to download a free report!
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Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
May 26, 2008
Issue #425
Dear Business-Builder,
What are you doing reading this?
You should be somewhere else — thanking a soldier, for instance.
I see — you’re a workaholic, too; right?
You’re focusing on ways to make a bundle so you can pay more taxes so Washington will take better care of our returning vets?
Oh — alrighty then, I salute you.
So here’s a fun little idea that has made me a bunch of money over the years …
Say you’re at the point where you have to write the ultimate headline for your new promotion.
So what do you do?
Well, most writers begin by writing something that contains the benefit the product offers.
Or maybe you decide to begin with a headline that’s dripping with intrigue and irony. A John Carlton “How a bald-headed barber saved my hair” kind of thing.
Or maybe you’re playing with one of the 42 other headline idea-starters I covered in those DVDs of the Power Marketing Summit you borrowed from a friend.
Here’s a thought — why not NOT do any of that?
Why not open your browser and search Google Images instead?
See, if there’s anything that’ll punch up the power of a headline, it’s a photograph that amplifies its emotional intensity.
Some time ago, for example, I decided to go to my rich old white male conservative investor prospects with a headline that read, “The DEMOCRATS are Coming!”
The deck copy of course, explained why that’s bad … and why reading the bookalog could save you from the plagues that are about to descend upon all of our houses: Higher taxes, bigger government, less privacy, more regulation, and of course, an economic and stock market catastrophe of Biblical proportions.
Still though, the copy just didn’t quite do it for me — and at first, I couldn’t figure out why.
Then, it struck me. My prospect isn’t afraid of “Democrats” — he’s terrified of specific liberals and their harebrained schemes for his life. Like Hillary. And Obama. And Howard Dean. And Teddy Kennedy. And Charlie Rangel.
So I jumped online and found images of each of these miscreants … added them to the headline … and — voila! — the headline came alive.
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