If your a member of th Warrior Forum War Room and you have’nt grabbed my free report, stop by and have a look.

I posted my Creating Urgency - Buy Now report in the War Room. Doing my best try and give back to the forum that I’ve learned so much from.

  convert this post to pdf

If you’ve ever studied copywriting, you’ve surely heard or read that famous title many times over. Of course it was by the talented John Caples. Thing is, it was written back in 1926, but it’s just as powerful today, as it was back then.

Why do i bring this up?

I was searching for some recipes the other night when I came across an advertisement banner for one of the diet companies. I think it was for eDiets, but try as I might, I couldn’t find the ad again before writing this.

What caught my attention was the working on the ad, can’t remember it word for word, but…

“Losing 60 Ponds was great, but the romance that followed was..”

To make it even more dramatic, they had a video or annimated clips of a lady in major tears, tears of joy of course.

As soon as I read that title, right away I thought of the famous Caples ad.

Goes to show, some things never go out of style. While there are new words these days, as evidence of the ad, some things still work, even 80 years later.

So… Next time you find a old copywriting or advertising book at the local new and used, better grab it because I might be right behind you.

I’ll try to find that ad again, and post it if i do, now it’s bugging me.

  convert this post to pdf

How to Write a Million Dollar Sales Letter!
by Joe Vitale

Bruce Barton, co founder of the legendary BBDO ad agency, wrote
letters that got staggering results. He wrote a letter for Berea
College that brought in an amazing 100% response! (You can read
the entire letter in The Seven Lost Secrets Of Success.)

When you consider that the average successful letter gets about
a 0.02% response, Barton clearly leaped past anyone else in his
letter writing skills. But what was his secret? After studying
Barton’s letters, books, private memos, speeches, and
advertising campaigns, I’ve discovered Barton’s method. I’ve
used his technique to write my own letters and I’ve been
astonished at the results. One letter got a 20% response.
Another nailed a 10% response. Still another is approaching a
97% response (ninety-seven per cent!)! (It, too, is in The Seven
Lost Secrets Of Success.)

I will now reveal the technique I’ve been using: Bruce Barton’s
“Secret Formula.”

Read the rest of this entry

  convert this post to pdf

The Triggers of Success: How to Trigger a Successful Sale
through the Power of Psychological Triggers

By Joseph Sugarman - Psychological Triggers

A desire to buy something often involves a subconscious
decision. In fact, I claim that 95% of buying decisions are
indeed subconscious.

Knowing the subconscious reasons why people buy, and using this
information in a fair and constructive way, will trigger
greater sales response — often far beyond what you could
imagine…

Read the rest of this entry

  convert this post to pdf

How to Instantly Double the Response of Any Ad, Letter or Web Promotion
by David Garfinkel - Killer Copy Tactics

Masters of marketing know a secret that most business people
don’t. I’m going to share it with you now: You can go from
losing money to making money - sometimes, a *lot* of money -
just by changing a few words.

What words are those? The first words… in any letter, ad or
Web page. The words that make up the headline…

Read the rest of this entry

  convert this post to pdf

The Secret Behind Million-Dollar Ads
by David Garfinkel - Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich

Want a little secret to turn your advertising into an
irresistible magnet for customers?

Dale Carnegie knew the secret, and that’s one reason his book
“How to Win Friends and Influence People” has sold more than 15
million copies. In fact, British Airways recently named it, “The
Business Book of the 20th Century.”

It’s a great book. But if Dale had titled it “How to Remember
People’s Names and Curb Your Incessant Urge to Argue,” do you
think it would have sold as well? Probably not. There’s great
power in good titles.

What you may not realize is the words “How to Win Friends and
Influence People” are not only the title of the book. Those
words were also the headline of a mail-order ad, which sold the
book. The ad ran successfully for many years and sold hundreds
of thousands of copies.

So what does this have to do with turning your advertising into
an irresistible customer magnet?

Read the rest of this entry

  convert this post to pdf

Why Some Ads Fail Miserably While Others Succeed Wonderfully
by David Garfinkel - Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich

The voice on the other end of the phone was tense and impatient.
It was a prospective client calling. After we introduced
ourselves, he got right to the point: “Our advertising isn’t
working and we need some help.”

Who I was talking to doesn’t matter very much, because it could
have been almost any of my prospects before they start working
with me. That’s because, statistically, most advertising doesn’t
work — if by “work” you mean, bring in new business. Think
about your own ads. Even if they already generate leads or
create sales for you, don’t you have the sneakin’ suspicion they
could be working a lot better?

Here are two reasons why most ads don’t work at all — or if
they work, why they deliver far less business than they could:

Read the rest of this entry

  convert this post to pdf

“The 10 Laws for Writing Letters that Get Results.”
By Joe Vitale

The following is a letter in response to a question about
how to write sales letters. This is something you could
model in layout, tone, and ideas, to write your own letters.
By the way, this is where your letterhead should go.

Dear Fellow Chicago Seminar Attendees,

Jerry Jenkins asked me to tell you how to write letters that
get read and get results. That’s a tall order! Well, here’s
what I think the “laws” are:

1. Know what’s in it for your reader.

Get out of your ego and into your reader’s ego. Complete
this sentence: “Get my book so that you can…(fill in the
blank).” Your book (or whatever you are selling) is the
feature. What people get as a result of having your book is
the benefit. Focus on benefits. Always! Without this, your
letter will bomb.

2. Write a headline that telegraphs the key benefit to your
reader.

ALWAYS use a headline. There is only ONE exception to this
rule. When you personalize your letter, the “Dear (whoever)”
opening becomes your headline. There are few headlines more
powerful than the reader’s own name. The headline is THE
most important part of your letter! Spend nearly all of your
time on it.

3. Be brief.

Say what you have to say in terms of the reader’s self
interest and shut up. This does NOT necessarily mean a short
letter. If you are trying to make a sale, and the reader has
never heard of you or your item for sale, you may have to
write four or more pages to get your message across. If all
you want is a return call, a one page letter may do. Don’ be
afraid of length. People will read any length of copy AS
LONG AS IT’S INTERESTING!

4. Always use a PS.

Always. Why do copywriters who charge upwards to $15,000 to
write a sales letter and have weeks to draft it always use a
PS? They are always read. Always.

5. Look good.

Visual attractiveness accounts for 70% of your letter’s
impact. Use short sentences, short paragraphs, bulleted
points, indented paragraphs, subheads, etc. Some people will
just skim your letter, so engaging subheads and bulleted
points help reach them instantly.

6. Outline first.

Use a planning tool to help you think through your message.
Or talk to a friend. Or to a tape recorder. Or to yourself.
This also helps you get comfortable with speaking your
letter rather than writing it.

7. Write first, edit last.

Turn your inner editor off. You can rewrite later. For now,
write spontaneously and quickly to get your ideas on paper.

8. Ask for something.

Why are you writing? You want a call. Or an order.
Something. Say so!

9. Get a reader.

Find one person to read your letter OUT LOUD in front of
you. If he (or she) has trouble reading your letter, if he
wrinkles his brow or stops to reread a sentence, rewrite
those places. Don’t skip this step! It’s the secret of many
professional writers.

10. Rewrite your letter again.

Is it the best you can do? Be honest! If not, throw it away
and call the person instead. Or hire a copywriter to write
it for you. Why waste your time or your reader’s with
something that doesn’t communicate in a persuasive and
interesting way? (I rewrote this letter 24 times!)

Well, there you have it. Of course, there are more rules,
laws, ideas and suggestions for writing letters that get
results. You should always guarantee whatever you are
selling, for example, and always offer proof for all of your
claims. But the above will get you rolling.

Sincerely,

Joe Vitale Hypnotic Writing

(ALWAYS Identify yourself. People look here to see who the
letter is from.)

PS — Notice that you read this PS?

PPS — Notice that you read this one, too?

  convert this post to pdf

I Almost Flunked English But Went On To Make Millions of
Dollars Writing Sales Copy
By Joe Sugarman - Psychological Triggers

The Guinness Book of World Records listed Joe Girard as the
“World’s Greatest Retail Salesman” for 12 consecutive years. He
holds the singular distinction of having sold an average of six
cars a day over his career. Recently, Joe Girard told me:

“Joe, I can sell in person to individuals in a personal way - in
fact, I can sell more cars per day than anyone else. Yet, I
can’t do what you do — you sell millions of products to masses
of people through the sheer power of print.”

Salesmanship in Print

When you look at it from Joe Girard’s perspective, it’s hard to
deny the awesome power of writing good sales copy - which I call
“salesmanship in print” — a power that anyone can take
advantage of. You don’t need good looks, a charming personality
or even great intelligence. In fact, you don’t even have to
pass English.

This is why it baffles me when people desperately rack their
brains trying to find ways to make money — when the greatest
opportunity is staring them right in the face. What’s even more
mystifying is that those very same people, when presented with
ingenious approaches to writing copy that sells, take the skill
for granted and don’t use it to make personal fortunes for
themselves.

Flunking English

Not many people know this, but I almost flunked English back in
high school. In addition, I don’t know many big words, unlike
the rest of my advertising and marketing colleagues — and my
writing style is quite unsophisticated to boot. Yet, by learning
to incorporate into my sales copy all the things about how the
human mind reacts to certain words and phrases that I’ve learned
over the years, I have made millions of dollars for myself.

The most important lesson you must remember is this: If you
learn nothing else but the proper use of psychological
principles in writing sales copy, you will always make more
money than you’ll ever need.

The Million-Dollar Grapefruit Farmer

If you’re one of those people who believes that you’re not a
good enough writer — and that you couldn’t possibly learn to
write ad copy that sells — I want to tell you the story of a
man who attended one of my seminars. This man was a grapefruit
farmer who had never written sales copy prior to attending my
copywriting seminar. In fact, he expressed his doubts that he
would get anything at all from the copywriting lessons he
learned. Yet, by the end of the seminar, he was able to write
direct mail copy to sell grapefruit by mail which, over a period
of ten years, has earned him millions of dollars.

Success Leaves Clues

For many years I specialized in “space-age” products, and my
claim to fame was in building and selling “the better mousetrap”
– from state-of-the art smoke detectors to chess computers to
new-fangled calculators — and more recently — to BluBlocker®
sunglasses.

But you don’t need a space-age product to make a million
dollars. In fact, that is the downfall of most people who enter
the marketing field. They find a product, fall in love with it,
and try to get the market to buy it. With an unproven product,
you could lose a lot of money in the process.

Instead what you should do is find a product that’s already
selling well — and use compelling copy to sell it better.

Harmonize with the Marketplace

One of the psychological principles I describe in my book,
“Triggers,” is simply this: Your product needs to harmonize with
the marketplace.

Here’s a tip that you would definitely find useful: When you’re
looking for a product to sell, go to the library and flip
through the back issues of magazines — particularly the
tabloids. Note those mail order ads that are running week after
week, month after month. There’s only one reason why those ads
keep running — they’re making money. Those products are
already proven to sell well — they’ve demonstrated that they
harmonize with the marketplace.

Even if there are many companies that are already competing in
those product categories (example: weight loss, hair
restoration, and wrinkle products, etc.), don’t worry. If you
apply good copywriting guidelines, your marketing efforts will
fare better than those who are making money, despite their poor
sales copy.

“Splish Splash I Was Takin’ A Bath”

Take a clue from Bobby Darin, a popular singer of the ’50s.
Darin was a young singer in New York who, for a long time, tried
unsuccessfully to break into the music business. He would go
from record company to record company trying to convince them to
make an album of him singing popular jazz oldies. He was
rejected.

So one day, Darin sat down and wrote a song that fitted or
“harmonized” with what the public was buying at the time. What
was popular at the time was good old rock and roll sung by black
artists — it was called the Motown sound.

The song he wrote was called “Splish Splash” and the words
started out, “Splish splash, I was takin’ a bath/ ‘Round about a
Saturday night.” It had a good old Motown rock and roll sound –
and it became a smash hit, selling millions of copies.

Darin recognized what the market wanted, and he created
something that harmonized perfectly with the prevailing
market. From his earnings, he himself produced a record in the
music genre that he really loved — popular jazz oldies. His
song, “Mack the Knife” went on to become a multimillion-selling
single and made Bobby Darin famous.

To summarize, you must first have a product that harmonizes with
your market. If you haven’t made a substantial amount of money
from your marketing efforts yet, sell only products or services
that have a ready market — this is the path of least
resistance. Afterwards, with the money you make, you can blaze
new trails with other products of your own preference.

—————————————————————-
Joe Sugarman, the best-selling author and top copywriter who has
achieved legendary fame in direct marketing, is best known for
his highly successful mail-order catalog company, JS&A, and his
hit product, BluBlocker Sunglasses. Joe’s new breakthrough
book, “Psychological Triggers“, reveals 30 powerful psychological triggers
that influence people to buy what you’re selling.

  convert this post to pdf

The E-Factor: Two Ways to Instantly Get More Back from Every
Promotion - by David Garfinkel - Killer Copy Tactics

Allow me to introduce you to the mysterious “E-Factor.” It’s
mysterious because it has two meanings.

Both meanings will help you get more business from any promotion
you do. So without further ado, here’s how you can use the
“E-Factor” to make more money:

- Put “E-Factor” in your testimonials and copy

Did you realize the very best source of new business is almost
always a prospect who has been referred to you by a friend or
trusted business advisor? It is. Think about this in your own
life. When you need an accountant, or an attorney, or a doctor,
or for that matter a hardware store in a new town, you’ll
probably turn to someone you know, whose judgment you trust, to
refer you to the service or product provider you’re looking for.

OK. But what does that have to do with direct mail and Web
promotions?

A lot. People are always on the lookout for sources of advice
they can trust. However, since you can’t always rely on giving
every prospect for your business personal recommendations from
the prospect’s friends, neighbors and advisor’s they actually
know and trust, you do the next best thing: You give them copy
with recommendations from people who seem like the people they
know and trust.

How? By putting testimonials and case studies in your copy
involving people who will fill the role of trusted friends and
advisor’s.

Many marketers do this but they don’t get the desired effect.
Why? Because they haven’t put enough productive effort into the
research that pays off. This is in-person research - especially
one-on-one “casual” research, as opposed to formal focus-group
research - with their actual customers, and people who are a lot
like their customers.

This high-payoff research gives you in-depth working
understanding of how your prospects think and act in the world -
and how they look at things and make decisions. When you have
this understanding and you weave it into the language of your
descriptive copy and your testimonial quotes, it’s called
“empathy.”

“Empathy” - that’s the first meaning of “The E-Factor.”
Increase empathy in your copy and you’ll increase sales.

- Profit from the second meaning of the “E-Factor” as well

There’s another, equally important meaning. Before I tell you
what it is, let me give you a big, fat hint. In his book The
Entertainment Economy: How Mega-Media Forces Are Transforming
Our Lives, author Michael J. Wolfe points out that American
consumers put 8.4% - about one dollar out of every 12 - into
some form of entertainment. Currently, that adds up to $480
billion a year.

As a side note, Hollywood productions - films and TV shows -
bring in the second largest amount of money from overseas back
into the U.S. economy, after aircraft sales.

Yes, the other meaning of the “E-Factor” is entertainment. It’s
huge. And it applies to marketing and selling. As the late
(and great) David Ogilvy reminded us, “People will not be bored
into buying.”

But beware. Many a copywriter less talented and, more
importantly, less thoughtful than Mr. Ogilvy has made the fatal
error including humor, fantasy, drama or thrills in a promotion
in such a way as to not specifically move the sales process
forward.

And that’s dangerous. Even deadly, sometimes. Here’s why: When
you include entertainment, people’s attention will invariably be
drawn to it over anything else. And when entertainment does not
directly support moving the sale forward, then it automatically
detracts from the sale.

There are dozens of examples. The lying Isuzu salesman. Sales
went down. “Plop-plop, Fizz-fizz.” Sales went down. I’m sure
you have your favorites of entertaining ad campaigns that
bombed. Now you know why.

Entertainment isn’t bad. But not painstakingly linking the
entertainment to the forward motion of the sale is bad. Very
bad.

So, how do you add entertainment value in such a way as to
increase the sales effectiveness of your promotion? Several
ways:

- Tell a dramatic story where your product is the hero and
saves the day for the human involved. My favorite example of
this is the newspaper ad for Joe Karbo’s legendary book “The
Lazy Man’s Way to Riches.”

In the ad, Mr. Karbo talks about his “Lazy Man’s Way” which he
promises to reveal in the book he’s selling. He tells how,
before he knew the “Lazy Man’s Way,” he used to work 18-hour
days, 7-day weeks and was still perpetually in debt. But after
he learned the “Lazy Man’s Way,” he became financially
independent by working less and in fact became very wealthy.

This incredible ad combines drama with sales power in an
unbeatable way. And it worked! The ad sold 3 million books by
mail order!

- Use humor that adds emphasis to the value of your product or
service. When you get past the laughter, most humor in ads just
shows off the cleverness of the creative team who created the
ad. (You might say it also shows off their lack of concern for
creating sales.) A positive example, where the humor shows how
the product is so worthwhile, is the old (and very successful)
series of Seinfeld commercials for the American Express Card.

- Use exciting, colorful language in testimonials when
customers are talking about the virtues of your product. But
make sure it’s believable. And don’t make fun of the fact that
you’re selling something, any more than you would go to target
practice and fire the first shot into your own foot. At all
times, keep your eye on the target - increased sales!

So let’s review. How can you use this information to make more
sales in every promotion? Take stock of its Empathy and
Entertainment Value. Be single-minded. Take out everything
that takes away from the sale, and keep in - or boost and
strengthen - everything that furthers the sale. Build the
strongest possible promotion at every point along the way - and
watch your response rate soar!

© 2000 David Garfinkel. All rights reserved. David Garfinkel
is widely recognized by many “marketing gurus” as their secret
weapon. That is, he is known as “The World’s Greatest
Copywriting Coach”; because, he can, like no other, teach you
how to turn words into cash. David is also the author and
narrator of Killer Copy Tactics, the Web’s first and only
totally interactive audio/visual learning system for writing
Killer Copy Tactics.

You can learn more about this course at: Killer Copy Tactics

  convert this post to pdf

I’ve always known words can be powerful, well, I should say to a certian extent. I don’t think I’ve every really thought about it, real serious. A couple of folks have got me thinking lately, for one it was James Brausch and Keith Baxter resounded the same train of thought on a podcast, even giving his thoughts on the subject.

Oddly I got sucked in to YouTube today, my son sent me a link for some funny video’s of Dave Lettermen. I try to stay away from that place because It’s too easy for me to get side tracked. And the internet is full of diversions.

It got me to thinking, how did Lettermen get so popular, if he did’nt talk, where would he be? If comedians could’nt speak a word, who would laugh? What if a Hemmingway book had no text? What if the bible had no Words? Of course these are all different types of words, but the words made a difference, they had power in their own way.

How many of us, if not all of us, want approval from those close to us, like our spouses, moms, dads, out children. Just a simple “I’m proud of you.” Powerful words.

They say a Picture can save a thousand words. Can not a word also paint a thousand pictures?

Next time I write copy I know I’ll think a little different.

  convert this post to pdf