Wanted Four Emails That DON'T Sell

I keed, I keed…

They suffer from what I call “Marketingitus”… and it’s a disease.

Somehow, they believe that there has to be a line in the sand between delivering “content” to build a “relationship” with their prospect… and then eventually getting around to clobbering them over the head with a nuclear-powered, mind-altering sales message the prospect will be powerless to resist.

As if once their dear reader, whom the merchant is now in a “relationship” with, has consumed the gooey richness of their “content”, they will just lay down for the sale… Read the rest of this entry

I had a disturbing conversation yesterday with a client and it absolutely blew my mind. 

Last week, he got a call from his long-time account rep at a ginormous company we’ll call Denture Virect… As you might have guessed by now, the guy was laid -off. And just like that, a stellar 20 year career with one of the biggest advertisers and spenders of online media dollars in the world was over — gone — right alongside about 40% of the rest of their staff. My client’s entire business relationship with them is now “under review” and could come to an unceremonious end any day, from either direction.

Yeah, it’s bad, bad, bad news out there… if you’re in the traditional big ad agency business, that is. Legendary ad-houses  like Ogilvy and BBDO are shedding staff while smaller agencies are closing their doors for good.

What this means for you, intrepid Internet entrepreneur, is that your skill and aptitude in effective direct response marketing is going to be more important than ever.

Read the rest of this entry

When I was a kid growing up here in Miami, my dad used to take me to watch the insanely popular local sport and parimutuel Jai-alai.

Now, if you’ve never stepped foot inside a Jai-alai fronton before, you’d be in the solid majority…

Jai-alai is played with a small as a golf-ball, hard as a rock “Pelota”, a ball that is caught and thrown using a “Cesta”, a woven basket worn on the hand.

The ball is traded back and forth like, sort of like psycho handball or racquetball on steroids at 100 mph+ speeds(!), bouncing off of an enormous 3-sided granite court with a wood side-court and netting to keep the ball from going into the audience.

Speaking of the audience, a Jai-alai audience is a betting audience which means it leaps to its feet at least 400 times a night. It’s THAT exciting, really.

So, what exactly does Jai-alai have to do with selling, you ask?

Read the rest of this entry

This is the first in what I intend to be a series of posts where I will offer up some fertile swipe file material for those of you banging your head against the wall with your copy.

Eventually, we’ll have covered all the different areas of your copy where you might get stuck or be searching for a little creative mojo…

The idea here is to use these snips as a spring board and then season them to taste based upon your subject matter. Of course, some of these are simple and powerful enough that you can just plug them right into your copy and they work over and over again.

Here’s the first installment: Read the rest of this entry

“I’m new to copywriting. I’ve seen a lot of people talking about how direct response copywriting was different from every other form of writing.

If you had to make a list of the “fundamentals” of direct response copywriting, what would they be?”

I don’t have a “list” per se… But here’s a couple of random thoughts that could prove invaluable to you as you try and turn words into dollars for yourself and for future clients:

 
1) People don’t buy things; people buy imagined future experiences of using those things.

2) Attention, Interest, Desire, Action – in that order.

3) Headlines have only ONE purpose, make the reader continue reading.

4) In your calls to action, state SPECIFICALLY what you want people to do and EXACTLY what they can expect when they do as you’ve directed.

5) Always be “one thought ahead” of your reader, then blow their mind by answering their questions right as they form them.

Continuities are the flavor of the month in Internet Marketing circles at the moment. 

Consequently, we’ve all seen a wave of emotionally charged discussions about the concept, as if continuities were a new discovery.

Nothing could be further from the truth…