Killer Copywriting Feb20 s

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Copyright Notices

© 2001 Instant Profits Marketing, Inc.

AL L RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted for resale oruse by any party other than the individual purchaser who is the sole authorized user of thisinformation. Purchaser is authorized to use any of the information in this publication for his or herown use only. All other reproduction or transmission, or any form or by any means, electronic ormechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any informational storage or retrieval system,is prohibited without express written permission from the publisher.

LEGAL NOTICES: While all attempts have been made to provide effective, verifiable informationin this Book, neither the Author nor Publisher assumes any responsibility for errors, inaccuracies,or omissions. Any slights of people or organizations are unintentional. If advice concerning tax,legal, compliance, or related matters is needed, the services of a qualified professional should besought. This Book is not a source of legal, regulatory compliance, or accounting information, and it

should not be regarded as such. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritativeinformation in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that thepublisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other professional service. If legaladvice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional personshould be sought. Due to the nature of direct response marketing, copywriting and varying rulesregulating business activities in many fields, some practices proposed in this Book may be deemedunlawful in certain circumstances and locations. Since federal and local laws differ widely, as docodes of conduct for members of professional organizations and agencies, Reader, Customer orLicensee must accept full responsibility for determining the legality and/or ethical character of anyand all business transactions and/or practices adopted and enacted in his or her particular fieldand geographic location, whether or not those transactions and/or practices are suggested, eitherdirectly or indirectly, in this Book. As with any business advice, the reader is strongly encouragedto seek professional counsel before taking action.

NOTE: No guarantees of income or profits are intended by this book. Many variables affect eachindividual's results. Your results will vary from the examples given. Instant Profits Marketing, Inc.cannot and will not promise your personal success. Instant Profits Marketing, Inc. has no controlover what you may do or not do with this copywriting success program, and therefore cannotaccept the responsibility for your results. You are the only one who can initiate the action, in orderto reap your own rewards! Any and all references to persons or businesses, whether living ordead, existing or defunct, is purely coincidental.

Published by Success Strategies Inc, 34950 Hwy 58,Eugene,Oregon 97405

CREATED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DISTRIBUTED WORLD-WIDE.

http://www.mastercopywriters.com/http://www.mastercopywriters.com/http://www.mastercopywriters.com/http://www.mastercopywriters.com/


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Table of Contents

Table of Contents.........................................................................................................................3

Introduction: Welcome To Killer Copywriting ........................................................................... 4

Chapter 1: Conventional Advertising Wisdom Myths Blown To Bits! The Advertising

Industry's Lies Exposed!..............................................................................................................6

Chapter 2: Everything You've Been Taught About Writing Copy That Sells Is Wrong! The

Shocking Truth Revealed! ........................................................................................................... 9

Chapter 3: Here's The REAL Definition Of Advertising You'll Never Learn Anywhere Else!11

Chapter 4: Secrets Of Getting Ready To Write Killer Advertising Copy! ................................ 14

Chapter 5: What You MUST Know About Human Nature In Order To Transform YourOrdinary Copy.Into Killer Copy That SELLS!..........................................................................16

Chapter 6: Do You Have A Damn Good Answer To These Four Questions? If Not, You

Won't Sell Anything To Anyone! .........................................................................................39

Chapter 7: The Hidden, Buried Secrets Of Killer Advertising Copy From The Old TimeAdvertising Masters! ...............................................................................................................45

Chapter 8: The Jealously Guarded, Secret Killer Advertising Formulas That Work Over AndOver! .......................................................................................................................................... 67

Chapter 9: The Single Most Important Part Of Killer Copy! Mess This Up, And Your

Advertising Will Always Fail!...................................................................................................70

Chapter 10: Little Known Headline Writing Shortcuts And Tips!..........................................83

Chapter 11: How To Write Copy So Good... You Could Sell Sand In The Desert! ...............101

Chapter 12: 37 More Killer Copy Secrets................................................................................118

Chapter 13: The Final Word .................................................................................................... 132

Appendix 1...............................................................................................................................134

Appendix 2...............................................................................................................................137

Appendix 3...............................................................................................................................142


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Introduction: Welcome To Killer Copywriting

Hello, I'm Jim Fleck, author, publisher, copywriter, entrepreneur. I think there'sbeen about a couple dozen other titles and occupations in the last 20 years, but theones above will suffice for now. Oh yeah, I'm also Jeff Paul's partner in Instant

Profits Marketing, Inc. I thought you might want to know a little about how thisprogram came about and us before you dive in for what I promise you will be anenlightening and *different* take on some master copywriting techniques andstrategies.

I met Jeff about 5 years ago while attending one of his "Killer Copywriting"seminars. Suffice it to say...I was never the same.

At that time I had a thriving computer consulting company, #1 in its niche. I hadalso started a fledgling information business that I was running part-time in betweenflying 100,000 miles a year consulting business.

I had been running classified ads, small space ads and following all the models.They weren't very profitable. Something was wrong.

I can remember coming out of that 3 1/2 hour seminar with 23 pages of notes,mind numb, new ideas flying fast and furious. I knew what was wrong.

To make a long story short, using what I learned from Jeff I've built 5 differentinformation business. Sold a few, remain a minority partner (read passive income) insome, currently work some others.

But let's forget about that. You probably are reading this because ultimately

you're interested in income, right? Well, as you know from Jeff's salesletter he'sbeen gut-wrenchingly broke. I myself have experienced bankruptcy. I know what it'slike not to be able to go out to dinner with friends, buy nothing but generic foods atthe double coupon discount grocery store...I mean less than broke. Not having zeromoney, that's easy to do, I'm talking negative where I didn't have a dime in mypocket and a mountain of debt too.

I also know what it's like to take 4 or 5 vacations a year. Get up in the morningevery single day and have breakfast with my two sons. Own the office building Iworked from, have a loving beautiful wife, get up in the morning and meet Jeff atthe club for a round of golf on a Tuesday with almost noone there because they'reworking. Best of all, I know what it's like to be my own boss. Work from home or

occasionally from the office if I choose. Working a business that I'm in completecontrol of, well mostly, I let Jeff do a little.


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I don't tell you any of these things to impress you or to brag or any of that othercrap. I tell you them to impress upon you what learning how to write copy has donefor me. I'm no smarter than the next guy, some would argue I'm dumber (butbrothers and sisters don't count). I've simply followed those notes I took 5 years

ago almost point for point and it has made copywriting so much easier. It just flowsnow.

That EXACT same information is in this course you've just acquired.

I'll warn you know though, if you judge things by there size or looks, you'll missthe point. You'll miss the power. You'll miss the opportunity that many don't everget.

If you're smart enough not only add this to your reference library, but use itoften, I can guarantee you that your copy will never be the same.

So with that said, I want to welcome you to this journey you're beginningwhether new or successful to this business world.

So, let's go learn "The Jealously Guarded Secrets of Writing Copy SoGood...You Could Sell Sand In The Desert!"

Jim Fleck


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Chapter 1: Conventional Advertising Wisdom Myths Blown

To Bits! The Advertising Industry's Lies Exposed!

What we're going to do here is talk about the whole issue of writing copy thatsells and gets people to buy.

We have a wide variety of things to talk about. We'll cover a lot of areas so thathopefully at the end you'll have a much deeper understanding of what's involved inwriting copy and how to make copy work for you to sell things online or offline thatyou want to sell, or just get leads or both. There are a lot of things I want to coveras far as the issue of writing copy whether it's for websites, emails, autoresponders,direct mail or whatever.

The first thing I want to talk about is setting the stage. From my point of view,as far as the issue of writing copy and getting people to do things, one of the things

I have to tell you as an overall starting point is...

KC Secret #1: You have to not pay attention to anything that you've learned

or that is conventional. You have to really change the way your mind works.

One example was way back in the O.J. Simpson trial. I would imagine that justabout everyone either saw it live, on tape delay, the evening news, heard about iton the radio or read about it. Conventional wisdom would tell you, if you lookedat the facts, the reasoning and the logic behind the whole case, I don't care whichside of the issue you are on, but in that particular instance you saw a perfectexample of emotions completely overriding any logic or reason involved in theway the verdict went.

Again, I'm not telling you or giving you my opinion saying that he should havebeen guilty or not guilty or whatever, because my opinion is meaningless in thatregard. But my opinion isn't meaningless in the fact that if you really think aboutwhat happened there, the defense used very, very good emotional, what I wouldcall direct response type copy, and the prosecution used a very professional,logical way of communicating with lots of reason and lots of scientific, analyticaltype of so-called copy, the way they spoke through the trial and on the closingarguments. If you compared Marcia Clark and Chris Darden's closing arguments toJohnny Cochran's, I think anybody would concur that there wasn't even a remote

similarity to the way they were done.

I f i t doesn't f i t , you must acquit


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If you can't trust the messenger, you can't trust the message. Planting all kindsof psychological, very emotional seeds, which obviously worked pretty well becauseit only took the jury about 15 minutes. I think they were killing time just to make it

look like they were in the room longer, but obviously it worked.

The prosecution was very dismayed at the fact that their logic and reasoningdidn't provide a guilty verdict. When I saw the closing arguments there was nodoubt in my mind whatsoever of how that trial was going to go, no doubtwhatsoever. People kept saying to me, "Everybody says he's guilty. The jury gotdone so fast." To me, I guessed he was not guilty just simply because the waythings were done. If you really think about that in the context of what we're talkingabout here, it applies. Because quite frankly people's emotions will override reasonand logic every time, usually 100% of the time.

Conventional wisdom is usually meaningl ess

Irrelevant and wrong in almost all cases. What you are supposed to be thinkingor doing and what actually does end up working are usually far removed from eachother.

When I signed my son Alex up for second grade, his teacher needed somebodyto come in for an hour to be a writing workshop helper, so I went in for my firstwriting workshop. These are 8-year-old kids, most of them in second grade, and Ihelped two of the kids with their stories. One of the stories was "My Dog" and itwent into how he had three dogs and they all died and then he got this new dogthat also was very sick and dying. My job, as told by the teacher, was to correctpunctuation and grammar and I'm sitting there thinking "Oh my God."

So I pulled the teacher aside and said, "Look, I have to explain something, Iwrite for a living, but I didn't really know exactly what I was getting into and I don'tknow anything about grammar or punctuation. I don't even know what a prepositionis, so I don't know if I end a sentence with one or not because I don't even knowwhat it is." She said, "Oh, I'm sure you'll do fine."

So I sat down with the kids. It was very difficult to try to teach them what theywere doing wrong. I could figure out where periods and commas went, that part Icould get down. I can't spell very gud but most of the words that were wrong Icould figure out like "are" instead of "our" and "there" instead of "their", but it was

an awakening experience for me realizing just how far away I am in the way Ido things from what is conventional and what kids are taught in school. I had tobe very careful not to get into certain areas I really wasn't sure of. My son Alexstarted a lot of his sentences with "and." Now, I start sentences with "and" all thetime and I guess you're not supposed to.


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Vastly d ifferent worlds

The thing you have to be aware of is that the way we're all taught...what

you think the conventional wisdom is...and using writ ing to communicateand sell are just vastly different worl ds.

So that's the first thing I wanted to try to get into your mind. To realize that ifyou are going to have success with copy, you're going to have more successtaking a chance on the way your mind works than wondering about whether thingsshould or shouldn't be a certain way.

There are no rules.

Everything can be any way you want. But again, conventional wisdom andsuccess have nothing to do with each other.

Here's what you need to know...The Shocking Truth Revealed...


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Chapter 2: Everything You've Been Taught About Writing

Copy That Sells Is Wrong! The Shocking Truth Revealed!

The reason I wanted to put this chapter up front is because I see a lot ofsamples that people send us everyday. However, most people have a very difficulttime changing the way they write salesletters and websites or what they say onvideo or audio tape or whatever the media is they're using to get a message acrossso that it isn't professional and boring. Most people are very, very caught up like myson learning in second grade and that's the way he'll be taught for the rest of hislife in school, as all of us probably were.

The handicap of an advanced degree

Fortunately, I didn't graduate from college so I got out of it before it was too

late. If any of you have the handicap of an advanced degree then you'll have a littlemore trouble because you were taught to be boring when communicating or relayinga story to somebody about a series of events.

The logical train of thought has nothing to do with anything that's making thecommunication. If you're not communicating, you're not going to get any copythat's going to work. We see people all the time writing things that would be writtenthe way you would write something for college. That's boring and it does NOT sell.

I have a sister-in-law who is a nurse and she shows me things she gets forcourses that she may want to take and they might be called the "IntradimensionalOccupational Relationship Between Psychotherapy And The Pervasive Mindset of..."

something or other. That's the title of the course. And then you read the coursedescription and it's just as bad. I said, " I can't believe anybody s igns up for t hisstuff." She said, "We have to sign up for some of these things." I guess they areforced to do it because they need continuing education, but the writer certainly isn'tcommunicating anything even to my sister-in-law and the other nurses.

The language is so professional and so wonderfully logical that it doesn'tcommunicate anything to anybody.

I do want to stress this very, very important point...

KC Secret #2: If you are simply using an informational approach, you willprobably get unsatisfactory and negative results.


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The issue is, that for somebody to respond or buy something, it's a differentprocess than just relaying information because you are not just relaying information.

You're getting them psychologically moved off the couch so to speak and over topick up the phone or fill out something. You've got a lot of things you have toovercome.

Now I think i t's time to reveal the real definit ion of advertising...


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Chapter 3: Here's The REAL Definition Of Advertising You'll

Never Learn Anywhere Else!

Are you familiar with John E. Kennedy and Albert Lasker and that whole crowdback from the early 1900's?

That's where our next very important point first came about and there's a storythat's probably fake, but it sounds good. And is a lesson in copywriting itself.

It started when an unknown copywriter named John E. Kennedy sent a note to A.L. Thomas of the Lord & Thomas advertising agency. His note read:

"I am in the saloon downstairs. I can tell you what advertising is. I know youdon't know. It will mean much to me to have you know what it is and it will mean

much to you. If you wish to know what advertising is, send the word 'yes' down bythe bell boy."-- Signed, John E. Kennedy

The note would have ended up in the trash if Albert Lasker had not been in theoffice. Unknown to Kennedy, Lasker had been searching for the answer to thatquestion for 7 years.

Lasker was the rising star at Lord & Thomas, the third largest ad agency in theworld. It was 1904 when, at the age of 24, he was made a partner and was paid$52,000. Yet, he did not know, to his satisfaction, what advertising was. Neithercould he find anyone else who knew.

Lasker, starving for an answer, was quick to summon Kennedy to his office. Inthat historic meeting three words were whispered. Three words that changed theface of advertising forever. Those words were...

KC Secret #3: "Salesmanship in Print"

The concept was so basic and so effective that no one has since been able toimprove upon it.

After being exposed to this powerful concept, Lasker commissioned the brilliantKennedy to write down the set of principles into a series of lessons which were thenused to train Lasker and the Lord & Thomas copywriters.


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Soon, Lord & Thomas became the training center for the advertising world. Theircopywriters were being paid $4000/year, a fantastic salary for the time. Yet, otheragencies were hiring them away by offering salaries up to $15,000/year - just to get

the magic of Salesmanship-in-Print into their agencies. And many Lord & Thomaspeople left to form their own agencies - John Orr Young, co-founder of Young &Rubicam was one.

The lessons that were used to teach these copywriters are contained in this book.Were they successful? As David Ogilvy said,

" Albert Lasker made more money than anyone in the his tory o f theadvertising b usiness" - (Ogilvy On Advertisin g, 1985)

Lord & Thomas, under Lasker's direction and by using Salesmanship-in-Print,became the most admired agency in the world. It helped to establish such well-

known brands as Quaker Puffed Rice and Puffed Wheat, Palmolive, Van Camp,Oldsmobile, Pepsodent and others. It quite literally created the orange juice marketwhich put the California orange growers in business.

But the real proof is found today in the fact that those who use these principlesare among the most successful business people in the world.

The world of business owes a debt of gratitude to John E. Kennedy. PerhapsLasker said it best:

" The histo ry of advertising could never be written without f irs t place being given to John E. Kennedy, for every

copywr iter throughou t the length and breadth of this land is today being guided

by the princi ples he laid down."

Reason Why Advertising — PLUS — Intensive Advertising and a FREE BONUS

chapter by Kennedy: "How Shall We Know Good Copy?".

These two books teach the principles Kennedy laid down. You can get inexpensive

copies by clicking here.

Now in today's environment you have to say salesmanship in whatever mediayou're using whether it's Internet, TV, video, audio, whatever.

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I think everybody needs to think about that because even people who are inthe business who do well and people who know better, still forget what thedefinition of advertising and marketing is.

Salesmanship.

These days you have to say salespersonship to be politically correct, eitherway it's the definition of advertising or marketing. Every word, paragraph, andline has to be leading towards a sale, lead generation or whatever the outcomeis that's desired.

The fact they like you or your writing or you have a nice business doesn'tmean anything. We had a guy that couldn't sell anything face-to-face and when

the customers left, we'd ask, "How'd you do? Did they buy anything?" "No. Butthey liked me." "That's good. We haven't been able to figure out how you spendthat."

A transaction has to occur. It's got to go from not occurring to occurring, orif it's lead generation they have to go from not responding to responding andleaving or giving you their information.

You're selling from the first syllable, the first thing they see, everywhere, andyou could lose them at any time by being boring or uninteresting or professional.

I still make this mistake. Everybody does, you're never going to bat 1,000.When something isn't going right and it seems like it should be because of aprevious experience or a test that worked or I just thought it was the right thingto do and the way to do it, I go back over the copy and find we can tweak itbecause we lost people right at a certain stage where we shouldn't because wegot too professional.

So keep this in mind, it's salesmanship, salesmanship, salesmanship all theway through. We'll talk about how you get to that point, but I just want to makesure we set the stage properly here so that everything we're talking about is inthat context of selling, selling, selling, because that's why you're reading this.Whether that sale is a purchase, getting a lead, setting an appointment, that's

what we're all trying to do.

A lot of people are worried about what their peers might think or what theirspouses or family or friends might think and again, all of that is something youhave to overcome yourself because the reality is that none of that makes anydifference.

Like we mentioned before, don't worry about the professional look, sell, sell,sell.


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Chapter 4: Secrets Of Getting Ready To Write Killer

Advertising Copy!

I know this sounds kind of stupid and obvious, but I just want to explain it here.

KC Secret #4: You Must Have A Good Product or Service.

I'm not referring to what the conventional definition of a good product or serviceis by the way, I'm talking about one that people want to buy. I'm hoping thateverybody has the integrity that your products are good, meaning that they do whatthey say they're going to do, or they deliver on their promises or even more thanthey promised.

The definition of good, which I'm talking about here, is one that people want tobuy. That's all. It doesn't have to be the best or anything like that. They just have towant to buy it.

A lot of times we see people all the time that have products or services thatpeople just don't want to buy. If they don't want to buy it, there isn't any copy inthe world that can save it if nobody wants to buy it. We have some people that justkeep going and going and going like the battery bunny and sometimes you may runout of energy and they still keep going because they are determined that they've gotthe product that people are going to buy.

Again, my definitions are a lot different than other people because I have anunderstated intrinsic ethical way that everything has to be what it is, no misleading,

and nothing exaggerated or undelivered promises.

So with that foundation, you have to have a good product meaning that peoplewant to buy it. The reason I'm saying this upfront is because when we get into allthe details of writing copy and look at all the examples, nothing will help if your stuffis not interesting to the people that you want to sell it to or it's not interesting at theprice you want to sell it or any number of other reasons why it may not work. Keepthat in mind.

KC Secret #5: You Must Have A Plan For Your Effor t.

It's very important to operate from some sort of a plan when you start yourtesting and working on your copy because a lot of times if you just start winging itand just start doing things, your copy may end up all over the place, and believeme, the copy and the offer and all that can make a huge difference. Where you endup at and what you wanted your business to be like may be two different things.


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So it's very good to start from some sort of plan of attack of how you're going toget business and what you're going to do, one step marketing or two stepmarketing, triple hoop, whatever. Or, what prices you are going to try to offer, whatcosts you're going to have involved, so you can get an idea of whether your thing

even has a chance of working from the starting place.

Before you write, you really should have a product that people actually want. Andsecondly, you should have a plan.

Now, if you don't have a product at this point and I know many of you won't,don't forget, you can resell this package. Click here to find out how to make money

with this package.

Also, since it's free, you MUST (if you haven't already) take this course oncreating and selling your very own product.

Click here and send a blank e-mail to receive The InfoProductMasters course... It's an intensive 5-Day e-mail course on

creating, producing and online-selling your very own infoproduct.

If you want help creating your own product, then this is one of the

resources for your library. The checklists that are included with

this course is worth the price of admission. I refer to almost daily.

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.sitesell.com/power2009.htmlhttp://www.sitesell.com/power2009.htmlhttp://www.sitesell.com/power2009.htmlhttp://www.sitesell.com/power2009.htmlhttp://www.sitesell.com/power2009.htmlmailto:[email protected]


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Chapter 5: What You MUST Know About Human Nature In

Order To Transform Your Ordinary Copy.Into Killer Copy

That SELLS!

So now let's talk about some unwavering rules of writing copy and some thingsI've discovered over the years, and I've been doing this for quite a few years now.

A lot of things that I'm going to be telling you come from experience. I'm notgiving you any opinions on things here, I'm just giving you information that hasbeen proven by results and facts and empirical evidence. I'm really big on empiricalevidence because opinions are cheap.

We all saw everybody's opinion on the OJ thing, and how much that counted for.Opinions don't really count for much in direct response, information and/or Internetmarketing. Your opinions and everybody else's opinions are all basically

meaningless. So the whole thing we're going to cover here is straight from empiricalevidence and facts that we've discovered.

KC Secret #6: The Market is First and Foremost...Always.

This is another area where people have a lot of trouble. We see it all the time.People have a product or service that they've developed and they think theyunderstand who they're going to sell this to and what the market is, and it's noteven anything close. We see this kind of thing all the time.

In fact, if you see any courses on Internet Marketing and they talk about the first

step, or the #1 thing, or the beginning of the blueprint is "Finding or creating a

product," shut your connection down immediately. They don't get it and all they're

doing is trying to sell you something they've copied from someone else, or betteryet, they don't even understand what it is that may have made them successful...inspite of themselves.

If you don't understand the market that you're going after or you don't havesomebody with you, a partner or associate or consultant, in some capacity whounderstands the market very, very intimately, you're not going to have success inalmost every case.

KC Secret #7: Act ual ly, something to avoid...Usual ly, almost everyb ody starts outwith a prod uct and then they try to f ind somebody to sell it to. Find somebody tosell to ...then create what they want.


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When you write your copy if your product is designed that way, usually yourcopy won't make much difference, again because they're not going to be interestedin buying it.

The more successful way to go and the way it's been done forever by the mostexperienced and successful is to pick a market or markets and then develop yourproduct or service based on what that market is telling you that it wants or thinkthat it wants, and then if you can't come up with it, move to another market.

Everything I do in several different businesses is focused on always looking at themarket first and then seeing if the product will fit.

Occasionally, and maybe by a rare circumstance you can get lucky where youdevelop a product and then you put it into a market and it's right for the market.

That might happen once out of a thousand times. The other 999 times you get a failif you don't develop a deep understanding of the market first, product second.

That's a very, very difficult thing and most people make a lot of mistakes on. I'vedone it myself, and I'll probably do it again even though I know better. You reallyhave to focus in on this. That is something that is a very fundamental part ofsuccess and again, your copy won't make any difference if your product or serviceisn't designed for that market and very intimately understood.

How To Create Products

I can't stress enough that if you don't currently have a product and need helpcreating one, the most cost effective and easiest way to get a TON of help is thebook my Monique Harris on exactly that, creating products. I urge you to add it toyour library. Not only was it used to create this product but the marketing welearned in it is selling tons of copies of this book.

Again, here is the info:

If you want help creating your own product, then this is one of the

resources for your library. The checklists that are included with

this course is worth the price of admission. I refer to almost daily.

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KC Secret #8: Never ask the copy to do more than it should be doing.

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about.

I get lots of mail and email, but I got a letter in the mail the other day, by theway, for writing copy you should get on every mailing list possible.

Just buy all the little books these vendors have for $9.95 or $27.95 and get onevery ezine and mailing list you can because you learn a lot about copy and whatpeople are doing.

I got one yesterday from a guy whose name I won't mention, some of you mightknow him. He is into a new thing right now where he is jumping on the health band

wagon and it seems like the last year or so I've been seeing an incredible increasein the amount of mail I get for health related newsletters, products, vitamins and allthese substances that are going to cure your body.

This guy wrote this letter and talked about a family member of his that wascured by this amazing product. Now, I usually skip around when I get the letters andglance at them just to see the techniques.

A lot of people look at letters differently than the way you think they'll look atthem. So, I'm going through this thing quickly and as I read the whole thing, he wastrying to offer two things with the letter. He had an offer to call his office to discusssomething with him about this product and he also was trying to get you to be in thebusiness opportunity of selling this product that he was talking about in the letter.

Now, I couldn't figure out what he was doing. I couldn't figure out why I shouldbe calling him and I couldn't figure out what he was really offering.

He mixed two things into this piece. He mixed the business opportunity stuffwhich was part of it and then he mixed in the "using it for yourself or your family"type of stuff, but there was no direct offer of the product in the pitch. There was noexplanation of the business opportunity in any way, and then you were just


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supposed to call him. In my opinion, this piece will fail; most likely there's a 99%chance this piece will fail. He tried to get the piece to do more than it should beexpected to do.

Now let me give you another example which is lead generation. I'm sure most ofyou have seen examples of lead generation we do or others do for differentcompanies where they simply get you to call for a free report, sign up for an ezine,or give your email address to get a free ebook, that type of stuff. It's designed to do

just one thing.

When we do lead generation, we're not trying to do anything else except get theperson to leave at bare minimum their email address, maybe their name also or pickup the phone and call and leave a message on a recorded message line. We don'tmix up anything else with that.

When you get our email offer or are redirected to our salesletter page or get asales letter in the mail, we offer one direct offer and if we have other offers orsubsequent sales or other things, we don't mix that in the sales letter. I'm notinterested at that point in getting them to think about other things, I'm onlyinterested in making that first sale.

So, whatever you do, don't do like a lot of people trying to lead generate and sellin the same piece.

Like this example where this guy sent this letter to me that wasn't leadgenerated where it was so mixed up as far as what he was talking about that I didn'tknow what he was talking about.

Now I'm reading these things from a different perspective because I'm readingthem from a scientific, analytical point of view of what other people are doing.

A typical prospect isn't going to take that kind of time. If they can't figure outwhat's going on, it's over.

He got me to read it because of my professional interest in it. I'm sure 99% ofthe people getting his letter aren't even getting a quarter of the way through itbefore it's gone.

If you don't get that succinct focus on what you're trying to do with thatparticular effort, you're going to have a lot of trouble. Paul Hartunian athttp://prprofits.com the great marketer and info product producer on getting FREEPublicity always talks about public relations and when most people use pressreleases, they try and mix several attempts into one thing and he can show you whythat doesn't work there either.


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So, whatever you do, don't do like a lot of people trying to lead generate and sellin the same piece.

Like this example where this guy sent this letter to me that wasn't leadgenerated where it was so mixed up as far as what he was talking about that I didn'tknow what he was talking about.

Now I'm reading these things from a different perspective because I'm readingthem from a scientific, analytical point of view of what other people are doing.

Lead Generation Example (connect to the Internet and click here to see the example)

Here's a guy who knows what he's doing, and is one of the best copywriters everto have put a hand on a keyboard!

Let's look at what Dan's done here on this piece.

First of all, he's got a killer headline, and goes IMMEDIATELY into curiosityprovoking and "meaty" points that come out with all guns blazing! Dan doesn't holdback on what benefits you might realize if you do whatever he's going to teach you!You know right from the start what's what.and why you should keep reading!

This is very, very important technique, and a BIG MISTAKE that new people, andamateurs make. They hold back on revealing BIG benefits, saving them for later, forsome unknown reason. It's something I see all the time. As Dan, the master, does

here.always come out with all your guns blazing!

Next, you'll notice that Dan is using a "lead generation" model here. What do Imean by that? Well, you see that Dan isn't trying to make a sale here on this firstcontact with a prospect. For whatever reason, Dan's found out that with his offer,he's better off getting people "hooked" and interested enough to want more freeinformation.instead of trying to make a sale on the spot. He will follow up with allthe leads numerous times, as you see he's telling you he's going to do in the leadgeneration copy. It is often better to get leads that you generate on your own, asopposed to buying a mailing list and trying to make sales right off the first contact. Ifyou think your offer might be more successful by being less pushy, and trying togenerate your own mailing list of leads.this piece is a must study for you!

Let's go to the next page to find out what area can cause you to go broke if youdon't get this one...

http://www.dankennedyonline.com/copywriting-seminar-inabox.htmlhttp://www.dankennedyonline.com/copywriting-seminar-inabox.htmlhttp://www.dankennedyonline.com/copywriting-seminar-inabox.html


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KC Secret #9: The offer must be what they want, not what they need.

This is another area where people have a lot of trouble and I can't stress to you

enough that if you try to write copy to people's needs, you will most likely end upbroke. You can't sell things in general to people based on need. It has to be on whatthey want.

There are some basic staples in life like people who own razor blade companiesprobably can continue to sell razor blades without a lot of good direct response copybecause most men and women have some shaving needs and there are only 5billion people on the planet and most of them shave something or other, so youdon't necessary have to be a good copy writer to sell razor blades.

If you are selling something a little different or that's not a basic need of humanlife, which I don't imagine most of you reading this book are selling food or otherbasic needs, then you better start thinking about what they want and not what theyneed.

I can't tell you how many things that I have had that have failed because Ithought people needed it or how many samples of things we see all the time wherethe writer thinks everybody needs this or that.

We hear this all the time...

" Everybody needs this. Why isn't this wor king?"

Well, the reason it isn't working is because nobody needs much of anythingexcept some basic staples of life. Actually, all we need really is some molecules ofoxygen and certain proteins and things to keep your blood going. Beyond that,everything else is really a want.

So change your thinking to want and get rid of the word "need". Fill a need andthat sort of thing is a terrible way to think about things. Fill a want and you'll beokay, but fill a need is always going to be trouble for you and your copy. When wego over the examples; you'll see that we are always trying to focus on what peoplewant.

One question we get is "Is a need more logical and is a want more emotional?"

Usually yes. Because, for example, I drive a Land Cruiser and I really don't needa Land Cruiser. I could be driving a different vehicle that could get me where I needto go. I wanted it because the winters in Chicago can be bad and I wanted a four-


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wheel drive, but I didn't necessarily need to have that particular vehicle. You didn't

necessarily have to buy this book.

You wanted to buy it. I bet all of you could have lived and survived physicallyspeaking without buying this book, but you wanted to buy it.

"Everything that's happened has happened... becauseof people wanting to do t hings..."

So again, wants are basically driving every emotion, all progress man has made,good or bad progress, everything that's happened has happened because of peoplewanting to do things. People didn't need to expand society or take over othergeographic areas or civilizations. They wanted to. So everything that happens isbecause people want to do things and there's a huge difference between needingand wanting.

On the next page I'll show you the "Secret" behind how people buy...


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KC Secret #10: Prospects have to just ify their decision to buy after making thepurchase from an emotional basis.

Now this is very similar to what happened in the OJ thing. Do you rememberseeing the jurors on TV? One juror said she first voted guilty, and then she wasconvinced by the others to go for an acquittal. One juror said she knew he wasinnocent from the beginning and the whole court case was a wasted exercise.

Another one said that the verdict was clear because the prosecution didn't bring upanything that would have taken them to a reasonable conclusion that he did it.

Then they began rationalizing, every juror began logically rationalizing theiremotional decision they made. They are rationally explaining to themselves and toothers the justification of what they did from an emotional basis.

Because...

People will always make a decision based on emotionand then justify it logically.

Now I'll hear this a lot, "That might be true in whatever, but in my industrythat's not true because I sell things to computer engineers or whatever and thosepeople won't buy things. They are analytical and they're going to buy things basedon specs and statistical data and that sort of thing."

That's not true.

A lot of pharmaceutical companies sell directly to physicians. This doesn'thappen as much these days, but I used to know a couple of women that werepharmaceutical salespeople and in the old days they would (and I'm not saying thisbecause I agree with this, I'm just telling you what they did) usually hire veryattractive women to go out to see doctors when the doctors were mostly men to sellthese pharmaceutical supplies and medicines.

Now is it right or wrong? That's not the issue. What I'm talking about is that thedoctors would prescribe these medicines because they had this very attractivewoman coming in every month to say hello and dropping off samples. Again, rightor wrong isn't the issue.

The issue is that these doctors who were supposed to be analytical scientists arerecommending a certain drug to all their patients because Leslie's really cute. Nowwe can all disagree with that all we want, but that is the reality of how those thingswere done.


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Now these days, you don't see that as much in this much better "politically

correct" society that we live in. But the reality is that's what happened.

Now the doctor would say, "Well, this is really a good medicine" and thenrationalize it to themselves in their head. The real reason they did it was they

wanted to see Leslie every month in the office, an emotional decision.

With doctors, the big companies would give them trips and things, they'd fly

them down to the Turks and Curacaos Islands for a weekend, that sort of thing.

Does that have anything to do with the quality of the medicine? Probably

not, but they'll recommend and prescribe the medicine because they just got

back from Aruba.

These are emotional decisions that end up being justified logically and that is

how everybody makes decisions. So if you start out appealing to their logic

upfront, you're going to miss the real reasons and hot buttons that cause them to

make their initial decision.

Now let's look at a tried and true formula for putting all this together...


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KC Secret #11: You must get their attention, interest, desire andaction.

This is the formula AIDA . I'm sure you've heard of it.

This formula was first arrived at in 1906 by a professor ofpsychology when he was analyzing advertising. He wrote a book in1906 called "How To Make Advertising Work" or something like thatand he was the first one to come up with these four articulated stepsof attention, interest, desire and action.

We're going to talk more about them in a later Chapter. But at thisstage, it is an unwavering rule.

Number one you've got to get their attention .

If you don't get their attention, you have no chance of making

anything work. You must get their attention. This is something that

people miss when they're marketing or copywriting, we'll talk aboutheadlines later also, because this is what they do, get attention.

Once you've got their attention...

Number two you've got to grab and hold their int erest instantaneously.

In everything you do, you have to realize that if you bore them for

one sentence, you have the chance of them mouse-clicking away. Or

throwing your piece out, or just tuning out all together. You've got tohold their interest.

Number three that interest has to lead to a desire.

You have to move them through the interested in what you are


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talking about phase of your copy into the desire to have whatever it isyou're offering phase. That desire has to be triggered emotionally and

that's where the emotional trigger really has to kick in because if youdon't, you're not going to get them to do the last thing, which is thepart we like...

Number fou r the action part.

We all like that action part and that's the part where they eitherclick and fill out your order form, send the check in or call you up orwhatever it is you're trying to get them to do, or if it's leadgeneration, to opt-in to your ezine or request the free information.

We'll talk about a mentor and good friend of mine Dan Kennedy'sversion of that formula which is a simpler way to think about it, but itends up being exactly the same.

By the way, if you don't know who Dan Kennedy is and you'retrying to improve in business, you're losing out big time. If you doknow who Dan is and don't have everything he offers...why not?

Anyway, you can read about some of Dan's stuff by clicking here.

The form ula wil l never, ever fail you.

Any copy you write will never fail you if you're lost and you don'tknow where you're going with your copy, come right back to AIDAand then you'll see if you're lost maybe because you varied from thisformula.

If you're off just a little with the Secret on the next page you mightas well forget it...

http://www.dankennedyonline.com/http://www.dankennedyonline.com/


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KC Secret #12: There must be a complete message to market matchmade through the empathy o f the target's mindset, wants and desires

What I mean by the above Secret is that if you're off just a littleon the message that you're communicating, just a little off, you mightas well be off by a million miles because it doesn't matter. You haveto be exactly on the psychology of your prospect.

One of the fascinating things about writing copy to me is and I'msure some of you get the same kick out of it (and if you don't, youwill), when you write something and then people see it or read it or

hear it and they act upon it, I still get a kick out of it.

I like the money part of it too, don't get me wrong, but I'm sureyou will agree knowing that you were able to think through yourprospects so completely and so deeply that you are exactly in tunewith that prospect. They say in courtrooms now "if it don't fit, youmust acquit." I'm saying in copywriting "If it don't fit, they ain't goingto buy nothing." I know that doesn't rhyme, but that's basically whatwe're talking about.

I don't mean that you have to be sort of close to your prospect'smindset. You've got to be IN your prospect's mindset.

Writing copy is all psychology. It's all human behavior. It hasnothing to do with what you're selling. It has nothing to do withanything like that.

A good copywriter could write copy about any topic or any subject.I take an occasional consulting project and when I do if I'm notentirely familiar with the target market, I have a very simple set ofquestions I ask the person I'm working with to make sure Iunderstand.


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"Tell me about your prospect. Identify your prospect." And we'lltalk about that in a minute too, but I want to see this person. I want

to see Elizabeth sitting in front of me, or John, and I want to see themas a person and I want to understand everything they think about andfeel completely.

If you don't get that market to message match, you're not going toget them to do what you want at least in big enough numbers to makethings work.

So does that make sense? This whole thing is psychology andhuman behavior. If you want to become the best copywriter in the

world, read and study things that are only involved with how peoplethink, psychology and human behavior and ignore other things thatare business related and you'll be a very, very wealthy businessperson. If you look at anything that's an area you really need to focusin on it's this human behavior and psychology of your prospect'smindset.

The word I like to use is empathy and that's a quality that mostpeople don't get in their marketing or whatever they're doing.Empathy is defined basically as the understanding or a sympathy with

your prospect or your target or your customer. Most people don'treally get the empathy across that they need to make the prospectfeel so deeply connected to the copy. You can't explain empathy inyour marketing. You can't say I empathize with you and get them tolike this and believe that and move into your mental state. You haveto demonstrate empathy through your copy. It has to seemimmediately to them as if this person, whoever wrote this, whoeverthis is, is writing directly to me. This person knows me andunderstands me and what I'm all about.


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Every person reading this right now is a little bit different and all ofyou might be from all different walks of life and all different parts ofthe country, yet you're all reading this because you have a similar

mindset of either wanting to be or in the business of writing bettercopy in one way or another.

So when we write to you, we know exactly what we're doing. If Iwas writing to another target market that I didn't understand, I thinkI'm a pretty good copywriter, I would not be able to succeed as wellwithout studying the prospect's mindset and creating empathy. Sothis is a very, very important point.


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KC Secret #13: You Must Tell The Whole Story

This is an area where I had a question asked already the other dayabout whether this person's copy was too long?

We hear this over and over.

There is no such thing as copy that is too long.

You must tell the whole story. If you tell 97% of the story, you'renot going to succeed, you have to tell everything. Everything has to

be explained.

Still to this date, although it's not working like it used to, but atone point the best letter I had was a 66-page letter. It had the highestresponse rate of orders, we had close to a 15-1/2% order ratio for aperiod of time on a $500 to $700 product with a 66 page sales letter.

Nobody is going to tell me that there is such a thing as copy that istoo long.

I just read yesterday that one of the big publishing companies thatsends out all those magalogs, and you probably know who they are,they have financial newsletters. They have been testing a 128-pagepaperback book sales letter and it's beating the magalog enough thatthey are rolling out 600,000 of them on this one particular newsletter.They tested 25,000 and the 128-page book beat the 20-pagemagalog. You guys have all seen those magalogs, they're like fakemagazines that people used to think were real magazines, but noweverybody knows they're not anymore. I wasn't surprised to read that.

A 30-minute spot will usually do better than a 1-minute spot on TV.So keep that in mind. You have to tell the whole story.


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Now sometimes there are reasons that you need to reduce thecopy.

When our long letter stopped working as well as it was, in theparticular case we're talking about, there was a change in the marketthat was an outside influence that had nothing to do with what wewere doing, but it affected the market. So I had to change the letterto reflect the new reality of that marketplace and I didn't have asmuch to say about the new reality as I did about the old reality.

I don't make things longer or shorter just to make them longer orshorter. I just try to get it as complete as I can. A lot of things I wassaying in the old letter weren't relevant anymore because things hadchanged to the point where the relevance was gone in a lot of thecopy. It didn't make sense anymore.

So don't write long copy just to write long copy, simply tell thewhole story.

On the next page is the one Secret that sounds stupid and seemsself-explanatory but sometimes we need reminded of it...


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KC Secret #14: You Must Be Believable and You Must Tell The Truth

I know this sounds a little stupid, but you have to tell the truth.

Without going into too much detail, I think it's pretty self-explanatory. But sometimes I think I need to remind people of that.

Believability and the truth are not necessarily the same. You couldtell the truth and be unbelievable. Or you could be believable and notbe telling the truth. So, to sum up that point, you must be believable.

We'll have people tell us they talked to a prospect yesterday andthey said "this sounds too good to be true." We hear this quite often.Now, we're telling the truth, but it's a big clue to me that maybe thecopy needs changed because they're thinking it's too good to be true.It's not believable, and if you're not believable, you won't have anysuccess.

Basically if you're not believable and you're telling the truth thatmeans your copy has to be changed. You don't change your truth, you

just change the copy which we'll talk about in a few minutes, youaddress that in your objections in the letter saying something like"Now a lot of you may think this is too good to be true, now let'sexplain why I understand why you would think that, but let's talkabout why it is reality. Take a look at our testimonials that you'll seeenclosed in the package." Or whatever it is and you can address that.

Do you understand the difference between truth and believabilitybecause they really are two separate issues completely?

On the next page I'll describe the hardest thing you have toovercome with your copy...


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KC Secret #15: You Must Overcome Inertia and Sloth

This is a really hard one.

Your prospects are sitting there not interested in what you have tosay usually until you got their attention. And then even if you gothrough this whole exercise of getting their attention and then gettingthem interested and getting them desirous of whatever it is you have,you have to get them to take action.

inertia: noun: a property of matter by which it remains at rest orin uniform motion in the same straight line unless acted upon by someexternal force

Inertia is the scientific principle that a body at rest, a physicalobject at rest tends to remain at rest and an object in motion tends toremain in motion unless acted upon by some external force. It says

"unless acted upon by some external force."

You are the external force.

So if this slothful, inertia filled person is sitting there on theircouch and they get their mail and all of a sudden there's your letter inthere that they asked for or they didn't ask for, you've got a lot ofthings you have to overcome.

You have to get them to not throw out the envelope, which we'llget into a little bit later, they have to open the envelope, they have toactually unfold your letter if it's folded up, then they have to read it,they have to physically turn the page.


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This is tough stuff.

A lot of people ask me "Why do you write 'go to the next page' atthe end of the page or website?"

I learned that from the great copywriter Gary Halbert years agowho only changed that and increased response.

I do it because it works and because people need to be told to goto the next page. Now I had one lady tell me I insulted herintelligence. She called because she was so irritated that we had "goto next page" and to tell me how irritated we made her. I said "Well,

I'm sorry. A lot of people don't know what to do at the end of thepage, so we tell them what to do." Obviously she wasn't a goodprospect for my product, but that is not something that you takelightly.

You've got to overcome inertia and sloth and most people, I don'tcare what country you are in either, Australia, Canada, it doesn'tmatter where you go, people don't do anything unless some outsideinfluence or external force moves them to do something. And you areit, the outside influence, that external force.

Always keep in mind, is this going to get somebody to get off thecouch.

Here's what I taught the second graders by the way...


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KC Secret #16: Clarit y Is More Important Than Vocabulary

Now this is something I was teaching the kids that I told youabout.

We were talking about "I had three dogs. They died." And then heused the name "Lilly" or whatever, and I said "Well, who's Lilly?" Hesaid, "That's my new dog." Then I said, "But in your story (copy) youneed to say that my new dog is Lilly before you start talking aboutLilly." And he said, "Everybody would know Lilly's my new dog." "No,everybody wouldn't know Lilly is your new dog because she was just

introduced in your story without having any context."

So even at the 8-year-old level, we have to explain this, and wehave to explain this to people who are 58 and all ages.

You must be precise and clear. You can't assume anybody knowsanything. When I say clarity is more important than vocabulary, I'mgoing to give you an example. I wrote a letter to a guy aboutsomething and I said "In lieu of...." which probably most of you arefamiliar with the phrase "In lieu of" which also means "instead of" and

I wrote the words and it didn't even phase me because I had used itso many times. I got a call from the person and the deal we wereworking on almost got killed, and then I explained what I meantwhen I was saying in lieu of, I explained what the in lieu of was andwhat I was proposing. Well he thought I was asking for both things inour deal because he didn't know what "in lieu of" meant. He was veryupset when he called me because verbally we had discussed that Iwas not going to ask for the one thing and I was going to ask for theother thing and in my confirming memo I was confirming that "in lieuof this, I'm going to be asking for that".

Well, that one word almost cost a deal. Fortunately, he called meup. He didn't have to call me up, he could have killed the deal.


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So, whenever you think you're being clear and precise, rememberthat you might not be so clear and precise.

Take a look at what you're writing from a clarity standpoint, doeseverybody understand what this means and everybody meaning thatyou go down to maybe an 8 or 9-year-old level.

If my sons can understand things, in fact here's a quick example.

We were testing a headline for something that we were doing thatwas new. I wrote a few headlines and I showed them to my wife sothat we could figure out which headlines to test, and my 11 year old

saw the headlines laying out on the counter. Most of the time, I layout all the headlines all over the place and we try to pick the rightheadlines to begin with.

My 11 year old looked at a bunch of the headlines and said "Thesesuck." He said, "This one's good right here." I asked why they suckedand he said, "I don't know what they mean. This one I understoodexactly what it meant." I said, "Good, that's the one we'll start with."

So don't take it for granted that you're being clear.

I will never use "in lieu of" again in anything I ever do. I promiseyou that.

Which ties into the next thing Killer Copy Secret...


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KC Secret #17: Writing Down Will Catch The Most Sales

Lower yourself, lower yourself, lower yourself. Get down there. Getdown to that 8th grade or less level of communication. If any of youwatch an evening news show at 10:00 or 11:00, whenever your localnews is, and the way they communicate, my little kids can understandthe evening news, usually. Anything that is successful, and we'll showexamples in a minute, you have to write down. That means you usevery simple words.

George Rowell was a guy who was into patent medicine, in the late1800's and early 1900's, advertising really got its start from a lot ofcharlatans. There are no particular ads for this item, I'm just going to

read this to you. Patent medicine, which some of you may or may notknow, is herbal things, it was mostly alcohol with sugar water orwhatever, but the advertising was pretty good.

This guy in 1865 said...

" You must write your advertisements to catch damn fools, not coll ege professors. Then you'l l catch as many college professors as you will w ith any other sort."

Do you understand what he was saying over 100 years ago?

That if you write your advertisements down and be clearlycommunicating, it will catch as many college professors as you willwith any other sort. In other words, the college professor analyticaltype will get interested in lowbrow copy, but if you write highbrowcopy you won't get anybody. This was back in 1865 and I just bringthis up because I want to tell you there's nothing I'm telling you herethat's new. And any other website, book or supposed "guru" that triesto tell you they came up with this or that is probably full of it.

I didn't make any of this stuff up. I'm just repeating what I


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learned and hopefully you will be able to repeat it for yourselves.Believe me, I'm not that smart.

And finally...

KC Secret #18: Everyone is the same, we're all humans

I still hear this from everybody, "you don't understand, my marketis different."

Now there could be a geographic difference of why the market'sdifferent, there could be a demographic difference.

I have a company that I'm involved with in Australia where we'redoing direct marketing and the techniques that we use in Australiaselling information products are exactly like the copy we use here.They use different words. They spell things differently, but theformulas are the same.

In Canada we're just starting something and we just signed a deallast week that we're going to be testing a new thing in England.

People are people, even my wife will tell me, she's got a newproject she's working on and she tells me, "You don't understand. Thewomen are different. They won't respond to..." And of course, I neverargue with my wife. I'm just going to let her learn on her own.

Everybody's exactly the same. Exactly. Now within a wide range ofparameters, specific details of your target audience will change, butnot human behavior.

Human behavior never changes.

Keep reading to find the 4 questions you must have a damn goodanswer to...


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Chapter 6: Do You Have A Damn Good Answer To These Four

Questions? If Not, You Won't Sell Anything To Anyone!

This came from a guy named Maxwell Sackheim who was thefellow who invented the Book of the Month Club. You'll see a couple ofhis ads later. This guy was in direct marketing for 75 years. He passedaway in the ‘80's. But he was in direct marketing for 75 years and heinvented a lot of things that we all take as standard back before any ofus were around. These are the questions that he always asked and Isuggest that you take these four questions and put them up right infront of your desk or computer.

Question #1

Why Should Your Target Prospects Read or Listen to You?

Can you answer that question? Why should your targeted prospectsread or listen to you? That's a good question, because you think youhave something that is of interest to them? I don't think so. Thinkabout this very carefully.

Question #2

Why should your target prospects believe what you have to say?

Now these days, and remember, he wrote these four rules back 50years ago, can you think of a more skeptical society, there's no waythat it can be more skeptical.

This isn't just for the United States, it's the same in Australia. Theguy in England I'm talking to says it's just as bad there. Everywhere,

everybody is skeptical of everything, with good reason, because just


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about everything we've been taught is wrong, and everything webelieved in has been proven to be untrustworthy and so forth. Why

should anybody believe anything you have to say?

Questi on #3

Why should your target or prospects do anything about what you

are offering?

Because you need the money? That's not usually a good reason.

In financial businesses, people will make financial transactions

because they have to make a car payment, but they have people'smoney they can move around. You guys don't have that luxury. If youwant to get something, you should think why should they do anythingabout it.

Questi on #4

Last, but not least... Why should they act now?

One of the things about direct response is we set it up so have torespond and the sooner the better. We're still getting responses ayear after people ask for information, that's fine, but if we had to waita year for all the responses, we wouldn't be doing too good.

So, what's going to get them off their butts?

Ask yourself these questions. If you can't answer these questions,then the piece isn't ready to go yet.


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We often get the question "I put in an expiration date and aspeople are starting to recognize that the expiration date doesn't reallymean a whole lot because you're going to send me another piece ofmail later anyway or if I come back to your site, there'll be a newexpiration date. Do you see the trend that we are losing that urgencyto buy based on the expiration date?"

All I can tell you is we've been doing it for years and since westarted using the expiration dates the results have picked up.

When we do subsequent contacts via email or regular mail wedon't refer to the expiration date once it's passed, but in general we

get a lot of people that call up and say "Today's October 6th

and mydeadline is today, I want to get this going because I don't want tomiss out on the free gifts."

You'd be amazed at how it pushes people up and it's giving them areason to act.

You can test your expiration dates, you can test it without theexpiration dates and see what happens. Our tests without expirationdates don't work as good as the ones with expiration dates. So that's

all I can tell you.

Here's A Great Example of a SiteThat Answers A ll The 4 Questions

(connect to the Internet and click here to see the example)

This excellent piece by a real pro Corey Rudl, uses one of the oldest,and most trusty techniques there is in writing killer copy, especially ifyour product or pitch relates to making money.

Do you know what he's done? OK, I'll tell you. First of all, he'susing the "discounted dollars" approach right off the bat in hisheadline. He makes a powerful, hard to ignore announcement.

http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/11049http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/11049http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/11049http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/11049http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/11049


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He tells you that you can make over $10 for every dollar youspend, which is a strong proposition, and by itself will get lots of

prospects to stop and pay attention, which is the only point of aheadline, right?

But notice what else he does. He doesn't make the BIG mistakemost amateurs would make. He doesn't assume you know that a 10to 1 return is high or even good. No, Corey knows that you can neverassume your prospect "gets" anything, or assume they understandwhat something means! See, Corey, very wisely, goes on to tell youthat this 10 to 1 deal is the highest return on your marketing dollar.

But Corey doesn't stop there. Nope. He still needs to make youeven more interested and curious now that you know you can make a10 to 1 return, and that it's a high margin. He now tells you that thisamazing result has been made possible by the fall of the idiot dot.comcompanies that went bust.

Why does Corey do this? Why add this fact to his headline? Well,it's very simple. His prospect knows that the dot.com morons wentbelly up, but what he knows the prospects don't likely know is justhow, or why, this seemingly unrelated piece of news allows the results

he's touting to become possible.

Let me ask you. Do you know why the fall of the dot.com mentalmidgets allows YOU to make an obscenely high profit margin on yourown marketing dollars? If you don't know why, which is highlyprobable, you'll want to know, won't you? And if you get "hooked" bythe headline, and if you do only ONE thing after that..Corey's donethe hardest job there is in marketing.getting someone to STOP DEADand keep reading!

The job is to get them to STOP whatever they were doing, andread the next sentence! That's it. All that headline is being asked to dois get you to STOP and read the very next sentence!


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And if you look at his next sentence, you'll see that it's anotherkiller headline! Corey's not satisfied with just one killer headline! He

wants you to get sucked in even more! Now he teases you with thepossibility of a one man outfit doing over 5 million drachmas a year! Ifyou got "hooked" by the first headline, and you read this next one,you should be properly "hooked" and will do the only job this secondheadline was trying to do.to get you to read his first sentence of hiscopy! And once you do that..if he can write any kind of decent copy,you're well on your way to taking money out of your pocket andmaking it Corey's money!

Another key thing Corey does on this piece is PROVE that whathe's saying, which is almost too good to be true sounding, bySHOWING you his checks and pictures of him being interviewed byMaury Povich and so on. Corey's very quickly dispelling your naturalskepticism about how a "kid" like him can make so much dough with aone man operation.

See, Corey knows you don't believe shit, especially about himmaking all this money. Since he knows you don't believe shit, he pre-empts your bullshit detector by immediately proving he's not lying,and proving it in an overwhelmingly convincing way! He SHOWS youthe proof, because seeing is believing, right?

What he's doing is handling the hidden objection you have in yourbrain, BEFORE you stop reading because of it. He's not making theamateur's mistake of NOT bringing up objections immediately,because of being afraid to point out a potential flaw. Amateurswrongly assume if they don't point out problems with your message orproduct, that the prospect won't think of it him or herself. This is asnaïve as the government assuming if they don't teach kids sex

education, they won't think of sex themselves. (Hence, we have theHIGHEST teenage pregnancy rate in the free world, but that's anotherstory for another time.)


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See, in a live sales presentation, you might hear the prospect

voice the objection and be able to handle it. But since this isn't a livesales presentation, Corey's wisely brought it (the skepticism) right outin the open and annihilated it efficiently. (The only thing he mighthave done that could have made this a little stronger is to have saidsomething like, "I know you don't believe anything I'm saying andthink I'm full of shit. Well, let me tell you why...")

Now let's step back in time...


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Chapter 7: The Hidden, Buried Secrets Of Killer Advertising

Copy From The Old Time Advertising Masters!

"Circa 1880's" and one of the most profound statements ever.

A guy named Thomas J. Barrett of Pears Soap made what I thinkis probably the most profound statement about business there is...it'sa Killer Copy Secret...

KC Secret #19: Any fool can make soap, it takes a clever man to sellit

Now today, we have to say a clever person, but I'm using hisdirect quote.

I want you to really think about this because products are a dimea dozen. Ideas are a dime a dozen. To sell something, it takescleverness and my definition of cleverness is understanding humanpsychology. This guy was very, very clever and Pears Soap at thetime was the number one leading brand of soap until Ivory took overlater on.


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Disclaimer: Many of the ads are old and not the best quality.When we get better versions we'll notify you on the Killer CopyClub page or via email. Most of the important elments are legiblethough.

Now we're going to start looking at some ads here.

Click here to see sample ad

This first one is an ad from 1903 and if you look at this here, thislady's name is Susannah Cochroft and her headline is,

" Are you too thin? For only 15 minutes a day, practice in your own room upon special exercises I

will give you, you can be round, plump, wholesome,rested and attractive."

Does anybody think this would be a good appeal today? Would thiswork pretty good?

Nature intended you to be, why should you no t?

The fol lowing are extracts from the weekly reports of mypupils. " Just th ink Ms. Cochroft, I gained 25 pounds."

Now isn't that a great testimonial for today's environment?

"Please don't even thank me for interesting myfriends in your work. It is happiness to show myappreciation for restored health."

Here's a good one,


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" My bust, neck and chest have fi l led out beautiful ly, and I carry mys elf l ik e another woman." " You've done more for me than

doctors have done in 20 years. My const ipation is relieved. My nerves are

so rested and indigestion is all gone."

Pretty nice to talk about constipation in your marketing? I bringthis up for a lot of reasons. We're going to go through a bunch of adshere by the way.

First of all, the headline, in that marketplace at that time, guessingfrom reading the copy that she understood her market very closely,

was that women wanted to be "round, plump, wholesome, rested andattractive." So "Are you too thin?" would be a headline that would fitinto that, and if being thin was bad, like today, you would just simplysay "Are you too fat?" Of course, you probably couldn't say that. Youwould say "Are you weight challenged" or something.

It's got a headline that says, " Only 15 minutes a day practicingspecial exercises." The copy you can read through yourself.

And at the end " I will cheerfull y tell you about my work and ifI cannot help your particular case I will tell you. Myinfo rmation and advice are entirely fr ee."

And then she wrote a book called Character As Expressed In TheBody, Etc. I don't know what that book was about, but it sounds kindof interesting.

But again, a couple of reasons I bring this up. Number one, we'llgo into why these are good ads, but secondly, and much more

importantly, you can see that she's targeting in on her message.She's got testimonials and she got your attention, "Are you too thin?",and she got your interest because in only 15 minutes a day I canmake you "round, plump, wholesome, rested and attractive. Nature


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intended you to be, so why should you not?" Then she goes into thedesire, the testimonials are building up believability in making you

want her thing and that's she's built up thousands of them and whynot you? You'll be so much more attractive and so much bettersatisfied with yourself. Then she tells you to act to contact her andthat her information and advice are entirely free. So she's giving youa reason to act. Pretty good advertising for somebody who probablynever studied advertising.

On the next page is an all time classic ad...


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Do you make these mis takes in Engl ish.

This ad is one of the most famous ads.

This was a Maxwell Sackheim ad.

" Sherman Cody's r emarkable invention has enabled more than

100,000 people to corr ect their m is takes in Engl ish . Only 15 minu tes a day requir ed to improve your speech and writ i ng."

It seems like the "15 minutes a day" thing was pretty popular backin the old days. I think this ad was around 1910 or during World WarI.

I'm not going to go over in detail all of these ads, you can look atall the ads later, but again, "Do you make these mistakes in English?"The headline is very, very catchy.

By the way, any of these headlines or all of these headlines we'retalking about can be used and modified for your own purposes. For

example, if you were marketing to someone who is in the computerfield, "Do you make these mistakes with your programming?" Or tosomebody who is in exercise, "Do you make these mistakes with yourdiet or weight training?"

One of the key things Maxwell Sackheim talked about was thewords "these mistakes". This is very clever use of the headlinebecause if you said "Do you make mistakes in English" it's not thesame as "Do you make these mistakes in English?" Does anybodyknow why that's different?

It's because the word "These" makes you go into the copy becauseyou want to know what "These" are. If it just said "do you makemistakes?", it's a yes or no question.


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If you look at the, "Many persons use such expressions as 'leave themlay there' and 'Mary was invited as well as myself’. Still others say'between you and I'". He's giving you these mistakes right at the

beginning of his copy. He's trying to suck you into the copy and we'lltalk more about that later.

This ad ran for 40+ years before they pulled it. We're also going totalk a little bit about subheads, why most people make mistakes.

" What Cody did at Gary" "100% self-correcting device"

" Only 15 minut es a day" "Free book on English"

We're going to talk a little later about the alternative readershippath. If you read just the subheads, it will get you into the mindset oroffer even if you didn't read one word of the copy. Remember, I wasgoing to tell you about how people read things, a lot of people scanthings, they don't' read them. When you scan, you better havesubheads and we'll talk about that more. I just wanted to show yousome examples of really good subheads.

Now the picture of Sherman Cody may or may not add to theusefulness of the ad. I don't know. I tend to have found in a lot ofcases pictures don't help in advertising unless it's about ademonstratable product or there's a specific reason why the picture'sthere to amplify. But in general, the ads I have had the best luck withdo not have any graphics of any kind, pictures included. In this case, Idon't know if that helps or not for the copy, but I just wanted to showyou this.

Now let's move on to the next classic ad...


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" Would you gi ve $1 for 16 dancing lessons i f ..."

The reason that was done, of course, was if what? I have to read itto find out.

"Would you give $1 for 16 dancing lessons if learning to become apopular dancer made you so popular that everyone will be anxious foryou to attend their social affairs and learning to dance the Murray waygave you poise, ease, self-confidence to help develop yourpersonality, would you be willing to pay $1 for 16 dancing lessonsfrom America's foremost authority on social dancing?"

That's a long sentence, but it's got a message. I don't know iftoday this message would work. I don't know how many areinterested in learning ballroom dancing from Arthur Murray.It's asingle column of copy, a picture who I'm guessing is Arthur Murray.They don't have a caption.

By the way, if you do use a picture, you have to have a caption oran illustration. The other one at least said Sherwin Cody. Don'tassume people know what they're looking at or why it's there.

We tested an ad for my course "How To Make $4,000 A DayFrom Your Kitchen Table Sitt ing In Your Underwear" with apicture successfully. It was a picture of me sitting at my kitchen tablein my underwear and then the caption says "Jeff sitting at his kitchentable in his underwear making $4,000 a day". So we didn't leave it upto the readers' knowledge that they would know what that picturewas. We put a caption there explaining what the picture was. And ourtest results came back, and in some cases it actually lifted theresponse by having the picture there versus not having the picturethere.

Let's move on to learn about " The Mysteries of Lovemaking" ...


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Now, you don't need big ads to get good response. You see here asmaller third of a page ad. This ad is from the late 1800's. This is out

of a book I have, so ignore the text.

"The mysteries of love making solvedor an easy road to marriage."

That's a good headline. This w

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