That SELLS!
So now let's talk about some unwavering rules of writing copy and some things I'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 not giving you any opinions on things here, I'm just giving you information that has been proven by results and facts and empirical evidence. I'm really big on empirical evidence 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 Internet marketing. Your opinions and everybody else's opinions are all basically meaningless. So the whole thing we're going to cover here is straight from empirical evidence 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 they understand who they're going to sell this to and what the market is, and it's not even 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 better yet, they don't even understand what it is that may have made them successful...in spite of themselves.
If you don't understand the market that you're going after or you don't have somebody with you, a partner or associate or consultant, in some capacity who understands the market very, very intimately, you're not going to have success in almost every case.
KC Secret #7: Actually, something to avoid...Usually, almost everybody starts out with a product and then they try to find somebody to sell it to. Find somebody to sell to...then create what they want.
When you write your copy if your product is designed that way, usually your copy won't make much difference, again because they're not going to be interested in buying it.
The more successful way to go and the way it's been done forever by the most experienced and successful is to pick a market or markets and then develop your product or service based on what that market is telling you that it wants or think that 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 the market first and then seeing if the product will fit.
Occasionally, and maybe by a rare circumstance you can get lucky where you develop 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 fail if 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've done it myself, and I'll probably do it again even though I know better. You really have to focus in on this. That is something that is a very fundamental part of success and again, your copy won't make any difference if your product or service isn'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 help creating one, the most cost effective and easiest way to get a TON of help is the book my Monique Harris on exactly that, creating products. I urge you to add it to your library. Not only was it used to create this product but the marketing we learned 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.
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 the way, 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 on every ezine and mailing list you can because you learn a lot about copy and what people are doing.
I got one yesterday from a guy whose name I won't mention, some of you might know 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 increase in the amount of mail I get for health related newsletters, products, vitamins and all these substances that are going to cure your body.
This guy wrote this letter and talked about a family member of his that was cured by this amazing product. Now, I usually skip around when I get the letters and glance at them just to see the techniques.
A lot of people look at letters differently than the way you think they'll look at them. So, I'm going through this thing quickly and as I read the whole thing, he was trying to offer two things with the letter. He had an offer to call his office to discuss something with him about this product and he also was trying to get you to be in the business 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 should be 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 stuff which 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 no explanation of the business opportunity in any way, and then you were just
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 be expected to do.
Now let me give you another example which is lead generation. I'm sure most of you have seen examples of lead generation we do or others do for different companies 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 the person to leave at bare minimum their email address, maybe their name also or pick up the phone and call and leave a message on a recorded message line. We don't mix up anything else with that.
When you get our email offer or are redirected to our salesletter page or get a sales letter in the mail, we offer one direct offer and if we have other offers or subsequent sales or other things, we don't mix that in the sales letter. I'm not interested at that point in getting them to think about other things, I'm only interested in making that first sale.
So, whatever you do, don't do like a lot of people trying to lead generate and sell in the same piece.
Like this example where this guy sent this letter to me that wasn't lead generated where it was so mixed up as far as what he was talking about that I didn't know what he was talking about.
Now I'm reading these things from a different perspective because I'm reading them 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 out what's going on, it's over.
He got me to read it because of my professional interest in it. I'm sure 99% of the people getting his letter aren't even getting a quarter of the way through it before it's gone.
If you don't get that succinct focus on what you're trying to do with that particular effort, you're going to have a lot of trouble. Paul Hartunian at http://prprofits.com the great marketer and info product producer on getting FREE Publicity always talks about public relations and when most people use press releases, they try and mix several attempts into one thing and he can show you why that doesn't work there either.
So, whatever you do, don't do like a lot of people trying to lead generate and sell in the same piece.
Like this example where this guy sent this letter to me that wasn't lead generated where it was so mixed up as far as what he was talking about that I didn't know what he was talking about.
Now I'm reading these things from a different perspective because I'm reading them 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 ever to 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 curiosity provoking and "meaty" points that come out with all guns blazing! Dan doesn't hold back 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, and amateurs make. They hold back on revealing BIG benefits, saving them for later, for some 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 I mean by that? Well, you see that Dan isn't trying to make a sale here on this first contact 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 free information.instead of trying to make a sale on the spot. He will follow up with all the leads numerous times, as you see he's telling you he's going to do in the lead generation copy. It is often better to get leads that you generate on your own, as opposed to buying a mailing list and trying to make sales right off the first contact. If you think your offer might be more successful by being less pushy, and trying to generate 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 you don't get this one...
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 up broke. You can't sell things in general to people based on need. It has to be on what they want.
There are some basic staples in life like people who own razor blade companies probably can continue to sell razor blades without a lot of good direct response copy because most men and women have some shaving needs and there are only 5 billion people on the planet and most of them shave something or other, so you don'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 human life, which I don't imagine most of you reading this book are selling food or other basic needs, then you better start thinking about what they want and not what they need.
I can't tell you how many things that I have had that have failed because I thought people needed it or how many samples of things we see all the time where the writer thinks everybody needs this or that.
We hear this all the time...
"Everybody needs this. Why isn't this working?"
Well, the reason it isn't working is because nobody needs much of anything except some basic staples of life. Actually, all we need really is some molecules of oxygen 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 and that sort of thing is a terrible way to think about things. Fill a want and you'll be okay, but fill a need is always going to be trouble for you and your copy. When we go over the examples; you'll see that we are always trying to focus on what people want.
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 need a Land Cruiser. I could be driving a different vehicle that could get me where I need to go. I wanted it because the winters in Chicago can be bad and I wanted a
four-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 physically speaking without buying this book, but you wanted to buy it.
"Everything that's happened has happened... because of people wanting to do things..."
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 people wanting to do things. People didn't need to expand society or take over other geographic areas or civilizations. They wanted to. So everything that happens is because people want to do things and there's a huge difference between needing and wanting.
On the next page I'll show you the "Secret" behind how people buy...
KC Secret #10: Prospects have to justify their decision to buy after making the purchase from an emotional basis.
Now this is very similar to what happened in the OJ thing. Do you remember seeing the jurors on TV? One juror said she first voted guilty, and then she was convinced by the others to go for an acquittal. One juror said she knew he was innocent 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 up anything that would have taken them to a reasonable conclusion that he did it.
Then they began rationalizing, every juror began logically rationalizing their emotional decision they made. They are rationally explaining to themselves and to others the justification of what they did from an emotional basis.
Because...
People will always make a decision based on emotion and then justify it logically.
Now I'll hear this a lot, "That might be true in whatever, but in my industry that's not true because I sell things to computer engineers or whatever and those people won't buy things. They are analytical and they're going to buy things based on specs and statistical data and that sort of thing."
That's not true.
A lot of pharmaceutical companies sell directly to physicians. This doesn't happen as much these days, but I used to know a couple of women that were pharmaceutical salespeople and in the old days they would (and I'm not saying this because I agree with this, I'm just telling you what they did) usually hire very attractive women to go out to see doctors when the doctors were mostly men to sell these pharmaceutical supplies and medicines.
Now is it right or wrong? That's not the issue. What I'm talking about is that the doctors would prescribe these medicines because they had this very attractive woman coming in every month to say hello and dropping off samples. Again, right or wrong isn't the issue.
The issue is that these doctors who were supposed to be analytical scientists are recommending a certain drug to all their patients because Leslie's really cute. Now we can all disagree with that all we want, but that is the reality of how those things were done.
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 then rationalize 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...
KC Secret #11: You must get their attention, interest, desire and action.
This is the formula AIDA. I'm sure you've heard of it.
This formula was first arrived at in 1906 by a professor of psychology when he was analyzing advertising. He wrote a book in
This formula was first arrived at in 1906 by a professor of psychology when he was analyzing advertising. He wrote a book in