by Andre Bell, veteran copywriter

Famed psychologist Abraham Maslow is probably most famous for saying, "to the person who only has a hammer all problems look like a nail."

This is most true in marketing...

Just look around. More people than ever before in human history have popped up claiming you can get rich from just one sales letter or ad. 'You are just one sales letter away from gobs of wealth' is their mantra.

HOGWASH!

What those unscrupulous opportunists fail to admit [or even see] is there's more to running a business than popping out a simple ad or sales letter. The opportunists are blind to what marketing really is.

Marketing isn't a single sales letter. Marketing isn't simply running an ad in the Yellow Pages or newspaper either.

Building a successful company requires more than a single sales letter or ad.

To see the greatest success possible, businesses should focus on each of these key areas of business growth:

1. Improve the efficiency and responsiveness of the marketing you're already doing
2. Define and clearly articulate a dominant competitive advantage and make sure your entire staff, clients, and prospects know what makes you different, better
3. Cross sell, upsell, back end sell, and look for reactivation opportunities
4. Develop complimentary alliances with other businesses
5. Exploit advertising media opportunities
6. Develop community relations and publicity opportunities
7. Profit from direct response marketing and advertising
8. Gain new business and sell more to existing clients through smart use of the internet
9. Find new uses you may have overlooked for existing products and services
10. Implement customer retention program
11. Launch a customer reactivation program
12. Consider expanding by buying other asset-rich or income companies
13. Work on an exit strategy for selling your company for high profit and huge investment return

A single sales letter isn't the key to optimal long-term growth. Each of the 13 steps above are critical for a company's long-term success.

A single sales letter or ad could never address each of the above areas.

Money In The Bank -- Theirs

Then why do so many copywriters focus so much attention on sales letters?

In a word. Money.

Many mid-level copywriters charge $25,000 to write a single sales letter. And the top 'guru' writers charge much more ($45,000 on up for a single letter).

Oh. Don't think of getting a better 'deal' from ad agencies. The major agencies won't even look at you if you don't have two million dollars or more to invest in marketing your company. That's because agencies get a percentage of each dollar you spend on ads.

Their high fees don't even come close to touching each of the 13 core business growth strategies above.

It isn't that copywriters or ad agents want you to fail to achieve top success for your company.

Usually "cookie-cutter" copywriters don't have an in-depth knowledge of marketing -- and no incentive to learn. And ad agencies are more concerned with winning awards --and your advertising dollars-- than increasing your sales.

Today anyone can buy a book, video, or course online that claims to teach almost anyone how to write ads and sales letter in a few short hours... and then claim to be a trained or certified copywriter -- and start charging $25,000 fees.

That is why the world is now saturated with copywriters who fail to write copy that sells. They just don't know any better.

However, to gain the knowledge needed to properly adapt critical areas of marketing into your business takes years of study. It's not as simple as filling in the blanks on generic sales letter templates.

Either a person gains that knowledge through decades of personal experience, or through years of studying the documented and proven works of others.

Investing years of study and research is not what today's 'pros' are going to do.

Really, why should they invest months or years studying marketing? After all, if they can convince enough people to spend $25,000 on a single sales letter there's no point in learning how to actually do anything more than cut-and-paste generic sales letter templates.

Those copywriters are looking for quick cash in their own pockets -- regardless of the results to you.

I Bet You Think This Song Is About You
Don't You? Don't You?

I know you probably want greater success for your business. And you probably want your next promotion to succeed. How do I know this? You wouldn't have read or skimmed this far if you didn't.

So I'm going to show you a few insider 'tricks' about writing better sales letters and ads that you might or might not know... so you won't fall victim to anyone. You can improve your own sales copy.

And if after reading this material you decide you want to grow beyond a single sales letter, I hope you decide to contact me. As a copywriter and marketing strategist I do more than write 'cookie cutter' sales letters and then charge $25,000 fees.

Here's How To 'Hit One Out Of The Ballpark'

If you want your next promotion to be a homerun here's what you need to understand...

You are the most qualified person to write your sales copy. Honest. Because of all the time you've invested in building your company, you know what keeps your prospects awake at night wanting a solution to their problems -- whether you realize it or not.

No template, ebook, instant letter writing software, or anything else written months or years ago can hammer away at the specific needs, desires, and wants of your target market. That's knowledge you have.

So here's the good news...

If your business isn't the success you dreamed of, I'm going to show you how to tap into your unique knowledge to increase your sales and make more money with your words -- without getting taken to the cleaners.

It doesn't matter what industry you work in. It doesn't matter the state of the economy. And it doesn't matter how strongly entrenched your competitors are either. Whether you're looking for insurance sales letters, direct mail letters, real estate sales letters, sample consulting letters, charity or donation sales letters, internet sales letters, or sales letters for any other industry or use... these tips will work for you.

The Three Letter Word That Makes Men Crazy

I must admit it. I get all tingly just thinking about it. Really. It's almost as exciting and powerfully addictive as that three-letter-word that moves the strongest man.... it's the power of the PEN.

Words in print or onscreen have the power to persuade, excite, and even anger masses of people. Much of our way of life today was determined by the power of words.

This skill isn't reserved for the intellectually gifted. In fact knowing how to make money with the power of your pen or keyboard is a great feeling that nearly anyone can experience.

I love it when a package I put together online or offline starts bringing in the bucks.

Seeing checks arrive in my mailbox and money growing in my online accounts --all generated from nothing more than words-- is a major turn on.

I dare say...nearly more exciting and satisfying that that other three letter word we men tend to go crazy over. Sorry but it's true.

Making money with words is a highly addictive turn on...

If you've experienced making money with your words you know exactly what I'm talking about. 

If you've haven't felt it yet, hopefully you won't be limited to having to only imagine the thrill and excitement for much longer. You will see it firsthand.

I know of no other way to legally bring in cash as quickly and consistently as a powerful and persuasive sales message.

Sales from direct mail total over two trillion dollars annually. Plus an estimated 300 billion dollars more are made and earned online... much of which comes from persuasive sales letters.

Obviously it is possible to make money with just words.

So what's the key to making your next promotion a real winner? Research. And following tried-and-true principles.

Here's something brief you need to know about doing research:

The more you know about your product, your market, the general state of the world around you, and your competition... the more you can persuade and motivate others to take action.

There's not enough time to detail all of the steps involved. Just believe me when I say that research is the key to sales success.

The Keys To Your Kingdom

Ok. You probably got to this page because you want to know how to use magic words that wil grow your business.

So let me share some insights with you...

First area to look at is failure avoidance.

This is important because if you do the things guaranteed to lead to failure you've no chance for success.

Most failed direct mail attempts are the result of violating most if not all of the fatal marketing and advertising mistakes that are disclosed in my report 32 Fatal Marketing Mistakes Everyone Is Making. Remove those 32 mistakes and your chance for success increases 100-fold. Violate those principles and you risk total slaughter of any potential for sales success.

These Little Mistakes
Are Costing Companies Billions

Other mistakes that kill any potential for sales:

• Sending a single letter and then sitting back crying because the mailing costs exceeded the income earned. The majority of your sales come from mailing multiple messages to each recipient, not just one letter. If you plan on mailing only one letter and expecting to get rich, I seriously suggest not mailing at all. Your profits will likely remain the same. Zero.

• Sending the letter to the wrong people. My goodness, this is so heavily violated that it should be the Eleventh Commandment: "Though Shall Not Mail to Complete Strangers Who Have NOT Identified Themselves As Having A Connection With You Or A Prior Interest In What You Offer!" Don't waste time mailing to an untargeted list. It won't work.

• And the Twelfth Commandment: "Though Shall Not Put People To Sleep With A Boring and Passive Sales Message!" -zzzz

How To Create Direct Mail Copy That Sells

After you've eliminated those mistakes from your marketing you must next write content that is compelling and interesting.

Your message must grab your reader by the eyeballs and make it impossible for him to bat an eye for fear of missing something juicy. That's what effective direct mail copy does for you.

So what are the steps in creating content that will keep your readers glued to your sales letter?

Here they are:

• Write compelling content that magnetically attracts readers, like sugar water attracts humming birds -- it's impossible for them to resist you.

• Use a powerful "hook" throughout your message. All great ads use a hook to set the ad apart from every other message that competes for the attention of the same market. The last thing a sales message should do is sound like every other ad that is out there. When it comes to marketing, sameness will kill your sales.

• Focus your message on benefits to your reader. Remember W.I.I.F.M.

• Use plenty of credibility statements and proof.

• And most of all...

...Preach To The Choir!

Communicate your message to people who already want what you're selling, or have shown a predisposition towards believing you. The worst way of selling is to waste time trying to educate anyone on why they should want what you're selling. That's a quick way to failure. Probably the quickest.

Instead keep this in mind: it's easier to preach Jesus to Christians than to atheists. It's easier to persuade Buddhists to follow the ways of Buddha, than to get a Christian to do so.

The same holds true to what you're selling. It is far easier to sell to people who already want what you're selling than to sell to people who must first be convinced of the value of your product or service.

Of what value is it to try to sell an AK-47 to a member of an Anti-Gun movement? None. You would be wasting your time. But what about selling a shotgun or spear or crossbow to someone living in a rainforest? Think you'd have a better chance at success there? You bet.

That's one of the major secrets to copywriting success. You filter out those who don't have an interest for what you're selling, and communicate only to those who do have an interest.

This will help...

Discover The Secrets For
Turning Your Words Into Cash

The above classic layout is considered one of the most effective formats for a direct mail piece.

It has a pre-head, a subhead, and an attention-grabbing picture. Ideally the picture should be of the writer of the letter or spokesperson. Oh. The headline format above is slightly malformed if you plan to send hundreds of thousands or millions of copies of your letter. In that case you'll want to alter this format a little.

For smaller mailings the results of changing the format is nearly negligible. The classic example is fine.

Oh. Writing to CEO's or other C-level executives the headline should be reformatted as an opening sentence, not as a literal headline. At that level, all mail is usually tossed out if it resembles sales communications instead of personal communication. Depending on your offering you should test the layout. Especially when writing to executives.

Speaking of layouts...

What do you get when you cross
clipart with hasty design?

Answer: Zero Response

Before

Synopsis: The "before" flyer above was created by the owner of an otherwise successful company. She was trying to generate new sales leads for her business. The problem is she had no prior training creating sales copy before her attempt to create that flyer. No one responded to her flyer.

I commended her for trying though. At least she included a specific offer (so many ads fail big on that point).

Anyhow, here's why the original flyer failed and what we did to fix it:

After the client handed her flyer to me I read it several times. At first glance the words 'what would you rather be doing' were confusing. I didn't understand what she was asking people if they'd rather do. Win the lottery? walk a tight rope? or something else? The question was just too vague for me to understand the intent of the headline.

"Rather than what?" was my question. I also wondered who in the world is being addressed in this example. The flyer just didn't make sense. At least not without further questioning.

So I asked a few questions:

• What are you trying to sell?
• Who are you trying to reach?
• Where is this flyer being used?

Afterwards I followed up with a few questions about the company and its history. Turns out the company was trying to promote custom painting services to affluent homeowners living on golf courses.  At a glance that is not being communicated in her flyer.

Why does this matter? Because when it comes to advertising, you have about two seconds to catch someone's attention and communicate why they should give you more of their time. If you fail, they move on. Your ad or sales letter will never be read.

"What would you rather be doing?" fails to communicate self-interest or even curiosity. And the ad fails to address the needs or concerns of the specific group intended to reach.

Don't Fly Blind

Before writing any marketing communication, knowing and understanding your market is critical.

The truth is, in this example 90% of the company's client base is made up of wealthy, widowed, women. Despite that knowledge, the company had spent thousands of dollars trying to reach all affluent homeowners as well as many commercial clients within specific geographic areas.

I advised the company to instead focus on the market they are most successful with. How? By showing a member of the target market enjoying the benefits of the services the company offers. In this case it's older women who are successful in life who enjoy being out on the golf course.

This is the headline and attention grabbing picture I came up with instead...

After

This 'after' example is the result of reaching out to the client's specific market.

Oh. For competitive reasons, other than the headline, the original content is excluded from my 'after' example. Also, the exact text layout is excluded. If you know Ogilvy's work, though, you can probably figure it out fairly easily ;)

Still, as you can see, the layout is a much more attractive, effective, and powerful example than the vague clipart flyer the company originally tried using.

A big plus here is... besides being a great flyer or insert, my example can also easily double as a postcard with few formatting changes. Double value for single amount of research!

Sitting Pretty

When you sit down to create sales copy there's a lot to consider. For example, here are a few of the primary components that make up responsive sales copy:

• the hook
• the offer
• the guarantee
• reason-why
• benefits
• third-party credibility
• verifiable track record
• use of emotional-response marketing (this is a big one)
• attention grabbing headline [where appropriate]
• a congruent picture that is irresistible to ignore
• use of postscripts (P.S.)
• the one form of proof that makes it impossible for any competitor to outsell you
• and urgency

Those are just the beginning elements.

There are hundreds more 'tricks of the trade' that get inside the head of your reader and prevents them from putting down your sale piece until they finish reading it. I'll give you an example of one of the most powerful industry 'tricks' in a minute. Just keep reading.

Why Write Until Your Hand Hurts?

Here's an insider copywriting secret: few direct response copywriters write from scratch. Instead, they grab sales letters and ads already proven to generate millions (and in some cases billions) of dollars. Then they simply re-write those sales letters. If you hire one of those unethical marketers, you could end up paying a 'professional' $25,000 to do nothing more than copy someone else's already proven sales letter.

What a rip off!

Don't bother paying that kind of money for something any kid can do.  That process of 'stealing' someone else's work is called "swiping". As strange as this may sound, it's perfectly legal. That's because no one can patent or copyright an idea.

The good thing for you is, you can copy the concepts from any good ad or sales letter and produce the same results for your offer. That's because the psychology that moved someone to buy one thing, will move people to buy another. Human nature never changes.

To get started at writing your own copy simply find a few winning sales letters. Then copy the letters by inserting information about your product or service.

Don't copy the words!!! That will get you into hot water. Copy the ideas.

I will get into exactly how to do this in more detail in a moment. For now just remember, swiping proven sales copy will improve your response much better than risking your reputation on one of the thousands of generic sales letter templates littering the internet. And much better than writing from scratch--unless you've studied copywriting in-depth.

The Proof Is In The Pudding...

Hey, do you remember I said, "There are hundreds more 'tricks of the trade' that get inside the head of your reader and prevents them from putting down your sale piece until they finish reading it..." ?

Here's a copywriting secret you won't find available free to the general public: the human brain is designed to solve problems. If you give it a situation that is unresolved it will continue until that problem is solved or can be erased from memory, forgotten. The brain hates cliffhangers.

So if you want someone to keep reading your words, you simply tell them something like, "I'll give you an example in a minute. But first..." then you go onto some other subject.

I used at least three cliffhangers in this article. Did you catch them all before I revealed this technique? Or did you scroll through this article in hopes of finding what I hinted at? Or did you just keep on reading all the way through to this point in hopes of coming across the information?

Either way, the cliffhangers are designed to make you do that. Use cliffhangers in your sales letters too, and your readers will be forced to continue reading or skimming until they find what you were holding out from them. Just like you did ;-) 

That's just one way to guarantee your message gets read.

Ok, so that's how to create ads and sales letters that move people to action. Hopefully we've hit the nail on the head and hammered the point home that more than a single sales letter is needed to achieve serious business success.

Yours In Success,

Don't settle for any sales letter template or junk direct mail 'template' before you check this out...

It's Not Your Fault

There's nothing inherently wrong with writing your own sales copy or creating your own marketing game plans.

But sometimes we are too close to our own businesses. It becomes hard to see how to improve our results without working harder or longer.

At times we may feel we need an independent viewpoint. Someone to help free us up for other activities we are best suited for...to lessen the frustrations of running a business.

Maybe I can help. Maybe not. There's only one way to find out.

Lets talk.

As a start I'd like to know a few details about your objectives, your company, and your project. There's no charge for this discussion.

If you qualify I'll give you a complete analysis and review of your marketing and advertising strategies. There will be no high-pressured sales pitch. (I hate those things). This is a diagnostic process to understand your project and objectives.

Simply fill out the information below.

Yes, Andre! I'd like to apply for an initial fact-finding interview to uncover new and overlooked marketing opportunities to increase my sales, streamline my current marketing processes, and make my marketing more predictable, measurable, and responsive. I understand it's easy and free to see if there's a match for us to work together or not. I also understand that I send no money now. Instead, I simply complete the fields below and give you a few brief details about my project and my company. Afterwards, if it looks like my project might qualify for you to do something with, you'll invite me to schedule a telephone interview with you. I have the choice to continue beyond the initial interview or not. On that basis I'll tell you a little something about my project and my company right now. Please let me know right away if it sounds like we might be a match or not. Submitting this information is not a guarantee my project will be accepted. And my privacy is assured. Tell Andre About Your Company And Your Objectives Using The Spaces Below Please do not contact Andre if you are promoting things like pornography anything political, religious, "spiritual", clairvoyant, or is in any other way divisive anything unethical or harmful to others (like tobacco products, 'recreational' drugs,  gambling) or if any portion of your project involves illegally spamming others Your Name Phone Number Email Address Website Enter your comments or questions or other services you are seeking Click the "Submit Comments" button below to send your message to Andre and agree to terms not to send spam to Andre. (Spammers read the legal warning below) NOTE: Andre cannot quote a specific fee without knowing exactly how much work is involved. However, as of January 1, 2010 Andre only accepts projects that include an equity share on his copy results. If you are not in the position to hire a copywriter at this level please do not contact Andre. If you meet these qualifications there's no charge to speak to Andre about your next copy project. However, he does not work for free. So please do not tie up his time if you do not meet these requirements. © Copyright Andre Bell 2007 - 2010 Privacy Statement and Site Terms of Use