Each of those areas is critical for your success.

A single sales letter or ad can never address each of these areas. That's dreadful... especially when you consider the outrageous cost of hiring someone to write just a single sales letter or ad.

Money In The Bank -- Theirs

Many so called 'professional' copywriters charge $25,000 to write a single sales letter.  The top writers charge much more ($45,000 on up). And the major ad agencies won't even look at you if you don't have two million dollars or more to spend.

Those high fees don't even come close to touching all nine areas of marketing. It isn't that those writers don't want to help you succeed. They simply don't have an in-depth knowledge of marketing -- and no incentive to learn.

Today, anyone can buy a book, video, or course that claims to teach how to write ads and sales letter... then tell the reader to claim to be a copywriter -- and start asking for $25,000 fees.  That is why the world is now saturated with copywriters.

However, to adapt all nine critical areas of marketing into your business takes years of knowledge.  Either a person gains that knowledge through decades of personal experience as I have, or years studying the documented works of others...which I've also done.

But investing years of study is not what today's 'pros' are going to do.

Today's copywriters are looking for quick cash in their own pockets. They are not looking to invest months or years studying marketing. Really, why should they? 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 templates.

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

I know you probably want greater success from your business. And you probably want your promotions 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... so you won't fall victim to anyone. 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...

Only 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.

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 addictive as that three-letter-word most guys think about all day long. Making money with words is as exciting as thinking about your favorite c.a.r.  (you weren't thinking s.e.x. where you?)

Anyhow... knowing how to make money with the power of your pen or keyboard is a great feeling.

I love it when a package I put together online or offline starts bringing in the bucks. Seeing checks in my mailbox and money growing in my online accounts --all generated from nothing but words-- that's a major turn on. Sorry but it's true.

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 have to only imagine the thrill and excitement for much longer.

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 remember that research is the key to sales success.

The Keys To Your Kingdom

Here's what you need to do with your copy if you want to make money just from the words you type on your computer keyboard.  First, there's 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.

By the way, keep reading to learn how to request a free copy of my 32 Fatal Marketing Mistakes Everyone Is Making And How To Fix Them report and audio CD.

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 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). Oh. The headline format above is malformed if you plan to send hundreds of thousands or millions of copies of your letter. For smaller mailings, the results of changing the format is nearly negligible.

Speaking of layouts though...

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

Zero Response

Before	After
	(click to see larger image)

Synopsis: The "before" flyer on the left 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)?

I was also confused over what they were being asked if they'd want to stop doing? And who in the world is being addressed in her example? I just didn't get it.

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. You have about two seconds to catch someone's attention and communicate why they should give you more of their attention than that.

"What would you rather be doing?" doesn't say a thing about painting your home or going golfing.  No one is going to read the flyer to find out either. In fact no one did. The flyer got tossed out without a single phone call.

The problem is 90% of the company's client base is made up of wealthy, widowed, women. Despite that knowledge, the company had spent thousands of dollars marketing to all affluent homeowners and many commercial clients in their geographic target area.

I advised the company to instead focus on the market they are most successful with. And even better, show 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.

The 'after' example is the result of targeting a specific market. As you can see it is a much more effective and powerful example than the clipart example the company originally tried using. Besides being a great flyer or insert, my example can also double easily as a postcard with a few formatting changes. Double value for single work!

Credits:

• The stock photo is available from inmagine.com. I highly recommend their services for photos
• The layout was inspired by the work of famed adman David Ogilvy of Ogilvy & Mather
• The headline was inspired by studying the work of another of my chosen mentors, Dan Kennedy
• The words in the flyer were inspired by the works of Caples, Rooser Reeves, John E Kennedy, Mr. Lasker and way too many other masters of copywriting who've since come and gone. For competitive reasons, other than the headline, the original content is excluded from my 'after' example

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 emotion (this is a big one)
• attention grabbing headline
• a picture that is irresistible to ignore
• use of postscripts (P.S.)
• 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 'tricks' in a minute.

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. As you can see, a lot of work goes into creating successful sales promotions.

Maybe you're now ready to tackle your next promotion yourself. That's great. But if you're tired of studying and reading, if you just want the work done for you, if you want to finally just sit back and watch your sales grow... simply complete the fields below.

I promise I'll bring more to the table than a single sales letter. Oh. If you qualify for me to take on your project I will send you a free copy of my copywriting report and audio CD mentioned above.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours In Success,

Try My Total Marketing Package And If You Don't Make More Money I Will Pay YOU $500.00 Out Of My Own Pocket For Your Trouble!

This is not an act of desperation.

I turn down 199 out of every 200 inquiries I receive. I'm not just picky.. I'm busy. So I must remain highly selective of the projects I take on.

But if you qualify for my Total Marketing Package I guarantee you will make more money than any fee I quote...or else my work is free and I PAY YOU $500.00.  My "Risk Is On ME" guarantee is unheard of among marketing advisors. Publicly taking such a risk is an indication that I believe I know something that will help you profit too.

Maybe until now you've written your own sales copy or created your own marketing game plans. That's common and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But sometimes because we are too close to our own business it's hard to see how to improve our results without working harder or longer. At times we need a little helping hand and an independent viewpoint to help free us for activities we are best suited for...to lessen the frustrations of running a business.

Perhaps I can help. As a start I suggest you send me some details about your objectives and your company. There's no charge for this review.

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 see where you are at. Where you'd like to be. And uncover what direction we should take to bridge the gap between the two.

Simply fill out the information below. There's no charge to get the ball rolling...

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 do business. 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 now. There's no charge for you to review the details about my project. 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. There's no charge for the interview. That may change in the future to eliminate time wasting freebee seekers and insincere people from taking up your already limited time. Since this is a diagnostic meeting to determine how you might best be of assistance to me, there's no charge for the interview. After the interview, you'll either tell me you can't help me or you'll give me a quote for completing my project. I have the choice to continue beyond the initial interview or not. I understand you can only give a quote once you know how much work is required of you.  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 looks like you might be able to do something with my project or not. Tell Andre About Your Company And Your Objectives Using The Spaces Below Please do not contact me if you are promoting pornography anything political, religious, "spiritual", clairvoyant, or is in any other way divisive anything unethical or harmful to others (like tobacco products and gambling) or if any portion of your project involves spamming Your Name Company Name Address City State/Providence Zip Phone Number Email Address Website 1. What area of marketing do you need help with the most? 2. What are your marketing objectives for the next 30 days, 90 days, 12 months, 18 months? Are you primarily interested in reaching a certain number of new clients, gross sales, net profit, or some other goal? 3. Imagine for a moment... if you and I were speaking three years from today and you were looking back at having worked with me, what must have happened during that time to make you happy with your progress? 4. What has been your most successful marketing approach to date? 5. What is your primary product/service? 6. What is the sales cost (range) of your average products/service? 7. How many clients do you serve per week, per month, per year? 8. How many clients have you served since establishing your business? 9. Right now, how much more business could you comfortably accommodate without having to add more staff? 10. List below any further marketing comments, observations, questions, or comments you may have. 11. What is your deadline for this project? Required Legal Notice: No part of the initial interview is meant to convey legal or financial advice. If you need such advice contact an attorney. No specific dollar amount of income can be guaranteed through my consultations. All comments and suggestions made by me remain my intellectual property. All proprietary information disclosed by you will be kept in the strictest confidence unless otherwise agreed to. NOTE: I cannot guarantee your project will qualify for a Total Marketing Package nor can I quote a fee without knowing exactly how much work is involved. There's no charge for me to review the information above to determine if I might be able to do something with your project or not. However, if I believe I can help, all projects begin with a billed diagnostic meeting by phone. I do not work for free. © Copyright Andre Bell 2007 Contact Privacy Statement and Site Terms of Use