Vanilla Vs 99 flavors Sales-letters
August 2, 2009 by Russell Hall
Filed under Articles, Copy Writing
The Plain Truth About Sales Letters That Work
If you’ve been on the Internet for any amount of time you would have noticed that sales letter seem to come in all kinds of varieties and presentation formats,… but lets take a look at the conventional sales letter for a moment.
While most Internet Marketers are prepossessed with the importance of flashy graphs, fancy borders and background, flashing .gif order buttons, creative images, custom headers and so forth, there are a few people that are approaching the task of sales letter creation a little differently. You could call them the "vanilla marketers" I suppose.
What these guys are doing in my opinion is quite brilliant because they’re relying on content and copywriting skill rather than flashy graphics that capture attention and tend to subtly play on hidden emotional triggers to assist in the sales objectives.
I can give you two examples of guys that have mastered this process. The format and presentation of their sales letters always tends to look the same. There’s nothing flashy,… just a plain background and then the headlines and a bit of highlighting does the rest. To me, that tells me from the outset that these guys have something really worth reading about because they’re so confident that they DONT need a bunch of flashy graphics to win the day.
Let me give you a couple of examples: Robert Plank,.. is a programmer turned developer and excellent Internet marketer. During the past couple of years I have watched him go from virtually nowhere to being a highly successful Internet marketer. He produces lots of products, most of which are really great,… and all of them are promoted using the same sales letter graphic presentation format that he’s been using since day-1,.. "plain vanilla". There are no fancy headers and footers, no visual graphics, just headlines and copy and a call to action that gets results. Although there are some graphics used such as letter body borders (gives the sales letter a shadow effect) and order buttons that change color on scroll-over, the only other mechanisms being used are colored headlines and dashed-border boxes. The other thing that’s becoming more prevalent on Robert’s sales letters lately is the use of video,.. but again that’s presented very simply in the sales letter.
The other guy that my hat goes off to for the plainest (but truly excellent) sales letters is Paul Myers. On Pauls sales letters you won’t see any graphics at all. Even the borders of the sales letter body are plain black lined shadowless borders. He uses black and white text without even any colored headlines. The headlines of course are larger and emboldened but no color separation at all. Occasionally he’ll take a phrase or sentence and highlight it (usually in grey),… and when you get to the end of the sales letter the order button isn’t a button, it’s just plain text that says something like GET STARTED TODAY. Now THAT"S selling with confidence! I love the approach and it just absolutely proves that all the focus and emphasis on flashy graphics isn’t so important as having something really worthwhile to offer and then presenting it powerfully using sales copy that sells.
In conclusion, I’d have to say that the thing that both Paul and Robert have got going for them is that while everyone else is throwing fancy graphics at their page visitors, Paul and Robert are catching their attention (even if at a subliminal level) with the fact that their sales letters are noticeably different in the absence of graphics and therefore that alone makes them distinctive. It’s very clever and subtle,.. but most of all I just really admire the raw talent and confidence that goes into their highly effective sales letters.
Cheers,
PS… the links to these sales letters are not affiliate links (nope…not even cloaked links).. just there to show you exactly what this article is talking about 
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Copywriting Inspiration
July 30, 2009 by Russell Hall
Filed under Articles, Copy Writing
Copywriting Inspiration
If you’re an experienced marketer online or offline you’ll be aware that copy writing is the most important ingredient when it comes to making sales and getting people involved with you product, service or cause.
At some stage you’ll probably need to attend to the task of creating copy and if you’re a relative beginner (especially to Internet marketing) then that prospect could be a daunting one for you even if you’ve previously had some experience with persuasive writing.
The thing to bear in mind is that sales copy is simply “salesmanship in print”. That fact and statement has been echoed by all of the talented and great copy writers in existence but the thing is to understand what salesmanship is and how the approach to selling and the whole sales process changes from one industry to another as well as changing between peer groups and generation demographics.
It seems that the days of “hard sell” (pushy style) are all but behind us even though I’ve seen a recent wave of subtle hard sell messages online where the “fear”, “scarcity”, and “inadequacy” factor have been played on, and in some cases I believe too much so.
These days, people seem to respond far more positively to being sold to “softly” or in fact not “sold” to at all but “helped” to make investment choices that benefit them richly. For sure consumers are smarter and more discerning than ever and when you combine that with the fact that the lingering thought of recession, foreclosure sales and corporate downsizing, it just makes the task of facilitating sales more challenging than it’s ever been.
I draw my inspiration and copy writing ability from my past sales experience which included a stretch selling life assurance and investment products, door to door (where the first 15 words and 7 seconds either made you or broke you) as well as some media advertising and direct sales,- so I have a slight head start on the task. Having said that, I still like to carefully analyze good sales copy and try to break it down into demonstrable chunks which I can emulate here and there.
However, rather than sitting blank minded and frustrated at an empty word-doc, I often like to take inspiration from reading some good articles on copywriting and sales. That most often leads me either to Seth Godin’s blog or to Michel Fortin’s blog. I’ve found both of them to be excellent sources of information, tips, resources and inspiration. I was actually looking over a few of Michel Fortin’s articles last night and I realized that one of the reasons why he enjoys such favorable notoriety as a copy writing authority (apart from being naturally gifted in that regard) is because his blog has been going for years and as a result there are literally hundreds of articles from which you can draw a lot of information. I usually rock on over to his site and type in a search for some particular topic and most often I get a choice of several really terrific articles that I can find some useful tips or pointers from. I haven’t written this to win any favor or secure any financial reward from Michel at all,.. I just genuinely feel that the guy really has his finger on the pulse of what’s currently happening with copywriting and as such is a resource to avail myself of. One of the things about my blog is that I like to focus on pointing people in directions that I feel could help, and in the area of copy writing Michel Fortin is certainly one of them!
I’ll be regularly adding articles to this category so you can bookmark it, or subscribe to RSS or newsletter located at the top of the page.
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100 Greatest Headlines Ever Written
July 29, 2009 by Russell Hall
Filed under Articles, Copy Writing
Recently whilst searching for "The 100 Greatest Headlines Ever Written" I found several references to the list which has long been considered to be the best of the best. However, one of these lists was in the form of an article by the great marketing genius Jay Abraham in which he’d taken the list and then added his own expert commentary underneath each of the headlines so that the reader could gain a richer understanding of the simple yet powerful psychological triggers that were invoked by each of the headlines. The great thing about that is that you can take those psychological triggers and creatively apply them to your own headlines to come up with some powerful combinations. So I therefore concluded that rather than just pasting the plain list here, that I’d give credit to Jay Abraham for his excellent appendices and republish that article in this post. I’ve just a few of my favorites here, but you can see the full list and commentary in the original article at Jay Abraham’s site at http://www.abraham.com/articles/100_Greatest_Headlines_Ever_Written.html
1. THE SECRET OF MAKING PEOPLE LIKE YOU Almost $500,000 was spent profitably to run keyed ads displaying this headline. It drew many hundreds of thousands of readers into the body matter of a "people-mover" advertisement — one which, by itself, built a big business. Pretty irresistible, isn’t it?
10. DO YOU MAKE THESE MISTAKES IN ENGLISH? A direct challenge. Now read the headline back, eliminating the vital word "these." This word is the "hook" that almost forces you into the copy. "What are these particular mistakes? Do I make them?" Also notice (as with many of the other headline reviewed) that this one promised to provide helpful personal information in its own context, not merely "advertising talk."
13. YOU CAN LAUGH AT MONEY WORRIES — IF YOU FOLLOW THIS SIMPLE PLAN Something everybody wants to be able to do. A successful keyed ad upon which many thousands have been spent.
21. DISCOVER THE FORTUNE THAT LIES HIDDEN IN YOUR SALARY One of those good "discover what lies hidden" headlines. (Note others here.) A proven puller for an advertiser offering sound securities on a "pay out of income" basis.
23. HOW I MADE A FORTUNE WITH A "FOOL IDEA" Paradoxes excite interest. Broad appeal: almost everyone has once had a pet moneymaking idea that others have thought foolish and impractical. Sympathy for the underdog: "What’s the story of this man who ‘turned the tables’ on the people who ridiculed him?"
27. HOW A "FOOL STUNT" MADE ME A STAR SALESMAN What is the ‘fool stunt’? Why did people call it that? How did it transform this fellow? I’d like to be able to ’sell’ myself and my ideas — even though selling may not be my vocation.") A large expenditure was made profitably on this ad after its resentfulness had been proven.
85. 76 REASONS WHY IT WOULD HAVE PAID YOU TO ANSWER OUR AD A FEW MONTHS AGO An interesting example of an ad that backtracks — pointing out in detail what the reader missed by not buying the product before. A frequently repeated ad used by a well-known news magazine to pull for subscriptions.
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So those are just a few of my favorites from the list that’s really worth checking out over at Jay Abraham’s site. Actually, I heard that someone had developed a program that created headline examples based on inputted keywords and other information, and then used this list of The 100 Greatest Headlines Ever Written to compose the samples. I haven’t tried it or even seen it but if any of my readers have I’d love to hear your thoughts,- which you can leave here by posting a comment.
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