A saying goes that he who projects a tough exterior usually has a soft, cuddly interior. Perhaps it goes to show there are people who know the master copywriter well enough to create this cute caricature :)

I’m taking a little time out to write about a legend I hardly know. As far as this small-fry marketer living halfway round the world is concerned, my initial impression is that Gary seems to be a pioneer of “offensive copywriting”. I’m not sure what his usual choice of 4-letter words are but from what I’ve heard, he writes in a “I got nothing to lose. Show me all your bets” tone, and true enough, he endorsed The Rich Jerk’s copywriting because he identified with it. In fact, there’s something about Jo Han Mok’s copywriting that makes me suspect they contain shades of Gary’s style. On the few occasion I met Jo ‘live’ I should have asked if he learned directly from Gary. Maybe next time…

Gary died in his sleep on Easter Sunday. The tributes are pouring in:

“I have been learning from Gary since I was 15 years old and was blessed to call him MY FRIEND. Gary was one of the greatest marketers in the history of mankind. And that is not an understatment.”

John Reese

“You know Eric, Gary had the best copywriting skills I’ve ever seen. ;) Wish I could do one tenth of what he could do in his writing.”

Mary

“That man provided me with some of the best material I have ever seen for copy. He was a legend and will truly be missed. Marketers, if you have any sense of desire for improvement in what you do, you’ll make the effort to see what this man accomplished in his lifetime. And what the legacy he left behind can do for you.”

Omar Khafagy

“Even before anyone had dial-up, Gary was a highly praised direct response marketer. I will honor his memory by reading a marketing manual I had purchased from him long before the phrase Internet Marketing was conceived.”

Akogo

“Sad news…had the pleasure of meeting him and getting a copywriting critique…the man was flat out brilliant. His swipe file is one of my prized possessions. A true legend in marketing.”

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming

…Just a few taken from this Warrior thread.

You MUST study The Gary Halbert Letter. Gary is so generous with his content for his newsletter archive. You will understand more than his ‘offence’ trademark, it is his business experience, humor and personal confidence that pervades his language. Just read “Canine Testicles” and laugh out loud. It’s one episode in a series concerning a “water filter” ad so please make it a point to cover what it’s all about.

Susanna Hutcheson uploaded one of Gary’s famous ads, a weight loss ad.

Although I hardly know the man, I have seen him quoted in other sales pages and his testimonies for other products. If you have learned directly from Gary, please feel free to put down some great lessons and insights you have gained, or simply pay tribute to him. I like to find out for myself how I can be a little more hard-edged in my writing without putting all of you off, keke.

If you spend time reading e-books, lurking into internet marketing forums, you will see that the one of the most common marketing issue people are facing is: “How To Find A Profitable Niche?”

Then, once the question is asked, anyone will provide information, tips, tricks, secrets…

At the end, you have a big pool of ideas, but you’re still stuck with a resounding “So What!”

In addition, you will find a lot of marketing blunders that we might call Myths:

1) Find untapped niches: Of course you can always dream to be the only one on earth to discover a niche. Of course, there will be hundreds of advertisers paying you $10 a click, or $50 a lead, or hundreds of publishers looking for affiliates for this untapped niche!

If a niche is untapped, simply consider it does not exist: no traffic (or really low), no business model (no publisher, no advertiser…)

Do you think that kind of niche is profitable? Could be, but in a year or two. Not now.

Bottomline: an untapped niche is just a mental abstraction of a non existing market (in 99.99% of the cases) with no traffic and no profit

2) Find niches with no competition: Competition is a measure of how profitable an industry is. Think at it in these simple terms: If many competitors wnat to investigate a market, do you think they are willing to do for low margin? Do you think they will stay in this market during a long time if it’s not profitable?

You won’t do it! Your competitors won’t too.

Competition is your best criteria to select a HIGHLY profitable niche. The more, the merrier.

Warning! Then you need to select the right competitive positioning and strategy. You don’t have to attck those competitors directly. But you can find different roads to market : sub-niches, new services…

3) Looking for past statistics or data to identify a niche: This is not really a myth, but a major ‘blunder’ most and any businessmen in any industry could make. They are looking for external evidence as a stimulus for their own encouragement at ‘officiating’ a circumstance or situation as a real opportunity. They get on the bandwagon, ride the wave…and then when the demand seems to die down, and a “the fad is getting rusty” feeling arises, they move on to something totally new or unrelated. That’s why companies can’t survive beyond 5 years, except P&G, J&J, IBM, 3M etc. (read Jim Collin’s Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies to see what we mean).

Therefore you need to have a vision for a given industry and identify trends to foresee which markets and niches within these markets may become important.

This is not gathered in statistics or in keyword analysis tools. This is your added value; this is where the profit is. I am not talking of untapped niche, but untapped value proposition for a given niche. Bringing something new to an existing market, thus creating a new niche. It might look as a subtle difference, but it’s a big one!

This is a topic JP Schoeffel covers extensively in his new 5-volume e-book series “How To Turn Sites Into Money“, and more specifically in the 2nd volume. He even shares his most profitable strategy to identify niches-on-demand and a blueprint for creating silo-structured websites that AUTOMATICALLY make you money…

* without your own products or mailing lists…
* without begging marketers to do JV’s with you…
* without customer service nightmares…
* without turning your life upside down… and
* without spending a lot of money.

This guy has been doing this for YEARS, and today he’s finally willing to reveal everything he knows. “How To Turn Sites Into Money” is a big e-book series (5 volumes and hundred of pages) for a “throwaway” price. It forms the basis for designing his Niches-In-A-Box templates. Download your special appetizer report.