If you want to be successful with your solo ad, you should try to keep it real. This refers to ensuring that your ads are of top quality in all possible ways. This article will present 3 original solo ad ideas that can be used immediately.

A vital tip for solo advertising that you should remember is that you need to avoid selling your ad. Yes, you understood right because your ad is supposed to tempt people into coming to your site where you can pitch to them. Writing your ad like a pre-sell article is the most effective way to increase the response rate. You want to educate people about your product while also providing them with the benefits. You want to appear as someone who has helpful and wants to provide a valuable solution to them.

Writing their solo ads like regular ads is one critical mistake many marketers repeat. You have to remember that the e-zine offers people unique and targeted information. When receiving an e-mail from the publisher of the e-zine they expect to receive top quality information. While you do need to pre-sell people on your product, you also need to ensure that they feel you are providing with top quality information as well. This is the best way to generate a higher click-through rate and ensure you get more people coming to your site.

Run a spell check on your ad to ensure there aren’t any errors because your ad has to be very professional. Most people don’t like answering unprofessional ads because they think the ads reflect on the quality of the product. Therefore, the quality of your ad reflects on the quality of your product.

The flow of your ad also needs to be checked, besides the spelling. By reading it out loud, it will be easier for you to find any mistakes. Also make sure you are formatting your ad properly, just like you intended it to be. Don’t complicate matters, as simplicity works best.

Ensure that your ad is targeted to the readers of the e-zine you will be placing your ad in. You can’t simply publish any solo ad in any e-zine because you think it will work. Your ad needs to be extremely targeted. Presuming that you are marketing an e-book that promotes weight loss through yoga, you have to run your ads in targeted e-zines in the niche, which is weight loss. As long as your ad is related to the readers of the e-zine you will be fine. If you are targeting the audience properly and you keep things in context, you will find you get a much better response. Advertising in e-zines, as we have learned from this article, is quite similar to other methods of advertising. If you want to see an excellent return on your investment, then you need to take the proper steps and make sure it is at the right time.

All experienced marketers know and understand the immense value of effective copywriting. High response, converting copy is what sells anything and everything, and all businesses depend on that. However, it does take some time before you can actually write like a pro. It is not academic writing, not in any sense, so just remember that. You’ll need to have an understanding of copywriting principles and lots of practice before you’ll be doing it with any measure of competence. What follows is a discussion about on copywriting tips and suggestions to whet your appetite for the craft.

As you write your copy, almost all the time you want to discuss the product benefits, and do it as if talking just to one person. You will realize greater conversions through the use of social proof, and that means showing other satisfied customers in your sales material. Use testimonials as much as you can, and do be sure they are real because it’s illegal to use fake ones. Your readers will be full of doubts and suspicions to begin with, so you must build your case and establish trust. You need to be careful how you go about obtaining testimonials, and the best kind of all are unsolicited and real. You’ll have a greater impact with those that have some good and informative details on how the product helped them. Of course if you’re asking for an expert’s opinion, then you’ll need to furnish them with a copy or sample of your product. It’s not always possible, but if you’re lucky enough to get someone to send a video testimonial, then that’s pure gravy because they’re powerful and work well. Taking the risk off from the shoulder of your potential customer will increase the chances of getting sales. The most common method to do that is with an iron clad guarantee that removes the risk. So many newer marketers are scared of being taken by a customer and are intimidated to offer the guarantee. It’s certainly worth doing, though, because you’ll simply make more sales with it than you would without it. The thing to do is simply forget about that concern because the incidence of it happening is truly rare. Try to keep it all simple and uncomplicated. Here’s a small tip: the longer guarantee time you will have for your product, the less refund requests you will get.

Don’t keep your copy dry, try using a bit of humor to spice it up. People are busy and really tend to want the facts, so it’s a judgment call to be sure. There is a big difference between serious copy and stale copy. Learn the difference.

If your goal is to become a good copywriter, you can achieve this, but it will take time and dedication to get there. Some copywriters who are paid quite a bit for their services are actually self-taught, and had no special training or even a marketing background. If you want to get better, you have to practice and make progress at your own pace. If you want to be able to make money whenever you need it, copywriting is the skill that gives you this power.

There’s nothing anywhere that beats solid sales copy that gets the selling job done. Regardless of what you sell, you can’t do it without the help of sales copy that converts. Be prepared to spend some time and sweat if you want to learn how to do it. Copywriting is totally different, in so many ways, from any other form of writing. It takes a great deal of focus and understanding to create compelling copy. We want to share just a few copywriting tips with you, and we hope it sparks your desire to learn more.

The best sales copy is the kind that has an emotional impact on readers. You have to write words that can persuade your prospects that you have an answer or solution to their needs. You need emotionally compelling copy that will cause them to buy your product on the spot, without too much thought. You can’t write copy that’s monotonous, it has to be compelling and fascinating. Remember that you’re not writing a random piece of information here but content that is aimed at getting the prospect to take action. This doesn’t mean you should lie or exaggerate about your product; stay within ethical bounds. You have to appeal to their emotions, while remaining truthful. You should develop a connection with the reader by showing that you empathize with him or her. By doing this, you can get them to put aside their suspicions and feel comfortable with you. Taking the risk off from the shoulder of your potential customer will increase the chances of getting sales. A common way to do this is to offer them a risk free guarantee. The less experienced marketers tend to be afraid to offer a great guarantee by thinking they’ll get ripped-off. However that is really not very common in most markets, and the increased sales you will get by having the guarantee make any risk worth it. You will have very few people who will take advantage of the guarantee and misuse it, but this can be easily ignored. But the simply-stated guarantee works fine. Here’s a cool one to use, make your guarantee period long…like a year, no kidding, and the effect it has is to almost eliminate refunds.

Don’t forget to use lots of bullet points in your sales copy. When you write about the product benefits, not the features, then you’ll put them into bullet points. Bullets are great because they contribute to the easy readability of the copy, and they’re easy to digest and understand. Besides that, keeping your copy organized will give it a neat, professional look and make it easy for the prospect to reach to a buying decision.

Copywriting is a difficult art that takes regular study and practice if you want to excel at it. If you want to get better, you have to practice and make progress at your own pace. Being able to write good copy is the most important skill you can have in the world of Internet Marketing.

All experienced marketers know and understand the immense value of effective copywriting. Regardless of what you sell, you can’t do it without the help of sales copy that converts. If you’re interested to learn how to write good copy, then you need to know it takes time to learn. It’s not the kind of writing you did in high school or college. It takes a great deal of focus and understanding to create compelling copy. So we’ll get you started with just a handful of copywriting tips you can learn.

One of the oldest tricks that copywriters use to convince the prospect is to tell a compelling story. Think about the movie industry. Just in the US alone, it’s a “multi-billion dollar a year” industry, and it’s based on telling stories, right? People read stories for all sorts of reasons, but one thing is the ability to see themselves in the plot and form a connection with the characters. People connect with story characters in all kinds of ways, both for good and not-so-good reasons. Obviously, stories in copywriting are highly condensed, but you can incorporate the same emotion tugging words that make people respond in a certain way. If you search hard enough, it’s easy to pinpoint some kind of story in any business selling a product or service. Whatever you find or come up with, take a good look at it and see how you may be able to use it. A well-written and integrated story always has some positive effect on people.

If your product warrants writing long copy, try not to cause your reader to become confused about anything. In other words, it has to be easily scanned. This needs to be done because most online readers and surfers will scan and skip around, first, before anything else. Break up your copy by writing in shorter paragraphs and shorter sentences. Use lots of white space when writing the content for your copy so that the prospect is able to read it easily. Always use well-written subheading because they’re useful for organization, plus they’re another tool for creating white space. Keep your sub-headings short and relevant to the next few paragraphs. They should go from one step to another of your sales letter’s content.

You always want to stick to words with a positive impact on readers, such as incredible, happy, money, you (rather than “I”) or wealthy. Remember to focus on how your product will actually help people, don’t just list its features. And when you use such strong words in your copy, you make your prospects feel happy and special. If some of your language sounds like hype, that’s okay, as long as you don’t go overboard with it.

Copywriting is a difficult art that takes regular study and practice if you want to excel at it. Some copywriters who are paid quite a bit for their services are actually self-taught, and had no special training or even a marketing background. So don’t lose your focus and keep improving if you want to make a mark. If you want to be able to make money whenever you need it, copywriting is the skill that gives you this power.

Copywriting is one of the most valuable skills that an Internet marketer can have. Why is that? When you want to make money online, you need to work hard to earn your prospects’ trust and that is incredibly hard to do when your copy is not well written. Remember that you don’t have a chance to convince your visitors face to face, which is why having a salesletter that gives results is important. Keep reading to learn what you can do to write good copy.

First, when you begin a sales copy, do not talk about what the product does, but instead tell the readers why the product will help them with their problems. All in all, you have to show them how the product will help them more than what the product has. This is because no one is really interested in the features, but more on how these features will be useful to them.

If you want to give a list of product features in your sales copy, make sure that you provide a list of benefits to go along with each feature. This would make it simple for your customers to know how much value your product has, which will also keep you above the competition. Your customers will now be capable of identifying with your product because they know how it can solve their problems. So always disclose the benefits first. Testing your copy is critical. Don’t focus on just the heading; test the content, subheadings, links and the graphics on the page. A successful copywriter knows the value of proper testing because it not only helps you correct your mistakes but also improve the results you’re getting from your copy. Testing is a great way to tell what works and what doesn’t work. There are times when you see a massive change in the response by making a small tweak to the headline or by cutting down a few bullet points. As long as you continuously monitor and test your copy, you are guaranteeing your business a better potential return on investment.

Reassure your audience by offering a strong guarantee within your sales copy. By giving an iron-clad guarantee, you’re showing your prospects that you believe in your product and stand by it. Offering a longer guarantee will decrease the rate of refunds as people are more likely to keep products that offer a long refund period. Your guarantee makes people feel comfortable buying from your site. These tips should help you realize that writing professional quality sales copy isn’t that difficult. Just remember that these basic ideas are essential to the creation of a strong foundation for your salesletters. There are many new Internet marketers who tend to ignore creating a sales copy but they forget that it can make the difference between success and failure.

“Use a strong guarantee” is standard advice in direct marketing.

Without a strong guarantee, your sales will slow to a trickle since buyers are hesitant to buy products over the Internet, phone, or by mail sight unseen.

But what exactly makes for a “strong” guarantee?

A strong guarantee has 5 defining characteristics and your guarantee should possess these qualities too.

First, length: as a rule of thumb, the longer the guarantee, the better.

Typical guarantee periods are 10, 15, 30, 60, 90, 180, and 365 days.

Of these, 10 days is the weakest, because it requires the prospect to act too quickly for comfort.

The buyer is afraid that, if he puts the product aside, the guarantee coverage will expire, and he’ll be stuck with a product he can’t return.

And so he doesn’t order in the first place.

30 days is a standard guarantee period, and certainly adequate.

60 and 90 days are better. All the information products I publish and sell online are guaranteed for 90 days.

I don’t like lifetime guarantees, because it creates a financial liability on the books that may be problematic when it’s time to sell your business.

6 and 12-month guarantees may be worth testing, but won’t work for some products. For instance, a 1-year guarantee doesn’t make sense for an annual directory.

The second consideration is the conditionality of the guarantee.

Meaning: are there strings attached? Or is it unconditional?

A conditional guarantee might say: return the product in saleable condition for your money back.

The buyer is concerned that you will quibble with him over “saleable condition.”

That is, you will refuse to issue a refund for a book he returned because, say, the dust jacket has a smudge on it.

Another conditional guarantee is the one used by many sellers of small business and investment home study programs.

They say: if you are not satisfied, send back the course for a refund; just “prove to us that you made some effort to follow our system”.

When you ask for a refund, they ask for more and more proof—and whatever you send, the seller counters that “you didn’t do what we said” (or do enough of it)—and denies your refund on that basis.

Much better is to offer an unconditional guarantee. Tell the customer all he has to do is return the product for a full refund—no ifs, ands, or buts—without question or quibble.

The third quality of a strong guarantee is that everything is clearly stated and spelled out.

Be careful about wording that the consumer can misinterpret.

For instance, a performance-based guarantee—”If you do not earn extra money trading options with our program, return it for a refund”—sounds good but contains a potential concern…

Does it mean that if I DO make some extra money with the product, I can’t return it? Even if I only made ten bucks?

Rewrite the guarantee so there is no condition or ambiguity stated or implied: “If you do not make extra money trading options with our program, or you are not 100% satisfied for any other reason—or for no reason at all—just return the program within 90 days for a full refund.”

Fourth, the guarantee should be graphically emphasized within the promotion.

Don’t bury it in body copy or put it in an asterisked footnote in 8-point type.

Print the guarantee in 12-point copy with a large, bold headline. Put a box or even a certificate-style border around it to make the guarantee stand out.

Fifth, how generous is the guarantee?

The best guarantees are unfair—but unfair in favor of the buyer, not the seller.

That means if the customer takes advantage of the guarantee, the seller is, in a sense, getting ripped off.

Example: for regular books sold via mail order, the guarantee is simple: return the book and we will send you your money back.

But think about the same guarantee for e-books…

Can the customer really send you the e-book back?

Do you expect them to send back the copy they printed out…or sign an affidavit that they erased the e-book from their hard drive…or shredded the print-out? (Some online marketers have done just that!)

Most information marketers skirt the issue of returning e-books in their guarantees.

They say: if you are not 100% satisfied, let us know within 90 days for a full refund.

No discussion about returning or erasing or not using the e-book takes place.

In the landing pages I write to sell the e-books I publish (see for example www.myveryfirstebook.com), I go a step further: I turn the fact that the customer does not have to return the e-book to me into a benefit.

I say: “If you are not 100% satisfied, let us know within 90 days for a full refund. And keep the e-book free, with my compliments. That way, you risk nothing.”

In a recent Internet marketing seminar, DP, who heard me talk about this point in my presentation, said that he too tells his customers to keep the e-book even if they ask for a refund.

But DP has split-tested it. And he swears that “keep the e-book free” increased his conversion rates on average by 21%.

The bottom line? Make sure your guarantee is:

1. Long—90 days is ideal for most offers.

2. Unconditional – no strings attached.

3. Clearly stated with no ambiguity or possibility of misunderstanding.

4. Highlighted with bold typography, color, and graphics so it really stands out on the screen or page.

5. Overly generous so that if the consumer exercises the guarantee, he is essentially taking almost unfair advantage of you, the seller.

The overriding principle of a strong guarantee is to take all the risk off the buyer’s shoulders and place it on the seller’s shoulders—as it should be.

Bob Bly is the author of “World’s Best Copywriting Secrets” and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him “America’s top copywriter”.

Agora Publishing founder Bill Bonner uses the “IRS” (interrupt, reveal, sell) formula to write great copy:

1) Interrupt your audience with a big idea they haven’t heard before.

2) Reveal what it is you are talking about and how it connects to the reader.

3) Sell by linking your big idea message to the product you are about to offer.

Source: http://copywritersroundtable.com

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Recently JN, one of my readers, sent me an e-mail very similar in sentiment to dozens of other e-mails I have received over the years.

“Why do marketers like ETR and AWAI send me 16-page DM packages when the copywriter could have said the same thing in 1 to 2 pages?” JN writes.

“The prospect might even buy out of gratitude for not having to wade through those 16 pages and breathe a sigh of relief instead of snarl a nasty expletive.”

But JN is not through lambasting long-copy direct marketing yet. Her e-mail continues:

“My brother-in-law makes a hobby of going through those 16-page packages just for fun, red-penciling errors before he tosses them. He would never, under pain of death, buy from a DM package.”

And it’s not just JN’s brother-in-law who thinks direct marketing copywriters are fools.

“My sister just drops those 16-page mailings in the recycling without even bothering to open them,” JN reports.

“Many of the people I know feel the same way. So why do copywriters persist in creating these massive multi-page mailings? Because they are paid by the page? Or because the client wants his pound of flesh from his writers?”

Finally, JN turns to the Internet as the harbinger of doom for long copy, asking, “Isn’t the Internet killing off traditional direct response copywriting?”

The answer to JN’s question is fairly simple…

The marketers she complains about use long copy not because they love writing it…or paying their copywriters a fortune to write it for them…or because they enjoy spending more money on printing and postage.

They use long copy for only one reason: it works.

Now, does long copy always out-pull short copy?

Of course not.

But long copy often out-pulls short copy when:

>> You are marketing information products or other products that are sold by telling stories or conveying ideas.

>> You are generating a direct sale…via mail order…rather than just generating a lead or inquiry.

>> The reader is unfamiliar with your product and its benefits.

>> You are demanding payment with order. The prospect has to pay up front with a check or credit card. He cannot order the product on credit and get an invoice he can choose to pay—or not pay—later.

>> The product is complex and therefore requires a lot of explanation.

>> The product is something people want rather than something they need—it is a discretionary purchase.

>> The product is expensive, representing an expenditure the prospect is likely to consider carefully before ordering.

As for JN’s theory that the Internet is making traditional long-copy direct marketing obsolete, it’s quite the opposite: a product that requires long copy to sell offline usually requires long copy to sell online as well.

For instance, take a look at my website www.myveryfirstebook.com.

So…what does this long copy vs. short copy debate have to do with “the worst way to make marketing decisions”?

Simply that it illustrates that the worst way to make marketing decisions—which is what JN and her family are doing—is through subjective judgment.

Copywriter Peter Beutchel advises marketers: “Don’t let personal preferences get in the way.”

What’s important is not what you think, like, believe, or prefer…it’s what your prospects think, like, believe, and prefer.

The poor general advertisers! They are largely stuck having to make subjective judgments about marketing campaigns.

Reason: most general advertisers cannot precisely measure the ROMD (return on marketing dollars) for their ads and commercials.

But direct marketers don’t have to rely solely on subjective judgment. We don’t have to let our personal likes and dislikes cloud our judgment, like JN’s brother-in-law.

That’s because direct marketers can put almost any proposition e.g. headline “A” vs. headline “B,” or long copy vs. short copy, to a direct test with an A/B split.

So, JN, it doesn’t matter what your sister or brother-in-law do…or that they don’t like long copy.

What matters is that in a statistically valid split test, the long copy generated more orders than the short copy.

I close with this quote from advertising legend Claude Hopkins: “Advertising arguments should only be settled by testing, not arguments around a conference table.”

Bob Bly is the author of “World’s Best Copywriting Secrets” and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him “America’s top copywriter”.

I recently read an online promotion from one of the big Internet marketing gurus.

In it, this gentleman—whom I consider a personal friend—stated that “Anything is possible.”

He also said he had a new Web site that would help you “find your super powers”.

That’s hype to a high degree.

And frankly, I don’t believe it.

I could never write something like that for one of my own products and still sleep at night.

Yet I don’t have a problem with this guy, what he is selling, or how he is selling it.

Why not?

Because he believes in what he is saying and selling—even if I do not.

And that’s the key to making hype work in your copy today: believing in what you say.

There are a lot of complaints today about the incredible level of hype in copy, particularly online.

As an example, take a look at: www.thecopygod.com—a humorous spoof site that pokes gentle fun at the hype style of copywriting.

A lot of copywriters and marketers see hype-filled promotions and have one of two reactions.

Either they hate it and make a deliberate decision to avoid it in their own copy…probably a good decision for them.

Or they think, “These guys wouldn’t write all this hype if it wasn’t working”—and emulate it in their own promotions, usually with disastrous results.

You see, a key to writing successful copy—copy that fills your mail box or shopping cart with orders—is enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm for the ideas…enthusiasm for the product…enthusiasm for what you are writing about…enthusiasm for the wonderful ways in which the product will improve the buyers’ lives.

The masters of hype can be genuinely sincere and enthusiastic in their hyperbolic copy, because they absolutely believe 100% in what they are saying and selling.

Therefore, if you too believe in something outrageous or seemingly impossible…and are sincerely convinced it can help others…you can write hype copy that comes across as energetic, enthusiastic, positive, and even sincere!

On the other hand, if you don’t believe the superlatives and outrageous claims you are making in your copy, the hype will backfire on you.

Your copy will have all the sincerity of a three-dollar bill—and readers will be able to sense your disingenuousness and B.S. a mile away.

Result: your copy will fall flat…and your promotion will generate minimal orders and revenues.

“How can some of these hard-sell marketers believe the hype they write, particularly about money making, business opportunities, investments, self help, and alternative medicine?” I have been asked many times.

It’s simple: each of us has different experiences and belief systems.

What sounds like baloney to you and me may be absolute gospel to our colleagues and competitors.

A year or so ago, two well-known direct mail copywriters, DH and PL, got into an argument in print about the ethics of writing for nutritional supplements.

DH called dietary supplements “snake oil”. PL countered that the pill he was promoting in his copy had worked wonders for those who had taken it.

The bottom line is: market and write about only those products, services, and ideas you think deliver an honest and fair value to the consumer.

Another copywriting friend, RS, often said he would work on any offer that wasn’t “illegal, immoral, or fattening.”

Good advice, but I also think you should avoid working on any product you don’t believe in and aren’t enthusiastic about.

After all, if you aren’t enthusiastic about the product when you write your copy, the prospect is likely to be equally unenthusiastic when he reads it.

Bob Bly is the author of “World’s Best Copywriting Secrets” and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him “America’s top copywriter”.

When it comes to selling a product, nothing is more important than the quality of the product itself. If you have a good product, pitching it and attracting word-of-mouth advertising will be easy. Customers will recognize that it has intrinsic value as a product; and they will purchase it and spread the word to their friends.

However, when it comes to selling that same product, the next most important thing is the quality of your sales pitch. Even if your product is excellent, you won‟t get a lot of word-of-mouth advertising unless at least a few brave souls are willing to purchase the product initially to kick things off. And the only way that will happen is if you persuade them to. And that‟s where copywriting comes in.

Copywriting, for the uninitiated, is the art of using sales copy to persuade readers to become buyers. In the remainder of this guide, we will focus on the most important part of any piece of sales copy: the headline. In chapter 1, we will briefly consider what should go into a good headline. And in chapter 2, I will give you an exhaustive list of “fill-in-the-blanks” headlines for all occasions.

There are 5 important components of any winning headline. We will consider each of them.

Speak To Your Audience

If you ever hire a top-notch copywriter (i.e. the ones who charge hundreds or even thousands of dollars per page), one of the first things they’ll ask you to do is to procure some market research about your segment—or to help them to conduct that research.

The purpose of this research is simple. In order to write good copy, a copywriter needs to speak directly to her readers—not to “readers in general”. This means you must know something about your prospective buyers: their ages, their tastes and preferences, and their nationalities, for instance.

You will want to know where they come from, what they want, and—most importantly—why your product would be a good solution to a problem or problems they have. Without having this information, your chances of writing compelling copy are poor.

With this in mind, think hard before you start hammering out your first headline. Think about your target group, their desires, and the particular problem that your product solves. Make sure you address it succinctly and clearly in your headline.

Use Psychological Trigger Words

When it comes to writing a winning headline, few things are more important than psychological triggers. These are words that evoke a positive psychological response in your readers, independently of whatever is said about your product.

As an example, “free” is a psychological trigger word. So, if you’re planning to give a product or service for free, include the actual word in your headline. It will catch visitors’ eyes and lure them to read further.

Another powerful trigger word is “tested”. For instance, you might say something like “This book contains dozens of tested and proven strategies that I have used for years.” This will convey to the reader that your product isn‟t just any product; it is one that has been evaluated—tested—by many trials over time.

Other powerful triggers include words like pioneering, surefire, crammed, soar, growth, explosive, secret, scientific, research, breakthrough, truth, unlimited, and special.

So, next time to you write a headline—or even fill in a headline template—remember to employ some of these psychological trigger words, so you can be sure to draw the greatest possible emotional response from your readers.

Read News Headlines For Inspiration

At first, you might not see a clear analogy between salesletter headlines and news headlines, but in fact, it is there. Many of the greatest copywriters use elements of news headlines in their copy; and sometimes even write headlines as if they were news headlines.

To get a better idea of how this works, go to http://www.cnn.com or http://www.bbc.com, where you can find hundreds of different news headlines each day. What you‟ll find is that the “newsworthy” portion of the story is always captured in the headline.

Why is this important? And how does it reflect on your own efforts? It suggests that if you want your headlines to have a newsworthy appeal, then you should craft them in the same way.

For instance, instead of citing a good feature of your product in the headline, cite the thing that is most different. For instance, if a blogger were to announce that your product was finally released, they might say something like “Internet marketer revolutionizes the net with product that optimizes a site for search engine traffic in ways never seen previously.”

In general, focus on the most important benefit—the one that is newsworthy.

Use A Good Headline Formula

It might sound formulaic and trite, but it works. Start your headline with something like “Who Else Wants to Make $700 in the next 3 days?” or “Who Else Wants to Learn the Secrets of a Reclusive Millionaire?” or “Who Else Wants to Become Wealthy Beyond Your Wildest Dreams?” All of these different approaches will work; and they will work because you started with “Who Else Wants to…”

Alternatively, consider starting with something like “What Everyone Should Know About…” This will draw readers in by playing upon their lack of knowledge about what you are going to say. They will think “Well, I don‟t know that secret, so maybe I should read on.”

When it comes to headline formulas, you have a lot of options. Pick a good one and put it to use.

State A Major Benefit Or Propose A Puzzling Question

When writing headlines, your goal should always be to hook the reader. You don’t have to provide useful information, tell them something new, or offer them the world. All you have to do is to give them a very, very good reason to keep reading. And if they stick around to do that, they might just learn something about your product—and could even buy it as a result.

So how can you do this? There are several ways.

1. State a Benefit that Your Product Provides that None Others Can. When it comes to drawing a reader in, few things work better than clearly differentiating your products from all others. If you do this successfully, your readers will have an “ah-ha” moment, where they realize why your product is so much better than the other options available. If you can get them to do this while they‟re reading the headline—rather than later—this is always good.

2. Suggest a Benefit by Issuing a Brash Order. Rather than asking a question or softly stating a benefit, forcefully order your reader to do something. For instance “Become a millionaire in just two years!” or “Live an extra 20 years by applying these 7 secrets of longevity.” By commanding your readers to do something, rather than suggesting it, you will subconsciously push them to take action.

3. Propose a Question. For instance, ask your readers what they would do if they suddenly became rich overnight. How would they spend that money? What charities would they donate to? Use this as a way to make them think about how their lives will change after using your product. And then specifically say that your product will make it happen.

4. Frame Your Product’s Primary Benefit as a Newsworthy Item. As mentioned earlier, an excellent way to hook people with your headline is to make it newsworthy. Consider writing it in the third person, talking about the newsworthy features of your product, and framing it as an important development in your niche. If your product is indeed innovative and good, then there’s nothing wrong with using this method.

In short, use your headline to communicate at least one major benefit of your product; or to propose at least one thought-provoking question.

We now consider some “fill-in-the-blanks” headlines. All you have to do is pick a headline from the correct category, fill in the blanks, and add it to the top of your newsletter or squeeze page. Shape the rest of your copy around your chosen headline.

News-Style Headlines

1. Reclusive Internet Tycoon Finally Reveals Secret to Success in [Name of Niche] Niche

2. [Your Business] Launches Powerful New Product that Promises to Change the Market for [Product Niche]

3. After [# of Years] Years, [Product Niche] Will Finally Witness a Major Innovation

4. New Product Shakes Up Market for [Product Niche]

5. Age-Old Secret Helps People to Become More Successful in Their [Profession/Hobby]

6. Getting Rich Doesn‟t Always Have to be Hard, Says [Your Name]

7. Pioneer, [Your Business Name], Offers Solutions Where Other Businesses Cannot

8. Shocking Developments are on the Horizon, says Internet Mogul

9. [Your Business] Unveils Master Plan to Revolutionize the Market for [Product Niche]

10. Internet Mogul Claims that She Knows Why You‟ll Never Succeed at [Task/Hobby/Profession]

11. News Flash: This Innovative New Idea Might Just Change How You Do Business…for Good

Question-Style Headlines

1. Are You Ready to Get Serious About [Job/Product/Task]?

2. What Would You Do If You Became a Millionaire in Just One Year? If You Get [Your Product], You Might Just Have to Answer that Question.

3. Do You Know the Secrets to [Hobby/Profession/Task]? Find Out What You‟ve Been Missing.

4. Your Co-Workers Know Something You Don‟t. Are You Ready to Learn the Truth?

5. Is Your Business Living Up to Its Potential? Find Out Why It Might Not Be.

6. Are You Ready to Transform Your Hum-Drum Life into a More Positive, Successful, Worthwhile One?

7. Are You Sick and Tired of [Problem #1] and [Problem #2] Preventing You From Achieving [Goal]?

8. Do You Feel Like Progress is Elusive? Like You‟re Running on a Hamster‟s Wheel? Find Out How to Move Forward in [Profession/Business/Hobby].

9. Are You Prepared to Take Your Future into Your Own Hands?

10. Do You Know that Two Tiny Problems Could Be Killing Your [Business/Love-Life/Career]?

Benefit-Style Headlines

1. Learn the Top Five Things that Science Suggests You Should Do to Become Successful at [Career/Business].

2. Use My Tested Methods for [Achieving Goal #1] and [Achieving Goal #2] in Just Days!

3. Finally Experience the Benefits of Using a Real, Effective, Authentic [Type of Product].

4. There‟s an Important Difference Between [Your Product] and All Others: [State Biggest Benefit of Your Product].

5. Change Your Life Overnight with [Name of Your Product]!

6. Improve Your Energy-Levels, Get Healthier, and Enjoy Your Life to its Fullest Using My Proven Strategies

7. Steal My Ideas to Make Your Business More Powerful, Effective, and Better-Monetized

8. It Took Me [# of Years] Years to Learn This. But You Can Learn It In as Little as [# of Days] Days.

9. Sick of the Rat Race? Find Out How to Get Out of Your Cage Using My Patented Strategies for Being Successful in [Name of Niche].

10. Tired of Your Lackluster Ability to [What Product Does]? Make the Switch to [Your Product] and Change Everything in Just Days!

How-To Style Headlines

1. Learn How to Change Your Life and Your Career in Just [# of Days] Days Using My Proven System.

2. Don’t Despair. Find Out How to Explode Your Profits in Just [# of Steps] Simple Steps.

3. Find Out How Other, Ordinary People Just Like You Become Wildly Successful at [Career/Hobby/Task].

4. Learn How to Triple The Amount of Traffic That Comes to Your Site in Just [# of Days] Days.

5. Learn How to Transform Your [Career/Hobby/Relationship] in Just [# of Days] Days and [# of Steps] Steps!

6. Learn How the Experts Do Things. Adopt My Proven System to Change How You Do [Whatever Your Product Promises].

7. How to Build an Empire from the Ashes of Your Failed Business Venture

8. How to Improve Your Relationship with Your [Spouse/Kids/Family] without Hurting Your [Career/Other Goal]

Trigger Word Style Headlines

1. Seven Explosive Secrets that are Guaranteed to [Product's Promise]

2. Sick of Paying Outrageous Amounts for [Niche Product]? Download Your Copy for Free.

3. You Might Be Shocked to Learn What Science Has to Say About [Niche]

4. Warning: If You Think Your Business Practices Are “Good Enough”, You Might be in For an Unpleasant Surprise

5. The Fast Win Big and the Slow Fade Over Time. Learn Why The Coming Revolution in [Your Niche] Might Render Your Business [Slow].

6. The World is Changing Around You. Adjust to the Times or Face Extinction. Read On to Learn How [Your Business/Your Career/Your Family Life] Will Change… Forever.

7. Learn the 10 Dangerous Secrets that Every Successful Person in [Your Niche/Career] Knows, But You Don’t

8. Generate a Hurricane of Revenue in [Niche] Using These Secret Strategies that Even Some of the Best [People in Your Niche/Business] Don’t Know

Conclusion

Writing good copy is never an easy task. And perhaps hardest of all is writing a good headline. Striking the right balance between enticing the reader with language and hooking them with a benefit or a question can often be very difficult. Fortunately for you, this guide takes much of the hard work out of the process.

From here, you determine your own path. You might start by using the advice I’ve given for writing headlines. Craft a few of your own, think about how you would react to them, and ask a friend, neighbor, or fellow marketer to evaluate the quality of your copy.

Once you have gotten the hang of writing headlines in general, think harder about your niche in particular. Do market research if needed; and think long and hard about what the average buyer thinks like—and what that average buyer wants from a product like yours.

A successful copywriting technique is to use lots of “bullets” in your copy—short sales points presented in bulleted lists.

But have you ever sat down to write copy for one of your products, only to find it difficult to pull out of the product the salient sales points you need to write strong bullets?

If you’re a marketer, there’s an easy way to avoid this problem…and write kick-butt bullets that generate more orders and sales from every promotion you mail or e-mail.

And it starts way before you write a word of your copy. In fact, for maximum results, this step should be performed during creation of the actual product itself.

The method is to “build bullets” into your product. By that, I mean come up with a list of features you think would really convince your prospects to buy the product.

Or write a list of bullets you’d love to be able to use in your copy. And then, design all those features and bullets into the products as you are developing them.

Let’s say you are hiring a writer to create a how-to e-book you want to sell on the Internet on growing a vegetable garden in your backyard.

You have a section on growing bigger tomatoes. Make a list of the specific steps you take to make your tomatoes large and juicy. If the list has 5 items, give it to your e-book writer so he can write a few paragraphs on each.

Now, when you write the sales copy for the e-book, you can write a bullet that says, “5 ways to grow tomatoes so big, you can make a dinner out of them”.

I had a client who was an industrial manufacturer who used this technique with great success. They manufactured “spectrophotometers” which are instruments used to measure color.

Their competitors had all come out with a new generation of instruments, and my client was late to the game. But they used this to their advantage.

They carefully studied the other brands, made a list of flaws, and designed their new spectrophotometer to provide superior performance in each area where their competitors were weak.

In their product launch, they showed a picture of their new instrument. Call-outs highlighted every feature that made their device superior to their competition.

The launch was their most successful ever, because the “bullets” for their sales copy had been carefully built into the product. And they clearly distinguished the company’s products as superior in many ways to all others in that field.

As a copywriter you rarely have any control, but as a marketer, you often do. If you are an information marketer, it’s easy to design products with great sales bullets built in.

Just make the list of bullets your table of contents, and write or record an info-product that covers all the points listed there. The more transparent the sales points in the product, the happier the buyer will be.

Avoid writing bullet points that sound great but aren’t really covered in the product. Info-product buyers often compare the product to the promotion. If they can’t find content reflecting the bullets that caused them to buy, they will complain or ask for a refund.

My mentor, the great copywriter Milt Pierce, tells the story of when he was hired to write a direct mail package on a book on decorating by a famous author in that field.

He brought in his copy. The publisher and author read it. When they were finished, the publisher said to Milt, “This is incredibly strong promotional copy. The only problem is that it’s not what is in the book.”

Milt replied, “It should be.” And according to him, the author and publisher agreed to rewrite the book so it reflected in the letter copy. When mailed, the package worked like gangbusters and the book sold like hotcakes.

The old-time mail order guru Melvin Powers did it a better way: when he wanted to publish a new book, he would write and run the ad first.

Of course, he wrote the strongest ad possible. If it pulled, he then quickly wrote and printed a book that delivered all the content promised in the ad copy. If the ad bombed, he never wrote the book and just refunded the money to those few readers who had ordered.

Bob Bly is the author of “World’s Best Copywriting Secrets” and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him “America’s top copywriter”.

Whenever I am writing copy, I like to gather lots of statistics on my topic.

The great thing about statistics is that you can always use them to support almost any sales point you want to make in your promotion.

In fact, the same statistic can often be interpreted either to make a sales point or its opposite!

For example, the statistic of number of units sold is often cited to prove that a product is popular and therefore must be good.

In the good old days, McDonald’s restaurant signs would proclaim “Over 1 Billion Sold”.

Advertisements for books frequently tell us that the book is a “New York Times best-seller”.

The logic is that because the product is so popular, people think the product is good, and therefore it must be good.

(Of course it is not true: there are many restaurants that make hamburgers better than McDonald’s.)

Ironically, a statistic that says the exact opposite of “this product is a best-seller”—a number showing it does not sell well—can also be used to make the case for superior quality.

Perhaps you have received in the mail a catalog for Harry & David, the mail order gift fruit company selling Royal Riviera Pears.

The copy says, “Not one person in a thousand has ever tasted them.”

It makes the product sound exclusive, special, rare, and desirable.

But what it really means is very few people buy them!

Here’s another example of how to use statistics in your favor.

I was asked to write a brochure for a company that did competitive research for manufacturers.

I asked the client about the competition and where his firm stood in the marketplace.

“That’s a negative,” he said. “There are hundreds of small mom-and-pop operators doing this kind of research out of their homes, but only 5 real companies—and of those 5, we are unfortunately the smallest.”

In the brochure copy, I wrote: “XYZ Research Associates is one of the 5 largest industrial research companies in North America”, thus turning a potential negative into a bragging point.

Here are a few additional guidelines for using statistics and numbers to make the case that your product or service is superior:

>> Write numbers using the largest units of measure: “a quarter of a century” sounds longer than “25 years”.

>> Round off to make numbers sound larger: if the client tells me their newsletter has 2,015 subscribers, I talk about the “thousands of satisfied subscribers”.

>> Use “negative statistics”: say what the product doesn’t do or have, rather than what it does do or have. For instance, club soda has “no sodium, no artificial flavors, no calories”.

>> Prove statistical points with pictures: compare 2 quantities with a bar chart, or show a price chart illustrating how shares of the stock you recommended went up.

>> Say it multiple times: give the persuasive statistic at least 3 times: in the body copy, in the chart or graph, and in a caption for the chart or graph.

>> Make unexpected comparisons to dramatize numbers: a speaker giving a talk on health told his listeners “more people have died from malaria over the past century than are now living in the United States”—much more memorable than just giving a number.

Bob Bly is the author of “World’s Best Copywriting Secrets” and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him “America’s top copywriter”.

One of the most labor-intensive, time-consuming marketing tasks is copywriting.

Not necessarily writing the copy but agonizing over what has been written.

As a copywriter, I do this all the time.

I fret to an insane degree over every sentence, reading the copy over and over again, questioning whether the wording could be stronger.

It literally keeps me up at night.

Marketers I observe do the same thing.

They mark change after change on a nearly finished promo, agonizing over whether the copy says exactly the right thing, in exactly the right way.

The irony, of course, is that in most situations, all this agonizing is for naught.

I don’t mean to say that copy is unimportant.

But most of the time, it wouldn’t make one iota of difference in response whether we went with “version A” or “version B”.

So I DO think you should agonize over copy but I think you should do it with only a small fraction of the copy in your promotion.

Specifically, here are the 3 “hot spots” in your copy where what you say—and how you say it—really, really matters:

>> The first critical portion of the copy is determined by its position in the promotion.

The critical copy in a #10 direct mail package is the outer envelope teaser—and the headline and lead of the sales letter.

In a magalog, it’s the front cover, the inside front cover, the headline and lead on page 3 and the back cover.

These sections are worth stressing over, because different messaging can result in dramatic increases or decreases in your response rates.

>> The second critical area is copy describing the central message, theme, or idea of your selling proposition.

For instance, do you position your energy stocks newsletter as a way to hedge your portfolio against a bear market triggered by rising oil prices?

Or do you talk about how the reader can profit from the “next big thing” in energy investing—which, according to your editor, is that crude oil will reach $200 a barrel by the end of the decade?

The “big idea” of your promotion—and the way you express it—really matter.

>> The third area where copy is critical is in the offer and on the reply element.

Offering a “free information kit,” for instance, usually generates more leads than the vague “send for more information”—the idea of a “kit” somehow being more tangible and sounding more valuable.

On the order form, changing even one word in the copy can mean the difference between a winner and a disaster—for instance, “$100 a year” vs. “$8 a month” or “10-day money-back guarantee” vs. “90-day money-back guarantee.”

It is worth your time—and your copywriter’s—to polish and fine-tune these areas…headlines, leads, offer, theme, and big idea…until you finally feel confident that what you’ve written can work.

You could spend the same amount of time agonizing over every other page of copy in your mailer, but since most of it won’t make much difference either way in the response and sales generated…well, why bother?

Bob Bly is the author of “World’s Best Copywriting Secrets” and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him “America’s top copywriter”.

At an AWAI Boot Camp, I was chatting with Michael Masterson before we were to give a presentation together.

He complained that many copywriters whose work he critiqued seemed to focus on the obvious benefits of the product and missed the subtler benefits, especially for business opportunity and self-development products.

“People, especially as the years pass, don’t just care about becoming a millionaire or making six figures,” he said.

What they are after most, said MM, is a certain kind of lifestyle, and living that life on their own terms. Money for them is mostly a means to that end.

I am convinced he is right, and marketers who simplistically trumpet “get rich” in their ads could be reaching their prospects on a deeper and more powerful level.

I saw this principle in action in a series of TV commercials for ITT Tech, an institute offering career training for adults.

In the old days, these career training ads implied, within the limits of the law, that if you took their program, you’d make a lot of money.

One of my clients in this field back then ran an ad featuring a student standing proudly next to his new Jaguar.

What the copy failed to mention is that he bought the Jaguar with money he won in a personal injury suit after he was hurt in an auto accident, not with money he earned as a result of his training.

Anyway, the new ITT Tech ads feature interviews with students who graduated their training and are now gainfully employed. But they don’t talk about money.

One of the men talks about how proud his kids are to see him put on a suit and tie and go to work every day (presumably, he had a blue collar job or was unemployed beforehand).

Another graduate whose company sent him on several business trips overseas talked about how he loved to travel, try new foods, see different cultures, and meet new people on the job.

He said nothing about money. His mother also spoke in the commercial, saying how proud she was of her son.

I have coined a name for this type of marketing. I call it “lifestyle promotion”.

A lifestyle promotion works like this: you figure out the lifestyle your target prospects would like to have. Then you write the promotion to show how your product helps them achieve this lifestyle.

Lifestyle promotions can be written for almost any product and any market. But I find lifestyle promotions work best with “lifestyle products”.

A lifestyle product is a product that is “reverse engineered”. You start with the lifestyle desired by your market. Then design a product that delivers this lifestyle to the buyer.

A good example is that odd exercise machine you see advertised claiming that it can get you fit in only 4 minutes a day.

The machine looks something like Santa’s sleigh. It costs $14,615. And the company has been selling them since 1990.

I believe the success of the ROM Cross Trainer is that it is a classic lifestyle product.

Think about the market for exercise products today, especially upper middle class people earning six-figure incomes, who I am guessing—at a $14,615 purchase price—are the target audience.

To begin with, they want to look and feel better, tone their body, and get lean.

They are told by doctors and trainers to exercise at least 20 to 30 minutes a day—and in some cases an hour a day—anywhere from 3 to 7 days a week.

The most common complaint you hear: “I don’t have time to exercise!” They don’t have time to go for a swim or to take a half-hour walk or a half hour bike ride or to go to the gym two or three times a week.

So the ROM 4-Minute Cross Trainer is the perfect fitness solution for their busy lifestyle: you can get all the exercise you need—a complete work-out—in just 4 minutes a day!

Many upper-middle-class consumers have more money than time. Say your time as an executive or entrepreneur is worth $100 an hour.

If the ROM Cross Trainer cuts their exercise time by 5 hours a week, it will pay for itself in less than 8 months—making it a good investment instead of an expense.

Instead of taking 2 hours out of your day to train at the gym, your daily exercise routine is over in less than 5 minutes—without leaving your home or office.

Instead of going to work out at night, you can get home at a reasonable hour, and have dinner with your spouse and kids.

The reason I think lifestyle promotions work is that you are starting with the prospect, not with the product.

You write the promotion first, creating copy you are confident will sell like gangbusters.

Then you design a product to deliver on all the promises you incorporated into your copy.

This is a smarter way of marketing than the conventional method, which is to create a product, and then to write copy that tries to convince people to buy it.

MP, a copywriter, tells the story of how he was hired to write a direct mail package to sell a book on decorating.

As MP tells it, when he handed in his copy, the marketing director told him, “It’s great copy, but the book doesn’t fit what you’ve written.”

MP replied: “It should.” He swears the publisher had the author rewrite the book to fit his promotion, and that it was a big success.

Action step: think about the lifestyle your target prospects desperately desire. Write a promotion that offers this life to them. Then create a product that delivers on the promises in your copy.

Bob Bly is the author of “World’s Best Copywriting Secrets” and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him “America’s top copywriter”.

One of the most important parts of any salesletter is also one of the most overlooked parts. An element that’s not given the respect it deserves by most businesses, and one that is overlooked by some businesses entirely.

Because…right up there with headlines and story, hooks and benefits, bullets and offers, is…

The Guarantee…

Most businesses don’t even offer a guarantee; others do it as an afterthought.

Rare is the online entity that really treats this copy element as she deserves to be treated: like a classy lady all dressed up and ready to go to the ball where she can hang off your arm and make you look good.

Just a few months ago I wrote:

“Guarantee The Product: All studies have shown the longer you make the guarantee period and the less restrictions you put on that guarantee, the more people will buy and less of them will return. The psychology on this can fill an entire article on its own. Maybe I’ll write about it in the future.”

Well…the future is now!

So…let’s first talk about that whole psychology thing.

The reason more people buy when there’s a longer guarantee is easy…It’s a “no duh” sort of thing…More people buy because the guarantee offers them a degree of protection from making a stupid decision. Making that period longer just amps up that protection.

If every middle-aged dude had a year to decide whether or not he wanted to keep the Lamborghini and pay for it, or return it, you bet your a** they’d sell a ton more Lambos than they do now!

So yeah, a real no-brainer with that first part of the guarantee psychology.

As for the second part…I have to admit I don’t really know the actual reason less people return a product when it has a longer guarantee period. I’m guessing here, but I’m pretty confident in my guess, so here goes…

The Science-Be-Damned Vin’s Best Guess Explanation!

When you have a short period of time to return something, your mind is on returning it. Let’s take that same Lamborghini metaphor.

Instead of a year, let’s say Lamborghini only gives you 20 minutes to return the car for a refund.

First…the brevity (in this case an extreme example) of the guarantee starts people wondering…”Hmmm…why so short? Is this product gonna die in a couple days? Will it become obsolete in a week?”

On top of that, every one of those 20 minutes will feel urgent to you. You’ll not relax for a bit. You make the entire 20 minutes a road test.

In many cases you won’t even take the whole 20. You’re back at that dealership after 13 minutes because you don’t want to be the dumb schmuck who shows up with a broken watch at minute 21 and is told, “Sorry…too late!” by a swarthy guy with too much cologne and a thick Italian accent.

So…I’d say short-duration guarantees almost work in reverse. I can actually see some potential buyers reacting so negatively to a short period guarantee that it might be a better alternative to have no guarantee at all.

But let’s go back to that wonderful fantasy year-long money back Lambo guarantee.

When you have a long time to return something, you tend to forget about returning it. Heck…I’ve actually gotten to the point where I forgot I even owned the thing I was supposed to return!

Around 18 months ago, I bought a drum set. Why, you ask? Well…I used to play a little in garage bands in high school…I came across the set in the store and said, “Damn… I should mess around with the skins again.”

Long story short, I have fun for a week, then realize I don’t have time in my life for a drum set. I was about to return them when my wife reminds me I have a year to get my money back.

“A year? Well, then let’s pack them away. My nephew Joey will be visiting in a few months. I’ll keep them so he can see Uncle Vin rock out one time.”

Well…just last week we’re putting away some summer things when I see a big brown box I didn’t recognize. You guessed it…my drum set…nearly 7 months after my return period.

I know I’m not alone on this. I know I’m not the only one who opened a drawer to find something you should have returned, but didn’t feel there was any reason to rush.

That’s the added benefit of giving a very long guarantee. People just may not return it at all.

“So…How Long Should That Guarantee Be?”

How long could you make it and still sleep at night?

I’m not kidding.

I’ve found that six months is great…a year is better…Lifetime guarantees, however, can be hugely effective or they can fall flat.

When people see a lifetime guarantee they sometimes think there’s got to be a catch.

With all guarantees, it’s best to have no strings…no hoops to jump through…no burden of proof. Not only must you have that policy…you must tout it. If you don’t scream it from the rooftops, then you’re not getting the full marketing advantage of having one.

This brings me to my own little checklist of guarantee “must haves”.

Vin Montello’s Five Point Guarantee System

1. Whenever you can, make your guarantee a “full money back” guarantee. And as I said, offer this money back for as long a period of time as you can comfortably handle. Note: Clickbank sellers can only offer two months money back. No more…no less.

2. Put little or no restrictions on the return. If it’s a physical product, it’s okay to ask that the product is returned in resalable condition. But never put any “prove you did the work and failed” kind of condition on it. These types of stipulations read like you’re a jerk who doesn’t want to give the refund. People instinctively think, “That’s gonna be a hassle!”

3. “Frame and Badge” your guarantee. You know what I’m talking about. That ubiquitous stamp or badge inside the college diploma frame you see on every salesletter. You should know by now that everyone does this for a reason…because it works.

4. Sign your guarantee like a personal promise to the buyer. You’d be surprised how far pledging that you’ll honor the guarantee goes to making the sale for you. People trust people who are willing to add their John Hancock. It makes you look like a stand up guy (or gal)!

5. Make it three-dimensional! Don’t just say they can return the product. Point out exactly how the process will work. Something like “Ask for a refund and your money is back in your account in 48 hours. No quarrels…no qualms…That’s my promise to you.”

There you have it, 5 bona fide ways to ensure that even something as simple as a guarantee can be fully developed to do more than just offer protection. Five ways to make your guarantee the dealmaker instead of the deal-breaker.

You know…I’ve often said that every inch of your sales copy needs to be working towards persuading your reader to buy. Well…when done right, your guarantee can become one of the biggest persuasion weapons in your marketing arsenal.

Extracted from StomperNet SEO Intelligence Report, July 22, 2011.

This story demonstrates why you should NEVER underestimate the power a few words can make in someone’s life, or even to the life of a business.

Bear with me because I wanna share a little story with you (trust me its worth your time).

Recently, Ryan Deiss was at one of his member’s office in Baltimore Maryland. This is a huge company, with over $500 million per year in annual sales.

So imagine his surprise when the CEO of the company came up to him, shook his hand and said, “Thanks for the $80 million increase to our business.”

“What did I do?” he asked…

It turns out the company had taken one salesletter tactic from one of Ryan’s trainings and applied it across just SOME of the offers in their business. And in one year, they experienced an $80 million increase in sales!

It was a company record.

So what was the $80 million salesletter magic?

I thought you might ask, and Ryan has just the FREE video to reveal the exact salesletter tactic that brings his client an extra $80 million.

Talk about the Butterfly Effect: small changes, BIG results!

Can you imagine how much easier you could buy traffic, make JV deals, or just pay your own bills if every one of your offers converted 300% higher?

I know you’re going to get massive benefit from this video. Watch it now!

Modern economics is based, in part, on the law of supply and demand.

If an item is rare and people want it, they’ll pay through the nose, driving the price higher.

On the other hand, a large supply of a product, coupled with dwindling demand, can cause the price to plummet.

Well, marketing too has a law of supply and demand.

It goes something like this…

When a product is difficult for the consumer to find, your promotional copy can be short, to the point, and straightforward—with little or no hype.

An example is a classic ad for Hancock Shoes, a mail order company that specializes in shoes for men with wide feet.

The headline of their small black-and-white space ad, unchanged for decades, reads:

MEN’S WIDE SHOES

EEE-EEEEEE, SIZES 5-15

The visual is a picture of a shoe against a white background.

Now, this would probably get a failing mark from most copywriting experts.

But Hancock Shoes has been running this ad virtually unchanged for many decades.

It works because of the lack of availability of shoes for large feet.

There are plenty of shoe stores.

But it’s extremely difficult for a man with wide feet to find his size in an EEE or larger.

So when he sees Hancock’s ad, the headline immediately tells him—in a direct, straightforward fashion—that they have what he needs.

Since he can’t get the shoe anywhere else, it doesn’t have to be creative or even enumerate the benefits.

It merely has to call to the reader’s attention to what is being offered.

For a product that is difficult to find like EEEEE shoes, a simple ad like Hancock’s can work like gangbusters.

On the other hand, when you have a lot of competition in your category, then your advertising must be powerful and persuasive.

It must extol the benefits of the product, show how the product solves the prospect’s problem and how owning it can make his life better.

The ad must also say these things in a fresh, compelling way.

Why?

Because everyone else in this category is making similar claims and saying them in pretty much the same way.

Consumer health information, for instance, is a highly competitive category filled with newsletters, books, magazines, and websites.

In a promotion for the health newsletter “Bottom Line Natural Healing,” the headline focuses on weight loss.

The copywriter wisely avoids saying something like “Lose 10 pounds in 5 weeks.”

Such a headline has a clear benefit, and probably worked 10 or 20 years ago.

But today, the consumer has heard it so many times, it has no impact.

So you have to say the same thing—”we can help you lose weight”—in a fresh and compelling way.

The headline for “Bottom Line Natural Healing” does this admirably:

“10-CENT TUMMY TUCK puts plastic surgeons out of work!”

Okay, so where does that leave us?

Well, in addition to the law of supply and demand in marketing…which says that the greater the product availability, the stronger the advertising must be…

There’s another factor that determines the degree of hype in our copy or lack thereof.

It’s whether the product is a luxury or necessity.

Or, to put it another way, whether the customer NEEDS what you are selling vs. whether he WANTS it.

You don’t need clever, A-level copy to sell dialysis treatment to a patient with kidney failure, because he needs the dialysis and will die without it.

On the other hand, people may want better health and a longer life and buy nutritional supplements to gain these benefits.

But few of us really NEED nutritional supplements. A heart patient may need a pacemaker, but taking folic acid is probably optional.

This is the reason why so many long-copy nutritional supplement promotions you see are such powerful marketing pieces: you need to pull out all the stops to get the consumer—who has a clear choice of whether to take your pill or not—to buy.

An example is a recent promotion for Sun Chlorella, a nutritional supplement made from algae.

The headline of the mailing reads:

TOXIC KILLERS IN YOUR GROCERY CART

Can these fruits, vegetables, and even bagged salad be the cause of your worst health problems?

100,000 scientific tests say YES!

You have to grab the reader by the lapels with your headline because, while the consumer wants good health, he isn’t sitting there thinking, “I need algae.”

Putting the word “algae” right up front in your headline would likely get him to toss your mailing in the trash.

On the other hand, if a change in Earth’s environment suddenly meant you would die without consuming a sufficient amount of algae daily, and Sun Chlorella was the world’s only source of
algae, you could send out a postcard that simply said “Algae tablets available!” and generate more orders than you could ever hope to handle.

To sum up, 2 factors determine how creative or direct your copy needs to be:

1. Product availability.

2. Need vs. want.

When a product is an absolute necessity and scarce, straightforward, clear, direct advertising messages work best.

When a product is a luxury, and the category is cluttered with competing brands, you need a kick-butt marketing campaign to sell your prospect on why he should try it.

Bob Bly is the author of “World’s Best Copywriting Secrets” and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him “America’s top copywriter”.

Everyone is selling some special “magic beans” to make all your business problems go away these days…

Repeat after me: “there are no magic beans.”

At the end of the day, there is:

- your understanding of buying psychology

- your ability to manage your business efficiently

- your junk-yard-dog toughness for when the going gets rough (because it will!)

The absolute best stuff I’ve ever read about buying psychology is a little book by Joe Sugarman called “Triggers”.

For a few days, Joe is giving away a free copy of an interview series he did—called “The Lost Sugarman Tapes“—where he breaks down each and every one of these 29 “triggers” so they’re super-easy to understand and apply to your own business.

You should definitely go snag a copy of these and put it on your iPod (or whatever you use to listen to audio).

This is kind of must-have stuff for your library and the series will normally run you over 200 bucks.

Do this now before you forget.

For several years, car manufacturers have been proactively marketing sales of used vehicles with ads touting “certified pre-owned vehicles.”

These are used cars that have been thoroughly inspected and come with a warranty equivalent (or close to it) to that of a new car.

A few weeks ago, I heard a radio commercial for Toyota, who has jumped into this market.

But instead of calling their used car a “pre-owned vehicle”…they call it a “used car”!

Now I admire plain-speaking people and honest, forthright language…and “used car” fits that bill better than “pre-owned vehicle”.

On the other hand, there’s a reason Mont Blanc sells “writing instruments”…and the reason is that no one wants to pay $100 for a “pen”.

So what do you think?

Will Toyota’s honesty be rewarded by consumers with more sales?

Or are they shooting themselves in the foot by not advertising “pre-owned vehicles”?

I don’t know the answer. No one knows the answer to any marketing question until they test it…but there’s one thing I do know…

The words you choose for your copy can make a big difference in how well it performs.

Or to put it another way: semantics sell.

Here’s a great example: A number of years ago, when Clinton was still in office, I was driving in the DC area, where I almost always get lost.

As I desperately tried to find K Street, I heard a radio commercial for American Spectator, the conservative magazine.

The commercial said that if you called a toll free number to subscribe, you would get a free gift—a “Special Report” titled “Inside the Clinton White House”.

I didn’t call, but I am pretty sure that American Spectator, as is typical of magazines, put together this special report by assembling reprints of a few articles they’d done on Clinton into a booklet.

Listen to the words, “Special Report”. Sounds important and exclusive, like something you’d want to have. And the title—”Inside the Clinton White House”—sounds juicy.

On the other hand, what if the radio commercial had closed with, “So call toll-free today to subscribe and we’ll give you a bunch of past articles ripped out of old issues of the magazine and stapled together.”

I can’t imagine the phone ringing off the hook for that one.

Another example of the power of words in marketing is the old comic book ad with the headline, “Enter the wonderful world of amazing live sea monkeys…open a bowl full of happiness—instant pets!”

The ad pictured a happy underwater family of cute, friendly creatures—a mom, dad, and kids—living outside the family castle—presumably in a fish bowl—as the human youngster and his human parents who purchased the sea monkeys look down in delight.

Well, if you ever took the bait and mailed the coupon with your money, what you got was a plastic vial full of dried brine shrimp eggs…with instructions to hatch them in warm, salty water.

When mine hatched, they look nothing like the handsome Sea Monkey family in the ad…they were basically little dots moving around in a bowl of water.

Yes, words have power, and the words you choose decide a lot about what people think of you, your company, your product, and your offer…especially whether they want to buy or try it.

No one wants brine shrimp eggs. But “instant pets” and “amazing live sea monkeys”? I’m in!

One last example: My colleague Gary Hennerberg was called on by a company in Texas that sold mail order fruit cakes.

Fruit cakes weren’t selling like hot cakes (big surprise) and they needed to boost orders.

Gary asked the bakery what ingredients were used, and to his surprise, he found that these fruit cakes contained pecans.

Not only that, but they were grown locally in Texas, on the banks of a river, where the moisture made them particularly flavorful.

Gary told the company to test a mailing calling the product “native Texas pecan cakes” instead of “fruit cakes”.

They followed his advice…and fruit cake sales soared by 60%.

Semantics, I guess. Go figure.

Bob Bly is the author of “World’s Best Copywriting Secrets” and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him “America’s top copywriter”.