You could write faster.

Scratch that:  You SHOULD write faster.  Especially your first few drafts. 

Because the quicker you get a solid first draft into your greedy clutches, the more time you’ll have to get to draft #21.

You know; the draft that actually makes your copy good.

Plus, as a general rule, the faster you write, the more money you make.  Write twice as fast; make double the money.

Simple — right?

So are you ready to get greasy-fast?

Secrets of Lickedy-Splittedness

I’ve been called many things during nearly four decades in this biz.  “Prolific” and “The fastest writer alive” are probably the only two I can mention in polite mixed company.

So if you’ve ever felt like the Earth cooled in less time than it takes you to crank out a respectable first draft, listen up:  I’m going to give you some things I do to tear through the process in less time than it takes a Democrat to jack up your taxes.

Here are six little tricks that help me a lot …

The first is compartmentalization.  See, writing an out-of-the-park grand slam; your career-making, signature promotion is not a single act.  It’s a process consisting of many steps, hundreds of actions and thousands of tiny decisions: 

• Thinking about who your prospect is and why he needs your product …
• Creating your attention-getting and engagement strategy — your theme, headline and opening strategy …
• Researching your product, your competitors’ products and their promotions …
• Organizing your attack; determining the order in which you’ll lead the prospect through your reasons why he should buy …
• Pouring the appropriate research, notes and ideas into each section of your outline …
• Writing your first rough draft…
• Polishing it into a complete first draft…
• Buffing and meticulously detailing each succeeding draft until you realize that you couldn’t improve it if someone held a gun to your head — and that every new change you consider not only doesn’t help; it actually weakens the copy.
• Sticking a fork in it because it’s done.

Now, if you’re not willing to do that kind of exhaustive work to create a winning promotion, take my advice:  Quit now.  Lazy people get their heads handed to them in this business.  I hear there are plenty of correspondence courses for wanna-be plumbers online.

If, on the other hand, you delight in the idea of creating something that brings value to consumers’ lives, helps build companies, creates jobs, and helps families put their kids through college …

And if the idea of getting paid quite handsomely for this tremendous contribution to humanity …

Then, my friend … you’ve got a problem.

Because if you have a lick of common sense, you’re going to feel overwhelmed as you contemplate the journey ahead and all the steps you’ll have to complete in order to perfect the project at hand.

That’s OK — it just means you’re in touch with reality.  But you’re going to have to get past “overwhelmed” and to work; the quicker, the better.  And the only way I know to do that is to mentally chop the job into little, tiny, manageable pieces.

I do NOT have to write a promotion today.  All I have to do is the research.  Or part of the research.  Or part of one of the other steps that will ultimately lead me to direct response Nirvana.

Thinking about the work this way does more than just relieve your anxiety.  It blows all that procrastination you’re usually guilty of at the beginning of each project right out of the water.  You’ll get to work faster.

The second trick is something my pal Rich Schefren calls “Getting Into a Flow State.”  Ever have a day when you sit down to work and next thing you know it’s time for dinner … you have to force yourself to stop … and when you reflect on the day, you’re blown away by the quantity — and more importantly, the quality — of what you accomplished in a single day?

That, my friend, is the flow state Rich is talking about.  And getting into this kind of flow state is my goal every time I sit down at my desk. 

Because the fact is, flow states equal money.  Because the more flow states you experience during each project, the faster the project goes and the better your work output will be.

The thing is, though, flow states don’t “just happen.”  They’re kind of like hummingbirds:  They’ll show up naturally if you’ll just create an environment that attracts them. 

For me, that means a light dinner and a good night’s sleep.  An enclosed work space.  No interruptions (no phone; “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door).  No distractions (no people to watch, no iPod, no TV in the background).  And every tool I need to do today’s job readily at hand.

That’s just me.  You’ll have to figure out what works for you.

The third trick is something I do on every job — and that “Legendary Gary” Bencivenga told me he does, too:  Constantly visualize success.  I know; how Norman Vincent Peale of me.  Right?  What could possibly be more hackneyed than to dust off the decades-old concept of “positive thinking?”

Thing is, like all laws that survive the test of time, positive thinking works. 

Gary is a kind of “get to the point” guy, so he visualizes the casual stroll to the mailbox that results in the discovery of a six-figure royalty check inside. 

I’m less driven by money than by ego — and scootie-pootie — so my fantasy is the phone call I’ll get from an amazed client when he sees my copy for the first time … the call telling me he had to put on three shifts to handle the orders … and, of course, all the great cuddling I’ll get when The Redhead sees the royalty deposit on the bank statement.

Whatever your motivation, try keeping it in mind as you write.

The fourth trick is to “Know thyself.”  Once you’ve been doing this for a while, you’ll come to recognize that this isn’t just an intellectual exercise but an emotional one. 

You may feel overwhelmed at the beginning.  Discouraged when a solution doesn’t come fast enough.  Your inferiority complex will kick into overdrive when you see how others have done it. 

You’ll feel excited when you hit upon a new idea.  Increasingly proud as you read and re-read each draft and polish it to a high sheen.  And, frankly, thrilled beyond words when you’re finally done and the damn thing is off your desk.

Heck.  I could almost draw an emotional map that predicts how I’ll feel tomorrow, based entirely on where I am in a project and what I’ll be working on.

The thing is, feelings are more intense than thoughts.  So they can have a way of blanking your mind and freezing you like a biker who just spotted a grizzly in his headlights. 

It helped me when I learned that 99.9% of all negative emotions are not caused by objective truth.  And therefore, the vast majority of all bad feelings are baloney.

Because anxiety, stress, intimidation, depression and all the rest are caused as we filter facts about events or our current situation through beliefs we have about ourselves (“I’m a phony”) … others (“People don’t like me”) … and the world around us (“I’ll never be as successful as Carline”).

Of course, those beliefs are dumb.  And so are the negative emotions they produce.

So when I experience a negative emotion while I’m working, I pause for a moment … ask myself, “What thought zipped through my mind — probably unrecognized — just before I got bummed out?”

Then, after realizing how ridiculously wrong that thought was, I can almost instantly dismiss the negative emotion and dive back into the work.

Try it; it works.

Fifth Trick:  Screw the rules!  See, you’ve learned too many of them.  And frankly, they’re getting in the way.  So forget ‘em.  Consciously, at least.

Instead, focus on your prospect and be a salesman in print.  Think, “If I was in a room with my best prospect and needed to get his attention, engage him, present the reasons why he should buy and close the sale — what would I say to him?”

Then, let the conversation flow naturally out the ends of your fingers, to the keyboard and into your document.

Sometimes, I even close my eyes while I’m typing.  I say this.  He thinks — or says that.  I respond this way.  He reacts that way.

There’ll be plenty of time in later drafts to think about which rules you broke or didn’t follow.  This draft is about speed.  About following your best persuasive instincts.

Trick #6:  Do some bedtime reading.  Let your last act each day be to read what you’ve written that day.  File it away in your subconscious mind. 

And go to work the minute you wake up in the morning so the connections your brain made overnight find their way onto the page.

Do these six thing religiously on your next project and you’ll be amazed how much more quickly it goes and how much easier writing feels.

I promise.

Hope this helps …

Yours for Bigger Winners, More Often,

Clayton Makepeace
Publisher & Editor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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The J. Peterman catalog is a masterpiece of mixing romance and storytelling, finished off with a dash of practicality and concern with the highest quality product and service possible.

Not too long ago I had written a post
about J. Peterman on my own blog.

Just this week, I got a very pleasant surprise and received an e-mail from Jonathan Sexton, Gladiator for the J. Peterman Company (or as he says, drab title ­ Director of Marketing).

He complimented me on the article and we have agreed to do a teleseminar next week discussing J. Peterman’s success … failure … and resurgence in popularity.

I thoroughly enjoyed Peterman’s book,
Peterman Rides Again.

If you haven’t read it before … you need to.

His book is packed with exceptional storytelling and a very insightful look into the life of this unusual garment globetrotter.

It all started with an ankle-length duster - a long, simple riding coat that John Peterman purchased during a trip to Wyoming. “I wore that coat and people wanted to buy it off my back,” said Peterman.

As he took his initial purchase and turned it into a mail order company, he found his flair for writing and eye for unusual items was drawing in people who were looking for something out of the ordinary.

The first full year selling J. Peterman Dusters he sold $580,000 worth that year. That led to the J. Peterman shirt … which was another great seller … which led to another … and another.

John Peterman would travel the world looking for unusual items that people normally wouldn’t be able to find, or had romance and stories built right into them.

And he succeeded.

The catalog that started a cult …

As you may know, his catalog, the Owner’s Manual, was a masterpiece

… Using hand-drawn sketches rather than photographs.

 … Using long copy to romance the reader, rather than short, typical, catalog copy.

The J. Peterman Owner’s Manual was the secret (and sacred) tool that like-minded people would cherish and read out loud amongst their closest friends on the inside.  

It was an odd shape as well … 5 ½ by 10 ½ inches.

The catalog itself became a thing of legend and celebrities quickly became devoted fans and buyers. 

A list of just a few J. Peterman fans (and customers):

Nicole Kidman

Tom Cruise

Clint Eastwood

Tom Brokaw

Paul Newman

Joanne Woodward

Kim Basinger

Tom Hanks

Mia Farrow

Bill Murray

Angela Lansbury

Sidney Pollack

Jerry Seinfeld

Oprah

… To name just a few

Wouldn’t you just love to have a client list like that?

In 1991 The New York Times called him the Merchant Poet.

His success bloomed and his reputation became legendary among the discerning, more affluent crowd.

And then Seinfeld hit in 1995

With no advance warning, J. Peterman became a character on the hit sitcom, “Seinfeld.”

“Seinfeld” caught J. Peterman by surprise – and it took them from having a catalog that was a well-kept secret to having no secret at all.

The growth was phenomenal and debilitating.

The phone lines lit up and people wanted more.

They bought … he expanded.

But something bad started to happen
amidst all his success …

The “Seinfeld” show made light of who the real J. Peterman was, and it created the wrong impression in the general public’s eye.

[Note: Offline … the TV J. Peterman,  John O’Hurley , said “J. Peterman answers a need for authenticity in a world that is losing authenticity at a catastrophic rate”]

Something to think about: O’Hurley’s statement reflects much of what is happening right now in our economy.  People are distrusting, weary of spending money on the same-old, same-old.  They are looking for unusual experiences, exciting new product offers, and a GREAT story they can tell their friends and family. 

Don’t you think that maybe … just maybe …
the J. Peterman style of copy
could help YOUR business stand out from the clutter?

I certainly think it applies everywhere!

Headlines or copy that reads like this "As my boat sank into the Zambezi, I watched my luggage float downstream over Victoria Falls. But the day wasn’t a total loss …"compels people to read … and we all need to find new and innovative ways to bring people into our culture.

What happened to J. Peterman
and caused the ultimate demise of this icon?

He lost touch with what made his company so great to begin with, and was focused more on investors and retail expansion, rather than the things that he loved so much about his company.

Expansion into retail destroyed all that he enjoyed most about his business. Cash flow issues continued to plague them.

Ultimately, the expansion caused him to go bankrupt,
 and his dreams were dashed.

He eventually bought J. Peterman back out of bankruptcy with the help of friends and family, and is rebuilding it from the ground up (you MUST get on their mailing list, if you aren’t already).

They are again obsessive about the copy and the catalog … even when he had Don Stanley writing his copy alongside him. 

Back in the boom time, the sheer volume of copy needed meant they needed to expand and find other writers who could match their flair for persuasive storytelling through catalog copy.

They were very picky on who wrote for them and how the copy sounded. One writer needed to sound just as appealing as the next … and they all needed to sound just like the infamous J. Peterman wrote it himself.

Some lessons from J. Peterman:

• He created a brand character that developed a life of its own (much like the Tommy Bahama character does).
• Build practical romance into your copy and the experience your buyers have with your company
• Attaching emotional meaning and feeling to clothing and everyday items you may put in your home or business.
• Focus on the best customer service possible.  Develop the attitude that your service and guarantees are to be upheld to the point that anything and everything is guaranteed.  Make it so people WANT to tell others about how great your customer service is.  In his book, they talk about a return they got on a pair of boots that were obviously worn for work on a farm and in the fields.  They were worn out and the customer wanted a refund. Most companies would say no.  J. Peterman knew that if he gave the gentleman a new pair, word would spread. And it did … quickly.
• Truly think through the experience you give your prospects and buyers  … how can you incorporate more Peterman style copy into your business? 
• Do you tell the real adventures you go through to find components to your products? Or how you invented your newest creation?  Or what the actual experience you provide delivers to the clients?
• Do you use catalogs?  Could you?  Again, go to www.jpeterman.com and sign up for their newsletter.  Read their copy, and think through how you could romanticize your products and services like they do. (It IS possible to do, you have to use your creativity and writer’s voice to find it, and you will).  Look at how a jacket and skirt becomes an experience.  Or how a cologne can increase your heart rate and make you feel warm.

(from www.JPeterman.com)

Harriet and Lord Peter jacket, $285, and pleated skirt, $175:

They met in her cell in the Old Bailey. Had she fed arsenic to her lover? Had she? He proved her innocent. Met again in Oxford. (She wore this outfit.) He courted her; punting on the Cherwell, quail’s eggs, wit, an antique ivory chess set. Proposed in Latin: “Placetne?” Oh, yes. It pleased her.

Shocking rabbit fur hat, $245:

Shocking to see someone this young, this independent, so beautifully dressed. Shocking to find out she was not who she said she was. Shocking to see her walk off the QE2, into the arms of an unsuitable man, just an ordinary bounder.

The other passengers couldn’t stop looking. At what she wore, how she wore it, the way they looked at each other, the way they still do.

Dominica Bay Rum.

The Small Island of Dominica. Columbus discovered it, named it, and left it alone. It’s north of Martinique. And it is the home, since 1907, of a very good West Indian Bay Rum manufactured under the Dominica brand-name.

Bay Rum has a fairly quiet scent, less strong than anything called perfume, less strong than anything called aftershave, but not so quiet as to be boring.

It is, in fact, quite sexy.

It is sexy the way skin begins to smell from strong sun, salt water, steel drums, breaking waves, moving palm branches and giggling coming from somewhere.

Men liked Bay Rum long before 1907, when the Dominica brand started. Men have liked Bay Rum since Spanish Main days. They like it for the least complicated reason in the world: it smells good.

A decent gift which often turns into a lifetime habit.

Dominica Bay Rum (No. 1044), 10 fl. oz. Imported.

Now is the time to use incredible storytelling
and copy like this.

People are looking for new experiences and new ways to buy … this approach can easily make your company stand out from any and every competitor you have.

Last: if you want to dig deeper into the J. Peterman success story and learn how to incorporate their techniques into your own business, join us next week for the free call www.jpetermancall.com

What would be the TOP question you would like to ask their Director of Marketing? 

Leave your best questions below and we will see how much quality information Jonathan Sexton can give us.

Make sure you read their site, and get a copy of John Peterman’s book.

Thanks again.

To your success,

Troy White
Editor, Small Business Mastery
Supplement to THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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A Final Note:

If you have specific subjects you would like addressed, or have any comments on what you have seen here, please submit a comment below and I will see how I can help.

"Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.”

–Napoleon Hill

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Attribution Statement: This article was first published in The Total Package. To sign-up to receive your own FREE subscription to The Total Package and claim four FREE money making e-books go to www.makepeacetotalpackage.com.

Dear Web Business-Builder:

If you want all the red-hot traffic your Web site can handle without paying a dime in advertising, Paul Hartunian is the man who can tell you how to do it.

Using nothing but dirt cheap faxed press releases, he’s been on Phil Donahue, Regis, Jenny Jones, all the major talk shows, CNN, thousands of radio stations, written up in Forbes and USA Today … and capitalized on those appearances to systematically drive wave after wave of pre-qualified prospects to his 40+ websites to make a fortune.

Yet amazingly, he says you don’t need any special skills, inside connections, or even anything terribly exciting to say to gain this kind of business-building exposure. AND that it works for ANY product or service you want to sell …

I challenged him on that … and got him to spill the beans on a few more secrets than I think he’d planned on revealing … Proven strategies for using this often misunderstood “advertising medium” to explode your online sales!

Check it out …

Daniel Levis: All right. So let’s get started. Many of the folks who will be listening to this, Paul, or reading this interview, are professional and aspiring copywriters – who I’m sure will be very interested in finding about how they can integrate publicity into their marketing arsenal for their clients. There are also business owners and online marketers out there who have a similar interest, but before we begin in earnest, I’m curious about something. You’re known as the only honest man to have ever sold the Brooklyn Bridge. Tell us that story.

Paul Hartunian: Okay. In 1983 I had been working on this publicity system that I’ve now been using and people around the world have been using for over 20 years. It took me just about 20 years to develop this system and I was looking for a story to test out this new system for getting publicity. I saw on the news that the Brooklyn Bridge was being renovated. I saw the construction worker and the wood that was being taken off the walk way and I called the construction worker because I saw his phone number right on the truck.

I made a deal to buy the wood and then I had it cut up into one inch squares. I designed a certificate myself, and I’m no artist, this is simply laying out something on a piece of paper. I had the wood cut up into one inch squares, I had the certificates printed, and the one inch squares put on the certificates. And then, for the first time using my new publicity system, I wrote a press release, which probably took ten minutes, 15 minutes at the most, and I sent it out to the media to see if this system was going to work. And to make a long, very exciting, many, many years story very short, this has been picked up for well over the last 22 years, now, all around the world and I’m still doing interviews about the Brooklyn Bridge. So, it was actually selling real, genuine pieces of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Daniel Levis: Wow, that’s an incredible story. I guess that proved that the techniques and strategies that you’d been working on were effective.

Paul Hartunian: It did, but I have a cynical friend who thought it was just a little quirk. He said “That’s just a little pet rock. That’s not some new publicity formula.” And frankly, he got me on that one. I wasn’t prepared for that, so I had to test it a little bit more. I gave the formula to a lot of my friends at the time, in all different fields. There was a guy who installed carpets, there were people in insurance and real estate, dentistry, all different fields. And I told them what the formula was, I gave them everything.

I had them try it and sure enough, people were popping up with success after success.
I tried it again in a whole bunch of different areas and it just kept on working. And over the past 20 years I’ve done a little bit of polish, a little bit of fine tuning, but essentially, it has been so successful for people in just about any imaginable business, service, product, issue, whatever it is, the media people want to know about it.

Daniel Levis: Are there any types of businesses where PR is perhaps not as effective as others. You’ve indicated that people from all walks of life are using it, but are there any businesses that are perhaps less ripe?

Paul Hartunian: No, I can’t imagine that. And that’s a very good question and every once in a while people will ask me that general question, “Are there businesses or products or service that publicity can’t be use for?” but most often, people ask me specifically about their business. They may say “I’m a landscaper. Will publicity work for me?” Well, you bet. People want to know a lot about landscaping, even just how to pick a good landscaper.

And then bringing it up to the current day, people say, “Well, I have a website. Will publicity work for a website owner?” Yeah, sure. There’s information on your website that the media people will want to know. I understand people listening to this are also copywriters; advertising, marketing copywriters. Can publicity be used for that? Sure.

Probably for copywriters, the biggest thing that the media people will want to know is “What’s the value of a copywriter? Why would I be paying you a lot of money to write a sales letter for me?” Now, copywriters know that and you know that and I know that; we know exactly why copywriters are so valuable, but the general public doesn’t. So, if I pick a number out of the air, the copywriter said “Well, to write a sales letter, I’m going to charge you $5,000.”

The general public will say “$5,000. That’s phenomenal. Wow.” Daniel, to you and me $5,000 could be a great bargain. That’s what the media people want to know: Why would Daniel? Why would Paul? Why would someone else be willing to pay $500, $5,000, $10,000 to have a sales letter written? That’s good information that media people want to know and that’s a great publicity opportunity.

Daniel Levis: Hmm. But, how does one find the best places to place that publicity or to seek to place that publicity that will provide the kind of positive exposure that’s going to result in sales?

Paul Hartunian: I’ll give you a few examples and during our discussion today, I’m going to bounce all over the place; all different products and services and businesses, to show you how versatile this system is. I’m making these up by the way, we didn’t rehearse anything, I’m just going to pick these things out of the air and then if you would like to just out of the blue, give me a business or a product or a service, we can talk about that, as well, to again show you how versatile this can be.

Let’s say we’re talking about a little bakery in a tiny little town in Kentucky, that may make chocolate chip cookies with macadamia nuts. Where would they want publicity? Well, they’ll certainly want publicity in their local area because they service their hometown area. That’s where their customers generally will be. But, they will also want publicity in USA Today, the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal.

Now some people are saying “I just disconnected here, Paul. Why will a bakery shop owner who sells chocolate chip, macadamia cookies in Kentucky, number one, want a story in the LA Times and number two, get a story in the LA Times?” And that’s the heartbeat of publicity right there, in the system the way I do it. That’s such a valuable and important question that I want to spend a little bit of time on. When people come to a local business or if they go to a local website, let’s say somebody has a local website, just servicing a particular area.

If they get local publicity, that’s great. It gives you great credibility; it gives you some celebrity status. It gets information out; it tops your competition because they’re not doing this. But, think about what happens if somebody walks into that bakery shop and on the wall, instead of paintings of bull dogs playing poker or a velvet painting of Elvis, or something like that, instead of that on the walls of the bakery they have articles about their chocolate chip cookies from the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, from USA Today.

And if these are in the window of the shop and if the shop owner sends these out in mailings to the community and if he puts them in the bag with the chocolate chip cookies, all of a sudden, this isn’t just a little local bakeshop. This is an important bakeshop; so important that the LA Times is writing about it. Same thing with a website. If you’ve got a good website or if you’re a copywriter, and big media is covering you and your story, you have risen so far above your competition that they’re going to have a very difficult, if not impossible time catching up.

Daniel Levis: Let’s take another example. Obviously most people eat cookies. How do you target something that’s a little less generic? Let’s say for example, well, maybe even copywriting is a good example. Something that’s national in scope, potentially, or even global in scope but from an interest group perspective, is somewhat narrower.

Paul Hartunian: Okay. And Daniel, I encourage you to put me on the spot with these examples, again, we didn’t rehearse these, so I don’t even know what you’re going to be asking me. And I’m going to ask you a few questions. I’m not going to put you on the spot at all, these will be questions that you already know the answer to because of what you do. So, let’s talk about copywriters. Between you and me and people familiar with marketing, why would someone want a copywriter? Why do you think people go to copywriters?

Daniel Levis: Well, essentially they go to copywriters because they want to get more value from the space that they buy. They want more return on investment from the space that they buy since it’s costing them, in some cases, much more than what they would pay a copywriter.

Paul Hartunian: Exactly; very good. So they want the best possible value from the space they’re buying in a newspaper or magazine or a mailing they’re doing or something else. Now, Daniel, I’m going to have you answer the question you asked me. So, your first answer was great. That’s exactly why people should go to a copywriter. But now, we’re dealing with the general public and the vast majority of the general public, if we consider the general public small business owners, let’s say; the vast majority of them don’t hire copywriters. And Daniel, who do you think does the copywriting for the local pizza shop, for example?

Daniel Levis: I would say probably the Yellow Page representative.

Paul Hartunian: Right. And how much do they generally know about response marketing?

Daniel Levis: Very little.

Paul Hartunian: Very little, exactly. So now, you just set up a perfect scenario. You set up a great scenario. We’re talking to a small business owner who either does his own copywriting, which often is a disaster, or he depends on people like the Yellow Pages rep or the coupon/mailing rep to write out the – or the magazine sales rep, to write out the ad. Here’s a great story coming up that the media people will want to know.

Daniel Levis: How do I get maximum hit rate in terms of the people that are going to see my publicity and the people that are prospects for my copywriting product?

Paul Hartunian: Yeah, I want you to get rid of the idea of hit rate and the idea of percentage and return and everything like that. Frankly, I think it’s inappropriate, even in marketing, but it’s certainly inappropriate in publicity and here’s why. I’m going to tell you exactly where all the media people are and everything else. Let’s say you’re selling something – a car, a $30,000 car, and you only get one interview, even though you sent out a thousand press releases. Well, that’s a pretty poor response rate, isn’t it? It’s one tenth of one percent; pretty miserable. But let’s say that because of that you got in USA Today and you sold 80 cars, you know, I don’t care. I want cash in the bank.

On the other hand, if you got a 10 percent response rate, you faxed out 1,000 press releases, which is a ridiculously high number anyway, and you got 100 interviews, but you sold no cars. I don’t care about response rates. I care about dollars in the bank. So, what you’re going to want to do will be to first look at your target market. You want to first deal locally, if you do, get the media people in your area. Where do you find those? In the library, there’s two books.

In any big reasonable library, you’re going to find two books. One’s called Bacon’s, like bacon and eggs, Bacon’s Publicity Checker. They will have tens-of-thousands of media contact people right there, all the information you need. A smaller directory is called Gebbie’s. G-E-B-B-I-E-S. Gebbie’s All in One. Far fewer media contacts, but it’s a very good start. I want people to get rid of the idea that you want to do the biggest blitz possible. And the other thing I want to get rid of, and we’ll talk more about this, I want you to get rid of this idea of “I want to send them out by e-mail because it’s free.” I have very little interest in anything that’s free, certainly not e-mailing press releases. So that’s where you find them and that’s what you do. I want response rates to no longer be a part of people’s vocabulary. I want it to be dollars in the bank.

Daniel Levis: So let me see if I got this straight. You’re saying you’re going to look in these directories and you’re going to try and find the media outlets that fit or you’re just going to broadcast across a wide swath? I’m not sure what you’re saying.

Paul Hartunian: I’m doing two things. If you know for sure that there are target media people out there that cover your story, sure, you’re certainly going to get it to them, but, also, I encourage people to do broad swath, as you say. If there is even a reasonable thought that a media person would cover your story, I’d get a press release into their hands. Now, it’s gotta be a very reasonable thought; it can’t be silly shots in the dark. So if you have a website on soccer and you are getting your press release out to everybody and anybody, that means the food editor is going to get it and the voting editor’s going to get it, you’re going to wind up in trouble and you deserve to be in trouble because that’s the equivalent of ‘spamming’ them.

You did absolutely no work whatsoever to find these people, and it’s so easy to do that. So easy to find the right people and it takes so little time. And this is a huge mistake that people make. They buy these lists of reporters or their e-mail addresses, which is even worse, and there’ll be 10,000 e-mail addresses. You know how easy it is to copy and paste all these e-mail addresses. Put it into the address section of the e-mail, hit send and 10,000 people just got your press release. That’s a formula for disaster; it’s absolutely a formula for disaster. You’re just waiting to be shut down.

Daniel Levis: So what you’re saying is to target but don’t go too overboard.

Paul Hartunian: Yeah, yeah, on both ends. Target and don’t go overboard on sending it out to people that clearly would have no interest in your story, but also don’t go overboard on your research. I know that there a lots of publicity books out there that tell you before you do any publicity campaign, watch all the TV shows listen to the radio shows, read all the magazines that you’re going to target. I don’t know where these people get all this time.

Daniel Levis: (Laughs.) Yeah, I was just going to say that.

Paul Hartunian: I think that’s a ridiculous thing to say. In fact if you go into the bookstore, you’ll see lots of $20 books on publicity. They’ve been around forever. Look in these books and look for a few things. Number one, look for that suggestion that before you send out a press release do all this, you know, watch the TV shows, total nonsense. Nobody has that much time in their lives.

Number two, if they use the word “hook”, I’m real skeptical right away. They say you need a ‘hook’ for your story. Hooks are for fishing, they’re not for publicity. I don’t know what they’re talking about when they say “What’s your hook?” You don’t need a hook. And here’s the problem with using the word ‘hook’. When people who are just getting going in publicity see the word ‘hook’, they translate that into exciting, unique, different, wild. That’s what they think a hook means. You don’t need any such thing. You just need basic, good, solid, frankly sometimes boring information and that will be just fine.

And the other thing that people should look for on these $20 books, to, in my opinion, prove that these people have very little knowledge about what they’re talking about, when they say “After you get your press releases out, call the reporters to just verify that they got your press release.” The last thing that these reporters want to hear is your phone call coming in. Every day, they probably get 300 press releases, or so. That means if people followed what these books say, they’re going to get 300 phone calls every single day. That’s the last thing they want. Do not call the reporter to follow up. They got your press release. I will guarantee, they got your press release. If you did it the right way, they will follow up and call you.

Daniel Levis: Well, what’s the best way to get to the top of the pile? You said they’re getting 300 a day, how do you become the wheat and separate yourself from the chaff?

Paul Hartunian: The good news is the majority of what’s out there is chaff; there’s very little wheat out there, so that’s the good news. How do you become the wheat? You follow some basic rules of publicity and these are not rules that I came up with, these have been around forever. And then you follow some other rules that I did come up with. Keep in mind, again, that in any reasonably busy press room, 300 press releases a day would not be unusual. Now, in your tiny little community newspaper, they don’t get 300 press releases a day.

They may get 300 press releases a week or maybe a month, but that’s not what we’re talking about; we’re talking about a reasonable press room, again, not The New York Times, they probably get 1,000 or 2,000 a day. So, let’s say 300 a day. This is pretty much how press releases are sorted, and I mean this literally. I’m not exaggerating, there’s no hyperbole here at all. There is somebody in charge of collecting the press releases from the fax machines or wherever else they’re coming in from. This person literally stands over a trash can and he’ll have in front of him a stack of 300 press releases, let’s say. The first thing he does is go through that stack very, very quickly.

He gives each press release maybe half-a-second to one second, again, I mean that literally. He doesn’t read a word. He just looks at it. Does it look right? If it doesn’t look right, what that’s saying to him is you don’t know what you’re doing. If you don’t know what a press release is supposed to look like, it’s almost certain you don’t know how to do an interview and you don’t know how to do the follow-up or whatever else is necessary. So, real quickly, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, watch them go in the trash. Some of them go back on the desk because they look right.

So let’s say we go from 300 down to 220. 80 went into the trash. He picks up the 220, now he reads the headlines and that’s all he reads; he just reads the headlines. The only thing he wants to find out is, does that headline force him to keep on reading? He doesn’t have to have any interest in the story, so the headline may be about crocheting. Well he has no interest in crocheting, but it was such a good headline, he wanted to keep reading that press release. Good. It stays on the desk, the rest go in the trash. Now we went from 220 down to 150.

He picks up the 150 and he starts reading the press releases; he wants to find out what the story’s about. And now he asks himself several questions: Do we need this story right away? Is this press release written in a way that tells me that this person knows how to play this publicity game? That’s the real key, right there. Most people think that a press release is supposed to tell a complete story. Absolutely not. It is not supposed to tell the whole story.

What it’s supposed to do is tell the reporter what your story is about and number two, equally as importantly, it’s supposed to tell the reporter that you know how to play the game. These are the two things a press release is supposed to do, nothing more.

Daniel Levis: Okay, so let’s spin this conversation just a little bit. How can copywriters and professional marketers use publicity instead of, or in addition to, traditional advertising, not for themselves, but to help their client grow their businesses?

Paul Hartunian: You brought up quite a few questions in there and quite a few very good points. So, number one, you had mentioned in addition to other marketing, and I agree with that completely. So many people depend 100 percent on what I’ll call traditional marketing, display ads, Yellow Pages, sales letters and everything else and zero on publicity. There should be a nice balance there doing traditional marketing, supported with publicity; a perfect little balance, there.

So the copywriter has several things he could be doing. He would be promoting his business or he could be promoting his client’s business or he could be creating press releases for his clients. He could have a whole new business or he could have another arm to his business, not only is he doing advertising copywriting, but he’s writing great press releases for this client, too. That, in my mind, is a dream copywriter. If you have one person who can be writing your marketing materials and at the same time, writing your press materials and getting them out to the appropriate sources, there’s the dream come true, as far as the clients are concerned and also, as far as the copywriter’s concerned because now we have another stream of income.

So what the copywriter can do to promote his client is to start looking at the information that the client has that the vast majority of people would want. That’s what you should always be thinking about, and I’ll tell you exactly where most people go wrong. When the copywriter or whoever is writing the press release starts putting the press release together, he says “What information do I want to get out to the public about my business?” Dead wrong, dead wrong. You’re winding up in the trash can. That’s not the purpose of a press release; that’s the purpose of an ad.

Instead, you should be saying “What information do I have that I want to get out to the public to show them that I’m a great source of this information?” There we go, and hopefully, people listening to that just wrote that down and if not, I’m going to repeat it again, this is that critical. When you’re writing a press release, you think about the information that you have about your business, your product, your service, your issue, whatever else it is. What information do you have that the public would be interested in knowing, that will show that you are a great source of that information?

So, if you own a pizza shop, if the copywriter is writing marketing materials for a pizza shop, again, just making this up, the pizza shop owner will not want to get a press release out talking about how he opened up a second location. Who cares? Who could possibly care? Instead, he may want to send out a press release talking about what ingredients not to combine in a pizza because it’s a sure fire disaster. Or, pizza and appetizers, that’s the word I’m trying to think of. Little pizza appetizers for a summer party.

Daniel Levis: Or what two ingredients never to order if you’re worried about your cholesterol.

Paul Hartunian: Very good. Very good. Now, I’m showing that I’m a great source of information about pizza. Daniel, you and I both know, and everyone listening to this knows that nobody cares about us. Even our mothers lied. People care about themselves. I care about myself, you care about yourself and certainly, in publicity, this is so true. People don’t care about your business. The reporters don’t care about your business. The only thing the reporter cares about is that you will give him information that he can share with his audience to make him, the reporter, look good to his audience.

There’s another important concept. Your job, as a person seeking publicity, is to make that reporter look good to his audience. If you make him look good to his audience, and the way you do that is give him great information, so his readers, his viewer, his listeners say “Wow, Jeff gets so many great people on his show. He’s really well-connected with important, influential, knowledgeable people.” How many people are watching Jeff’s show? He’s really exciting. Well, Jeff is exciting because you helped him with great information to look exciting. In return, the reporter will promote your business. He’ll do your selling for you and he’ll do a much better job of selling than you will.

When you try to sell something, when the copywriter tries to sell his services, he’s just a salesman. He’s pitching another product and people get this day in and day out. But when the reporter says, what his talk show host, and I just call them all reporters to make it easy, I mean editors, talk show hosts, anybody, any type of people in the media, when a talk show host says – and you know, I felt the same way, folks, about copywriters, I said “Why am I going to write out this big check for somebody to write a little Yellow Pages ad? The Yellow Pages people will do it for me for free.”

Well, I think we’ve all seen how valuable that is. What an enormous difference it could make to your business, your bottom line and your profitability, so that money you’re spending for the copywriter isn’t an expense, it’s an investment that’s going to pay over and over again for years. “I want to thank you Daniel for being on my show and explaining the value of copywriters, in fact, I’m going to hire you because I need some great work done.”

Daniel Levis: There you go. Here’s a question for you. Let’s generalize a little bit about the types of format. You’ve talked about an interview. I can imagine a reporter would write a story, perhaps. What are the types of format, the kinds of publicity that are available?

Paul Hartunian: Well, it’s generally two kinds: Live and not live. Live means you’re on the air and as you are talking, that information’s going out over the air on TV or radio. Not live means either the radio or TV show is recorded or you’re doing a print interview, so the person is just asking you questions back and forth and re-asking questions or clarifying because this person will take this information and later he’ll then write an article. There’s no better way to do it, live or not live. I love them both.

Daniel Levis: So there’s like two formats. There’s one that’s a back and forth interaction, similar to what we’re having right now, and then there’s a story where I would perhaps take this interview and create a story or an article. Are there any other types of format?

Paul Hartunian: In my mind there is not. Is there something else that you have in mind, Daniel? Another way you’re going?

Daniel Levis: Not really, no. Just a question.

Paul Hartunian: Okay. Yeah, it’s either the information is going out immediately as you say it or it’s being put together in some format. It may be an article in a print publication; it may go onto a website. It may be an article sent out over the Internet for distribution. Those are all later, they’re not live. But one serious caution; one thing I want to really caution people on: If you do a not live interview, that doesn’t mean you can be casual and make mistakes and go back and correct them and say “Oh, this is not for publication.” Treat every interview like it’s live.

Daniel Levis: Right.

Paul Hartunian: Only say things that you want to go out there because if you say something and it’s controversial enough, it’s going out there whether you want it to go out or not.

Daniel Levis: Right. What are some the other big misconceptions about publicity that prevent business owners from using it successfully?

Paul Hartunian: Probably number one on the list of misconceptions, incorrect information, myths, whatever you’ll have is that people think that they need some great copywriting ability to write a powerful press release, and that’s not true at all. In fact, some of the worst press releases are written by people with a journalistic background, or a literary background, or a creative writing background. And I’ve heard this from a lot of people: They have a background in creative writing and in fact took some creative writing classes because they want to get better at writing a press release and their press releases are often dreadful because they think they’re writing a drama. They think they’re writing Shakespeare or something like that and they’re missing the point.

Writing a great press release takes very little, if any creative writing ability. What it does take is following a system, following a formula that’s been tested and tried and proven to work. That simply is called modeling. Modeling is true in every aspect of our lives. For many years, I taught medical classes and I would teach modeling to my students and I would use an example of some dread disease that had a high rate of fatalities. Well, in a high rate of fatalities, some people survive. How did they do that? Find those people and do exactly what they did.

That’s what modeling is. If you want to be playing Major League Baseball, why are you in the sandlot with your friends shagging flies? They’re not in Major League Baseball. Start modeling Major League Baseball players. Same thing with publicity. Model a system that’s already been tested and tried and follow it step-by-step, so no creative writing ability’s really needed. Also, you don’t have to have any connections in the media. You don’t have to know anybody. You don’t have to know producers or editors or writers or anybody like that.

If you approach this in a correct way, and you present this idea or information to the reporters, they will come to you and now you’ve got this nice back and forth. They will simply want to know what you know so you don’t need any connections whatsoever and certainly, you do not have to pay people to book you on the interview, so by no means do you have to pay anybody to book you on these small, local talk shows and newspapers; certainly not. I’ve been doing this for well over 20 years; never once have I paid anybody to book me on an interview. You can do that yourself.

Daniel Levis: What are the best ways to get listeners or readers to actually go to the trouble of contacting you about your business, once you’ve got some exposure?

Paul Hartunian: The basic premise of publicity is not what I call a one shot wonder. Do one shot wonders happen? You bet. They happen to my publicity students many, many times. A one shot wonder means first shot out of the gate, you have a press release, you’ve got huge publicity, lots of business; great. I want people to consider that a bonus but I don’t want them to think that’s what publicity is. Lots of times I have people calling my office saying “My business is failing. I need a publicity miracle to save my business.”

No. That’s not the way you do business. You don’t look for miracles. Instead, what you should be doing is building this foundation of credibility by sending out press releases once a week or once every other week. Now, that may sound like a lot of work; it’s not. When I say send out a press release every week or every other week, I’m talking about maybe five minutes of work to just make a few adjustments to the press release you sent the week before, and you’re sending out quality information.

And let me give you another example, let me just pick one out of the air. Let’s pick auto mechanics. Auto mechanics are a dime a dozen and people are always in a quandary about how to get a reliable, honest auto mechanic. Well, one way for the mechanic to establish his credibility is, every week send out a press release to the local media in his area talking about some aspect of maintaining your car or car safety or something to do with your car. Now I’m not talking about sending out a press release on how to overhaul an engine, that’s ridiculous, but, simple little things. If winter is coming up, you send out a press release on how to winterize your car, what things you should be doing to make sure that your car runs through the winter. And then you can summarize your car, when summer is coming, what do you do to make sure the car doesn’t overheat and gives you the best performance.

So send out another press release talking about high test gas versus regular, is it worth the money? So send in another press release talking about the new systems in new cars that show tire pressure and they prevent blow outs; is that worth getting? So send in another press release talking about whether you should use synthetic oil when you get your oil changed or regular oil; is it worth the extra expense? This is all just building up his credibility as a source of good, solid, consumer oriented information about maintaining your car.

Daniel Levis: It almost sounds improbable that he wouldn’t get some exposure eventually.

Paul Hartunian: Yeah, you’re right. Look at what I was just talking about and let’s use that word ‘hook’ again, which just gives me the shivers. It annoys the heck out me because it has stopped so many people from trying to get publicity because they didn’t think they had a ‘hook.’ Let’s look at these examples for this mechanic. We’re talking about oil changes. Is there anything dazzling or wild or sexy or unique about an oil change? Of course not. We’re talking about flat tires and anti-freeze in your car.

This is all just good, solid information and everyone listening to this discussion you and I are having right now, Daniel; everybody listening to this has good solid information that the media people will want to know. So stop thinking that you need this wild thing. Why else will this mechanic invariably get press coverage? Because none of the other mechanics are doing this. They’re just doing the same old free oil change with every transmission repair; coupon here, Yellow Pages ad there. Well, that’s what all the mechanics are doing. None of the mechanics are sending out press releases.

Daniel Levis: Is there anything specific that, let’s take that example and run with it, an auto mechanic for example, could do with his press releases so that when the inevitable happens and he does get exposure that he could increase the odds that people that are reading the stories or the interviews or whatever format it ended up taking, are going to actually call him?

Paul Hartunian: Sure, in fact I’m going to go a little further than your question and give you lots of examples along the way. Sure. So in the stories in the interviews that he does, let’s say, and again, I pause for a second because I’m just making this up as we’re talking; there’s nothing rehearsed. Let’s say he talks about having your transmission serviced, the fluid drained and the filter changed and how often should you have that done? So he sends out a press release and he says “You should have it done every 25,000 miles or every two years.” and then he says “If anybody in the community has a question about this or would like me to check your transmission fluid for you, come on in for free. I’ll check your transmission fluid for free and I’ll let you know if it needs a change and if you do need a change, I’m not going to hold you up and say you have to have it here, I’ll just say go to your friendly mechanic and suggest that maybe you need a transmission oil change.” Well, who is the friendly mechanic obviously going to be?

Daniel Levis: Right.

Paul Hartunian: It’s going to be him because he did it for free. “If you have questions, if you’re having work done on your car and if you’re not sure that the person’s selling you the right thing, call me up, I’ll be happy to give you my opinion on what these other people are suggesting you get.” “Should you be getting these fancy new devices in your car? Let me know and I’ll give you my opinion and my experience on that.” So he could certainly put those in the interviews that he does.

Daniel Levis: Excellent.

Paul Hartunian: Now let’s take that one step further. You did not ask this question but it’s a great follow-up to that. Once these stories appear in the newspaper and once they are on the radio or TV, what does he do with that? Well, as people are sitting there waiting for their car to be ready, they’re doing an oil change and it’ll be about 20 minutes or so, they’re sitting in the waiting room and on TV, the smart mechanic is playing a video of him being interviewed on TV, talking about different consumer traps that people fall into when they bring their car in for a repair. Here’s a mechanic who is in the next room there, in the shop, changing is oil and the customer is seeing him on TV.

That’s pretty powerful stuff. He is now a celebrity mechanic. And when they leave, when they pay their bill, he can give them a little packet of reprints of articles that are interviews that he did with various newspapers. Now, Daniel, remember what we said before? These newspapers will not only be in his local area, but they’ll be national newspapers that will raise the impression that the customer gets. Here is this guy I thought was just a little local grease monkey and here he is, being interviewed by the Chicago Tribune. This must be somebody good.

Daniel Levis: Right.

Paul Hartunian: And all of this is free.

Daniel Levis: Yeah, that’s beautiful; absolutely beautiful. How can Internet marketers use off line publicity to generate online traffic?

Paul Hartunian: Every website and I don’t care if that website is simply a sales page, if it’s a one page sales page, every website has information that the general public would want to know. No, not everybody in the general public is going to want this information, but there’ll be specific people in markets that want this information. Get that information out to the media people. What is your product, what are you selling on your one page website?

Are you selling the little things that you put in electrical sockets so kids don’t up their fingers in there? Is that what your one page is selling? Well, don’t send out press releases about your one page website and this little device you’re selling. Nobody cares about that. That’s an advertisement. But you can send out a press release talking about child safety. Great idea. And you could say for more information, for more kits, go to my website and on your website, have some tips, there. Generate lots and lots of traffic that way.

Many people love that, by the way. They love staying on top of the technology, so they love the idea of you being on the radio talking to them about child safety. So now they’ve got the exposure once and at the end of your interview you say, “We’re out of time here, if people have more questions they can e-mail me at –.” And give out your e-mail address, “– or they can go to my website and they’ll see the most frequently asked questions about child safety.” And of course, once they’re on your website, using the regular marketing techniques, you just drive them to the sale of these little things that you put into your electrical sockets.

I don’t care if your website is 5,000 pages or one page, you’re obviously selling something and that something is going to solve a problem. Now everybody listening to this write that down. I don’t care what you’re selling, it solves some problem. If we go back to that bakery, he’s solving the problem of people being hungry and wanting a snack. The person selling the things you put in your electrical socket, that’s solves a problem of kids getting electrocuted. Every product and service on the planet solves a problem. That’s what the media people want to know about: The problems and the solutions.

In return, they will sell your product for you. But if you send out a press release, and again, back to these $20 books, you’ll see lots of them. Lots of these $20 books on publicity talking about “In your press release you should give out your toll free number to order your product or service, the price, the shipping cost and everything else.” Again, that’s death on a stick for a press release. You start putting that in your press release, it’s going into the trash can because again, that’s not a press release, it’s an ad.

Daniel Levis: We talked about radio interviews, newspaper interviews, magazine interviews; is there an online corollary? Are there places on the Internet itself where one could generate a publicity touch point?

Paul Hartunian: Yeah, sure, there are lots of them. And I’m going to, again, go a little further than your question was asking because I think it’s a very critical point. You can do off line publicity, the radio, TV, newspapers, magazine syndicates and things like that. There are lots of online interview opportunities, as well. You can get into these conferences they have online, audio conferences, e-mail conferences that are just words. The televised conferences and as technology progresses, probably next week there’ll be a new technology that you can use online. Certainly, you can use all of those opportunities, as well.

The one huge caution I want to add and I think I’m the lone wolf on the prairie, still shouting about this, I don’t want people to be e-mailing press releases. Do not e-mail your press releases. If you insist on using e-mail for press releases, I demand, I don’t just suggest, I demand that you use a service that does this. There are several services out there that will e-mail your press releases for you. If you e-mail your press release, you are begging for disaster. You’re begging to be shut down; you’re begging for all kinds of serious problems that you don’t want to have. Plus, even if we eliminate all the problems that you could have, all the trouble that you can create for yourself, e-mail is so unreliable right now and your publicity efforts can be so important to you.

Why would you take an unreliable source of delivery and entrust it with something so important to you? That’s what I don’t understand with people e-mailing press releases. It’s tough enough for me to e-mail just regular messages to my assistant in our office and in her home. Lots of times those don’t get through. Why would you entrust e-mail with something so important as your publicity campaign? And when people do that, when they e-mail their press releases themselves and they don’t have success, they blame it on publicity and they say “Oh, this publicity doesn’t work.”

Not thinking that they violated lots of the rules of publicity and very likely, lots of those e-mails never even got to the reporter. They were picked up as spam, they were filtered out, a whole list of problems, which is why I am so strongly against e-mailing press releases. And again, if you decide you do what to do it, you must use a service. Don’t do it on your own.

Daniel Levis: Do you recommend any fax service providers and do you recommend using any kind of help that they would give you in terms of finding out who to fax a press release to?

Paul Hartunian: Yeah, in fact, that’s how I get my press releases out. I fax them out. Now there’s been lots of discussion about the fax laws, the do not fax laws and everything else, and I and quite a number of people have looked at those laws and unfortunately, they’re not written so they’re very clear, but our understanding is that this has nothing to do with press releases, this has to do with unsolicited advertising. If you’re writing a press release, again, keeping the thread going that we’ve been talking about, if you’re writing a press release that is nothing more than an ad for your business or your product or service, yeah, you deserve to get into some trouble that you weren’t looking for.

But if you’re sending out press releases the way I’m talking about, they’re not ads, they’re solid information. That’s what the media depends on for their livelihood. That’s where they get their stories. I do a lot of dog rescue work you may be familiar with. My girlfriend and I started a non-profit dog rescue organization, www.auntmarysdoghouse.com, and publicity drives that work that we do.

When I send out press releases for our local dog rescue organization, I fax them right from my computer or my fax machine, here, because fewer than 50 are going out and I have them programmed into my fax machine. But if I’m doing a sizeable publicity campaign, and to me sizeable is more than 50 press releases going out, I’ll use a fax broadcast service. And if you just search ‘fax broadcast service’ in any search engine, you’ll come up with a long list of them. They’re all over the place. And here’s how you pick one.

I’m not going to recommend one, I’m certainly not going to recommend mine because if I recommend mine, the one that I use, people will go there and it’s unlikely they’ll even understand how to use it because it’s a fairly high tech service. You’ve got to know how to upload and do a whole bunch of different things, so then you will say “Oh, I’m not going to use this service.” The way you pick a service is to go to their home page, and I mean this next part seriously, I’m not being funny at all, if you go to their home page and you don’t understand their home page 100 percent, it’s not crystal clear to you, that’s not the service for you. It’s probably a little more technical than you’d want to handle.

If you understand their home page easily, then you go to what I call their use page, how you actually use their service. If you understand how to use their service, if you understand what they’re telling you to do, how to get the press release to them and everything else, that looks like it’s going to be one for you. Of course, look at their testimonials, what people have said about the service. Ask a few other people if they used them, if they had good reliability, now you’ve got a service.

They all charge generally the same amount, which is ridiculously cheap to get your press releases out. They know how to do it, they’ve established relationships with the media and that’s a very important question to ask a fax broadcast service: “Do you already have established relationships with the media people?” So now, we have no problems with the fax laws, because the fax laws clearly say if you have an established relationship you are fine. And that’s the way to get your faxes out and your press releases out using a fax broadcast service. There are also a few services out there who maintain databases of reporters, of the media people.

Ask them that. Ask them if they are one of those services. “Do you have a database and do you keep it up to date and how often do you update it?” And they will help you choose the media people. They charge a little bit more, but not much, maybe a quarter per fax, per press release going out, again, ridiculously cheap.

Daniel Levis: So that almost takes care of that other piece of grunt work that you were talking about earlier, going to get these books in the library and what not, you can sort of outsource that as well, is what you’re saying?

Paul Hartunian: Yeah, and to reference something we were talking about earlier, I’m not a big fan of “free.” I generally don’t even want to hear about free things. I am appalled at how many times I’ll go onto a discussion board and I will see people say “Can anybody give me a good source of free accounting advice?” And Daniel, you probably see the same thing. “Can anybody give me a good source of free legal advice?” You want free legal advice, is that right? Great. I’ll see you in court.

Hey, I don’t want this free stuff. I am very fast. I am lightening fast on my credit card. I want to pay people who know what they’re doing to do their job well for me. The same thing with getting my press releases out. Could I do that from my computer? Sure, I could and I know how to do it and I do it very well, but that’s my time not best spent. I want people to do it for me and do it well and take care of any problems that come up.

Daniel Levis: I think that’s two sides of the same coin, you know, that wanting stuff for free and then, doing it themselves and thinking that that’s somehow smart.

Paul Hartunian: Yeah. Yeah, and then these same people you see on the discussion boards, a month later they say “My business is in trouble. I can’t pay the mortgage this month, somebody help me out.” What? You’ve been getting all this free stuff thinking you can do all this stuff and you’re not focusing you attention on what you do best. I do best teaching people how to get publicity. I do not do best when I’m spending my time faxing these out one at a time or something else. Nobody listening to this does that best. The services do it best.

Daniel Levis: Penny wise and pound foolish, in other words.

Paul Hartunian: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Daniel Levis: Okay. You’ve indicated some mistakes that people generally make, but to summarize, what do you figure the top three mistakes, the big roadblocks that people find themselves overcome by when they’re sending press releases, pitching new stories and ideas to the press and executing their campaigns.

Paul Hartunian: Yes. Number one: They didn’t learn the rules of the game. Every game has its rules, whether it’s baseball, marketing or publicity, they all have their rules, and as I mentioned earlier, your press release is not only giving out a story idea, it’s letting the reporter know that you know the rules of the game. And the great thing is, the rules are not very involved, they’re pretty simple. The media people will not tell you the rules, you convey to them that you know the rules and they call you and say “Sounds like you have a good story and sounds like you know how to play this game, it sounds like you know what you’re doing.” That’s great.

Number two: People get stuck on this idea that they have got to get information out about what they’re selling. And I’ve stressed this so many times, and that is untrue. You want to establish yourself, and you should think about this. I tell my publicity students this all the time, I want you to think of yourself up on a raised platform, sitting on, whatever you want to sit on, a throne, a big stuffed chair or something else, but you’re up high and people are coming to you and looking up to you for great information. You’re the guru. You’re the Maha Raja, here. Do gurus make sales pitches? No they don’t. They’re informational. Their persona does it for them.

That’s what you should think about when you’re trying to get publicity. You’re the source of this great information. You’re the fountain of great information. Don’t go ruining it by making it a blatant sales pitch. Let people understand that you gave them such great information that they need more of you. They’ll come up with that decision on their own, very, very effectively.

Another benefit of that is that when you give some hard sales pitch, and Daniel, you and I’ve seen this all the time in seminars, these speakers are up there hammering the audience, just giving them this hard sell. The classic is time-share schemes when people go to these time-share lectures, they are just pummeled into the ground until their credit card falls out. Well, they have great problems with returns and customer service, but when you allow the customer to make that decision on their own, your problems disappear.

Daniel Levis: Right. Gurus don’t come down from the mountain looking for disciples.

Paul Hartunian: Very good. I’m going to steal that I’m not going to pay you royalties. That’s great and that’s right. Everyone listen to what Daniel just said. Gurus do not come down from the mountain looking for disciples. That is correct. You should not come down looking for customers. Customers should be coming to you. Some people got nervous right now, when I just said that. “But what if they don’t come?” Then you’re not doing it the right way. I love the idea and I’m sure you do, too, Daniel, of customers coming, seeking you out with their credit card in hand saying “I’ve gotta have more of these. Your information was great.”

Daniel Levis: You have a tremendous psychological advantage that way.

Paul Hartunian: You do. You definitely do.

Daniel Levis: Alright. So number one, play by the rules … number two, play the guru role correctly. And what’s the third one?

Paul Hartunian: The third one is consistency and this is where a lot of people fall down. I briefly mentioned this earlier, but I want to go into a little more detail and reinforce it again. People will send out one press release and not get a response and blame publicity. Well, you didn’t get a response for a whole bunch of reasons. Number one, there may have been a hotter story that bumped you off. They wanted to call you, but then a hotter story came in, they ran out of time, or ran out of space in the newspaper; they didn’t call you.

More likely, though, you sent out a press release and if you followed my system, you wrote a great press release and you showed them that you know how to play the rules, they want to see what you’re going to do next. You just came out of the blue. They don’t know you. They’ve never heard from you before and they say, “Wow. Here’s this guy Daniel, who just sent me over this great press release. Good story. I don’t need his story right now, let me see what Daniel does next.” And Daniel, I’m going to ask you this question, now: What do you think the vast majority of people do next after they send out one press release and don’t get a response?

Daniel Levis: Nothing.

Paul Hartunian: Nothing. They do nothing. They say, “Oh, this didn’t work. Oh, I don’t know how to do this so I’m going to go back to my Yellow Pages advertising. Well, that’s what the majority of people do and the reporter says “Oh, yeah, just another one of those people who didn’t follow up.” But the smart person, the next week sends another press release, maybe a different headline, a few different little bullet points in there or something else. And the reporter says “Hey, I think this Daniel knows his stuff. Let me see what he does next.” The following week, the third press release comes and the reporter says “I got a winner here. I’ve got to call Daniel up and I’ve got to make Daniel my expert on blank.” Whatever Daniel’s topic is. That’s it.

Consistency is the way to win the game in publicity. It does not take a lot of time. I mean, literally, if you spend five minutes just making little changes, five minutes once a week, that’s enough.

Daniel Levis: That’s beautiful. So, while we’re almost out of time, for anybody that’s caught the publicity bug as a result of listening to or reading this interview, how can they find out more?

Paul Hartunian: Well, first of all, if they didn’t catch the publicity bug with this great interview you did Daniel, I don’t know what we can do. I want to give them several forms of contact. Number one: My office phone number. 973-857-4142. I also have written a special manual just for website owners and everybody owns a website. I don’t care what the website is, what you’re selling, what the topic is. I wrote one just for website owners; it’s so important.

You can find information about that at www.nichepublicitymanuals.com. And there’s a list of about 46 different fields, different businesses on there that I’ve written manuals and website owners is one of them. And in that manual, they will get word-for-word press release that they can use and headlines they can copy and story ideas, opening paragraphs and I even give them a full one-year calendar and for every month of the year, I give them story ideas and headlines where they can get publicity for their website and drive traffic there.

Daniel Levis: Wow. That sounds like the ultimate ‘done for you information product.’

Paul Hartunian: I guess the only other thing I could do is fax it out for them. That’s about it.

Daniel Levis: Well, that’s fantastic. Before you go, I’m a big animal lover, myself and I’m going to make a donation so let’s give out the URL for Aunt Mary’s again for anyone else who wants to help out. www.auntmarysdoghouse.com.

Paul Hartunian: Right. You can read all about our organization. We started it about seven years ago. We have saved the lives of hundreds-and-hundreds and hundreds-and-hundreds of dogs, thanks to people like you, Daniel.

Daniel Levis: Awesome. I’m looking forward to doing that and I’m going to grab a copy of your product, as well, and I’d like to invite you to come back, at some point in the future, as well, because this has been very enjoyable and I think extremely educational.

Paul Hartunian: Well, I would love to come back as long as your subscribers tell me about great success stories they’ve had, now that they’ve tried publicity and saw how powerful it is.

Daniel Levis: Well, there you go. Alright, Paul, thanks very much.

Paul Hartunian: My pleasure. Thank you.

Until next time, Good Selling!

Daniel Levis
Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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Having built a client base through networking on Internet forums geared towards start-up business owners, he now wanted to find opportunities that would allow for upward mobility within his craft.

This is a common scenario, because local and especially start-up businesses are easy to find, and provide plenty of opportunities to practice your emerging copywriting skills.

In a previous article, I talked about three tips for aspiring copywriters. I recommend any new copywriter to follow these three tips to start building a track record and get to a level that makes them appealing to higher-paying clients.

But after your copywriting skills are developed, however, it becomes desirable if not necessary to seek out clients — better, more lucrative clients — who are established enough to pay a fair wage for your skills and, above all, your results.

Granted, making this transition to a busier, in-demand copywriter who commands higher fees requires breaking out of your comfort zone and delving into new networks to increase the likelihood of rubbing shoulders with your target market.

(As the saying goes, “If you want to become a millionaire, hang out with other millionaires.” This is true in networking as it is in developing the millionaire mindset.)

Plus, it’s important to note that, if you’re good, word will get around. Without any prompting from you. The very best copywriters often need not market themselves.

However, there are ways to leverage and springboard that word-of-mouth process. So to get to the next level, there are three main techniques I personally applied to getting the majority of my copywriting clients. Any copywriter will be well-served in adapting them.

These three tips are:

1. Article Marketing

I know there are staple marketing practices online, such as search engine optimization. But one of the simplest and most potent online marketing methods I’ve used since the beginning of my career, one I still do to this day, is simple article marketing.

Writing articles and press releases, and submitting them to websites, directories, e-zines, blogs (such as guest blogging), and article repositories, is an excellent way to get examples of your work in front of your target market and establish your expertise.

You may consider hiring a Virtual Assistant to take care of the submissions. I have a publicist on retainer who submits my articles to 3,000 outlets each month, including news sites, directories, and editors/publishers, as well as offline publications and magazines.

2. Viral Marketing

This has personally been the single, greatest tool for me in attracting clients. About 12 years ago, I wrote my book, The 10 Commandments of Power Positioning, in which I distilled my 10 most popular marketing and copywriting tips.

The key to its popularity, however, is that I offered it for free and let people pass it around. By encouraging others to distribute it freely, I’ve attracted a continuing stream of quote requests from people who have stumbled onto my book.

A mentor once said to me: “Don’t be a speaker, be an expert who speaks. Don’t be a consultant, be an expert who consults. Don’t be an author, be an expert who authors books.” To that I would add, “Don’t be a copywriter, be an expert who writes copy.”

Therefore, establish yourself as an expert. As the saying goes, “Publish or perish.” The moment you write your first report, white paper, e-book, or self-published book, you establish yourself as an expert, particularly in your specific niche or field.

Plus, your publication is really your sales letter in disguise. Once people get a taste of what you can offer, they will want more. In 20 years in this business, the clients, projects, and speaking engagements I landed because of that one little book are incalculable.

3. Centers-of-Influence Marketing

You can set up strategic marketing alliances, joint-venture partners, and referral systems, even automated ones, with non-competing businesses in a variety of ways.

For example, if you’re a Web copywriter, then with Web designers you can refer clients to each other, or create “service bundles” where you do the copy and the designer does the design work in a single service package both of you promote individually.

Similar cooperative efforts are possible with printers, direct marketers, coaches, consultants, etc. The possibilities are limitless. Simply think of a non-competing business or service provider who targets your market, and how can you can partner with them.

I talked about creating strategic alliances in my other article. But to get to the next level, find centers of influence whose opinions your more lucrative target market values.

Where before you would have created strategic alliances with anyone who can refer clients to you, now the goal would be to create them with key influencers whose partners, suppliers, markets, and clients consist of prospects that fall within your target market.

Nevertheless, the key to success with the methods above is to use them to get in front of the clients you desire. If you want higher-paying clients, then go where they go.

If, like my student earlier, you already use forums and prefer this method, then the above methods are a bit more complicated than when seeking out start-ups because there are only a handful of forums for more advanced clients and businesses.

In my experience, most of my top clients have abandoned forums as they are a waste of time — obviously, they’d rather spend time making money than in forums.

However, to attract top-shelf clients, you need to pinpoint their centers of influence. Often, these are the “pick and shovel” makers. Get your foot in the door by hanging out with them, writing their copy, or getting them to promote you in some way.

By “pick and shovel” makers, I mean service providers, marketers, website owners, and suppliers who sell products and services that serve an existing base of top-shelf clients.

Target locations where they congregate — whether they are blogs, forums, social networking sites, etc — that are specifically geared at the industry of your top prospects.

Again, these locations are not where clients hang out directly, but this can be used as a way to identify, approach, and network with these pick-and-shovel makers who eventually will put you in front of, or get you in touch with, the clients you want.

I personally used this technique to get my name out there and in front of the top guns when I started online. For example, I wrote the copy for a very popular SEO software many years ago. That particular software targeted top Internet marketers.

I got the job by hanging out on search engine message boards, software discussion groups, and SEO forums. The result? My copy did fabulously well — so well, in fact, that following this one project, I was inundated with work to the point of turning clients away.

These days, social media help to make things easier.

So include blogs, social networking sites, and discussion groups (such as mastermind groups, coaching groups) to find top-shelf clients and key centers of influence. Don’t forget offline groups too, like clubs, tradeshows, seminars, and associations.

Eventually, as you apply these techniques, gain visibility, and work with better clients, it will lead you to a point where clients will begin to come primarily through word of mouth.

This is the point where, for example, a top marketer who buys some marketing software will go back to the software provider and say, “Hey, your software’s great, but your copy is what sold me … who wrote it for you?” And bingo! Referral.

Michel Fortin
Guest Contributor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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OK – so you've written the best headline and lead copy ever.

Now how do you get from here to the sale without royally screwing things up?

Dear Business-Builder …

Good, nitty-gritty stuff in this issue …

We've spent a lot of time thinking about grabbing your prospects' attention with powerful headline and opening copy in past issues of THE TOTAL PACKAGE – and for good reason: In today's hyper-competitive world, making that initial "attention" sale is absolutely imperative.

If you fail to get your prospects' attention, you'll fail to deliver your benefits and offer. And if you don't deliver your offer and ask for the sale, it's pretty much a slam dunk that you won't get the sale.

And so, we copywriters work our fingers to the bone, beating the bushes for the theme that's likely to resonate best with our prospects … crafting headlines that stand the best chance of grabbing them by the eyeballs … and slaving over opening copy that is most likely to convert that hard-won attention to readership.

We know that if we do these things well, we're probably about 70 percent of the way to a promotion that will blow the doors off the competition.

But, alas, in long copy promotions – especially in the 24-page magalogs and tabloids that are my stock and trade – the headline and lead represent only about four percent of the total volume of sales copy required.

There's a ton more stuff that needs doing after you've seized your prospect's attention. Important stuff – like juicing up your product's benefits … proving your case … presenting your offer … relieving risk … selling the heck out of your premiums … asking for the sale … closing the sale … and more.

The trick is doing all that without allowing your prospects' mind to wander even for a second. Or worse: Making a mistake that turns him off entirely – and gets your sales message instantly tossed into the nearest virtual or literal trash can.

In a very real sense, your body copy is a minefield that must be navigated with the greatest of care: Every word, sentence and paragraph of body copy represents the chance to either intensify your prospect's focus … or to completely lose him.

Meet Your Harried, Distracted Prospect

Imagine for a moment that instead of selling through the mail or over the Internet, you're delivering your sales message door-to-door.

Visualize yourself sitting at your prospect's kitchen table. You have your sales pitch down cold. You have a ready answer for every objection your prospect could possibly have. You know beyond the shadow of a doubt that once your prospect hears your sales message, he will hand you a check.

The only problem is, your prospect is hopelessly distracted …

• In the next room, his kids are fighting over the remote – and the right to control an unbelievably loud TV …
• The family dog is in hot pursuit of the family cat – knocking over chairs and tables as they careen from room to room …
• The phone's ringing off the hook and the next-door neighbor is ringing the doorbell …
• His wife resents your presence – she wants to talk to him about her day …
• And he just can't seem to keep his eyes off that stack of big, colorful, alluring mail on the table in front of him.

At a time like this, it's not enough just to get your prospect's attention. It's essential to keep his attention until you've presented all your sales arguments, have asked for the sale and have his check securely tucked away in your pocket.

Lose him, even for a split second, and you've probably lost him – and the sale – for good!

Now, if that's true with face-to-face selling – when you're physically in the room – it's even more true when you're attempting to deliver a sales message via e-mail, the Internet, direct mail or print.

The fact is, you have no idea what will be going on in your prospect's life – let alone in the room – when he's reading your sales copy.

One thing you can count on, though: You're going to be competing for his attention every step of the way.

Three Unforgivable Sins Ad Writers Make
When Crafting Body Copy

To my way of thinking, there are three ways to convince a prospect to give up on your promotion long before you ask for the sale. You can: 1) Confuse him … 2) Bore him, or 3) Set off his BS detector.

The good news: In most cases, following these seven simple "Golden Rules" should help you avoid all three …

Golden Rule #1:
Keep It Logically Organized

Humans are NOT logical animals. But when we're reading or learning, we generally require that the material be presented in a clear, logical way.

That generally means starting at point "A" … progressing to point "B" … moving on to point "C" … and so on, until you have reached your ultimate conclusion: That only a drooling moron would even think of passing on this generous offer.

To do that, you must build your case logically and methodically – much like a mason builds a brick wall.

You must lay a solid foundation and then build upon each completed argument with the next … brick by brick … in a logical order … until the only rational conclusion a reasonable person could reach is that NOT ordering would be idiotic.

Here, for example, is how I did it recently in an advertorial for a newsletter that helps investors profit from the rise in gold prices …

Point #1: We've already bagged profits of up to 800% on gold stocks (Romance the profitable recommendations the editor has made and how much richer his subscribers are as a result).

Point #2: But that's chicken feed. You can do even better. (If you missed out last time around – sorry! I did everything I could think of to get you on-board. I mailed millions of bulletins like this one to anyone who'd listen. But there's no sense crying over spilt milk – the greatest gains are still ahead – here's why …).

Point #3: Soaring demand means gold prices will continue to explode higher (Describe the enormous new demand slamming the market from China, India, weaker U.S. dollar, terrorism, etc.).

Point #4: Dwindling supplies mean gold prices will continue to skyrocket (Dimensionalize how tight supplies are).

Point #5: Ordinarily, this kind of soaring demand alone would be enough to double gold prices. (Normally, these tight supplies alone would be enough to drive them sky-high. Now, with demand soaring and supplies tightening at the same time, it's a no-brainer: Gold prices and gold stocks are going to soar whether YOU are ready to profit or not!)

Point #6: To make sure you do NOT miss the boat this time, I want to send you a report with the hottest gold stocks to buy now – FREE with your no-risk trial subscription to my monthly newsletter.

See how air-tight that chain of logic is? Can you see how each point builds logically upon the point made before? Do you get how the prospect feels as though each point brings him one step closer to the wealth he desires?

Now, imagine how it would have been weakened if I had interrupted this clear, cold, irrefutable logic with a wild goose chase on the beauty of gold … or how it has been coveted by mankind for 10,000 years or some other soybean filler.

Instead, I asked myself, "What must my prospect believe in order to make this purchase?"

And then, I asked myself, "What must my prospect believe first … second … third … and so on, in order to conclude that this is the opportunity of a lifetime?"

Golden Rule #2:
Keep It Moving

When a prospect's eyes first fall upon your promotion, a little stopwatch starts ticking in his head. If at any point, he feels you're not moving along quickly enough, you will lose him.

Creating a sense of momentum in your sales copy is absolutely essential for maximum readability. Here are three ways to do it …

A) Creating and following a "chain of logic" outline helps a lot in this regard – by ensuring that you make each point once, then move on. If prospects feel like you're going back over stuff you already covered, any sense of momentum you may have established is instantly destroyed.

B) Check the momentum of each draft by reading it aloud. Mark the places where you – as a reader – begin to become distracted or bored.

Then read your ad again – this time, imagining that you are in a busy, noisy family kitchen and have the attention span of a 14-year-old. Kids are yelling, the phone's ringing, the TV's on.

Once again, highlight any sections that begin to lose you.

Each of these sections will kill readership and response if they're still there in the final draft. Edit them or excise them.

C) Making each section of copy shorter than the one before is a great way to create momentum.

For example – let's say you have to make ten sales points in order to make the sale. You could spend 1 1/2 pages making your first point … one page making your second … 3/4 of a page making your third … 1/2 page making your fourth … and then wrap up the final six points in a series of bullets covering a single page.

Golden Rule #3:
Keep It Simple

Never ask your prospect to work in order to figure out what you're saying.

Two-dollar words, esoteric references and complex sentences are killers in sales copy. Subtlety, nuance and complexity are for poets – NOT copywriters!

Try to limit yourself to one complete, clearly presented thought per sentence. When you connect two thoughts in a sentence, make sure they connect directly and clearly with each other.

Also be sure to avoid inserting undeveloped or underdeveloped thoughts in sentences or paragraphs. They're like little boobytraps in the copy. They stop readers cold.

Here's a great little technique for keeping things simple …

A. Tell them what you're going to tell them: The Chinese government's increasing hunger for gold is enough to drive prices through the roof all by itself.

B. Tell them: Look: The Chinese government is aggressively increasing its gold reserves to compete with the West …

C. Dimensionalize or prove what you told them: But to sock away even one tenth as much gold as the US holds, it will have to buy more of the yellow metal than the whole world supplies in a year.

D. Tell them what you told them: Needless to say, that would drive gold prices through the roof in no time flat!

Golden Rule #4:
Keep It Fat-Free

Readers should feel as though they're getting good value in return for the number of words they're made to read. Your challenge is to never use three words when two will do the job.

Here are three ways to say more with less:

A. Use more precise word choices: When you fail to use the word that most precisely and accurately communicates a thought, you wind up using five, six or even ten words instead.

When I find myself struggling to find just the right word to use in a passage, I find that checking similar words in a thesaurus often gives me the answer I'm looking for.

B. Eliminate unnecessary words: Example: The preceding paragraph is a great example of how not to do it.

It would have communicated the same thought with about half as many words had I simply said …

When searching for the most precise word, checking synonyms in a thesaurus often gives me the answer.

Here again, reading copy aloud really helps. Much of the time, for example, I find the word "that" is totally unnecessary. When in doubt, leave it out!

C. Avoid unhelpful repetition: Repetition of key sales points – a USP or major benefit, for example – is a beautiful thing. Repeating minor thoughts only slows the copy and bores the reader.

D. Figures of speech can help you say more, faster: If a picture is worth a thousand words, metaphors, similes, and other figures of speech are as well.

Golden Rule #5:
Keep It Believable

I've written reams on this, so no point in waxing verbose on the subject.

Your prospect is already skeptical. Making grandiose claims that you can't (or don't) prove beyond the shadow of a doubt will only confirm what he already suspects: That you're full of beans …

… And will get your promotion trashed in a heartbeat.

Golden Rule #6:
Keep It Potent

One of the fastest ways to lose your prospect's attention is to fail to focus on his favorite subject: HIM!

The word "You" has been called the most powerful word in the English language – and for good reason.

Finding ways to personalize body copy – applying each passage to how it affects the reader – is a key to keeping his attention.

Allowing yourself to fall into the trap of talking about "other people" is a sure way to lose him. Personalizing statistics is a key here.

Instead of saying, "My subscribers earned 800% profits on xyz stock" … say: "If you had followed my advice to buy xyz stock last fall, you could have bagged an 800% profit in just 7 weeks!"

In the same vein, look for ways to ramp up the excitement and power of your body copy by raising the intensity of the words you use.

An investment can "increase" in value – or it can "rise" … "jump" … "soar" … or "skyrocket." Here again, a trusty old thesaurus can make you some serious money.

Golden Rule #7:

Avoid Unintended Impressions

Here's where insisting that civilians read your copy can pay huge dividends …

By the time you're ready to stick a fork in your new promotion, you can almost recite it word for word – frontwards and backwards.

That means you're too close to it to catch things that may be misread … even things that may raise objections or implant an erroneous impression in your prospect's mind.

I wonder if the well-meaning folks who wrote these classic ad copy bloopers had any idea how others would read them …

A housekeeping service:
Tired of cleaning yourself?
Let ME do it!

A used car dealer:
Why go elsewhere to be cheated?
Come here first!

A swimwear shop:
Our bikinis are exciting.
They are simply the tops.

A restaurant:
Dinner Special:
Turkey, $2.35; Chicken or Beef, $2.25; Children; $2.00

A mortgage company:
Ask about our plans
for owning your home

A dry cleaner:
We do not tear your clothing
with machinery.
We do it carefully by hand.

A furniture store:
Our motto is to give our customers
the LOWEST POSSIBLE prices
and workmanship.

Yeah … you're giggling now – but it's not so funny when you spot something like this in your sales copy!

One gaffe like any of these – any sentence that could be read two or more ways with very different meanings – is more than just embarrassing.

It's a stopper that will cost you both readership and response.

Bottom line:

Your body copy is only as strong
as its weakest link

… And that makes it essential to get downright obsessive about every word, every turn of phrase, every jot and tittle.

Anything that could confuse or bore your prospect or set off his BS detector must be addressed. If that means reading the entire draft aloud to yourself or someone else, so be it. If it means showing it to five, ten or 20 friends, that's cool too.

Yeah … it takes work. But do it right, and the rewards can truly be spectacular.

Hope this helps …

Yours for Bigger Winners, More Often,

Clayton Makepeace
Publisher & Editor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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Have you ever been tempted to squeeze an irresistibly cute bottom? Tell the judge where he can stick that speeding ticket? Claim a tax deduction you don’t really deserve? Drink and drive?

So why didn’t you?

What’s that you say? You don’t do those things because you’re a moral person?

Well, while your application for sainthood is being processed, consider the rest of us – imperfect folks who are sorely tempted to do all of those things and still don’t – simply because we fear the consequences.

In a word, “jail.”

It’s a rational fear. Fact is, here in America – “the land of the free” – one out of every 98 adults is behind bars. More than 2.3 million of the 225 million adults in the U.S. woke up this morning in a federal or state prison or a local jail. Almost as many people who live in Chicago live behind bars today.

That leaves about 222.7 million of us grownups outside the prison walls – including former prisoners, folks on the lam, folks who probably should be on the lam (presidential candidates, Congress, most bureaucrats, whole-life insurance reps, every lawyer but mine, etc.), and of course, the rest of us.

And to one degree or another, every one of us has tempered our behavior – or even refused to do something we probably should have done – because we fear winding up in the pokie.

But fear does more than keeping us from doing things we want to do. It also compels us to do things that we would never do voluntarily.

Slightly more than 145 million of us labor all year for the privilege of handing over the lion’s share of our income to politicians and bureaucrats – in federal and state income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, automobile licensing taxes, excise taxes, taxes imbedded in the price of every product we buy, the inflation tax and other government taxes and fees.

Because if we didn’t, we could lose everything we own – or maybe wind up in jail.

Fear.

As we pay our bills, we’ll spend billions on all kinds of insurance to protect ourselves and our families from something that will probably never happen.

Fear.

Millions of Americans vote for Democrats because they fear global warming.

Millions more vote for Republicans because they fear Democrats.

I vote Libertarian because I’m terrified of both parties.

Fear.

What are your prospects afraid of?

Read most books about copywriting, and you’ll read a ton of stuff about how to appeal to your prospects’ desires by fully dimensionalizing your product’s benefits.

Now benefits are in the business of fulfilling desires – like the desire for greater wealth, better health, more fulfilling and more enduring relationships, the respect or even the envy of peers, and much more.

But every benefit is just one side of a coin; the other side is a fear.

Because while prospects desire all these things, they also fear NOT having them in their lives. They fear poverty and dependence … illness and pain … being abandoned and left alone, and being thought little of.

And so sales copy that promises to deliver a much-desired benefit and alleviate a nagging fear can be twice as effective as copy that focuses on benefits alone.

But activating your prospects’ fear in promotional copy can be a tricky proposition – and so I thought it might be a good idea to give you a few guidelines I use …

Five Blunders Copywriters Make
When Using Fear in Sales Copy

1. Attempting to give prospects a fear they don’t already have: The last thing your prospects need at the end of an emotionally exhausting day is to pick up a magazine, open a direct mail package or land on a Web page in which you introduce them to a new problem or a new fear.

Regaling them with a new problem or a new situation they should fear is a sure way to get your sales message ignored – or worse; leave prospects vowing to never read anything else you ever send them again.

Moral: If you’re going to invoke fear in your sales copy, make sure it’s a fear that’s already waking your prospects at 2:30 AM in a cold sweat.

2. Playing on prospects’ fears of distant events: We all know that retirement is heading for us like a runaway freight train – but very few of us get serious about saving for retirement until it’s too late.

We all know that smoking can kill us – someday in the distant future – and yet millions of us still smoke.

And of course, we all know that Double Whoppers and Double Quarter-Pounders with Cheese will eventually clog our arteries and doom us to a heart attack or stroke – and yet McDonalds and Burger King sell billions of dollars worth of this toxic (but mouth-watering) food every year.

So why doesn’t the fear of a poverty-stricken retirement or lung cancer or a heart attack or stroke motivate us to change our behavior?

Simple: The pleasure we get from spending our money … or chowing down on a thick, greasy burger … or savoring an after-dinner smoke … is immediate. The price we pay won’t be exacted for years or even decades.

Put simply the distance of the negative event in time neutralizes its power to change our behavior.

Physical distance is also a factor when considering fear as a motivator in sales copy. Last week, when I was talking with Joe Sugarman about ads he wrote for his Midex burglar alarm system, I asked him why he began his copy reminding prospects of rising crime statistics and the likelihood that they would become victims of crime.

Joe’s answer was spot-on: “They know all that,” Joe said. “But it’s not until their next-neighbor has an intruder in his house that the fear becomes strong enough to move them to action. And when that happens, if I’ve done my job well, they’ll remember my ads and buy a burglar alarm from me.”

In other words, someone near you was a victim of a violent crime in his or her home yesterday. If it was your next-door neighbor, you’re many times more likely to be buy a burglar alarm today than if the victim was a mile or ten miles away.

Moral: If you’re going to use fear in your copy, make sure it’s an imminent fear. Something that is likely to happen in the very near future – or better yet, at virtually any moment.

3. Using fear that paralyzes: Right now, the investing world is a very interesting place. The value of the U.S. dollar has been cratering – and foreign currencies have been soaring in value – for 5 ½ long years.

The U.S. housing bust and mortgage meltdown have virtually paralyzed the credit markets. Corporations and consumers alike are finding it much more difficult to get loans and even credit cards.

If this situation is allowed to continue, this holiday season will be one of the most disappointing on record. Manufacturers and retailers are going to lose their shirts. Their stock is going to plunge. Heck: The entire U.S. stock market could crash and the U.S. economy could easily slip into a prolonged recession.

And so the Fed is cranking up the printing presses – unleashing a tidal wave of unbacked, phoney-baloney dollars worldwide. And since each new dollar the Fed creates devalues every other dollar in circulation, it’s a good bet that the profits investors have seen in other currencies so far are about to pale compared to what’s going to happen in the months ahead.

But even though the U.S. stock market reminds me of a balloon in a roomful of razorblades, I’m deliberately avoiding sales arguments that could freeze my prospects like so many deer in the headlights of an oncoming tractor-trailer.

Because, although I want my prospect concerned that his money is losing his value … and although I definitely want him to want the huge profits being earned in the foreign currency markets … I do not want him frozen into inaction by the fear that the entire U.S. economy could come unglued at virtually any moment.

Moral: Using a fear that paralyzes prospects won’t do you any good and it sure won’t help your prospects.

4. Invoking a fear that isn’t actionable: If you’re looking for something to be afraid of these days, you sure don’t have to look very far!

Cable TV is replete with programs telling us how the world could end at virtually any moment.

Either global warming is going to melt the ice caps, flood our coastal cities, create worldwide famine by altering the weather and give us all a nasty sunburn …

… Or a mega-earthquake in Yellowstone or a giant comet or meteor is going to plunge us into a new ice age.

Last night, I saw a show that basically said “Don’t worry – it’ll probably all end on December 1, 2012, anyway.” That’s when the Earth and the sun will align with the giant black hole at the center of the galaxy – and according to The Discovery Channel, this alignment could cause the Earth to suddenly shift on its axis, snuffing us all out.

So does any of this make you feel like buying anything?

Well, if you’re selling a spaceship and a map to the nearest inhabitable planet – and if you’ll let me pay you over 30 years or so – maybe. Otherwise, invoking my fear won’t do you one bit of good.

Moral: Pushing your prospects’ panic buttons is pointless unless you can show how your product eliminates the cause of his fear. Quickly. Cheaply. Permanently.

5. Emphasizing fear over the solution: The other day, I critiqued a fear-based first draft by a top-notch writer. As expected, the sales copy sang and soared. It was attention-getting, lively and absolutely convinced me that the caca is about to hit the air conditioner.

But it didn’t make me want to buy the product.

See, the promotion is about politics – how the bozos and bozettes in office are going to royally screw us all – and how to survive and thrive, the prospect needs the advice a particular guru is offering them.

But the writer is so passionate about this particular subject, the copy focused almost entirely on the fear our prospects should be feeling as they watch politicians preen, spin and lie their keesters off on the six-o’clock news.

While each threat to our prospect’s wealth, health and liberty was presented in exquisite detail over many pages of inspired, impassioned prose, the many ways in which our client’s product neutralizes those threats were presented quickly and without passion.

Moral: It’s not, ultimately about fear. It’s about the solution to that fear – the benefits – that you’re offering.

A little fear goes a long way. It’s a powerful attention-getter. Used correctly, it can add dimension to your product’s benefits and motivate prospects to order now.

But nobody buys just because they’re afraid. They buy because you’ve proven that your product will bring tremendous practical benefits to their lives – and by doing so, will free them from the fears that torment them now.

Yours for Bigger Winners, More Often,

Clayton Makepeace
Publisher & Editor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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A couple weeks ago a client of mine was going to test a marketing campaign I had prepared for him. For this campaign we were marketing to renovation companies, small homebuilders, roofing companies, siding companies etc. 

We had a big list, as well, with all the major builders in the city we were targeting.

The reason he came to me was that his sales numbers were down quite a bit from the past few years. 

His competitors were getting very aggressive on the price, and his type of business isn’t that much different from one competitor to the next. But price slashing to match the competition is never something I lead with, nor agree with. 

Better marketing is usually the solution
that wins in the end.

While your competitors beat the crap out of each other on price, ultimately they start realizing you can’t keep running a business without making a profit, and doors start closing. 

Price battles are good for one thing in my eyes – it thins out the competition left in the end! 

In his case, they are starting to drop like flies as their prices aren’t sufficient enough to cover all the business operating costs.

So we had to find some unique ways to win the battle based on something other than price.

A two-page introductory letter was written (step one in the sequence).

A database was compiled with all the major players, and all the smaller players.

He didn’t want to approach the big players yet, fearing that they were ALL about the cheapest price.

The initial campaign was to go out to the smaller companies from our list.

The problem was …

… They e-mailed the two-pager to EVERYONE on the database we had.

At first, he was just a little ticked.

Until the phone calls started coming in. 

Hourly.

Not by the small companies alone … a majority of them were from the big boys.

And they LOVED the letter we sent them.

Here is one comment we got back by one of the biggest homebuilders in the city:

Thanks for taking the time to write such a great intro letter for your company. I see many profile letters every week, however yours was particularly engaging. I applaud you for creating something very unique. It’s very refreshing to read something with a personal touch.

<specific details of their situation removed here>

Thank you for the offer of the iTunes gift card, but it is not necessary. I just wanted you to know your profile letter has two great values that I feel are very important in business – honesty and passion.

I wish you all the success with this.

A couple things I wanted to point out about this:

1. It was a two-page introductory letter. You don’t need to write a 24-page sales letter to open doors and make money.  Clayton Makepeace has THE best blog on the Web for writing compelling copy.

   Go through the archives here and you will get hundreds of articles that will help you write compelling introductory letters.

   Clayton’s Quick-Start Copy System takes it to the next level and delivers the most comprehensive step-by-step formula for writing compelling copy.  USE what is being taught here … and find ways to make it fit your business. 

   But don’t let the idea of a 24-page introductory letter hold you back from testing these strategies in your industry.

2. It was a very personal letter … selling the idea of a phone call. We even offered them an iTunes gift card if they just phoned to give feedback on the letter.

   This is a business-to-business sales campaign here … and a personal letter is not commonly used (as you can see by the one prospect’s comments above). 

   The KEY is: This approach is not typically used. The competition sells on price or sends out glossy brochures that say little and look like every other brochure out there.

3. We spoke about his family, about the economy, and about their specific industry.  We showed them that there was a real person behind the letter … versus trying to be a big behemoth corporation that has no face or personality. 

   Your competitors mistakenly believe that trying to be a big corporation is the way to sell … while these days’ people are buying from real people who are willing to put their face front and center.

4. We weren’t trying to pitch them on anything, other than an introduction call.  We even offered them an incentive to call or e-mail their honest thoughts on the letter.  We got great feedback, all positive so far, AND we got a lot of doors opened by big companies and small.

We are a week into the campaign and have seen an 18% response to the first letter.  There are more steps in the sequence just about to go out, that will grow the response rate quite a bit.

What is important to you?

… My client was worried the big companies would be all about the price … actually testing the campaign has shown it to not be so. They wanted alternatives to their present suppliers, and they wanted a person they can call and point fingers at if they needed to.

Are YOU thinking big enough?

In this case, we got ‘lucky’ and a mistake was made with the mailing.  It went to people who he thought were too big for him.

Are you limiting your success by thinking too small?

I have a friend of mine who is an artist. 

Rather than accepting the “poor artist” title that is usually hung on creative types like him, he took it into his own hands. Rather than selling his art work one-off and thinking small … he questioned how he could sell his art work at a premium, to large volume buyers.

How would you sell a product like this?

He created a membership model for corporations.  Once they are members, they can buy his art work in volumes to use as giveaways.

Rather than selling one-off art prints, he sells 100, 200, even 1,000 at a time to big companies.  They buy them like this because they can now give away beautiful, framed artwork, instead of a baseball cap or golf shirt (which is what everyone else gives away). His clients love it because they are giving away very high value items.

Moving into the last of the year … are you thinking BIG ENOUGH?

Are you letting preconceived limitations hold you back?

Could you sell to a bigger type of company? 

Like my one client who got an exceptional response (by mistake) by focusing on the biggest buyers in the business, rather than the small ones he was used to dealing with.

Or could you sell in volume vs. one-off.

Could you partner with suppliers and have them endorse you to their database?  Who is your biggest supplier?  How can they help you grow in the coming months or years?

Who is your biggest buyer now?  Have you approached them to find out how you could get in front of more quality clients like them?

Take a serious look at how you sell, and who you sell to.

How could you double the size or quantity
 of buyers you are dealing with?

Think it through.

Sometimes you get lucky and a mistake is made like my client had happen. 
That mistake showed him a great opportunity he was going to bypass.

Instead of waiting for the right mistake to be made … why not aggressively TRY and double or triple the number of people you are selling to?

Bigger buyers.

More buyers. 

Buyers who want your product or service in bulk, instead of one-time only. 

JV partners that are the biggest in the business. 

People and companies who have access to large volumes of your “perfect clients.”

Now is the time to think bigger than ever.

You never know when a grandiose goal will become reality!

And it happens a lot faster when you are actively out there testing out new ideas, new approaches, and new marketing campaigns.

Get busy … and let us know your results.

To your success,

Troy White
Editor, Small Business Mastery
Supplement to THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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A Final Note:

If you have specific subjects you would like addressed, or have any comments on what you have seen here, please submit a comment below and I will see how I can help.

"Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.”

–Napoleon Hill

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Man is a social animal. We are programmed to be together.

Our extraordinary ability to co-operate — to divide labor and form interdependent groups — is largely responsible for our dominance as a species.

Traditionally, these groups have formed ever-widening concentric circles around our lives, largely based on proximity: Mother and father, brothers and sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews, neighbors, townsfolk, countrymen, global citizens.

Being of like blood, like beliefs, and like interests — with common enemies — we find ways to trust each other and work together for the common good … more so toward the center of the social circle, less so towards the outside. 

Yet today, people are more isolated than ever before. Most of us don’t even know our own neighbors.

Take the couple who live to the right of me. I may have spoken to the man twice and the woman once in over a decade since we’ve been neighbors. The house to the left has changed hands half-a-dozen times during that time and we’ve barely said a word to any of them.

Neighborhoods and communities and even families are becoming increasingly disassociated, simply because it’s no longer necessary for people to work in close proximity to one another. The chain of dependency has been broken.

This may sound like old hat, but this process of disintegration is far from over. In the future, the concept of going to the “office” and working together with other people will all but disappear.   

There is simply much less of a practical need to spend time with the people who are geographically local to us. Time and distance limitations have been effectively annihilated. And we are free to trade and communicate with individuals all over the planet.

Now, people go to work online, to shop,
to socialize … even to get laid …

Whether you think this is a good thing or a bad thing, the implications to marketing — and online marketing in particular — are undeniable.

For every social need, want, and desire traditionally satisfied through personal interaction and social exchange, there is the promise of a virtual equivalent. Millions of years of social evolution don’t simply vanish when personal contact is no longer required for their satisfaction.

The same social constructs that govern modern life have existed in human society since the dawn of time — perhaps even earlier …

Anthropologists consider the Bushmen in southern Africa to be the most basic branch of the human genetic tree, yet the San, as they are known, demonstrate the same aspects of human nature that make our own highly-sophisticated social structures work.

Trust, liking, reciprocity, fairness, empathy, guilt, shame, conscience and all of the other social aspects of human nature are there. For example, it is customary for men of the San to give each other gifts of poison arrows …

On the hunt, if one hunter brings down an antelope with an arrow that has been given to him as a gift, he gives the felled animal to his benefactor, thus returning the favor.

To do otherwise … or to refuse the gifted poison arrow in the first place, is unthinkable — the ultimate offense. Guilt serves to guide individual behavior toward the social norm. The San may have different ways of expressing social solidarity than we do, but the underlying rules are the same.

You watch my back, I’ll watch yours. You do for me. I’ll feel obligated to do for you. If you are hurt, I will feel your pain, and I will help. Shame on you otherwise. Without this unspoken social contract, the San would perish.

These social aspects of human nature are in some ways even more applicable to the online world.

It is quite remarkable, for instance, that a consumer on one side of the planet is willing to whip out their credit card and process a transaction with an individual — whom they’ve never met and probably never will — clear on the other side of the planet.

This requires substantially MORE trust than doing business with the person next door. I mean, whose throat are you going to choke if things go wrong? Yet one man’s willingness to trust another can be cultivated just as surely. It happens for exactly the same reasons one Bushman trusts another on the Kalahari.

Familiarity is the first requisite of trust …

Organized crime works on the principle of familiarity. None of these people actually trust one another. They betray each other all the time.

Still, if a drug lord in Columbia wants to market cocaine in California, he needs a network of “connections” — one thug familiar enough with the next to know what that individual is capable of. The devil you know versus the devil you don’t. And it’s the same online …

Exposure matters. Familiarity matters. The more visible you are as a seller, the more eligible you are of the public’s trust. You can’t expect to endear trust or maintain trust if you’re not repeatedly in front of your customers and prospects.

A friend of mine is leveraging this concept brilliantly. Visit his website, and all of a sudden through some technological voodoo his banner ads start following you around the net. He seems to be everywhere.

After familiarity, comes liking …

We instinctively trust people who are like us, and distrust those who are different. This is an automatic unconscious reaction we have absolutely no control over. For those who like to argue, yes, we have some rational control over this, but we cannot control our emotional reaction.

We are prejudiced against outsiders with strange looks, strange ideas, and strange customs, whether we realize it or not. That’s why audio-visual presentation is so effective online. When people can hear your voice and see your face, they can immediately relate to you as a human being.

If you are one of them, they can sense it much more readily through your facial expression, inflection, and body language than through your words. Only the very best copywriters can approach this level of connection with the written word. 

Much has been written about reciprocity in marketing circles. Many consumers are aware of it as a sales tactic. But still it works, because it evokes ingrained, involuntary unconscious behavior.

Yes, we can circumvent that behavior, but it takes conscious effort. Millions of years of evolution support our reflexive desire to reciprocate. Even chimps, our closest evolutionary cousins, regulate their societies with the law of reciprocity.

Dutch biologist Frans de Waal conducted experiments that involved putting a single chimpanzee in charge of distributing lunch to an entire troupe of chimps in captivity. Immediately, the enclosure goes wild.

The chimps gather around, begging for their fair share. Interestingly there is no violence directed toward the chimp with the food.

The violence, if any, is directed outward by the maitre-des toward certain individuals doing the begging. Some are favored with generous morsels and others with scorn. Interestingly, dominance is not the determining factor.

De Waal observed 70,000 such interactions and compared them with the grooming activities of the troupe. What he found was astonishing …

The chimp with the food, favored those chimps that had previously stopped by and offered a grooming session. The food was awarded, not randomly, not to appease the dominant, but on a “what have you done for me lately?” basis.

It’s kind of like your in-box isn’t it — throngs of marketers begging hungrily for your attention? Instinctively, reflexively — like a chimpanzee doling out lunch — you choose to reward some, and ignore others, programmed by the rule of reciprocity.

Ironically, the more connected by technology
we become, the more isolated we feel …

The worst punishment in a penal institution — save execution — is isolation.

No longer physically connected to those around them out of necessity, people today are fighting the same mental anguish as a prisoner tossed in the hole: They feel bored, abandoned, and worthless.

With the water cooler gossip-gang yanked away from them, they’re desperate for something to belong to that gives them a forum for self-expression and opportunities for recognition. This is the driving force behind social media, I guess — people acting out their instinctive social needs for connectedness and belonging.

The question for us marketers is this: What is it that unites an audience and gives them that sense of belonging? If it’s no longer the need to nurture each other physically, then what is it? Common values, common ideals, and most of all common enemies are what bring people together, and glue them together in virtual social circles.

The beauty of this is that your business can form the nucleus around which they form. Every social group needs a leader. Be that leader.

Until next time, Good Selling!

Daniel Levis
Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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By appealing to your prospects’ pride, you can persuade them to pay more — sometimes much more — than what you could get by appealing to any other emotion.

Let’s talk watches.

For $10, you can buy a handsome digital sport watch that will outperform and outlast virtually any luxury watch made. When these watches were first introduced (over 20 years ago), they were so good and cheap that everyone predicted the demise of the analog timepiece.

Well, it didn’t happen. The new technology revolutionized the watch industry and changed the market forever. But analog watches survived. In fact, according to one estimate, sales of $1,000-plus watches have more than doubled since the 1970s and continue to grow every year.

It’s Not Simply a Matter of Dollars and Cents

Why do people pay thousands for watches when a $29 one works just as well and looks great? (By the way, have you taken an objective look at some of the fancier Rolexes lately? Tack-eeee. Piagets? Like a muscleman in a tutu.) I like the look of the expensive watch I bought in Paris, but I’ve had to have it repaired twice in two years. And boy did they charge me for that!

It’s not reliability. It’s not durability. It’s not precision. And it’s not beauty. So what does all that extra money buy?

In a word, prestige. Slap on an Ebel or a Cartier and you have instant credibility with the fashion police. Thrust out a Rolex-clad wrist and you announce to all those around you, “I have arrived.”

You need not say a word. What could be better than that?

The idea that price equates to quality is a myth. But price does relate to value. In the case of luxury goods, that value is prestige.

If You Understand This, You Can Outsell Your Competition

In Boca Raton, Florida, almost 30 years ago, a very smart entrepreneur bought a large parcel of land west of the Interstate in what was considered to be a very undesirable location. It was unpopulated and miles from the beach. There wasn’t a store or supermarket in sight.

Instead of trying to compete with the frantic homebuilding going on east of the freeway, this savvy marketer spent the money to build an 8-foot stucco wall around the property. In front of the wall, he planted trees, shrubs, and flowers. And he created a very elaborate entrance with pillars, pergolas, and arches. A guardhouse with a uniformed gatekeeper finished it off.

This was Boca Raton’s first “gated community” — and the first development to purposefully sell the promise of exclusivity. While other developers were emphasizing quality and value, our friend was selling prestige. (“Wait until your friends and relatives see this entrance and have to get permission from the guard to get in!”)

The result?

Lots the developer bought for $5,000 sold for $20,000, while lots on the “better” side of town were selling for less than half that amount. Today, those same lots cost a quarter-of-a-million-dollars apiece.

The point?

People will be happy to pay more for your product or service if it provides them with prestige. The more prestige you can offer them, the more they will be willing to pay.

You Can Pay Pretty Much as Much as You Want
for Anything

When the Miami Heat basketball team opened its new arena years ago, it created a super-premium level of seating. It consisted of about eight seats that were practically under the basket. The price: a mere $50,000. Did they sell out? In about 24 hours.

In any marketplace — from watches to tractors — you will find luxury products selling for extraordinary prices.

Production cars range from $15,000 to more than a quarter-of-a-million. Off-the-rack suits can be purchased for as little as $100 or as much as $5,000. The same holds true for just about everything.

If you make 20-grand a year, you are happy to get your macaroni for 89-cents a pound. If you are a millionaire, you search for handmade pasta at 10 times that price.

When I was first married, I bought used furniture, including a dilapidated couch for $25. When I started making a decent living, I came into the marketplace of $500 sofas. As the years went by and my lifestyle “improved,” I’ve had the pleasure of paying $5,000 and $10,000 for essentially the same thing.

I know $500 sofas still exist, but I can’t find them. They are not in the stores my wife drags me to. What I am confronted with, instead, have fancy names: divans, chesterfields, chaises, and settees. All priced at what I used to pay for my yearly rent.

Prestige Is Expensive

Whatever it is you are selling, there is a way to charge more for it — by throwing in a little prestige.

This may not be something you want to do right now. Now might be the time to grab market share by under-pricing aggressively. But sooner or later, you should think about how to apply this very fundamental and powerful marketing strategy.

Remember that people with money want to pay you more — so long as it buys them a little prestige. And by charging them more, you are actually giving them a psychological boost.

Think about it.

Michael Masterson
Guest Contributor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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Greetings from Delray Beach, Florida!

Clayton and I have been having a blast at the AWAI Fast Track to Copywriting Success Bootcamp. 

Especially Clayton!

Not only was his presentation on Saturday morning a smashing success – he got a standing ovation – but he’s been hanging out with bootcamp attendees in the bar every night until 1:00 am!

He’s been giving out a ton of copywriting advice – enough to kick-start even the most sluggish copywriting career into high gear.  But that’s not all …

We’ve also been giving out a valuable form packed with five copywriting checklists to conference attendees – and it’s been getting rave reviews. 

I don’t think it’s fair that you’re missing out on all this great stuff, so I want to give you something too …

Here are the very same checklists the AWAI bootcampers received:

40 Headline Idea Starters
to Get Your Creative Juices Flowing!

1. Hitch Your Wagon to Breaking News
2. Call Out Your Prospect
3. Personalize It
4. Propose a Proposition
5. Go for Shock Value
6. Use an Intriguing Word or Phrase
7. Try an Interesting Juxtaposition
8. Let’s Make a Deal!
9. Ask a Burning Question
10. Express a Common Frustration
11. Tell a Riveting Story
12. Put it in Your Reader’s Voice
13. Put it in a Customer’s Voice
14. Drop a BIG Name
15. Be an Advocate for the Reader
16. Show a Little Leg
17. Directly Address your Prospect’s Dominant Emotion
18. Create or Solve a Mystery
19. Use the Power of "IF" and "WHEN"
20. Pound the Pulpit!
21. Offer Sweet Revenge
22. Attack the Enemy Head-On
23. Breaking News
24. Arouse Prurient Interest
25. Confirm a Dark Suspicion or Fear
26. Expose a Scandal
27. Start a Stopwatch
28. Set a Deadline
29. Set a Benchmark
30. Write a 1,000-Word Headline
31. Make a Startling Prediction
32. Wrestle with a Paradox
33. Become a Name-Dropper
34. Debunk a Myth
35. Get Star Struck
36. Defuse a Sticky Situation
37. Offer a Cheap Alternative
38. Go Out on a Limb
39. Paint a Vivid Word Picture
40. Draw a Startling Comparison

16-Point Headline Checklist
for Rock-Solid, Attention-Getting Impact:

1. Does It Fit the Strategy?
2. Does It Touch a Nerve?
3. Does It Enter a Conversation the Prospect is Already Having With Himself?
4. Is it "YOU" Oriented?
5. Does It Provoke Curiosity?
6. Does it Have Conviction?
7. Does It Offer a Compelling Benefit for Reading?
8. Does It Make a Unique Statement or Claim?
9. Is It Credible?
10. Is It Specific?
11. Is It Easy to Understand?
12. Is It Colloquial?
13. Is It Focused?
14. Does It Have a Newsy Element?
15. Does It Imply a Quick and Easy Solution?
16. Does It Point to the Copy Below?

Pretty Darned Good Outline:

1. Grab ‘Em by the Eyeballs
2. Support and Expand on Your Headline
3. Establish Credibility
4. Bribe Him to Read This
5. Deliver Value
6. Present Your "Big Promise"
7. Prove Your Point
8. Snapshot of the Future "Him"
9. Present Your Product and Prove Each Benefit
10. Make the Offer
11. Trivialize Your Price
12. Add Value
13. Relieve Risk
14. Sum Up
15. Ask for the Sale
16. Make Ordering Stupid Easy
17. Place Him at the Crossroads
18. Ask for the Sale – AGAIN
19. Sweeten the Pot
20. Add an Urgency Element

16 Dominant Emotions to Trigger Powerful Copy!

1. Anger
2. Betrayal
3. Revenge
4. Fear
5. Frustration
6. Greed
7. Happiness
8. Hope
9. Love/Caring
10. Passion
11. Relaxation
12. Sadness
13. Security
14. Shame
15. Powerlessness
16. Urgency

12 Steps to Offer Bliss – How to Seal the Deal!

1. Restate Your Product’s Benefits With Energy and Excitement
2. Cite Other Products That Cost Far More
3. State Your Regular Price
4. Present Your Rationale for Offering the Prospect a Discount
5. Present Your Discounted Price
6. Dimensionalize Your Discounted Price and Savings
7. Trivialize Your Price and Make It Sound Like a Bargain
8. Justify Your Price
9. Add Value
10. Relieve Risk
11. Set a Deadline
12. Ask for the Sale

Good stuff, huh?

If you want the actual form that we handed out at AWAI’s event, click here to download it.  It’s a full-color, 11" x 17" page – so you’ll probably need to take it to a Kinkos to print it. 

Or, you can simply print out the lists above and stick them next to your computer.  Either way, these checklists will help you rev up the power of your sales copy! 

Now stay tuned.  The ETR Info-Marketing Bootcamp is just getting underway.  We’ll give you an update about that event next week.

Wishing You Every Success,

Wendy "The Redhead" Makepeace
General Manager
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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