World Copywriting Blog

The brick wall every copywriter runs into eventually....

If you become a skilled copywriter, sooner or later, you're going to run into a situation like one of my mentoring clients did recently.

The publisher of an info-product on making money in a niche market hired a copywriter. The publisher was very good at making money in his market, but had never sold information over the Web.  He was brand new to info-marketing.

The copywriter, my mentoring client, worked closely with him for three weeks.  Long nights, rewrites, poured his heart and soul into the copy.  Blood, sweat, and tears. He truly gave it everything he had.

Come launch day, the publisher looked at it and condescendingly scolded the copywriter.  "I thought you were really going to work on the copy," he said.  "It looks to me like you wrote this in your spare time.  I can see I wasted my money with you."

The copywriter was outraged, and told the client he was mistaken.

The client wrote his own sales letter.  One thouand two hundred fifty seven visitors to his site, and three sales.  Less than 1/4 percent conversion.

In a panic, the client called the copywriter and asked what he should do.

"You're not going to like what I'm about to tell you," the copywriter said, holding his tongue and not saying what was really on his mind.

"Say it anyway," spat out the client.

"Run the copy I gave you," the copywriter said, and politely hung up the phone.

The copy was already paid for, so, in desperation, the client did what he knew wouldn't work.  He ran the copywriter's copy, as submitted.  He didn't have anything else to do.

So far, 11.3% response.  Roughly 37 times more than what the client was able to do on his own.

The copywriter is currently on a long Caribbean cruise, cooling his jets.  He told me this story just before he left.  Fortunately most of his other clients aren't as stubborn, and so far, he's had a very good year.

But he knows that once in a while, the Client From Hell shows up.

Rather than give you some hokey moral to this story which I would have to make up, I'm going to ask you:

• If you're a copywriter, has this happened to you?  What did you do about it?  What do you do now to prevent it?
• If you're a client, what's your side of the story?  I'll publish comments from people on both sides of this issue.  I'd really like to know.

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter

It walks! It talks! It makes people take out their credit cards and buy! It's...

... a video sales letter!

Video has gotten easier and easier to put up on the Web, and now Mike Stewart has (once again) come up with some great innovations to make posting video sales letters easier than ever before.

Mike agreed to be my guest Tuesday night on a Webcast which, fortunately, was preserved for posterity.  The Webcast was entitled "Video Sales Letter Secrets" and Mike explained how easy it is to sell with video... and, just as important, how easy it (now) is to get a video clip up on the Web.

The secret? WordPress blogs.  You can basically create an instant Web site using Mike's techniques.  And, with a FlipVideo digital video camera, you can create videos just about as easily as snapping your finger.

If you'd like to hear the whole story, go to: www.davidgarfinkel.com/videosaleslettersecrets

But, if you already get it and are saying, "Where is the software and where are the shortcuts?", Mike's put together a package that's remarkably inexpensive and can juice up your sales right away, at www.davidgarfinkel.com/salesvideo

Mike has been doing professional video since 1979 and he says that what you can get today for a few hundred dollars would have cost a quarter of a million back in the day.  I say, seize the moment!  Check it out.

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter

This fear-inducing headline from a (gasp) NEWSPAPER shows the unintended power of hidden phrases. DON'T let this happen in YOUR copy

Just returning from three solid days of deep focus on just the right word (as a teacher at John Carlton's fabulous 3-day 17 Points of Copywriting workshop), I was astounded to see the above headline in this morning's San Francisco Chronicle.

The headline is bad enough -- but we all know that fear sells, and it certainly sells newspapers.  (Don't think I'm going to take it lightly though the next time I see or hear a journalist taking a swipe at an ad because it preys on people's fears.)

But that wasn't what astounded me.  I was more interested in the double meaning of the headline -- almost surely unintended.   Look:

.

Hey, I'm not playing word games here.  Long experience and study has forced me to conclude that's how people really read.  Neuro-linguistic programming concepts of embedded commands and nested loops are just two of the many indications I have that some people will unconsciously take headline meaning number three from reading headline number one.

One of the subtler arts of writing headlines (and body copy) is to see every which-way it could be read, including, of course, the ways you don't want it to be read.  Keep rewriting it until the meaning is unambiguous.  Clear and simple.  Straightforward.

Or, if your headline could mean two (or more) things, make sure both, or all) meanings work for you --  100%.

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter