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Copywriting Challenge May 2018 (Join me)

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

Late Bloomer

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Will definitely have a look at the Porter's 5 Forces, never heard of it.

Michael Porter is a business school professor and business consultant who came up with a systematic way to analyze competition within an industry. Here's a summary.
Porter's five forces analysis - Wikipedia
If you want to get into these ideas more, there are plenty more articles you can find with a web search. Porter wrote some books to explain the framework in detail, with examples. Most business libraries should have them.
 
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HelpAndProsper

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They Laughed When I Sat Down To Read Copywriting Books,
But When I Began To Sell....

I've read most of those books, and would enjoy joining a study/discussion/application group about them.

If I could only take one book to a desert island, and had to write a great sales letter in a bottle to get rescued, I'd choose BREAKTHROUGH ADVERTISING. It's probably the best single book on the topic I've found.

One of the things Gene Schwartz discusses over and over, is that each super-successful ad campaign was the result of a unique analysis of the unique situation. How much do potential buyers already know about the offer? What's their attitude towards it? Which functional features will be most appealing to them? What emotional hot buttons will connect with them the most?

Because these are unique in every new business situation, the attempt to "copy and paste" an existing ad is unlikely to be successful!

Because I want to learn that way of thinking for my own unique situation, I'm going to skip Gary Halbert's exercise to write out some classic sales letters longhand.

I'm looking now to figure out:
  • How to apply the best of expert copywriting guidance to promote my own business now
  • I've experienced that copywriting mindset can help with a speech... I want to find how else it applies, beyond just writing materials that's obviously an ad
  • I want to include copywriting with marketing consulting I can provide to clients
Looking forward to where you want to take this discussion in 30 days and beyond!

I've read Breakthrough....Great stuff.....
 

Late Bloomer

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It would take more than 30 days to really go through all of these books carefully. I think we should continue the challenge on the basis of going through all of these books, sharing our notes and thoughts, most importantly how we can apply what we learn to our current work... whichever month that happens.

I finally finished the Robert Collier Letter Book, with many more pages of notes. So many marketing lessons here IF you can see how to adapt what he did back then, to what you'd like to do now. I would recommend reading this book AFTER Breakthrough Advertising by Schwartz. Schwartz explains how to categorize the different purposes of advertising such as getting initial orders, or overcoming jaded reactions for repeat purchases. Collier's many letters would make more sense with that framework already in mind.

Lots of typos in this scan.

Collier includes sales letters for some positive thinking books. The letters say the books explain how to awaken the inner giant of the unlimited subconscious mind's power.

In another letter, Collier mentions that the 21 volume set of tutorials is too detailed, so here's the most condensed get to it quick version in only 7 installments.

Tony Robbins titled his psychology books "Awaken the Giant Within" and "Unlimited Power," and followed up his 20+ installment audio series with a 7 audio series of the most important highlights. Either Tony or someone on his marketing team was familiar with Collier's work!

Rather than comment on many of the letters, I'll highlight a few of the timeless principles Collier stated. That's still a lot of material.

"The point would seem to be that if you can tie in with what people are thinking about and interested in, you can sell anything. And that the particular form that your letter takes is far less important than the chord it happens to strike."

SELL TO KNOWN BUYERS. If you have something new to sell by mail, sell it, if you can, to those who've already bought SOMETHING by mail.

"You see, the product is of minor importance. There was scarcely a man in the whole place who did not know more about raincoats than I. But it was not raincoats we were selling. It was an idea - in this case, the idea that by specializing in one grade of coat, one cloth, one style, and making it in every conceivable size, we could not only save you money, but give you a better coat and a more perfect fit than you could get at double the price in stores. We did not need to know anything about coat manufacturers to convince you of that. All we needed to understand was human reactions to certain ideas, and these are what we studied."

"Notice how readily the idea adapts itself to overcoats, just as though it had never been used for anything else. That is my experience of most basic ideas. If they are good enough for selling one product, they can be adapted to selling almost any other product."

"For here is a strange fact, which has held consistently throughout all my experience in selling my mail: If you offer one article you will twice as many orders as if you offerd a choice fo two or more articles!" ( Gary Halbert confirmed that decades later. )

"The best mail order buyer is one who has already bought other products by mail, and it is ideas that sell goods - not mere descriptions of the goods themselves. Ideas are the only things that count."

p 217 Even if you have a good reason for the bargain, you still have to add lots of good reasons for the quality.

"We tried pictures on the letterhead and found that the old mail order letterheads, of which so much fun is made, showing the picture of the founder of the business, have a sound psychological reason back of them, and frequently increase orders anywhere from 5-10%."
"We tried everything - metered mail against stamped. Precancelled stamps against plain... Pen signatures against facsimile.... Black ink against purple and blue and red..... And the trend of all the tests seemed to be that anything which tended to make your letter seem more personal added appreciably to the number of your orders." ( Gary Halbert also confirmed this decades later! )

"These were just a few of the tests we made. There were literally hundreds of them. A book could be written about them alone but by the time it came out it would be of little value. For the fascinating thing about this selling by mail - the thing that makes impossible for any man or set of men to know all about it - is that it is continually changing. What you learn today you must unlearn tomorrow. You have to keep trying - and testing - and then just when you reach the point where you can arise and state with authority: you can do, that you cannot, along comes some darn fool who knows none of the rules and sells a million on the very plan you said could not be worked!"

Results are unpredictable and can go up and down at any time. "And yet, properly run, there is no safer business on earth. You need never risk anything but the cost of a test. ... for instance, when ( something to sell ) was offered to us, we didn't need to say: "All right, we'll gamble on that," or "We can't afford to risk that much money." No, what we said was: "Give us a 60 day option and we'll find out!" So we gambled the cost of a couple of tests, found that we could sell so many sets to each thousand names, multiplied that by the number of names available, and knew just what to safely contract to do.
There was no manufacturing cost, no inventories to worry about, no commitments. If the test had been a failure, we would bought enough to fill the orders received and been out nothing but the small cost of the tests. If that had not been available would would have returned all money received, notified those who ordered that circumstances made it impossible to go ahead with the project, and closed the matter. Is there any other business where future prospects can be forecast with such certainty and at such small expense?"

"The real profit in selling by mail lies not in the first mail but in the succeeding ones. If you cannot sell a second product to the people who bought your first one, then there is something wrong with your methods or your product."

"Beware of the letter that everyone admires for its cleverness. It may bring you a great deal of praise - but few orders. The good letter is one that leaves your reader hardly conscious of the letter itself, so interested is he in doing the thing you want him to do."

"We all like to feel important. Anything that raises our ego, that makes us feel more necessary to the general scheme of things, is sure to please us. The cleverness in ( letters with this appeal ) lies in their ability to feed our vanity, without making it too apparent that this is the real purpose of the letter."

"While most people lack the courage for real leadership, few there are who do not long to be looked up to, as being a bit above their fellows. Organizers of Lodges and Clubs realize this predominant trait in human nature and capitalize it to the fullest degree. And publishers have not been backward in giving their readers the chance to become Founders or Charter Subscribers or Members of some more or less exclusive group."

"There is no one best method of approaching your reader. And no one knows all the successful methods. But experienced advertising men have learned a number of ways that work well in a large majority of cases and unless you know better ones, it pays to use these tested methods. They go far towards taking the guess out of advertising. You have seen numbers of advertisements, for instance, starting - Give me five minutes, and I'll give you this or that. So successful has this approach been found, that it has been put among proven order-getters. Why not adapt it, then, to your offer? Here is the way we used it for one client..." ( A brilliant paragraph because the commentary about sales letter is itself selling that you should make sales letters like this one! )

"The one things that should always be borne in mind is that it is not merchandise you are selling, but human nature, human reactions. The movie people have found that people always respond to certain motivations, so they have their guaranteed laugh producers, their guaranteed methods of turning on the tears, and so on..... In the same way, you can take an approach that has successfully sold a set of books, and with very little change, adapt it to selling shoes or socks or luggage or any one of a thousand other products and be just as successful in disposing of these!"
"The Give 5 minutes approach, for instance, used in one of the foregoing letters. You can use it to sell a relief for Athlete's Food, as in, Give me 5 days, and I'll give you relief from itching feet. Or a new dance step, Give me 15 minutes and I'll give you the secret of dancing to the new slow-time music. Or a new car, Give me 5 minutes and I'll give you a new sensation in riding comfort."

Ranking of how to get your letter opened. If you don't have a headline on the outside, make it look like a personal note. "As to the motives to appeal to when you have won the reader's attention, by far the strongest, in our experience, is Vanity. Not the vanity that buys a cosmetic or whatnot to look a little better, but that unconscious vanity which makes a man want to feel important in his own eyes and makes him strut mentally. This appeal needs to be subtly used, but when properly used, it is the strongest we know. Next to it perhaps, is the is premium or "Gift" idea - starting your letter with the gift of some unimportant article, to lead your reader on to the buying of your real product."

Have an idea file.

To get inquiries write the shortest letter that will get interest. To make sales write as long as letter as you need to discuss everything about the offer.
 

Late Bloomer

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I would like to see someone else do a review or key points collection from the Whitman and Schwab books and from the Boron Letters.

I'd also like to see someone find out exactly why Gary Halbert was sent to the minimum security prison camp, where he wrote the Boron Letters. From what Dan Kennedy mentioned now and then, I have the idea that Gary was convicted of taking people's money and not shipping them what they ordered in time, or maybe of misrepresenting a stock investment? Seeing his friend go to prison made a strong impression on Dan, who always advises his audiences to very carefully follow every detail of the letter of the law, and to just get out of any business where that's hard to do.
 
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Argue

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@Late Bloomer, thanks for updating the thread with new notes.

The Robert Collier book is a gem. But wow, the typos in the PDF is crazy. Listened on audible and it was good. I didn’t take notes tho.

Anyway LB, how much time do you take to read a book? Are you scanning/speed reading? Or do you carefully read each page? I’d like some tips.

I’m not gonna lie, some of these books are putting me to sleep lol. Scientific advertising was very boring to me but very insightful. It was painful to get through... so I just read the summary for it.
 

Late Bloomer

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Are you scanning/speed reading? Or do you carefully read each page? I’d like some tips.

Great question.

Study skills are skills we can learn, just like anything else. The advantage is, they make it easier to learn anything else.

I'd already read or skimmed most of these copywriting books. So for this current challenge, I am going through each page with a notebook handy. I'm glad for that, because I'm finding so many ideas I can adapt and use for myself. I always put the date and topic at the top of each page of my notes, or each new file. Sometimes I take notes by hand, sometimes I use a note taking program with tabs for multiple text pages, so I don't have to see clutter on the computer.

I am always asking, is this an advertising appeal I could use now? If so, how could I adapt it for my business? What is the lesson for today? Could I use this to help other companies with their marketing?

Oh, they gave a free one week trial of a travel bag for those who sent in a postcard. Could I somehow let people send me a postcard to get a free web site for a week? What other products could include a dozen organizer pockets, so there's a place for everything?

So this other business collected leftover, overstocked dresses into their showroom. Is there something I could collect as overstock at half wholesale prices, and display at discount retail for a profit? Could I do this online without needing a storefront?

This next sales letter said (politely, discreetly), if you're a know it all jerk don't waste our time, but if you're willing to learn we can sure help you. Would I like to have a web site that implies that only people of superior intelligence and open-mindedness are good enough to buy from me?

The way I like to learn something new, is to get several top rated books and skim through them quickly.

I pull out a big stack of books from the library or bookstore shelves, and pile it up on a table. For each book, if there's an introduction, I'll fully read that, the table of contents, and the first chapter, to let the author set up their theme. Then I'll skim with a quick look through pages to try to get the overall main ideas. I fully read a random page here and there to check out the style, and to find if there are diamonds of brilliance throughout the book. I'll repeat this quickly with several books.

If some authors seem to not know what they're talking about... or I just can't get into their writing style... or their stuff seems good but not relevant... I push aside those books.

Within an hour or two, I've gone from two dozen "hmm, maybes" to about four, "these look like the best!"

When there are some themes that it seems just about everyone talks about, I pay attention when those come up. (For example, every great master copywriter talks about the importance of testing and how they run tests.)

If there is someone who seems to really have a clue AND they're a contrarian, I pay some extra attention to their argument. They might just be a wacky outsider with weird ideas. But they might also be a very insightful person, who noticed important truths that everyone else overlooked.

Fortunately with copywriting, the themes of human nature, emotional appeal, organizing your message, testing everything, are timeless. There might be something in a book from 1917 that makes the light bulb come on for you. The very same point might be found in a brilliant blog post or video or podcast from last week, that's what made it finally totally make sense to you.
 

Joaquim

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I would like to see someone else do a review or key points collection from the Whitman and Schwab books and from the Boron Letters.

I'd also like to see someone find out exactly why Gary Halbert was sent to the minimum security prison camp, where he wrote the Boron Letters. From what Dan Kennedy mentioned now and then, I have the idea that Gary was convicted of taking people's money and not shipping them what they ordered in time, or maybe of misrepresenting a stock investment? Seeing his friend go to prison made a strong impression on Dan, who always advises his audiences to very carefully follow every detail of the letter of the law, and to just get out of any business where that's hard to do.

Great notes again @Late Bloomer. You put a lot of value in this thread! Thank you for that.

Haha I asked myself the same question as @Argue.
It seems like you're a very good and quick reader.

I finished Cashvertising and will make tomorrow a readable version of my notes.
Currently reading Ultimate Sales Letter. Will have to do my best to still accomplish the challenge, will have more time now though. But the amount of knowledge I'm gaining is insane. Actually the whole book Cashvertising can be seen as notes. Full of golden nuggets and very comprehensive.

I also agree with reading the best books about 1 topic in a short time frame. Otherwise you risk to forget some important things that you should link to each other.

Never heard the story of Gary in prison, will dig deeper into that.

Taking notes is actually the hardest part for me, it slows me down.
 
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Late Bloomer

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Taking notes is actually the hardest part for me, it slows me down.

Looking forward to your notes! It does slow you down, but it makes you think more carefully about what you read, and save your ideas for use in the future. That puts the material much more deeply into your mind.
 

Joaquim

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CA$HVERTISING summary:

Simply one of those books that should be on your desk.
I may even say that you only need to read this one book to see your sales go up. You get all the knowledge you have to know and it’s so easy to instantly apply it.

That being said. You won’t become an expert with just reading this book.

4 chapters:
  1. The Essentials
  2. 17 Foundations on Consumer Psychology
  3. 41 Techniques for Selling Anything
  4. Summaries, checklists + added tips
1) THE ESSENTIALS
Your ads should touch one of the following categories of desires. If possible you want to touch on the primer biological category (LF8), when not possible you should touch the secondary desires (9HW)
  • The Biological Life-Force 8 (LF8):
    • Survival, enjoyment of life
    • Food & Beverages
    • No fear, pain and danger
    • Sexual Companionship
    • Comfortable living conditions
    • To be superior, winning, keeping up with the joneses.
    • Care and protection of loved ones.
    • Social Approval
  • Nine Learned Human Wants (9HW):
    • To be informed
    • Curiosity
    • Clienliness
    • Efficiency
    • Convenience
    • Dependability
    • Expression of beauty and style
    • Economy
    • Bargains
Desire = type of tension you feel when a need isn’t met.
Tension -> Desire -> Action to Satisfy the Desire

Get in the mind with Mental Movies (created by words)

2) 17 FOUNDATIONS:

1) The Fear Factor: Fear always Sells.
2) Ego Morphing: Hone in on characteristics that society considers being desirable.
3) Credibility: Use symbols or images commonly associated with authority or respect -> so prospects won’t do their research and take action much quicker.
4) The Bandwagon Effect: Put equal effort into telling your prospects how buying your product makes them (aspirational), keeps them (associative), or helps them show the world that they’re not a part of a particular group.
5) The Means-End Chain: They buy your product for what it will do for them tomorrow, not for what it does today. Positive end results.
6) The Transtheoretical Model:
  1. Pre-contemplation: Ignorant of Existence
  2. Contemplation: Aware
  3. Preparation: Thinking about buying from you. Needs more benefits
  4. Action: Prospects takes action
  5. Maintenance: Part of their everyday lives. Become part of your community
7) The Inoculation Theory:
8) Belief Re-Ranking: Change Their Reality. Appeal to either emotions like fear, humor, or guilt, or to the consumer’s intellect.
9) The Elaboration Likelihood Model: Adjust Their Attitude. Peripheral makes it feel good, but Central Processing makes them PREFER you.
Two Routes:

1. Central Route (When thinking is needed) - Persuading using logic, reasoning, and deep thinking.
2. Peripheral Route (No serious Considerations by prospect) - Persuading using the association of pleasant thoughts and positive images.

10) The 6 Weapons of Influence: Shortcuts to Persuasion. CLARCCS
1. Comparison: The power of your peers. Bandwagon effect.
2. Liking: “You like us, you should do as I say: BUY!”
3. Authority: Credibility.
4. Reciprocation: You get something and you’re compelled to purchase something from them in return
5. Commitment / consistency:
6. Scarcity:
11) Message Organization: Organized and Well-Structured. Simple is better, but simple isn’t necessarily easy.
12) Examples vs. Statistics: Use examples, they are less mental effort to process
13) Dual Role Persuasion: Comparison ads don’t have to be about bashing the other.
14) Repetition: “People don’t start seeing your ad until you run it seven times”. Run the same ad over and over.
15) Rhetorical Questions
16) Evidence: Prospects must, must, must be convinced that what’s in ‘your bag’ is worth more than the money you ask for it.
17) Heuristics: Long ads > Short ads. “There’s so much copy in that ad, there must be something to it!”


3) 41 TECHNIQUES:
1) Simplicity: Write so people can understand. Short sentences and short words make reading easier.
2) Benefits: Benefits, no features! WIIFM: “What’s in it for me?”
3) Biggest Benefit In Headline.
4) Scarcity.
5) 22 Psychologically Potent Headline Starters: FREE, NEW, NOW, FINALLY, LOOK…
6) 12 Ways To Lure Your Readers Into Your Copy.
7) Use circle-shaped ads.
8) Never use light words on dark background.
9) Crush Your Competition With Extreme Specificity .
10) Ogilvy Principle: Start body copy with a Drop Initial. Massive oversized letter. Always run pics with captions!
11) The Psychology of Typefaces: Sans-Serif for online (Arial, Verdana) and Serif for print (Helvetica).
12) Hire a real graphic designer.
13) The Power of Questions.
14) The "Granny Rule": Rapport, Personal, Simple and Personal.
15) The Psychology of Social Proof: Testimonials.
16) The Guillotine Principle: Put a photo of someone’s head in your ad. It’s warmer, a more personal feel and you’re a real person.
17) Powerful Visual Adjectives.
18) Directing Mental Movies
19) Make it easy to take action and then ask for action
20) Unique Selling Proposition: What makes you standing out!
21) Buy Your Own Island: Buy a Half-Page Island.
22) Authority Positioning: Become an authority in your industry.
23) A Sales Letter in Survey's Clothing: Ask questions about how they feel about your product or service, what they think about your prices, etc…
24) Pictures: “A picture is worth a thousand words”.
25) Grab 'em With Grabbers: Little items you attach to the top of the first page of your sales letter. (Dollar bill,..)
26) Long Copy vs. Short: Long outsells short.
27) Offer Testing: Vitaly important to test different offers. Tweak.
28) Survey Power: Best way to find out what people want? Ask them.
29) Editorial Energizers: Make it look like news stories.
30) The Coupon Persuader: Use a simple broken, coupon-style line around your ad.
31) 7 Online Response BoosterS
32) Multi-page Your Way to Success
33) Guarantees that Guarantee Higher Response: Offer the longest and strongest guarantee in your industry.
34) The Psychology of Size: Bigger ads attract more attention.
35) The Psychology of Page and Section Positioning: Makes no difference.
36) The Fantastic Four..
37) Consumer Color Preferences: Blue > Red > Green > Violet > Orange > Yellow
38) The Psychology of Pricing: Odd pricing suggest greater value, Even pricing (prestige pricing) is perceived as higher quality.
39) The Psychology of Color: Words should be Black and / or White.
40) Wrap Your Ads in White: Use lots of white space. Attracts more attention.
41) Give Yourself a "Cleverectomy”: Sell the benefits, do not try to be clever. In advertising, it’s never clever to be clever.

Some of these techniques speak for themselves, other needs some explanations.
But I really recommend you reading this book, it's impossible that it won't help your business.
And it's impossible to get all the nuggets into this summary.
 
Last edited:

Late Bloomer

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CA$HVERTISING summary
Thanks a lot Joaquim. Most of your notes make perfect sense, but I do have a few things I wonder about.

  • Nine Learned Human Wants (9HW):

I wouldn't agree with him that all of these are learned, that none of them are innate in personality, if that's what he meant. But that theoretical psychology point really doesn't matter. I would totally agree that wherever these wants come from, a lot of people have them and will spend a lot of money to get more fulfillment.

7) The Inoculation Theory:

What is the theory? The mentioning the title of the theory builds up antibodies, so you don't need to get infected with the theory itself? :playful:

13) Dual Role Persuasion: Comparison ads don’t have to be about bashing the other.
I don't get what this means.

7) Use circle-shaped ads.
Huh??

16) The Guillotine Principle: Put a photo of someone’s head in your ad.
LOL A new kind of paper cut for the head line

21) Buy Your Own Island: Buy a Half-Page Island.
Huh?

31) 7 Online Response BoosterS
Missing the list?

32) Multi-page Your Way to Success
Is this about print or online?

36) The Fantastic Four..
Your ad should be elastic, invisible, made of rock, and on fire?

And it's impossible to get all the nuggets into this summary.
I think you did a great job! Thanks again!
 
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Joaquim

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Thanks a lot Joaquim. Most of your notes make perfect sense, but I do have a few things I wonder about.
Will answer all your questions by tomorrow @Late Bloomer !
Which one are you reading now?

Finished this week Ultimate Sales Letter. Also a hell of a great read.

I find myself reading the same principles over and over again. Which is not a bad thing, but it will probably influence my order of 'top recommended reading'.

Will still finish the reading list, but it won't be in May..

I thought I would be able to finish this challenge in one month considering my reading speed.

But the month May has been my best month ever in business. Just finished my first $10.000 month. It took a lot of work, but it was worth it!
 

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Will answer all your questions by tomorrow @Late Bloomer !
Which one are you reading now?

Finished this week Ultimate Sales Letter. Also a hell of a great read.

I find myself reading the same principles over and over again. Which is not a bad thing, but it will probably influence my order of 'top recommended reading'.

Will still finish the reading list, but it won't be in May..

I thought I would be able to finish this challenge in one month considering my reading speed.

But the month May has been my best month ever in business. Just finished my first $10.000 month. It took a lot of work, but it was worth it!

Nice! Congrats on the great month!

Are you doing copywriting work?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Joaquim

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Nice! Congrats on the great month!

Are you doing copywriting work?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Thanks @jcvlds !

No I use the copy for my own ads and send them to my Shopify and FBA.

But actually I should send them only to my Shopify if I want to think long term. But then my sales will drop for a couple of months. And that's where upsells do their work (again copy -> email marketing).
 
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Late Bloomer

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Will answer all your questions by tomorrow @Late Bloomer !
Which one are you reading now?

Taking a little break. Rereading Breakthrough Advertising is next on the study list for me.

I find myself reading the same principles over and over again. Which is not a bad thing, but it will probably influence my order of 'top recommended reading'.

That's one of the things that appeals to me about copywriting and marketing, compared to coding. All the principles and most of the techniques from a hundred years ago, still work. (Unlike trying to paste a Windows 1.0 program into a modern development environment!)

But the month May has been my best month ever in business. Just finished my first $10.000 month. It took a lot of work, but it was worth it!

Congratulations! What did you do to reach that milestone?

I use the copy for my own ads
Dan Kennedy mentioned that he really likes to be his own client :smile2:and I think that's an important point to keep in mind about copywriting... that it is a great skill for business owners to have for their own use, not just to sell to others.
 

Joaquim

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Thanks a lot Joaquim. Most of your notes make perfect sense, but I do have a few things I wonder about.



I wouldn't agree with him that all of these are learned, that none of them are innate in personality, if that's what he meant. But that theoretical psychology point really doesn't matter. I would totally agree that wherever these wants come from, a lot of people have them and will spend a lot of money to get more fulfillment.



What is the theory? The mentioning the title of the theory builds up antibodies, so you don't need to get infected with the theory itself? :playful:

The Inoculation Theory is to prevent the effect of competition claiming your not good for the reasons they mention. You prep your targeted audience in such a way so that they process your competitors' claims through your filters.
Example from the book: "Our competitors tell you how convenient their home delivery service is, but they don't tell you that their average delivery time is over an hour. We deliver in 28 minutes or your pizza is free.


I don't get what this means.

You can advertise by talking only about your product or also by talking about both your product and that of the competition. Studies show that two-sided messages are more persuasive.

But you should do this by not bashing your competition. You should point out, with respect, your advantages your product provides


Huh??

To stand out from all the other ads you should try other shapes. Now Whitman says to stand out it works if you just make your ad in the shape of an eye-grabbing circle. He even goes further. He wants you to fill everything from the outside edge with black. Your ad will always be published as a square, so you'll have empty real estate which you should color black.

Huh?

This is for print. It's not necessary to buy a full page ad, you can just buy a half page ad and still own that page for lesser money.

Missing the list?

1. Best email frequency: 1mail a week
2. CTR: They are still important
3. HTML vs. Text Conundrum: HTML gets a 200% better response
4. Get your emails opened
- Familiar Sender: use your name if they'll recognize it
- Personal Subject Line: always include your recipient's name
- Offer of Interest: precision-target your market
5. Ad Size and Readership: Vertical tall ads and Large Banners are the winning choices.
6. Animation Click-Through Booster: CTR is better, but do not over exaggerate.
7. Mystery Ads Score High CTR: BUT LOW CONVERSION TO SALES


Is this about print or online?

I should've explained this better. It's about the frequency of publishing your ads. Publishing one ad for one product is just not enough. You need repetition. The practice of this theory depends on the platform.

Your ad should be elastic, invisible, made of rock, and on fire?

Hahaha almost.

It's about offline print:
- Ads on inside front cover have the highest scores over the similar ads run anywhere else in the same issue.
- Ads placed opposite a table of content earn up to 25 percent higher scores
- Ads appearing on the back cover scores 22 percent higher than ads inside.
- Ads placed in the inside back cover score a 6 percent advantage over inside pages.


I think you did a great job! Thanks again!

I think I was a little lazy, should've explained some points more.
Not sure I responded your questions in the right way, do I have to quote or reply, still need to find this out. I Put some Bold on it to be sure you'll find the answers.

Hope everything is clear now for you, cause this is a wonderful book.
If you have more questions, just ask!

Edit: Haha oke that was not the right way to reply, my bad.
 

KeithWallace

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This is a fascinating and mind-blowing thread. I've come to this late and haven't read any of these books yet.

For those that have read all/most on the list, is there one of these books that you would now suggest reading first? I'd like something to get the general principles down that I can start using fast without getting too bogged down - it would take me months to get through these books. A good beginner's guide, if you will.

Thanks to those who have spent their time putting such great summaries here.
 
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Late Bloomer

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For those that have read all/most on the list, is there one of these books that you would now suggest reading first?

Yes, if you only read one of these books, read Breakthrough Advertising. For a second book, The Boron Letters.

I think Boron is the only one in the stack that discusses how to find stuff to sell and markets to sell it to. The others assume that you already have something to promote.
 

jcvlds

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I would like to see someone else do a review or key points collection from the Whitman and Schwab books and from the Boron Letters.
Hey @Late Bloomer - a bit late, apologies, but wanted to share my notes on the Boron Letters. Thanks again for your great notes on TUSL and Collier, hope these are valuable to you and the group.


THE BORON LETTERS - GARY HALBERT
*decided to upload my text file where I took my notes because when I paste it on here, it messes up with the formatting (indented tabs, etc)
 

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Late Bloomer

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Hey @Late Bloomer - a bit late, apologies, but wanted to share my notes on the Boron Letters. Thanks again for your great notes on TUSL and Collier, hope these are valuable to you and the group.

THE BORON LETTERS - GARY HALBERT
*decided to upload my text file where I took my notes because when I paste it on here, it messes up with the formatting (indented tabs, etc)

Great notes on Boron Letters.

Gary Halbert was one of the all-time top geniuses of advertising. Many people think of him as the greatest copywriter ever.

In his career he sometimes did business together with other people. One time he did the advertising for a business with a couple of other people. The advertising brought in a lot of orders and money, but a lot of the orders went unfulfilled for a long time. The customers complained to the government, and a prosecutor decided that the team had a deliberate conspiracy to defraud the buyers.

Gary was sent for a while to a minimum security prison, Boron. While there, he wrote letters to his son Bond, who I think was a teenager at the time. That's why the letters have a mix of fatherly advice about attitude and healthy living, and also Gary's professional guidance on how to succeed at advertising. I think there's nothing else like it!

Gary's sons also went into advertising. Bond now offers an updated version of the Boron letters, with his own commentary as an adult. I haven't read that yet but hope to get a copy this year.

Standard Rate and Data Service is a publisher that provides reference information for advertisers. They're still around. Their books are very expensive, but many larger business libraries have a reference copy. I recommend you visit a library and flip through the mailing list book, so you can see what Gary's talking about in the letters.

The SRDS mailing list directory lists mailing lists that advertisers can rent in order to send out sales material. $50 CPM means that for fifty bucks, you can get one thousand (Cost Per Mille, with latin Mille for a thousand) names and addresses from the list, and have the right to send all of them one thing in the mail. A few of the names are fake, and go back to the list owner so they can catch anyone who tries to use the list again without paying another rental fee. As Gary points out, you can get a few names for a test, and if it works, then rent a larger number of names from the list.

SRDS has several other reference books, such as lists of magazines by subject with how many subscribers they have, and all the rates to buy ads.
 
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