It Can Help You Make Money and It's Free

by Anthony Stillwell

 

A lot of what you need to know about writing powerful, order-
pulling ad copy can be learned for free if you have a little
patience.

I have written sales letters that have brought in up to a 10%
to 12% response rate to my product offers and I've been offered
paid copywriting jobs. Now you would think that I've spent tons
of money on "How To Write Killer Ad Copy" courses trying to learn
all I could about the "art of the written word", but that's not
the case at all.

Don't get me wrong. Those types of courses certainly have their
place, but that's not the route I took. Starting from scratch
with no money for courses like that and a real need to learn how
to sell I just sat and waited for tens of thousands of dollars
worth of proven copywriting secrets to be handed to me just like
YOU can.

How?

Well... nearly every kind of market you can think of has
magazines and other publications devoted to it. Take the
"Business Opportunity" field for example. There are dozens and
dozens of magazines you can buy related to just this ONE market.

Get off the computer and buy some magazines.

All you have to do is look for the "Classified Ads" section and
whenever you see an ad offering something for free... send away
for it. At one point I was getting POUNDS of mail a day by doing
this and loving every minute of it.

You see unlike the Internet... advertising in the "real world"
costs money. People advertising by mail either make money or they
stop doing it. You can see first hand what's working and what's
not simply by letting the people who are actually out there
testing and spending their own money show you how it's done.

After you send away for all the free offers you can find you'll
find that your name has been put on mailing lists to get even
more offers. You'll get Free Offers and Sales Letters
relentlessly for a couple of months.

This is actually a good thing. When you take the time to read the
so-called "junk mail" you get you'll start to see the kind of
advertising that works. You will be able to spot what's great
about a sales letter and what isn't. You'll be able to use proven
techniques that other marketers have spent months testing on the
advertising YOU do.

Organize your mail into what's called a "Swipe File"
http://www.ablake.net/archive62/index.cgi?read=61186

All Profitable Sales Letters Have...

[1] A Benefit Rich "Here's Why My Product Should Interest You
Headline" that Practically Forces It's Readers To Pay Attention.
Does your website have a strong headline or just your company
logo. There's a thing called an "attention span" and most people
don't have much of one.

If your website doesn't get attention within the first couple of
seconds someone hits your site then most people will just leave.

[2] Enough copy to tell the whole story. People will read a
16-page sales letter IF it's written with the reader in mind.
It's not about YOU and what YOU think or want. It's about what
your readers think and about what they want.

Powerful sales letters and ads are all about the benefits of
owning your product. I've read 16-page sales letters cover to
cover and thrown out single page flyers. Ad copy that's centered
around what your reader wants to read gets read no matter how
long it is.

[3] Bullets that scream... "Hey you... Here's why you should
order this product. Bullets can in some cases make or break your
sales letter. Bullets are simply mini-headlines one after another
that give your reader more and more reasons to buy your product.

I've even seen people go to the extreme and send me sales letters
that were 95% bullet points. I mean they just went on forever.
They got the sale from me so I guess that works. ;-)

[4] Strong testimonials. The fact of the matter is that you'll
say anything about your product to make a sale. The people who
buy from you don't have money to gain by saying nice things about
you or your products. Your potential customers want to know what
other people think BEFORE they buy.

You can get testimonials for your products by giving review
copies away asking for feedback. Ask for feedback and NOT
testimonials because you WANT to know if people don't like your
product so you can correct problems and make what you're selling
just that much better.

If you've created a quality product you shouldn't have any
problems in the testimonials department.

[5] Reasons Why. Why should YOU get my money when there are other
similar products out there? When you start getting offers by mail
you'll get all kinds of ideas on how you can make your products
stand out even if your product is basically the same as everyone
else's.

While I was surfing around I found this:
http://www.adsurgeon.com/teach1.shtml

You'll see why it's important to tell more about the product you
sell. There are things about your product that YOU take for
granted, but "HEY... Everybody Doesn't Know What You Know About
Your Products!" Tell people what your competitors don't!

[6] There's the close. The "TAKE ACTION NOW" part of the letter.
You can give people all the reasons in the world to do business
with you, but if you don't ask for the sale you might not get it.
Don't beg and don't be shy. Tell people what you want them to do.
If you know that your product will help people achieve a goal
then you should have no problems asking for their money.

[7] And let's not forget the P.S. Yes people do pay attention to
this online. You can use this part of your sales letter to give
people that extra little push they may need to order or you can
just bribe 'em with an exclusive bonus of some kind.

The last second P.S. bonus is something that I've found to work
very well. It's best to add a bonus that fits in directly with
your product. An example would be a course I sell on getting
Free Advertising online. The P.S. talks about a report on how
to get top 20 search engine positioning without submitting your
site.

That kind of bonus lets me push another one of my prospects
'hot buttons' and increases my chances for making the sale.

Last but Certainly Not Least... Testing. The most important
thing you can do is test to see what works best. There's a lot
of testing going on in mail-order and you get to watch it for
free. Just one simple change to your sales letter can increase
your sales instantly.

The bottom line is that you have to be willing to look outside of
the Internet for the answers to your website troubles. Effective
advertising existed BEFORE the Internet and continues to exist in
spite of it. Pay attention to it. Take advantage of what you can
learn from mail-order and get an advantage most of your "Internet
Marketing Competitors" overlook.

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Anthony Stillwell is the author of "Unlimited Free Traffic"
and publisher of the EnterNet P R O F I T S newsletter where
you'll get the hottest tips and the coolest resources to give
you the advantage. http://www.getfreeadvertising.com