if you’re anything like me, you’re inherently inquisitive about loads of different things — especially things related to business and marketing and such, so this”ll be interesting for you.

ever get a big package of stuff in the mail and wonder how they’re making any money from it?

specifically, when you order an entry-level free trial for something and the marketing and distribution costs of whatever you ordered are clearly WAY over the cost of your trial price — want to know what’s really going on here?

ok, good.  because this is interesting and it’s how uber-successful marketers make their fortunes.  (dare i say, myself included)

so for instance, one time i ordered a few alternative health care books from a famous national publisher, for next to nothing.  there was no money to be made on this first purchase.  BUT…

here’s just SOME of the ways these companies make money in this situation:

Back-end sales – the “back-end” is the real meat for most smart publishers.  it’s the “sale after the sale,” and often consists of affiliate product sales… more sophisticated and expensive product upsets… and sometimes, even consulting or workshop-like events.  if you don’t have a back-end to your business, it’s truly costing you, big-time.

and keep in mind, the lion’s share of your ability to have a thriving back-end is based on two things:

one, your ability to over-deliver on the front-end.  NOTHING will cripple you faster than shoddy workmanship or disappointing your brand new customers.

and two, your ability to market these goods and services.

list rentals – building a mailing list of people hungry to order niche-related products is a great way to create a steady thriving list rental income

newsletter subscriptions – long-term newsletter subscriptions across a number of interrelated topics are almost always part of a publisher’s back-end

see, most people know the first sale is like the first kiss: the best… is yet to come.

if you don’t currently have a back-end to your business, i’d encourage you to create one, as fast as possible.  it will make your entire business — and therefore your entire life — much more exciting and dramatically different.

on pages 177 – 179 in my new book, “How To Make Maximum Money With Minimum Customers,” you get 21 different ways to make money in a back-end situation exactly like i just described.

in fact… Chapter 14, called “The Incredible Power of Your Back-End” is completely devoted to this one subject.

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

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Discover how I made a hair north of $578K with a small online list of less than 5,000 names, and without spending even one thin DIME on advertising in my newest book,  “How To Make Maximum Money With Minimum Customers.”

Now get TWO free issues of my offline Seductive Selling newsletter that gets you more leads, higher conversion rates, proven marketing strategies, no nonsense.

“How To Make Maximum Money With Minimum Customers” FAQ’s

“How To Make Maximum Money With Minimum Customers” QAF’s

Copywriting and emotional direct response marketing “how to” products.

Fresh new arketing videos that answer your toughest questions.

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Order forms are near and dear to my heart.

Why?

Because that’s where your prospect becomes a buyer. It’s the final ‘handshake’ of the deal, if you will.

But there are a number of things you need to bear in mind when you’re designing your order form, to keep the ball moving. See, if you’re buyers are gonna bail, they’re most likely to do right here. So you want to be very clever when it comes to putting your order form together.

Here are 3 order form secrets you want to be all over:

1. First, don’t make a big deal about your order form. I don’t care whether you’re doing direct mail or whether you’re creating a web page online, the order form is NOT the time for big glitzy graphics and lots of hoopla going on.

Imagine, if you were buying a car, and just before you walk into the financing guy’s office (which is intimidating enough, unless you’ve gone out of your way to control these folks), as you walk through the door, someone puts a party hat over your head and bells and whistles start going off.

Might make you feel strange, no?

Might make you think, “Hmmm… what’s really going on here?”

So the first thing you want to do is make your order form as simple and ordinary as possible. If it’s not natural and ordinary to your prospect, then ordering won’t be natural to them either, and that is NOT the environment you want to create.

2. Second, consider putting upsells on your order form. The best time to sell someone something else, is when they’re getting ready to buy from you.

This is why you’re surrounded by crap at the register in your grocery store. You’re primed to grab a few more things and drop them on the counter at this point, and most of us do just that.

3. And lastly, make sure you offer multiple ways of ordering.

When I use direct mail, for example, there are always three ways of ordering: fax, phone, or postal mail, and many times I also have a fourth way – I point them to a website.

Even online – when you go to any of my ordering pages, you can also order by phone or fax.

Again, this makes things much easier for your buyers.

And easy… is good.

Now before I go, let me just say this: every time I say something even remotely negative about car salesman, or the car selling process, I get a half-dozen guys sending in e-mails here about how much they hate me and how they’re unsubscribing.

That would be like me getting all up in a roar with someone because they said I’m bald.

Why the truth is so painful for some people, I just don’t know.

I’d rather spend my time focusing on the positive energy in life, than the negative, but… who knows? Maybe I’m missing something…

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S.: Discover why most real estate investors NEVER make the kind of money they deserve at http://www.kingofcopy.com/abcrei

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Check out ALL the King’s products at http://www.kingofcopy.com/products

Got a difficult question? Just ask me, baby! http://www.kingofcopy.com/askmebaby

If you enjoyed this, forward it on to a few of your friends and business associates. And if you have any comments, just leave them here on my blog:

Earlier today, I gave out a link to an advertorial I wrote last month.

It is turning out to be the single most popular post I’ve ever made, and literally hundreds of people have downloaded the Obama marketing advertorial in the last few hours since I posted it.

What I’d like you to do, is if you enjoyed this masterpiece, then tweet the link for me to your twitter list, and if you’re on facebook, pass it along to all your friends there, too. Heck, if you think it will help the people on your e-mail list, feel free to send it to them, also.

Here it is. If you’re trying to download the pdf, just be patient, grasshopper… people have been hitting the server like mad.

Check it out now at http://kingofcopy.com/writingsamples/advertorials.html

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S. Maybe I’ll put on a teleseminar or webinar on writing advertorials, let me know if this sounds interesting. And follow me on facebook at http://www.kingofcopy.com/facebook

And again, that Obama Marketing Advertorial is http://kingofcopy.com/writingsamples/advertorials.html

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Questions? Just ask me, baby! http://www.kingofcopy.com/askmebaby

Check out ALL the King’s products at http://www.kingofcopy.com/products

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First, I gotta tell you. Tomorrow morning is the start of my 3-day Ad Writing Workshop, and I am freakin’ excited about it! I’ve got a great group of people coming down here to Tampa, and they have no idea what’s in store for them.

Each one of them will be armed for bear by the time they leave. They’ll have a draft of a sales letter that I’ll help them polish up, and a literal step-by-step formula to crank out as many sales letters as they want, for the rest of their lives.

No, I’m not re-pitching the event — the doors on it are closed (look for yourself at http://www.kingofcopy.com/adwriting ) — I’m just genuinely excited and pumped up to deliver the goods, starting tomorrow morning.

Now let’s get busy with today’s deep… thought….

The other day we talked about “recency,” and how it’s often an overlooked quality of buyers when selecting a list. Remember, recency has to do with how recently someone made their last purchase.

The theory is that when people are hot for something, they’re HOT for as much of it as they can get. That’s because people will typically go on buying sprees for things.

So these are good buyers to look for.

There’s another characteristic you need to keep your eyes open for, when selecting a mailing list, and that is, “frequency.”

Frequency refers to how MANY purchases someone’s made.

If someone has purchased a particular item from a company more than once, then they are definitely hot-to-trot. They’re much more likely to buy again, than the average buyer who’s only made one single purchase.

Plus, keep in mind, the first sale is the hardest to make.

As long as you’re making an irresistible offer to these folks, who’ve made multiple purchases, you have a very captive audience listening to you.

In fact, if you’re clever, you can even leverage this “behind the scenes” knowledge, to create a better promotion. For example, you can always say something like this:

“An open letter to every woman who’s purchased a pair of gold earrings in the last 45 days: Boy, have I got a deal for you!”

Or…

“Attention: If you are a man between the ages of 45 and 60, and you are into woodworking, then don’t even THINK of doing anything else, before you’ve read this important message!”

See, when people get letters like this, they feel you’re talking directly to them.

And this… is how… you make… money!

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S. This month’s Seductive Selling Newsletter comes with an additional 14-page Bonus Summary, discussing all the books I read in 2008! Find out which ones to dig into, and which ones to avoid like the plague! Test-drive it FREE for 30-days at http://www.kingofcopy.com/ssnl

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Questions? Just ask me, baby! http://www.kingofcopy.com/askmebaby

Check out ALL the King’s products at http://www.kingofcopy.com/products

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Comments? Leave them here on my blog — let me know what you’re thinking:

The discussion around “Does long copy work?” is as old as the hills.

The argument against long copy, of course, is that no one’s going to read that much. That people aren’t that patient, that no one has time for this nowadays…

But here’s the thing. The same way people always have money for the things they want to have, they also make time for the things they want to make time for.

And what are these things?

They are experiences.

See, first of all, the people who say long-form sales copy doesn’t work, aren’t people who’ve ever made even one thin dime from selling anything in print. In fact, they’ve usually lost tons of money using short, salesy copy and insipid slogans (Like, “You’ll love us!”… or, “In business since 1959!”… or, “Family owned and operated.”), and so they incorrectly assume that because they can’t make money being concise, then saying more definitely won’t work.

But this is only partially true. Here’s why this is a false assumption: This is like saying if you wear bad cologne over and over again, it will eventually smell better.

See where I’m going with this?

Wasting someone’s time NEVER works. So running an ad using long-form copy — when your copy says nothing — will never work, regardless of HOW long (or how short) it is.

The issue here isn’t usually that long copy doesn’t work, the issue here is “Do you have something to say that’s compelling and engaging?”

Are you giving someone an experience, or are you wasting their time trying to sell them something?

This is the real issue.

And see, when you’re giving someone an experience, they’ll stick around for a very long time. In fact, they’ll stick around as long as you allow them to, just like a good movie or a good concert.

People will happily sit through three hour movies… they’ll read six and seven-hundred page novels… and they’ll happily read through a long-form sales letter when it’s compelling and engaging.

Entertain, inform, and engage your prospects, and they’ll patiently and eagerly hang on your every word. But insult, bully, and waste their time, and they won’t even stick around long enough for you to finish saying “Hello.”

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S. “The Older You Get… The Younger You Get?” Discover why, and find out the psychology behind an amazing ad for the new “Crack cocaine” of this century in Example 2 of this month’s Seductive Selling Newsletter, which you can test-drive for free at http://www.kingofcopy.com/ssnl – Free online video, free 30-day trial plus 15 bonus gifts all yours now.

Check out all the King’s products at http://www.kingofcopy.com/products

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I was going to go over the formulaic headline strategies we talked about the other day, but I thought this might actually be more valuable to you.

Last night, me and Mike Miget – an excellent marketing strategist who’s run a very successful mtg business for the last 16 years — put on a fre.e teleseminar, and the recording of it is now posted.

I realize you may not be in this business, but nevertheless, the marketing ideas and strategies we covered are very solid and very applicable to every industry. We also covered loads of “nuts and bolts” about putting ads together and marketing in general.

If you’d like to listen to the recording of the call, as well as a recording of another call we did last week, please feel free to do so at http://www.loturnaround.com/replay

Then, let me know your thoughts about the call afterwards. You can post your comments to the blog Mike and I have created at http://blog.loturnaround.com or on my blog here below.

Have a good weekend and we’ll cover the stuff about the headlines next week, for sure.

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S. Make life the way you want it, that’s what happened here: http://www.kingofcopy.com/dreamscometrue — check it out now.

If you enjoyed this, pass it on to a few of your friends and business associates, and if you have any comments about this message, PLEASE — leave them here on my blog — it’s important you let me know what you’re thinking!:

Here are ALL the King’s products: http://www.kingofcopy.com/products

Lots of folks come to me asking for help with their copy. They need headlines, openings, closings, offers, hooks… you name it, they want it.

But before you can do any of that, you’ve got to make sure the basics of what you’re selling has been handled correctly.

Step one of this is to make sure you’re selling a quality product. To me, that’s more important than ANYTHING else out there. Yes, the truth is, good marketing can sell anything, but if you want to build a business comprised of raving fans who love you and who will buy from you over and over again, then you simply MUST offer them quality.

You must be known as “Mr. Reliable.” People must associate you with excellence, and they must feel everything you do will be “as good as it gets.”

It’s interesting, this past weekend I was at a marketing conference, and someone came up to me and asked, “Hey, is your Lead Generation product any good?”

I was actually quite offended by this comment, since I take great pride of ownership in what I do, and I go to great lengths to deliver the best information and the best results possible, not once in a while, but ALL the time.

I know offending me was obviously not this person’s intention, but I started thinking about the possible reasons why he’d ask me this, and I was reminded of something one of my offline newsletter subscribers, and someone who (now) owns and buys most of my products, once told me.

I’ll give it to you how he sent it to me: “I have to tell you – the cynic in me always says, “Well Craig is paid huge amounts of money to write copy, so don’t fall for his sales letters on his products.” (Sorry that just the cynic coming out) But whenever I order something you have created it gives me about a 10-fold return. I do a lot of marketing campaigns, tele-seminars, webinars, live events, boot camps and an online membership program. I can’t even imagine what the lifetime value of this Lead Generation Explosion program will return for me – but I know it will be almost in the area of buying Dell when it did it’s IPO. Thanks again for clearing up a lot of gray area for me – and the Income Explosion I should receive in return.

PS – Here’s the update to my original note to you: I have generated 2,130 registrations for tonight’s call. The highest I have ever pulled prior to this was when I had 779 register. That’s 273.4% more registrations – not bad bubba, not bad. I think your lead generation program works. :-)” Terry Wygal – Houston, TX

There’s no secret to doing what I do: I outwork and outthink nearly everyone. And I’d be dead in the grave before I’d ever release anything with my name on it, that isn’t first class.

Remember, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and you can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit. Being the best means creating the best goods and services, and consistently over-delivering. THAT should be your first marketing strategy, before anything else.

And frankly, in today’s day and age where there’s absolutely NO service in the service industry any more, and where “mediocrity” has become the new excellent, this really shouldn’t… be… too difficult!

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P. S. Check out what Terry was talking about for yourself, at http://www.kingofcopy.com/leads

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If you enjoyed this, pass it on to a few of your friends and business associates, and if you have any comments about today’s message, leave them right here on my blog:

As if coming up with a headline isn’t difficult enough, for most people, sitting down and trying to come up with an opening of a sales letter or display ad, is like trying to figure out which way is north, when you’re standing smack dab in the middle of the desert at high noon.

I will fix this for you, forever, right now:

There are many approaches to coming up with an opening line, but no matter which one you take, you need to make sure you’re compelling… you’re NOT wasting time on idle chit-chat… and you’re speaking directly to your marketplace with enthusiasm.

Today we’re going to talk about one way to open up a sales pitch: using a punchy introduction.

For example, something like “I have something astounding to tell you about lowering your blood pressure.”

Or, “Now there’s a way you can eliminate pet odor for good, without using ANY chemicals at all!”

And how about this old standby, which Halbert taught me when I was working with him: “If you are a cigar smoker, and you’d love to know how to save as much as 75% on all your new cigar purchases, then here’s something you MUST know:”

Now there are a few guidelines you’re going to want to pay close attention to when you’re doing this. One, you’ll notice I extended each of the base openings (“I have something astounding to tell you.”) to include a benefit. You want to do this to capture your reader’s attention and make sure they know something’s in it for them in this letter or ad. Otherwise, you’re just being vague and hypey with no substance. That’s a HUGE turn-off.

Two, you want to say something that’s got energy and power. If you’re trying to get someone’s attention, nothing beats enthusiasm.

And three, another trick you may want to try is to add what I call a “bonding factor” in your opening. So for example, “I have something astounding to tell you about lowering your blood pressure,” can often be enhanced by saying something like, “If you are a woman over age 65, I have something astounding to tell you about lowering your blood pressure.”

This adds another dimension to your relationship and should be used from time-to-time.

Now let’s call a spade a spade: what I just told you today has more value than probably anything else you’ll read this month, right? But… only if you use it. So get crackin’.

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P. S. Here’s how I actually hooked up with Gary Halbert http://www.kingofcopy.com/dreamscometrue

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Yesterday was the day my Mastermind group members had their private half-hour calls with me. I always find these calls interesting, because as an observer of human nature, it’s interesting to note who’s doing what, and how fast.

One of the members of the group has been making incredibly rapid progress, adding new staff, boosting his rates, and firing his clients who’ve been emotional vampires, those who’ve been sucking the life out of him and offering nothing in return.

On yesterday’s call, he mentioned he was ready to drop his first direct-mail campaign, trying to generate leads. Even though he knows exactly what to do and what steps to take, he’s got some jitters about this.

Few things you need to know. First of all, whenever anyone’s performance is about to be measured, they have jitters of varying degree, myself included. If you’re wondering about this, just check out professional athletes, whose performance is being monitored not just by themselves and their coaches, but by the entire world. That’s called “being human,” and it’s magnified if you’re the kind of person who’s performance-driven.

Now some people in this situation are concerned because they are taking some risk. But at least in this case, there really is no risk here. Here’s why: you see, most people are more than willing to throw cash at almost anything, on a whim, but they are extremely reluctant to invest time.

This particular individual, on the other hand, has invested a ton of time, before actually investing any money, which is very smart. Taking action isn’t risky. Being ignorant is risky. And being unprepared is risky.

Keep that in mind next time you’re worried about something. I think it will help put things into perspective.

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S. “One word: WOW!” Today, especially online, and even more so with respect to marketing, if someone says you’re going to get bonus gifts for ordering something, you sit back and prepare for a complete waste of your time.

I just want to clarify something along these lines. When you take the free 30-day test-drive to my offline newsletter, you get 15 real bonuses. No fluff, no nonsense, and no filler. Just a ton of quality content. That’s because I take a tremendous amount of pride of ownership in what I do, and frankly, it’s one of the reasons why I’m so successful. But don’t take my word for it, here’s a comment I got the other day from a relatively new subscriber, Ron Reich from Claremont, California:

“Craig, I just got back your critique of my sales letter. One word: WOW! I appreciate all of your feedback and I’m blown away that this free critique was so detailed. It was easy to see that you really read my letter to the end, very thoroughly, and I’m sure that the profits I make once I implement your feedback, will be multiples of my investment in your newsletter. You really over-delivered.”

If you go to my website, you’ll see literally dozens of testimonials just like this. All of these are real comments from real people, all on file here in our office. None of them are made up, nor have I tweaked the copy on any of them (even though many people have offered me the option to do so). So if you have any doubts about the value of what you get, I sincerely hope I have removed them, and I encourage and invite you to take your fre.e test-drive today, and benefit from and enjoy all your bonus gifts, right now at http://www.kingofcopy.com/ssnl

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First, a quick announcement:

My products page has been cleaned up and organized. It is much easier to navigate and it’s now categorized. You can see it for yourself, right here: http://www.kingofcopy.com/products/

And now on to today’s tip:

I have piles of papers all over the house. Magazines, books, letters, hundreds of pages and pages of material I’ve printed from things I picked up online.

They’re everywhere.

Some small piles towards the back of the dinner table where no one really sits… another medium-sized stash on the chair in the dining room where no one notices too much… on top of every desk in my office… on the floor in the bathrooms next to the toilet (But not in my teenaged sons bathrooms — even I won’t venture into that place.)… and scattered around my desk on the floor in my office I have several piles as well.

Occasionally I get through one or two of the piles, or if I take a long plane flight I’ll scoop them up and stuff ‘em in my briefcase and they’ll tend to disappear for a while, but then… within a few weeks, they magically reappear like some sort of weed in your garden that you could swear you just pulled out last week, and the last week before that.

The thing is, while most of the stuff I’ve printed out contains good information, most of the direct mail I receive, is pure crap. No matter how much I try and find even one good idea I could use and run with, I just keep turning up empty-handed.

The other day, however, I received a very interesting piece in the mail, which I can use and actually improve on.

It was a crumpled up piece of paper, that was a cover letter to a sales piece. The letter had scrawled across it, in handwriting, something to the effect of, “I figured since you threw out the last two pieces of mail I sent you, I’d give you a head start on this one.”

This was pretty clever, I thought.

Not that the copy was sales brilliance, but it wasn’t supposed to be. It was supposed to get me to stop and notice the piece, and then I’d look at the sales piece, which I did. (The sales piece was awful unfortunately. They could have sent me the Hope Diamond as a gift, and I wouldn’t have been able to read through it.)

There are a few changes I would have made, however. I would have used yellow paper, and I probably would have written the note in blue ink instead of black. I also may have included my picture on this lift note as well. Each of these things, I believe, would have lifted response.

I also would have sent the entire thing in a garbage can mailer. These are small garbage cans you can mail out — several of my clients have used them successfully. It’s kind of hard NOT to read something that’s so unusual like that, isn’t it?

The big problem with all this is that I typically can’t find good ideas like this in even 1 out of every 100 pieces of mail I get, but that’s O.K., because… one good idea… is worth it’s weight… in gold.

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S. Only a few more days left to get your hands on this month’s Seductive Selling Newsletter. Inside this issue you’ll find TWELVE PAGES of marketing examples, including a famous sales letter for a book, TWO press releases, and a drag queen! Get all this and more along with FIFTEEN free gifts, including now TWO Free marketing critiques, at http://www.kingofcopy.com/ssnl

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