I’m off to go and see my younger son wrestle in a tournament early this afternoon, and today’s the first day the weather’s been warm around here in about two weeks, so life’s looking good as well sail into the weekend…

Let me show you an easy way to get your reader’s attention.  It’s not going to be something you can use on a permanent basis, but it is something that will make heads turn situationally.

Ready?

O.K., good.

Appreciate that one of the reasons “news” is so popular is because it deals with things going on in people’s lives, right NOW.  It gets attention because it’s relevant toDAY.  So with this in mind, here are three ways you can leverage “news” into winning headline promotions.

1.  Use Well-Known Holidays

Any time you’re coming up to a well-known holiday, you can use this in your headline.  See, the whole thing about news and why it’s so compelling is because it is a reflection of the things people are thinking about.

So while something like “Slash $100 Off” might be effective, saying “Slash $100 Off On Halloween Only!” is even more compelling.

Another example is:

“Lose 5 Lbs. Before Easter Sunday!”

Remember, entering the conversation your prospect is already having in their mind, is priceless.

2.  Unusual Or Special Events

In many small towns (mine included), there are events like July 4th Parades, charitable organization banquets, and local fairs.  Each of these events gives you an opportunity to leverage your business.  Things like this:

“Local Gunsmith Reveals Shooting Secrets Just In Time For The County Fair Western Show”

And while it might sound corny to use some of these events, the point is… because the topic is fresh in your prospect’s mind, you’ll get noticed.

3.  Talk about the new year

This is more timely than ever, right now.  And you probably only have two or three more weeks to take advantage of this.

Things like, “Make More Money In 2010 Than In Your Last Three Years Combined: Guaranteed!”  Or…

“Protect yourself and your family in 2010 — or else!”

“This year, make your love life special”

See how easy and timely this is?

Good.

These are three very simple ideas you can adapt to almost any business.  All you need is a pen and a pad… a few minutes… and a minimal amount of drive, and the sky’s the limit.

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S.  “Why HOPE is not a good strategy” – on page 31 in my new book, “How To Make Maximum Money With Minimum Customers”

***

Yours free: TWO issues of my offline newsletter, Seductive Selling.  AND… get 18 free (REAL) gifts that get you more leads… increase your conversion rates… and give you fresh creative marketing ideas.  Watch the video, right NOW!

“There are a lot of reasons you may have been held back from living the life you’ve always dreamed about.  Weather it’s what’s going on inside your head or a lack of knowledge about how to do what you need to be doing.  That is all about to come to an end.  Inside “How To Make Maximum Money With Minimum Customers,” Craig pulls the curtain all the way back and holds NOTHING from you.   He reveals exactly what he has done to overcome a very rough start in his own life to become a world class marketer and copywriter.  Instead of just telling you what to do, Craig SHOWS you step by step exactly how to finally do it for yourself.  I have a huge library of books and manuals about writing copy and marketing. I’ve spent a small fortune and years compiling these.  Yet all of them combined don’t come close to explaining in layman terms exactly how to sell and market all my services like this one does.  This is a reference manual I’ll keep on my desk and use for the rest of my life.  Every day that goes by without you having this information is costing you money.”  Chet Rowland – Entrepreneur -  Odessa, Florida

And I am so convinced this book will create dramatic and almost immediate increases in sales and cash-flow in your business… you can have it risk-free, for LIFE!

Maximum Money FAQs

Maximum Money QAFs

Copywriting and direct response marketing “how to” products

Marketing videos that answer your toughest questions

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

Here’s a useful copywriting tip about writing headlines that anyone in any business can use.

You know, everyone wants to feel special — at least, sometimes.  Right?

And making your customers feel special is one of the best things you can do.  But this isn’t so easy to do, is it?  I mean, how can you make someone feel special, when you don’t even know them?

The answer is you give them an opportunity to make themselves feel special.  And one of the ways you can do this is by challenging them.  The prospects who qualify to deal with you will feel like they’ve “met” your challenge.

So for instance, headlines with the following appeal work well in this situation:

Legendary ad man Bruce Barton once wrote an ad that had this headline for an ad selling correspondence school training.  Obviously, if you believed you had an imagination, you’d be attracted to this kind of a message.

“A Wonderful Two Years Trip At Full Pay — But Only Men With Imagination Can Take It”

Here’s one I wrote.  This was the sub-headline of the ad:

“You may be able to increase your net profits and your business cash-flow, dramatically, if… you are already taking home $100,000 or more, and… you own or operate a for-profit business.  Take this simple quiz to see if you qualify.”

In that headline I’m actually setting up a couple of filters and THEN asking them to take a quiz (which people love doing, by the way).

And lastly, this one’s pretty boring but it’s effective:

“If you are a safe driver, you can save up to hundreds of dollars on your auto insurance.”

Always remember “everybody” isn’t your customer.  This is another way of qualifying your prospects by having them “self-qualify.”

When you do this, the quality of your leads is always going to be better, and their enthusiasm about what you have to offer, is always going to be higher.

And using this copywriting tip, you… will make… more money!

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S.  TWENTY-FIVE different headline formulas for you to use inside my new book, “How To Make Maximum Money With Minimum Customers,” (comes with a lifetime guarantee!)

***

Yours free: TWO issues of my offline newsletter, along with 18 free (REAL) gifts that get you more leads… increase your conversion rates… and give you fresh creative marketing ideas.

Discover how I made over $578,463 (almost all at 90% profit) with only a small handful of customers, and without spending even one thin DIME on advertising in my NEW book, “How To Make Maximum Money With Minimum Customers.”   I am so convinced this book will create dramatic and almost immediate increases in sales and cash-flow in your business… you can have it ris.k-free, for LIFE!

Maximum Money FAQ’s

Maximum Money QAF’s

Copywriting and direct response marketing “how to” products

Marketing videos that answer your toughest questions

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

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

***

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

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It’s quite simple actually.

This past weekend I reworked on sales letter for a product I’m getting ready to launch.

You can see the letter here: http://www.kingofcopy.com/abcre

But this isn’t about that sales letter. It’s about your ability to CRANK out effective sales letters and information like this, on a regular, and very prolific basis.

See, there only 17 possible components can exist, for any sales letter. This particular sales letter I just showed you contains 13 of them.

At my ad-writing workshop, I’ll be reviewing each one of these, in detail, and you’ll be walking out of the meeting with a draft of a sales letter you’ll be able to run.

As a matter of fact, the headline of this sales letter comes directly from page 12 of the first workshop manual (there are three manuals you will be receiving, with 51 different cut-and-paste headline formulas to use, along with 266 actual live headline examples.)

The opening line of the letter, “Want to make a LOT more money as a real estate investor? Stop buying properties… stop selling properties… and don’t even think about meeting with even one more prospect, until you’ve read this message,” actually didn’t come from the opening lines section of the Workshop manual.

Even though this section contains 15 different opening line templates and 67 different live examples, this opening line came from another section and a little “trick” I often use to come up with story lines, opening lines, and sub-headlines that weave in and out of your sales letter.

The point is, writing a sales letter and creating all the material for it, is very easy once you know the formula. And in FOUR more days, I’ll be spilling the beans about all of this, LIVE and in-person, at my Emotional Copywriting Seminar & Ad Writing Workshop, here in Tampa.

I will also be doing something at this event, that I never have done before, anywhere. I will be hanging around in the evening, after the workshop, on Friday and Saturday nights in a more “social” setting. This way, all the attendees will be able to interact with me and ask me any other questions they want information about, related to marketing, their business, or anything else.

You can find out more about this Workshop and register for it here at http://www.kingofcopy.com/adwriting

And for even more information about the event, check out the webinar I had on it at http://www.kingofcopy.com/adwriting/webinar/ (the handout on this call will be given to all attendees)

See you in sunny Tampa, Craig Garber

P.S. My GUARANTEES for this event are simple: You have my personal promise, if you are unhappy with the content of the seminar, or with your experience, and if this isn’t one of the most content-rich and meaningful workshops you’ve ever attended, I will reimburse your registration fee.

Can’t be any more straight-forward than that, now can I? Here are those links again:

Register here at http://www.kingofcopy.com/adwriting

And for more information about the event, check out the webinar I had on it at http://www.kingofcopy.com/adwriting/webinar

Which one of these 559 money-making copywriting and direct-marketing strategies… 528 pages of eye-opening proven secrets… 5 DVD’s filled with sales copy critiques… and 5 Audio CD’s filled with profit-producing easy to use cash-producing tips… listed in these 43 items below… can YOU afford to miss?

Check it out at http://www.kingofcopy.com/adwriting/webinar

There are more benefits here than in any other program I’ve ever seen.

Now go sell something , Craig Garber

P.S. Only 9 days left to my Emotional Copywriting Seminar & Ad Writing Workshop. This event is NOT going to be repeated. Register NOW at

http://www.kingofcopy.com/adwriting/webinar/

Your headline is by far, the most important part of your ad, website, or sales letter. It’s important because you want to immediately attract the right people to buy whatever it is you’re selling… and it’s also important because you want to alienate the wrong people as well.

And reality is, you’ve got about a second and a half to capture your reader’s attention, and if you don’t do it in that time, they’re off and running to the next thing on their mind, or in the stack of crap they’re wading through on their desk.

So with this in mind, here are 3 tips for creating stronger headlines:

1. The easiest thing to do is to simply add “How To,” to almost anything. A brief scan of your daily newspaper, for instance, might find ads that read like this:

“Bake your favorite chocolate chip cookies, in only half the time!”

Look Years Younger

and… “Move Safely, Knowing All Your Valuables Are Protected!”

Now just look at how much more powerful and how much more compelling these headlines read, when you simply add “How To” to them:

“How to bake your favorite chocolate chip cookies, in only half the time!”

How To Look Ten Years Younger

and… “How To Move Safely, Knowing All Your Valuables Are Protected!”

This is like your old standby, super reliable thing to do, if writing copy is more like a trip to the dentist for you, than anything else.

2. Let people know who the ad is for, right away.

So for instance, you can add what’s called a “flag” to the front of your headline, which is simply a way for you to call attention to your readers. Like this:

Tampa Bay Real Estate Investors: Announcing a sure-fire way to pick up properties for less than 10 cents on the dollar!

Or… “UCLA Medical Students: Don’t even THINK about picking a dormitory, until you read this message!”

See, this one’s nice because it lets you determine, without exception, who gets into your funnel, and who doesn’t.

3. And lastly, whenever you’re struggling… the most important thing you can put into your headline, is the solution to the deepest fear, problem or concern your prospects have.

Like this: “Eliminate Back Pain, Without Painful Surgery And Costly Chiropractic Appointments”

or… “Thinking About Getting A Divorce? Before the lawyers take every dime you have, you must read this Free Report:”

Or this one: “I GUARANTEE (With My Own Money!) You Will Walk Out Of My January 2009 Ad Writing Workshop, With A Completed Display Ad, Website, Sales Letter, Or Lead-Generation Ad, No Matter WHAT You Do For A Living! (And don’t worry, you’ll even get to go over it with me after the workshop, in case it takes you a little longer!)”

Make sense?

So use these three techniques the next time you’re working on a headline — they’ll make your job easier, and improve your results, dramatically.

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S. If You’re Going To Work Hard Anyway, Then You Might As Well Get Rich At It — And The Quicker, The Better, Right? Find out more, here: http://www.kingofcopy.com/ssnl

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

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kingofcopy

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

Tomorrow is the last day to get your hands on this month’s Seductive Selling Newsletter. In addition to a very candid interview with Peter Thomson from the UK, an excellent marketer who sold his business for 4.2 million UK pounds (over $8.4 Million dollars) and retired at age 42, you’ll get:

* An incredible example of a 2-page advertorial to promote a marketing system (that I wrote!)
* A new contest (win a free half-hour of consulting with me!)
* 12 marketing and copywriting examples, including:
* An incredibly simple lead-generation postcard that no one would suspect is a marketing piece!
* Big headline mistakes, along with 15 different headline templates (and live examples of them)!
* The absolute worst e-mail ad I’ve seen so far this year! (Hope it isn’t yours!)
* A conventional “lift letter” and why it’ll never work — along with an effective lift letter I created for a campaign I wrote!
* A bad display ad selling a “How To” book in the real estate business, along with a complete re-write of it!
* A re-write of a financial services ad that leverages the “bermuda triangle” of emotional buy-buttons!
* The Dark Secret Underbelly Of Selling! Uncover the truth about how much you can “push” the truth in your sales copy!
* Find out how to put scarcity, authority, a call to action, positioning, and… how to pre-qualify someone, all in one 3 x 7 postcard!
* Discover a sneaky little trick used by a roofer to generate leads, and… how almost any service person can do the same thing in their own business! (And yes, these leads will contact you for help — you do NOT have to chase them down!)
* 3 Bottom-Line Rules to follow when creating your lift letters! Ignore any of them only at your own cost!
* In “Little-Known Copyrighting Secrets From The King’s Treasure Chest,” you’ll discover:
* The secret of long copy!
* 3 Reasons why you should avoid graphics ad colors!
* 6 Rules to follow when you’re creating space advertising!
* And the big critical flaw almost everyone overlooks when using testimonials in their lead generation ads!
* Go-Daddy’s back-door secret to saving a bundle on domain name registration! (NO ONE I’ve spoken to, knows this!)
* “You’re not the boss of me!”
* Cool URL’s!
* How to be “abundant” — or not!
All this, and… much much more!

To get this issue, and to get 15 free (REAL) bonus gifts, simply take a free 30-day test-drive of Seductive Selling, right NOW at http://www.kingofcopy.com/ssnl

Here’s what Dwight Miller, from Marlton, New Jersey has to say about it: “Craig, I recently received the August Issue of the Seductive Selling Newsletter and after a week of reading and taking notes (YOU SEE, this newsletter is so chockful of great business advice, powerful transferable copy and just so much fun to read it takes me a while to read it all) I finally got to my favorite part “The Back-End”. As I started reading the article, I realized that that article is exactly what makes you and Seductive Selling powerful. It is the power to feel what your prospect or customer feels, to understand their situation that makes Seductive Selling powerful. It is those feeling that are conveyed on paper that help move the prospect or client down the buying cycle. That tapping into the emotions of your customer and building empathy that makes your system so powerful. So if anyone wants to truly explode their business, if they are interested in creating a money faucet that they can turn on and off as needed, then being a member the Seductive Selling clan is a must.

Craig has helped grow my business and I know he can help grow yours.

Dedicated to your success, Dwight Miller”

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S. Don’t forget, tomorrow’s the last day to get your hands on this. Check out all the bonus gifts on the goofy video and discover more at http://www.kingofcopy.com/ssnl

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

Comments? Leave them here on my blog — I want to know what you’re thinking:

Yesterday’s e-mail bought a flood of positive comments into the office, thanks for that.

Today I want to point out something you can easily to create curiosity and increase your pulling power.

When you talk about something that somehow changed or can make you change from one situation to another… or something that uses contrasting terms to describe it, you’re adding drama and curiosity to the situation.

And you don’t need to look any further than the cashier aisles in your local grocery store, to know that drama and curiosity sells and sells and sells. This is why people watch reality TV — they’re curious about everyone else’s drama.

The good thing is, you don’t need to be a world-class copywriter to do this, either.

So let’s take a look at a few examples to see what I mean:

“Now You Can Travel Around The World… Without Leaving The Comfort Of Your Home!”

“Eat Filet Mignon On A Pauper’s Salary!”

“Look Like A Runway Model In Less Than Two Minutes!”

“Yesterday I Ran 7 Miles — Two Weeks Ago I Couldn’t Get Out Of Bed!”

“How To Make Decisions Lightening Fast — NO Thought (Or Brains) Necessary!”

Obviously that last one wasn’t real. But you get what I’m saying, don’t ‘cha?

Don’t forget to use this technique. It’s easy… it’s fast… and it works.

Have a great weekend.

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S. ONLY FOUR Days left to take your free test-drive of this month’s Seductive Selling newsletter. Get two free sales copy critiques and — count ‘em — TWELVE marketing examples in this month’s issue, along with LOADS of other free gifts and goodies. Check ‘em out on the video and discover more at http://www.kingofcopy.com/ssnl

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

Comments? Leave them here on my blog — I want to know what you’re thinking:

Outside of a 1-hour swim I took with my daughter in the lake last night, I’d spent probably 30 of the last 48 hours, holed up in my office working on a massive project. In fact, for the five days previous to that, I was probably working close to 12 plus hours every day on this same project.

I was writing copy for my new business at LOTurnaround.com, and at this point, the fruits of all that labor mean I am now 50% or more through all the work that needs to be done.

There’s a point in time when you’re writing a sales letter, where you’ve got through the bulk of the creative part and you sort of “sense” the direction the rest of the letter is going to take — Halbert said when he got to that point he knew he’d “broken the back” of the letter.

That’s a great description since you’re putting such a tremendous surge of energy into such a small period of time to come up with a working long-form sales letter / free report.

For instance, when you’re running an entire project you don’t just need headlines for the sales letter itself, you need a title for the free report, you need proprietary marketing system names, and you need headlines for your display ads and tearsheets.

Some people say they write 25, 50, even 100 headlines for a project, but I don’t usually do that. In fact, I just went back and counted all of them for all three separate pieces (the free report, the display ad, and the proprietary marketing systems), and I had somewhere just north of 40 headlines.

But really, there was closer to 15 headlines formulas, and the other 25 headlines were subtle variations of these first 20 formulas.

Here, let me give you an example of what I mean by “formulas.” Let’s take this one, for example, which is one of the many formulas I used:

Don’t Even Think About ___ Until You ___!

Let’s say you’re selling guitars — why don’t we look at a few different ways you’d be able to use this formula.

Don’t Even Think About Buying A New Guitar, Until You’ve Read This Message!

Don’t Even THINK About Buying A New Gibson or Fender Guitar, Until You’ve Read This Free Report: The Axeman’s Guide To Saving A Bundle!

Attention All Guitarists: Don’t Even Think About Buying Your Next Guitar, Until You’ve Listened To This!

So you see, even though these are three different headlines, in reality they are subtle variations of the same headline formula.

Remember, it’s never “how many” headlines you wright, it’s “how close” do your headlines match the biggest concerns of your prospects.

Got it?

Good. And don’t forget, if you want to participate on the Q & A Call this Wednesday, simply click on this link to register: <#7_Link-Consulting Day Teleseminar#>

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S. Discover the 4 steps you must take to research your topic, before you write even one word! They’re on pages 4 & 5 of this month’s Seductive Selling Newsletter — test-drive it free for 30 days and get 15 REAL bonus gifts at http://www.kingofcopy.com/ssnl

Oh, and there are less than 30 days until the kickoff of our
ARMs Marketing Program for Loan Officers. Join us at
http://www.loturnaround.com/arms

Comments? Leave them here on my blog — I want to know what you’re thinking:

And for all the King’s products, go to http://www.kingofcopy.com/products

Last week we talked about the subject line of today’s e-mail, which was a headline written by Bruce Barton, that ran for 7 years straight. The ad was for the Alexander Hamilton Institute, a 2-year correspondence course in business, and the question I asked was, “Why do you think this headline was so effective?”

A few people sent in some provocative answers: Michael Porter, Bill Parlaman and Kumar all had some good things to offer. Let’s talk about a few of them.

1. First, the headline offers something all great headlines must contain: a great promise. Offering some sort of reward is one of the most critical headline components ever. Think about it, you’ve got to capture someone’s attention very rapidly, and what better way to do it than with a wonderful promise, reward or offer.

2. The headline was more believable because of it’s specificity. It didn’t say, “A wonderful trip where you can earn lots of money,” it said, “A wonderful TWO YEAR’S trip at FULL PAY.” Specificity is the best way to make yourself believable, so be specific whenever you can.

3. The headline is cheery. It’s packs a wallop of enthusiasm and it’s going to attract those kinds of men who are simulated by these same kinds of energetic messages. This is another way to disqualify people, by the way — the tone of your message. And this one says, “No duds allowed.”

4. And lastly, it provokes a ton of curiosity. If I had to stack up all the emotional buy-buttons you can possibly push, I’d say curiosity is one of the top two or three you should be pushing in your headlines.

O.K, I’m heading out to the beach this afternoon for a few days with my wife and the kids. This is our last time to enjoy the sun and the beautiful water before school starts. I’ll try and send out a picture or two, but reality is, I’m probably going to be out of touch until Friday.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S. Make ‘em say “Yes!” every time using the RIGHT emotional buy-buttons: http://www.kingofcopy.com/seductive

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, leave them here on my blog — it’s important you let me know what you’re thinking!:

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