Tag: direct response

Can A Computer Write Better Copy Than You? by Bob Bly

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There’s been a lot of talk lately about companies developing software that can write copy.

Naturally copywriters are both a bit skeptical and a bit nervous that, if the software works, it will put them out of a job.

The copywriting software company getting the most PR is Persado. A recent Wall Street Journal headline boldly proclaimed: “Persado Raises $21 Million to Replace Human Copywriters with Computers.”

But as it turns out, the media misinterprets what Persado’s software is really doing. So let me set the record straight, based on a recent interview I conducted with Persado CMO David Atlas.

First, the software does not write copy in the sense that you or I might write a sales letter, ad, landing page, or brochure. It cannot do what we copywriters do…yet.

David explained to me that the Persado algorithm is limited to creating persuasive sentences with a maximum length of 600 characters. So far it is used mostly to write e-mail subject lines and text messaging for mobile marketing.

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What happens is the software sends e-mails with thousands of different subject lines to a marketer’s e-list. A lot of Persado customers are large online retailers. They include Neiman Marcus, Overstock.com, and American Express.

Within these many versions and permutations of a subject line or mobile message, the software is able to measure response and test short phrases and even single words.

Then the algorithm composes new subject lines incorporating the winning words and phrases.

Armed with this tested database of results, the Persado software can indeed compose or “write” subject lines and other persuasive sentences, such as calls-to-action, that beat copy written by humans.

Rather than competing with human copywriters, which Persado does not do, it is a tool that we copywriters could actually use to our advantage

Which Kind Of Copywriter Should You Be? by Bob Bly

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When it comes to making six figures as an independent copywriter, there are two options you can choose from.

Option A, which is my primary activity and produces a six-figure annual income, is that of being a traditional freelance copywriter.

This entails writing copy, usually on a project basis, for many different clients selling a variety of products and services.

Option B, which I also make six figures from, is to write copy for your own products.

Some copywriters do one or the other, while other writers do both.

Ted Nicholas, for instance, has had huge success writing copy to sell his own products but also has written winning promotions for many clients.

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The reason is simple: Getting clients aside, there are two primary copywriting skills. One is the ability to write persuasive copy; the other is the ability to quickly learn and understand a variety of markets and products.

When you are a pure “Option B” copywriter, you may be a great persuasive writer. But, you are writing only about products you created and are therefore familiar with.

Therefore, you do not gain experience in writing for products and markets other than your own. And you do not learn how to quickly study and understand different products and communicate their benefits to unfamiliar audiences.

As a result, as an “Option B” practitioner, you are in a sense an incomplete copywriter. You only possess half the skills needed to succeed as a traditional freelance copywriter, should you ever want or need to do so.

As an “Option A” or traditional copywriter, I am constantly asked to write about new products and to new markets

Writing copy to fit the space in magalogs and other print promotions

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Online, there’s no limit to the space you have for copy, but in print, you are limited by the room on the paper. Here are approximate average word counts for common print promotions:

Tabloids: 400-600 words per page.

Magalogs: 500 words per page.

Digests: 250 words per page.

Non-fiction trade books: 400 words per page.

PDF e-books: 300 words per page.
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Long-copy full-page mail order ads: 500-750 words.

Sales letters: 300 words per page.

Standard-size postcards: 100-150 words.

These are the maximum words counts, and using them results in a page fairly dense with copy, which is a common practice in direct response. In brand advertising and B2B, advertisers use far fewer words because they like white space, not understanding that white space is wasted and does not sell.

As for tabloids, word count is variable. If you filled the page solid with text like a newspaper, you could fit a thousand words. But most tabloids are designed with plenty of graphics, so word count is variable.

Why Content And Conversations Don’t Close Many Sales by Bob Bly

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Become A Student Of Your Copywriting Specialty by Bob Bly

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Gordon Graham, who has written over 200 whitepapers for clients, advises copywriters to follow their chosen part of the copywriting field.

“I study at least one or two whitepapers every day,” says Gordon. “That means I look at 500 examples of the documents I specialize in every year. Doing any less would be foolish.”
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In the pre-Internet days I told direct response copywriters to open, read, and study every piece of direct mail they received. Doing so was better than getting an MBA in direct marketing. I still do it today.

Turn Up Your Marketing B.S. Filter by Bob Bly

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When I started as a copywriter in the late 1970s, there were almost no gurus offering training of any kind in copywriting, freelancing, or marketing.

Now the Internet is lousy with people offering you expensive courses in how to write killer copy, how to make six figures as a freelance copywriter, and how to make a million dollars in Internet marketing.

My concern is that because many of these teachers are unqualified and their programs worthless and overpriced, you will waste a lot of time and money on them unless I stop you.

So with that goal in mind, here are some guidelines for evaluating gurus and their programs in copywriting, freelancing, and Internet marketing.

1. Ask what products he or she has sold.

If the Internet teacher has only sold information and worse, only information on how to make money selling information online, run.

You want a teacher who has experience selling real, physical products as well as electrons.

2. Is he or she active in the field?

I talk to a lot of hotshot young copywriters who run coaching groups where they teach their followers to write “killer” copy.

When I ask these young pseudo-gurus who they write for, they invariably reply, “Oh, I don’t work with clients any more. I just write for my own products.”

You get and stay good as a copywriter by constantly writing for a wide range of clients, products, and offers. If the guru no longer writes for clients, I submit that he is becoming stale and losing value.

Ask the copy guru to name some of his current clients and promotions. If they say “I don’t write for clients,” move on.

3. Does he or she offer low-cost/no-cost advice and materials?

If the only product available is a $3,000 big box course or a $2,000 a month coaching club with a 6-month minimum, this guru’s primary passion is extracting as much money as he can from unwary newbies, not education.

There’s nothing wrong with selling expensive info products; I recently did a $2,500-a-head weekend seminar and plan a couple more for 2015. But you can buy my 350-page paperback book on copywriting for $15 and read dozens of my marketing articles for free on my site.

A good strategy for you if you are on a shoestring budget is to go to the websites of multiple gurus and download and read the ton of content that awaits you there. Often the free stuff is as good or better than the paid stuff.

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One copy and marketing guru stares angrily from the screen wearing dark glasses and a do-wrap, looking tediously groovy. He also brags about using the f-word in his writing and speeches, which apparently he thinks makes him look like a cool rebel.

A lot of gurus today cultivate a deliberate image, usually one of rebellious hipster, and if you like that, fine, but if you don’t, steer clear.

“I sometimes wonder where this whole notion of marketing rebel, kick-ass copywriting, take-no-prisoners copy, killer, ninja, guerilla, warrior foolishness began in the first place,” says ace copywriter Rich Armstrong.

“Some of these Internet guys have put together a small community who seem to like this writing, and if they can make a living doing this, more power to them.

“But if they aspire to be a freelance copywriter working for the nation’s biggest and best direct-response marketing clients…well, that’s my world, and I can tell you for a fact these guys wouldn’t survive 5 minutes there.”

5. Is he or she accessible?

If you send me an e-mail, I respond. If you call, I pick up my own phone.

This is in sharp contrast to many Internet and copy gurus who have an impenetrable wall of caller ID and autoresponders to keep their fans at a distance.

I would be very hesitant to spend a lot of money with a teacher who makes me jump through hoops to ask him a simple question or two.

6. What is the guarantee?

Do not buy from gurus with conditional guarantees on their products.

A conditional guarantee is one where you have to demonstrate that you used the system correctly before the seller will grant you a refund.

The problem with conditional guarantees is the seller invariably says you didn’t do something correctly and therefore cannot get a refund.

Only buy from gurus who offer unconditional guarantees, meaning you can return the product for any reason or even no reason at all and get a full and prompt refund, no questions asked.

Bob Bly is the author of “World’s Best Copywriting Secrets” and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him “America’s top copywriter”.

Straight Talk About Copywriting Royalties by Bob Bly

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Subscriber MC writes: “I would like you to address the subject of getting people to pay you royalties. I assume this can become a problem for many direct response copywriters.”

A royalty is a fee paid to copywriters based on the performance of the promotion they wrote.

There are all kinds of arrangements. But the most typical online is a percentage of net sales, which is often 2-3%.

For direct mail, the royalty is a fee paid per package mailed, usually 2 to 3 cents.

But really, you and the client can negotiate whatever the two of you can agree to.

For instance, one client agreed to pay me a flat cash bonus of $6,000 if my DM package beat his control, which it did.

Another offered a flat royalty of $3,750 every time they mailed the package.

Many clients, especially small and amateur, offer to pay you a percentage of sales in lieu of a fee.

These deals you should stay away from, because you are betting on something you have no control over.

For instance, what if the client picks the wrong mailing list, changes your copy so that the promotion doesn’t perform, or never runs the promotion? It happens.

The preferred arrangement among top copywriters and top clients is the writer’s usual flat fee PLUS a bonus royalty.

Why would a client pay you both your regular fee and a royalty on top of that?

Some clients pay the royalty on top of the regular fee because they think it motivates the writer to do a better job.
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Others do it because they want the writer to have a financial incentive to keep his promotion as the control by doing tweaks and updates for no additional fee.

Notice that above I referred to “top clients” paying royalties.

For the most part, only direct response marketers pay royalties, because direct response is the only marketing channel where sales generated by your copy can be measured precisely down to the penny.

Most local car dealers can’t easily tell on any given day how many customers were driven to the showroom by your billboard or radio spot, so how could they pay a percentage of sales to you?

But if you write a landing page for a direct marketer selling a home study course, you know exactly the revenue it produced.

That’s why most copywriting clients do not pay royalties: they cannot measure the sales results of their advertising.

Clients who usually do not pay royalties include business-to-business marketers, Fortune 1000 corporations, brand advertisers, ad agencies, local businesses, and small businesses.

The only clients who pay royalties on a regular basis are (a) major direct marketers like Agora Publishing and Weiss Research and (b) smaller but very successful, profitable, and experienced direct marketers, mainly online these days.

Copywriter John Carlton advises marketers not to do royalty agreements with copywriters on the first job.

“It may sound great to push off part of the fee to result-oriented royalties paid later,” says John. “But you need to remember that you’re just beginning your relationship with this writer.”

It’s John’s opinion that a good copywriter will usually not even propose royalties on the first job, because he doesn’t know or trust you any more than you do him.

Bob Bly is the author of “World’s Best Copywriting Secrets” and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him “America’s top copywriter”.

Give your blog a shot of new life, with new leads and sales using WP Leads & Sales Dashboard.

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WP Leads & Sales Dashboard

If you want to start a blog that gives you leads and sales or replace your existing struggling blog with a powerhouse, listen up!

Marlon Sanders just released his first new Dashboard in 1 1/2 years that shows you step-by-step in detail how to create a true, direct response blog that spits out leads and sales daily.

Check it out here.
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If you don’t have a blog yet, this new “direct response blog” concept is the way to go.

If you already have a blog that doesn’t work or do much, then bolt on Marlon’s direct response method and watch it haul in daily leads and sales.

The first 50 people to get WP Leads & Sales Dashboard can also download a big collection of guru bonuses.

The biggest direct response marketing manual yet…

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Ultimate Information Entrepreneur Super Manual

How would you like to leaf through a digital copy of Dan Kennedy’s 659-page Ultimate Information Entrepreneur Super Manual?

Dan’s Manual weighs in at 26.3MB (PDF version), 659 pages and won “The Book of the Year” award in the mail-order category from the North American Bookdealers Association.

T. Harv Eker endorses it and, for years, sold it to his attendees at every one of his seminars.

This is not a “pretty” book…

It’s essentially Dan’s “braindump” and notes on all things marketing: informercial, direct mail, direct response, ad copy, newspaper and magazine advertising, how to maximize customer lists…

Woven in there are also a lot of his own numbers from campaigns he ran for himself and clients and lots of case studies and “success stories”, again, with numbers to give you an idea of how various ads and ideas converted.

Mixed in with all this are dozens and dozens and dozens of photocopied ads complimented with Dan’s summary notes for understanding why the ad works (or DOESN’T work).
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Page 103 starts “Success Stories to Learn From” and is just what the title claims.

Page 197 references 6 different ads…what they netted, how they performed and more.

Page 213 has even more ads and examples and case studies. There are dozens of pages like this.

Many of the ads are from Dan’s early days pre-Internet. But copywriting, direct response marketing, advertising, customer-list monetization, lead conversion etc. are timeless.

In fact, since Internet marketers are generally notorious for not looking at anything outside of their Internet bubble for marketing/advertising tips…you can quickly outpace them by bringing in tactics that have worked for a century in the world of advertising and can work like crazy online.

Grab the Ultimate Information Entrepreneur Super Manual now and you’ll get the 12-audio “Master of Marketing” course as a free gift.

This 12-audio set is a “dream team” of marketing legends including Ted Nicholas, Robert Allen, Mark Victor Hansen, Dan Kennedy and more…

Gary Halbert – ranting, copywriting legend…

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Gary Halbert

A saying goes that he who projects a tough exterior usually has a soft, cuddly interior. Perhaps it goes to show there are people who know the master copywriter well enough to create this cute caricature :)

I’m taking a little time out to write about a legend I hardly know. As far as this small-fry marketer living halfway round the world is concerned, my initial impression is that Gary seems to be a pioneer of “offensive copywriting”. I’m not sure what his usual choice of 4-letter words are but from what I’ve heard, he writes in a “I got nothing to lose. Show me all your bets” tone, and true enough, he endorsed The Rich Jerk’s copywriting because he identified with it. In fact, there’s something about Jo Han Mok’s copywriting that makes me suspect they contain shades of Gary’s style. On the few occasion I met Jo ‘live’ I should have asked if he learned directly from Gary. Maybe next time…

Gary died in his sleep on Easter Sunday. The tributes are pouring in:

“I have been learning from Gary since I was 15 years old and was blessed to call him MY FRIEND. Gary was one of the greatest marketers in the history of mankind. And that is not an understatement.”

John Reese

“You know Eric, Gary had the best copywriting skills I’ve ever seen. ;) Wish I could do one tenth of what he could do in his writing.”

Mary

“That man provided me with some of the best material I have ever seen for copy. He was a legend and will truly be missed. Marketers, if you have any sense of desire for improvement in what you do, you’ll make the effort to see what this man accomplished in his lifetime. And what the legacy he left behind can do for you.”

Omar Khafagy

“Even before anyone had dial-up, Gary was a highly praised direct response marketer. I will honor his memory by reading a marketing manual I had purchased from him long before the phrase Internet Marketing was conceived.”

Akogo

“Sad news…had the pleasure of meeting him and getting a copywriting critique…the man was flat out brilliant. His swipe file is one of my prized possessions. A true legend in marketing.”

Dr. Mike Woo-Ming

…Just a few taken from this Warrior thread.

You MUST study The Gary Halbert Letter. Gary is so generous with his content for his newsletter archive. You will understand more than his ‘offence’ trademark, it is his business experience, humor and personal confidence that pervades his language. Just read “Canine Testicles” and laugh out loud. It’s one episode in a series concerning a “water filter” ad so please make it a point to cover what it’s all about.

Susanna Hutcheson uploaded one of Gary’s famous ads, a weight loss ad.

Although I hardly know the man, I have seen him quoted in other sales pages and his testimonies for other products. If you have learned directly from Gary, please feel free to put down some great lessons and insights you have gained, or simply pay tribute to him. I like to find out for myself how I can be a little more hard-edged in my writing without putting all of you off, keke.