Ben Settle

If you write ads for products and services in overcrowded and “over-hyped” markets… and stick out head and shoulders from your competition… then listen to this.

The whole secret of sticking out in a saturated market is to use good, old fashioned persuasion.

What do I mean by that?

Well, pretend you’re writing an ad to people who want to eliminate stubborn belly fat and have “rock-hard abs.” (A very hot and crowded market right now.)

There are basically two ways you can approach this.

You can do what everyone else in that market is doing and use “ballistics” — where you crash right out the gate with huge promises and claims about giving people “washboard” abs in 30 days or whatever.

Or…

You can go around all that noise, and “seduce” the reader into your ad.

For example:

I recently saw a post on an Internet marketing forum where someone was selling a product on building rock-hard abs and was looking for feedback on his ad, which was basically identical — as far as the claims, promises and structure — to most of the other ads selling similar products.

Except for one thing.

In the “P.S.” of his letter, he mentions how you can use his secret while sitting in your chair.

I remember thinking how much more powerful his ad might be if — instead of leading with outrageous claims that sound like everyone else — he said something like:

And instead of starting off with the usual claims of “blow torching off fat” and “chiseling your abs into a washboard” (and basically saying, “this is an ad!”)…he could start with something more seductive and “non-advertising” sounding like:

“If you want to know a secret way to flatten your stomach and build six-pack abs while driving to work every day, then here’s how I did it. And why you can do the same thing with the information I’ll give you in this letter.”

Then from there string the reader along into a compelling story someone who wants rock-hard abs would not be able to resist reading.

For instance, he could tell the story of how he was sitting in traffic on the way to work and some health guru came on the radio saying how simply breathing a certain way can eliminate belly fat. So he decided to try it, and immediately noticed a change in his energy levels and a tightness in his abs. Then he did it again the next day, and the next day…and in a week he saw a difference in the mirror. Within a month he lost more belly fat driving to work than he did at the gym. And he was so excited he started studying other books and tactics on getting rock-hard abs — and decided to combine all the best methods that worked into a simple system anyone can use…

And so on and so forth.

Anyway, the idea is not to be afraid to do the opposite of everyone else. To seduce readers into your ad one step at a time with an interesting story…instead of trying to overpower them with claims and promises right out the gate.

Try it yourself and see.

I think you’ll find using seduction like this goes a long way towards increasing readership and sales. Especially if you’re in an overcrowded and over-hyped market, and especially if your sales are lagging and you’re not sure why.

Would you like to increase the profits of every ad you write… without making any extra sales and without adding even one penny to the price of what you’re selling?

Then consider this:

A couple years ago one of my joint venture partners and I were selling a product that, while extremely high quality, was getting a ton of refunds.

One of the reasons for this was because we were letting people buy it on approval (i.e. we’d send them the product for 30 days before charging their credit card) and we were using PayPal. And the only way to do this with PayPal was to set up a “subscription” that lasted 30 days.

Only problem is, PayPal sends you an email reminding you at the end of those 30 days about your purchase and gives you a nice, convenient link you can use to cancel the order (you just click on a link).

Long story short, we ended up with a whopping 37% refund rate.

Ouch.

And it didn’t take long to realize we shouldn’t be using PayPal for this particular deal, and used a regular merchant account. As soon as we did that, the refund rate plummeted from 37% to 10%.

Now, here’s the thing:

We were making about $450 per sale. Which means we were grossing $45,000 every hundred sales. But at a 37% refund rate, we were only netting $28,350 of that money.

After changing the merchant account and cutting down the refund rate to 10%, we were netting $40,500 every 100 sales.

In other words, we added $12,150 to our profits…without adding a single sale or increasing the price. All we did was cut the number of refunds.

And ever since then, with every project I’ve worked on, one of the first things I try to strategize is how to write my copy and structure my offers in a way that minimizes refunds. Especially when doing “try-it-before-you-buy-it” offers — which tend to increase both sales and refunds.

Anyway, here’s the bottom line:

Depending on the price and quantity of what you’re selling, reducing your refund rates by just 5% or 10% can put a significant amount of money in your pocket without doing any extra work whatsoever.

If you want to know a quick and easy way to inject passion and excitement into your ads without using even a speck of “hype”, then here’s how one of the world’s greatest living copywriters does it.

And why you can do it, too.

Anyway, here’s the “secret” in a nutshell:

Get rid of all the exclamation marks… or use them sparingly.

Not only will doing this make your claims seem less hypey… but you’ll also stick out like a soar thumb from your competition at the same time.

Now, you may be thinking, “But all the copywriting ‘gurus’ use tons of exclamation points. Why shouldn’t I?”

Answer:

Not all the gurus do use an endless amount of exclamation points.

In fact, some of the highest paid copywriters in the world hardly use them at all.

For example:

Do you know who Gary Bencivenga is?

He’s considered one of the greatest living copywriters in the world, with the track record to prove it.

And guess what?

If you read his ads you’ll notice many of them contain few (if any) exclamation marks.

Why?

I can’t speak for the man, but one reason that seems obvious (to me, at least) is he doesn’t need them.

You see, the content of his ads is inherently exciting — without needing any exclamation marks, empty adjectives or fluff.

Think about it this way:

If someone has a disease that’s killing them, and you have the cure, then you don’t have to put an exclamation point anywhere in that ad if what you’re saying is interesting, exciting and can be backed up.

In other words, you won’t have to try and “create” excitement… it’ll be exciting on its own — whether you use five exclamation marks after your headline or not.

Now, am I saying ads with exclamation marks are bad?

No.

Many of the best ads ever written — that pull millions and millions of dollars per year — are packed with them.

What I am saying is they’re not always necessary.

For some markets they work like gangbusters. But in a growing number of markets — where people are getting sick and tired of reading one hyped-up ad after another — they can actually hurt sales.

But as with anything, test this yourself and see.

Take one of your ads with a lot of exclamation points, strip them out, and then test what happens.

Depending on what you’re selling and who you’re selling to, you may just find your response, sales and profits go up dramatically.

When I was a kid I loved collecting comic books.

I enjoyed them so much, I even wanted to be a comic book writer or artist, and spent a lot of time reading interviews with people who actually did create comic books.

And although I didn’t realize it at the time, reading these interviews taught me one of the biggest “copywriting” secrets I ever learned.

A secret so unbelievably effective it can instantly multiply your response.

Yet so childishly simple it can be used by anyone — no matter how good or bad a “writer” you are now.

What was this secret?

Well, whenever these comic book pros were asked why they got into the business or what made them start reading comics, many of them would say that yes, they loved the action and adventure and artwork, etc.

But even more than that… they wanted to see what was going on in Spiderman’s love life.

Or what Batman did when he wasn’t kicking arse on the streets at night.

Or if Clark Kent was ever gonna finally get it on with Lois.

Anyway here’s my point:

It became obvious to me people don’t just buy comic books for the usual reasons of action, adventure, great stories and riveting art.

They’re also buying a personality.

They’re buying someone they can identify with each month — with the same hopes, dreams, problems, fears and insecurities as everyone else.

In fact, Stan Lee (the co-creator of Spiderman) said his biggest challenge writing Spiderman was not coming up with dialogue or new villains for him to fight.

No, his biggest challenge was actually creating more problems to throw at Spiderman when he wasn’t in his spidey suit and was just Peter Parker.

You see, he wanted to make sure people would identify with Spiderman not just as a “super hero”… but also as a regular person.

The result?

Spiderman is a world famous icon worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Marvel Comics today.

That’s what the power of a simple, ordinary personality can do.

And guess what?

You can easily harness this “power” (no pun intended) yourself for your ads.

Just let your hair down and be yourself.

Write like you talk (or write like the person whose “voice” your copy is in).

Use your own figures of speech, attitude and colloquialisms.

You know, in a lot of ways, using your personality makes writing copy easier anyway. You don’t get hung up on a bunch of copywriting and grammatical “rules” and “formulas.”

You may even butcher a few major copywriting “rules” every now and then.

But who cares?

At least you’re being “real.”

And your readers will feel like you’re talking to them… and not at them.

And you when start doing that, the difference in response is night and day.

How would you like to quickly and cheaply build a thick, beefy swipe file full of proven and successful direct response ads?

A swipe file that contains not only long copy ads… but also proven classified and space ads that can be adapted and modified for pay-per-click ads and ezine ads?

And how would you like to be able to build this swipe file of hundreds of ads for about $50 or less?

Then all you need do is head over to the nearest comic book convention.

This is no joke.

If you want to see some of the best copy ever written then spend a few hours pouring over direct response ads found in comic books and a whole new world will open up for you.

The psychology the copywriters used in those old direct response comic book ads is sheer brilliance.

They knew exactly how to get “inside” your head and persuade you to buy things you never in a million years would have considered buying before. Plus, they were usually able to do it with just two or three sentences.

And as I said, they’re cheap.

Believe it or not, the comic books with the best direct response ads are almost always less than a dollar a piece.

The key is to buy the older comics from before 1990. For some reason after 1990 comic book ads started shifting into image ads and away from direct response.

But the older ones are all direct response ads.

And unlike baseball cards, comic books tend to go down in value instead of up.

And the really old ones — especially titles that didn’t sell well — can many times be bought for next to nothing.

In fact, if you go to a comic book convention you can sometimes buy entire boxes of old comics — containing thousands of ads — for less than $50.

Whatever the case, if you want a huge swipe file packed with powerful direct response ads, buy old comic books.

They’re dirt cheap… and they contain some of the best examples of selling, persuasion and copy you’ll ever see.

If you want to know a quick and easy way to get inside the heads of your customers… and learn what their “hot buttons” are when writing copy… then check this out:

One of the first things I do when starting a new copywriting project is go straight over to amazon.com.

Why?

Because in most cases it contains a gold mine of information you can use to find out what makes your customers “tick.”

And the first thing I do is simply type in the subject my ad is about and read the various different book titles.

This alone will light your mind on fire with ideas for headlines and potential themes for your copy.

Next, I read the editorial reviews of all those book titles.

They usually contain at least some raw material for snatches of copy, themes and appeals I can use in my ad.

After that I tackle the real “meat” of the site — the customer reviews.

You can dig some real gems out of these customer comments and feedback reviews.

Why?

Because when people write these reviews they’re basically downloading their raw thoughts and handing you dozens of ideas for your ad on a silver platter.

You’re literally reading the minds of people who have spent money on the subject your ad is about.

And if you pay attention, you’ll see what’s resonating with your market. What they like and don’t like. What they were happy with and what they were unhappy with.

You’ll see the exact words they use, the questions they ask and what appeals to them on an emotional “gut” level.

All of which makes great “fodder” for your copy.

Anyway, here’s the bottom line:

There are a lot of different ways to get into the heads of people you’re selling to in your copy.

But one of the best and cheapest ways is simply going to amazon.com and looking at the editorial and customer reviews of products related to what you’re selling in your copy.

Not long ago someone asked me this interesting question:

This is a great question. A lot of people struggle with this exact same problem.

And the simple (but brutal) answer is:

You’ve got to find time wherever you can.

For example:

Four years ago when I was starting out, I had a full time job and an office cleaning business at night.

I didn’t have a lot of time, either.

What did I do?

For one thing, I left for work at least a half hour early and I wrote ads, read books researched my project notes when I got there.

Later, to seize even more time, I lobbied to work on second shift (when nobody was there). Then every day I would try to get my work done as fast as I could, so I’d have an hour or so to write ads or study something while at work.

Risky?

Yes.

One “surprise visit” from a supervisor or manager and I’d have been canned on the spot.

But I did it anyway because I was in a hurry and I really didn’t have a lot of time at home to do it.

Now, this may sound extreme and I’m not suggesting you do the same thing.

I just want to make the point of finding time wherever you can.

You may have to stay up to the odd hours of the night or get up an hour or two early.

If you have a job, leave an hour early and study or write ads in your car in the parking lot (I did this many times).

When you take your breaks, go out to your car and write or study ads. Even if it’s for only 15 minutes.

When you’re on your lunch break don’t sit around with all the gossipers, whiners and complainers. Write ads or study something.

On the way to and from work turn off the radio and pop in a CD about marketing or copywriting.

I know of one guy who writes books and ads in his car while he’s commuting. He has a little digital recorder and he “writes” by speaking his ideas, thoughts and inspirations into the recorder while driving, then has it transcribed later.

Heck, if you have cable television unplug it for just three months.

Spend the time you’d normally watch TV and read and write ads. Take the money you would’ve spent on cable and buy more books and tapes.

Look, everyone’s situation is different.

And what worked for me or someone else may not work for you. The above are just a few of things that worked for me.

The idea here is to get radical about managing your time and squeezing every possible second you can from your day.

It doesn’t take that long to get good enough to start making money with your copy.

But it does take some time.

And the faster you get through the “learning curves” — by getting merciless with your time — the better.

If you are just starting out as a copywriter, but are afraid of writing “crap”, then here’s how to abolish that fear and start making money right away — no matter how poor your copy is.

Look, here’s the whole secret to getting over your fear of writing bad copy:

Just start writing.

The more writing you do the better you’ll get.

It’s like anything in life. Nobody starts out being great at everything. And all it usually takes is a little “push” to get your started.

For example:

When I was a little kid around five or six years old I sucked at swimming. I hated it. I was afraid of the water and honestly thought I’d drown without those dorky little arm floaters on.

So my mom, God bless her, decided to make me take swimming lessons.

At first I resisted. I’d act like I was sick. I’d go away and hide. When it came time to jump off the diving board, I actually climbed the swimming area fence and ran away.

Thankfully my swimming teacher caught me, dragged me to the diving board and threw me in kicking and screaming.

What happened next was a miracle:

I didn’t drown, I didn’t flounder and I didn’t even cry.

Instead I actually enjoyed it.

A few days later…I was even good at it and looked forward to swimming.

And writing copy is the exact same way.

When you’re just starting out and you have that fear your copy won’t be any good, just write an ad.

Better yet… create a product (or find a product to sell), even if it’s just a little cheap one.

Then write an ad the best you can and throw it up on eBay.

If you’re selling something people already want (very important) people will respond to your ads even if your writing is lousy.

In fact, you’ll realize the “writing” is all relative anyway in marketing.

If people want what you have, your writing can be crap and you can still make money. But if people don’t want what you have, your writing can be perfect and you won’t earn a penny.

And that’s why the best cure for fear of being a bad writer is simply writing and selling things you know people already want.

Just realize you probably are going to write terrible copy at first.

Everyone does.

But like I said, if the demand is there, then you will have at least moderate success, no matter how hideous your copy is.

So there’s really no need to worry about it.

It seems like not a day goes by when one of my business partners doesn’t call me up, or I call him up, and say:

“Hey, I was just taking a shower and got this great new idea for that project we’re working on!”

I know that sounds strange, but it’s true.

There’s something almost magical about taking long showers and “suddenly” getting the answers to problems or coming up with ideas for your ads.

It’s just amazing the way that works.

I even did some research on this not too long ago.

And apparently there is something in your brain that stimulates creativity when warm, soothing water pours over your head.

Problems are solved, ideas are sparked and your creativity basically goes on overdrive.

Personally, I seem to get many of my best headline ideas for my ads while taking long, hot showers.

Whenever I’m working on an ad headline, and I’ve cranked out two or three hundred different headlines (and can’t seem to find the right one) I always take a lot of long, hot showers.

Sometimes even several showers per day.

I’ll just sit there in the shower, letting my mind wander, and trying not to think about anything specific.

Most of the time (so often it’s almost spooky) the answer will come.

Try it yourself and see.

Next time you’re writing an ad and can’t think of that right phrase, idea, theme, headline, etc, take long, hot showers. Maybe even two or three in a day. Just let your mind wander and solve the problem for you.