Q&A act-shun time.<\/p>\n
“Chester” (not his real name) writes:<\/p>\n
“the first chapter of your book turned out to be a sales letter for\u00a0the book. if you promise a chapter of a book then give a chapter\u00a0of the book not a sales letter. you are marked as spam. peace.”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And you, my friend, are officially marked as an idiot.<\/p>\n
After all:<\/p>\n
1. I don’t have any books that fit that description (Where the\u00a0first chapter is a sales letter). So you obviously have me confused\u00a0with someone else.<\/p>\n
2. If you’re going to mark someone as spam, just do it.<\/p>\n
No need to drama queen about it.<\/p>\n
Next question…<\/p>\n
Website reader Ronnie asks:<\/p>\n
“What do you think about the offer? I’ve heard you mention it\u00a0before on how good marketing works only on proven good offers. How\u00a0do craft a good offer?”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Let’s put it this way.<\/p>\n
The late (great) direct mail guy Dick Benson once said:<\/p>\n
“Nobody spends enough time on their offers”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And, he’s right.<\/p>\n
None of us do.<\/p>\n
(Yes, I need to spend more time on my offers.)<\/p>\n
The offer is as much as 40% of the power of your ad.<\/p>\n
So how do you craft a good one?<\/p>\n
One way to do it is to do a thorough analysis of your market, find\u00a0out what problem, pain, or desire they think about at night and\u00a0when waking up in the morning, then craft your offer around solving\u00a0that.<\/p>\n
There are many other ways to do it.<\/p>\n
But, that’s always worked for me.<\/p>\n
Neeeeeext question:<\/p>\n
“When you run a ‘special’ or whatever you want to call it…(i.e.\u00a0not email players) what kind of sales response rate do you\u00a0typically get…for instance…when last you had the Copywriting\u00a0Grab Bag available. Just curious compared to how I did with\u00a0something recently…”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It’s all over the map.<\/p>\n
And, comparing my results to yours is pointless.<\/p>\n
There are too many variables at play.<\/p>\n
Like price point.<\/p>\n
Marketplace demand.<\/p>\n
Your positioning with your list.<\/p>\n
(Huge intangible, factor.)<\/p>\n
And even if something similar has been sold to the same people\u00a0recently.<\/p>\n
Example:<\/p>\n
I recently mailed for Scott Haines’ “Shortcut Copywriting” product.<\/p>\n
We did way better than he was expecting.<\/p>\n
(And, way better than I was expecting, too.)<\/p>\n
But, at the same time, the Halbert brothers had just mailed for the\u00a0same product a week prior. And, I know at least a couple people\u00a0who bought from their mailings who said, had they not seen them run\u00a0it before mine, would have bought from me.<\/p>\n
(Especially considering the bonuses I offered.)<\/p>\n
Do you think that affected my sales response?<\/p>\n
Of course it did.<\/p>\n
Anyway, point is this:<\/p>\n
My sales response is 1000% irrelevant to anyone else but me. And,\u00a0yours are 1000% irrelevant to anyone but you. So comparing your\u00a0sales response to mine (or anyone else’s) is pointless.<\/p>\n
That’s why I don’t care about other peoples’ response.<\/p>\n
What I care about is mine.<\/p>\n
And, how I can do better next time.<\/p>\n
And finally, last question:<\/p>\n
“Do you still see value in ezine articles? If so, what do you use them for?”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I haven’t written any in a few years.<\/p>\n
Reason why is not because I don’t think they work, but because I\u00a0hate “padding” my writing to fit a minimum number of words.<\/p>\n
Take the main ezine site I used to use.<\/p>\n
(And got a lot of great, targeted traffic from).<\/p>\n
Back in 2011 they ended up increasing their minimum word count to\u00a0protect themselves from Google’s slapping of article farm sites.<\/p>\n
I certainly can’t blame them for that.<\/p>\n
But, it’s biased against people who write tight copy.<\/p>\n
For example:<\/p>\n
I can “say” more in 150 words than a lot of ezine writers can in\u00a0500. So unless they go back to short (250 words) minimum word\u00a0counts (and even then, I had to pad a bit), I’m probably not going\u00a0to dip back into the ezine game.<\/p>\n
I’m not saying anyone else shouldn’t.<\/p>\n
I’m just saying I won’t.<\/p>\n
(I know one guy who gets tons of traffic in an obscure niche by\u00a0writing 600 word articles — so it obviously still works.)<\/p>\n
I’d rather use other ways to get traffic.
\nAll right, time to wrap up:<\/p>\nThe next “Email Players” issue mails soon.<\/p>\n
Amongst other cool email ideas, it shows you a bunch of old school\u00a0headline templates (created by one of the greatest space ad guys\u00a0you probably never heard of decades ago) that are easily adapted\u00a0and used as email subject lines today.<\/p>\n
But time is short, my little droogie.<\/p>\n
Subscribe here in time while you can:<\/p>\n