Category: Direct Response Marketing

I don’t think I’ve spoken about this too much, but Lord knows I sure give loads of advice about it in my consulting practice, so let’s get on the stick. People often get stuck on naming their business right. The problem is, for some reason people have loads of personal vesting in the name of…

One of the things loads of people take advantage of when they subscribe to my offline newsletter, are the free sales copy critiques you get with your subscription. As you’d imagine, I get to see loads of copy for many different kinds of ads in many different industries. Sometimes people get really creative in the…

Next to your headline, the greatest determinant of your success is the offer you’re making. Just think about something you like buying — if the vendor’s offering you more of it, or if your perception of it is greater — aren’t you going to be that much more inclined to order? You want to make…

Although I spend a great deal of time talking about marketing, copywriting, and how your understanding human emotions allows you to sell to these emotions… much of what I do — at least from my perspective — is rooted in plain old common sense. Sadly, it’s been my observation that (surprise) most people lack common…

One of the big popular “things you’re supposed to do,” is to “niche” your business. Since there are so many misconceptions about this, I thought it would be helpful to clarify a number of these things, and perhaps dispel the myths about them. Nothing like a little clarity every now and then, so here goes:…

Ever wonder why some people always seem to get things done right the first time? Doesn’t it seem somewhat unfair? Well, here’s a story that gives you some insight about why this happens and how you can do the same thing and avoid loads of hassles and headaches. In a small town in England, for…

No, I’m not talking about oriental massage parlors today. Instead, today we’re going to wrap up our series on story-telling, which we started earlier this week. We’re going to finish with why your story must have a happy ending. The answer is simple: As Thoreau said, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation, and die…

Today I’m going to tell you how to make your stories realistic and believable, continuing our theme over the past few days. The biggest way to become believable in print, is the same way you’re going to be believable in person: You have to be a REAL person. No one likes a phony. And there…

Let’s talk about telling stories and how you can make them most effective. Yesterday, I told you the cardinal rule of story-telling was to make sure your story is an emotionally compelling human-interest tale your prospects can relate to. The “why” of this, of course, is easy to understand, right? People make buying decisions based…

Last Thursday and Friday I had a group of loan officers down here to launch the ARMS Marketing System. For two days straight I went through some very intense exercises specific to their marketing, and frankly I was exhausted. I really needed the weekend to recuperate and recharge my batteries, and just to unwind from…

Unlike people, money and dogs don’t discriminate. They don’t care whether you’re black, white, or Asian… where you came from… what kind of an upbringing you had, or what your parents did for a living. Money doesn’t care what your skill-set is, how ambitious you are or whether you wear bad cologne, or even if…

In 1935, George Gribbin started with Young and Rubicam as a copywriter. In 1958 he was made President of the company, and then Chariman, a few years later. Obviously over the course of his career, Gribben wrote LOTS of copy, but he’s most well-known for his ads for Arrow Shirts, Borden’s Milk, and Traveler’s Insurance.…

Since today’s Labor Day here in America, let me give you some work-related trivia. A couple of years ago in the Journal Of Labor Research, Bethany Peters and Edward Stringham ran a curious study I thought you’d be interested in. Apparently, drinkers earn more money than non-drinkers. Their study revealed that people who drink in…

Tomorrow is the last day to get your hands on this month’s issue of Seductive Selling. Over the last 90 days, our subscriber base has dramatically increased, and we now have readers in 12 different countries. Here’s a comment I received yesterday, about this month’s issue: “Dear Craig, I recently received the August Issue of…

If you go online (Wait a minute, if you’re reading this, you are online, right?)… O.K., let’s start this again. If you Google the name “James C. Humes,” you’ll find loads of really cool quotes attributed to him. That’s because Humes was a ghostwriter who wrote speeches for five different U.S. Presidents: Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford,…

Lots of interesting comments on the blog from yesterday’s post. I also laid into a few people, so if you want to check it out, go to http://blog.kingofcopy.com/2008/08/seductive-or-sleazy-whats-your-take.html Today let’s talk about some more ways of leveraging or “massaging” your prospects behavior and actions. Again, here’s a story that’ll show you what I mean. You’ve…

Ever heard this one?: Know who the easiest person to sell is? A salesman, supposedly. But I’m not so sure that’s right. I guess it depends on what the salesman is buying, right? I know when I sold life insurance I bought a hell of a lot of insurance. And when I was a financial…

Every wonder why soap operas do so well? How about reality TV, which is the evolution of the daytime soap opera. Ever wonder why it’s so popular? And what about publications like the National Enquirer or The Globe. Why do you think they sell like hotcakes? The answer is “drama.” Each of these media’s let…

Today’s tip is called “Beginnings.” I’m going to separate this tip into five separate little “vignettes” (I don’t think I’ve ever used that word before.). Why don’t you see how sharp you are, and whether you can figure out what’s going on before you get to the end. O.K.? Alrighty, here goes: On November 4,…

Today’s one of my busiest days of the month — I have three coaching calls to run. At 2pm I have a Seductive Selling Coaching call, which is a structured topical marketing call — this month we’re going to discuss how I recently launched a new business and brought in $90,000 before even opening the…