Happy New Year everyone, all the best for 2008.

A lot of love for Apple’s marketing during 2007 recaps, I see.

And I’m OK with people getting down on bended knee to worship at the church of Apple’s marketing, because I think the tactical execution of their iPhone campaign was exceptional.

There was anticipation, secrecy, even frenzy that lead to hundreds of user-generated blogs, news sites, and forums… all full of intrigue. Heck, the mere posting of a picture brought a stampede of hungry prospects large enough to overwhelm the mightiest web server. Amazing.

I salute you, Apple marketing.

What leaves me smiling and shaking my head in wonderment is that few marketers seem to talk about, or acknowledge, the fact that Apple’s iPhone was designed, developed, and then built based upon a powerful strategic product difference that meant… as Sun Tzu might say… the battle was won before it was even engaged.

The real va-va voom was born in the product and not in the marketing.

I mean sure, there were cellphones out there with more features than the iPhone, more powerful devices. But it’s a mistake to suggest because there were/are cellphones on the market with more powerful features than iPhone, that therefore the product itself must’ve played little-to-no part in Apple’s marketing success. Not true at all.

In fact, the iPhone shrugs at such feature “pose downs”, comfortable in the knowledge that it’s all about a very different kind of magic…

What makes the iPhone different? It is the “so easy even your granny can use it” benefit. The “touch the screen with your finger and you’re done” SIMPLICITY. The iPhone was designed, right from the very start, to be the first ever you-never-need-look-at-the-instruction-manual cellphone…

Exactly what the iPod was to MP3 players, you could say.

What I’m talking about here is a clear, unique, and highly desirable strategic product difference that was handed to Apple’s marketing department on a PLATE.

And this didn’t happen by accident. Had to be planned right from the outset. No question.

Don’t believe me? Then how about venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki - who began his career under Steve Jobs at Apple. Guy calls this kind of product differentiation “Elegance,” in his DICEE formula for defining great products and services.

(You can check out his “Art of Innovation” presentation, if you are interested in learning more about the DICEE formula).

The bottom line, though, is that the world is crying out for product solutions that “just work”, and don’t serve-up a new problem, learning experience, or challenge the user needs to overcome before they can enjoy the desired benfit.

Life is hard enough for most of us as it is, after all!

By the way, same principle is behind the success of the Nintendo Wii… it’s not the most powerful system out there, but amazing elegance. Just plug in a game and play. Wave your controller around… simple. Yep, even your granny can do it too.

Here’s the key marketing point:

“The better your product, the more persuasive your marketing can be”.
– Gary Bencivenga (legendary copywriter)

The iPhone is a great product. The iPhone is a great product because it is elegant. The iPhone is elegant because it was designed, developed and then built with this key strategic difference in mind right from the very beginning. A ready-made USP for the marketing department, if you like. Marketing didn’t dream the whole thing up afterwards. The plan didn’t all come together by accident. No, it was all well thought out.

So all marketing had to do was convey the highly desirable unique benefit of elegance, which was born in the product, in the message at the core of their marketing campaign. And they duly did… with great expertise, and no doubt with an even greater smile of their faces.

Take a look:

Go to the iPhone web site and count the number of times the key words “quick, simple, easy, and ‘just tap’” are used in the guided tour (video). You’ll soon run out of finger and toes, and you’ll leave with a clear message ringing in your ears!

Quick, simple, easy. Just tap.

Elegance.

Apple might well be the Tom Brady of marketing, but, at the very least, they’re made to look/perform all the better - put up bigger numbers - by Randy-Moss-like products such as the iPhone.

I think it’s important to remember that.

A final note: I’m going to up my posting frequency this year. And look out for screen-casting and video content coming your way soon (as a compliment to, not as a substitute for, the written word).

Good luck in 2008,

Paul

Here’s an effective tactic for getting focused attention at the beginning of a sales pitch, blog post, or landing page… use this approach and your prospects will embrace what you have to say as valuable insight rather than instantly dismiss you as meaningless clutter, for reasons I’ll talk about in just a moment. Plus, I’ll reveal a “trap-door” to be dodged at all costs.

To be honest with you, I could do a much better job of applying this principle right here on my own blog!

First, our method of getting the attention we want:

Continue the conversation going on in your prospect’s head.

As Robert Collier explained back in 1934…

Your prospect wants certain things. The desire for them is, conciously or unconciously, the dominant idea in his mind all the time. You want him to do a certain thing for you. How can you tie this up to the thing he wants, in such a way that the doing of it will bring him a step nearer to his goal?

Let me give you a few practical examples of this technique in action to make things clearer, these are served up courtesy of Collier himself:

=================================

Letter To A Druggist

After you have run up front a couple of times to sell a couple of stogies, a package of court plaster and a postage stamp; to change a five dollar bill for the barber, to answer the phone and inform Mrs Smith that Castoria is 25c a bottle, and assure Mrs Jones that you will have the doctor call her up as soon as he comes in, then take a minute for yourself and look over this proposition…

=================================

Letter To A Farmer

Any man who owns a cow loses a calf once in a while. If you own a herd of a dozen or more, you are probably losing one or two calfs a year. We know of breeders who were losing every calf - some sixteen - some over thirty a year. And these breeders stopped their losses short - just like that - through the information given in our…

=================================

Letter To A Doctor

What a clutter of books a doctor can get around him, and what a fearful outlay of money they will come to represent if he doesn’t use great discrimination in their purchase. I don’t suppose there is any class of people - and I have customers among every class you can think of - who appreciate more than my medical friends the marvelous savings I am able to make them on all standard sets, reference books, etc.

=================================

Picture the scene: Can you see these druggists cursing at the 101 details preventing them from getting an honest days work done? Can you picture farmers talking over the fence with one another about the frustrations of losing cattle? How about doctors muttering to each other about the great number of books filling their offices (and at great expense)?

Seems highly plausible to me, even if these examples are 70 years old! All begin by continuing a conversation going on in the target market’s heads, by resonating with ongoing experience. All get the reader nodding in agreement. All get attention.

Do a little research and you’ll soon discover what problems your prospects are talking about, and how they are talking about them. All you have to do is observe & listen, these preoccupations will reveal themselves to you soon enough. Align with the dialogue and you will get attention. Then gently redirect the flow of the conversation towards your product or service. Explain why your product is relevant, how your offering will move your prospect one step closer to attaining his heart’s desire, how it makes his world a better place, and so on.

Simple enough. Nothing magical in the idea that prospects are motivated to act in their own self-interest. We all are.

But here’s the trap…

Instead, continuing the conversation going on in our own head (or, even worse, the Boardroom)

Ever read a web page, leaflet, or company profile that begins like this…

Our company competently creates interdependent services while continuing to dramatically integrate high-payoff customer-focused results for your benefit.

Doesn’t strike a chord with anyone other than upper management, and even they would be hard pressed to tell you what it means!

Designer David Mihm recently penned 10 content writing tips for small business owners, in a post he cleverly titled “Don’t Be Content With Your Content”.

He begins his tips by generously saying the following…

If you have the money, hire a professional SEO copywriter like Miriam Ellis, Carolyn Shelby, or Paul Robb to help you brainstorm or to refine your content for the search engines.

Now, I wouldn’t want to niche myself as an SEO copywriter, but I do want to get into the spirit of David’s post by offering some great content ideas. I’ve reached into my box of tricks and pulled out some samples for you, courtesy of magazines like Cosmopolitan, Maxim, and other “Glossies”.

With just a little bit of thought/imagination you can easily (and quickly) substitute, combine, and adapt the following templates to your own requirements - whatever your business may be.

I encourage you to examine and pay attention to the structures, rather than specific words being used. Don’t simply copy these blurbs and use them as your own, be sure to apply your own originality first:

21 Sneaky Tricks To Get Guys To Do What You Want

Murder City USA. Inside America’s Deadliest Hood

Score At Will! Pillow-Bursting Sex In One Date Or Less

Fall TV Guide. Rest Your Thumb - Here’s Maxim’s Take On All 31 New Shows

Chernobyl, USA. Couldn’t Happen Here? Scare Yourself Silly

Future Cars. An Over-The-Top, Under-The-Hood Exclusive

Steamy Sex Survey! 3,000 Girls Bare All! Well, Their Souls, Anyway - What Did You Think We Meant?

We Curl Up With Kim Smith From… Catwoman!… And We’ve Got The Claw Marks To Prove It!

Turn Your Dog Into a Mobile Beer Cooler! 95 Stupid, Pointless Things You’ve Just Gotta Do This Summer

Terror Alert! WMDs Found… Right Here In America! Ready To Scare The Ever-Living Snot Ot Of Yourself?

Pentagon’s Prototype Death Star! We’re Building It Now - Watch Out, France!

Cable TV’s Hottest Bad Girl! More over, Meadow - HBO Unveils Our New Obsession

“I Guess I Left My Pants On The Train…” Brilliant Excuses To Get You Out Of Any Jam.

The Real Swimsuit Issue. Seven Beautiful Models. Three Tropical Beaches. And One Tiny Suitcase Full Of Bikinis….

Dirty Dancer Kelly Monaco Summer’s Hottest Star Sweeps Us Of Our Feet!

Honk! Honk! The Man With The $100,000 Breasts Is Back

Hello, Couch! Giant Fall TV Survival Guide

Naughty Neighbour! Elisha Cuthbert Is Home Alone. You Busy?

Monkeys & Lesbians. Eeeep! Eeeep! Eeeep!

Amercian Terrorists And You Won’t Belive Who They’re Targeting

Pain Street USA. Horrible Tales Of Human Anguish… You’ll Laugh Your Damn Head Off

Super Sex. Faster Than a Speeding Bullet? Here’s Help

The Coming Plague. It’s Fast, It’s Fatal, And It’s Already Here

Night Fever. The 10 Best Parties On The Planet

100 Things You Never Knew About Women

Doctor Death! The Indian Murdering Machine

50 Fun Things To Do! Hey! That’s Fun! What Is? (Conversation continues on page X)

Oh, Nothing Much Going On Here. Just… Abi Nude! No Big Deal, Unless You’re Any Kind Of Man

Ricky Gervais Talks. Maxim Listens! You Read!

Slash! Duff! The Other Guy! On Tour With Velvet Revolver

“It Hurts To Sleep!” Sports Stars And Their Life Of Pain

Winners Inside! Hometown Hotties. Find Out If Your Sister Won

Ass-Stounding! It’s Corrie’s Nikki Candice In The Shoot That Nearly Killed Our Photographer!

It’s Back. Maxim’s Famous Little Black Book! It’s Like a Diary, With Boobs!

Death By Stupid! Top 20 Maker-Meeting Morons

Rule The World! Outwit State Troopers, Perform Emergency Surgery, Pull Off a 5-Day Bachelor Party, Rip a Phoen Book in Half, And More…

Women’s Sexual Fantasies. And You Thought Yours Were Weird?

Body Check! 5 Pains You Must Never Ignore

Office Sex! Naked Ambition Has Its Rewards

Special Report! The Search For America’s Hottest Club Girls

Christina Aguilera & The Art of Seduction

“A Lap Dance In Every Lap!” Capaign Promises Taht’s Get Our Vote

Is She a Psycho? Find Out Inside - Before It’s Too Late

The 10 Cars That Make Cars Still Worth Buying

The World’s Greatest Fighter Jets!

Special Report: The War Comes Home. The Endless Agony Of Our Returning Vets

Mariah Carey! We Charm Her Pants Off

Las Vegas Unlimited! Throw a Cop-Baiting, Goat-In-The-Limo Bachelor Party

Iraq’s Wild West. Murder And Mayhem In A Badass Border Town

How To Double Your Salary!

Foul Play! The 15 Nastiest Sports Rivalries Of All Time

Learn To Whistle Like a Dirty Old Man

Discover The Sex Fantasy 68% Of Men Have

A Smart Way To Protect Yourself From Rape

Gorgeous Skin. The New Secret.

Every Guy’s Private Marriage Checklist

30 Sex Boosters. Amazing Little Extras That Make Sex Even Sexier

Sexual Health. What Your Gyno Forgot to Tell You About The Pill

The Naughtiest Photo We’ve Ever Run of a Guy

Ashlee Simpson. No Question Was Off-Limits

Sex “Facts” You Shouldn’t Believe

The Thing Every Man Needs A Woman To Say (It’s Not What You Think)

Feel Sexy Naked. Great Confidence Boosters.

A Kind Of Cuddling That Can Bring You Closer To Him

75 Sex Tricks. Warning: They’re So Hot This Magazine May Burst Into Flames

Sweep Mess And Stress Out Of Your Life. 7 Easy Steps.

Pimple Prozac. Skin Doctors Erase Your Zits And Bad Skin Blues.

Tight Ass Tips. Turn A Frumpy Rump Into Your Best Asset.

His L-Word Phobia. The Hottest Truth About Why He Won’t Say ” I L… You”

Hair Hospital. Quick Cures For Your Most Frustrating Hair Horrors.

Get Any Man You Want! Cosmo’s Highly Pull-Offable Tips And techniques To Turn You Into A Power Seducer

Blondes Versus Brunettes. Who Will Triumph In Our Battle Of The Babes?

The High Heel Vote. See Grown Men Beg! Tony Blair & Co Fight For Your Vote Inside

How To Date 8 Men At Once - And Get Away With It

Horrifying True Story. “My Mum Was Raped - I Was The Result”

Inside His Dirty Mind! His Top 50 Turn Ons Revealed PLUS How To Handle ‘Him’ Like A Pro

“I Woke Up Naked In A Strange Place” The Deadly New Date-Rape Drug

Make An Unforgettable Entrance And 15 More Ways To Focus Everyone’s Attention On YOU

What Kind OF Girlfriend Are You? Find Out IF You’re The Kind Who gets Hitched - Or Ditched

The Weird Reasons You’re Sooo Tired (Besides Not Sleeping)

Be a Better Girlfriend. Learn From Other Couples’ Love.

Sexy Versus Skanky. Do You Dress Too Malandi?

Missed Period SOS

Pervert Alert! The Digital Peeping Toms Who Could Be Snooping On You

Real Life Man-Magnets Reveal Their Secrets

Orgasms Unlimited. 10 Steam-It-Up Sex Moves You’ve Never Dreamt Of

Beyond Kama Sutra. 8 Sex Positions You Haven’t Thought Of

OK, wise guys. Yes, that’s one or two more than 101 content ideas. What the heck am I, a math professor?

I hope you found these helpful.

I’m going to share with you a “quick and dirty” formula for writing meaningful copy, because what do you mean? is by far the most common question I ask myself when reading a sales pitch.

Now, you’ve probably heard the phrase “People don’t buy features, they buy benefits,” before. It’s a very common copywriters phrase.

However, I believe it is far more accurate to say “People don’t buy features, they buy benefits and meaning.”

Why?

Why do I consider meaning to be so important, and what do I even mean when I say “meaning”?

Good questions.

In order to answer them, let me share with you an example from a presentation called “The Art of Innovation,” by Guy Kawasaki. I’ll link to a video of this presentation at the end, for the moment let me just say that the following example is quoted from 6m:20s –> 7m:45s in the video.

Lets pretend that I am the VP of marketing for Nike, and you are my prospective buyer, and I say to you do you do you have 100 dollars? And then I say to you… well… if you give me 100 dollars I will give you 2 pieces of cotton and leather and rubber manufactured under somewhat suspect conditions in the far east. How’s that for a pitch?

Obviously this is not the pitch for Nike women’s aerobic shoes. Nike women’s aerobic shoes now stand for efficacy, liberation and power. And they do that with two pieces of cotton, leather, and rubber. They are making meaning with shoes.

Meaningful advertisement:

When people buy Nike shoes, they do not buy 2 pieces of cotton, leather and rubber (features). They don’t even buy comfortable aerobic “footwear,” (benefits) because other trainers could deliver this for a mere fraction of the price. The reality is that when people buy Nike shoes they buy the meaning attached to those shoes (yes, the meaning attached to their advertising!).

Efficacy, power and liberation.

That is our reason why meaning is so important, because meaning is what people buy more than anything else! More than features, and more than benefits.

Don’t worry, though. I’m not transforming into zany “image advertising” guy on you here. I just wanted to start by giving you a big money example to help demonstrate the awesome power of meaning.

Now that I’ve done so, I’m going to ground all of this in the real world for you… and I’m going to do so by using the example of a simple software widget.

First, let me get our pitch rolling with a feature…

Pitch 1: Buy my software widget… it has a WYSIWYG (What Yo See Is What You Get) editor.

Note: Terrible idea to try and “sell” people using features alone, because that is like Nike trying to sell people “leather and cotton” for $100. Bad idea.

We can do better than this… let’s add a benefit…

Pitch 2: Buy my software widget… staff without any technical skills can operate the software [benefit] because it has a WYSIWYG editor [feature].

Now we’re heating things up. A feature plus a benefit. We’re starting to sell this prospect for his reasons and not ours: by attaching a benefit to our feature we are beginning to show Mr Prospect how our product will make his business a more profitable place.

We are beginning to move towards a meaningful pitch, sure, but we’re still focusing on the “footwear” here, even if we have progressed from “cotton and leather”. And surely we can do better than this?

Yes, we can. But, sadly, this is the point where a lot of people consider the job to be done; they move swiftly along and hit the prospect with their next feature/benefit presentation.

Huge mistake!

Let me tell you… features and benefits are where the pitch BEGINS, not where it ends.

How about we try adding some meaning to this feature and benefit before we think about moving on to the next one?

Pitch 3: Buy my software widget.. staff without any technical skills can operate the software [benefit] because of our WYSIWYG editor [feature] And what that means, Mr Prospect, is anyone who knows how to use Microsoft Word (or even email) can immediately start producing repeatable, accurate, and dependable results for your organisation - with no training whatsoever. You can hire low-skilled staff on low-level pay to produce complex documents that, prior to now, only highly capable programmers or engineers within your team could serve up for you. What that really means for you, Mr Prospect, is that even with your high levels of staff turnover, you’re not going to see any interruption to your key workflow or publishing processes… the ones you rely on so heavily for your income, because the interface we have in our software is so simple that anyone can get to grips the new system quickly… and so it goes on. [meaning]

You get the idea, even though that example is a little bit “abstract”.

What we have here is the makings of a meaningful pitch. This software widget might not be standing for efficacy, power, and liberation… but it sure as heck is standing for something that is going to make our prospect’s business world a better, happier, and more profitable place - and that is enough to move our prospect towards the sale.

Let’s Recap:

Pitch 1: Weak. Based on feature.

Pitch 2: Better. Based on feature and benefit.

Pitch 3: Golden. Based on feature, benefit, and meaning

So for best results:

yes… sell your features
yes… sell your benefits

But the real magic is in the meaning!

Features + Benefits + Meaning = Powerful Copy

Here’s our “quick and dirty” formula:

State a feature, strap on a benefit, and then say “what that means to you is” and let your mind run free! Say it again, and again “what that really means to you is” say it again. (you can go back and delete all the ‘what that means to you is’ phrases at the end and tighten things up.)

All of that from just one benefit attached to one feature! We’ve dozens more to go!

Anyway, enough for the moment. Hopefully I’ve helped to solve a few copywriting problems with this post, and maybe even create a few EDITING problems in the process.

PS. Click here to view the Guy Kawasaki presentation in full (I picked this up from John Reese’s blog a few months ago, so a “tip of the cap” to him).

As I was catching-up on my reading this afternoon, I unearthed a golden nugget of information… and now I want to share my discovery with you. This nugget comes from “Early to Rise,” which bills itself as “The Internet’s Most Popular Wealth, Health and Success E-Zine.”

The article I’m going to quote to you from was written by Bob Bly (superstar copywriter) on 4 October 2007… in Early to Rise Issue No. 2164. Take it away, Bob:

My colleague Gary Hennerberg was called on by a company in Texas that sold mail-order fruitcakes. Fruitcakes weren’t selling like hotcakes (big surprise)… and they needed to boost orders.

Gary asked the bakery what ingredients were used, and, to his surprise, he found that these fruitcakes contained pecans. Not only that, but they were grown locally in Texas, on the banks of a river, where the moisture made them particularly flavorful.

Gary told the company to test a mailing calling the product “native Texas pecan cakes” instead of “fruitcakes.” They followed his advice… and fruitcake sales soared by 60 percent.

Let’s take a moment to examine what happened in this example…

Offer 1: Mr Prospect, I have some fruitcakes for you.

Response 1: Yeah, so? I don’t want your stupid fruitcakes.

Offer 2: Mr Prospect, I have some Native Texas Pecan Cakes for you.

Response 2: Let’s go! How many do you have left in stock?

There you have it… same product, different offer, wildly different results. It’s just like I’ve been trying to explain to you all along: your offer is more powerful than your copy.

This is how the best in the world get proven results time and time again.

Why am I telling you this? Well, I thought you might like a little “real time proof” that I don’t sit around making this stuff up in my bedroom when I get bored playing with my stuffed animals.

By the way, I’m going to write another blog post for you later tonight, this was just a little something “extra”.

If you want to check out Bob Bly’s blog then I link to it over on the right hand side. Bob doesn’t know me from Adam, I just “admire him from afar.”

I was asked to comment on the “aesthetics of writing” over at SEOmoz, and now I’m going to re-post my response here for anyone who missed it (or wasn’t following the thread).

Question:

Long copy sales letters have a very distinctive style, it seems. There is a lot of centered text, simple fonts, very little evident design, primary colors. Personally, this style makes me mistrustful of whatever is being sold simply because it looks “amateurish”. However, from the results, it looks like style/aesthetics are not an obstacle to people at all. Can you comment on the importance of aesthetics to getting results from people? In other words, do we as web professionals tend to overrate visual bells & whistles? Do aesthetics really play any role in users’ decision-making?

My Response:

“There seems to be an automatic response to attractive people. The response falls into the category that social scientists call “halo” effects. A halo effect occurs when one positive characteristic of a person dominates the way that person is viewed by others. And the evidence is now clear that physical attractiveness is often such a characteristic. For example: good-looking people are likely to receive highly favorable treatment in the legal system - the attractive defendants were twice as likely to avoid jail as the unattractive ones.” (Cialdini, P171 - 172)

My own view is that great design can give your website a “halo” effect that really “gets people on your side” and makes selling to them a lot easier, because great design can be the difference between a reaction of “oh, yuck” and “oh wow, I really want this to be good”.

It’s much simpler to sell to people when they are “for” you rather than “against” you, and that’s the key difference aesthetics can make. That said, every single design element on a page has to clearly justify it’s place… “bells and whistles” should only be included when they further the argument and offer some meaning that would not otherwise be possible without them.

Finally: the reason why a lot of simple, plain looking sales letters do so well is because when people go to a website they are hunting for INFORMATION, not a piece of beautiful-to-look-at “art”. However, when those simple looking sales letters are triggering an “oh yuck” reaction in the target audience (because of the association of simple looking sales-letters with con-artistry, let us say), and people don’t even begin to read the copy, then something has to change in order to help switch-off that conversion-rate-crushing initial reaction.

Readers,

It’s not my intention to use any “under the radar” tactics on you in this blog, so if you have any questions about what I’m doing in any of my blog posts… or any “techniques” I seem to be using… then please feel free to come right out and ask me. I’ll maybe make a blog post out of your question, but if not I’ll definitely reply to you by email.

Thanks

Paul

I want you to realise that the purpose of AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action), PAS (problem, agitate, solve)… and all of the other copywriting formulas… is only to help you arouse within your prospects the feeling that they absolutely must have the product or service being offered, and have it right now.

Just following an AIDA template doesn’t mean you will have aroused that “acquisitive” feeling. Please read that sentence again. Now, I’m going to write it again: just following an AIDA template doesn’t mean you will have aroused that “acquisitive” feeling within your prospects.

However, if you go through the great direct response advertising that has aroused the “buying” feeling… you will always find AIDA in everything you see written down.

Always.

This is why academic “book level” understanding can kill your advertising in an instant: people start to genuinely believe the magic is in AIDA and not the arousing of emotion and “states”.

Trust me, you are not “too intelligent” for the example I’m about to share with you (neither am I), but I can already feel it’s going to be wasted on you - because none of us appreciate the value of what comes easily in life now, do we?

No.

So, maybe you should just go ahead and write me a large cheque before you read on, hmn? I mean, for your own good… because then you might be willing to put old “mr ego” to one side, follow along, and actually appreciate the value of what I’m about to say.

What’s that you say? I’m treating you like a child? Well now… isn’t that a good idea.

Imagine I have 3 children. Child A, Child B, and Matilda. You can be Matilda in this example. All I feed you at the breakfast table in the morning is water - day, after day, after day. Plain, old, ordinary, tasteless tap water. I’m a bit of an a**hole, yes, but I do the minimum to keep it “legal”.

Now, one day, I decide that from now on I’m going to give all of you children a QUARTER (0.25) glass of orange juice for breakfast in the morning instead of plain old ordinary tap water, and this process of me giving you all orange juice around the breakfast table in the morning continues for a number of weeks.

How do you feel? STOP and think about it. STOP and think about it.

But the dark forces within me are strong Matilda, I can’t stay ‘pure of heart’ for long… and here is what I decide to do one day, I divide the orange juice up around the breakfast table as follows:

Child A: 1 full glass of orange juice
Child B: 1 full glass of orange juice
Matilda: HALF (0.5) a glass of orange juice.

How do you feel now, Matilda? How. Do. You. Feel?

The other kids have 1 full glass of orange juice and you only have HALF a glass. You’re all sitting around the kitchen table. And YOU only have half as much orange juice as everybody else - no explanation given. Picture it intensely, really feel it. How do you feel?

Now… here is my favourite question… WHY. Why do you feel this way?

After all you NORMALLY only get a QUARTER of a glass of orange juice, Matilda… and today you have HALF a glass of orange juice. That’s TWICE as much orange juice as what you had yesterday, isn’t it? What are you, some kind of an ungrateful child? What do you MEAN there is this feeling in the pit of your stomach that won’t go away? What do you MEAN you are feeling wanton desire? What do you MEAN you won’t rest until you sort this out. Logically you have more today than what you did yesterday… what’s the matter Matilda… don’t you understand LOGIC???

I tell you, kids really are ungrateful - I sure am glad I don’t have any of my own.

WELCOME TO THE ACQUISITIVE STATE. The goal of all advertising and selling (whatever the length or format) is to make you feel like Matilda feels with her half a glass of orange juice. Welcome to the BUYING STATE. The only way to top up your glass with the missing juice is to… you guessed it… open your wallet for me.

And that’s the ugly truth.

If you share my belief that the purpose of advertising is to sell (and not entertain, win awards, and so on) then here is a simple way for you to quickly test the offer at the very heart of your sales attempts (or even your competitors).

This little guardian angel is going to empower you to reject the advances of marketing bozos and bogus selling ideas almost instantly. And its going to let you do this with a butter-smooth confidence that might just have those around you wondering whether you are the very reincarnation of Claude Hopkins himself (yes, even if you’re a girl).

Speaking of Claude, do you know what the great man said when asked by a college professor for a little advice on how to improve college textbooks on advertising?

He said BURN THEM. But, that was a full 86 years ago now…

I don’t think he would be so polite today!

By the way, my inbox has been FLOODED with people asking me to review their current landing pages, websites, and other sales attempts.

I’m not going to be able to work with all of these people, or even most of these people… maybe I won’t even work with ANY of these people. I haven’t decided yet, to tell you the truth. I’m VERY fussy about who I work with, and I’m happy to wait for the right client to come along… even if that means I have to go out there and hunt one down myself!

You see, I can only work with one or two clients maximum at any given time… and there are plenty of savvy people in the world who understand that great copywriting is free (whatever the price), because it generates such an increase in sales and bottom line results that it makes the copywriters costs irrelevant… while, on the other hand, average copywriting can quietly be costing you and your business millions in lost sales (while you are oblivious to the fact this is going on).

Shameless scare-mongering? No, not really.

You don’t have to be a math professor to calculate some of the numbers over at SEOmoz, if you are looking for a very quick “proof of concept”. Read that again, I said “proof of concept”. I’m not making any wild claims about what I’ve done or not done for SEOmoz here. That contest was what it was (and it was a VERY helpful and instructive excercise, for sure), but I wasn’t the guy behind the curtain calling all of the shots on all aspects of the campaign (nor were any of the other contestants to be fair) and in the real world that is how things work. Or should work, if you want to be successful.

Now, I am not the greatest copywriter in the world either. I concede that. I wouldn’t put myself among the very elite group of people entitled to call themselves “world-class,” at this moment in time. I’m still a few years away from that level, but… fortunately for me… most of the people who are genuinely world-class are either a) dead b) retired c) swamped with work and not available for hire at any price d) working on their own projects and ventures.

And so on.

So what that means for you is… I’m very likely better than 99.99% of people you can hire.

I am becoming ever more certain of this… with each and every email I receive asking for my help with a page supposedly written by a “professional” that seems to pass customers by like a ship in the night - with a conversion rate of less than 1%.

It’s sad to see.

It is equally sad to see people trying to hawk products that are of no real value to anyone whatsoever.

Listen up good: I don’t want to hear from people running MLM scams, pyramid schemes, or any other type of con-show. Please don’t waste your time emailing me.

If… on the other hand… you do have something of real honest-to-goodness value to offer people and you are struggling to make the sale then I would love to hear from you. Even if we don’t end up working together I will still give you something of value.

In your email to me, please tell me a little about yourself, your business, your current numbers, your goals, your audience, your conversion rates and so on. The more information you can give me the better. The email address is paul at crediblecopy.org

Now, I promised you a quick way to “cut through the crap”. Well, let me introduce it this way…

ADVERTISING IS SIMPLY SALESMANSHIP MULTIPLIED

There are 3 key elements in any advertising sales pitch. In order of importance, they are:

1. The Audience
2. The Offer
3. The Copy

I’ll talk more about this another time, in the meantime just be a good reader and nod, because I’m running out of time here.

Now, let’s talk about that guardian angel of yours.

First reduce your OFFER to a single paragraph. I’m talking about your central selling idea, maybe even your USP, but ultimately it all just boils down to

What is the message at the core of your campaign?

It could be as simple as “If you give me £10, I will give you a haircut”

It could be as complex as “Ladies: If you give me £100, I will give you a haircut while your drink a glass of Savignon-Blanc to the sound of whale music… and what’s more, after we are done with your hair, we’ll throw in a free massage from our onsite masseur… and if Brad Pitt hasn’t wrapped a velvet blindfold over your eyes and whisked you away to a magical kingdom within 2 weeks of seeing this luscious new haircut… then… I will give you double your money back and a voucher for the finest restaurant in town. ”

Or maybe “For every additional 100 dollars of revenue I generate for your organisation, you give me 10 dollars.”

You get the idea.

Whatever your current offer is, just write it down. Be clear, be very specific, and be TRUTHFUL. I don’t say be truthful because it is the right thing to do (thats just an additional side benefit). I say be truthful because it will ultimately be the most PROFITABLE thing to do.

Anyway, it’s like David Ogilvy said…

WHAT YOU SAY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN HOW YOU SAY IT

Please don’t start quoting the Oxford University studies at me here, this is salesmanship in print… not face-to-face communication. I’ll talk more about this another time, too. Remember what a good reader does? That’s right, smile and nod.

What you say is more important than how you say it.

Sometimes great selling is just helping people say what they’ve got to say and cutting through the creative ka-ka. I mean, look around you at advertising and see how difficult it can be to actually figure out what people are trying to tell you half the time. It’s like cracking the Da Vinci Code.

So now that you’ve written down your offer clearly and specifically, we know WHAT you are saying to people in your advertising.

Now here is they key step:

I want you to CALL UP some people in your target audience, or as close to your target audience as you can get… and simply start READING YOUR OFFER OUT LOUD TO THEM OVER THE PHONE.

Or memorize it and SAY IT OUT LOUD to some people in your target audience face to face.

Within a VERY short space of time you are going to get a feel for whether or not your offer has any merit whatsoever.

If people are saying “Let’s Go!” “Come in for a chat” “What time are you available” then you have a winner. Because the entire purpose of selling is to get people to take the action you desire.

If people are saying anything else, such as “Yeah, so?”, “I like your offer”, “That’s pretty funny”, “That’s cool”, “I’ll get back to you” and so on… then what you have is a LOSER.

Why is this important? Well let me give you a classic example:

The government commission a big time ad agency to come up with a campaign discouraging people from smoking. For the modest price of $50,000 dollars they develop the slogan “Smoking: It’s a matter of life and breath!”.

The focus groups whoop and cheer and they laugh and they giggle. But yet, next years statistics show nobody stopped smoking…. in fact the numbers have gone UP accross every age group.

How can this be? Everybody LOVED what was being said.

Well, if anybody had taken the time to approach 100 smokers on the street and say that little slogan out loud to them then they would have realized very quickly that not ONE person in their target audience would have responded by saying LETS GO “I want to stop smoking”, “gee this really is a dangerous habbit”, and so on.

It would have been YEAH, SO? after YEAH, SO? after YEAH, SO? And maybe a punch in the face here or there for good measure.

Here’s what I’m saying: always keep reworking and reworking your offer until you hear LETS GO and not YEAH, SO?

Because when you get to the stage that you are actually SAYING SOMETHING that arouses that LETS GO feeling within people then… my friend… anyone with an ounce of common sense should be able to convey that successful core message in all of your advertising and bring in the money for your organisation.

MAKE SURE THEY PUT YOUR “LETS GO” OFFER FRONT AND CENTRE IN THE CAMPAIGN. Don’t let them bury it beneath creative nonsense.

Here’s the bottom line: your OFFER is more important than your COPY (and the audience is actually more important than both of those).

Worry less about your copy and more about your offer… The BIG IDEA, as it where. This is really easy to test (or at least get a feel for) and it can save your butt from all kinds of unnecessary trouble and pretend experts and ruined campaigns.