As a MarketingForSuccess.com subscriber, you already know that headlines are the key to successful sales letters, web copy and email copy.

But if you’re like many business owners or marketers, you probably struggle when trying to come up with great headlines. The truth is, so do most copywriters.

That’s why good copywriters spend around 80% of their time on a promotion writing the headline.  To give you an idea of what that means, I’ll spend entire days working on the headline for a sales letter or website.  In some cases, I write hundreds of drafts.  I test every possible variation until I find the one that “clicks”. Read More »

Let’s be honest. Even prolific writers have bad days when they can’t seem to hit their stride. Not to mention business owners who avoid writing unless they have to!

Sometimes the words just flow. (Isn’t that the best?) And other times… well.

So what do you do when writing feels like pulling a 10-ton truck? How do you prime the pen and get the ink flowing?

Here are three ideas that work like a charm… Read More »

If you’ve heard of Neuro Linguistic Programming or NLP for short, then you’ve no doubt seen it touted as an almost magical way to persuade people to do almost anything. Some NLP teachers play along with those false claims while others are more truthful about what NLP can do.

Now I’m by no means an NLP expert, but I am quite familiar with many of its concepts and strategies for making your communication more effective. Probably the most popular strategy that is equated with magically persuading people is what’s called an “embedded command”. What is an embedded command? Read More »

Do you want to write profitable copy? Then think like someone lost in the desert.

Allow me to explain. Imagine that you’re lost in the Sahara desert.  The sun is beating down.  You desperately need water and shade.  In fact, if you don’t get both soon, you might not survive.

And time is getting short.  Your throat is dry. Your lips are cracked.  You’re fighting to stay on your feet. Read More »

If you’ve ever wanted to write headlines and sales letters that attract readers like fruit flies to overripe bananas, then this article will be extremely important to you.

Here’s why:

I’ve been able to attract hundreds of readers to my blog posts and sales letters by using a stupid little “mind trick” that almost anybody can learn. Read More »

Today having a money back guarantee in your ads, web copy, emails and sales letters is mainstream. It’s expected of you. But rattling off a guarantee isn’t as effective as it used to be.

Perhaps you’ve already discovered this. In this article, I’m going to show you several types of guarantees you can use and how to leverage your guarantee as a point of value.

Typically, the longer the money back guarantee, the less refunds you’ll end up having. The reason why is because people Read More »

It seems business owners who understand the power of sales copy are most interested in learning all the “advanced” copywriting tips. Unfortunately, the advanced stuff doesn’t do you much good if you don’t understand the essence of copywriting.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that the essence of copywriting may be a whole lot simpler than you think. I’ll get to that in a minute. First, let me tell you a little story… Read More »

Creating a compelling sales letter or ad can be looked at as turning lots of small “yeses” into one big “YES!” That big “YES!” being an order for your product or service. Here’s how this works.

Just as in direct sales, you want to get the prospect to start agreeing with you early on. You start off by building rapport, which makes them more agreeable with you. Then you utilize various questioning strategies to get them to nod their head in agreement or verbally state that they agree with you so far.

And you keep pursuing that agreement, asking questions to make sure the two of you are on the same page until you ask for the order. Read More »

If you’ve ever tried to write a sales letter or space ad, then you know from experience that it’s easy to make mistakes.

And it’s easy to forget critical copy elements.

With that in mind, here are “7 Deadly Copywriting Sins” I frequently encounter.

Deadly Copywriting Sin #1: Hyped-Up Headlines

It’s often a good idea to make a strong promise or challenge a common belief in your headline. But it’s not a good idea to cross the line into hype.

How do you know when you’ve crossed the line? Read More »

Pain is the key to profits. It’s vital that you understand this when you’re creating sales letters, landing pages and ads. Many people create ads by tossing out a bunch of benefits and hoping something sticks. This is a big problem especially with beginning copywriters. In copywriting and sales, you’re taught to find the benefits and promote the benefits of your product or service that you’re selling.

However, you have to understand the right way to do this. Read More »