Copywriting Tip...Sometimes It's the "Simple" things!

Howdy Ya'll...(That's Texan for Hello) ;-)

Anyway, I'm constantly amazed at how many times I forget about the "Basics" of creating a great sales letter. Instaed of doing some simple "flipping" techniques to increase the response, I seek other sources like, swipe files, new testimonials, premiums, bonuses etc. from OTHER pieces.

But here's the reality. many times all you need is variation of what's in your CURRENT control to increase sales. Let me explain what I mean. Recently I was trying to boost response to a sales letter for a particular client, and NOTHING was working. I was going through my plethora of past sales letters, bonuses, premiums, testimonials, EVERYTHING was dumped out the floor of my office. It truly looked like a scene from the movie TWISTER. Then it hit me...

Why not LEAD OFF with all the BONUSES! Basically, flip the letter, and make it a BONUS driven sales letter. I knew I had done this type of "flip" with several letters, but like many of us, I got so caught up in the CREATIVE process, I forgot about simplicity!

Results: Just by flipping this control to a "Bonus" driven piece, I got 40% increase in response. It took me MAYBE an hour to make this change in the control. So, once again, I had to teach myself a valuable lesson. I had to remind myself NOT to over complicate the creative. From now on, my first attempt to beat my control, will be re-arranging content, NOT re-inventing the creative.

I know this won't work in every case, and you can only "flip" copy so many ways in the same control. But hey, when you've got several pieces you're trying to bump the response rate on, why not give it try first. It could save you weeks of arduous, mind-numbing creative on the same piece.

Hope this saves some of you from pulling your hair out, and having past sales letter controls stacked to the ceiling.

Sometimes, it the simple things,

Mike Van Norden


Click Here for FREE Publicity/Marketing Tips!

That's an interesting idea. Another one might be to test the amount of bonuses that appear in your offer. I know of some people who have done some testing in this area. They claim that offering too many bonuses decreases the perceived value of the purchase, and will reduce your number of sales. If you wanted to test it yourself I wrote an article on Split Run Testing With Content Rotation. It utilizes a free CGI script and some SSI to rotate content on one page so you can dynamically test offers and get the results of the testing fast.

Anyone else who wishes to test this or Mike's theory can view the article. It isn't a sales pitch - just an article I wrote for my newsletter.

Best Regards, Steve MacLellan




Split Run Testing With Content Rotation

and Steve, thanks for linking to the article.

I can't wait to TEST some promotions we have upcoming. You know mine aren't exactly the normal kind, so I'll be interested to find out which type of a promotion works best for each segment of our readers.

Very interesting. This will be FUN.

Thanks for sharing.

Gordon Alexander

PS. Steve gives some of the best advice on things I don't even pretend to understand (computers for one) at his own interesting forum. Visit when you have time.

http://homebusiness-websites.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi


Steve MacLellan

FLIPPING WORKS.

Read Mike's post again. You'll learn some valuable marketing techniques.

More real world examples:

One offer to senior golfers for a "rubbing" balm, to use before and after the round of golf, to relieve aches and joint pain.

BONUS: Sample of Glucosamine/Chondroitin product.

Extra BONUS: Audio program on better golf.

FLIPPED: The JOINT deal as the offer, the balm as the bonus.

FLIPPED AGAIN: The GOLF TAPE as the offer, the BALM and/or the joint pain as bonuses.

ANOTHER example. Newsletter as a bonus when buying a course on remote direct marketing.

FLIPPED: The Newsletter as the offer...select videos as the bonus.

Thanks Mike for revealing the flipping technique.

For more sound and tested marketing/promotion advice, visit Mike at www.free-publicity.com

HE is an old pro you can learn from.

Alexander (the flipper) Gordon...




FREE PUBLICITY DOT COM