Author: prug8

For the past week or so…

I’ve been rereading the Boron Letters by Gary Halbert.

You can read this online for free or get the Kindle version.

A while ago, I printed out the online version, so I had a hard copy to read.

Then I decided to purchase the Kindle version.

I’m currently on chapter 14 of the Kindle version and Gary’s son Bond explains how his father and other top copywriters usually keep a power word list.

He recommends NOT to just use their lists. Like diets, words come in and out of fashion.

The best way is to build your own power word list by looking at tabloids and make a list of the words in the headlines that really suck you in.

For instance, “crisis,” which is a great replacement for problem.

Once you’ve done this then you want to divide your words into positive and negative.

And look through your list right before you begin to write your copy.

You can use your power words to help replace more boring words in all your copy.

So if you haven’t got a power word list then you need to get one.

From writing sales pages to emails, these power words will really help you write better copy.

Zaf.

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For the last hour or so, I’ve been taking a look at my past emails.

I’ve been slacking a bit on recording the last 7 days’ emails I’ve been sending out.

Usually, I added them to a couple of spreadsheets, one for the date I sent the email out and the subject.

And the other with the subject line, link to the email in my autoresponder and then color coded for how well it did…

A couple of nights ago now my wife and me were watching TV.

When a bizarre TV commercial came on for KFC.

If you’re in the UK, you most likely have seen it.

I can’t remember much from the ad except for a giant golden egg.

And a man dipped into a lake of something.

(That I now know is gravy, but at the time I didn’t realize that, lol.)

When me and the wife saw this, we looked at each other and said…

“what the fuck?”

That made absolutely NO damn sense whatsoever.

According to the Mail Online, this new bizarre KFC advert is a man being “Baptized By Gravy” …

And has sparked hundreds of complaints over claims it ‘mocks’ Christianity.

The UK ad is titled ‘All Hail Gravy’ and depicts a man being baptized in a lake of gravy before transforming into a human-sized chicken nugget.

And it is said to also feature religious language.

Including fried chicken being ‘divinely dunked’ into gravy, and ends with the words:

‘Believe in Chicken.’

The advertising watchdog… said that complaints also included people saying that it mocks Christianity and baptism.

Glorifies cult and satanism, and even promotes cannibalism.

I must admit, when I watched the ad, I did think:

“Why on earth would I want to be reminded of eating a human being?”

I don’t eat KFC, but that ad certainly wouldn’t convince me to try eating KFC. Nope, not one bit.

I think they’ve more money than sense…

God knows what their marketing department where thinking.

For big companies like these, they can afford to make big blunders.

Dan Kennedy would call this sort of advertising brand-building.

And there’s no real way to measure these sorts of ads.

Zaf.

P.S. Get on my list and get this free video…

The New Way To Create Multiple Streams Of Long-Term, Passive Affiliate Commissions.

Beginner-Friendly – No prior experience, products, or technical skills are required.

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I’ve spent most of today in the back garden.

Enjoying the sunshine and mowing the back and front lawns.

It’s been nice to catch some rays, although the weather forecast for Notts in the UK looks pretty wet from Tuesday onwards.

If you ever get stuck for ideas for emails, ads or even sales letters…

Then you might find these three simple and reliable techniques that I learned from Ben Settle… a real help.

Ben uses these to generate almost unlimited ideas for anything he works on.

I must admit that I’d forgotten about these, that is, until I was flipping through them.

So, the three ideas are:

✅ Reading diverse subjects.
Such as “junk” publications. Like the National Enquirer – a copywriting book like Breakthrough Advertising, then something inspirational. (It’ll take you about an hour to do this.)

✅ Take a long, hot shower and let your mind wander. And have a way to capture your ideas.

✅ Play a video game for half an hour to an hour a day, a few days a week and keep a pen and paper beside you.

For number 3, Ben gives an example of when he was writing an ad for an audio program, so while he was playing his video game, he was listening to one of the audio’s.

And according to Ben, this lets him completely internalize whatever he’s learning about.

And the most important part?

It gives him all kinds of ideas, themes and strategies, and even whole snatches of copy he can use in his promotion…

…out of nowhere.

(Doing this keeps the conscious mind distracted with playing the video game, allowing the subconscious to work on the problem.)

Although I haven’t yet tested these methods. I do something similar to numbers one and two on his list.

And do get a lot of different ideas.

Ben says this is most effective when you do all three.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

Zaf.

P.S. Get on my list and get this free video…

The New Way To Create Multiple Streams Of Long-Term, Passive Affiliate Commissions.

Beginner-Friendly – No prior experience, products, or technical skills are required.

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At the moment, it’s a lovely sunny 15 degrees.

Though I haven’t seen much of the sun today, as I’ve been working away at my desk.

In his Boron Letters, Gary Halbert says.

“The very first thing you must come to realize is that you must become a “student of markets.”

Not products. Not techniques. Not copywriting. All these things are important, and you must learn about them.

But the first and the most important thing you must learn is what people want to buy.”

There’s a true story that Gary Halbert tells in his Boron Letters…

That goes:
“Once upon a time, a beer company did a survey to find out which of their products customers preferred, and you know what?
​
To their astonishment, they found that 80% or so of the people they surveyed preferred their premium beer as opposed to their regular beer.”

Now I bet you’re wondering… so, why were they astonished?

Quite simply, this.

Their sales figures showed that most people DIDN’T buy their premium beer, nope.

The opposite was true… it showed that they bought the regular beer, NOT the premium.

What the heck?

Now you might be wondering, why did they say one thing when doing the opposite?

Well, this is quite common.

You see, the surveyed people were trying to give the “right” answer. And so they put down as an answer the beer they felt they SHOULD DRINK.

And this is quite a common thing in surveys… hence why you shouldn’t take survey results at face value.

How do you find out what people actually buy?

By looking at marketplaces that are already selling what you want to sell.

Platforms such as WarriorPlus and ClickBank show you what’s selling.

And you could check for adverts that are repeatedly shown either online or offline. This gives a clear indication that the product or service is being sold.

Zaf.

P.S. Get on my list and get this free video…

The New Way To Create Multiple Streams Of Long-Term, Passive Affiliate Commissions.

Beginner-Friendly – No prior experience, products, or technical skills are required.

For more details, see the link in my profile…

So far, the weather app prediction for this coming week has been pretty much spot on.

It’s another sunny day here in Notts.

There are three essential parts that you need to make sure you get right in your marketing.

Even getting ONE of these wrong means your marketing will fail.

And that applies to whatever media you use for your marketing…

Dan Kennedy refers to this as the Magnetic Marketing Triangle.

That has three building blocks, each of which you can imagine as a side of a triangle.

These are:

✅ Message – You need a truly compelling and preferably irresistible marketing message.

✅ Market – High-probability target marketing that identifies those most likely to respond.

✅ Media – The most appropriate, effective combination of media used to deliver your message to the market.

There’s no order these can be placed in, as one isn’t more important than the other.

You need all three for your marketing to succeed.

Once you find your “starving crowd” (which I touched on in yesterday’s email). Then you need to choose your target market.

The idea, though, is NOT to go after everyone.

Dan says that most people use “throw mud at the wall” marketing, hoping some of it will stick.

That somehow the right people are either going to see or hear it.

It’s a far better approach to narrow your marketing. Focus only on the people most likely to buy what we have to offer.

Besides knowing the demographics and geographics of your target market. You also need to know the psychographics.

Demographics and psychographics will allow you to create your ideal customer profile.

How do you determine the psychographics of your target market?

By asking yourself questions like:

1. What keeps them awake at night, staring at the ceiling, unable to fall asleep, as it relates to your product or services?

2. What are they frustrated about?

3. What is the single biggest problem that you can solve for them?

Once you’ve got the psychographics…

…then you can look at the message.

Getting the psychographics for your target market will help you craft the right message…

that you can then use in all your marketing.

Zaf.

P.S. Get on my list and get this free video…

The New Way To Create Multiple Streams Of Long-Term, Passive Affiliate Commissions.

Beginner-Friendly – No prior experience, products, or technical skills are required.

I was reading through an article I found in a book.

Ben Settle describes how Gary Bencivengo gave him a slender little volume.

And Gary’s mentor (advertising “legend” David Ogilvy)… said it changed his life and urged all his employees to read it once a year.

That book?

Obvious Adams

(This is a fictional story of a successful advertising man. And a short read.)

Although a fictional story…

Ben says:

“It’s easily one of my most valuable (and profitable) info products.”

And he gives a few lessons that can be learned from this book, one of them being…

Mastering The Fundamentals, Not The “Tricks”.

The story of Obvious Adams starts off with two men entering a restaurant when one of the men notices Obvious Adams sitting at a table by himself.

Looking over at obvious Adams and saying how “ordinary” he looked, considering he’s the most talked about man in the advertising business.

And one of them even says:
“I’ve heard him speak two or three times at the Adleague meetings, but he never said anything that we didn’t know already.
​
He seems to have a lot of people buffaloed, though.
​
I confess he was a disappointment to me.”

Ben basically says this happens all the time.

Most people want to learn the “cool” stuff and skip over the fundamentals.

What most people don’t realize is that the most successful marketers never stop mastering the fundamentals.

Sure, they still get temporarily distracted by the new fads and “tricks”…

But they’re ALWAYS going back over the fundamentals. And honing their skills to a razor-sharp edge.

Unfortunately, too many people become disappointed.

And it’s easy to get distracted by all the gurus online who, half the time, don’t know what they’re talking about.

Zaf.

I was reading through an article I found in a book.

Ben Settle describes how Gary Bencivengo gave him a slender little volume.

And Gary’s mentor (advertising “legend” David Ogilvy)… said had changed his life and urged all his employees to read it once a year.

That book?

Obvious Adams

(This is a fictional story of a successful advertising man. And a short read.)

Although a fictional story…

Ben says:

“It’s easily one of my most valuable (and profitable) info products.”

And he gives a few lessons that can be learned from this book, one of them being…

Mastering The Fundamentals, Not The “Tricks”.

The story of Obvious Adams starts off with two men entering a restaurant when one of the men notices Obvious Adams sitting at a table by himself.

Looking over at obvious Adams and saying how “ordinary” he looked, considering he’s the most talked about man in the advertising business.

And one of them even says:
“I’ve heard him speak two or three times at the Adleague meetings, but he never said anything that we didn’t know already.
​
He seems to have a lot of people buffaloed, though.
​
I confess he was a disappointment to me.”

Ben basically says this happens all the time.

Most people want to learn the “cool” stuff and skip over the fundamentals.

What most people don’t realize is that the most successful marketers never stop mastering the fundamentals.

Sure, they still get temporarily distracted by the new fads and “tricks”…

But they’re ALWAYS going back over the fundamentals. And honing their skills to a razor-sharp edge.

Unfortunately, too many people become disappointed.

And it’s easy to get distracted by all the gurus online who, half the time, don’t know what they’re talking about.

Zaf.

P.S. Get on my list and get this free video…

The New Way To Create Multiple Streams Of Long-Term, Passive Affiliate Commissions.

Beginner-Friendly – No prior experience, products, or technical skills are required.