My Note Taking Nerd Report“Giving You The Edge!”

“What My Note Taking Nerd Learned InDan Kennedy’s Copywriting Mastery Course”

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Dan Kennedy - Copywriting Mastery

CD 01

Sometimes there are things that cannot be sold by copy. They are however veryrare.

You can also use sales copy to sell on your terms and how you want to do business.It is one thing to make money but another to make it how you want to do it.Marketing is half behavioral psych and the other is math. Human behavior isuniversal.

What Do We Do Before We Write:

Do a lot of research into competitors

- You just know what your competition is doing even if they are doing it wrong

- Answer all the ads you see to see what their letters are like, their premiums &bonuses, installment payments, etc.

Do a lot of research into comparables

- You also need to know about anyone who is selling to the same market, at thesame price point as you to your market or using the same methodology as you.

- Answer all the ads you see to see what their letters are like, their premiums &bonuses, installment payments, etc

Proof

- You need as much validation as you can get

- This section often includes the hook which the whole pitch is based around.

As you are collecting information about your clients, you must separate opinion fromfact. You must know how the really behave, what they respond to, what they don’trespond to, etc. You need to talk specifically to your market in their language withyour crafted message.

One of DK’s clients found that 74% of his clients were long haul truck drivers so hecreated a parallel business where it was specifically tailored towards truck driversand this runs in tandem with the generic. He now spends more on advertising totruck drivers so he advertises in trade journals, truck driver magazines, haveliterature put at truck stops and he advertises on country & western radio channels.

Joe Polish has found that people with companies that have the name Inc or Cleaningin their names are a lot more willing to buy from him.

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Looking for the Hook

Personal mission story is a good start.

- Glen Turners story was that he had a really hard hair-lip and his story was abouthow his family was very poor and his relatives were richer and they would go therefor Xmas dinner. He would ask Santa for a bicycle and he copied his relatives lettersand they would get the bike and he wouldn’t. After 5 years of this he breaks downand says screw Santa, he is going to be his own Santa.

- The premise is the gut wrenching emotional experience that has me doingthis thing that I want you to give me money for it. If you have a story likethis then you should use it.

James Bond Analogy

- Michael Kimble uses this hook to sell his seminar recordings. He alsore-uses it when they new Bond movie comes out. This linking to the familiar canwork wonders for you.

Establish Authority

This is something that is missed when you are constantly marketing to a prospectuniverse that you assume knows your story.

- We get tired of telling our own story and then stop using it

- You should tell your story every single time

Selling to your peers if often a tough situation. To some degree it takes a bit ofarrogance to do this.

- The only time DK hasn’t done well with his own speaking herd was when heneglected to include his story, credentials, accomplishment, etc.

- You may not like doing it but you must do it a lot.

- You must answer the questions of why should I listen to you and why should I listento you about how I should run my business.

- You may have to call them out on their bad behaviors such as procrastination

- You must lord all over them and don’t be modest.

- Don’t underestimate things like before/after story such as if you were broke beforebecause you want people to resonate with it.

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- The tougher the market the heavier the hand you have to be with thisDon’t slack off on this

CD 02Explaining What Something Is Not:

This should be used a lot

- Often used in business opportunity adsYou should keep swipes on weight loss and money making opportunity because

they often include the best copy of all.

- Trying to sell things that are unbelievable requires excellent copy that is extremelyuseful for things that are believable

The NOT list is the list of things that your prospects don’t want it to be

- Example: weight loss would include no exercise, not a diet and not prepackagedfood

- You need to get this list togetherAnother way of doing this is the WITHOUT List

- Example: Ways to lose weight without exercise, without going on a diet,Etc.

It Not Being Their Fault

Used a lot in weight loss

One of the first things DK does in his copy

Let the person off the hook

- No one wants to admit that the situation they are in is their responsibility

- The reason you are broke is....

Make it very clear that it isn’t their fault at allHave a blame factor in your copy and it must be somewhere else and not on the

prospectIt’s not your fault, You are a victim of the conspiracy of the .... industry

We all have very fragile self images and are easily wounded- Tell them the world is conspired against you-

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Sell From The Perspective Of Fear & Anxiety

Often easier to sell with fear than benefits

Sometimes it’s hard to sell without it

Have a Fear statement: summarizes the fear you which you want to stimulate inthem and hit them over the head with time and time again

- The opposite of this is prevention and is one of the hardest things to sellsuch as fire alarms

- You want to be as far away from prevention as is possible

Jeff Paul – Headlines

Buy a Red Book, Glamour or Cosmopolitan- Good examples for headline templates

- Example: Flat Abs Fast Your 10 Minute Plan could be changed to “QuickProfits Fast Your 10 minute Plan”

They laughed when...but it....- They laughed at my idea but it increased my pay by $4k a month

Use the words showed rather than taught because taught implies workUse sub heads to tell the whole story

Use bullets as mini headlines

You must have clarity in your copy, no guessing

Headlines, sub heads & bullets need to have emotional impact

Dan KennedyAnswering Questions & Objections

One of the most common objections is the how come my expert hasn’t toldme about this??

- How come no one has done this before?

- You need a pretty good answer to it

- You have to get at that they can’t trust anyone around them with historicalreferences to ineptitude

The use of a damaging admission

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- There is no such thing as a perfect product so ignoring it isn’t an option- When you acknowledge that something is wrong they will believeeverything else you say

- TJ Rohleder’s admission is that they get $32K worth of product and bonusesfor so little money and that they’re actually rounding this number waaaaydown and it’s actually worth more but because it already sounds too good tobe true they undervalued it!!

Reasons not-to copyYou want bullets that answer the reasons why they wouldn’t buy it

Risk Reversal

Most risk is more about emotional factors than actual financial concerns.This can all be addressed by guarantees.

Write really aggressive & bold guarantees

- From a competitive stand point you want to be doing things that yourcompetition is afraid of.

- The more you press the boundaries the better

- You can make guarantees sound better through language such asmore than your money back guarantee, money back plus you keep allthe bonus gifts, etc.

- Guarantee the sales letter won’t be a complete and total waste of your time. Italways bumps response

- Guarantee the appointments.- $10 bill & Fedex got a 30% response rate. Leave it and mail more!!

CD 03The Power Of The Common Enemy- Every group of your ideal prospects has someone they all hate

- It is a massive advantage to be on the same side

- Example: Harley Bikers & helmet law

- The most successful fund raising copy is stopping an enemy from doing something

- There is a demon that must be stopped

- The question is who can you attack that your prospects will enjoy

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- Example: Get clients as often as the sun rises and Clinton lies

- Carpet cleaners hate franchises, Oreck vacuum cleaners, competition.

If you don’t have a common enemy, manufacture one.

- Ad agencies are a universal one for small to medium sized business owners.

Romancing The Stone- This is making the mundane sound exciting

- Use the story of how it was discovered via the expense, trial & tribulations, pain &suffering, etc.

- Exotic location – used a lot in cosmetics

- Build an experience around it

- Story of the inventor

- Story of its user

- Story of how it is made

- Limitations

- Example: Swiss anti-aging cream secret learned from alpine mountaineers. Andthey say international research team rather than American. What so important aboutthe Swiss that makes them so happy & healthy?? This question puts people inagreement with the fabricated fact that the supposed cream mountaineers use forhigh altitude also keeps you young. If you want to get acceptance put it into aquestion.

- J. Peterman’s catalogue is a good example of this. He delivers a shoppingexperience.

Storytelling

Types of stories:

- The discovery story…

- The blackie story – Old past master is on his death bed and passes down hissuccess secrets to his one confidant.

- The first person “before & after” story – Charles Atlas – I was broke nowI’m rich

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- The troubled prospect – the story of the guru who is sitting at lunch who is a carpetcleaner and begs the guru to help him. The guru lists 3 things and his friend takesthe list and goes off and gets rich and now the guru feels he needs to tell everyoneafter being nudged by his friend

- 3rd Person testimonial - Really Skeptical to true believer

- Dramatic news story

- Celebrity story

- Be careful with stories as you don’t want them too long or the reader will getlost in them and forget to buy anything

Contest Entries

Insurance agent sells auto policies to current home owner policy holders

He has a 64% response on a 3 step sequence

He uses guilt in his copy

- The first letter comes from him- The second letter comes from a CSR who helps them with the policy.- The third letter is again from the CSR and it says you haven’t replied. I must havedone something wrong.

Kennedy assumed the prospects answered because they want to get the CSR out oftrouble

CD 04Q&A

DK uses template all the time and you can get any letter, get the guts andfill in the blanks. Leverage comes from recycling.

Don’t be shy about letting the prospect know you want their money

Don’t attack competition by name but you can attack it by category

If someone has an interest in what you are selling then there is no limit towhat they will read. Economics tends to be the factor in how long the copyis.

Cheap way to personalize direct mail is personalize the lift note and leavethe rest the same.

All Ads die as they are used over and over again. The best way to do it ishave a rotation system of ads that have fundamentally the same results.

- General tweaks are headlines changes

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- Change of paper color

- Joe Polish’s first full page ad lasted 2 years

- You usually don’t get much warning when they die because it is usually sudden

Contestants For a Prize of Best Campaign at The Seminar

Tom Schmidt - PhotographersThe mailer he does is for high school seniors

Has visual testimonials due to photographs

Born to play sequence got one complaint due to the sexiness of the youngwomen in the photo

- He used then used the complaint as a lead article in his newsletterHe profiles some of the students

He uses advertorial and long copy

Tom OrentGiant postcard

He marketed a seminar and made the bonuses meet the same price sothey effectively get the seminar for free

- A great strategy for seminars is to make the bonuses the sameor exceed the value of the main product

John Carlton

3 basic parts to writing:

1) TheatreHaving a piece that arrives in the prospects life can be the prospect’s most

exciting part of their day if it speaks to one of their dear passions, wants or needs.Lumpy mail

2) Salesmanship

- Bonding with prospects is essential

- Buzz words

- You have to get in bed with your market

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- They need to know how passionate you are about your productYou have to love humanity

What you sell is a dream

ProductIf your product does what you claim, then have swagger and be outrageous in

your advertisingCultivate your own edginess- the best writers are edgy

CD 053) The Hook

The hook is the part that grabs the reader and doesn’t let go

National Enquirer Headlines: Preacher Explodes On Pulpit, Boy EatsOwn Head

When looking for a hook, you are looking for human interest tid-bitsthat are unusual (accidental discovery), provocative (smuggled orstolen info), titillating (gossip worthy rumors) or intriguing (eccentrichabit).

You got your hook when you come across something that makes yousay – “you gotta be kiddin’ me”

Example is the one legged golfer ad

The other part of this is you need a genuine payoff. In this case it wasa balance secret for the golfer. You can’t be outrageous just for thesake of being outrageous.

Don’t stretch too far

A good hook is good for selling dry stuff

Tax Slashing Secrets Of A College Drop Out That Scares The IRS ToDeath

Local Carpet Cleaner Promises To Cure Your Allergies Or He WillClean Every Room In Your House For Free

Wife Of Auto Parts Store Owner From Swears Under Oath That SheDidn’t Use Sex To Get These Great Deals From Suppliers

Power Words

They pack an emotional wallop

They are generally adverbs

Use story telling verbs

Get rid of the adjectives

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- Bad writers rely on adjectivesHumiliate is a good word as everyone has a personal history with it

Rhythm of Copy

A cadence (de da - de da – de da)

I came – I saw – I conquered

It’s easy – It’s free - it’ll change your life

Always read your copy aloud first

If you do listen to music, listen to music without words

Copy should have a sing song quality

Reading is a passive behavior so you need to explain everything

TheatreDrama

1, 2 or 3 word subheads

It almost killed me...

Because he can...

By the time you finish reading this, I will be dead

Jesus Wept

Effective SlangMild swearing such as Kick Ass & Friggin’

Used for mild shock effect and keeping them engaged

Just you and me sitting down & talkingThis should be how your copy reads to the prospects

Write to one guy not to an niche

Personalize your stuff – Dear Joe & Mary

Selling The SimpleThe closer you get to the magic pill the better you will do

It’s not gonna take much time, effort or blood and tear, trialand error

Getting a how to book and not have to read it!!

2 Philosophies

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1) Write like you have a gun to your head2) Imagine your prospect as huge gelatinous blobs who will barely move to dobasic hygiene never mind get out their wallet and make a call. Your ad has to be socompelling that it has them busting free of their welding to the couch and doing whatyou ask them to.

BulletsThe heart and soul of the pitch is in the bullets

Write the bullets first

Write out the features and then the benefits

Do not misdiagnose the reason why people will buy from bullets.

Bullets consist of what your stuff offers the human being buying it. Neverunderestimate the greed or need of them. Offer solutions.

1-2 Punch bullets- 2 minute training techniques that is guaranteed to make you look ridiculouslysmooth and that will pump up your confidence 1000% over night

- New and simple exercises that install animal quickness directly into your nerves &muscles leaving it locked there until you need to spring it loose.

- You can keep almost keep everything in your current swing the same and justmake an easy, quick and single adjustment just by watching what Bobby has toshow you (implies you learn just by watching)

- What women really want from men but will never come outand tell you

2 Reasons People BuyThe emotional reasons that they use to pull out their wallet

- The rational reason they need to be able to tell their spouse, peers, etc

Q&AStar story solution is about making a star out of anybody

- Lazy geek from Arizona discovers....Celebrities are good for making a hook but you still need to do the

rest.If in doubt about names and gender, use Dear Friend.

CD 06Yanik Silver – Internet Copy

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The web is just another media

Don’t use italics or underlines on the web

Do use:- Bolding

- All CAPS very sparingly

- Yellow highlighter

- Shaded Boxes

- Don’t use ridiculous colors

- Use dark blue, red colors and black textUse Arial, times new roman or courier fonts

Testimonials

- Put a big emphasis on testimonials

- Put best ones up front as people are very skeptical when browsing

- Use pictures with themDon’t have them scrolling left to right

Don’t have the cliffhangers for next page, just have a long letter

Have your website to load quickly

Make money link for Affiliates

You need stuff on your site that establishes you as a real person (pic, address ofyour office, etc.)

Call to action should be strong and be explicit

- Click hereLift Note

- Have more testimonials and answer objectionsSecondary responses

- You need to capture name & email address by getting them to sign up for any kindof gift or newsletter that keeps them in the loop about your site.

- If cash is a problem try this…

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- Let people select their own price

- Save $100 and get the cd rom version

- Try it now for $1 dollarHave upsells on your order form

Have upsells on an intermediate page

Have pop ups that look like system folders

Q&AUse Elance.com to outsource

Drive traffic to your site using- Affiliate network & viral ebooks- Search engines- Publicity & articles for ezines- Director of ezines.com and you submit articles for publishing

He only gives away free content to capture email

EmailCan create cash on demand

Website is passive but email is active. Like a village in the desert and you need tobuild roads to get there.

3 Critical components of an email

1) Subject LineCuriosity

Straight to the point – announcing product

Same as Headlines

Don’t use dollar signs more than one time

Don’t use multiple exclamation marks

Don’t use ALL CAPS

2) From fieldAvoid having a company name or sales@ or offers@

Should be from a name

3) Opening paragraphGood idea to restate your relationship

- Hi John, It’s Yanik from Instant Sales Letters again

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Use stories & hooks- I stumbled on something interesting recently

Jeff PaulCopywriting Checklist

Headlines- Do I Have Multiple Headline Ideas Written Down

- Make sure they reflect the copy

- Will the offer & guarantee be in the headline (such as free reportreveals.......)

- Quotations on headlines (possibly bump response)

- Bolded headline

- Lead In Headlines & Follow Up Headlines

- Diary of a frustrated financial Planner (came from Diary of a Lonely Housewife1920’S Ad)

USP- Why should I buy from you??

- The Why Me Story.

- The USP should stand alone. Ask your clients specifically what they like about.

- Can be based on an experience or reframed service

- If you are just delivering products & services you have problems in that you arecommoditizing yourself. Provide your clients an “Experience” to overcome this.

- Example that is JP’s wife goes in to get an oil change, when she gets back the caris also slightly serviced, washed and polished and there is a CD in the player thatexplains what they have done.

Envelopes- Hand addressed

- Live stamp

- Plain white envelope

- Return address hand written

- If you are going to do teaser copy cover the entire envelope

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- Magalog – letter without envelopeGuarantees

- More than your money back guarantee

- The more outrageous the guarantee the better the bottom lineOffer

- Offer Basic vs DeluxeBelievability

- Who are you and why should people believe you

- Empathy – will cut through all the barriers to gaining trust

- Get your best clients to get testimonials for you from other Clients. JP has aclient that calls his testimonials spokespeople

Dan KennedyLead Generation

Closest thing is a personals ad

The effectiveness is either helped or hinder by how much you are willing to repel

- The more you are willing to do this the better the ad willperform in delivering the targeted profile

A lot has to do with the leads when you get them

- Do you have the infrastructure to handle them??

- If not you want to narrow the door so it’s a slam dunk when you get themDefine who you want & who you don’t want

- The more specific the ad the fewer but more qualified leads, the higher the CostPer Lead but the higher the conversion rate and less work to convert them.

- Why they should pay attention

- What the offer is

- Exactly what you want them to do

- An additional reason to do it now not laterMistakes

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- Whether it’s a free appointment or free offer the mistake is assuming it’s going tobe easy because it’s free.

- You have to actually sell the free appointment just as hard as you would the paid.

- There needs to be a benefit for the prospect from the free stuff whether theinteraction goes further or not- It’s important to sell the free appointment first and not get ahead of yourselfand try to sell the step after

You have to make a decision whether to disclose if you are trying to make a saleor not. No disclosure is a blind approach

When being specific with your ad have testimonials only fromthe target prospect and have the correct language

If you have 6 target markets then rewrite your pitch for each one

Second Notice Letters

Take letter no. 1 and junk it up- Sloppy Handwritten blue margin notes (the sloppier the better)

- Circle, asterisks and stars

- Black underlining and

- Yellow Highlighter

Rewrite the opening (acknowledging you are turning up again) and end (uppingthe ante, change the offer around) and leave the middle the same

Write the entire piece in a different voice. Keep everything else the same but in awife’s voice, clients voice, kids voice, another experts voice. If it was first personbefore, it’s third person now

Isolate a different benefit and make it the focus.

- If you emphasized the guarantee last time, then you emphasize the price drop thistime and swap them around

If you did a good job with subheads, all you have to do is rearrange the letter

Keep it the same and just ad a lift note or other loose pieces

Put the letter on a CD and sent them the CD

Sometimes just change the appearance of the piece and none of the copy

- Change color of paper

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- Appearance of envelopeTo get more life out of your full page ad is to make it half size and surround it with

testimonials

Second or Third Notice ThemesFrankly I’m puzzled…

Are you lost? Shall we send out the search party…

I am very concerned…

Only X number of reasons you wouldn’t have responded

- One of them is money and this is where you introduce a further discountBoy are you stubborn but so am I…

Testimonial piece where he got 67 pieces from the guy and how the guy didn’tgive up on him and now he is rich because of it

The Mouse letter in Dartnells

- Should be personalized stationary and handwritten

- Could be a clients wife or your wife

- EmployeeI haven’t heard from you but it’s probably not your fault…

- Give reasons such as unreliable post office

How To Do Interviews

Outline of interviewsDK gives them the questions but doesn’t script the answers because the

interviewee will sound like it’s scripted

FormatsCopy doesn’t stand alone

You want to control the environment in which your copy is read

The cosmetic appearance and format is as important as the copy itself

Stuff to think about:- Pages end in incomplete sentences on a cliff-hangar

Yellow legal paper (mr memo)

- Has massive readership rate as people can’t seem to not read it

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Placemat mailing (Bill Glazer)

- Tri fold self mailer that looks like a cafe place mat with stains and all

- Piece is handwritten

- Inside is the pitchJoe Polish fake movie poster

- Pitch on back

- He uses it as the 8th step for his bootcamp

- The purpose of the front is to get more people to read theback

Rory Fatt fake newspaper tear-sheet

- Trade Publication ad and is now a tearsheet with a post-it on it saying “saw this andthought you might want to see this – J”

- Recent law is that the post-it note must say advertisementTry this it works – J post it note on tear-sheet works best. Has to

be handwritten with blue ink and at the same time.Pay attention to the big players Agora, Rodale, Boardroom Reports, etc.

Advertorial- Gets higher readership because it looks like an article

Trying postcards to move to a website which has the sales letter that wouldn’t fiton the postcard

Give yourself deadlines to write copy fasterDK writes to the clock or page count or by section

The work expands into the time available to do it so you need deadlines

He also narrows the categories with in which he works

JP had an extensive swipe file

DK figures out what the end of the letter is like first and he works backwardsA pitch that works somewhere else other than paper he wants to hear it.

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