The Clip Show

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I was watching a Seinfeld rerun the other day. The entire episode was made up of clips from previous episodes.  I found myself laughing along, even though I’ve seen most of these scenes 10 times each. Appropriately enough, the title of this Seinfeld episode was “The Clip Show.”

These “clip shows” must be easy for the show’s writers! Just take the best scenes from all the past seasons and run those. These shows often get the highest ratings too.

Lately I’ve noticed serious TV dramas such as “Lost” and “Battlestar Galactica” are using the clip show idea. It’s a way to bring in new viewers who might have missed the previous seasons and need to catch up.

Some of the storylines in these TV dramas are so complicated, even dedicated regular viewers of these shows (like me) enjoy getting a refresher!

Now, nothing I’ve written to you is part of a complicated storyline. But I think I have sent you some interesting ideas.  And it’s possible you missed a couple episodes, especially if you are new here…

So I’m going to give a quick “clip show” of my blog posts over the last 12 months:

Gary Halbert’s Favorite Ads: The 19 “must-have” ads for your swipe file…

http://theryanmcgrath.com/2010/04/gary-halberts-favorite-ads/

My Exclusive Interview with Copywriter/Novelist Richard Armstrong…

http://theryanmcgrath.com/2010/10/interview-copywriternovelist-richard-armstrong/

How To Find an Endless River of Copywriting Ideas: Using a simple but unknown feature of Google…

http://theryanmcgrath.com/2010/06/find-endless-river-copywriting-ideas/

Two Killer Opening Lines for Your Next Sales Letter or Ad: And also for your emails, blog posts, etc…

http://theryanmcgrath.com/2010/09/killer-opening-lines-sales-letter-ad/

My Interview with the Legendary Denny Hatch, The Method Marketing Man…

http://theryanmcgrath.com/2010/10/interview-denny-hatch-method-marketing-man/

That’s all for now. You can find all my past posts on my blog, if you want to check them out.

Thanks for reading and stay in touch!

Ryan McGrath

PS: I’m currently booked up with copywriting projects. But if you can wait 2-3 months, I might be able to help you with a sales letter or email copywriting…if you qualify. Since I’ve got a full plate right now, I can be selective. For example, if you are selling an information product, like a book or a newsletter, I’ll put you near the top of the list.  If you are interested in my services, your best bet is to leave me a voicemail at 616-439-0320 with details about your project.

John Forde of The Copywriter’s Roundtable, part 3

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This is part 3 of my interview with John Forde of The Copywriter’s Roundtable…

RYAN: You’ve got a new book on sales letter leads coming out. Without giving too much away from the book…Do you have any advice for starting a sales letter, i.e. the lead, or the first sentence after the salutation?

JOHN: Yes… buy the book! Ha… well, you might need to wait a little longer for that. So here’s a short version: Surprise your reader in a simple, relevant way. The lead is your first moment to shine and your last chance to stop a prospect long enough to convince them you’ll say something worthwhile.

You’re asking a reader to put his or her life on hold, after all. So the opening of your letter better contrast sharply with anything they’re hearing or seeing somewhere else. That contrast isn’t enough, though, because you need to sustain that feeling of surprise into the lead and all the way through to your offer page. That’s where simplicity and relevance start to matter. The clearer your message and the closer it is to the prospect’s emotional core, the better.

Then the idea of the book is that you can pull this off a lot more easily than you might think. My co-author and I spent a lot of time going through winning direct response samples and studying leads. We’ve come up with six clear “formulas” for lead types that seemed to have succeeded most often.

That might be surprising when you think about how many millions of sales letters get mailed any given day. But think about how many novels or movies are out there. And yet they all fall into a very small set of story types. How many different ways has the Romeo-and-Juliet story been told or those Horatio Alger rags-to-riches tales?

We’ve taken the same idea and applied it to sales letters. It’s been pretty fascinating for us, too, because we’ve had to revise the list as we came to understand it better ourselves — that’s the reason the book has taken so long — and now I categorize new copy as a reflex. I also think of it as one or more of the categories when I start. Only certain kinds of leads go well with certain kinds of products. Having those templates to work with makes it much easier to choose where to begin.

RYAN: Where can people go to learn more about you?

JOHN: If you like wine, beer, or coffee… you can always meet me for any of those at a Paris cafe. Or you could probably ask any of my old girlfriends. They’d give you an earful. Short of that, have a look around at http://copywritersroundtable.com. You’ll find the obligatory “about me” page but I also post excerpts from what’s now nearly a decade of past issues, plus an opportunity to sign up free for my weekly e-letter. Naturally, I ran ads in the letter. But it’s also something I write just for fun and to stay on top of what’s going on in the copy world. So you can get plenty out of it even if you never spend a nickel toward sponsors (wait, did I just say that out loud?)

RYAN: Thanks John for a fantastic interview! Looking forward to reading your new book.

John Forde of The Copywriter’s Roundtable, part 2

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This is part 2 of my interview with John Forde of The Copywriter’s Roundtable…

RYAN:  Do you think there are too many courses on copywriting, direct marketing and Internet marketing on the market today?

JOHN: Ha… well, maybe. But isn’t that a little like asking if there are too many English classes in high school or pizza shops in Manhattan? If there’s a market for the output, there’s a market. And in this like any other biz, if what’s offered is worth the price, it will stick around. And if not, well… we’ve seen plenty of copy course offerings come and go.

I look at your question in a few ways.

First, that the general principles of selling are essential to so many things that I believe everybody could get a lot of benefit in a lot of ways from understanding how to persuade. And not just for business applications. It changes the way you tell and understand stories, communicate in relationships, and more. They’re worth learning and reinforcing in as many ways as you can.

That said, sure, there are some teachers out there that know this stuff cold and teach it well. There are others out there that no less than they pretend to know and aren’t so great at teaching what little they’ve mastered. A great litmus test is finding out how actively the marketer or copywriter is involved in plying their trade in businesses besides those that offer copy instruction.

You wouldn’t trust a swim coach who’s never gotten in the pool. I recommend you only get copy instruction from the copywriters who have actively — or still actively — work to sell products and shape live businesses with their skills, in a variety of fields.

Fortunately, there are a lot of great instructors out there today. I don’t want to start plugging them in this spot because I don’t want to slight the ones I’ve missed, but also fortunately, most of them use the smart Internet marketing model of letting you start your relationship with them free, via an e-letter and other ways to sample what they do.

Before you commit to any of them, read the free offerings and get on the forums. You’ll find the same handful of great resources mentioned over and over again.

RYAN:  What are your thoughts on some of the backlash against “Internet Marketing gurus” you’re starting to see online?

JOHN: See above, really. I think it’s like anything. A field that’s successful attracts the good and the bad alike. And eventually, it matures to the level where the market starts working to filter out the quality offerings. Every product has a fan and a detractor. But the good ones tend to tip the scales toward positive reviews and the bad ones tip it the other way. It’s perfectly natural, in my opinion.

RYAN: It seems like I’m getting less offers in the mail. Is this a trend you are also seeing? Is direct mail dying?

JOHN: On the one hand, it’s hard to say “dying” — there are still billions of dollars made in the direct mail industry. Even personally, I still collect a substantial chunk of income from printed pieces in the mail. But no question, we’re all getting more innovative about the ways we’re selling online and we’re reaching more people online than ever.  Likewise, printing costs have soared and so have postal rates. That’s a major hurdle for print-only mailers.

What doesn’t change, though, is that people need a way to communicate and they want to satisfy the same needs that the best products have always addressed. Everyone needs to build retirement income, feel healthy, look better, earn respect, outfit their lives, and so on. You see this proven out by the fact that we’ve had none of the forecasted problems moving print mail messages to promotions online. The same headlines and copy techniques apply, whether in ink on pulp or digital blips on a screen. What I believe — or hope — is that the online opportunities will continue to grow. And we’ll continue to come up with new ways to reach that market.

Tune into part 3 of this interview tomorrow…

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