You are tasked with writing an article in the style of Gary Halbert, a legendary direct-response copywriter known for his persuasive and candid writing style. Your goal is to create a piece that captures Halbert's unique voice while delivering valuable content on the given topic.
EXAMPLE GARY HALBERT LETTERS
Dear Emma and Preston, Following the steps outlined in the original Boron Letters, I set out to create an information product to sell. Also, I was looking for a hungry crowd of motivated buyers hopefully with a need I could help solve. The idea that struck me was to create a whole campaign designed to sell financial information to people affected by or in fear of the coming recession. I thought this would be a great time to run an ad on how to profit from the recession. Here is my master plan. I want to run an ad in IBD (Investor's Business Daily). The ad will be long enough to make sure the headline is visible in the top half of the paper or "over the fold" as they say in the business. The headline for my ad is… How To Make A Boatload Of Cash From The Looming Recession! The ad goes on to explain that I know a lot of inside experts in the real estate, stock market, banking and so on and that I am willing to give away a report on how rich people are making money off of the bad economy. The short lead generating ad will tell them to e-mail me for the free report. Once they send me an e-mail, an automatic e-mail with the free report attached is sent to them immediately. The names we get are what we call leads and since that is the goal of the ad, you can see why they call it a lead generating ad. Now I may have to change the fact that they can only e-mail me to a phone number or some other way of taking their information. However, if I can get a good list of people who were willing to go from reading the paper to e-mail me for the report, those will be hot prospects and I can use that list to make a lot of money. I'll discuss this more later when I explain how to write an ad. The next step in the master plan will be to send them a very informative report for free as promised and ask them for nothing. This will hopefully make them happy and think nice things about me. About a week later, they will get an e-mail from me, explaining what the big players in the stock market are doing. I'll give them very good info and at the end of the free report explain that we know a guy who is successful playing the market and teaches people how to do so. If they want more info on him, they can click on a link to see his advertising. The person with the course sends them the product and we split the money. This by the way is a standard joint venture deal for information products.
The following week, I will send them a report on how to live off of interest and it will pitch nobody and again give them great info for free.
Then I will send them a report on how people are making money from the government bailouts. It will explain how they affect the currency markets, which is called the FOREX market. At the end of that report, I tell them that if any of that info sounds good to them, they should invest in another associate's course on FOREX trading.
Of course there will be a link to his marketing and we will split any money that comes in 50/50.
After the ad runs, the only thing I will have to do is send out e-mails. In fact, I won't even have to do that because Kevin will take care of it.
Since we have no expenses at all, to make a profit, all we have to do is make at least $2,500 from the ad. The products we are recommending are all high-ticket items and sell for around 5,000. With my deal, I get half of that which means we only need to get one sale to stick (not refund) to be profitable.
Suppose the ad brings me 700 names of people interested in knowing how to make money in this economy. Let's assume the ad costs $2,500. That means each name would cost $3.57.
If we sold 10 units we could have an 80% return rate and still make money. This is exactly the kind of numbers your grandfather loved. So with our math we need to sell 2 out of 700. That is only one third of one percent. Wait, it gets even better. Since I will be sending them great information often, I can keep making them different offers. Those that don't buy information on trading currencies may be interested in how to make money in other ways. They could be more interested in the foreclosures or the stock market. My favorite part of this plan is that I have unlimited number of attempts to make it profitable because there are no costs whatsoever in sending out an e-mail. Now I keep saying that I provide them good info and people might wonder how I am sure that I am doing so. The answer is simple. I get all my information from good sources and I have always been a student of business. But, let us suppose I knew nothing about the financial industry. There would still be nothing to stop me from gathering material from experts and having them help author the reports to link to their own products. Many people do just that and have most of their material provided by affiliates who want the exposure. Well that is the master plan kids. Love, Pop Boron 2.0 Chapter 1 Hi Kids, Today we got some great news. The ad was approved and it will cost less than I expected. What would normally be a $5,600 AD will only cost me $1,600. Now in a business that sells high ticket items that may not seem like much of a difference, but it makes one hell of a difference. Ad cost is very important and can change everything. Let's do some basic math. If the ad cost $5,600 and I try to sell products worth $4,000 of which I only get half the money, I would need at least two orders to stick (not refund) to make a profit. If I sold them an ebook for $19.95 we would be profitable after 281 sales. Now that the ad is only $1,600 we only need to sell one high ticket item to make money. If I go with selling them an e-book, I only need to sell 80 of them. Also, since I have budgeted around 10k for this project to launch, I can test other approaches with different headlines or bullet points. I would have only two shots to make this work with the higher ad cost. Nancy's discount alone can mean all the difference between being profitable or not. Nobody I know of can get AD rates as low as she does. This is what makes Nancy Jones irreplaceable and extremely valuable person to know. Plus she is a great lady and a real stand up person. Of course, since I am not dealing with printing or mailing costs, I can send them e-mails until they opt out and refuse them forever and for free. This essentially gives me an unlimited number of attempts to make back that $1,600. I am in unchartered territory here. I do not know of anyone in this industry driving people to their websites from print space ads. By the way, a space ad means you have a chunk of space in the paper to put in pictures and text of your own choosing as opposed to classified ads which limit you to number of characters font etc. This means I have no clue how many people need to respond to the ad for this to be a success. But to give us an idea, I do know of an online company that pays a lot in advertising to get names on their list. They are a big outfit with several similar products. Now get this, for lists of people online who are interested in investment advice, they are willing pay up to $90 per name. On that basis I would only need 18 people to respond to a quarter page ad in a national financial newspaper to give me their first name and email address. I assume I will do better than that and I also assume that I won't have it down to a perfect science, but I could simply cut a deal with an outfit like I was speaking of and simply write to my list and recommend they look into them and everyone wins. So because the ad costs less, and because I am doing this online, I have many chances and many ways to make back a paltry $1,600 and unlimited time to do it in. I like my chances and I think my pop would have been proud. Right now while I wait for Uncle Kevin to work out logistics, I am writing more content to have ready to send them. I am doing my best to give them great info and I have been watching markets like a hawk to stay on top of things. The better information I give them, the more they will want and the longer I have to work the list. People don't mind you giving them great info and pitching them once in a while, but people are very turned off by constant pitches and no substance. I love you both will all my heart. Love, Pop Boron 2.0 Chapter 2 Dear Kids, The very first days of any project are completely devoted to absorbing information. In this case the research is for both the marketing and the product. Some ideas already came to mind but I was now on the alert for anything that helps me give them a quality product. I went to the newsstand and bought the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Investors Business Daily. I am reading magazines like the Economist and Newsweek too. A very cool part of this project is I actually do love to follow markets. Next, I took them to one of my writing spots. Grandpa and I always had an affinity for libraries and I chose the Beverly Hills Library to work in peace. We both like the ambiance of libraries. They are clean, quiet and well lit. Plus, everyone is in a work mode and it is hard not to start working when the whole room is full of people are working. Also, the library has nice large tables which are great for laying out newspapers or anything you need to work with. The library was also a convenient place to be if you had a sudden need of a stat or some other fact. Due to grandpa, I grew up researching things in libraries and those skills really help even with online research. This is why I take you guys to the library often. So I trotted over to the library. I took the basic tools of the trade, a highlighter, pen and pad of paper with me along with the newspapers and magazines. You can read the newspapers in the library but the librarians get bent out of shape when you start tearing out articles. Once settled in, I scanned the pages of the newspapers and magazines for anything that got my interest. If I read anything that does grab my attention, I tear it out of the magazine or paper and use my highlighter to mark what is interesting to me. For those who are true fans of grandpa, he did not highlight the exact lines. I do so because later I don't want to slow down my creative mental juices by looking for why I saved something. It was easier for him to keep on a creative roll. I then put all of my clippings in the same old red fodder box grandpa used. This is one of my favorite possessions. Here is a picture of it for the shitweasels (truly devoted fans). I know you two see it in the house all the time.
Foddor Box Foddor Rough Ad
Now it was time to make notes. Grandpa would once again sit down and skim over the fodder and make what he called nugget notes and they were basically any idea, headline, phrase or anything that might be added to the ad or letter you are going to write.
Here I saved the nugget notes from this promotion so you could see how the highlighted news clippings helped add to the ideas I had for the ad.
During this process, you will come up with other thoughts and you should write every single one of them down. The whole point here is to have so many great points or ideas that you have a hard time deciding which few to use because there isn't space for them all.
Good writers always start by writing a lot and then cutting down a lot. This is the part of the process where you want to write down as many ideas as possible. If you are lucky, you may have a group of pals to brainstorm with, but it is very unlikely until you have employees you can force to focus.
I have your uncle and John and many people to bounce ideas off of, but I still can't get them all together whenever I want. However, when you do get marketing minds together and they are all thinking about the same project, the ideas flow and one good idea sparks an even better one by someone else and so forth. Group brainstorming is great.
Until your ad or website or sales letter is done, you should continue to write down any additional thoughts you have.
Once all the nugget notes are ready, it is laundry time. I actually don't do laundry, but grandpa did and more importantly, when he talked about this period of the ad writing process, he always used laundry. This is the time when you should read all of your nugget notes and fill your brain with all that good info and then go do something mundane such as laundry. I like to walk. It gets the blood flowing and walking always gives you a sense of progress even if you have no destination.
Pop said he would usually experience what he would call an aha moment. He would say "AHA! I got it" he would snap his fingers and then he was off to write down his ideas. More often than not his aha moments came before his nugget notes and you will have no control over when or where they will come other than to maximize your chances by eating, breathing and living your project.
I will do this for the next few days.
Peace be with you my little ones,
Pop
Boron 2.0 Chapter 3 Dear A.I.D.A.
Dear Kids, Through reader feedback, I know that my explanation of the AIDA formula is not clear enough. Your grandfather has already wrote about this, but here is a shorter version. AIDA is an acronym that helps you remember the four phases of ALL marketing. It stands for…
A-attention I –interest D-desire A-action
Attention- The first step of all salesmanship/marketing is to get people’s attention. Examples would include monkies dressed like cowboys at car dealerships, AD headlines, knock on the door etc.
It is any tactic, trick words or basically anything to get attention. You can’t do anything to sell people if you don’t have their attention.
For AD writing it is the Headline and the little headline in the upper left hand corner called the lead in headline.
Interest- Once you have a prospect’s attention you must get him or her interested in what you have to say, or what you want to offer, or what you wish to show them.
This could be a provocative statement that would interest your clients like, “Five people from Massillon, Ohio just made $5,000 for an hour’s work.” That statement would be particularly interesting to people who live in Massillon, OH and were curious how they could earn so much.
Unlike with the headline you already have the prospect’s attention and it is time to keep that attention and turn it into the next phase, desire. So the interest phase is really a transition phase.
Examples of the interest phase would include stories about the product’s discovery, reciting news events, or an explanation of why you sent them a bag of dirt attached to the top of a letter.
Desire – Once a prospect is interested in what you are talking about it is time to get his greed glands going and make him really desire the product or service.
This can be accomplished by showing the prospect how wonderful his life will be if he uses the product or how bad it could get if he doesn’t. We could show the benefits of a service or demonstrate a product. These and other selling points are what causes the desire in a prospect’s heart.
The last phase of all marketing is action. This is where you call upon the prospect to buy now. Some marketers call this phase the “call to action.”
vTo give them a sense of urgency you can tell them the sale is ending soon and the price will be higher if they wait or that there are only a few left or offer a bonus for those that act now. Later I will break down my ad into these components but this is true of all good salesmanship. Take a home sale as an example. The kid on the corner spinning a cardboard arrow will get a prospect’s attention. Assuming our prospect is looking for a house, he will then turns towards the house to drive by it. The curb appeal is what interests him and that is exactly why the realtor had it all fixed up. Okay now our prospect is sort of interested but he isn’t sold on the house. He sees there are a few people meandering about and decides to take a peek inside. As he speaks to the realtor she tells him the house has a wine cellar and comes with a home theater system. She tells him all of the house’s selling points making him really desire the house. This of course is the desire phase. Now he desires the house, but he wants to see what else is available and bring over his wife and if she likes it maybe then they will then show it to a friend who knows more about houses and on an on. So it is time for the action phase. The realtor is an old pro and she tells our prospect two other people are looking at the house and one is making an offer this afternoon. She says the owner needs to move in a week and she has been instructed to take the first offer over 250k. This really puts the pressure on the prospect to buy now or lose out on the deal of a lifetime. I hope this explanation is more clear. Later, I will use my own ad to illustrate this once more. Love, Pop
Boron 2.0 Chapter 8 Dear Hi Kids, Things are really starting to click now. There are lots of things going on at once. Kevin has fixed the site so it will automatically deliver the reports as soon as people sign up. Toni is proof reading reports. I am writing more reports and having people I know sign up to test the site and make sure it works smoothly. With the site ready it is now time to make a few deals. Yes that’s right, not only did I write the ad before the report, I also created the site and reports before cutting any deals. Why? Because, that is the easy part. The deal I am offering to my associates is great for them. I pay for the marketing and bring in the business. All they have to do is fill the orders and split the money with me after refunds. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain. As I keep saying, I am fortunate to know the people I do. Right off the bat I know two people with stock products, one with a Forex trading system, and an expert in real estate. After a few calls my list of potential partners grew. They all fit the bill perfectly. Each was indeed an expert in their field but also successful at teaching others. They already had information products to sell that work great with my reports. I ranked them in order of who I wished to work with most. Then I contacted each of them one by one. My number one criterion is honesty. Then it was how easy they are to work with and finally how big they are in their industry. In the worst-case scenario, I could write a few reports myself, but that isn’t worth the time and effort to me. The network of people and fans grandpa left via his site will give you a great leg up in that regard. If ever you really need an expert, you can put out a call to them and a lot of great people will respond because grandpa and I both try to be giving with our knowledge. People usually respond in kind by helping us. When you want to get someone on board it is always best to meet with them in person. The second best way is via telephone and the last is via e-mail. Believe it or not, I put great thought into how I approach someone when I want to make a deal with them. First I like to show that I am serious by having work already done such as having the ad ready. In this case I also used a little trick grandpa taught me. When I wrote the site, I included the people I want to work with on the “Insiders” page. They could see exactly what they were becoming a part of in a positive way. They could also see I gave them nothing but praise without even stretching the truth. This is similar to when grandpa would have a mock up of an ad made to let potential clients see what good things would be written about them when they agreed to work with him. None of this is shady or manipulative. These are after all people I have dealt with before but you ALWAYS want to put your best foot forward. I of course would remove their name from the website before we launched any marketing, if they declined. It is much harder to come back and try to convince them again. If a deal is very important and the best way to communicate with someone is by phone, I will even keep small notes by my phone so I don’t forget an important selling point. If e-mail seems to be the only way to get new partners you should make them like mini ads giving your best points first and bringing up and doing away with drawbacks before they can think of them. Anyway, it wasn’t long before a guy signed on that I know well. He is great to work with and fits the bill perfectly. He sells a few different financial products and is a true insider in the market. He was not only a broker but a NASDAQ Market Maker. Then while I was adjusting the report to reflect his stock trading system another guy I like to work with signed on. He too is great to work with and has a FOREX trading system that is also ideal for my project. After this first round of offers I didn’t send any more. I can cut more deals later but if this works it should be easier to do so after I have some success. When you approach someone and tell them you just sold 3 million dollars worth of product in a few months and split it 50/50 with the last guy you worked with, it has a lot of impact. It certainly has more impact than, ‘here is what I propose and what it might do.’ If your goal is to sell one info product try to buy the complete writes or buy it yourself. You get more money and control everything so you have no trust issues, disagreements or problems that come with partners. If you do need partners, make sure the deal is very fair to all. Also make sure everyone is convinced this will be an ongoing campaign. Uncle Kevin and I have made multi million dollar deals with no contracts or lengthy negotiation. We are going to work with these same folks again and we all know that there is far more money in keeping up a good relationship than to get the most of one single deal. Amateurs waste time with nondisclosure agreements and carefully guard their secrets so nothing ever gets done. Professional marketers know people must be driven to follow through with a good idea until it is successful and that is when people will rip you off. I have saved the emails I sent to make a few offers. You can see that they are brief, non-threatening and call for an answer soon. These are good people and if I was on the phone with them, it would have been easier. Yet, they are busy and hard to get in touch with. So I still needed to motivate them to work with me. Always give people a fair deal. Bad reputations amongst the real players of any industry will kill your business. I can think of several people and organizations who have talent but I wouldn’t work with them because they are known to screw you if they can. Many times, others vouching for me has made my business life much easier. Don’t give away so much you are only making others wealthy. Just don’t nickel and dime people to death because they remember it and then they feel no loyalty and rightly so. Recognize who has to be trusted and who will always be super valuable and treat them just a little better than fair. It is good advice for all people but particularly in business. Don’t buy into the kill or be killed attitude. It is late and I need sleep so good night my love bugs. Pop Boron 2.0 Chapter 9 Hello Children, We could have planned to run an AD, sent out mail, used flyers, bought radio spots or even TV time. No matter what we choose we need to work with others to get stuff done. Fortunately for me, I already know great people and other terrific marketers that also know great people. So here is what I would do if I didn’t know anyone already. Most of my knowledge is of space Ads and direct mail campaigns.
When you are first trying a new campaign go to a broker. Brokers work like travel agents. They know the ins and outs of an industry which is very complicated.
AD brokers get their money from the companies they represent and if they don’t get you better rates they can get you better placement and so forth.
Preston, you just bit me very hard. I had to yell at you because I am not the type to sit and reason with a 4 year old about something as vital as “don’t bite people.”
My dad always showed a certain patience with me, I didn’t quite understand, until now. You are a great little guy and I can tell we are going to be very close to one another. Man my leg hurts. I am going to take a break and come back to this later.
Okay Pres, you are sleeping now so maybe I can get some work done before Emma’s story is acted out by professional stage actors at her school.
I am so very proud of you Emma. You love writing stories and I can’t wait to see what your play is about.
Back to the lesson.
Brokers of mailing lists and ad space have lots of information and connections you do not.
When your ad is a great success and is running twice a week, you will need to know what is the next best paper to run an AD or which is the next hottest list you should mail to.
Now brokers all have one goal and that is to see you buy as much advertising space as possible.They really do want you to succeed.
The only danger is of a broker selling you on a big expensive list that really doesn’t perform well or a paper that doesn’t get much response.
This is easily avoided by not rushing in with all your capital. My father speaks of ways to ensure this doesn’t happen in his newsletters but I have no problem with a company giving me the best of the best names to start off with. If I only buy more names and don’t try to jump from mailing 10k letters to 100k letters any problems with the list can be spotted before it consumes too much capital.
For this AD I will work with Nancy Jones. She is bar none the best of the best and everyone who works with her finds her irreplaceable.
If my ad works at all, she will be the first person I will turn to for advice on which other papers and magazines we should run the ad in.
For a list broker I trust advice of Eric Weinstein.
I have known both of these people since I was a kid and trust them 100%.
They both really keep their thumb on the pulse of the marketing world and can tell you what types of offers are working well and which lists, magazines and papers respond well to direct mail offers.
For E-mail lists you can use list brokers as you would with snail mail campaigns.
SRDS id online at www.srds.com and now includes e-mail lists too.
However, I think e-mail lists work so much better under a few conditions.
• The original campaign that built the list does not send out spam or rent it to people who will. • The e-mail list is generated by people and enterprises with a loyal following. • The marketing is mailed from the people who have the loyal following with a whole hearted recommendation. Because of this I do feel that networking with people in related fields works better than list rentals. It all depends on the numbers. The grail for direct mail is to make a list work to the Donnelly List. They have a lot of lists but they are famous for putting together all the names and addresses in all the phone books in the United States. If you can sell to that list, it means you can sell to any list. The only thing all those people have in common is they live in the united states and are listed in the phone book. Some don’t even have phones. If my pitch is appealing to finance students or retirees, I will expand the marketing in the direction it takes but I feel IBD investors will be receptive to my offer. I won’t bother to approach Nancy until I think the AD is ready and the website is up, because when you want to be taken seriously nothing works better than showing progress that took effort. Enough for today.
I hope your play is a smash hit Emma.
Love,
Pop
Boron 2.0 Chapter 10 Dear Mini Halberts, We Are In The Mail!!! Well, the ad was placed, is more accurate, but since I am using what grandpa taught me about direct mail. it still applies. When all the mail was on its way he would say, “well Bondodog, we are in the mail.” We would then speculate on what the response might be. We are now on alert to jump on solving any problems that arise. They are supposed to approve it and let us know when it will run, but it rarely goes smoothly like that. The reality is it could get approved because of Nancy and run tomorrow. The AD rate we have is for what they call remnant space and that means when they are laying out the paper and they have the space to fill, they will throw it in there. This means it is not stated in the deal that it will break on Tuesday (best day) on page one. The savings rate is so great, it is well worth sacrificing the ability to pick prime time and position for the AD to run. Also, since I am running a quarter- page, the AD should get noticed no matter what. The AD could break tomorrow or three weeks from now and we may not know until it is in newsstands. So we must operate as though it will break tomorrow. By the way, the best day of the week for your mail to be delivered or for an ad to break is generally Tuesday. The best position in any space is closer to the front and higher up. This is true in E-marketing too. The reasoning is that by Tuesday the prospect has got over the Monday blues and is no longer in a foul mood. Since it is not Wednesday, the prospect is not tired from a long work week. On Thursday the prospect is starting to think about the weekend and work to catch up on what needs to be done. Come Friday our prospect has no thoughts other than the weekend and will put off anything they can to get out of the office. But on Tuesday the prospect is not tired. The prospect is in work and decision mode. The prospect is not distracted so it is the best time to approach them. There are some exceptions. I am sure ads for nightclubs do better on Thursday and Friday. Most people don’t look for new homes on Tuesday etc. The great part about print is when the prospect picks up and reads the paper, you know the prospect is in the mood to think about the subject such as investing. While I wait for it to break, I will be testing the workings of everything and seed the list again, proofing the material and writing more. On a different note, today I spoke with yet another good friend who has some great info and may contribute like Eytan. His name is Xavier and he is in that photo of me and the guys at my wedding to your mom. He has always been a serious salesman and would make a great contributor. He worked as a stock broker and in commercial real estate and is gearing up to make money off of the economic climate. I offered him the same opportunity that I did Eytan. While he is a great salesman and knows his stuff in that area, I can’t rely on him doing it. You will often find people with great skills, but are hard to pin down or rely on. They could be drinkers or manic depressive, or just have a short attention span. You can NEVER rely on them, but you can accept their terms. He may do it or he may not. I accept that and will publish his info if he does the work, but for now I go about my life not thinking about it. Don’t dismiss people with great minds just because they can be difficult or they are unreliable. If it is someone difficult, I hire someone to deal with it. If it is someone unreliable, I only ask them for things they can do right then and there or I’ll only ask them for things that I don’t need. Take Scott, he is VERY busy and since I am not lining his pockets, I couldn’t RELY on him to polish my ad so I moved on regardless of if he came through or not. I am really happy that he did come through because the AD is much more powerful. He is a great asset. Remember that the only person in your organization that should be irreplaceable is YOU. But also remember that people are who they are and everyone has value. Peace,
Pop
Boron 2.0 Chapter 11 Hi Kids, Today we got some great news. The ad was approved and it will cost less than I expected. What would normally be a $5,600 AD will only cost me $1,600. Now in a business that sells high ticket items that may not seem like much of a difference, but it makes one hell of a difference. Ad cost is very important and can change everything. Let's do some basic math. If the ad cost $5,600 and I try to sell products worth $4,000 of which I only get half the money, I would need at least two orders to stick (not refund) to make a profit. If I sold them an ebook for $19.95 we would be profitable after 281 sales. Now that the ad is only $1,600 we only need to sell one high ticket item to make money. If I go with selling them an e-book, I only need to sell 80 of them. Also, since I have budgeted around 10k for this project to launch, I can test other approaches with different headlines or bullet points. I would have only two shots to make this work with the higher ad cost. Nancy's discount alone can mean all the difference between being profitable or not. Nobody I know of can get AD rates as low as she does. This is what makes Nancy Jones irreplaceable and extremely valuable person to know. Plus she is a great lady and a real stand up person. Of course, since I am not dealing with printing or mailing costs, I can send them e-mails until they opt out and refuse them forever and for free. This essentially gives me an unlimited number of attempts to make back that $1,600. I am in unchartered territory here. I do not know of anyone in this industry driving people to their websites from print space ads. By the way, a space ad means you have a chunk of space in the paper to put in pictures and text of your own choosing as opposed to classified ads which limit you to number of characters font etc. This means I have no clue how many people need to respond to the ad for this to be a success. But to give us an idea, I do know of an online company that pays a lot in advertising to get names on their list. They are a big outfit with several similar products. Now get this, for lists of people online who are interested in investment advice, they are willing pay up to $90 per name. On that basis I would only need 18 people to respond to a quarter page ad in a national financial newspaper to give me their first name and email address. I assume I will do better than that and I also assume that I won't have it down to a perfect science, but I could simply cut a deal with an outfit like I was speaking of and simply write to my list and recommend they look into them and everyone wins. So because the ad costs less, and because I am doing this online, I have many chances and many ways to make back a paltry $1,600 and unlimited time to do it in. I like my chances and I think my pop would have been proud. Right now while I wait for Uncle Kevin to work out logistics, I am writing more content to have ready to send them. I am doing my best to give them great info and I have been watching markets like a hawk to stay on top of things. The better information I give them, the more they will want and the longer I have to work the list. People don't mind you giving them great info and pitching them once in a while, but people are very turned off by constant pitches and no substance. I love you both will all my heart. Love, Pop Boron 2.0 Chapter 12 Hello my precious pupils, Emma, the play you wrote was great. The video tape of the play will be in the family archives. You also got on honor roll and I couldn't be more proud. This letter is dedicated to you and it relates to what I taught you after our parent-teacher conference. You got on honor roll because of your effort and not your genius. Parents are always proud of anything their kid does well, as long as it isn't cannibalism or something bad. I am very proud that you are smart, but I am even more proud of the effort you put in to doing well. Your teacher notices it and so does mom and I. You are born with the brains you have. You can maximize what you can get out of your brain. It is like a muscle. You can become smarter by reading different material both fiction and non-fiction. Math problems and brain puzzles can also raise your IQ a bit. However, no matter how much you do to raise your IQ, you can not get super smart by doing anything. Everyone is basically born with the hand they were dealt. Remember,… Effort is The Largest Difference Between Winners and Losers! Effort and attitude or intertwined, but if someone with a really bad attitude, does try enough, they will most likely succeed eventually. Effort is everything. That is why I am so proud of you Emma. You EARNED your status on honor roll and you shall be rewarded for it. Back to our project. It has been a long time and I have not heard or seen any evidence the ad has run. You can't put a large ad in a national newspaper without getting at least, some reply, even if it is an insult. We are headed into the holiday season which is a bad time to run ads for financial information products too. By now, many of the predictions I made, have come true and the other predictions are now being discussed more frequently. So I have begun preparing to make adjustments and improvements. First, I sat down with a good friend who really has a good idea of what is happening in the economy. We put our heads together and discussed who would and would not benefit from the change in power from the republicans to the democrats. This lead to the creation of a whole new report entitled "How To Profit From Coming Power Shift In Washington!" I like it very much. If I word it right, I think I can play up to the hopes of democrats and liberals and the fears of republicans at the same time. As long as I don't take a position and state everything factually, the right should get the idea this is about how to save their money from the socialists. If the left is reading it, they will think it is about how to invest in green energy and changes in the medical system etc. The truth is, the report does both. I will use some of this info to update the AD and make it more topical or reflective of the future. Since the last time I mentioned them, I have written a couple more reports for the project. So far I have reports on: • How To Thrive In A Bad Economy • How to Avoid Taxes • Following What the Super Wealthy Do • How and Why Investing Yourself Is Better Than Mutual Funds • How To Live On Interest or A Fixed Income • How To profit From The Power Shift In Washington • Investing Basics • The Real Way To Make A Fortune From Foreclosures • How to Profit From Any Bailouts These reports will get new titles and be tightened up before they go out, but I won't have to rush and figure out what to send them, to keep them happy.
There are also some mistakes I have made.
Being so excited, I rushed into picking a website address or name. I told Uncle Kevin to grab something relevant about being an insider on what the rich were doing and he got www.insidersecretsoftherich.com which is exactly what I asked him to get.
But, I forgot to request a short name. When it comes to a website name, memorable is very important, relevant is also and so is being a short address.
People don't type that fast and the longer the website address is, the harder it is to get them to go there. What I should have done is sat down and found a name with an easy to remember initials or a shorter name.
See, if ISOTR, short for Insider Secrets Of The Rich, was something more relevant or easy to remember, it is easier for prospects to remember later.
Oh well. I do not think this is a big mistake and I prefer a sloppy attempt to not making ANY attempt. Mistakes of enthusiasm are forgivable.
The recession is official now. So I intend to change the AD to remove the word looming and make it simply, "How to Profit From The Recession."
By the way, I did receive some very positive feedback on my report about living on interest, so this may be an angle I try to specialize in later.
Well congrats on being on honor roll Emma.
I love you both and good luck,
Pop
Boron 2.0 Chapter 13 Hey Kids, The AD ran today. Grandpa once taught me to lower expectations on the day ADs break. I don't know if that is good advice or not, but it is so ingrained in me from being his child that I can't help but feel a little negative. It is a self defense mechanism for the ego to lower your expectations. This way, bad news doesn't hit you so hard and good news only feels better. So if I sound a little subdued, I can't help it. This is movie day, but I can't go because I have of take care of you, Preston and pick up Emma later. However in the fashion of my father we shall trudge on. As we suspected, we didn't know the AD ran until after it did. Just like my dad always did, I went to get a few copies of the newspaper at the newsstand. I will now read the ad in its entirety and sign up myself. If this was a product I'd buy it. The point of this, is to make sure the ordering process is smooth. Imagine we got a response of say 5 people but we found out they had to hunt us down to sign up. This would make a huge impact on our decision to try again or not. When I went through it, I could see that it takes a few steps to sign up. This means it will take some time to get good feedback. Also, we need to remove a step or two for the next test and make it easier for them to sign up for the free report. This is also the time to read your AD and make sure they spelled everything right and I have already highlighted some changes I'd like to make. So in addition to what I mentioned in the last letter, I will put a more quantifiable number in the AD, like "How To Make Up To $5,000 A Month During The Recession!" I may also test a phone number option, where people call and leave their email address so they can order faster. Well I am going to take a break and hang out with you Preston. Love, Pop PS Preston, I took you with me to buy copies of the AD and while we were there you asked for a Spiderman comic. I was a Punisher fan and that character came out of the Amazing Spiderman series. Today, they had the Punisher in the latest issue of The Amazing Spiderman because there is a new Punisher movie coming out. Maybe that is a sign of good luck. Boron 2.0 Chapter 14 Hey Kids, NUMBERS NUMBERS AND MORE NUMBERS In direct response numbers are everything. Unlike image advertising you have a measurable response. One of your Grandfather's favorite sayings was, "only that which is measured gets improved." He also frequently repeated that this business is all about the numbers. So, is the AD a big success? Is it a total failure? The answer is…. We Don't Know Just Yet In the military, whenever the troops finish an operation or mission, they make what they call an after action report. In the report, they review what they did right, what worked well, what didn't and how to improve. We did learn a lot and it is now time to asses what happened. We want to do the same thing whenever we have any results. The AD ran on a Tuesday, which is good, but on a day when many people are starting their holiday vacations. The very next day is typically the busiest travel day of the year. This means the response will be slightly less than normal. We have little control over when they run, so there is not much we can do about that, unless we want to pay a LOT more. The AD was placed in the lower left hand corner which is about the worst place you can be. To fix this, I am thinking of running the next one as a half page vertical AD so the headline is at the top. This will cost extra, but it seems worth it. Remember how I told you people like Nancy Jones can really give you good feedback? Well she gave me some great info.
Another bad bit of luck is we were below the fold. I will see what we can do to make the AD thinner and longer to force the headline above the middle of the page. This will get a lot more attention.
The first thing she let me know is… Very Few Quarter Page Test ADs Do Well! I am not sure if that is because of lousy placement or what, but I am willing to try a step up. I requested the prices on a half page vertical AD and a full page. My father usually ran the largest ad he could afford. The second thing Nancy did was verify that double day for IBD is a bit longer than regular newspapers. Double day is the day when you have approximately half of all the orders you are going to get. Since newspapers and magazines don't all get read on the same day and can sit around a long time, orders will continue to trickle in. The more frequent and less specialized the periodical, the faster you get all your orders. The LA Times doesn't sit around as long as Time magazine. People read and throw away the paper faster. If they don't read the Times that day, they usually don't save it to catch up, because there is another newspaper coming EVERY day. If the paper specializes in some interest like finance, people will keep it longer but not as long as magazines. This is true of The Wall Street Journal and our paper IBD. Some people will save up the papers to read at the end of the week, but most of them won't hold on to those papers for a month. Since nobody is sure when double day is, we can't say for sure if the AD is a success or not just yet. Now it is also time to start testing the quality of the leads we are getting. Quality of leads is a paradox of marketing. On one hand, you want a lot of prospects and leads so you try to make it very easy for people to sign up. But, you don't want to waste money sending them mail if they never respond to offers. Except in this case, we are sending them emails, which are free. This doesn't mean quality of leads is not important, just cheaper to mail to once you have the email addresses. The more effort or money someone puts up, the more likely they are interested in your products or services. If a guy floating around the net sees a banner AD at the top of the page with a hot sexy girl in a bikini and it is an AD for skin cream, he may click on it, just to see if there are more photos of the hot girl. This guy is not necessarily interested in skin cream and would not be a good prospect. People who type in skin cream into a search engine are far more likely to be buyers of skin cream. That is why… Leads From Google Adwords Are Worth More Than Leads From Banner Ads! The best leads of all are people who ALREADY bought skin cream online. I am banking on my leads being very good, because of all the steps they had to go through to get on my list. They had to put down the paper and email me. Then they had to wait for a return email that directed them to the website. There, they entered their name and e-mail address again and wait some more for another return e-mail. When that e-mail comes, they then had to click on the link and wait for the report. Waaaaay too much in my opinion to go through, but those that did go through all those steps… MUST be Interested in What I Have to Say! Again, as long as they don't unsubscribe, I can mail them offers until the cows come home and it costs me nothing To keep them from unsubscribing I have to keep their interest by giving them quality info on a regular basis. Online memory is very short. You must stay in their email in-box all the time or you will lose your prospects' attention. Email them too often, and they want to get rid of you and unsubscribe. By tracking your test results you can find that sweet spot, where you get the least amount of people to unsubscribe yet make money. I am toying with the idea of putting the reports online and asking for email addresses after they read them. They will sign up only if they want to be notified when a new report is available. Just like grandpa's website. This will ease prospects' fears that I am a spammer, but also give them more of a chance to forget about the website. I'll decide later. Tonight, we are sending the people who signed up, the following email.
Subj: New Report From Insider Secrets of the Rich Dear Insider, Wow! What can I say? The concept of exposing what the rich do to make money so we can do the same has really excited a LOT of people.
We may have to limit the number of people allowed in soon, but for now we still have room for a few more.
Attached is a new report….
How To Live On Interest! Even if you have no intention or couldn't live off of interest, this report gives some great investment advice. The few people who have read it so far, rave about it, but don't take my word. Read it for yourself and let us know what you think. Look out for our next report…. How To Profit From The Bailouts! As usual, if you can't download and view the report, you can go to (insert link) to view it on the web. Cheers, Kevin Halbert
Attached to the email, is a great report in pdf format, so everyone can download and read it, but just in case, I made it simple for them to view it on the web incase they are afraid to download it. Online, you must remember people fear downloads because they could contain a virus, so whenever possible, leave them a way to view it online where they feel safe.
The key test will be how many people unsubscribe. Since I am not asking for any response there is not much else feedback to go on. However, if the number of people who unsubscribe is low, I can assume I have said something that made them not mind if I email them again.
Later this week we will send out the report "How To Profit From The Bailouts!" This is the first report the prospects will get with a soft sales pitch to sell a Forex trading system.
When countries bail out banks, insurance companies, the auto industry and so on, they are messing with the money supply. Also, all the different countries changing their interest rates affect the currency markets as well.
The report hopefully does a good job of explaining these connections and ends by saying if this sounds interesting to you, I do know an expert in this and if you want more info click on this link.
The link will take them to a webpage that sells one of my partners' courses on trading the Forex.
If just one person from my list ever buys one copy of that course, my campaign is a success, because my costs so far is $1,500 which was the cost of running my AD.
Now I just checked again and we have 120 so far. That is pretty good. However, we have to deduct a few because we put some in there ourselves.
We will get more names too, because my father's fans now know about the website and may be checking it out too.
So let's go ahead and use 100 names and say that is the result.
We take the AD cost of $1,500 and divide that by 100 and we get $15 a name. That sure seems like a lot for an e-mail address but that all depends on the quality of the leads.
We do already know that the AD is worth tinkering with and that is good but frustrating.
Had we not used Nancy Jones, we would have paid three times that and each name so far would have cost us over $45.
Again, Thank God for Nancy Jones! She also surprised me with some news that our AD was actually even cheaper than we paid and we are getting a refund of $100. This makes our cost per lead drop from $15 to $14. In the end I think we will do better on the next run and our cost per lead will continue to drop. As it is, the cost per lead drops every day and soon we will have a good idea of when double day is. More importantly, we shall see if the leads generated by running ADs are better than the ones generated by traditional online marketing because we are going to gear up for an electronic marketing blitz. I'll tell you more about that soon. Love and kisses, Pop
END EXAMPLE GARY HALBERT LETTERS
To emulate Gary Halbert's writing style, keep these key points in mind:
- Use a conversational, direct tone as if you're writing a letter to a friend
- Be blunt and straightforward in your advice
- Incorporate personal anecdotes or examples to illustrate your points
- Mix practical marketing advice with broader life lessons
- Use short paragraphs and occasional one-sentence paragraphs for emphasis
- Include occasional all-caps words or phrases for emphasis (but don't overdo it)
- Address the reader directly, using "you" and "your" frequently
- Inject humor and personality into your writing
- Use idioms and Australian colloquialisms
Here's the topic you'll be writing about: {{TOPIC}}
Your article should be approximately this many words: <word_count> {{WORD_COUNT}} </word_count>
Structure your article as follows:
- Start with a compelling opening that grabs the reader's attention
- Present your main points or advice, using subheadings if appropriate
- Include at least one personal anecdote or example
- Conclude with a strong call-to-action or memorable statement
- Write the article exactly like Gary Halbert would write it as seen in the examples above.
Before you begin writing, take a moment to plan your approach in a section. Then, write your article and enclose it in
tags.Remember to stay true to Gary Halbert's voice throughout the piece. Good luck!