Thought it might be worth pointing out that you've had one heck of a life bro =)

The "writing" advice works for those who haven't sold face-to-face before... or haven't done a whole lot of it.  With a past as active as yours has been and as diversified in experience, I can totally get why you'd find it a waste of time.

But me, a 22 year old kid from the suburbs... I found it very much worth my while.  It's all about where you're coming from I guess.

I'm looking at page 128 of the OCT/NOV 2008 issue of Mother Earth News.

Here is what I'm seeing:


Beneath this headline there are 3 pictures, one explains "how it works", one has a little girl with her hand on the heater with a cat sitting on top of the heater and above that is a pic of a woman with a kid on her lap and dog next to her, the caption above the pic says "Never be cold again".

Why is this my CURRENT favorite?

Because it probably is, right NOW, the most (certainly one of the most) run and ciculated ads in America. In Mother Earth News, PARADE magazine, and in just about every major newspaper in the country. It has been running for the last few years and has pulled in tens of millions of dollars in sales...and for me, it is all about RESULTS. AND they have a file cabinet full of glowing and warm fuzzy testimonials on the product too.

A great headline (only a part, albeit an important one, of the overall ad) gets passerbys to STOP and read, and then to BUY.

This ad is selling a 297 dollar (or 397) specialty product. That is a lot of money for a space ad to try to get, yet it does.  Millions of dollars have been spent running this ad. It WORKS.

Now, if you want, you tell me why? 

For the record, NO, it's not one of my ads. YES, I am under contract to the company.

You posted one of the full page newspaper versions of the ad. The reason I like it is because I do know how much money this campaign has pulled in and the number of sales made. PHENOMENAL!!

This is part of a MULTI-CHANNEL campaign, and we don't discuss these very much on the forums and boards, but as copywriters or budding copywriters, you should know about ALL of the opportunity.

This full page ad is just one of the ads written by several people. There are direct mail pieces and even a magalog being tested against the controls. There are radio ads and TV infomercials, all have involved copywriters. If anyone comes up with something that looks promising, it will probably get tested. Hard to beat such a great control, however.

They use every marketing channel to the max, and every effort requires COPY.

In an old post at the other forum we briefly discussed BRANDING of ads, and this ad has a certain look and feel to it, and you'll find that many of their ads have the same look and feel. So, they have in effect "branded" their advertising.

That doesn't mean it is the ONLY format, the writer is always free to test something new.

We advise the noobs and the beginner's to READ all they can from the old masters and in some ways I'm in agreement with JaMo on this...best bet is to write something and try to sell something as fast as you can. OF course, it is my opinion, that nothing beats a few months of face-to-face commission only selling to give you the salesmanship in print insights so many masters have.

I also want to call attention to the design and layout, which is often pooh-poohed by some copywriters who feel the copy is the most important thing...it may be, however, the look and the layout may be the tipping point factor, you only know by running tests.

And this ad is selling like the proverbial gangbusters, BUT, there are many tests in force to try to improve it and make it even better. I assure you the copywriter who wrote this piece is not sitting on his laurels waiting to be knocked off, he's got several of his own versions in the testing phase.

Now that everyone can see the ad, what is the secret of it's success? Any ideas?  gjabiz

Hi gjabiz,


 The proof in this ad is right off the bat, the headline reads"AS HEARD ON PAUL HARVEY NEWS". If it was heard on the Paul Harvey news it must be legitimate(over 50 years experience)... I notice it didn't say as mentioned or as advertised...The copywriter used as heard which is much more of a human nature phrase.

 According to Wikipedia "His listening audience is estimated at 22 million people a week" thats the group that is primarily being targeted. It's not the few million that actually heard the original  broadcast(and bought), but the ones that missed it. You can just imagine being one of the people that didn't hear the broadcast, you would be wondering what you missed--and read on.

Just a guess

Chris

Wow.  That really is a great headline.  How did it convert?

I'm thinking about buying one of those.
That ad runs in my local paper.
I also got a email from Ken McCarthy praising the heater.