Don't thoughtlessly rely on formulas!

The problem is not a 'formula'. The problem is not understanding how to use a formula.

There is a reason formulas exist in direct marketing: They work.

Addressing a prospect's real fears or desires is what is meant when you're advised to "turn up the pain". If you have only a basic grasp of copywriting skills, your understanding and execution of this basic copywriting tenet will be crude, at best.

And if you fail to interpret the truth of proven principles correctly, that does not make those principles any less true.

A great many marketers have absolutely NO understanding of what their prospect's real 'pain' is. They believe that understanding their product is the same as understanding their market.

It is not.

Using a formula to guide the structure of your sales letter does NOT require you to be inauthentic. Nor does 'selling' require you to be inauthentic. Genuine interest in your prospect's well-being and success can be always conveyed within the structure of a formula. They are not mutually exclusive.

There is no question that most inexperienced marketers execute formulas in a ham-fisted manner. However, that is no reason to dismiss tried and proven principles of marketing and human behavior.

A formula helps you use good skills within a proven template. However, many DIYs do not understand the basic principles of good writing and selling techniques. It is for precisely that reason that so many sales letters are a stream of irrelevant (to the prospect) babble that does not convert.

Scaring the hell out of people works.

I did a 2-step newspaper ad for a company that provides home care for seniors, so seniors don't have to go into a nursing home.

With all my hours of research what I discovered was that one of the biggest fears of seniors and their children is that their loved one will fall in their home and would be seriously injured. They feared they would fall down the stairs. They feared that their loved one would need medical attention and no one would be there to help, or the Mom or Dad could not get to the phone.

So, fear works. Have you ever seen that commercial for the home security system where the Mother and daughter are home alone and the scary guy breaks the door open?. Yes, that scares people. Home alarm systems are built on fear.

I'm not saying to use fear for everything. Sometimes people are already there and you just have to hit them with a solution. AIDA, PAS, are great. You just have to know how to use them.

-Bill

Your "Seem to think" is way off target (as usual) and once again condescending. My point was simple. If in the process of selling you create buyers remorse it will hurt your business later on. My sales experience is rooted in insurance. You can't sell me any of your spiel on that. Sorry. Its what I know like the back of my hand and we could see this very directly by what is known in the industry as chargebacks. Go ahead and try to claim that copywriting is just to sell and that relationship is seperate and part of a marketing funnel in all circumstances.

That garbage one size fit formula is PRECISELY what the OP is taking about. Go ahead and use a strong arm technique (ethical or not) that sells but later leads to buyers remorse and watch the chargebacks come rolling in. In the actual writing of the copy for my insurance company the relationship factor was huge. Thats right - IN THE COPY. Its the reason you will NEVER see copy come from Prudential or State Farm with an intent - as the OP stated he was told by well known (no doubt IM based and maybe one in your group) copywriters - to scare the "HEll out of them"

Same goes here. We finally agree. Maybe just maybe you should know who you are talking to rather than assuming because you are some johnny come lately IM marketer you know what happens on all levels of Copywriting because you have just demonstrated CONCLUSIVELY that you do not know anything about the corporate level of copywriting above your head where the entire sales process from copy to upsell is controlled by keeping an image that builds relationship not just sales and where you would be tossed out on your proverbial rear end AS A COPYWRITER for thinking relationship was secondary to sales thereby jeopardizing later business. This isn't some backyard guru taught copywriting for selling get rich quick kits you are accustomed to. I'm talking about real business and frankly thats why the OP probably hasn't been able to get good conversions - because he's relying on copywriters that only know how to move informational products of often dubious worth not real life products.

I think I will put this down as yet another formula not to thoughtlessly rely on as Davido put it. You clealy think you can pigeon hole everything according to your sales copy , auto responder rinse and repeat nonsense.

This is the fourth or fifth time your bunch gets so intimidated by anyone posting anything that doesn't hold to all your guru based training dogma that you have to lash out even when nothing was directed at you. However I got it down now. You lashout whenever you see any dissent from your paint by number copywriting because its seems to me you need that wall or alliance to keep the sales going. If someone else was right about something and you were wrong it might hurt the bottom line.

If you were half as busy as you claim you wouldn't have the time to whine because someone says relationship is important to consider in copywriting. Or Egad! He just said a copywriters website might actually need to have good copywriting and that might end up hurting one of our online friends.

So spare the veiled threats and pull your strings and get me banned for being argumentative or any other assorted nonsense you can trump up because you have a need to control all differences of opinion you don't like on this board to protect your bottom line. Sure I could learn from you but you swear you don't need to learn anything and thats now painfully obvious a complete joke. I don't see any of the big names here so get over yourself. From what I can tell most everything rehashed here is available elsewhere and without the attitude and constant attempts at censorship so fire away.

actually not Miami proper. Plantation. What are you talking about Largo. I'm 40 miutes from Disney. Trump that. Wade will stay. I bet you'll be visting more games after 2010 free agency you bandwagoner

There was a wonderful book I read when starting out in sales that was all about asking questions in a win - win sales scenario(which for the life of me I cannot remember the name or author of). Once I utilized those questions and learned how to listen to those answers to move to the next step I acquired a high close rate. Then something funny started happening. It started to filter out to everything else and I was no longer even concentrating on selling at all but finding solutions.

When you train yourself that way you can begin to anticipate the questions even before your've ever heard them. The examples of really great copy that I have read the writer antcipated the questions of the target market and answered them.

To me if the formula is not the questions then its unsophisticated and bush league. The formula of answering questions and anticipating needs and objections is the ONLY formula that will reach across all product lines and all mediums.

This will really blow some people's minds around here but provided the company has a big enough name recognition you can have GREAT copy that doesn't even end with a call of action to a sale. Rare but its happened because sometimes the company sells more without a sell, sell sell mentality.

Frank has outright said that he stole that from John Carlton every time I've heard him repeat it... and now here's a reliable and reputable source saying it's his.

Man, that's a good job of stealing.

I think this is basically the point...the peoeple who use canned questions and copy are unlikely to be responding to clues...in sales presentations or from their target market...no matter how many times they come across the same situation.