6 replies
Old school direct response. I should have responded to this ad. Never did do well on the bell ringer thing at the fair.





#champ #chump
  • Profile picture of the author shawnlebrun
    Joe,

    Nice find! I'll admit, when I first started my muscle building site around 13 years ago... these Charles Atlas ads were ones I routinely studied like a hawk.

    Man, the more things change, the more they stay the same...

    I see that this offer was for a free book... which worked back then and works now.

    I remember back in 1998 or so, seeing a Free book offer in a muscle mag. Bill Philips from EAS was giving away a supplement review book. all you had to do was pay shipping and handling and you'd get the 400 page book for free.

    Sure, this was back before I was into marketing and knew anything about it... but once again, free book offer that sold other stuff. Worked then, works now.

    Nice find!
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  • Profile picture of the author ReferralCandy
    Love it. Old but gold.

    Especially good to pay attention to how the whole thing works. There's a transformation being sold. This is the problem you have, this is who you are. We'll solve it for you. This is who you're going to become. Here's a bunch of FREE stuff if you act NOW.

    Still useful to study and learn from.
    Signature

    Measure, manage and incentivize customer referrals with ReferralCandy.

    PS: Looking to get more repeat customers for a physical store? Check out CandyBar's digital loyalty cards!

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  • Profile picture of the author Daniel Scott
    Bill Phillips is a goddamn monster. I worship that dude.

    Actually I think Tom Venuto might too (BurnTheFat.com), because they're remarkable similar in their marketing.

    -Daniel
    Signature

    Always looking for badass direct-response copywriters. PM me if we don't know each other and you're looking for work.

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    • Profile picture of the author max5ty
      Originally Posted by Daniel Scott View Post

      Bill Phillips is a goddamn monster. I worship that dude.

      -Daniel
      Yes, he's a great marketer.

      I think what launched him into his current status is when he started Muscle Media 2000 (later changed to Muscle Media, now defunct).

      He propelled MM2000 into stardom by doing his first Body Transformation Contest where he gave away his Lamborghini.

      It was a multiple approach marketing campaign...the contest helped popularize the magazine...the magazine pushed supplements from his EAS Company to use in the contest, which shot EAS to a major player in the supplement world, and which he later sold for a huge profit. The contest, magazine and supplement connection led to him writing his book, which already had a captive audience before it was ever published, causing it to become a New York Times Best Seller...and it was all history from there, as they say.

      Definitely a marketing strategy worth studying.
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  • Profile picture of the author shawnlebrun
    Daniel and Maxty, you guys are 100% right... back when I was a young weight lifter, I bought a lot of his stuff based on the marketing alone.

    And 10 years later, when I became a marketer, I was amazed at his process.

    I remember reading a passage in one of John Carlton's newsletters where Bill worked pretty closely with Joe Polish.

    Hell, any chance to win a Lamborghini is good enough for me to buy his mags and shakes.

    I personally know of MANY online marketers who took their entry into Bill's EAS Transformational Content and parleyed it into a HUGELY profitable online biz.

    Joel Marion and Anthony Ellis, both transformation content winners, both took that and leveraged it into a huge online biz.

    Josh Bezoni from BellyFatFree.com was Bill's nutrition guru and does very well now on his own.

    so, from what I've learned... you could do a lot worse than studying Bill's marketing.

    I mean, heck, how many of us can claim we built a million dollar supp business, then a million dollar magazine biz, publishing company, best selling book, and so much more.

    Plus his charity work for Make a Wish is legendary.

    I remember sending him a letter probably almost 20 years ago, back when I was a young fitness dude trying to break into the industry.

    I don't know if he wrote back, or just someone from his staff... but he replied and said something so profound but life changing for me.

    "Ink and paper can move the world and change your life..."

    it was something like that, but from what I could tell, he was talking about writing and publishing could help you change your life and the lives of others.

    And sure enough, he was 100% right.
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