Amazing. Free. New. Breakthrough.
Fascinating. Shocking. Secret.
Now.
I’ve started keeping a list of highly inflammatory direct response words.
You can see some of them above. There’s no sense in me sharing the rest. Everybody who is in this business has to pluck these words up for him or hoyself. And then comes the hard part:
You have to actually use them.
I say “hard part” because chances are you are a little like me.
Maybe you find typical direct response writing obnoxious.
Maybe you say, I would never read this, much less buy this “easy genius opportunity.”
Maybe you think you can be the one to talk to people modestly and simply… and convince them with your earnest speech to listen.
Maybe you can.
I certainly cannot.
After years of writing copy for money, the harsh mathematics of direct response is slowly dawning on me.
A typical sales letter goes out to thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of people.
If only 98 out of 100 of those people look at your sales letter and say, “Ugh”… then you’ve done good, as long as the remaining 2 buy.
And if a measly 95 out of each 100 people think your writing is obnoxious and repulsive… while those remaining 5 didn’t notice, because you put them in a drooling trance… then you’ve got a ticket to ride.
Speaking of repulsive, maybe that’s what you should focus on the next time you write copy.
Rather than trying to appease people who are offended by ugly, hard-hitting, direct response copy… maybe you should actively aim to drive them away. Because as marketer Ben Settle reports:
“In fact, I have found the more I repel the people I don’t want, the more I automatically turn on the people I do. And the more I do this, the more my sales go up. The less I do it, the less my sales go up.”
In closing:
I have an email newsletter. If you are just looking for “swipes,” then subscribing to my newsletter won’t do you any good. Save yourself the effort. However, if you are a business owner who wants to hear what’s working now, at least with the clients I work with… or if you are a copywriter who is interested in those genius secrets of the business… then you may get some value out of it. Here’s where to go to subscribe.