I found the following via Lawrence Bernstein’s Ad Money Machine site. You gotta pay for that site, and I happily do. It clues me in to wonders like the following:
For the past dozen or more years, select subscribers to National Geographic magazine (one-year print subscription: $39) have been getting a unique sales letter in the mail.
The sales letter, which comes with an attractive brochure, is making a pitch for a $90k upsell — and apparently selling out the offer year after year.
I bet you’re curious what this $90k upsell could be. I mean, it’s quite a leap from $39. What could possibly be worth it?
I’ll tell you.
The offer is called “Africa by Private Jet.” It involves:
* 20 days
* 7 different countries
* A private Boeing 757, refitted to accommodate just 51 expert travelers instead of the standard 233 budget sardines
* Visits to the best big game, big ape, and big culture locations across Africa
* Professional scientists as tour guides, an on-staff physician, and an expedition chef
* An inaugural dinner with Jane Goodall in London (first stop of the trip) and a farewell dinner in Rome (last stop)
* A safe, fascinating, hassle-free adventure; a feeling of importance and superiority; interesting dinner party stories for a lifetime; all backed by the good name of National Geographic Society
The sales letter made me want to go.
And it reminded me of Ken McCarthy’s Advanced Copywriting for Serious Info Marketers seminar.
One of Ken’s many messages in that seminar was that if you think a bit, you will find higher-ticket offers — which cost 2x, 10x, 100x, even 2,307x of what your front-end costs — and your best or very best customers will still happily buy.
There’s no shortcut to that bit of thinking.
But perhaps a good starting point is to conjure up an absolutely incredible experience or transformation you yourself would like to enjoy — and then just take others along with you on that trip.
Anyways, my offer today has little to do with the above National Geographic story, except the following:
Before he got to talking about upsells, Ken McCarthy spent the majority of that Advanced Copywriting seminar teaching what he believes to be the “most important, do-or-die copywriting skill.”
He first teased people in the seminar, and had them guess what they thought this skill might be. People guessed:
Stirring up curiosity?
Coming up with a big idea?
Sounding believable?
Nope. Ken had a mechanical skill in mind. And he said this one mechanical skill covers 90% of what it takes to be a copywriter. If you’d like to find out more: