Exploding the PS Myth

What's the PS myth, I hear you ask.

If you've ever written a letter, any kind of letter, you'll know the feeling you get just at the moment you sign your name...

Damn! I forgot to mention (whatever).

Now, that's where the PS is really useful. Whatever the whatever is that you forgot to mention, you can mention it in a PS:

PS I forgot to mention Aunt Maud is coming to visit on Sunday. For a month... (or whatever)

Another occasion you'll use a PS is when you've not forgotten a single thing you were planning to say, but then something else comes up just before you seal the envelope. Or, more annoyingly, just after you've sealed the envelope, addressed it and stuck the stamp on. Perhaps:

PS Angie has asked me to remind you that it's your turn to have Aunt Maud this Christmas.

You might think that those are the sorts of reasons you'll usually see a PS at the end of a sales letter, too. And you'd be wrong, hopefully.

Unless the copywriter is spectacularly inept, every part of a sales letter is there for a reason, including the PS. After all, if it was important to have the PS as part of the body copy, the copywriter could just as easily insert it before sending it to anyone.

No, the PS is not, or should not, ever be an afterthought, even if it's phrased to give that impression. In fact, plenty of top direct mail marketers and writers will tell you it's probably the second thing you should write, after the headline.

Not least because it's generally thought to be the second thing a prospect reads - most people read the headline, very few read all the body copy (the first time) and a significant number of them will scan quickly to the end of the letter for the PS's and, just above those, the price.

So, a little forthought with your afterthoughts, please.

The next time you write a sales letter, think about the kind of killer copy you can include in the PS to get your prospects to go back to the top of the letter - and read it through the way it was meant to be read.

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

PS The best thing is, if you think about it, they get to read your best killer copy (in the PS's) twice!

PPS There's still time for you to sign up for Nick Wrathall's 'The Complete Guide To Copywriting', where you can learn all you need to know about headlines, PS's and everything in between.

Forecasting is Easy - Sometimes

Weather forecasters and pilots use a strange, universal language to communicate. When a forecaster wants to predict the weather for a certain airfield (this is called a Terminal Airfield Forecast, or TAF, by the way), he writes his forecast in a kind of semi-plain language that other meteorologists and pilots can easily understand. And when the actual weather is being reported by an observer on the ground, he uses much the same language.

Now, at the end of each actual weather report (called a METAR, or METeorological Airfield Report, if you're interested), there will often be a 'trend' added. This is a brief summary of the forecast for the next two hours. Just about the most common trend is for 'no significant change', written NOSIG in the strange, rarified world of aviation meteorology.

I think some marketers, and even some marketing consultants and copywriters, could adopt the term NOSIG for their forecast results. Not because they don't give good advice or write great copy, but because so many of their clients still aren't prepared to change what they do.

It's madness to expect different results if they repeat the same actions. It's expensive madness if they pay someone to help them and then don't listen to their advice or use what they create, but it happens all the time.

Some things and some people will never change, it seems. NOSIG there, then.

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

PS. I understand from Nick Wrathall that there are still a few copies of his Complete Guide To Copywriting available at the introductory price, largely because he's barely started marketing it yet. It's good of him to give me a head start with it. Even more generous to still be offering it to you! Check out my previous post for the link. But HURRY!

Get The Complete Guide to Copywriting from the man who knows - save $500 if you act fast

You may have read my post of a couple of weeks ago, telling you about my (tenuous) link with the great Ted Nicholas, and my rather more substantial connection to Nick Wrathall, by means of a couple of headline-writing competitions.

If not, take a chance to read them now.

There's not much either of them don't know about copywriting, and it was a privilege for me to have Nick pass on some of his great knowledge and wisdom the last time we talked.

But Nick seems to have been quiet for a few months - or he wasn't talking to me, anyway - and now I know why. He's been busily putting together a course on copywriting, which has already attracted rave reviews from people who should know.

His copywriting skills have transformed the fortunes of many of the businesses he's worked for, although he'll be the first to admit he's made a few mistakes along the way, too. The point is, he's learned from them and included all those lessons in his course so we don't have to make the same mistakes ourselves.

The Complete Guide to Copywriting is aimed at business owners who want to master the art of creating winning sales copy for themselves, and at copywriting professionals who want to improve their own skills, get better results and, frankly, earn more.

The guide will distil Nick's knowlege of the tried and tested craft of copywriting, plus the latest tricks and twists that are getting the best results, in the real world, right now.

It's not cheap, but it will pay for itself if you write just one successful sales letter as a result of buying it. And it will help you will write better copy, I promise.

The Complete Guide to Copywriting will retail at $1295.00, but for a limited time Nick has agreed to release it with a discount over 30 percent, at just $795.

Nick won't hold the price down for long, he tells me, so if you want to save 500 dollars on the price, you'd better order it now.

Here's the link: Tell me more about The Complete Guide to Copywriting and how I can save $500 today!

And earn a lot more...

STOP PRESS: The latest from Nick is that the first 35 only will be at the reduced bargain price - after that it MUST rise to $1295. To get The Complete Guide to Copywriting for only $795 you must order now.

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

Choice versus Fate - There's Really No Contest

I just did a very stupid thing; something I said I'd never do again. What was that?

I'll tell you. Trusting to fate. Or fortune or luck or whatever. It was a minor thing, really, and it probably won't change my life in any measurable way. And anyway, we'll never know what might have been...

Still, I took control of my life over the past few years, gradually and progressively, to the point where 'fate' had little to do with it and decisiveness and self-determination became the rule.

It was something and nothing, actually. Simply, I had left a web page open on my laptop, intending to read the really quite interesting but really quite long sales message on it, if I felt like it, a bit later.

Then I opened a newsletter, on which was a link to another page. Now, I know that sometimes a link opens a new window and sometimes it will use one that's already open. So I let 'it' decide whether I would get around to reading that other web page by clicking on the link. The new page replaced the old one, the 'once-only' offer was lost for ever, and 'fate' had decided whether that sales message was meant for me or not.

I probably wouldn't have bought, and maybe I'd already decided that before I took the chance of losing the offer, but it felt like tossing a coin, trusting to luck.

I didn't like it.

It won't happen again.

The lesson? Once we've tasted real self-determination, once we've fled a nest or chucked-in a job to join the real world, anything less just doesn't feel good enough. We're all capable of doing better than that.

As I said, it won't happen again.

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

Write About What You Know - Another New Article

I've just added another new article to my directory. This one gives a new angle on an old adage: Write about what you know.

The new piece is aimed mainly at copywriters, but fiction writers can benefit from the same approach too, so take a look by going directly to it here or visit the Well Versed articles directory at www.wellversed.co.uk/articles.html

You'll find loads of helpful and interesting articles there on writing and marketing, plus a few others that I hope you'll enjoy.

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You - or at least notices you exist!

As a writer involved in marketing, among other things, I know that the best sales copy in the world is useless if nobody reads it.

Just as 'junked' direct mail can seem horribly futile, so the loveliest, most literate website is redundant if it has no visitor traffic.

It goes without saying that your website should be promoted at every opportunity, just as the rest of your business should be. And the site should promote your business effectively, collect prospects' details, and so on.

Still, the actual numbers visiting a site can be disappointingly low, and increasing traffic by advertising on the search engines, for example, can be expensive.

Now there's a new way of increasing traffic dramatically, and it's free. It relies on the fact that we all want to increase traffic - and we all do, don't we? - to function. Once you've primed the system by promoting your own affiliate link, the traffic growth should be exponential.

Here's the link: http://www.FreeViral.com/?r=127139

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

The Delicate Art of Giving Offence

Writing a sales letter recently, I was reminded of some advice from, I think, Dan Kennedy. Although I doubt it's unique to him, it was his name that came to mind.

Anyway, the principle is this: when drafting sales copy, you cannot afford to cater for the sensibilities of the easily-offended. Your aim is to maximise the copy's compelling appeal to those who might buy - to maximise response. Remembering that it will always be a small minority who actually take action, your job is to make sure they do.

Basically, everyone else is simply not your concern. They weren't buying anyway. And if they're on your client's mailing list for years and still haven't bought, your client is better off without them. Driving them away could save time and wasted marketing resources.

Two percent buying and ten percent offended is better than no one buying and no offence caused.

Which is not to say you should set out to offend. Two percent buying while ninety-eight percent complain or are lost as clients forever is not a good result, but your first priority - indeed your only concern in the end - is to sell.

Roy Everitt, writing for results

Ted Nicholas, Nick Wrathall and Me - part 2

I knew my winning headline was an adaptation of a old one - one that's been adapted numerous times, in fact. What I didn't realise, was that Nick Wrathall's headline was also an adaptation - of a headline by that man Ted Nicholas. Nicholas wrote his first version in the early 1970's:

What Will You Do When All Your Personal Assets--Including Your House, Car and Cash--Are Seized to Satisfy a Judgment Against YourCorporation?

My prototype was much older, dating from the 1920's or 30's:

They all laughed when I sat down at the pian0 - but when I started to play...

Just in case you were wondering...