I read this cute little ebook a few months ago "How To Double Your Income in 6 Months Using Linked"...and found the concept of weak social links very interesting...

The basic premise is that most of our girlfriends, husbands, wives or jobs are not found through people we know very well like best friends or brothers and sisters, rather its through weak social links or acquaintances...

And as you will read in the copy of this letter I don't have a problem meeting women its quality...and also time to go out and meet more...

So this is a very personal quest for me and all your help will be appreciated. I'm so excited that one of my ex-girlfriends got it when I asked her for a testimonial.

I need this to be the best it can be before going live:
http://www.netucation.co.za/findmeagirlfriend/

All my thanks in advance.

Sincerely
Ramon

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/72212/..._your_english/

:}

For success track down Gary Halbert's letter on this topic.

I have tracked down his personal ad and spent some time rewriting it. I would like to pose an ethical question to the board. How acceptable is it to do this...to take Gary's letter, rewrite it for myself and post it online AND I plan to take out a full page ad in a South Africa newspaper or women's magazine.

Sincerely
Ramon

WTF? I thought Ramon's english was fine.

It's actually a suggested practice among copywriters. The only ethics involved is attempting to use the same efforts (his), copy his writing, and attempt to steal money from the same market. As long as your "working" a different group of people, and providing a different product (you) then people such as Gary fully support and even recomend swiping of copy. But I'll send you Gary's address anyway. He usually answers any short questions.

Well yeah...it looks great now. It didn't look that way when he first posted it.

Ramon...it really looked like a hack job at first. But was that you who filled my email box with bogus leads from Africa?? If so, relax...I was just trying to point out that it was obvious English wasn't your first language. If not, ignore this post.

I got a response back from Gary Halbert that I could model my own perosnal ad on the famous on he wrote. You can read the revised, longer and updated version of my personal ad here:
http://www.findmeagirlfriend.co.za/

I am still on track to run this in a national women's magazine in South Africa. Seems to be newspapers are much more expensive and also more read by men so a women's magazine like South African editions of Cosmo or O magazine or several other local magazines would be more suitable in my opinion. Do you have another suggestion?

Just some additional background info on South Africa: Only 7% of the population has Internet Access which is about 4 million out of 45 million people. So this website will reach a limited audience.

Ramon

Websites have no reach at all. Once put up, nobody has any idea they are there. They are only good as a destination to direct people to with advertising or by useing popular keyword phrases.

And to "model" your ad after his, does not mean adding a few of your own details to his letter. It means re-writing his letter entirely but using your own words and experiences. The way its wriiten now is Gary Halbert. Likely, your not him or are as well off as he is. You want to re-write the whole thing in your own style and using your own language skills. But to copy the FLOW of his letter is the genious of it. The point of view. He ASKS for permission before talking about himself. Stuff like that is brilliant. Thats where most people screw up. But use your own words.


(please forgive my observation here....I didn't use the word "I" in my response, even once)

Ramon,

Advertising in the SA edition of Cosmo or O is a waste. SA is a pretty large country and there's no way you're traveling far for a date.

I have no idea where you live, but if you live in say Cape Town, I'd look to buy standby space in one of the local daily or weekly papers.

Google "standby newspaper ads" and see if any of the companies listed does any international biz. (I just noticed my post about standby newspaper ads in this forum is in the number 3 spot on the search...too frickin' funny.)

If the standby places don't do biz in SA then contact the newspapers yourself. Find out what the column inch rate is. Then write a letter offering to place an ad (at 80% off that rate) and enclose a check for that amount with your ad (and files) on cd. Tell them to print it whenever they have an opening in the next 3 weeks or just rip up the check and destroy the cd.

All newspapers, now and then, can't fill up their 1/4, 1/2 or full pages with ads. You'll see this happening when you see those spaces filled up with an ad for something they do in their paper...advertising their want ads...advertising their online paper, etc.

When Halbert placed his famous full page date ad he did it in the L.A. Weekly and not the L.A. Times. He did it locally and not statewide.

Also, a quick check of the Cape Town (Cape Times) paper says 40% of it's readership are women.

Focus on a weekly paper in your city and place a full page ad (at a huge discount). Perhaps you'll be as lucky as Halbert and have other papers and local radio stations pick up on the unusual ad.