Trying something different on one of my sites. Not proofread yet or perfect but nearly ready to roll.

Let me know gang.

http://www.alanforrestsmith.com/

Hi Alan, I like the way you present your services to your client in a soft-sell manner. It makes the client feel it was his/her idea to contact you.

However, in my very personal opinion, I think your headline is a bit bland, unactive, and sounds a bit "hypey".
Why not use something more active like:

"I Will Make You Generate Overwhelming Profits"
- by Allan Forrest Smith, Professional Copywriter

By the way, your subheadings look great with that typewriter style font, however, I would suggest you to change your headline's image font, since it looks a bit fancy and hypey at first look, maybe you can replace it with a plain-text headlines with a H2-sized, "Georgia" font. I think that if you mix that typewriter-like font in your subheadings, with a standard-font headlin, they will make a great balance for your copy presentation.

Also, I won't suggest you to use a courier font for your copy, it looks messy and a bit unprofessional. You may want to try to to use a "Georgia" or "Verdana" font. I specially like the Georgia one. I have seen Michel uses it in many of the sales copy he writes, it looks quite great

Greetings.

Hi Alan,

"Oh No! It's that bloody awful woman Jane - what dreadful thing is she going to say now ...." you might be wondering .....

OK, I'll try to be gentle - but I'm not over keen. Let's start with design. I really like the kookie manual typewriter font, but I agree with Air (or I think I do) that I don't like the body font or the colour. There's way too much blue on the page - I feel like I've fallen into an inkwell, and I don't like that feeling. It's hard to put into words how the design makes me feel, but intense and overwhelmed or washed out might be close - I prefer the orange beetle.

Voice - the voice (and language) seems to switch back and forth between an american and english voice. I don't know what the answer to this is, because if I understand correctly, you are trying to appeal to both markets. Maybe you need two websites - .co.uk written in Mancunian (or Wirralean or Cheshirean or whatever) and .com in american. As an english-ish person I find it alienating because you are quite literally not speaking my language.

Human beings are remarkably predictable (and I was musing this to myself yesterday on a totally un-marketing related topic), so it's fair to say that:
(a) most people don't like dark designs that feel cramped and intimidating
(b) people will respond better if you appear to be speaking their language

[I have no idea what the obsession with dark backgrounds in the internet marketing world is, but it doesn't work for me. Some sites actually make me feel physically agitated (or even ill) and I can't wait to leave - this can't be good for sales. Am I more sensitive to aesthetics/colours than other people?]

Target market - even though I have been on this forum for some time now, I still don't know who your target market is. The only hint of it in this piece was "You know, the direct mailers, web entrepreneurs, cash-creators, networkers, home-spun millionaires?" But what are cash-creators (is that like Cash Converters?) and home-spun millionaires (can I knit one?). Facetiousness aside - who are your ideal clients and why not make a more obvious call to them earlier in the piece?

More important even than that, is what knowledge or understanding does your target market have before they hit your site? Do they understand the importance of good copy? Do they understand the difference it can make to them? Do they understand that paying for some good copy now could leverage their marketing activities, increase their response and put them on the path to success compared to their current efforts? Who or what are you competing against - other copywriters or your clients own limp efforts? If it is the former, and the prospects understand why good copy is necessary, then fair play. But if it is the latter, then I think you need to explain in more detail why they should be using the services of a copywriter. This might be totally irrelevant.

Offer - I thought the offer was a bit weak. Could you beef it up by calling it a free copy critique? It's also not clear to me why you provided the landline number and then said that you never answer it! What purpose does that serve? I also thought you were setting yourself up for unrealistic expectations (and hence future client management issues) by inferring that you would look at their copy 3 seconds after they'd pressed send.

In short, it didn't answer these questions for me:
what is the problem?
who is having the problem?
how can you solve my problem?
why should I buy from you?
why should I take action now, instead of after the Euros are over (or the next world cup for that matter)? [<- sorry - added for artistic impact ]
what can you offer me today that is irresistable and no risk? (I know there's no risk - but you haven't pointed that out).

Finally, I found the language to be predictably hypey. Prove me wrong please - but surely when you are selling to other businesses they don't need that kind of language because you risk damaging your credibility?

By the way - did you know that the offer is much more important than the copy?

And really, really finally - how about those hard-core business people being totally flummoxed because they don't know where all their customers went - one of the advantages of direct marketing is that it's much more difficult for your competitors to find out what you're up to!

Please feel free to disagree and tell me I'm wrong - as I'm sure I may be. It will contribute to everyone's learning.

Thanks