Hey Peeps!

My friend Alan forrest Smith, has finally agreed after a constant barrage of begging and pleading! To let me have a go at one of his copy projects,

He told me that theres no guarrantee of it being used, BUT! theres still a chance if i can really blow him away with this!

Hes talking at some seminar thing in Russia right now,

And i wanna try and get this copy SHINING like a star by the time he gets back!!

http://www.geocities.com/suecleve/index.html

Its a bit rough right now, will get it proofread and polished, but right now i just want to see if ive layed the bricks down ok?

Any advice sincerely appreciated,

thanks

Jason

I hate to say it but this copy has got problems right and left, it will need a lot of work. Just some of the first things I noticed were:

Subhead of "Can you afford to miss" immediately tempted me to answer: yes! Because no value whatsoever has yet been established. At that point it's still just another sales letter.

Then comes the header. The word gagging immediately put me off. Would you refuse to go sounds insulting to the readers intelligence. The answer to the question is a much too rhetorical "Yes" in my opinion.

The whole copy in general is very ugly formatted. You highlight too much and sometimes the wrong words.

This is coming off too harsh, especially the I'm sorry, like you really mean it. It wouldn't be so bad if value was established, but right now this claim will meet a lot of scepticism. I think most people will have left the page after this.

The opening of the letter is awkward. Seeting with anger at myself? And then the follow up with the joint venture tax. You make a whole drama about not having added tax, then at the end of it all you say you were only joking. You lose a lot of credibility there.

Then comes a testimonial, which seems like it's placed right between the copy. The copy after the testimonial just goes on from where it was cut off before. You should try fitting in testimonials in your story as you go along.

There were much more problems I glanced over but this is as much as I've read so far.

Try to come off a bit more serious and establish real value. Let them know what coming to the seminar will mean for them and their business and in what way it's different to other courses or seminars. Give them ideas of how to use the information at the seminar, how to network and how to expand their business with on-the-spot, live consulting at their fingertips.

These are the things that caught my eye most.

Good luck.

Thanks Eric for your honest detailed critque.

Im really trying to grab attention with this one, trying to be as spontanueous as i can, i re-wrote most of this all in one nights enphusiastic frenzy!

The page is result of that as you can see in its wildness.

Your critique
was just what i was looking for.. (although painful to my pride to read, i know its going to make me a stronger copywriter!) and hey im a beginner im supposed to make mistakes right?

BUT I SHALL PERSIST!

Because now hopefully i can mould the energy i put into the letter, with your advice and other Pro advice on this board into a real winning letter!

Yes im definitly going to take all your advice on board and strengthen, those weaknesses you mentioned.

I intentionally went after the UGLY look on the letter! I listened to one Gene Swartz lecture that was posted on here a while ago, and it stresses that an ugly layout draws the reader, rather than a perfect looking one that some aim for--plus i saw a dan kennedy website that looked crazy recently!

So im trying to follow in some great footsteps at this starting to point in my career.

Just out of interest

Is there anything you DID think was good about the letter?

Hi Jason,

Well, you're right - the "ugly layout" can be very beneficiary, and you've achieved that at some points. It can convey a lot of enthusiasm and can inject a strong personal touch. But it's crucial as to how you use it.

The "ugliness", in my opinion, exists as a by-product of emphasis and enthusiasm. When you would make the sale verbally, for instance, you would stress certain words and phrases with your voice. You would convey importance, emotion, and excitement by means of emphasis in many different ways. Good copy does the exact same thing.

So while the ugliness is a strong conveyor of emtoions at some points in your copy, it disrupts it in others. Personally, I think that you over use it (which is in my opinion the biggest problem), and sometimes misuse it.

An example:

In this sentence you stress the words: "If you are a serious"

Try to pronounce that sentence with emphasis on those words. It sounds out of place.

Some good advice I've been given is to always read your letter out loud, preferrably to someone else and go over the places where it sounds broken off, awkward or out of place. It's a great way to detect weak points in your letter.

So when you ask what I did think was good: Your enthusiasm is a good aspect, it just needs to be redirected along the lines of good copywriting techniques and proper emphasis to communicatie that enthusiasm properly. Show them what exactly your enthusiasm is about and prove without a shadow of a doubt that your enthusiasm is genuine and justified.

I'm not the best copywriter in the world myself either, so maybe some of my better colleagues can add or correct some suggestions.

Jason,

I really think it would benefit you (as a beginner) to follow a good copywriting outline. You must understand such things as your target market, the buying process, AIDA, and so on.

To be perfectly honest, in its current state, I think the letter is a train wreck. The humour is contrived and misplaced, and I doubt if Alan will let you run with this. I'm being cruel to be kind - a kick in the pants now is worth a lot more than some polite knockbacks and no money in your bank account later.

Unfortunately, energy and enthusiasm isn't enough to overcome bad structure. Horse whisperers have specific steps that they take in order to tame unruly horses; yoga teachers have specific postures that they teach to bring unruly bodies into balance; copywriters go through specific steps to lead their prospects to a sale. Which exact steps they use depends largely on the nature of the product, the level of buyer involvement and the nature of the target market.

As for Gene Schwartz, he would have been referring to printed sales letters. You cannot assume that what works offline will work online. One thing that seems obvious to me is that a site that disrupts the mind and creates anxiety through its design is one that is less likely to retain the attention of prospects than one that creates a feeling of calm and comfort. It's entirely possible that ugly, online sales letters succeed IN SPITE of their ugliness, rather than BECAUSE OF it. The fact that people continue to use them seems to be entirely a product of what they have learnt about the offline mail order industry, which they have then ported online. Be that as it may, I do agree that it is advantageous to highlight important and salient points.

I won't go into too much detail about anything in particular that you've written except to say that in your headline you use the words "bunch of successful ....". "Bunch" in this context is american vernacular and won't be easily understood by your target market who are presumably fairly serious UK business people.

Oh, and last I heard, Michael Green told me he lived in Hertfordshire, not London!

HTH,

Jane

Hi Jason,

Enthusiasm is a good thing. I can see you really did release all inhibitions when writing your draft... which is good, and it's something I'm still learning to do.

I think it's a GOOD thing to have humor (even bad humor) and stuff like "sell your kids to attend" in your DRAFT... because it shows you "let yourself loose"... but the FINAL COPY is a totally different story.

So now you need to polish it up. One good piece of advice I got (forgot who I got it from) is, if you remove all adjectives and hype from your paragraphs, does the paragraph still say anything? If not, you need to "lay more bricks down" (like you say).

I think you did a decent job in the middle of the letter, where you got down to business with bullet points and it's not just empty hype. But the opening and closing need major reworking.

About ugly "clunky" copy, I believe the way Dan Kennedy uses it is to cater to skimmers. That means, if you just read the subheads, highlights, stuff in larger font, etc, you'd get the guts of the message. You seem to have misused it to enhance the hypey parts instead, so it comes across as YELLING.

Eg, If I was a skimmer I'd catch the part about "sell your kids to attend" and be instantly turned off. I wouldn't see the smaller type where you say, "I'm NOT gonna insult your intelligence like that".

I think you still can re-work it into a good letter... treat it as a draft (regardless if it's your draft or not). My first letters were a LOT worse than that (ugh... I cringe when I think about them) so there's no need to be discouraged.

Sincerely,
Yeo

Many thanks, Erik, Jane, and Yeo

For taking out the time to help me out, i really appreciate it.

Im going to follow some other advice ive been given aswell and leave this 1st draft for a week now and then come back in a week with fresh eyes and using the suggestion you guys have given me and;

"BEAT THIS LETTER INTO SOME SUPER SHAPE!"

I'll Post the new version up, and hopefully make all u guys so proud wen u see it lol

Thanks again, this is really a great board

Jason

Jason,

Well done for opeining up on this board. You will take harsh (sometimes un-proven and un-tested) comments from this board but a good place to come for a kick-in-the-teeth!

Anyway, lets get some positves outta this one for you buddy.

You made a superb effort. Sitting down and trying to write anything isnt easy, so well done. You are a wild horse but take some of the wild passion and give it some control and direction. Wild horses make the BEST horses ... when half-tamed!

Calm down and pull in some control. Formatting at this point isnt relevant. Write in basic copy first and when the words are right ... format later on.

Good attempt. Good effort. Great passion. You'll win on this gig long term I promise you I can see that in your other work you have sent me.

Finally, you did something many around here have NEVER done. Posted copy for critique. Not easy around here to swallow the comments especially when they can appear to come from non-copywriting directions!

That is a sure sign of someone that wants to grow into something great. Yes, you know it, now your not great, big deal, babies arent great at walking. But unless they stand and fall over ... they never improve.

Keep standing, keep falling, believe in yourself and you'll shake some notepads around here!

Well done again.

Thank you Alan for the kind and encouraging words!

Here is the new and improved 2nd draft of the site now, it hasn't been proof read as yet so dnt worry about the spelling/grammer as yet.

what do you think guys? Am i Getting any closer?

http://www.geocities.com/suecleve/index.htm

Again, thanks for your help,

Jason