Target Market: Massage Therapists
Medium: Direct Mail




Dear Jane Doe,


You’ve heard that all it takes to grow the massage practice of your dreams is to “talk” to people about your service…

Most “veterans practitioners” say it takes about five years to build your practice this way.

But what if you could talk to 100 people a week?

Even better, what if you could do that without adding any extra time to your current schedule? Clone yourself and send your clone out to share your healing philosophy with the world while you focused on your current clients?

Paul Ingraham is doing just that and his practice is booked 3 months in advance and he has stopped taking new clients.

We all know its hard to build a practice on free chair massages, discounts coupons and newspaper ads. For a few it works a little, but for most it’s a time consuming and expensive failure.

Successful practitioners everywhere are now discovering what really works – and we want you to experience it for FREE!

Let us prove it to you!

[1] Gets attention with Big Benefit and qualifies prospect

[2] Provides quick and easy solution and Builds some rapport

[3] Removes Risk

Remove the quotes in paragraph 2, which should be veteran practitioners. A more powerful example would be "[Trade Magazine] reports 8 of 10 vetaran ...."

"We all know" and "Successful practitioners everywhere" are used as a kind of Hamburger Helper for Copy -- trying to replace whole paragraphs of belief-building copy. There's no link that, for instance, a single one of these successes is due to the advice you're trying to sell. We all know is a step down from you-centered copy.

Rather than use the opening as a warm up, you should be producing proof now. The opening is simply pawing the ground, getting ready to just about say something.

The paragraph "Paul Ingraham is doing just that and his practice is booked 3 months in advance and he has stopped taking new clients." is okay. But then the letter goes off in another direction. The copy needs to get to the point by tying Paul Ingraham to the solution for the problem. This may happen on page four, but it could be much sooner.

Check out my post in this thread.

Hi,
so here is my modeste vision please believe in my respect and my sympathy.

what make me in trouble in this headline is the fact that it is just a promise, there isnothing about the product itself, no information and the "Even while You sleep" make it sound too much.

the other thing is the over rassuring make too big also.

Guaranteed may be sufficient by itself, but it is added to RISK FREE to make it stronger, and this volonty of assuring make the inverse effect.

let me explain:

(some salesman argue and argue and propose so many garantie that they end to make suspicious their offer or cheap their product).

people are know guarantie, and aren't novice I mean it isn't the first time they recieve a direct mail letter, or offer etc..

and also the use of WE here :
the red one englobe the reader, I mean it is to suggest the whole practitionnaire, the seond we (blue) is a corporatif one (I meanit is about the compagny and make the first one less efficient).

what this mean, it mean that the transition from the sympathic college speech to a salesman speech is so short and you jump directely to make the sales.

again please believe in my erspect and my sympathy and hope that this incoherent replay help.

How about:

Denver Massage Therapist Discovers Ruthless New Way to Double Client Base Every 6 Weeks.

Here's How to Be One Of The 230 Who Learns Her Secret...

As I understand it, the purpose of the opening is to build rapport, rekindle interest and pull the prospect inside...Right?

The tone should be like we're sitting at the bar explaining something exciting to my buddy...

Maybe my opening is too long, but I can't really give PROOF yet - I haven't even given the benefits yet. This will be a 5-6 page sales letter

I would say the job of the opening is to get the rest of the letter read. Proof is not mutually exclusive to rapport-building. And information is the stuff of proof. In fact, it convinces a reader -- who by the way is not your buddy -- to give your letter a fair hearing.

From the first two paragraphs of a successful radar detector ad...
"Although nine different errors have been documented for traffic radar, the most common source of wrongful tickets is mistaken identity.
It's hard to believe, but traffic radar does not identify which vehicle is responsible for the speed being displayed. It shows only a speed number and nothing else. The radar operator must decide who is to blame."

From the first three paragraphs of a Joe Sugarman ad...
"It's strictly for men. It's mascuine, tough as nails and hard to destroy.
But putting the hype aside, the Black Bullet is a major design breaktrough in sunglasses.
Each lens is made of Optic Steel -- a new space-age material almost equivalent to the strength of steel but with incredibly clear optical properties."

From the first two paragraphs of a mailing from Dr Gary North...
"In 1996, Union Pacific had just taken over a smaller rail company called Southern Pacific. Ther merger was supposed to be smooth sailing. It nearly caused an economic collapse. How?
Merging the two compaies computer systems created a backup of 40,000 rail cars -- enough to make a single train 500 miles long. Deliveries were delayed by as much as 30 days... in some cases, they never happened at all. 24 million bushels of grain sat in Kansas and rotted for over six months. Millions of dollars were lost. Chevron lost so muuch money thhey were forced to hire a fleet of trucks to make up the difference. All because of a "little" computer glitch."

From a Bob Bly salesletter selling his services, first three paragraphs...
"For many people, industrial advertising is a difficult chore. It's detailed work, and highly technical. To write the copy, you need someone with the technical know-how of an engineer and the communications skills of a copywriter.

That's where I can help.

As a freelance industrail and high-tech copywriter who is also a graduate engineer, I know how to write clear, technically sound, hard-selling copy. You'll like my writing samples--ads, brochures, catalogs, direct mail, PR, and A/V. And you'll like having a writer on call who works only when you need him."

First three paragraphs of a classic Barron's letter...
"Back in 1925, Barron's published an article suggesting how $100,000 might be well invested in securities for a widow with two small children.

The plan was based on a set of ten rules for investors, stated in the article.

The securities (stocks and bonds), all picked in accordance with the first seven of the ten rules, are today worth $379,002."





And of course the example I have already given. Notice a trend? Some claim or factoid or event, no matter your point of view, sets the reader up for a conversation about a topic of importance.

When you get to the point in a letter, especially one selling business advice, you build rapport in a very importan way: by showing respect for a busy reader's time and limited attention. You generate reader interest by showing their attention wil pay off by getting to the point.

Your buddy in the bar will give you far more leeway than the reader of that letter. You can drone on and on about nothing with your bar budies.

And why is that? Because, with your bar buddies you have already established a rapport. Unless you respond to the reader's interest with some good, old fashioned information, you're essentially like the strange guy in the street, talking to himself.

In a one-page letter you get on point quickly. In an eight, sixteen, or twenty-four page letter you have to get on point quickly. Why? Because if you don't the reader is going to base their decision on the one, indisputable piece of information you've given them -- the thing they're holding in their hand is twenty-four pages long and poised conveniently over their waste basket.

The main purpose of your opening line is to keep them reading.

For more on opening lines you should check this thread which covers the subject in some detail...
http://www.copywritersboard.com/copy...ines-suck.html

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

Free Online Copywriting Course
Online Copywriter

Thanks for the valuable feedback John!

Denver Massage Therapist Discovers Ruthless New Way to Double Client Base Every 6 Weeks.

Here's How to Be One Of The 230 Who Learns Her Secret...

love this headline!

Denver Massage Therapist Discovers Ruthless New Way to Double your clients, lower your costs and have you booked solid thru 2010

Heres How.....


Denver Massage Therapist Discovers Shocking New way to flood your business with clients, cut your costs, and cut your work time in 1/2

Heres How.....

Reformed Work-a-holic Massage Therapist exposes how to double your client base every 6 weeks, while slashing your work time in 1/2

Heres How....

All dud's.
Get Glyphius and know the answer to 7 out of 8 of these headline challenges:
http://copywriting.marketingkaizen.com/

(#4 was a tie)

Mr. Chuck