Knowledge Transfer and the Problem of Perception: The Achilles Heel of Logic

This is somewhat related to a lot of what Kenneth has said about generating big ideas. Before I start explaining my concept, I will briefly explain 3 mathematical concepts –self-organizing systems, Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, and the Chaos theory– and I’ll use those in my explanations. They all sound very highflying but the concepts are very simple.

1. Self-organizing Systems

Self-organization is a process of attraction and repulsion in which the internal organization of a system –normally an open system which continuously interacts with its environment while maintaining its state– increases in complexity without being guided or managed by an outside source.

The brain perceives things through a self-organizing system; it is not linear.

Imagine you are standing in front of a box of sand. If you start pouring water into that sand, it will form a particular pattern and start flowing along those particular lines. Even if you pour in more water, it will essentially continue to flow along only in that pattern.

In the same way, the brain is a self-organizing system. When information goes in, it flows only in a particular pattern.

2. Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem

What is it? It states that any logical system has statements which are simultaneously true and false.

Let’s use language as an example, because language is a logical system.

In language, there are some statements that are both true and false. A very famous conundrum is, “If God can do everything, can He create a stone which He cannot Himself roll?”

If it is true, then this statement is false. BUT, if this statement is false, if you think about it, it is also true.

It is a basic problem of language because any logical system will always contain those kinds of statements which are both true AND false.

That is Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, which brings us to the limit of logic. Gödel’s incompleteness theorem shook the mathematical world by showing that logic itself is incomplete.

3. Chaos theory.

The chaos theory, in essence, states that even a small change in a system can cause a very big change in the outcome.

Now, I’ll begin to connect all these concepts to the main idea I want to share with you, which is the problem of perception, and the Achilles heel of logic and knowledge transfer.

How do you transfer knowledge?

When you transfer knowledge, how do you do it? Normally, you talk and try to come to a logical conclusion.

Many times it works, but sometimes, it doesn’t.

For example, if someone tells me that this is a chair, I could argue that it is not a chair but a table. But if someone says that it is an elephant, I wouldn’t know how to explain that it is not an elephant because it is so different.

When you face the kind of problem that you cannot even begin to explain how to explain it, it means that it is not a problem of logic. It is a problem of perception.

What is perception?

Perceptions are the patterns which are formed by self-organizing systems. If you apply logic to this, and yet your perceptions are different, you won’t reach any conclusions.

You have to go back and look into your perceptions, not logic, because, as Gödel’s theorem has shown us, logic has flaws.

Even if your perceptions are even slightly different, they may lead to very different results. However small the difference in perception may seem, because of the Chaos theory, you will reach very difference conclusions and obtain very different results.

In order to transfer knowledge in the right way, you have to understand first that there are limits to logic. Proceed logically and if you cannot do it logically, don’t argue more! Go back and check whether or not your perceptions match.

You don’t have to change your perception in order to understand where the other person is coming from.

You don’t need to change your perception –you just need to understand the other person’s perception.

For example, in many Eastern countries, when you give someone money, they count it in front of you. But, if you go to a Western country, if you were to count your money in front of the person who’d handed it to you, they’d feel offended. Although you may understand it, your perception is different.

Hence, having a perception is different from understanding a perception.

O.K. Why is this important, again?

I’m glad you asked.

When you plan your marketing strategy, you need to understand the perceptions of the customers’ in your particular niche –this is why the customer avatar is so important.

One area in which knowledge transfer and perception affect business very deeply is information marketing, which we do a lot of. It involves packaging your information in a way that is not only logical, but falls in line with the perceptions of your target audience.

Isn’t it fascinating that science always has an answer for everything?

Now, we’ve all heard of reciprocity with our customers. Give them bonuses, surprise them, and as we’ve riffed on, basically delight the customer to get them to love you.

Lets backtrack a little bit. Two years ago we wanted to go into a new niche market. To test the market waters, we setup a landing page and saw a really great sign up rate. So we started to look for partners to help create a product.

And we hit a wall.

Experts were just not responding to our emails or calls. It was difficult to get their attention, much less try to start a partnership with them. So we put the project on the back burner for a long time.

And then one fine day, I came across this product “The Secret Six and The Power of Intimate Interviews - Advanced Edition” by Shaune Clark. If you haven’t already heard of it, the course teaches you how not just to do an interview as a boring Q&A session — it teaches you how to do an intimate interview.

But it wasn’t just the techniques of doing an intimate interview that really caught my attention. It was this one line on page 17 that rang the proverbial bell:

“As An Interviewer, You Are In A Rare Position To Access Experts”

That insight blew me away. I realized then what we had been missing… we needed to delight our potential business partners too. So I put aside the time to study the course. Okay, I’ll admit… it did seem a bit dreary at first, listening to 12 hours of audio… but let me tell you it was well worth it in the end.

The guide walks you through everything from the power of listening (it’s surprising how often we forget to listen!) to the six different types of questions (and when to use each type) to drawing out best responses from interviewees. Everything is broken down into golden nugget techniques for easy consumption.

What is especially helpful is that every lesson plan links to real life interviews done by Shaune himself (the 12 long hours of audio I was talking about), making it easy to see the practical application of the strategies.

We began implementing the new knowledge immediately.

We sent out emails to experts offering to interview them. We offered to introduce them and their products to our market - for free. All we want is an interview and they can tell everyone on our list in their own words about themselves and their product.

The result?

In one week, the top five leading experts of that niche market replied back with their interest. (not too shabby)

We’ve now used interviews to approach experts across all our projects, and it’s never been easier. By offering just one interview, we get in return:

* access to experts
* credibility
* back end products
* bonus giveaways
* free article content for our blogs and newsletter (where we also get to test the market’s response)
* potential JV partners

…and really, the list goes on.

The more you give, the more you get indeed. That’s the power of karma.

You can check out Shaune’s offer here (recommended).

What is a Big Idea?

A big idea especially as relevant to our industry involves combining the "knew" and the "new".

‘New’ is something totally unrelated to the industry and ‘knew’ is something existing within the industry. When you combine them, you come up with something innovative which explodes your profits.

They may be ‘big ideas’ in terms of advertising campaigns, products, marketing or sales strategy.

Most people say that you can replicate success by using tried and true methods; many say that copywriting is swiping a few files to replicate success. It works in some cases but if you want to take your success to a whole new level, you need a big idea.

Clayton Marketplace says his biggest winners in terms of his copywriting and his letters were based on big ideas which, in their time, were almost revolutionary in nature. It’s from such big ideas that accelerated growth can happen.

If you follow a predictable route, the growth will be predictable. Predictably high, perhaps, but if you want to go to the next level you need a big idea.

If I had to describe the foundation for big ideas, I’d talk about a monkey sitting at a typewriter. A thousand typing monkeys locked up in a room over a century will be able to produce work the quality of Shakespeare. What I mean is, when it comes to big ideas, it’s all about the numbers. The eureka moment; the ‘aha’ moment is a myth. It’s about quantity not quality.

How do you generate Big Ideas?

You don’t sit there and meditate and suddenly one big idea comes out…No, really. It doesn’t happen like that.

You sit down, and generate 50 ideas. Or 100 ideas. Or even better, 300 ideas. And from there, I bet you that at least one of them will be good enough to explode your business to the next level. That’s the foundation –it’s always a numbers game.

But, how do you generate as many ideas as you can, you’re wondering? There are some who regard themselves gurus who can generate brilliant, problem-solving profit-booming ideas, instantly. However, the rest of us mere mortals need to keep trying and pushing.

This was how, in my previous life, I got hired as a copywriter although I had no prior experience. My boss told me to generate as many ideas as possible for three products. They didn’t have to be good ideas, but I had to come up with as many fresh angles as possible.

Within the space of 3hours, I came up with 300 ideas…and I was hired on the spot.

This is the key:

Be Avant-garde Outside Your Own domain.

This key isn’t just for generating big ideas, but for success in anything –even my success in advertising. In my time in advertising during which I won numerous awards, I attribute my success to this key. What’s interesting is this: this key isn’t from any business book.

It was actually from an author by the name of Edmund White on a commentary on Salon.com. He observed that artists are mostly only avant-garde in their own domains. Although they expose themselves to the finest of their own field, everything else they take in is just like what everyone else is taking in.

For example, as a marketer, if you want to be the best in your field, don’t just study your field, marketing. When you do this, you create an incestuous loop, and you won’t create new ideas because they’re based on something someone else in marketing has done before. Even if you read many direct marketing and entrepreneurial books, you’re still going round the same circle.

But, if you step out of that domain, if you start, in the words of Brian Vaszily, "immersing yourself in genius", where you immerse yourself in the greatest form of human expression and creativity in every single field, good ideas will come out from there.

Imagine that fruit are ideas and the soil is your imagination. The fertilizer then is to make sure that the soil is fertile and produces as much fruit as possible…that fertilizer consists of ideas outside your own domain, outside the realm of marketing.

But, here’s a disclaimer:

The statement says no artist is avant-garde outside his own domain, and this basically means you MUST be an artist to begin with.

This means that in order for this to work, you must master marketing first. Before an outside idea can work, you must know the rules of Internet marketing before you can tap into being avant-garde outside your own domain.

If you are not a master of your own domain, if you are avant-garde outside your domain, everything will crumble because you don’t have the proper foundation to know what’s good or what works in your field.

Most copywriters say that to succeed in your industry, you have to be an expert in your field and in your products because when you know your product inside out, you can express it in new ways. It’s probably part of the secret behind Agora’s success.

There are many ways to tap into generating big ideas, but below are two fairly instant, practical ways to go about doing this. You have to immerse yourself in genius, in music and the arts, in different specialty magazines –you may find some good ideas. This is what I sometimes do. I call it funnel vision in practice.

How to generate a Big Idea

Funnel vision is a concept by Jay Abraham, the basic idea of which is this: if you look outside your own field into another domain, whatever is there –their cliches and norms –take them and apply them to your field and your products will soar. It’s instant innovation, and there are two practical ways to do it.

i. From the Inside, Looking Out

Dan Kennedy says to list down all the norms of your industry –its standard picture poses, usual phraseology, etc. And then, you break and/or twist them, one by one.

ii. From the Outside, Looking In

Take another industry, list their traits and cliches, and apply them in your industry and in every aspect of how you run your business. E.g. if you take the example of an airline where they have free tickets and a check-in counter, think of how you would apply these to your business.

You can generate a lot of ideas using these two techniques. Listing the norms may take you a while, and just by twisting them you already have 20-30 ideas off the bat.

Overnight Test

To illustrate this, I would use the example of somebody sleeping. That’s how simple it is. In advertising, it’s called the overnight test.

A good idea at that time may be the most contemptible of ideas in the morning. You might think it a genius idea when you first come up with it, you might find it amazing, but sleep over it first and see if it’s still a ‘genius idea’ in the morning.

If, in the morning, you are still equally excited about it, it most likely means yes, it is a good idea because it has passed the overnight test.

There are other idea-generating methods, and I’ll continue to share these with you later. In the meantime, I am as usual curious to hear from you how the principles I am teaching you are affecting the way you do business. (Don’t forget that other like-minded people are linked to your website when you comment on our blog!)

If you use Google AdWords to advertise, I want you to immediately leave a comment below and ask me all of your AdWords questions and challenges. 

Just do it!

What nags you at night about Google AdWords?  What challenges are you running into?

Please tell me!

In return for telling me what challenges you face, I am going to answer every single question on future blog posts.

Why would I take the time to write all these freebie answers?

As you know, we offer an excellent AdWords Guide on  www.AdWordsSystemExposed.com.  Well, a lot has changed since I first wrote it.  While it is still an excellent course and does a wonderful job dealing with the fundamentals, I am in the process of updating it and you will get the answers for free since you are helping me.

So, please leave a comment now so that I can help you with AdWords.

Mike

PS: I also wrote a report recently on AdWords that you can read at www.TheComingAdWordsWar.com

You might be wondering how Brad Antin and I ended up talking business.

Did I walk up to him and say, "Hi, I’m Mike, I actually plan to be your biggest competitor, could you please tell me your secret?" Not quite.

Because all of us have a very different mindset, and that’s the one crucial difference that differentiates us from the rest.

I believe in a world of abundance. I think there’s enough for everybody, so I’m not competing with them.

I approached them because we are in the same market and together we can help each other become vastly more successful. That’s the attitude I have, and that’s the attitude they share.

This market is enormous, the demand is almost insatiable and we’re only 2 tiny fish. If we can work together to help each other rise, that’s great.

So, I told them, we operate in the same market as you –spiritual and personal growth, we have similar businesses and similar sized lists, let’s figure out how we can work together.

Brad Antin immediately said he’d love to promote one of our products to their list, which is great because they have one of the single most responsive lists on the Internet.

I approached him like that, and I flattered him. I told him, you know what? I’m your biggest fan. I’ve bought your product just to figure out how you guys do business because I’m floored, what you have done is phenomenal, and we’re not anywhere close. I’d love to talk to you for 5-10mins and learn more about what you guys do.

That’s how I approached him –it was flattery and a mindset of abundance. But I didn’t lie –he knows that we’re in the same market, and he also has the mindset of doing cross promotions and helping each other grow our businesses.

Partnerships are some of the best ways to grow and improve your business.

My question to you is –is there someone in your market whom you can work together with? Is there someone doing better than you are? How are you going to approach them and work together towards a more successful future for both your businesses?

It’s interesting and eye-opening, almost like a "survival of the fittest" experiment with the best emails rising to the top and the ones not cutting the mark sinking to the bottom (simply because I subscribed to 140 marketing mailing lists).

All 140 marketers proclaim themselves the ‘best expert’, throwing all kinds of free information… and yet there were still only 2 or 3 that really impressed me. Every single time these guys send me an email, I open it.

I’ve tried to reverse-engineer how and why these emails are so amazingly effective at capturing my attention, and even in some cases, my heart. I call this single most powerful concept ‘SOS’: Setting Off Sparks.

Setting Off Sparks

This finds its basis in the analogy of a forest fire, where all it takes is a spark to some dry wood to set alight 1000 acres.

In the same manner, sparks happen in everyday life. It’s like the tipping point from being acquaintances to becoming best friends. It’s the tipping point at which best friends suddenly become lovers, because of that one spark.

This is our role as marketers: to create those moments for the subscribers’ list to become followers, and ultimately, loyal customers.

How do you embed sparks in your emails?

How do you create the conditions for ‘love’ to happen? I’d say there are three different ways to set off sparks.

1. Dazzle them with revelations

What I mean is, don’t just give information: give information that will rock their socks off, shake their world, and change the way they do things. You can accomplish this in 2 ways:

1. Give out brand new information that no-one else has. Failing that (because there’s no such thing as brand new information anyway),
2. Translate old information in new ways. According to Joel Bauer (the best public speaker in the world according to some), when you name something it becomes more real, more credible. You could take some old concepts, string them together, put a label on them, and kaBOOM…it seems like a revelation and looks like something new.

Why give revelations?

Because you can keep giving out information to your list and they won’t appreciate it because there’s a lot of free information available out there. But, when you hand them something that suddenly strikes them deep in the core and changes the way they do something, they will remember you.

And every single email you send thereafter is an open door for you, every word you say has more weight, and every technique you share has more value. That’s how it works.

For example, even I follow the people who’ve dazzled me with revelations. Even if, afterwards, they don’t give me ‘good’ information, I still follow what they’re up to because of that one dazzling revelation.

That list includes Eben Pagan, for example, when he said to move the free line and make sure everything you give away is of value and can be monetized.

There’s another guy, Stu McClaren, a JV expert who spoke during the JV portion of Jeff Walker’s product launch workshop. (I subscribed to 140 mailing lists so naturally I’m on his list, too.) I clicked through and his newsletters had a couple of pointers that dazzled me.

I thought to myself, "Wow… I will never look at entrepreneurship the same way again." Because of that, I now follow him and am a fan. Why? Because he dazzled me. It works.

The thing is, you only need to ever dazzle them once and they’ll follow you. BUT, of course, at the same time you always need to remember that it’s a numbers game. You need to keep giving out as much new information as possible because some of it will hit, and some of it won’t. But it’s worth it because once that one idea hits, they’re yours.

Like Victor Hugo said, there’s nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

2. Touch them with stories

Not just any stories, but your stories.

Touch them with your autobiographical sketches, your snapshots of yourself. Why? Because that story will create identification and empathy between you and your prospects.

For example, again Stu McClaren captured my attention because of his story about his fiance and the trouble they had getting money for their wedding, and that was something I could identify with because, you know, weddings are expensive these days.

There is suddenly a moment of empathy with that guru or with that person, and you start following his story. Now, it’s not so much about the revelations he can give you anymore as much as it is about who he is, to you.

3. Tease them with Cliffhangers

There’s a famous saying in marketing that ‘curiosity killed the cat but made the marketer rich’. As humans, we are always curious to discover new techniques and  strategies, and new ways of doing things.

Mark Joyner describes this as the Zeigarnik effect in his book, Mind Control Marketing, where the use of the Zeigarnik effect keeps people ‘glued in’ to discover what’s going to happen next. It basically says that all human beings have problems with unfinished stories.

Even if they watch a terrible movie, if they’re three-quarters of the way in, they’ll want to finish that movie, they will not walk out of that theater.

Why? Because unfinished stories are torturous to your mind because they cause such a disruption to your thoughts.

So, one of the keys to building adoration is to torture them. You can achieve this by placing a cliffhanger in the subject line or body copy, e.g. "This involves something called the BK effect…find out in the next segment what it is!"

Even CNN does this, by the way. They give you a useless trivia question, and then you stay through the commercial so that you can find out what the answer is.

The most important thing about this point, though, is this: your answer had better be satisfying! Don’t throw something out and build to an anti-climax. If you can give an answer that will blow their minds somewhat, you have a friend for life –a friend who’ll listen to you and when you say ‘open your wallet’, they will.

I always try to say ‘old stuff’ in a new way, because sometimes it’s the only way to be heard in a sea of competitors. In your market, how can you begin to translate your information into dazzling revelations? If you are inspired specifically by the ideas I’ve shared, let me know by posting a comment or just saying hi.

Brad Antin said something similar, this was the second insight he shared. Our customers are people who have self-selected to make their lives better, and people who want to make their lives better don’t just stop buying.

Such people don’t think that because they’ve bought one product, they’re done and they’re set for life.

Not at all.

They’re going to keep learning and trying new things. Now, where do you think they’re going to keep on learning, and what things are they going to keep on trying?

Well, if they know your company, and know your products, if they’re already delighted and already love what you have done for them, are they going to try your next product, or somebody else’s?

Things have never been more obvious to me. It’s obvious, for example, that Centerpointe has such huge back end profits because they really, truly delight their customers, and they do so way above and beyond what anyone else on the market is doing.

When people buy our products, as soon as they’ve finished checking out, there’s a page telling them that they’re getting a surprise bonus gift. In my opinion, I think this is ok but it doesn’t make people feel nearly as special as what Centerpointe does. One hypothesis I have is that perhaps the gift is too immediate?

Remember, I got the book 2 weeks later, and the CD 2 weeks after I got the book. At that point, I didn’t expect anything anymore from the company. But, they kept delivering. And just to further point out their business and marketing smarts –when they sent me the CD, they also sent 4 extra CDs to hand out to friends, and that’s obviously where a lot of their referrals come from.

Why does this work?

Because at this point, they’ve done 2 things in a row that have absolutely floored you, so when they ask you if you could pass on the CDs to a few friends if you’ve enjoyed their products and services, it’s very powerful reciprocity in play.

I don’t think you’d have to follow their example exactly and send physical products, but perhaps you could look into that. Maybe you should. I really don’t know the answer to that question at this point.

Let me explain their reasons for sending out physical products. They used to have free downloadable resources –their free demo used to be available online, and they gave me a few reasons for killing that. I can’t say I remember the reasons exactly, but…

1. You need to wear a headset to hear Holosync®, their special bineural beat sound (that’s what makes Holosync work). When they allowed people to try it online, they realized that too many people were not doing it correctly. Perhaps it’s because they don’t have a headset on their computer, or they’re just lazy. However, chances are if they do it on the stereo, they’re more likely to do it correctly.

2. They can include their sales letter when they send their CDs. Their sales letter is more likely to get consumed under these circumstances.

3. Physical products have a higher perceived value, which works well for them because their customers appreciate them more.

Of the many things to be learned from Centerpointe, another is this: 100% of their new customers are acquired online. Although they send out direct mail, they only do that on the back end, to their list of existing customers.

Offline Follow-up?

Most of Centerpointe’s follow-up is offline.

Why? Because according to Centerpointe, the offline communication response rate is 10:1 compared to online follow-up. That means, when they get 4-5M in sales from an offline promotion, they believe that the online equivalent would only be half a million. The economics are the reason why they do it.

When Vishen was in Florida, he talked to Jimmy Vee and Travis Miller, the guys behind Gravitational Marketing. Over dinner, they told him the same thing: the key is offline follow-up, where they said their response rate was 10 to 100 times more.

The recipe’s becoming more clear as to what we need to do to close the gap, and it isn’t difficult to do.

Some people do counter-intuitive things, and it works.

Centerpointe, for example, loves offering phone support. They do it just to stand out –it’s customer delight in action.

When someone buys their product, they ask them to call them immediately if they have any problem or they get stuck. They say, "We will help you. We are here for you." This builds Centerpointe’s customer delight , because today, most companies don’t do that.

You should start thinking about customer call support, too. For the sites you have the capacity to offer extra services, you should make it available.

There’s another reason for increasing your customer support and follow up: At least 50% of all people who buy your product will most likely never really use it if there’s no follow-up. This illustrates the value and importance of follow-up.

If these people they don’t use your product, is it likely that they’ll buy from you again? Not really. And are they going to refer your product? No.

Therefore, it is in your interest to drive up consumption, and to help people to consume your products. Remember, Centerpointe’s CLV is $800, of which $620 is from back end sales. You have to fight for this.

If you don’t drive up consumption and people don’t consume your first product successfully, you’ve lost $600 or more.

One thing to be mindful of is that what Centerpointe is doing is costly. It costs money to deliver good customer support and it costs a lot of money to send out direct mail via the postal service instead of emails.

The equation only works if your offline sales convert very well and if you have already build a big back end and get a lot of repeat sales. The good news is that this is relatively easy to test since you can start by sending mails to a smaller sample of your customer base and then testing the follow up response.

Those are the economics for Centerpointe and hopefully, one day it will be the same for us. We need to get to the next level for all our products, whichever product it is.

There’s not much new  in the key lessons from Centerpointe, but we’re still not doing it. However, we’ll start doing it now, because it is so important. Now, how do you intend to implement all these things in your business system?

If you’re spending cash on pay per click or other advertising, there are several crucial principles you must follow (if you want to make money)…

What Makes a Good Landing Page?

1. The headline and copy correspond to the ad that triggered the page.

If your ad is targeted to people looking for golf attire, your landing page should focus on golf attire, and not on other items that could distract from the main focus, such as golf clubs.

2. The focus is on getting visitors to take one specific action.

The landing page works on the basis of a most wanted response (MWR). It is designed to get the target audience to take ONE specific action, such as making a purchase or subscribing to a newsletter.

3. There are no distracting navigational links.

Unlike the homepage, the purpose of the landing page is not to get the users to browse the site, but to stay on the page and carry out the MWR. Tests have shown that landing pages with too many navigational links consistently under-perform. Just stick to the basics: a company logo or header for recognition along with a link to the homepage are sufficient. Avoid having any links that distract from carrying out the MWR.

4. The copy is short.

The copy on the landing page is usually shorter and more straightforward than the copy on your homepage. Remember to keep the look and feel of your landing page consistent with the rest of your website.

5. There is a prominent subscription form or checkout option.

The action you want the user to take should be available on the landing page itself; the user should not have to click to another page.

Below is an example of a landing page we use to get visitors who click on our meditation-related ads to sign up for a free online course. Notice the short copy, prominent signup form, and the lack of a confusing navigation menu…

[This is an excerpt from a 13 page report on Landing Page Construction we’re making available for free for 5 days. You can get the full report here and see that landing page example immediately.]

It’s available for 5 days.

Click here once and begin your short journey to elite landing page construction.

Let me explain why.

While we enjoy sharing our regular experimental results and weekly nuggets of wisdom, we took a hiatus from these to focus on something dramatically more useful to you.

We hunkered down and finally put into writing a series of revelations that occurred over the past 6 months or so.

You might look at it as “The State of AdWords” but it is more than that; you will also see our predictions for the future (i.e. what the current state means to the future of your business).

So head over and get your hands on our most up-to-date battle plan to protect your business now and in the future.

The tipping point for this piece came while Mike was perusing an old military manual. You’ll see what I mean.

Once you read it, keep your eyes peeled for those how-to’s and updates we wrote about. Get it now (if it matters it is free).

Here’s a note Gary wrote in about an hour ago:

The coming adwords war is probably one of the most informative, and most importantly succint documents
that cover the real essence of a successful adwords campaign. Like alot of others I have spent a fair bit of
time and money(!) and learnt the hard way about doing adwords. What your guide instantly highlighted
were the errors I had previously made. It is a must read!

Regards

Gary

Once you take a look, please let us know what you think!

Here are a 3 techniques that will instantly SPICE up your copy.

The Knew/New Method

I came across this in an article written by Sean D’Souza, the author of Psychotactics. “Knew” are existing benefits which people already know about, for example, how to save money, how to double sales, how to do proper marketing, how to write a headline… these are things that you already know. But, the problem with things you already know is that they are boring. Because it’s familiar, you have no curiosity to find out more.

But, when you add “new” to “knew”, you can create intensely powerful headlines because it adds something intriguing. “New” is something that is so totally unrelated to “knew” that it transforms the headline into something curious and intriguing. You always start with the “knew”.

Let me give you an example. e.g. ‘how to write compelling articles’. That is “knew”. You can add a twist by saying that it’s the George Bush method to writing compelling articles. Suddenly, there’s something disruptive because it’s so divergent, and there enters the “new”, which throws in the element of curiosity to the equation.

Simply put, take something familiar and add something strange. This is one of the most powerful headline formulas I know, and it can be used for bullet points as well. I use a lot of this. It transforms your copy in a new and compelling way.

Specific Target Approach

Again, this is from Sean D’Souza. You start out with the target, then you name the benefit you want to accomplish in the headline you are writing. Suppose you are coming up with a headline, lets say as an example, “How to Write Headlines”. If you use that as the headline of your article, it’s a very weak headline.

So, what do you do? One of the things you can do with this approach is inject benefit into the headline. For example, “How to Write Headlines That Draw Money”, where the benefit is “That Draw Money”.

The second thing you could do with this approach is by adding a numerical goal to it: “How a Headline Can Generate a 200% Boost in Profits”. The “200% increase” is the target. Basically, whichever specific target approach you use, the end result delivers what the bullet or headline wants to accomplish.

Remember, make it as specific as you can. Anything that is vague will lose your readers attention. Let me show you some other examples that is strengthened with a specific target. If your topic is on writing body copy, your headline could be “How to Write Body Copy to Attract Joint Venture Partners”. Then comes in the specificity. “3 Ways to Write Body Copy That Attracts Joint Venture Partners.” The headline is strengthened because it talks about something specific, and a targeted result it’s working towards.

National Enquirer Approach

This is one is extremely straightforward, because the name says it all. You go into the National Enquirer, or any tabloid for that matter, and swipe the headlines there. It’s very effective because it’s a very non-traditional way of doing it. It’s a breath of fresh air from the normal, standard Internet marketing-type headlines.

This approach captures people’s attention because it doesn’t follow normal headline formulas, it’s not like “Who Else wants To Earn Millions?”. Don’t get me wrong, although the conventional headline formula still works, it has its place. One of my recent headlines using the National Enquirer method pulled in a much higher conversion rate compared to what we previously had.

More headline madness is here.