Staying on top of the martial arts market is no walk in the park. It’s not like baseball, where the rules and skills required stay pretty much the same for decades. Fighting skills change dramatically and constantly, as last year’s “big thing” is picked apart and weaknesses found, and new guru’s arrive with fresh goods.
There are two keys to the success of this letter:
(1) The idea that you can pick up the skills just by watching the video… and…
(2) The “blind spot” discovered in all other systems that this new system exploits.
I have a good friend who is a gonzo martial artist. His idea of a great weekend is to attend a street fighting workshop and come home Sunday covered in bruises. I run these new products by him for a no-bull review … and it was a happy day when he told me you really can pick up most of these new skills just by watching. And yes, that blind spot is a revelation.
Note the detail of the secrecy involved here–the locked safe, in a locked room, in a secure warehouse outside of town. I don’t make this stuff up…just have to discover the juicy parts through good detective work. This client has been harassed by upper level police honchos … told (not asked) to shut down certain projects by military mucky-mucks … and had their warehouse ransacked by mysterious people.
They’ve been ripped off, threatened and intimidated… but they have never been shut down. And attitudes have changed. Police departments and military organizations now regularly use their products, and employ the talents as private teachers. Years ago, they were mavericks … and now they’re mainstream, respected by the same authorities who once hounded them.
And the stories I can tell about them never get stale.
These “balls to the wall” style pieces, when running as ads, often get mocked in letters to the editor. There are Internet chat rooms devoted to trashing the hyperbolic copy style.
But even the complainers readily admit the material is easily the best available in martial arts.
The client is sometimes embarrassed by the negative reaction to these ads. But the numbers tell the real story — and for every person who says “come on; why do you have to write sensational stuff like that”, there are a dozen more who are convinced to order by the same copy.
The only ads that never generate any controversy are boring ads. If you’re not pissing somebody off, somewhere, every time… well, you’re probably not pushing hard enough.
The rule is: You want to wake your reader up, and get his blood moving. Not put him to sleep.
Even though my clients sometimes wish they could just run simple little ads that say “please buy my product”, they know it would be profit suicide. In fact, they did try a milder approach, several times– hiring big-city ad agencies and PR firms who talked a good game (and charged a pretty penny) to go against my ads. They created clever little pieces that looked great… and pulled almost no orders. In some cases, it was like they’d never mailed or run at all. One or two phone calls, and then that gut-wrenching silence of a failed campaign.
Advertising is not a game, and it’s not a popularity contest. You don’t earn a single dime from being the cleverest or cutest kid on the block.
The proven methods– the stuff like this letter, which actually creates cash flow- aren’t always pretty, or easy to take. But that’s how you earn your fortune.
Click here to see the “Absolutely Confidential” ad.
(It will open in a new window or tab, so you can toggle between the ad and Carlton’s commentary below.)
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