Here is an early self-defense letter, which struck a major nerve in the customer base for this market. It's run every year for the last decade in the major magazines and mailed even more often to hotlists. The appeal is simple and to the point: This is hard-core...
John Carlton’s Best Ads: Riding Buck Naked on a Clapped-Out 2 Stroke!
Every so often, one of my clients decides to go cause trouble in a completely new field. The following ad appeared in a niche magazine recently, and caused shock waves throughout the industry. Just like we intended. Most markets out there have never seen this type of...
John Carlton’s Best Ads: Secrets Revealed
Every market in existence has inside secrets. Yes, even yours, no matter what business you're in. There are secrets to French cooking, carpentry, scoring high in math tests, playing piano and becoming an astronaut. Also cleaning carpets, battling weeds in your garden,...
John Carlton’s Best Ads: Pithify Your Pitch
Here is a good example of a simple way to organize a sales message that has multiple parts to it. If I'd tried to tell a story incorporating all these points, the letter would have ended up 16 pages long. I write long copy, but not if the same thing can be said in a...
John Carlton’s Best Ads: Hyper-Effective Cover Letter #5 — Barbara, My Long-Suffering Secretary
One of the biggest mistakes marketers make... is to get tired of their own advertising before the ads are actually dead. Sometimes, they pull ads that are still cooking at peak efficiency. They see the ad every day, they get tired of it, bored with it, their spouse is...
John Carlton’s Best Ads: Hyper-Effective Cover Letter #4 — Early Christmas Present
One of the biggest mistakes marketers make... is to get tired of their own advertising before the ads are actually dead. Sometimes, they pull ads that are still cooking at peak efficiency. They see the ad every day, they get tired of it, bored with it, their spouse is...
John Carlton’s Best Ads: Third Party Endorsement
Here is a good example of how to "piggy back" your product to another list. The cover letter is from the guy everyone on the list will recognize. They already trust him, and are good customers. His word is gold. So use that trust, if you can....
John Carlton’s Best Ads – Marketing Rebel Insider’s Club
This corner of the Marketing Rebel Insider's Club should make your greedy little heart sing: Actual hyper-successful sales letters, broken down, and explained in detail. As a member, you have access to a rotating selection of John Carlton’s most infamous, notorious...
John Carlton’s Best Ads: PGA Pros Humiliated By Overweight, Crippled, Old-As-Dirt Golfer
Whenever I put this ad up on the screen in seminars or marketing events, the crowd howls with laughter. It's a funny headline. But ... it's funny in a way that forces you to continue reading. It's not funny just to be funny. It's funny in an outrageous and intriguing...
John Carlton’s Best Ads: One-Time-Only Market Test
I first learned the "market test" concept from Jay Abraham. He had convinced a major publisher of financial newsletters to offer a dozen of them for, like, $19. Normally, each subscription would have separately cost as much as $200 or more. So this was giving away...