Hello everybody, we’re coming here live from Sydney, Australia. I’m your host Mark Ling, and I have with me today a man who, first and foremost, is (and has been for quite some time) Australia’s top ad writer. His killer copywriting techniques have helped thousands of people worldwide to increase their sales beyond what they’ve ever thought possible. He’s also a co-founder of the World Internet Summit.

You’re about to discover how to use audio, video, review sites, and e-mail marketing to turbo charge your affiliate sales beyond what you may have ever thought possible. I’m very pleased to welcome Mr. Brett McFall.

Brett McFall: Hello Mark, nice to be here.

Getting to know Brett

Mark Ling: Could you please just tell us a little bit more about yourself?

Brett McFall: Sure. I have been in advertising now for about 17-18 years (straight out of school). I started as an advertising junior. While working for an electronics company, I saw copywriting – and that really took my imagination.

Mark Ling: Why was that?

Brett McFall: I just love writing about products. I find it very exciting to be able to take a blank page, write something, and make other people buy it – that to me is very engaging. And so I got a guy there to teach me, and within 6 months I had a full-time job at their competitor as a copywriter. So I really trained hard and worked a lot. That’s how I got started, and after that, it’s all just hard work. I’ve written over 8,000 ads – possibly about 9,000 now for 153 different industries. Writing that many ads, you just get it into your brain – about how it needs to breathe, what it needs to say. I didn’t have any shortcuts. I wish I knew back then what I know now.

Mark Ling: So what happens when you went online? What were the big changes that you noticed there?

Brett McFall: Around 1989, I had my first website. I used a newsletter for free. Back then, it wasn’t that popular – nobody used newsletters in my industry. And so I was getting a lot of subscribers. What happened is: once I started the newsletter and I was teaching people how to write their own ads, suddenly, instead of using my advice, they wanted to ring me and asked me to write for them personally. So there are people who want to put $10,000 in my account every week to do this and do that – it just snowballed. So it’s a really good principle: the more you give, the more you get – it’s so true. I discovered that around 6-7 years ago. The more I gave to people information and tips, the more they want to use me personally. So at this stage now, I don’t actually have clients. I can’t do the work, and I choose now to teach people through having products – I put it on video, audio and manuals so that I can teach it personally. So you don’t need me – you can go use my principles and do what you want.

Mark Ling: It must have illustrated to you the power of copywriting that people are willing to pay you $10,000 to write their ad copy.

Brett McFall: Oh yeah. Suddenly it dawned on me – because I was earning like $30,000 a year in the advertising agency for about 5 years. I love what I was doing but based on the hours that I was putting in, my wages are really quite low. I knew there had to be a better way. So suddenly, when I was offered $30,000 in 3 weeks, I said "my goodness, this is really a better use of my time than sitting in an office."

Plus, when someone pays me $10,000, they were often going out there making $1,000,000 in sales within about 3 months because of how I’ve written their page to sell their product, sell their seminar, or sell tickets, whatever. So their $10,000 to me was a great investment. They knew that. And that’s the power of being able to write a really good copy. Affiliate Program Marketing

Mark Ling: Our audience today – they are mostly either making money from affiliate programs or they’re very interested in getting into affiliate program marketing. What do you think is the main reason why you recommend affiliate program marketing either as a great starting point or a great business opportunity online?

Brett McFall: It’s good because if you’re an absolute beginner, it’s great to get started. Forget about creating the product, creating the actual sales copy, or links to payment processes and all that – just start bringing some money in. Because there’s a lot to learn on the internet – it is an industry of its own so you need to learn some things. You want to bypass that learning curve or at least put it off for a while. You can start selling other people’s products. We had someone come to our summit. And within 4 weeks of coming to the event (he’s an absolute beginner) he was earning $500-$1,000 a month just in selling other people’s products. Just from one session during the seminar he learned a little technique, went away and did it, applied what we said, and earned $1,000 a month. So that was his way to get started. He’s doing well now – he has his own membership site, etc. These are stuff that could have been too much in the very beginning. He just couldn’t have done it – there are too many pieces to put together. So these affiliate programs are great for beginners. If you are experienced, you would probably have your own product or have your own consulting service – something like that. But you want to have some other products in the background taking over – if you’ve already got people coming to your website, or you’ve got a newsletter database that respect your opinion, then why not recommend someone else’s products and make income from that as well.

Mark Ling: Yeah, because these days, there are some pretty high-paying affiliate programs. Some that I’ve found online can pay up to 200% because they know that they’re making more on the back-end after the person has bought the product for the first time when they go and sell other products to them in the future.

Example from Brett McFall:

So if there’s an e-book or something for $97, they’re actually going to pay you about $200. So if you just sell one a day, that’s $200 a day. And basically, with the internet and how it works, this happens automatically – the sale gets processed, the bank gets the money, the products get delivered – all while you are sleeping, on a holiday, at work, watching TV, whatever, the money is still coming in. And that’s what’s exciting. Questions from e-mail subscribers

1. From Amy Scott running learnpianoreview.info:

   When I sell these piano products that I’m affiliated with, I found that these review sites works well for me. What I’d like to know is – do you have any ideas on how I could modify my website to increase my conversion rates further. Also, is there anywhere else I could get visitors to my website – currently, they all come from Google Adwords and Overture.

   Brett McFall: Ok, so here’s the website here – learnpianoreview.info. I think that if somebody is going to look at this website – this is a great template to anyone who would want to start out. Why is it good? Basically there are 4 reviews here of products from people who want to teach you how to play the piano. What Amy has done here is set up a very simple webpage so that you could come to this and you might click on 1 or all 4 of the links that she’s got there. And you’ll probably buy one of them – I think that if you’re interested in piano, you’ll probably buy one of these. So when the customer comes here, they’ll have a quick run through, there is a bit of a review, a photograph of the website on the left hand side, It’s actually ranked 1, 2, 3, 4 with a star ranking too. And all you would do is click on the link to go to their website. But when I come to this website, I don’t know who Amy is, I don’t know whether her opinion matters, whether she knows what she’s talking about – I don’t know anything about her.It’s just some website recommending another website. So there’s no credibility at all. I think that credibility is everything – particularly on the websites. This is because there are so many websites out there that are recommending that you do this or that. So I think it’s very important that she starts to add credentials to herself. How will she do that? Well, she’s got a photograph in the bottom of the page which is nice and simple – that’s good. And it says Amy is an editor, of what? Who are you? What do you do? How do I know that you even know how to play the piano? How do I know if your opinion matters? These are my questions.

   Mark Ling: What if Amy is an affiliate who doesn’t know much about piano?

   Brett McFall: If I was her, I would put something like "Basically, I don’t know anything about playing the piano but I know friends who do, or I have an interest in it, or I’ve done over 100 hours of research finding piano websites. So I’m just like you. I don’t know how to play the piano but I did my own research. " Did you see what I’m doing there? I’m not saying I’m the expert. I’m saying I’m just like you. If she was the expert, then she would take a different angle of course. But if she’s not, at the very top I would be putting some copy on there that tells me about who she is. I will also put some audio on there where she talks.

   Mark Ling: Would you make it automatically play?

   Brett McFall: No, don’t make it automatically play – make it playable. Studies have shown that when you make it playable, the response is better. I think the reason is because you’re giving the customer a choice. These people visiting the website might be at work, and they’re daydreaming. So they don’t want to go into some website like this to hear it automatically start up to say "Hi! Welcome to Piano Review. " You know, they’re supposed to be working.

   Mark Ling: I find that interesting because I tested it quite a few times myself but I actually found that to work the other way. But in saying that, there are so many different websites on the web. I split tested it only about 5 times, so it’s certainly not a large enough audience to know for sure.

   Brett McFall: What you’re going to find out about split testing is that it’s great when it comes to your own stats, because you’re working on your own site with your own market conditions. So you’ve got results for your market. What I find is that those results change – when you change the product, market, website, or country, the results can change as well. I’ve run tests that have the audio played first up – the sales increased. Then, I’ve done tests (different products) where the audio didn’t play first up – the sales also increased. So the testing that goes on the internet is now very, very thorough. But here’s the thing that everybody seems to be forgetting, we are testing in our own little markets. And there are tests going on in hundreds of thousands or millions of people, and so our results are all different. But the main thing is that you should be testing no matter what. So Amy needs to conventionalize herself a little bit. And along that line, where are the testimonials that say her reviews were good?

   Example:

   "I’ve come to this site – I didn’t know Amy and I didn’t know her theme. But I actually bought XYZ product and it was fantastic, just like she said it was. "

   That’s what’s powerful.

   Mark Ling: Perhaps she could even allow reviews from other customers to post on her site.

   Brett McFall: That’s right. This now becomes a bit more than a sales page or a review page. It becomes a page where people actually go to. And it certainly gives an impression that it’s very, very real. That real people are using it and leaving their comments. That’s really important. So those will be the main things if she needs to conventionalize herself – by putting her own audio copy in there and then having other people also to recommend her.

2. From James Hacking (USA) with a website start-daycare.onestopreviews.com

   Basically, it’s a bunch of various reviews of daycare start-up business courses. I get good, relevant traffic from Google Adwords. However, I’ve had a bit of trouble getting visitors to convert to sales. These products rate highly in the Clickbank marketplace, which means that other affiliates must be selling them very well. Do you have any ideas on how I can improve my conversions?

   Brett McFall: Sure thing. One thing that I’ve noticed here is that it’s got a little pop-up asking for your name and e-mail. Good move – whenever people enter their name here, James can go back and e-mail them in the period of the next 6 weeks at least (with more text or asking for the sale). So that’s good. Well done. Ok, so here is his website – the headline says "Starting a Daycare Reviews. " It doesn’t make sense if you read it. And then it says "Read our starting a Daycare Reviews" – it doesn’t read the way it should. I think it can still be optimized to get a high search engine ranking. Maybe it’s ok, but I’m thinking that it’s not very good for the reader.

   Mark Ling: He’s getting a lot of his traffic from Google Adwords so it means that his optimization may not be kicking in yet anyway.

   Brett McFall: Yeah, that’s right. So you could do one or the other – you can’t do both (there’s no reason why you can’t operate 2 sites here). And then when I go down to the article title it says " Starting a Daycare. " Starting a daycare what?

   Important: You’re website is your salesperson. So if your customer is in front of that salesperson, everything that the salesperson would say to the new person, this website should be saying to them. Next, there’s a summary here. You don’t start with a summary of what you are going to talk about. There should be some attention-grabbing headline or some sort of line.

   Example:

   "If you want to have this, this, and this. Then this could be the most important webpage you will ever read. Here’s why…"

   This is what it’s all about. You have about 3 seconds to grab someone’s attention either with an audio, a photo, or a headline. And this website is not strongly made at all. There are some reviews and links here – it looks fine but he included the price at the bottom of every product review. I think it’s a bad move. The reason is because people will think "$29.95? I think I can get something cheaper than that." And they’re judging the book on the price – not on the value. Now, it’s not about them not having $29.95 on their credit card. What’s bad is that they are already making a decision and starting to think "Oh, I don’t know if it’s worth it to spend that much on this product."

   If this book works, these guys are going to make maybe tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to start a daycare center. So investing 30 bucks is surely going to be a smart decision (if the book’s good). Therefore, it’s not how much money that they’ve got on their account. I’m sure they’re going out next week and spending $30 on dinner.

   Mark Ling:

   So it’s focusing on the wrong thing here.

   Brett McFall: Yes, you don’t want to focus your attention too much on price before you even know what the price represents.

   Mark Ling: Right, because it doesn’t cost him anything for people to click on these links. He’s already paid for his Google Adwords, there’s no need to qualify people right here.

   Brett McFall: Here’s what I call a "0-10 scale. " When someone comes to your website, they are in between 0 and 10 in terms of interest. And so when they get there, maybe they’re at number 2. Your goal as a copywriter is to take them to 4, to 6, to 8, and then finally to 10 at every stage. So what this guy is doing here (James) – he might be taking them to 2 or 3, and then here is the price. Bang! They’re back to 1 (this is the customer’s interest level). So what I’m saying is to take them to about 8 or 9 (visit the product website, etc. ), and when their interest is already high, they can only get down from there, you know what I mean?

   Mark Ling: It makes perfect sense.

   Brett McFall: So if you want to remember that – it’s such a simple rule (0-10 scale). Your job as a copywriter or marketer is to constantly take them up higher. So, that’s what I would do. I would take away the price – at least test it out. Then I would conventionalize it again (same mistake as the first website we reviewed earlier).

   Mark Ling: Yes, there’s no photo of this person here.

   Brett McFall: Another thing, I would also remove the ads at the bottom to go elsewhere. These are some Adsense ads, so he’s trying to make as much money as possible. I don’t know how he’s operating or how he’s going – he’s probably doing ok. Here’s my idea: I’d like to keep people focused on one thing at a time. With a website like this, they’re going to be focused on 3 or 4 things naturally because this is a review site. So I don’t like to add other things in. Example: If I throw a tennis ball to you, Mark. Chances are you could catch it. But if I throw you 10, chances are, you may not catch any of them. Important: Our brains need to focus on one thing. We’re very good at focusing, not at scattering. Along those lines, on the right hand side there are links here: "Starting a daycare," "How 2 Daycare," "Starting a Daycare 2," "Starting a Daycare again. " What are they?

   Mark Ling: I think they’re for the search engines. So he’s got to decide, is this for search engines or is this for adwords? If it’s for adwords, get rid of them.

   Brett McFall: Yeah, well even if it’s for search engines I don’t particularly care because in the end it’s always for the customer. And this is confusing. He can optimize a page and send it to this page if he really wants to optimize. But make this communicate with the customer right from the very beginning – video and audio if he can. If he doesn’t want to get that far, then at least do some copy on why people must get started and put his website in their Favorites folder. It’s all about getting people started and come back.

3. Now this next question is from Steve (New Zealand). His website is dogworkz.com.

   He says "I’m an affiliate of a dog training website. I created my own website so that I wouldn’t be competing with other affiliates on the same page in Google adwords."

   I think you’re probably familiar with the fact that Google only allows one affiliate link in their Adwords listings so that’s why he has set it up to get around that. By setting up his own domain name in his own website, Google treats that as a separate website to the affiliate site.

   Brett McFall: So if he hasn’t used an affiliate link, then he would get less traffic?

   Mark Ling: Yes, unless he bids through the roof or he’s amazingly good at writing his ads and gets a much higher click-through rate.

   Brett McFall: What he can do is take that affiliate link and attach it to another domain name so that when people type in the domain name, it goes through the affiliate link anyway.

   Mark Ling: You can do it that way. But I’ve tried doing that, and I’ve seen people after about 6 weeks, Google came and caught them on to that. You can have a back-up domain to send people to, so that if Google caught them on, you can send them to another one. Or if you just do a little web page like this, where it is ever so slightly different from the site where you send them directly to, then Google won’t catch them on. It will say "yes, it’s a different page. " So that’s fine. Now, he said: basically it just links through to the website. I’ve heard that audio and video can increase conversion rates. How could I use that to increase my conversion rates? Also, have you got any other ideas that I can do?

   Brett McFall: Ok, what I like about dog training market is this: people love information. They love tips on how to make their dog sit, beg, or behave in public. So, if their dog starts barking, they just want to instantly stop it. So my question is: where is the newsletter or some sort of text that you can put in here instantly. Sure, you want to send them to the next website. But we want to give these guys information right now. Get them on a list and satisfy their desire. If you have a dog – chances are, it has just done something on the corner. You want to stop the dog from doing that. So you jump on the web and try to find the answer out. You want to get instant gratification; you know what I’m saying? If that’s the case, then that’s perfect for you because you want to build database, so you exchange.

   Mark Ling: So he could (even if he still wants to send people direct to that page) either use a name squeeze or just grab their e-mail address and say that they’re going to get tips in their e-mail. Then, at the same time take them directly to "SitStayFetch" straight after that, which is the site that he affiliates to.

   Brett McFall: Yes that’s right. Absolutely! So he can get them to his web page and then send them to the real web page. And he can send them a newsletter which also sends them to the web page. I’m not sure if this guy knows a lot about dogs. But if he did, he can actually do a Camtasia video on dog tips (if he doesn’t know, then he can find someone to do it). Because people want instant gratification so they can easily see a tip. They’ll just give you a name and email, and then it will take them to another screen where they can see a video of him showing how he can make a dog sit up or not bark, or whatever – instantly! They would love that. And of course at the end of that Camtasia video, it could link back to the page where you want them to go to anyway. This is just regular marketing.

   Mark Ling: I think people don’t realize how easy it is to do this.

   Brett McFall: That’s right. You can have a digital video camera – probably a lot more low-tech actually. You can do it with a camera – maybe the quality will not be that good, but it can be done.

   Mark Ling: Sometimes you can even just take photos, use Camtasia, use a microphone, and then you can start talking about those photos.

   Brett McFall: If you have a Microsoft Powerpoint, you can even create a presentation, fit those photos in there, and flip people through your powerpoint as if you’re doing it on stage or in front of a group – you’re just doing it in front of the people on the internet.

   Mark Ling: Yes, there is a lot of multimedia available. Some people have large broadband speeds, why not use it?

   Brett McFall: Absolutely! And why is that? Because this website might be good, but it may not be enough – what about the ideas that I’ve just given you there – it could make you an extra $1,000, maybe $2,000 a month.

   Mark Ling: Yes for sure. And by doing that – getting their e-mail address, what if you come across another dog training product that you want to sell in the future? You can send it to your list. You may have thousands of people in your list. You can say, "Hey look, I just found this brand new dog training product called such and such. " And you can earn commissions on those sales whereas, if you don’t build a list, you can’t market to them ever again.

   Brett McFall: Yeah, the list is everything. The list is your friend. It’s like having a real community. That means, if you lose your job – let’s say you lose it tomorrow but you have a list of a thousand people in your database. And you’re actually earning money from that – you have security! You have an income that you can rely on and an income you can build on. Everyone who is in school, or who has a computer, who wants to build an internet business should start to build a database right now. Whatever it is, build a database. How do you build it? Let’s have some tips here. This could be a little bit off-topic, but not really. So, how do you build a database?

   1. For a start, choose whatever your topic is going to be.
   2. When people come to your website, you want to get them to give you their name and their e-mail in order to get a tip (information or something) in return.
   3. So they go into your database, there is software out there that is free – it can build your database for you. I recommend that. But if you’re going to get serious, I’ll say spend a few hundred bucks if not up to a thousand bucks – let’s get some decent database software because you’re going to use it for life. That’s a really simple technique that everyone should be doing.

   Mark Ling: Alright, what do you personally recommend as far as capturing e-mails and that sort of thing (software) that you use?

   Brett McFall: There are some great products – one is called Mailloop from Internet Marketing Center. I have not seen that, but it has great reviews. I use AutoPilotRiches.com. I use that everyday – it runs my business (about 80% of my business for me). So these are the 2 that I can vouch for, at least.

   Mark Ling: Ok that’s cool, just to give them a place to go.

   Brett McFall: Getting back to the site, other than what I just said, I saw that there are some testimonials there. That’s good – it’s a good start. What I’m just not getting from this is that it’s not so personalized. Just because you’re an affiliate doesn’t mean that you can be unaccountable. The internet is so impersonal. I’d like to recommend that you actually get more personal. And if you don’t want to get personal, have someone else get personal. So with audio, photos, or whatever – it doesn’t actually have to be your photos. You can actually get some photos from a royalty-free library in the internet – have a nice headshot of somebody. It’s ok to do that.

   Mark Ling: It’s a pseudonym.

   Brett McFall: Yes, pseudonym. People do it all the time, that’s ok. If you don’t want to be that person up front – in fact sometimes it’s actually better not to be. Example: I have a niche market on scrapbooking, and I’ve got my photo there with a tie, and I think: "I shouldn’t have done that. " I should have had a lady dressed very casually (or maybe very artistically) – someone who might be in scrapbooking, and then she should do the audio. That’s more consistent with my marketing, and I think I’m going to do that in the next 4 months. And that would be a sense of idea for anyone.

   Mark Ling: If we click on the testimonials in the website, we will actually notice that the testimonials here are grabbed from other websites, together with the photographs. Possibly, I’d be willing to bet that the owner of this website wouldn’t mind that you use them – so that can be leveraged as well. Because ultimately, yes they’re going to go through and read those, but what if they didn’t wind up clicking through.

   Brett McFall: Yes, that’s right. Here’s something else that I do as well: it is ok for me to say that what I teach you is good, and it is ok for you to say it in a testimonial (in fact, it’s better for you to say it). What can even be better – the next level up in terms of power is if I phone you up and interview you to get your opinion. Example: What about if the person with this website will contact some of his customers and say "You came to my website X number of days ago. You did purchase the course, now what do you think about it. What about this and what about that?" Absolute proof, and at the end of that call, the customer can say, "If anybody wants to e-mail me, they can e-mail me. " I mean, they’re accountable – they can be contacted. I’m always saying – keep on pushing it. Don’t settle for, "Well, I’ve got a testimonial. " I’m all about credibility. Pretend you’re in court and you actually need to prove your case, otherwise you’re going to jail, ok? The person has to click on that link or you will go to jail – pretend it’s like that. And so you should really be studying your case.

   Mark Ling: That’s a great way of looking at it actually. Important: You must make sure that you test everything. Not everything that works for you is exactly the same way that might work for a lot of other people. Every website is different. So testing is really important.

   Brett McFall: Testing is everything. People might say "How do I do it?" It’s so simple. A lot of high-tech software can do it for you. But why not just have one webpage up this week – you’ve got to test one thing out this week. And then you’re going to take it down next week and then put something else up. Then compare the sales between those 2 weeks – that’s as simple as it can be for testing stuff. You can become your own advertising expert just by doing that because very few people do it.

4. Alright, we move on to the next question. This question is from Paul Cole (California).

   He said "I’ve been promoting websites as an affiliate by offline advertising. For example, a couple of months ago, I posted an advertisement in Guitar World magazine for a guitar product called Jamorama. I registered my own domain name buyjamorama.com and then I made it redirect to Jamorama’s guitar site. My affiliate ID is embedded into it. This is the advertisement that I placed – it is 5 ½ centimeters by 2 ½. Now I’ve uploaded it to affilorama.com/brett."

   He says "I can see a huge potential on offline advertising as an affiliate. I just haven’t quite worked out the right formula for it yet. Can you please give me some pointers on how I can improve my response and overall income from this ad. Also, do I need to make it larger? It costs double every time I double the size. What are your thoughts?

   Brett McFall: First thing is that you don’t increase the size of any ad until it starts making money.

   Mark Ling: He did say that he made something like 20-30% on the ad.

   Brett McFall: Ok, if he is making money, chances are – if he increased the ad, he will get more people through and it will actually keep on making more money. As a general rule, you don’t do that until you can make money from a smaller ad – unless you’ve got some really good advice that maybe this is the right market for you and it’s a great magazine. In fact, unless someone you know has been there before and made some good money from it, then you might not take a chance on a bigger ad.

   Mark Ling: So, when you say that you can take a chance on a physical ad on a magazine, you always take your first chance with a small ad?

   Brett McFall: Yes, without a doubt. Never get sucked in from buying a half page or full page in a brand new medium for you. Never!

   One person you can’t trust is the sales rep (the guy whose selling you an ad – you can’t trust him unfortunately). He’s got a vested interest on you buying the ad, and he’s got a vested interest on you buying more space – the bigger the space, the better for him because of the bigger commissions. So, he’s not the person to whom you should take advice from. Here’s what I can say to this ad: half the ad is taken up by this logo – Jamorama! I know nothing about it but there’s a big fat logo up nice and big. But who cares? I know nothing about you. You have not spent millions of dollars in advertising to increase your brand awareness. You’ve got no image in my mind.

   Mark Ling: It’s not like BMW or anything like that.

   Brett McFall: Big companies can do it alone with their logo (in advertising) for a reason. They spent hundreds of thousands, usually millions of dollars attaching emotion to it somewhere.

   Example:

   You mentioned BMW, they’re known for driving pleasure. So often in their ads, you can see the car going very fast in a racetrack, and looking absolutely superb. And when you see the logo, you get that emotion back. Then you start to feel that it’s a very cool car, and the engineering is fabulous. They’ve drummed it into us to believe it. They could have chosen another angle. It could have been that it’s the best safety car, you know. Whatever they wanted us to actually believe in, they could attach to their advertising. So they simply chose that BMW is very reliable and really the top car to drive – that’s what we think of. So that’s how they get away with putting logos in any ad. We, unfortunately, cannot play with the same rules because we have not done any branding. So, with this ad here – I think that it’s not working hard enough. It has a nice, big, domain name up there – great! But it’s up there twice. It shouldn’t be there twice – it should be there only once because we are wasting space.

   Mark Ling: Would you say that the domain name that he chose is possibly inappropriate, like buyjamorama?

   Brett McFall: Yes it is. It should be easyguitarsecrets.com or something like that.

   Mark Ling: Something that they’re thinking about in their head because they don’t know jamorama and they don’t want to buy it.

   Brett McFall: Basically, this ad can be likened to a rope of a big ship coming into a terminal. Have you ever seen the big chain in front of a ship that is used to anchor to the port? They don’t actually throw that over the side for the guys to wrap around. They usually throw a little rope out, and that pulls down on the bigger rope, and then it’s attached to the bigger chain. So the chain gets bigger and bigger once they pull it out because it’s much easier to throw a rope to get started. So think about this, your website is your big ship and this ad is your little rope going out. It’s like "Hey, can you just come and see me for a second? I want to get your attention. " That’s all you’re going to say. " So what we are going to do on this ad, aside from changing the actual web name would be to put "Reveal how to learn guitar fast even if you’re an absolute beginner in as little as 5 days" or something like that.

   Mark Ling: Brilliant! Brilliant!

   Brett McFall: Why would you want to write a headline like that? Because that should be the main benefit of the product, and that is really what the customer wants. This guy should think "What do my customers really want to do?" If he picks up that they want to learn guitar fast – well, how fast?

   Example:

   If all of you in this room are guitar players, I’m sure everybody can show me how to play a guitar but one will be able to show me how to do it faster than the other person, right? It’s the same as the market out there. If you’re going to say "You will teach me how to learn guitar fast – well, how fast? Is it 3 days, 5 days, a month?"

   Mark Ling: Specifics.

   Brett McFall: Yes, specifics. "Quick and easy" is not a good term to use in any headline. Make it "How to quickly and easily learn guitar in as little as 5 days. "

   Mark Ling: One thing that I found when I first went into website marketing – I’ve found that the good-looking websites don’t make the sales. It was the websites that had all the benefits and everything worded in the big, long newsletter and all the testimonials – that’s what works. Of course you can’t fit all that into here. But, this is just an example of a good looking ad where most of the space is taken up with looks and not necessarily with benefits.

   Brett McFall: This has actually been designed by a graphic designer. I don’t know anything about the ad, but it tells me that this has been designed by someone who knows what he’s doing design- wise. Unfortunately with anyone who is in the design, they don’t know anything about making sales – but they know how to make an ad look good. If you’re an artist, yeah good! If you’re going to enter a competition for a great piece of artwork, go for it. But not if you’re trying to sell a product – you must be able to know how to sell. You might say "Free website reveals how to play the guitar in 5 days – absolutely guaranteed" (something like that). Then they have a reason to go to easyguitarsecrets.com (your website for instance). "Free website reveals" or "Free report reveals. " You can also call your website a free report. What about when they first opened that page up, you actually told them 3 tips about easy guitar playing?

   Example:

   The best way for you to learn how to play guitar is:

   1. You buy a guitar – the best way is to get second hand and save some money. So that’s one tip (you have to give a good info).
   2. And then you can say "Guess what? There are so many great guitar books out there. I have reviewed all of them and I’ve found the top 5. " And so that’s how you introduce those 5 review sites.

   Mark Ling: Because if he’s an affiliate, he could do it that way – send them to a review site rather than just direct to that one. He’s got a few bites to the cherry as well, and he can be building his own list.

   Brett McFall: He can say "Free website reveals 5 reviews of the easiest ways to learn guitar in 5 days. "So suddenly they’re going to the website for the review. They’re going there because of what the website is. And when they get there, they wouldn’t be surprised to see Jamorama. So, those are my tips there. Keep it very, very simple. In this size, it must be just a headline, basically.

   Mark Ling: Ok Brett, thanks very much for coming in today. I think people out there will be very appreciative of what you shared with them. Before you go, I just want you to let our audience know about what you have to offer.

   Brett McFall: Sure. I’ll keep it very, very simple. If you want to know more about what I do or if you want more information like the tips I’ve given today – I’ve got a website which is packed with free reports. It’s brettmcfall.com and this free report shows how to write headlines, how to write yellow pages ads (cause you might actually use that in the future as well), how to create audio, how to create ad websites in 5 minutes – stuff like that. It’s all free to use – no obligation, no nothing. And there are also products there if you want to go further. If you want to go on a fast track – I have manuals, CDs, and DVDs to show you how to do that as well.