I've recently gotten two emails with very good questions. One of them was from a customer in Canada who had bought both Breakthrough Copywriting and Copywriting Templates from my presentation with Michel Fortin at Harv Eker's "World's Greatest Marketing Seminar" in Los Angles in May.

He said that while he had enjoyed the preview call last Thursday, he wondered why he should take the Copywriting Mastery Guild teleseminar starting Nov. 9 — what he would get out of it that he couldn't already get from the $2200+ worth of products he had bought from me.

A fair question. Wouldn't you say?

Here's what I told him:

"It would be worth your while to take the course now because it will add to your ability to use what you learn from Breakthrough Copywriting and Copywriting Templates, which you got at WGMS.

"The main purpose of the Teleseminar Series is to show you the exact steps to monetize your copy through building a sales funnel that you optimize every step of the way. It’s a systems approach that’s very easy to understand and implement.

"My materials are systematic and time-saving as well, but they don't focus on steps in the sales funnel the way the teleseminar series will."

Translation: You'll learn how to make more money with your copy by using what you learn in the Copywriting Mastery Guild Teleseminar, because you get specific, turnkey tips for making money with copy in three separate segments of the customer lifecycle:

• as you generate leads
• as you convert leads into customers
• as you develop the lifetime value of each customer

The second question really touched me. It was from a friend whose business supports mine as an outsourced service. She said her son, who is in high school, is very successful in writing, and she wondered if she should sign him up for the Copywriting Mastery Guild teleseminar beginning Nov. 7.

It was an interesting question. No doubt that copywriting skills will pay a young man in the workforce better than any other kind of writing skills. But would a teenager be interested in copywriting? I've met even younger kids, bright and sincere, who gave me their business cards with titles like "Entrepreneur-in-Training" on them.

Writing advertising copy was the last thing I could have imagined myself doing when I was in my teens… but, that was when dinosaurs still roamed the earth and all toothbrushes were manual.

So I'm not in a position to judge.

The one drawback my friend and I agreed on is a younger person would not have the life experience to draw on to write the same kind of copy an older person who is a UL graduate (University of Life) would have.

But so what?

That's never stopped me, and I know tons of people who have developed experience as they go.

The only real question is one of desire, of motivation. If he likes the idea as much as Mom does, then why the heck not?

And if you like the idea, then you should check it out, too: http://www.thecopywritersguild.com/

David Garfinkel

If you are a creative person, you could probably make up names for a dozen types of testimonials — even more.

But I have identified three types of testimonials that really work in increasing your conversions of prospects to customers.

On the Free Interactive Copywriting Mastery Teleseminar Thursday night, we started with a million-dollar-copywriting mentoring client of mine, Mike Morgan, talking about being mentored. What he said ended up being a testimonial. For extra credit (if you listened to the teleseminar), put your opinion in as a comment, as to what kind of testimonial he gave.

(If you didn't happen to catch the teleseminar, you can listen to it online here: Copywriting Call)

Later on the teleseminar, I mentioned the three types of testimonials as one of the 11 steps you need to write a sales letter that converts. Here they are:

1. The expert testimonial This is when you get a well-known name in your field to endorse you. If you had a real estate site, a positive testimonial from Donald Trump would be gold for you. If you had a fantasy football site, you could do worse than to have Coach Lou Holtz say something good about your site. If you had a corporate business site, a favorable testimonial from a Wharton School professor would definitely help your conversions.

Same for everyone in any industry. If you can get a recognized leader to approve — in writing — of what you're doing, this goes a long way to reassure prospects that they should become your customers.

2. The user experience testimonial.

These talk about what it was like

•   to work with you
•   to buy from you
•   to get technical support or customer service from you
•   to use your product

… and so on.

These kind of testimonials relate your experience as a customer to prospective future customers. Most testimonials are like this. But they're usually not as strong as they could be, because they don't talk about experience that a prospect will see as valuable before they have done business with you.

It's important to look at a testimonial through a prospect's eyes to see if it will have the effect you want it to have.

3. The user results testimonial These are probably the most valuable testimonials you can get for most products and services. You have to be very careful about using these when you have a financial or medical product, as there are strict federal laws about what you can and can't say. Getting into the details of these regulations are beyond the scope of this blog post, and besides, I'm not a lawyer.

For just about any other kind of product, though, a user results testimonial is incredibly valuable and, generally speaking, less risky. Make sure the results your prospect is talking about are true, not made-up.

Now… that's some detailed information you've probably never heard about testimonials, isn't it? It will add a lot of conversion power to any copy where you put the information to work.

It's just a small sample of what's on the free teleseminar and what you get in the Copywriting Mastery Guild teleseminar series coming up next Thursday. To find out more, go  listen here

David Garfinkel

If you've listened to the recording of Thursday night's free teleseminar, you already know that Tim and I are giving a private, one-of-a-kind interactive teleseminar series, starting on Thursday, November 9. It's called The Copywriting Masters Guild.

Tim and I have both done lots of products and helped other people promote their products.

And I personally have four copywriting-related digital and physical products, a published book, and a CD set with Jay Conrad Levinson (Guerrilla Copywriting) that you can buy online right now.

But what we're doing with this teleseminar is completely different than anything either Tim or I have ever done before… or seen anyone else do, anywhere.

Here's why:

Everyone has to start somewhere. And many entrepreneurs start new businesses from scratch on a regular basis.

Our program is the first one ever that takes you through the copywriting stages starting with the very beginnings of a new business "getting leads and turning them into customers" all the way through building a multi-million-dollar business, adding upsells, developing long-term customers, improving sales volume and profit margins.

Big words, but easy ways to do it. To grow a business into a huge, profitable company!

As we know how to do, from experience.

And you can learn yourself.

Now, you don't have to build a million-dollar business. Maybe you'd be happy with half a million a year. Maybe even $100,000 or $200,000. It could be that you're doing this part time and a few thousand a month of supplementary income would make you happy.

That's fine!

You don't even have to be starting a business. You can apply portions of what we're doing to little "weak links" in your business as it is now. And you could end up making thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars more a month in extra income.

Because what we're talking about is the fastest, easier, most effective way to turn ideas and words into dollars!

Listen. Not only will I break the copywriting process down into easy-to-digest, easy-to-implement pieces…

…but Tim is going to show you how to take what you've got and make it more profitable…

… every step of the way!

Check out The Copywriting Masters Guild.

Thursday night's Free Copywriting Mastery Interactive Teleseminar was a rockin', rambling event! We covered so many topics we were frankly a little drained by the time it was over.

We started out with some Speed Copywriting secrets, including the mysterious "Rule of 7" one of my friends used to lock in a couple million dollars of sales on a web promotion.

I've never heard of it from anyone but him and never seen anyone else use it as effectively. I had to get special permission to include it on the call.

But we covered a lot more than great copywriting techniques.

We also went into some of the "nuts and bolts" issues that multiply your income on the Web…

• Getting traffic
• Squeeze pages
• Autoresponders
• Upsells
• And last but certainly not least, testing and tracking

Actually, we covered more than that.

We also had a lot of people who wanted to sign up right away for our Interactive Copywriting Mastery Guild, which starts next Thursday.

To lock in your place (while there's still room), go to
www.thecopywritersguild.com

And if you missed the call, fear not!

We'll have a recording posted by the end of the weekend. Check back on this blog for a link to Thursday night's call.

David Garfinkel

Greeting all! Jesse here…

As you are likely already aware, the cat has exited the bag. We made every effort to keep our newest project under wraps, but it is out now. Even though "The Copywriters Guild" is still weeks from launch, the news of its arrival leaked out.

Get the scoop at The Copywritiers Guild

There is a series of powerful reports available for you. These reports were not supposed to be released until later in the month. But now they are yours for the taking.

Cheers!

Jesse P. Jameson