My Note Taking Nerd Report

“Giving You The Edge!”

“What My Note Taking Nerd Learned In

Dan Kennedy’s Copywriting Mastery Course”
Dan Kennedy - Copywriting Mastery
CD 01

Sometimes there are things that cannot be sold by copy. They are however very
rare.

You can also use sales copy to sell on your terms and how you want to do business.
It is one thing to make money but another to make it how you want to do it.
Marketing is half behavioral psych and the other is math. Human behavior is
universal.

What Do We Do Before We Write:

Do a lot of research into competitors

- You just know what your competition is doing even if they are doing it wrong

- Answer all the ads you see to see what their letters are like, their premiums &
bonuses, installment payments, etc.

Do a lot of research into comparables

- You also need to know about anyone who is selling to the same market, at the
same price point as you to your market or using the same methodology as you.

- Answer all the ads you see to see what their letters are like, their premiums &
bonuses, installment payments, etc

Proof

- You need as much validation as you can get

- This section often includes the hook which the whole pitch is based around.

As you are collecting information about your clients, you must separate opinion from
fact. You must know how the really behave, what they respond to, what they don’t
respond to, etc. You need to talk specifically to your market in their language with
your crafted message.

One of DK’s clients found that 74% of his clients were long haul truck drivers so he
created a parallel business where it was specifically tailored towards truck drivers
and this runs in tandem with the generic. He now spends more on advertising to
truck drivers so he advertises in trade journals, truck driver magazines, have
literature put at truck stops and he advertises on country & western radio channels.

Joe Polish has found that people with companies that have the name Inc or Cleaning
in their names are a lot more willing to buy from him.

1
Looking for the Hook

Personal mission story is a good start.

- Glen Turners story was that he had a really hard hair-lip and his story was about
how his family was very poor and his relatives were richer and they would go there
for Xmas dinner. He would ask Santa for a bicycle and he copied his relatives letters
and they would get the bike and he wouldn’t. After 5 years of this he breaks down
and says screw Santa, he is going to be his own Santa.

- The premise is the gut wrenching emotional experience that has me doing
this thing that I want you to give me money for it. If you have a story like
this then you should use it.

James Bond Analogy

- Michael Kimble uses this hook to sell his seminar recordings. He also
re-uses it when they new Bond movie comes out. This linking to the familiar can
work wonders for you.

Establish Authority

This is something that is missed when you are constantly marketing to a prospect
universe that you assume knows your story.

- We get tired of telling our own story and then stop using it

- You should tell your story every single time

Selling to your peers if often a tough situation. To some degree it takes a bit of
arrogance to do this.

- The only time DK hasn’t done well with his own speaking herd was when he
neglected to include his story, credentials, accomplishment, etc.

- You may not like doing it but you must do it a lot.

- You must answer the questions of why should I listen to you and why should I listen
to you about how I should run my business.

- You may have to call them out on their bad behaviors such as procrastination

- You must lord all over them and don’t be modest.

- Don’t underestimate things like before/after story such as if you were broke before
because you want people to resonate with it.

2
- The tougher the market the heavier the hand you have to be with this
Don’t slack off on this

CD 02
Explaining What Something Is Not:

This should be used a lot

- Often used in business opportunity ads

You should keep swipes on weight loss and money making opportunity because
they often include the best copy of all.

- Trying to sell things that are unbelievable requires excellent copy that is extremely
useful for things that are believable

The NOT list is the list of things that your prospects don’t want it to be

- Example: weight loss would include no exercise, not a diet and not prepackaged
food

- You need to get this list together

Another way of doing this is the WITHOUT List

- Example: Ways to lose weight without exercise, without going on a diet,

Etc.

It Not Being Their Fault

Used a lot in weight loss

One of the first things DK does in his copy
Let the person off the hook

- No one wants to admit that the situation they are in is their responsibility

- The reason you are broke is....

Make it very clear that it isn’t their fault at all

Have a blame factor in your copy and it must be somewhere else and not on the
prospect
It’s not your fault, You are a victim of the conspiracy of the .... industry
We all have very fragile self images and are easily wounded
- Tell them the world is conspired against you
-

3
Sell From The Perspective Of Fear & Anxiety

Often easier to sell with fear than benefits

Sometimes it’s hard to sell without it
Have a Fear statement: summarizes the fear you which you want to stimulate in
them and hit them over the head with time and time again

- The opposite of this is prevention and is one of the hardest things to sell
such as fire alarms

- You want to be as far away from prevention as is possible

Jeff Paul – Headlines

Buy a Red Book, Glamour or Cosmopolitan

- Good examples for headline templates

- Example: Flat Abs Fast Your 10 Minute Plan could be changed to “Quick
Profits Fast Your 10 minute Plan”
They laughed when...but it....
- They laughed at my idea but it increased my pay by $4k a month
Use the words showed rather than taught because taught implies work
Use sub heads to tell the whole story
Use bullets as mini headlines
You must have clarity in your copy, no guessing
Headlines, sub heads & bullets need to have emotional impact

Dan Kennedy
Answering Questions & Objections

One of the most common objections is the how come my expert hasn’t told
me about this??

- How come no one has done this before?

- You need a pretty good answer to it

- You have to get at that they can’t trust anyone around them with historical
references to ineptitude

The use of a damaging admission

4
- There is no such thing as a perfect product so ignoring it isn’t an option
- When you acknowledge that something is wrong they will believe
everything else you say

- TJ Rohleder’s admission is that they get $32K worth of product and bonuses
for so little money and that they’re actually rounding this number waaaay
down and it’s actually worth more but because it already sounds too good to
be true they undervalued it!!

Reasons not-to copy

You want bullets that answer the reasons why they wouldn’t buy it

Risk Reversal

Most risk is more about emotional factors than actual financial concerns.
This can all be addressed by guarantees.
Write really aggressive & bold guarantees

- From a competitive stand point you want to be doing things that your
competition is afraid of.

- The more you press the boundaries the better

- You can make guarantees sound better through language such as

more than your money back guarantee, money back plus you keep all
the bonus gifts, etc.

- Guarantee the sales letter won’t be a complete and total waste of your time. It
always bumps response

- Guarantee the appointments.

- $10 bill & Fedex got a 30% response rate. Leave it and mail more!!

CD 03
The Power Of The Common Enemy
- Every group of your ideal prospects has someone they all hate

- It is a massive advantage to be on the same side

- Example: Harley Bikers & helmet law

- The most successful fund raising copy is stopping an enemy from doing something

- There is a demon that must be stopped

- The question is who can you attack that your prospects will enjoy

5
- Example: Get clients as often as the sun rises and Clinton lies

- Carpet cleaners hate franchises, Oreck vacuum cleaners, competition.

If you don’t have a common enemy, manufacture one.

- Ad agencies are a universal one for small to medium sized business owners.

Romancing The Stone

- This is making the mundane sound exciting

- Use the story of how it was discovered via the expense, trial & tribulations, pain &
suffering, etc.

- Exotic location – used a lot in cosmetics

- Build an experience around it

- Story of the inventor

- Story of its user

- Story of how it is made

- Limitations

- Example: Swiss anti-aging cream secret learned from alpine mountaineers. And
they say international research team rather than American. What so important about
the Swiss that makes them so happy & healthy?? This question puts people in
agreement with the fabricated fact that the supposed cream mountaineers use for
high altitude also keeps you young. If you want to get acceptance put it into a
question.

- J. Peterman’s catalogue is a good example of this. He delivers a shopping

experience.

Storytelling

Types of stories:

- The discovery story…

- The blackie story – Old past master is on his death bed and passes down his
success secrets to his one confidant.

- The first person “before & after” story – Charles Atlas – I was broke now
I’m rich

6
- The troubled prospect – the story of the guru who is sitting at lunch who is a carpet
cleaner and begs the guru to help him. The guru lists 3 things and his friend takes
the list and goes off and gets rich and now the guru feels he needs to tell everyone
after being nudged by his friend

- 3rd Person testimonial - Really Skeptical to true believer

- Dramatic news story

- Celebrity story

- Be careful with stories as you don’t want them too long or the reader will get
lost in them and forget to buy anything

Contest Entries

Insurance agent sells auto policies to current home owner policy holders
He has a 64% response on a 3 step sequence
He uses guilt in his copy

- The first letter comes from him

- The second letter comes from a CSR who helps them with the policy.
- The third letter is again from the CSR and it says you haven’t replied. I must have
done something wrong.

Kennedy assumed the prospects answered because they want to get the CSR out of
trouble

CD 04
Q&A
DK uses template all the time and you can get any letter, get the guts and
fill in the blanks. Leverage comes from recycling.
Don’t be shy about letting the prospect know you want their money
Don’t attack competition by name but you can attack it by category
If someone has an interest in what you are selling then there is no limit to
what they will read. Economics tends to be the factor in how long the copy
is.
Cheap way to personalize direct mail is personalize the lift note and leave
the rest the same.
All Ads die as they are used over and over again. The best way to do it is
have a rotation system of ads that have fundamentally the same results.

- General tweaks are headlines changes

7
- Change of paper color

- Joe Polish’s first full page ad lasted 2 years

- You usually don’t get much warning when they die because it is usually sudden

Contestants For a Prize of Best Campaign at The Seminar

Tom Schmidt - Photographers

The mailer he does is for high school seniors
Has visual testimonials due to photographs
Born to play sequence got one complaint due to the sexiness of the young
women in the photo

- He used then used the complaint as a lead article in his newsletter

He profiles some of the students
He uses advertorial and long copy

Tom Orent
Giant postcard
He marketed a seminar and made the bonuses meet the same price so
they effectively get the seminar for free

- A great strategy for seminars is to make the bonuses the same

or exceed the value of the main product

John Carlton

3 basic parts to writing:

1) Theatre
Having a piece that arrives in the prospects life can be the prospect’s most
exciting part of their day if it speaks to one of their dear passions, wants or needs.
Lumpy mail

2) Salesmanship

- Bonding with prospects is essential

- Buzz words

- You have to get in bed with your market

8
- They need to know how passionate you are about your product
You have to love humanity
What you sell is a dream

Product
If your product does what you claim, then have swagger and be outrageous in
your advertising
Cultivate your own edginess- the best writers are edgy

CD 05
3) The Hook
The hook is the part that grabs the reader and doesn’t let go
National Enquirer Headlines: Preacher Explodes On Pulpit, Boy Eats
Own Head
When looking for a hook, you are looking for human interest tid-bits
that are unusual (accidental discovery), provocative (smuggled or
stolen info), titillating (gossip worthy rumors) or intriguing (eccentric
habit).
You got your hook when you come across something that makes you
say – “you gotta be kiddin’ me”
Example is the one legged golfer ad
The other part of this is you need a genuine payoff. In this case it was
a balance secret for the golfer. You can’t be outrageous just for the
sake of being outrageous.
Don’t stretch too far
A good hook is good for selling dry stuff
Tax Slashing Secrets Of A College Drop Out That Scares The IRS To
Death
Local Carpet Cleaner Promises To Cure Your Allergies Or He Will
Clean Every Room In Your House For Free
Wife Of Auto Parts Store Owner From Swears Under Oath That She
Didn’t Use Sex To Get These Great Deals From Suppliers

Power Words

They pack an emotional wallop

They are generally adverbs
Use story telling verbs
Get rid of the adjectives

9
- Bad writers rely on adjectives
Humiliate is a good word as everyone has a personal history with it

Rhythm of Copy

A cadence (de da - de da – de da)

I came – I saw – I conquered
It’s easy – It’s free - it’ll change your life
Always read your copy aloud first
If you do listen to music, listen to music without words
Copy should have a sing song quality
Reading is a passive behavior so you need to explain everything

Theatre
Drama
1, 2 or 3 word subheads
It almost killed me...
Because he can...
By the time you finish reading this, I will be dead
Jesus Wept

Effective Slang
Mild swearing such as Kick Ass & Friggin’
Used for mild shock effect and keeping them engaged

Just you and me sitting down & talking

This should be how your copy reads to the prospects
Write to one guy not to an niche
Personalize your stuff – Dear Joe & Mary

Selling The Simple

The closer you get to the magic pill the better you will do
It’s not gonna take much time, effort or blood and tear, trial
and error
Getting a how to book and not have to read it!!

2 Philosophies

10
1) Write like you have a gun to your head
2) Imagine your prospect as huge gelatinous blobs who will barely move to do
basic hygiene never mind get out their wallet and make a call. Your ad has to be so
compelling that it has them busting free of their welding to the couch and doing what
you ask them to.

Bullets
The heart and soul of the pitch is in the bullets
Write the bullets first
Write out the features and then the benefits
Do not misdiagnose the reason why people will buy from bullets.

Bullets consist of what your stuff offers the human being buying it. Never
underestimate the greed or need of them. Offer solutions.
1-2 Punch bullets
- 2 minute training techniques that is guaranteed to make you look ridiculously
smooth and that will pump up your confidence 1000% over night

- New and simple exercises that install animal quickness directly into your nerves &
muscles leaving it locked there until you need to spring it loose.

- You can keep almost keep everything in your current swing the same and just
make an easy, quick and single adjustment just by watching what Bobby has to
show you (implies you learn just by watching)

- What women really want from men but will never come out
and tell you

2 Reasons People Buy

The emotional reasons that they use to pull out their wallet

- The rational reason they need to be able to tell their spouse, peers, etc

Q&A
Star story solution is about making a star out of anybody
- Lazy geek from Arizona discovers....
Celebrities are good for making a hook but you still need to do the
rest.
If in doubt about names and gender, use Dear Friend.

CD 06
Yanik Silver – Internet Copy

11
 The web is just another media
Don’t use italics or underlines on the web
Do use:
- Bolding

- All CAPS very sparingly

- Yellow highlighter

- Shaded Boxes

- Don’t use ridiculous colors

- Use dark blue, red colors and black text

Use Arial, times new roman or courier fonts

Testimonials

- Put a big emphasis on testimonials

- Put best ones up front as people are very skeptical when browsing

- Use pictures with them

Don’t have them scrolling left to right
Don’t have the cliffhangers for next page, just have a long letter
Have your website to load quickly
Make money link for Affiliates
You need stuff on your site that establishes you as a real person (pic, address of
your office, etc.)
Call to action should be strong and be explicit

- Click here
Lift Note

- Have more testimonials and answer objections

Secondary responses

- You need to capture name & email address by getting them to sign up for any kind
of gift or newsletter that keeps them in the loop about your site.

- If cash is a problem try this…

12
- Let people select their own price

- Save $100 and get the cd rom version

- Try it now for $1 dollar

Have upsells on your order form
Have upsells on an intermediate page
Have pop ups that look like system folders

Q&A
Use Elance.com to outsource
Drive traffic to your site using
- Affiliate network & viral ebooks
- Search engines
- Publicity & articles for ezines
- Director of ezines.com and you submit articles for publishing
He only gives away free content to capture email

Email
Can create cash on demand
Website is passive but email is active. Like a village in the desert and you need to
build roads to get there.

3 Critical components of an email

1) Subject Line
Curiosity
Straight to the point – announcing product
Same as Headlines
Don’t use dollar signs more than one time
Don’t use multiple exclamation marks
Don’t use ALL CAPS

2) From field
Avoid having a company name or sales@ or offers@
Should be from a name

3) Opening paragraph
Good idea to restate your relationship
- Hi John, It’s Yanik from Instant Sales Letters again

13
 Use stories & hooks
- I stumbled on something interesting recently

Jeff Paul
Copywriting Checklist
Headlines
- Do I Have Multiple Headline Ideas Written Down

- Make sure they reflect the copy

- Will the offer & guarantee be in the headline (such as free report
reveals.......)

- Quotations on headlines (possibly bump response)

- Bolded headline

- Lead In Headlines & Follow Up Headlines

- Diary of a frustrated financial Planner (came from Diary of a Lonely Housewife

1920’S Ad)
USP
- Why should I buy from you??

- The Why Me Story.

- The USP should stand alone. Ask your clients specifically what they like about.

- Can be based on an experience or reframed service

- If you are just delivering products & services you have problems in that you are
commoditizing yourself. Provide your clients an “Experience” to overcome this.

- Example that is JP’s wife goes in to get an oil change, when she gets back the car
is also slightly serviced, washed and polished and there is a CD in the player that
explains what they have done.
Envelopes
- Hand addressed

- Live stamp

- Plain white envelope

- Return address hand written

- If you are going to do teaser copy cover the entire envelope

14
- Magalog – letter without envelope
Guarantees

- More than your money back guarantee

- The more outrageous the guarantee the better the bottom line
Offer

- Offer Basic vs Deluxe

Believability

- Who are you and why should people believe you

- Empathy – will cut through all the barriers to gaining trust

- Get your best clients to get testimonials for you from other Clients. JP has a
client that calls his testimonials spokespeople

Dan Kennedy
Lead Generation
Closest thing is a personals ad
The effectiveness is either helped or hinder by how much you are willing to repel

- The more you are willing to do this the better the ad will
perform in delivering the targeted profile
A lot has to do with the leads when you get them

- Do you have the infrastructure to handle them??

- If not you want to narrow the door so it’s a slam dunk when you get them
Define who you want & who you don’t want

- The more specific the ad the fewer but more qualified leads, the higher the Cost
Per Lead but the higher the conversion rate and less work to convert them.

- Why they should pay attention

- What the offer is

- Exactly what you want them to do

- An additional reason to do it now not later

Mistakes

15
- Whether it’s a free appointment or free offer the mistake is assuming it’s going to
be easy because it’s free.

- You have to actually sell the free appointment just as hard as you would the paid.

- There needs to be a benefit for the prospect from the free stuff whether the
interaction goes further or not
- It’s important to sell the free appointment first and not get ahead of yourself
and try to sell the step after
You have to make a decision whether to disclose if you are trying to make a sale
or not. No disclosure is a blind approach
When being specific with your ad have testimonials only from
the target prospect and have the correct language
If you have 6 target markets then rewrite your pitch for each one

Second Notice Letters

Take letter no. 1 and junk it up

- Sloppy Handwritten blue margin notes (the sloppier the better)

- Circle, asterisks and stars

- Black underlining and

- Yellow Highlighter

Rewrite the opening (acknowledging you are turning up again) and end (upping
the ante, change the offer around) and leave the middle the same
Write the entire piece in a different voice. Keep everything else the same but in a
wife’s voice, clients voice, kids voice, another experts voice. If it was first person
before, it’s third person now
Isolate a different benefit and make it the focus.

- If you emphasized the guarantee last time, then you emphasize the price drop this
time and swap them around
If you did a good job with subheads, all you have to do is rearrange the letter
Keep it the same and just ad a lift note or other loose pieces
Put the letter on a CD and sent them the CD
Sometimes just change the appearance of the piece and none of the copy

- Change color of paper

16
- Appearance of envelope
To get more life out of your full page ad is to make it half size and surround it with
testimonials

Second or Third Notice Themes

Frankly I’m puzzled…
Are you lost? Shall we send out the search party…
I am very concerned…
Only X number of reasons you wouldn’t have responded

- One of them is money and this is where you introduce a further discount
Boy are you stubborn but so am I…
Testimonial piece where he got 67 pieces from the guy and how the guy didn’t
give up on him and now he is rich because of it
The Mouse letter in Dartnells

- Should be personalized stationary and handwritten

- Could be a clients wife or your wife

- Employee
I haven’t heard from you but it’s probably not your fault…

- Give reasons such as unreliable post office

How To Do Interviews

Outline of interviews
DK gives them the questions but doesn’t script the answers because the
interviewee will sound like it’s scripted

Formats
Copy doesn’t stand alone
You want to control the environment in which your copy is read
The cosmetic appearance and format is as important as the copy itself
Stuff to think about:
- Pages end in incomplete sentences on a cliff-hangar
Yellow legal paper (mr memo)

- Has massive readership rate as people can’t seem to not read it

17
 Placemat mailing (Bill Glazer)

- Tri fold self mailer that looks like a cafe place mat with stains and all

- Piece is handwritten

- Inside is the pitch

Joe Polish fake movie poster

- Pitch on back

- He uses it as the 8th step for his bootcamp

- The purpose of the front is to get more people to read the

back
Rory Fatt fake newspaper tear-sheet

- Trade Publication ad and is now a tearsheet with a post-it on it saying “saw this and
thought you might want to see this – J”

- Recent law is that the post-it note must say advertisement

Try this it works – J post it note on tear-sheet works best. Has to
be handwritten with blue ink and at the same time.
Pay attention to the big players Agora, Rodale, Boardroom Reports, etc.
Advertorial
- Gets higher readership because it looks like an article
Trying postcards to move to a website which has the sales letter that wouldn’t fit
on the postcard

Give yourself deadlines to write copy faster

DK writes to the clock or page count or by section
The work expands into the time available to do it so you need deadlines
He also narrows the categories with in which he works
JP had an extensive swipe file
DK figures out what the end of the letter is like first and he works backwards
A pitch that works somewhere else other than paper he wants to hear it.

18
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