Copywriting & Marketing

No matter what else you do right, if you do this wrong in business…it’s game over

Here’s the thing about small business and internet marketing, in an odd way, we’re a lot smarter than big business. We have to be. Because…

Every dollar we spend needs to return $10 in revenue…yesterday

We don’t have the luxury of dropping half of our marketing budget on ads, campaigns and initiatives that might do a bit of branding, but don’t add immediately to the bottom line. As not only the founder of Vibe, but a lifelong entrepreneur, I dropped a boatload of money in my own businesses before I stumbled onto the single most effective way to drive customers and revenue on the planet–direct response and internet marketing.

What makes it so powerful?

The key words in the above list, though, are “done right.”

You can have the best product or service, the best list, the best offer and the perfect medium. But if your copy isn’t rock-star good, that sucking sound you hear the moment your campaign goes live won’t be money leaving your prospects’ pockets, it’ll be money leaving your bank account. Never to return.

Now, a lot of people can write decent, passable copy. They can get the message across. But the difference between getting the message across and delivering copy that is so monumentally persuasive, it’s nearly impossible to resist is huge.

It’s the difference, between losing your shirt and making millions.

In fact, your sales copy is so important, one of my personal driving forces is to give you the knowledge, skills and ability to understand how to create insanely-compelling copy yourself through my blog and columns I write regularly for top business and marketing websites.

But, we both know studying is not enough. You’ve got to take all this knowledge and then work really, really hard, study how and when to use it, then practice crafting it.

If that level of investment is appealing to you, go for it! I’ll be your guide.

Through some odd quirk of genetics, I happen to have fallen in love with writing persuasive copy. I live and breath the stuff. It’s like a marvelous psychological puzzle to me. And that maven’s passion has led me to study with some of the top copywriters in the world.

These A-listers have collectively generated billions of dollars in sales for both their clients and their own ventures. And, they’ve shared secrets with me that have catapulted my revenue-generating potential. What I’ve learned from them has generated millions in sales for my own businesses and inspired about a dozen other companies and concepts I now have under development.

But, I also realize, most people aren’t like me.

In fact, as I’ve learned, most people not only don’t want to do the work to learn how to craft worldwide wallet-prying copy…they loath the thought of having to do it (go figure). So much so, they’d rather send out a campaign with ho-hum copy that’s literally destined to fail rather than develop the ability to write it themselves…or hire someone else “just to write.”

That’s a bit like flying to the best hospital in the world for heart-surgery, choosing the best anesthesiologist, bringing in the top cardiac-nurses, then paying an intern $20 to do the operation.

Settling for less than stellar copy is the Achilles heel of many less savvy entrepreneurs.

No Doubt, killer copy costs real money. But, it’s also the difference between epic failure and largscale success. And, it pays for itself literally in the blink of an eye.

Want proof?

“Jonathan Fields is one of the best new copywriters on the scene today. One of his early efforts absolutely blew me away with the quality of the writing and it’s persuasiveness.  If you can get him to write for you, I’d grab the opportunity.”

-David Deutsch, world-class copywriter, author Think Inside the Box!
www.copyquickstart.com/deutsch

It’s not unusual for internet marketing and direct response clients to NOT want others to know they’ve hired a ringer or reveal the marketing strategies or copywriting that’s generated a ton of money for them.

Thankfully, I can get around this and actually show you some examples, because I am also my own firm’s client. In addition to heading up boutique marketing group, Vibe Creative, I run a number of different brick and mortar and online companies. So, here we go…

sonic teachOffline Business Explodes Sales With Online Sales Page: One of my businesses is a yoga center in the heart of New York City. In fact, it’s been the #1-rated yoga center in NYC for the last 4-years (Citysearch). A big chunk of the revenue, though, comes not from the classes and merchandise, but from our teacher-certification school.

It wasn’t always that way, though. In the early days, we had a simple two paragraph webpage for the school and attendance was, um, let’s just say not great. After spending a few years devouring knowledge and developing my copywriting chops, I rewrote the page as a long-format sales page.

Within months, sales took off. And, what really blew us all away was that the price of training was more than $2,000 and many people were signing up for it online, based purely on the content of the web page, never having even visited the school.

That single webpage now generates hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in revenue. You can read it here.

career renegadeLive Seminar Taps Online Sales Process Case-Study: Earlier this year, I launched a new company called Career Renegade, which also matches the name of the book I just finished (due out in Jan 2009 by Random House/Broadway Books). The company is my home base for career and entrepreneurship trainings, seminars and retreats.

With my first Career Renegade Bootcamp scheduled for February, I wrote a single-page sales letter and posted it on the web. I expected I’d have to do some heavy promoting, because I did not have a list that was well-qualified for this type of program. And, the only list I did have would’ve very likely been priced out.

But, on a hunch, I decided to mail my small lifestyle list about the bootcamp…before advertising more broadly or working with any other promotional partners. I have to be honest here, the results even blew me away. Without ever going beyond that initial list, the entire seminar sold-out in a matter of days.

And, the only thing anyone saw before showing up for the event was the one-page online sales-letter. You can read it here.

“Absolute genius…really quite wonderful. I’m like salivating! Absolutely brilliant.”

-Harlan Kilstein, A-level copywriter & Internet Marketer, Overnight-Copy.com, (in
response to a sales letter that crushed a field of top copywriters in
international copywriting competition.)

So, which path have you decided to follow?

If you’re like me (obsessed with the science and art of persuasion and chomping at the bit to craft killer copy), be sure to subscribe to this blog and you’ll discover much of what you need to succeed in the months and years to come.

But, if you’d kill for a sales asset that’ll generate a ton of cash for your business right now, and you don’t want to have to create it yourself, give me a call or e-mail me at jonathan [at] jonathanfields [dot] com for a complimentary consult.

[UPDATE - Okay, confession-time…I’m swamped! And, I’m not accepting new copywriting or marketing clients until I get un-swamped again. I tend to work ridiculously quickly, so, hopefully, it won’t take long.

While I catch-up, though, I may have a few lulls between projects where I can squeeze in a few projects for new clients, so e-mail me your contact information, time-frame and a brief description of your project and I’ll give you a heads-up when openings arise.

Wishing you tremendous success in all your ventures,

Jonathan

P.S. - If you were on the fence about the value of a direct-response and internet copywriting and marketing, not to worry, I was too. Especially, before I saw with my own eyes how much more money it put in my business account than anything else.