Hi there!

Tonight, at 8PM Eastern @ http://colintheriot.com/tmnlive I am recording a new episode of “Passion, Persuasion, and Profit” and I’d love to see you there!

I will be talking mainly about positioning your products for premium pricing. I’m going to show how you can start charging more for the stuff you already sell without doing anything to the product at all, so you make more money.

Plus, you get more JVs because you offer bigger commissions, too.

AND, you attract a better class of customer than the sleazy serial refunder who whines over a $7 ebook because it won’t make them breakfast.

That’s at http://colintheriot.com/tmnlive at 8PM Eastern, tonight (Thursday, April 5th).

See you there!

~Colin

Hello Affiliates! (Just kidding, these are sheeps.)

Tonight, at 7PM Eastern @ http://colintheriot.com/tmnlive, I will be discussing the OTHER side of doing a wildly successful product launch.

Everyone knows about the prospect engagement side, but almost no one talks about the JV/Affiliate side…

Specifically what MUST go on there to have you launch be mega-gigantic instead of just pretty good.

I’m going to talk about:

• Creating killer JV signup pages
• How to Message JVs to get them behind the launch
• How to get maximum value out of the traffic they send
• And how to create good swipe material for them to use to promote your offers
• Even how to pick affiliate prizes!

Hope you can make it.  It will be bueno!  See you there at http://colintheriot.com/tmnlive tonight at 7PM Eastern!

Thanks,

~Colin

I know the Holidays are a busy time and people tend to unplug from the world and focus on family. So it’s possible you may not have heard about the typhoon and massive flooding that occurred in the Phillipines recently.

As you may know, lots of people in the Phillipines provide low-cost outsourcing work for small-scale IM businesses and this disaster is going to impact our entire industry – whether you use outsourcing or not!

My friends and colleagues Joe Finn and Justin Wheeler have gotten lots of well-known marketers (including yours truly) to donate over $1000 of products into a pool, and you can get them all for only $17 (and an email address for some of the downloads)…

Here’s a quick shortcut link: http://colintheriot.com/typhooncharity

I won’t ramble on and on about it because the page has full details if you’re interested. Basically, you get a HUGE amount of valuable info and training from reliable, reputable people… AND you get to help out some people who truly need it.
Sure, $17 is a tiny amount, but the boys have collected over $8000 so far, and every little bit helps. 100% of the proceeds are going right to aid efforts over there.

That’s it for now – have a great Holiday, and talk soon!

~Colin

P.S. Part 2 of the “4 Unanswered Questions” is coming soon – I lost my draft of it on Tuesday and am currently rewriting it. If you’ve been waiting for it, sorry for the delay!

P.P.S. Don’t forget you can join me LIVE tonight at 7PM Eastern on Talk Marketing Now and we will (surprise) talk marketing! Hope to see you there!

After a long hiatus from blogging and a mini-retirement due to newly acquired fatherhood, I’m going to make an attempt to blog more regularly here. Yeah, yeah, I’ve said that before, but THIS time, I really mean it.

Here’s the first in a little series on a subject that I did a chat show on a couple of weeks ago, but it wasn’t recorded and a few people asked about the topic.

As a copywriter, I get asked A LOT to review copy for people – and of course, I always check out the big launches and letters written by colleagues. If I had to try and come up with a short list of common errors, this would be it.

There are 4 simple questions that most underperforming copy fails to answer. Yes, you can sell stuff without answering them at all. And no, you probably can’t sell stuff by ONLY answering these questions. But MAKING SURE you answer these four questions adequately for your prospect will UNDENIABLY make your copy better.

Plus, they are REALLY easy to remember. Today we’re going to cover the first one, and I’ll go through all 4 as I find time to write around baby stuff. So take a look, and let me know that you think?

Today’s question:

1. Why Me?

Answer this from the prospect’s point of view. You have a very short amount of time to tell the prospect EXACTLY why this message is for them. It’s NOT for everyone – it’s targeted. You want to give the prospect the feeling that you are speaking DIRECTLY to them. You want to support the ILLUSION that your message is a one-to-one communication.

Now, of course, a sales letter web page is OBVIOUSLY not a one-to-one message – that’s why I used words like “feeling” and “illusion” – it’s got to do with making a connection with the reader. Here are some sub-questions you can use to help develop copy that will help the prospect know “Why Me?”…

- Why are THEY the one who suffers from this great problem your product will solve?
- Why has their situation been unavoidable – why has their problem been unsolvable before now?
- Why are you even talking to them now – help? Support? Compassion? Righteous indignation?
- Why are they even reading your stuff – are they seeking help? Do they even KNOW they have this problem?

Of course there are many other ways to approach this, but when you can answer this question in the prospect’s mind, you’ve hooked them in for the whole ride. If they feel the letter is written to them, and addresses a REAL problem that they FEEL… you’ve got a much higher chance of them sticking around to get to the part where you ask them for money, right?

So why do so many marketers and copywriters leave this part out or flub it? I really couldn’t say for sure, but I think maybe people get so caught up in themselves and their product. I guess that’s natural. You spend so much time creating something worth selling, it can be hard to re-connect it back to the prospect and their needs.

But the fact is, when it comes down to it, ALL the prospect cares about is themselves and their own problems. So IMHO, that’s ALWAYS where you want to start. Your sales letter will end up not just being FOR them, but it’s ABOUT them – it taps into who they are and what their problem is.
ONLY THEN will they be bothered to give a crap about you, your offer, your product, and giving you any money at all.

So that’s it – short and sweet for today. More to come soon in Part 2: “Why you?”

In the meantime, what are your thoughts – do you agree with me, or do you think otherwise? If you DO disagree, let me know why, so I can argue with you effectively.

If you are around in just a couple of hours at 7PM Eastern, come watch my show on http://talkmarketingnow.com – I’m going to talk about the importance of being Known, Liked, and Trusted… but ALSO how you can accidentally get people to Know, Like, and Trust you in the WRONG way, and how you can blow it when you try selling them stuff.

Hey there!

Last minute notice, but in about 30 minutes, at 7PM Eastern, on http://talkmarketingnow.com I’ll be talking about Personal Branding, but not in the usual way.

See normally, I talk about building your brand through messaging on the web.  Having recently attended a live marketing event this past weekend, I’ll be talking about how to represent your personal brand LIVE, in person.

There’s not much more to it than that, and if you want to improve your ability to build your legend and celebrity in a face to face encounter, you’re going to want to tune in!

Hope to see you there on http://talkmarketingnow.com and if you miss it, I can’t say for certainty I’ll get a recording.  So be there, or be rectangular.

~Colin

P.S. I’m on every Thursday at 7PM Eastern, so set your calendar so you won’t miss an episode!

Hi!

I hope you’ll be able to join me live tonight on http://talkmarketingnow.com at 7pm Eastern for my weekly show: Passion, Persuasion, and Profit!

That’s exactly what I’ll be talking about, too.  The name of the show also HAPPENS to be the 3-legged stool of must-have ingredients for a career as an info “guru” with an audience in any niche of your choosing.

So if you have a PASSION – if you are willing to PERSUADE people to adopt your same enthusiasm for your chosen topic – if you want to find a way to PROFIT simply by pursuing your own happiness…

Watch tonight!  Hope to see you all there!

~Colin

P.S. You might want to get ready to record it too, because I’ll tell you how to earn a free hour of consulting with me.  (Normally at least $250.)  I’d take that deal.  That’s a good deal.

Hi there,

On tonight’s show on http://talkmarketingnow.com (7PM Eastern) I’m going to continue last week’s discussion about the strange inner workings of our primitive monkey minds and how we can be tricked into thinking things (and thus, behaving according to those thoughts).  For us marketers, that means making people buy things just by telling them to.

Last week we talked about the Ziegarnik Effect and the Von Restorff Effect and how you can use them to short-circuit the mechanisms of attention.  This week, we’re going to explore those mechanisms further and discuss a long-term strategy for creating a HAPPY and FULFILLED audience… of people who are total ADDICTS for your information.

Seth Godin once said “All Marketers Are Liars” – well I say “All Info Marketers Are Drug Dealers!”

You’ll have to tune in tonight to see why!

Join me tonight, LIVE on http://talkmarketingnow.com (Thursday, 7pm Eastern) and let’s talk about it.

See you there!

~Colin

An intro for my new video series where I will share my morning coffee ideas with you via video instead of just cramming them in my secret notebook.

Hi there!

I hope you can join me LIVE on http://TalkMarketingNow.com tonight (at 7pm Eastern) for a new LIVE episode of my weekly chat show, “Passion, Persuasion, and Profit.”

I’ll be talking about attention:

> How to capture it (even in crowded niches) with sneaky secret tricks…
> How to ensnare it (even when the prospect is distracted) with more sneaky secret tricks…
> How to put under pressure (and release it with a BANG when you make an offer) using yet more sneaky secret tricks…
> How to spin it out into and endless golden thread that you can weave in and out of every message you write…

Yeah, that one uses sneaky secret tricks too. . So if that’s your thing, check out http://TalkMarketingNow.com tonight at 7 Eastern.

I would love to see you there. So when people pay you with the precious currency of attention, you give them something worth “buying”!

Plus, I’m giving away a FREE hour of copy consulting, but you have to tune in to find out how! (That normally costs about $250.)

Hope that got your attention!
Colin