These are my notes from a call between Frank Kern and Clayton Makepeace. Clayton has done $1.5 billion in sales in his career and Frank has done $30,000,000. So they know their stuff.

First I’ll cut right to the chase and give you the highlights as I see them. Then you’ll have access to my full, unedited notes I took while listening to the call.

Like icing on the cake, here’s the highlights:

1. Tie Your Promotions/Offers in with Current Headlines which are agitating your market

2. Plan out your email campaigns so multiple messages build to a free event

3. Tie entire campaign into timely news events, tell them what will be true after the event for them which isn’t true now, only build the value and excitement for the free event…no ulterior motives should be apparent

Unedited Notes: Clayton Makepeace & Frank Kern interview call

Clayton did $80,000,000 in sales between 2 clients in 2007 alone!

campaigns 4-6 weeks in length, 10.5 mil, last month did a campaign for 2.5 mil in 3.5 days

works with client’s customer files, most qualified prospects, bonded with his clients for months & years

Frank’s done $30,000,000 total sales in his career

4-6 weeks, centered around an online event of some kind, other people center theirs around a free gift or series of free gifts, he spends 1-2 wks not selling anything, just uses the email to invite people to the online event, register for it for free, sense of obligation created because they’ve registered, leaves them alone until day of event, do get confirm reg msg, in editorial content emails he continues to build up the value of the event, never does a pitch in these msgs

financial one is 200k subscribers, 6 days/wk, 1 in morning 1 in evening, moneyandmarkets.com, morning is market commentary on various markets, clarifies days events where markets are going and where opps are; may do P.S. about upcoming event;

in afternoon has dedicated emails to sell the shit out of the free event, all reasons if they don’t attend they might as well shoot themselves

1-2 weeks during each cycle where they are begging people to accept the value for free, builds trust, bonding, momentum, demonstrating good will, creating obligation

Events - vary format to keep them interesting, around 1 hour long, live con call, they did Berlin, Brazil, Shanghai, U.S. market advisors, they called into report on the markets; at time those markets were exploding; used the drama, intensity and “boots on the ground” aspect to build the event

45-50 minutes of content, last 10-15 min is offer of prod that lets you capture this opportunity

low key offer last 10-15 min of call

segmented list - former customers offered $2500 service; subscribers/prospects offered $1,000 service

Next Event - straight webinar, 2 advisers talking about the currency markets FOREX, “how to make money as the dollar falls”, printed pics of Bernanke as the enemy printing money and inflating dollar “to bail out the stupid lending institutions”; used him as enemy to energize their people, followed the basic template

3rd Event - opps in commodities and natural resource discussion, had a panel of experts in that area

last month - currencies topic and had a new advisor for that one

next one - live audience, video, and live questions; FOREX forum

How to get high registrations and the high attendance

20k reg he had, 10k showed up

it’s all in the copywriting, 3-4 week series, he has an adv. because it’s never positioned with any ulterior motive, only thing is to help you as a subscriber, all content is written in advance, benefits of attending, at end of this hour he’s what will be true for you that isn’t true right now

his adv. is there’s news in the investment market everyday, they see the headlines and are afraid, confused, or excited about those headlines, Clayton uses the current feeling of his list to get them juiced up to attend the event and solve the feelings they currently have

product niche with constant headlines & news, constant change, things for people to deal with, dominant emotions they have about those things, multiples can be huge since people are really engaged

In their launches have the day of the event, give them something to do right on the call, call your broker and do this, given them for free

5 minutes after the call an email goes out to the list, “wow, did you see that, 20k people signed up to attend, Tony Segami from Shanghai was on fire, named his 3 favorite stocks to buy now, event was so good we’re leaving it online for a few days, it’s very timely so we can’t leave it up for long if you missed it or want to watch it again go here”

has a countdown timer for when the event is coming down, usually 7 days, during that week they usually get as many views as they had signups, when event comes down then they do a launch timer for the recommendation service for 7-10 days, after that they may do a 2nd countdown timer if response is still high

has a serial product so it’s updating and changing, he’s not offering the same thing on the 2nd countdown, same service but does updating recommendations and stocks to buy

tantalize them with facts about the company:

• had a company that makes batteries for hybrid fuel cell cars
• has a contract to provide batteries to GM, and 3 Japanese automakers
• noone knows about this contract right now
• this is a no brainer of a good deal
• Don’t tell them the name of the company, just tell them the facts about it and that it’ll be revealed on the call

Want launches to be fresh & timely, tie into current headlines and the fears those headlines create in the market

Find a potential virgin audience, dealing with changes in their marketplace, incorporate these proven techniques to that industry, 1st ones to do that will have $100-$200 million launches

Tie things to overall topical events in the news, it legitimizes you because the person associates you with the news story and you must know what you’re doing as an expert since you’re talking about this great news headline, positions you as serious broker in this field

what kind of headlines could you write which makes attending mandatory; for the FTC change to the CAN-SPAM Act, headline can be “Is Something You’re Doing Now the Way You’ve Always Done it Capable of Landing You in Jail in the Next 60 Days…or Costing You a Huge Fine?”

could be topical stuff they’re already aware of, or can be something they don’t know about, “here’s how not to do it…from Apple, IBM” their tech invitations blow and here’s why…

reasons why Makepeace’s promotions work:

• topicality
• info is dyanmic
• not just appealing to 1 emotion greed, also appealing to fear “if you don’t make right financial moves you will lose money”
• product launch strategy is so powerful the technique itself works, quality of the copy, texture of the campaign with some that are warm & intimate and other messages that are all trumpets blaring generating excitement for the event
• great strategy combined with great salescopy yields exponential results

Guthy-Renker does nothing with their backend stuff, they generate millions of new customers each year, send them no other offers, makes so much money on the front-end they don’t care about that. This comes straight from Bill Guthy. Leaving 90% of their money on the table.

strategy and killer copy at every level gives explosive results

ripoff copy rings hollow, people know it’s “fake” they feel it just isn’t quite sincere

when mail the same promotion (exact same copy) to the same people 30 days later, 20%-30% of the list opts-out, he has written entirely new email copy based on the same theme, has gotten similar attrition

copy doesnt feel fresh or new, doesn’t feel sincere, market remembers and has a long memory, response plummets

coming up with something fresh can create an instant incremental response at every level; more people in, more people convert, more people attend and buy, more people come back for a 2nd sale

copy is king, every new medium attracts enough attention you can throw anything up there and get money; then market becomes crowded, response and results plummet, then you have to get good and bring better copy

copy’s goal:

• grab attention
• convert attention to readership
• engage prospect in my email
• move them to action

been in the game 37 years, $1.5 Billion in total sales in his career, adds $100 million every year, does it for 10% of revenues, spends 3-4 hours every weekend writing an article for total package, all the rest of his time is in the trenches designing strategy, looking at copy, studying results, finding the holes, improving the process; doing that for clients at 10% revenue

PHilips, Agora, Nightingale-Conant, KCI, Rodale Press are big copywriting companies; royalties can be enormous because you’re going up against the best like Bencivenga, Carlton. He got $50 for every 1,000 pieces mailed, 50,000,000 were mailed out so Clayton made $3,000,000 for a month’s work

the big boys are thrilled to write checks to copywriters because they understand it is the most important thing to the success of their campaigns and profits

when things stop working well it’s a good thing, because then only the truly skilled will be making money

writing copy is the hardest thing, it’s like opening a vein and bleeding onto the page

people sending out mediocre stuff will have to get good in order to survive, then they’ll realize the full potential of the product launch formula

stop sticking .22 caliber bullets into the Howitzer cannon we have

Drayton Bird is another big-time copywriting giant, works with Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic, outrageous guy, has bought a new Rolls-Royce every year since the 1950’s, trained most creative directors at the top agencies in Europe
www.birddroppings.com

CLayton’s launches www.moneyandmarkets.com, sign up for ezine to be a “fly on the wall” of his $10,000,000 plus campaigns

Part three (if you missed part 1 go here increase website traffic thru forum marketing)

In the previous two pieces of this article we talked about increasing website traffic to the opt in page, sales page, blog or other product pages of your website.

We had talked about teaming up with someone and having a planned out strategy where you tell people in your forums how good their stuff is directing the readers of the thread to their landing page, and your partner does the same for your stuff.

This was based on the assumption that you had been in the market you’re in for a while and had already built up a good reputation with lots and lots of posts in the certain forums in that market.

SO what if you have never done any forum posting (or none in the market you’re currently attacking)?

When this is the case can do a slight twist on this technique.

It’s a little bit sneaky but very effective in getting Web traffic visitors to your opt in page or your main site.

What you do is go into the top eight or 10 forums in your market and sign up for accounts under a user name that represents your ideal customer. Meaning if your ideal customer is a 40 to 50-year-old woman that makes $50,000+ a year then you want to have a type of user name that woman would have.

This way she’ll identify with you more and the more she identifies with you the more likely she’ll be to take your advice, follow your suggestions, and ultimately buy your stuff. Which is the end goal anyway.

Now you never want to lie, let me make that very clear right now. Even though your operating under your stage name or an actor name whatever you call it, you still use your expertise and provide relevant, honest, and valuable answers to their questions.

And what you can do when the time comes for your product launch, or when you have something new ready to go you can start placing some links to it within your answers when that makes sense.

So when you’re answering a question that’s asking about a certain resource and your products is that type of resource then you can direct people to it. They will see this as you just finding this cool resource that someone else made.

They’ll be more likely to trust your recommendation because you’re recommending someone else’s resource. Obviously it has to be a very valuable and useful resource where they get way more value than the money they have to give up for it. When that’s true you get a very powerful conversion and the increased website traffic that comes to your page convert very well for you.

Part two (if you missed part 1 go here increase website traffic thru forum marketing)

That’s why those you see on TV are automatically given tremendous weight because the third-party credibility of being on a TV show causes people to automatically trust what they say. Because when you see it on TV it must be true right.

Of course you and I know this is all but the general public believes if it’s on TV then it must be true.

That’s a very flawed if then statement be that as it may you can take advantage of this.

We are just more apt to believe what somebody says about someone else man about what that someone else says about themselves.

That’s kind of convoluted so let me break it down for you.

When I say something good about myself you might be inclined to believe it based on the past experiences you have with me and I’ll truthful and trustworthy you believe me to be based on those experiences.

Now, when you say something good about me to your friends and they are much more inclined leave what you said about me then they would be if I had said that very same thing about myself to them.

When your marketing and forums to get more website visitors onto your page the same principle applies because it is a universal human psychology principle. This is very basic stuff but it is also very powerful stuff.

Now you probably posted in forums already and have a reputation built up. When you come out with a new product or she can include a link in your signature(most forms allow you to have a custom signature where you can advertise your products and websites) and you will definitely get some Web traffic from that.

However, when you team up with someone else and they go and answer questions in a form where they are he had credibility have done a number of posts it’s way more powerful. They direct people to your page because they say how good you are and it directs people to your website right from with in their answer.

This is very viable for you because they are a unbiased neutral third party just doing good by the other forum members recommending a great product they’ve found. Of course that product is yours and you orchestrated the whole thing by teaming up with this person.

This assumes that you are in the same market they are and you will do the same for their product in the forums where you have already made a great deal of posts and have a good reputation. That way you both get the maximum benefit from this strategy.

In part three we’ll talk about a subtle twists on this concept.

So what is this concept ‘Power Forum Tag Teaming’?

First off it does a couple of things for you to increase website traffic:

#1 — it allows you to take advantage of your pre-existing built up credibility in a forum that you’ve been posting in for a while. This way you don’t have start in a new forum from scratch.

#2 — it allows you to get over the initial hurdle people have of trusting you when you are recommending your own product. This is where the team part comes in and I’ll explain in detail later.

I’ve never heard anybody talk about this concept before even though it is part of a larger more basic concept of doing a joint venture or forming a project specific partnership with someone else.

Forum marketing has been around almost since the dawn of the Internet and is still a great source to increase your website traffic and bring more visitors to buy your stuff.

You’ve heard how you want to go into the various forums that cater to your market and answer member questions giving them your valuable expertise for free.

It’s very key to give them tremendous value because without that you’ll never build any credibility and never be viewed as an expert.

People give great authority and credibility to experts. People love to deal with and buy from experts.

When you become the expert you get all three of these outstanding factors working in your favor. This makes those people that read the forum threads and see your valuable answers exponentially more likely to buy from you. The Web traffic you get from those threads converts at a much higher rate.

Of course there is a way to supercharge this tactic.

Ask yourself right now “Who do you trust and buy from?”

As humans we’re pretty universal in that we trust our friends, our family(for the most part), and those we have known the longest to be truthful and give value to those we see as experts based on their knowledge or some third party credibility.

In part two of this three-part series will dig deeper into this third-party credibility concept.

How To Get People Addicted To You And Take Control
Written on 3/19/2008 by Alex Shalman, creator of the of Practical Personal Development blog.

There is a special little secret ingredient which is responsible for getting people addicted to you, to love you, and to think of you as an irreplaceable person in their life. Right away you are thinking of how valuable it would be to have such power in romance, friendship and business.

People would love you, adore you, and want you to succeed. How famous, rich, and powerful would you be then? This universal principle applies to any person, and can be executed at any time, but keep in mind that you will be completely exploiting them, so take this knowledge and let the use of it rest on your own conscience.

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