You’re Never Too Old To Learn

Well, after two years of carefully crafted emails, engaging headlines and offers that expired at midnight, I finally decided to order the AWAI (American Writers and Artists Institute) Six Figure Copywriting success course and a companion piece, How To Write For The Healthcare Market.

So what was it that triggered my ‘buy’ response? Was it a compelling discount? Nope. An amazing new testimonial? Wrong again. Maybe a new technique or development that would guarantee my success as a copywriter. Sorry.

They just wore me down. Once I had signed up for the free Golden Thread newsletter, I would read the various emails and knew I eventually should do it – heck, I really wanted to do it for a long time. But thinking about it, it was even that. It’s that I was not the ultimate decision maker. I needed to convince my boss and also the finance guy that it would be a good idea for the company to order the course for my department (and that I wasn’t trying to get a ‘freelance’ course so I could leave and make more money on my own.)

So when you are marketing your product or services, keep those two things in mind – a regular communication with your prospects so you are there when they are ready to buy. And that they are the right people to make the buying decision.

Now I’m just counting the days until my course arrives!

Responsible Green Reply Envelopes

One thing we all are hopefully aware of is the current push for a national “Do Not Mail” list. About 17 states currently have laws on the books or up for a vote. States v.s. Federal rights aside, if enough voters get behind federal legislation, the world of catalog & direct mail will change drastically – as well as the cost the consumer pays to mail a package or letter.

One way we can help calm the fervor behind such ill-thought legislation is to do what we can to self-police what the consumer may see as waste. And whether they are right or not, going ‘green’ is in and can help to give your response rates a lift. I receive a great newsletter called Springwise that keeps up on new trends and saw this post about reusable envelopes. Not only do Eco-envelopes encourage recycling, the look of the piece is sure to get noticed in your prospects mailbox.

Later

Coast to Coast Collaboration

I have found an illustrator to partner with my on my first book “Die, Monkey, Die”. And, it was a bit of an adventure. I posted the project on iFreelance.com, not thinking that they might be adverse to my quest for a no cash upfront, share in the profits kind of deal. So, after receiving about 38 bids, they put my project on hold.

However, I did manage to solicit enough interest to get two people who were qualified, had the style I was looking for and… one of them was willing to share on the back end. So, onward and upward!

I will post the finished verse soon, as a way of establishing copyright and to share it with you. And, as Mark gets the illustrations going, I’ll share some of those as well.

This is fun.

Jonathan

Apples News

Being a certified MacEvangelist since 1987 (not in any official capacity) I first want to dig a little deeper into todays ground breaking news from Cupertino. Ok, the iPhone is not just cool – it’s truly revolutionary. One product that is the widescreen iPod we’ve been waiting for along with broadband internet and cellphone would have been fine. But the addition of OS X and 8gb of flash memory racks it up more than just a couple of notches.

If it has OS X, then ostensibly it can run iChat, correct? Not too much to expect that the second generation iPhone will have an iSight camera and boom – we’ve got the video phone long predicted since at least 1959, which is as early as my memory will serve.

The predictions of 1% of the cell market by 2008 or 10 million units should not be too much of a stretch. This is the convergence handheld we’ve been waiting for. Early adopters will rush, coolness will abound, and all-you-can-use flat rate broadband cell plans will be the next plateau, freeing us from our laptops and desktops and further ingraining the internet into our every waking  moment.

Apple has reinvented the phone is an understatement.