Direct Response Copywriting Swipe File

This was a barn burner of a lead generator in the late 1960s and early 1970s with insertions all across the US.

Would the offer for $3,100 tax free cash during a hospital stay appeal to most people reading such an ad today?

Indeed it would since that’s the equivalent in today’s inflation adjusted dollars.

I have no doubt such an ad would make a mint for whoever had the moxie (or memory) to run something similar.

Problem is, for the most part, insurance companies are too sluggish and entrenched in their ways to give this a shot in 2012.

This ad is a timeless masterpiece that could be repurposed in several different areas today.

Notice the pre-head, “New York Times Readers.”

This is lost print ad response booster. Heck, print advertising as a whole is a lost medium today, with very few players who truly know what they’re doing.

(Insurance Lead Gen) $600.00-a-month TAX-FREE CASH WHEN YOU GO TO THE HOSPITAL

They’re the world’s most celebrated authors. Their books have been read by millions of people throughout the world. But until now only the pri­vileged have been able to acquire the modern master­pieces of our greatest writers in prized First Editions. And fewer still have been able to collect First Editions that have been personally signed by their world-famous authors.

That’s the unsurpassed collecting pleasure that awaits you as a Privileged Member of The Signed First Edition Society.

Each month, you’ll be able to automatically acquire a newly published First Edition—the limited first printing of a major literary work. Each volume will be luxuriously bound in premium leather. Embellished with 22 karat gold. And personally hand-signed by its acclaimed author.

Think about it. If you had belonged to the Society last year, you would have had the opportunity to acquire a Signed First Edition of Raymond Carver’s “Where I’m Calling From” … a personally signed copy of Anne Tyler’s “Breathing Lessons* . .. Robertson Davies’  “The Lyre of Orpheus,” also signed by the author.. and other modern literary classics by some of the most distinguished authors of our time—Iris Murdoch, Alison Lurie, and Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer.

[Read more…] about Join the world’s greatest authors in the collecting experience of a lifetime

Harry Browne
author of You Can Profit from a Monetary Crisis shows why a Swiss bank has become one of the best places in the world for your money!

His encyclopedic new book gives you all the facts — and explodes the myths — about Swiss banks today:

Myth: Swiss bank accounts are exclusively for millionaires, gangsters, tax evaders, and South American dictators.

Fact: Many hundreds of thousands of ordinary investors, large and small, have turned to Swiss banks for a safety and privacy no longer found anywhere in North America.

Myth: A new agreement between the Swiss and U.S. governments has eliminated the privacy of Swiss bank accounts.

Fact: Don’t you believe it! The traditional confidentiality of Swiss banks remains very much in force.

Myth: Swiss banks don’t pay interest; instead, you have to pay a large tax to open an account.

Fact: Swiss banks do pay interest, and you can legally avoid the taxes. This book shows you how. As Harry Browne says in it, he knows no one who bas ever paid the highly publicized Swiss negative interest tax.

Why have some 200,000 to 300,000 Americans moved their money out of U.S. and into Swiss banks?

Because here in the U.S. we have nonstop inflation. An ongoing recession. Steadily rising taxes. And,on top of it all, ever-increasing government scrutiny of each individual’s financial affairs. No wonder so many people are looking outside the U.S. for their economic salvation!

[Read more…] about Harry Browne shows why a Swiss bank has become one of the best places in the world for your money!

It’s rare when you can pick up an ad that’s 40 years old and say: “Hey, great product… wonder if I can still get it?”

Rarer still when the copy sings and sells with almost no need for fine tuning all those decades later.

But that’s exactly what you’ll discover in these three print ads from the late mail order king, Paul Michael.

Among other things, Paul was the originator of the lift letter.

A lift letter is a sheet of note page sized paper that rides along with the main sales letter in a direct mail package.

It’s called a lift letter because its job is to LIFT response.

Paul’s original lift letter included one of best known (and copied) lines of mail order copy, “Frankly, I’m puzzled,” which Internet marketers occasionally parrot in their subject lines.

He’s also credited with helping produce as much as $100 million per year in sales for Greystone Press before going out on his own.

Here are three stellar examples of his copy in action.

All had widespread insertions in newspapers across the country in the 1970s.

You’ll find them of benefit whether you sell information products, packaged goods or services of almost any kind because these ads have all the elements of…

[Read more…] about How To Turn Old Ads Into Gold

HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED COSMETIC SURGERY?

Before you decide, you should read this article carefully. We have spent over $100,000 for the right to bring you this information.

NOW AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY THROUGH THIS ANNOUNCEMENT, the original, revolutionary

Beverly Hills Youth Formula

If time has erased some of the youth and beauty from your facial skin, it’s only natural that you may have considered cosmetic surgery. But, before you make a final decision, you should carefully consider the following information.

Cosmetic surgery (what most people commonly call a “face lift”) is, first of all, very very expensive. Fees of thousands of dollars are not uncommon. And, like any surgery, it is a traumatic experience for your body. Also, plastic surgery often leaves visible, tell-tale scars which announce to the world that you are waging a losing war against time.

IS THERE AN EFFECTIVE ALTERNATIVE TO COSMETIC SURGERY?

We believe there is.

It is a remarkable formula developed after years of painstaking research and double-blind testing at some of America’s leading universities and medical facilities.

It is revolutionary.

It is a breakthrough in the truest sense of the word.

And, until now, it has been the exclusive preserve of a fortunate few. Legendary Hollywood and Broadway stars. Affluent men and women who often traveled clear across the country and gladly payed enormous fees for personal consultation and the privilege to use it.

It is the original Beverly Hills Youth Formula.

This article will tell you a little about its remarkable history. It will explain to you why we believe the Beverly Hills Youth Formula may well be the alternative to plastic surgery that you have prayed for. And it will tell you how you can, at last, actually experience the benefits of this exclusive formula without a cent of financial risk on your part.

[Read more…] about Beverly Hills Youth Formula

How to Trade Online AND WIN!

Wall Street Expert Reveals the Secrets to Beating the Street Online!

Look Before You Leap!

Would you jump out of an airplane without a parachute? Then why would you start making trades online before you learned what you were doing?

It’s crazy! But with deep discount brokers making it look so easy for individual investors, it’s no wonder consumers today are lulled into a false sense of security.

“Opening an online account is the easy part! It’s making successful trades that’s the hard part!”

Avoid the Dangers of Online Trading

Having an online account does not make you an online trader. Having an online account does not make you an expert.

What it does do is put you into a very dangerous situation, where one wrong trade could wipe out your savings in a matter of seconds…

Here’s another thought to chew on. Do you think the experts are trading manually? Would it surprise you if I told you 61% of all trade decisions are made by computers?

[Read more…] about How to Trade Online AND WIN! (Trading ad)

Here’s Victor Schwab’s ad for Frank Bettger’s landmark book: How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling.

“How I raised myself from a failure at 29 to become a $250 per day success!”

…that’s the amazing personal story FRANK BETTGER tells you clearly, simply, step by step in his great book, “How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling.” Says DALE CARNEGIE, “When I met Frank Bettger at 29, he was nearly down-and-out. . . Then something
happened that raised him from defeat and despair. I know. I saw it happen. I saw him rise from a total failure to become one of the foremost salesmen in the nation.”

NO MATTER who you are or what you do—Frank Bettger’s remarkable book can help you tremendously. For he tells you the secrets of getting ahead that he learned in his almost unbelievable rise from total failure at 29 to high paid and highly honored business success . . . “secrets” you can begin to use as soon as you receive his book—yours FREE when you mail coupon below.

Yes, Frank Bettger tells you how any salesman can double or triple his income, turn disappointments into triumphs, close a greater percentage of sales, and make more sales calls each day. He gives precise directions on how to multiply your earning power … PRACTICAL, PROVEN techniques on the art of selling … of getting others to do what you want them to. Remember, this is the same information Mr. Bettger is paid $250 a day to teach other men. But let’s take a look at some of the success secrets you’ll find in this great book:

[Read more…] about “How I raised myself from a failure at 29 to become a $250 per day success!”

By any standard, this is brilliant DR, though it’s not technically speaking an insurance ad.

“At Age 68, How Did He Get A MILLION DOLLAR INSURANCE POLICY at the Preferred Rate?”

I’ve expressed my admiration for Cenegenics since they first came on the scene in 2008 with the ad.

“How Does This 69-Year-Old Doctor Have The Body Of a 30-Year-Old?”

Cenegenics knows their target market well

It’s not uncommon to see well-to-do 60 and 70-somethings at the gym, like Dr. Jeffry Life, squatting 400 pounds.

No need for a ton of copy here.

The buff image of Dr. Life juxtaposed over his approved million dollar life insurance application, plus the before and after benefit lists do the heavy lifting.

Who wouldn’t write a policy for this guy?

Perhaps, no early 20th Century copywriter is as unheralded as Lillian Eichler Watson.

With the exception of Victor Schwab, it’s hard to think of a contemporary of hers who sold more books.

Eichler shared office space with a veritable all star team of copy talent at the ad agency, Ruthrauff & Ryan, which including on staff at various times: John Caples, Maxwell Sackheim, Victor Schwab, and founder Wilbur Ruthrauff.

When you read her copy, you have to pinch yourself to recall she employed this ingenious “problem-agitate-solution” approach in the 1920s.

Notice how she sucks the reader into the copy with the story of the woman’s dilemma in the text box.

Then she redirects this at the prospect with the line:  “Suppose she had asked you for advice? Would you have known what to tell her?”

But for the decline in manners in the States since this ad was published, the copy seems as fresh and relevant today.

The promise of this passage is a good example.

“Here are two volumes that solve every social difficulty, that protect from impulsive blun­ders; that do away with embarrassment and self-consciousness, that give poise, ease, confidence. Here are two volumes that tell you precisely what to do on every social occasion; what to say in every social contingency.”

Should She Accept It?

He had come suddenly, unexpectedly into her life. With a breath of romance and a first promise of love he had rushed into the loneliness of her little world — and captured her heart. Now it is her birthday and he has come to her with a gift. A bracelet — so delicately. wrought of golden threads that is seems a fairy cobweb. And there is a great, glowing sapphire where the slender threads are joined. Exquisite!

With a little cry of pleasure she reaches out for the gift. But a sudden thought checks her hand. She is fond of this man who has been so kind to her, who has brought beauty and sunshine into her life, but… she has known him less than a month. Will she be committing herself by accepting this expensive gift? Is it fair to her? Fair to him? What is correct? What would a worldly girl do?

[Read more…] about Should She Accept It?

Ah, retirement advertising.

Once upon a time it was so straightforward.

Just like that cherished phase of life, retirement, from the middle-French word retirer meaning to withdraw.

But hardly anyone seems to be withdrawing any longer and when they decide to, they’re doing it quite differently than their counterparts of even thirty years ago.

This is in no small part due to society today being quite different than it was then.

Life expectancies keep expanding.

The rate of technology changes continues at a head spinning pace.

And thanks to advances in medicine and health care, the elderly in First World countries are vital and engaged like never before.

What does this mean to advertisers?

Opportunity.

If you can identify and speak to the retirement segment in your market.

And it doesn’t matter whether you’re pitching an investment newsletter, cosmetics or business development for accountants.

Every market has its segment that’s responsive to the “R” word.

A respondent in her 20s may latch onto the biz-op like claim, “Retire This Year!… and Still Make More Money Than Most Doctors,” as easily as someone her mid-50s.

Another example.

Retirement is not the first word of ad copy that leaps to mind in the beauty and rejuvenation markets.

But if you’ve identified how to reach female executives in their 50s, they may well jump at the promise.

RETIRE BEAUTIFUL!

Two-word copy constructions like these are surprisingly often the miracle seeds for blockbuster ads… and businesses.

A few months ago, I had dinner with a brilliant, old-school, New York ad agency woman.

Her formula for doing this is simply putting together combinations of two buzz words that the public instantly recognizes.

Her best known success with this concept is Zone Pilates, which became a megahit infomercial. She’s got more projects in the pipeline.

Best of all, she keeps this small scale by concentrating on being an “idea woman,” creating a prototype, then licensing her baby out to a big manufacturer who’s happy to pay her royalties for as long as the product makes the cash register ring.

And speaking of cash registers, here’s some direct mail that’s creating a ka-ching! for one of my favorite mailers, Agora

There are few products that lend themselves to big promise quite as nice as the little penny stock.

“Secret $200 Retirement Blueprint! (15-page PDF, 8.4 megabytes)

What if you ad a simple blueprint for a wealthy, independent Retirement?

Just copy this simple “Secret $200 Retirement Blueprint…”

15 page DM letter (mailing March 2012) for Penny Stock Fortunes membership at $69 a year.

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