Hello my Awesome Offspring,

       Today we need to speak more about the ad writing process. Since it takes years to learn but only hours or even minutes to write, we will spend a few days discussing the ad I wrote in under an hour.

       Before you begin to write, you must be in the right frame of mind. Yes, a good writing spot and all that is critical, but I am speaking about frame of mind.

       My father and I both prefer a light breakfast and to write in the morning.

       I personally like to finish a Diabolical Level Sudoku puzzle. This gets my brain warmed up and how long it takes me to finish tells me how well my brain is functioning.

       One day I quit caffeine and my brain cells were clicking and clacking away and I could rip through puzzles I normally had problems just solving.

       There are other activities like minesweeper or the crosswords etc.

       If I am writing to impress someone with my style of writing, I like crosswords instead. But there isn't much occasion for that.

       Circumlocution only incites perturbation and will be construed as disport or pedantic.

       If you understood every word of the last sentence, kudos to you. If you are like almost everyone on earth and did not then I have just made you feel at least a little inadequate.

       This means using fancy words never helps convince people if they don't understand a thing you are saying. When you sell you are communicating and not impressing people with language.

       Most of the time when people get too technical or use five-dollar words, they look arrogant and pompous.

only serve to alienate prospects, yet it sure is fun to do to professors.

       When you feel very alert and focused, it is time. Start to write. You may have an awkward beginning, but even an awkward beginning can be fixed later.

       Start with Dear Pop or anyone, but start as though it was a personal letter. This will make it flow more naturally and later you can change it to dear friend or in the case of an advertorial, no address at all.

       It helps if you can tell and retell people you know exactly what your plan is. What is naturally the best selling point will come up first, eventually and once you get your speech down in person, putting it on paper is pretty easy. Then all you have to do is tweak it.

       First, check the whole plan against the twenty clicks report posted at thegaryhalbertletter.com. It may spark an idea of how to make an impactful marketing campaign or if you find your plan seems more compelling, keep moving forward.

       This is also a good time to skim "The Boron Letters" and "How To Make Maximum Money in Minimum Time."
This will remind you to personalize your campaign if appropriate and help come up with ideas for grabbing attention.

       With this campaign, I think I have covered most of it, but I am always coming up with ways to improve and add to the marketing and the content I will provide. This comes from living your project.

       While writing your letter, you will naturally find the right spot to put in the bullets and subheads. I could be wrong, but these seem very obvious to me. They almost always make up the last part of a sentence and are among your key selling points. They need to be centered and written in bold like mini headlines.

       My father always taught me to do a "that" hunt after the first draft was done. This is where we read the copy looking for the word "that" because while writing everyone uses it way too much and your writing will flow much more naturally and look 10 times better just by removing the word whenever it really isn't needed.

       This is a good tip for ALL writing. Creative, business, reports and so forth.

       It is also good to do a search for the pronouns "it" and "they". When translating from speech you can tell when someone knows exactly who or what you are speaking of. With writing for marketing, you need to be as clear as a bell.

       To round off my attack on pronouns I also find it is good to hunt down the word "I" because when forced to replace it, the result usually sounds much more professional.

       Break up large sentences.

       Use commas. In schools they have become passé and they are over used by novices but in marketing read your letter aloud and use the commas just to make a pause at the right time to make it sound smooth.

       Let me give you an example of all of this at once.

       Which of the following sounds better?

       A. I felt uneasy being in that place so when he came to pick me up I was glad that he brought the mustang because it is fast and I felt like getting away as fast as possible.

       B. The place had an uneasy feeling to it. Jerry came to the rescue with the perfect car, a mustang. A feeling of relief came over me. It felt good to know the car had the power to get away as fast as possible.

       Follow those clean up rules and your letter will sound smoother and more professional.

       These clean up rules are good for all writing.

       The order section can range from a coupon to send in to a pots line (plain ordinary telephone) meaning it is not toll free. As a side note, you may want a pots line if your clientele is local because it conveys a personal connection that large impersonal corporations don't.

       You will need to decide what order instructions are appropriate for your ad. The more clearly you are asking for money right then and there, the more obvious the instructions should be like a bold 800 number or a coupon.

       In our case, we are just trying to introduce them to the newsletter so we will go with very simple email instructions. If the test does not work, we will try an ad with instructions to call an 800 number and leave their email or regular mail address.

       Let's hope the e-mail campaign works because Llord knows I don't want to create a whole bunch of regular work for myself.

       Grandpa once got a call from a client who said, "Gary, what do I do with all these orders coming in. The business is getting too hard to handle."

       Your grandpa replied, "Those are the kinds of problems I get paid to create not solve."

       Finally you should read your ad to everyone you can force to listen.

       Pop said he read them to himself aloud but he really read them to others for opinions and feedback.

       He cared about the opinion of those with a good history of predicting winners and losers and of course, he was most interested in those asking for more info or free samples.

       I do the same.

       Well that is all I have for today.

All my love,
Dad