Entries in "December, 2007"

Discover the Art of Hypnotic Writing

A few months ago I decided to look into, and learn about, internet marketing, affiliate sales & PPC (pay per click) techniques. The industry was interesting to me and I figured I could use my skills as a programmer to make me some extra cash on the side. I will write more on this in an upcoming post.

When I started learning I found that "writing" is the bread and butter of affiliate marketing & sales. I decided to educate myself and help improve my writing skills. I ran into a book titled "Hypnotic Writing" by Joe Vitale. I was a little skeptical because the cover art was pretty cheesy. I tried not to judge this book by it's cover (insert "buh bump bump" sound). Best decision I could have made as this book is awesome. I keep it on my desk now for immediate reference when I get stuck trying to spice up some of my sales copy or PPC ads.

So what is Hypnotic Writing?

As I was working on this post I stumbled across this article written by Chris Bloczynski, where he accurately defines Hypnotic Writing as:

"Hypnotic Writing is an effective technique that marketers and advertisers have used for years to make the most of people’s natural inclinations and conditioning."

If you consider the potential that a hypnotic sales letter or advertisement has, you can see that it's a pretty powerful technique. As a side note, Chris also wrote an awesome article titled 99 Headline Techniques Revealed that is related to this topic; I suggest you read it.

There are several types of hypnotic commands that can be used when you are writing your sales letter or ad copy. Here are a few methods mentioned in the Hypnotic Writing book.

Direction

Directing the reader to complete the action that you want them to. Just read the example below to see what I mean:

"As you continue reading this page..."

Quotes

It's a fact that people read what's in quotation marks. Ever notice that the headlines on various sales pages are almost always in quotes? People naturally read what is in quotes so headlines that are hypnotically powerful placed in quotes can be very effective. You can also use an actual quote from somebody famous or one that is inspiring and can be related to your sales letter.

"Finally! Free from the Rat Race!"

Conversation

Reading a conversational dialogue is a great way to invoke emotion in your reader. When the reader relates to the dialogue they place themselves in the conversation. This is a natural reaction and can be used to help with your sales conversions.

"Man! My tooth is killing me!" Johnny said.
"Ouch! I had my wisdom teeth removed last week." I replied
"Woah... Sounds painful!"
"Nah. Dr. Smith is the best! No pain at all."

These are just a few techniques that can be used in Hypnotic Writing. You're smart enough to see the benefits that Hypnotic Writing can offer you when used correctly. It just might be what your sales letter is lacking. Take some time and do some reading on the subject. In the world of internet sales, your ad & sales copy is your "pitch" so why not give yourself every advantage possible?

Oh, by the way. Notice how many times I mention "Hypnotic Writing" in this post? Repetition is also a method of Hypnotic Writing =)

Technorati Tags: advertising, hypnotic, ppc, sales, writing

Happy Holidays

Just a quick note to wish everyone a happy holiday season. Enjoy your time with your friends and family, because they really are the only people who matter!

I, once again, made the journey to Albuquerque to spend the holidays with my mother, brothers & in-laws. My dad stayed behind in LA. It is good to see everyone again. I even had a chance to run into old friends. Some of them I haven't seen in 3-4 years so it was nice to catch up with them.

I've been thinking about my new years resolution and it will involve this blog a lot. I will post about that before the new year and give a little more detail.

Anyways, everyone have a fun time this season. Next year we go back to life as we know it...

Technorati Tags: albuquerque, holidays, travel

Beating Up 5 Year Old Kids..

This is just great. What's YOUR score?

Technorati Tags: 5 year olds, beathing up children, fight

No More MingleNow

MingleNow is a social network built around the night life of major metropolitan cities. You can find events, view photos, etc. They usually have their photographers at the events snapping photos of the crowd and singling out the hottest chicks. You know, the usual. The difference was that their events were usually quality events. When I wanted to find something to do I would always check MingleNow to see what was going on that night. I always found something fun to do whether I was here in LA or in San Diego or Vegas...

Well, according to this post on the MingleNow blog they are shutting the service as of Jan. 7th, 2008. Yahoo recently purchased a company called Blue Lithium, which happened to own MingleNow. In the MingleNow post they sort of push you to use other services in place of MingleNow; All them owned by Yahoo.

Now I am all for business. I assume that Yahoo has a good reason to shut down MingleNow (again, assuming that this was Yahoo's decision). But the alternatives offered are not up to par with MingleNow.

For one, MingleNow has everything I was looking for in one place. Now they are suggesting I use Flickr, Upcoming and 123out.com; Are you kidding me?

I am willing to bet that most MingleNow users will not head over to those services for their nightlife adventures. Another service will pop up and take MingleNow's place at some point. Maybe sites like ClubPlanet will eat up it's user base.

It's also a good guess that maybe MingleNow just wasn't turning a profit. It's very possible that all their ideas didn't pan out and the "gods" decided it was time to pull the plug.

I don't know. I just felt like ranting about this. So long MingleNow, I'll miss ya.

Technorati Tags: minglenow, nightclubs, nightlife, party