Last week I received an email from a concerned blog reader. He writes:

Hey Ryan,

How do you reconcile Ryan Healy’s core value of honest copy with the _________ persona? Don’t get me wrong, I understand the concept of pen and stage names, but am not aware of a marketing equivalent.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

P.W.

So, are pen names ethical? And can they be used in a marketing context?

I think so.

In fact, every freelance copywriter is a ghost writer. The sales letters I write for clients are never published under my name. They are always published under the client’s name or a persona that the client has created.

So, in a sense, every successful freelance copywriter already has dozens of pen names.

But what if you want to start a new business and use a pen name? I think this is fine, too. There is no overt deception going on. The name you use doesn’t change the content or truthfulness of your copy.

Personally, I’ve chosen to use a nom de plume for a new info-publishing business. The pen name will help avoid confusion with my primary business: copywriting.

But while I’m using a different name, I’m not going to great lengths to hide my identity either. I registered the domain in my own name. I’ve even got pictures of me on the site.

The only difference is the focus of the business and the name I’ve chosen to use.

Of course, there are dozens of examples of pen names in the literary world. The average person doesn’t know that Mark Twain was a pseudonym used by Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Even well-educated people don’t know that George Orwell was a pseudonym used by Eric Blair.

But is there any kind of precedent in the marketing world today? Absolutely!

Take for instance David DeAngelo, the persona created by Eben Pagan to market his Double Your Dating products.

And then there’s James Chartrand of the popular blog Men with Pens. James recently revealed that he is not a man. He is a woman.

Just as Mary Ann Evans published her writing as George Eliot to overcome the bias against women, so James Chartrand is the pseudonym that an unnamed woman uses in the copywriting world. (When James revealed the truth on Copyblogger, it set off a firestorm of discussion: 531 comments, 2396 tweets, and 1689 Facebook “likes.”)

As James reveals in her story, she chose a male pen name as an experiment and found that she suddenly began to collect better fees. The rest, as they say, is history.

Personally, I decided to use a pen name to avoid confusion between my different web sites and businesses. And to create a brand that could be sold later if the opportunity ever came up. (It’s hard to sell a business that bears your own name.)

Anyway, I realize that the subject of pen names in business can sometimes be controversial and not everybody will agree as to how, when, and why they should be used. What do you think?

-Ryan M. Healy

Unlike my copywriting colleague, Ben Settle, I actually did respond to a Netflix ad.

That was a few years ago now.

At the time, they were doing a bunch of print advertising. Mostly blow-ins included with the grocery store flyers delivered by mail once a week.

Those little ads were brilliant. They demonstrated — in print form — how easy it was to use Netflix. Three steps: Sign up, add movies to your queue, get movies in the mail!

Seemed like a brilliant idea to me, so I signed up.

But Ben now reports that Netflix is running some pretty lame radio ads. I haven’t heard ‘em, but I believe it.

If I know anything about advertising, I bet the marketing execs just got bored of their own ads and decided they “just had to mix it up.” I can imagine the following exchange:

Ted: “You know, Bob, I think those 3-step ads have run their course.”

Bob: “Why?”

Ted: “I don’t know, I’m just so bored of them. Why don’t we do something cool… like a mock game show commercial? Now that’d be cool.”

This happens a lot. The advertising that built the company gets scrapped in favor of something “cool.”

Now, to their credit, Netflix is still running hardcore direct response banner ads on the Internet. The latest one I’ve seen uses the following headline:

    Movies delivered 2 ways for only $8.99 a month.

I think that’s a pretty solid headline. And I bet it’s getting results (banner advertising is easily tracked).

Anyhow, the lesson here is simply this:

1. Always test your advertising.

2. Don’t attempt something “cool” or “clever” just because you get bored of your own ads.

3. And don’t resort to branding on radio commercials just because it’s a different medium. (Direct response ads work on radio, too.)

-Ryan M. Healy

A well-organized swipe file is as good as gold in the hands of a skilled copywriter.

But while many copywriters and entrepreneurs know how to spot winning ads, very few know how to go about building, organizing, and using a swipe file to write stronger copy faster.

This is the subject of a recent interview I did with Lawrence Bernstein. When you listen to this 53-minute interview, you’ll discover:

• Right ways and wrong ways to use a swipe file. (Plus, why Lawrence calls one famous copywriter “Flawed Hopkins.”)

• An evergreen subject line that works like crazy in the financial market — plus the psychology behind why it pulls so well.

• Famous ads that were swiped — why they worked when other swipes fail.

• What David Ogilvy said would NOT work in the 1960s, but actually works very well today.

• How a pay-per-email model could actually be a good thing for savvy online marketers.

• Why 2002 is a lot like 2010 — plus an insider tip on how to use this insight to instantly strengthen your ads.

Here’s the MP3. You can listen to it by pushing the play button, or download it to your MP3 player.

Why Am I Giving This Interview Away?

Quite simply, I’d like to encourage you to join The Ultimate Online Swipe File, Lawrence Bernstein’s flagship membership site for serious direct marketers.

I’m a member.

And if you look at the testimonials page, you’ll see other heavy hitters who’ve joined the site as well.

In Steven Pressfield’s book, The War of Art, he writes: “It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write.”

In other words, it’s the getting started that’s so difficult as a writer. But here’s what’s so wonderful about The Ultimate Online Swipe File: It makes getting started easy.

By the time you read an ad or two or three, you’ll be building so much momentum that it will actually be hard not to write. Even better, when you start writing, your ad will practically write itself!

Two Free (Out-of-the-Ordinary) Gifts When You Sign Up

The Ultimate Online Swipe File is an extremely valuable resource. In fact, copywriter Gary Bencivenga says it’s “the best source I have ever found” for “an almost limitless supply of great ads.”

Naturally, I want you to sign up for The Ultimate Online Swipe File. So to make it easier for you to say yes, I’ve got two free out-of-the-ordinary bonus gifts for you.

First, I’ll give you free membership in my Copywriting Code site. You’ll get free access for as long as you maintain your Ultimate Online Swipe File membership. This is an extra $19.95 value every single month.

What’s more, Lawrence has also agreed to give you a free copy of his subject line swipe file called “Made You Look: 527 Email Subject Lines That Dare You to Look Away.” This product sells right now for $97 — but it’s yours free with this offer.

All together, this is an extra $117.95 in value you get your very first month of membership. And the email subject line swipe file is yours to keep no matter what.

Go ahead and sign up today:

Click here to sign up for The Ultimate Online Swipe File

-Ryan M. Healy

P.S. Forward me your receipt after you sign up and I’ll issue your free Copywriting Code membership immediately. Thanks!

Have you ever been trying to write an ad or sales letter and just gotten stuck?

Have you ever written headline after headline after headline… and still come up empty?

Or have you ever completed a sales letter only to discover that it lacks that gut-level punch you know it needs to have?

If you can relate to any of these frustrating situations, then you simply must have a robust and easily accessible swipe file on hand.

The Value of a Swipe File

A swipe file is simply a collection of ads and sales letters that have been tested and proven in the real world.

In other words, they worked.

The value of a swipe file is in its inspiration. By reading a winning ad, you  may be suddenly inspired to finish some copy that’s had you stumped for weeks.

Or you may come up with a new (and stronger) selling angle. Or you may even find new ideas for how to structure and position your pitch.

Any number of good things can happen when you take the time to study and review winning ads and sales letters.

(In fact, an old Eugene Schwartz ad recently inspired a sales letter I wrote that sold more than six figures in six days.)

Where to Find Proven Ads

Obviously, you could piece together a swipe file by tracking down old ads, buying advertising books, and raiding your mail box. But this approach is tedious and time-consuming.

You can spend months and years building a swipe file — and even then the ads won’t be organized in a way that’s easily accessible or searchable.

More to the point, why bother becoming a direct response detective when Lawrence Bernstein has already done all the detective work for you?

In case you don’t know, Lawrence Bernstein is the #1 direct response researcher (and archiver) on the planet. He probably knows more about the history of advertising than anybody alive today.

Even better, he’s got the biggest collection of direct response ads and sales letters anywhere. His personal swipe file contains literally thousands of pieces dating from the 19th Century to the present.

And possibly best of all, every ad and every sales letter has been scanned and uploaded into a private members-only web site called the Ultimate Online Swipe File.

Quickly Find Any Ad, Anytime You Want

When you join, you’ll have access to direct response ads that have been responsible for literally billions of dollars in sales. And you’ll be able to search these ads by author, market, product name, or any other keyword you can think of!

As soon as you click “Search,” you’ll instantly be served with dozens of profitable ads that fit your exact search criteria.

This is especially valuable if you write copy on a regular basis.

• Serial entrepreneurs will be able to roll out product after product — and write the sales copy with ease.

• Freelance copywriters will find proven copy templates — and lots of raw inspiration — for just about any project under the sun.

Of course, you’ll find plenty of ads from guys you know. Guys like Eugene Schwartz, David Ogilvy, John Caples, Claude Hopkins, and Gary Halbert.

Plus, you’ll find plenty of ads from guys you don’t know. Guys like Drew Kaplan, Dan Rosenthal, Mel Martin, Bud Wessecker, Ralph Ginzburg, Ben Suarez, Maxwell Sackheim, and many more.

Which means you’ll have direct access to the masterpieces of the most successful advertising men in all of history.

The Bargain of the Decade?

Imagine for a moment that all these men were still living today. And imagine that you commissioned each one to write an ad for you.

How much would you pay? Perhaps $20,000 per ad? Maybe $30,000?

Based only on what you’d have to pay to have these ads written today, there’s easily millions of dollars worth of ad copy inside Ultimate Online Swipe File.

You get it all for just $100 a month. For the right person, this is the bargain of the decade.

When you sign up for the Ultimate Online Swipe File through my affiliate link, I will also give you free access to my Copywriting Code member site.

This is an additional $19.95 a month value, yours free as long as you remain a member of Ultimate Online Swipe File.

Click Here to Join Ultimate Online Swipe File

-Ryan M. Healy

P.S. The Ultimate Online Swipe File is an investment in your direct response business, and it can easily pay you back many times over. I’m a member myself and it’s worth every penny.

Remember: Sign up using this link, then email your receipt to rhealy@gmail.com so I can issue your free Copywriting Code membership.

While I was in Chicago for Ken McCarthy’s System Seminar, I had the opportunity to meet Drayton Bird.

He’s incredibly bright. And he’s got a wicked sense of humor.

Anyway, he says the best TV ad ever is this one advertising the Volkswagen Beetle. It’s from 1964.

A few things stand out to me:

1. The commercial immediately activates your imagination.

2. It asks a question that a lot of people have probably wondered about. If you’ve ever asked yourself this question, you’ll watch the entire commercial to discover the answer.

3. It demonstrates the product without being a blatant product demonstration.

4. It indirectly reveals multiple product benefits: reliable, starts in cold weather, handles well in the snow, etc.

What do you notice?

-Ryan M. Healy

Good ideas are a dime a dozen. But good ideas quickly implemented… now those are worth something, or at least have the potential to be worth something.

In the world of information marketing, you can have an idea for a new info product and implement it fairly quickly. If you had an idea for a new ebook, interview, or video, you could probably create it in no more than 2-4 weeks, right?

And yet this is not the way it goes for most info marketers. It’s not uncommon for ideas to go unimplemented for months or even years. Some ideas get shelved altogether. Which makes the story of the iBracket even more remarkable…

Get this. A company called Gravity Switch had an idea for a physical product called the iBracket. The iBracket would be used as a frame for an iPad. This new product would allow businesses (car dealerships, art galleries, etc.) to create “virtual kiosks” with an iPad combined with an iBracket.

Cool idea, right?

Well, these guys went from their original concept to a physical prototype in just 17 days. It took them just 21 days total to get their first sale.

Now, THAT is how you implement.

The fact that their idea involved creating a physical product didn’t slow them down at all.

If you create information products, the only barrier to implementing your ideas is yourself. You don’t have to worry about prototypes or shipping or traditional distribution.

So why not be inspired by this story, get out of your own way, and start implementing? Just take action and you’ll significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to go from idea… to finished product… to sales.

-Ryan M. Healy

Lots of people come and go on email lists. A few of them actually tell me why they unsubscribed. These are some of the most fascinating responses because they’re usually passionate — and I struck a nerve.

Here are a few reasons people have unsubscribed from my email list this year and last year.

******

I am unsubscribing because of the most recent post and your saying that we should not have responded to 9/11. Thank you.

(I suggested forgiveness as an alternative to revenge. So this guy unsubscribed. Go figure. -RMH)

******

It’s just a lot of e-mail to add to already too much e-mail received daily, especially when I never explicitly opted in to receive these e-mails

(To this woman’s credit, I checked my opt-in page and realized I wasn’t saying subscribers would get email updates. So I changed this. -RMH)

******

I just have signed up for too many blogs. I’m on information overload.

******

I am sorry.But you have no value or you do not give any free e-book guides,software,cource,etc,.

******

Very good and valuable information but have to decrease the amount of email coming in… hard decision but will have to unsubscribe at this time. Thanks for all you do!

******

internet marketing is a huge scam and nobody honestly makes a living online

******

Tired of being sold things instead of given useful content.

(This one surprised me. In the month of April 2010, I’ve published 8 posts. Four of them have had soft sales pitches. Not a single pure sales message — and this person still freaked out. -RMH)

******

To many newsletters, I need to focus on the most relevant ones to my industry. I think you do good stuff. Except the references to your religion, then, I better not say anything.

******

I love your writing, I just don’t have the time to read everything in my inbox

******

I am an Obama supporter and DO NOT appreciate you posting such negative remarks about him…I no longer want to hear from you. You are entitled to your opinion and I am also entitled to mine. I did not like this post.

p.s. I WAS really a big fan and follower of you and your IM work. Not anymore.

(Amazing how radically a political difference of opinion can polarize people. This response proves it. -RMH)

******

Believe it or not, I’m actually happy when I get passionate reasons why people unsubscribe. It tells me that I’m bonding with people who are on the the other side of a particular viewpoint.

It also tells me that I’m standing up for something.

The only way you’ll ever develop a loyal following is by standing up for a particular point of view. This allows other people to identify and bond with you.

You can’t be all things to all people, so this is a good thing. Embrace that you’re never going to please everybody. Just do your best at being who you are — and writing to the white hot core of your fan base.

-Ryan M. Healy

“Mega” is such a hypey word, isn’t it?

But I think selling $150 million in a single day qualifies as a mega launch. To my knowledge, this figure puts to shame any kind of product launch ever done in the Internet marketing space.

Of course, I’m not talking about yet another home study course; I’m talking about the launch of the new Apple iPad.

Seth Godin shares 12 launch lessons that can be applied to just about any business at the link below. This is worth your time…

Secrets of the [almost] biggest selling launch ever.

-Ryan M. Healy

I’ve recently been on a book binge, buying up some volumes I’ve been intending to buy, but postponing.

Part of my reasoning is I’d rather pay $20 to get a used classic book now, than pay hundreds of dollars later when it’s considered a rare book.

Perfect example:

For the last year, I’ve been searching for a copy of This One Mad Act by Izola Forrester, the granddaughter of the infamous John Wilkes Booth, alleged assassin of President Abraham Lincoln.

There are currently only 3 copies of this book available for purchase. It is a rare book indeed. The cheapest copy is $294; the most expensive is $357.

I’ve got a thing for books, so price usually isn’t an objection. But I do think twice before dropping $300 on a used book.

The most expensive book I’ve purchased to date is How to Make More Money with Your Direct Mail by Ed Mayer. I paid $199.99 for that.

The second most expensive book I’ve bought is Reality in Advertising by Rosser Reeves. That only set me back $108.99.

So when I got a first edition 1983 copy of How to Make Your Advertising Make Money by John Caples for just $28.89 this week, I thought that was a pretty good deal. (Some copies are selling for twice that.)

Anyway, the whole point of this post is this…

When it comes to used books that are no longer in print, better to buy them sooner than later.

As copies disappear from circulation, what were once considered classics become rare books. And rare books command top dollar in the used market.

-Ryan M. Healy

P.S. Speaking of rare, I may soon be removing Copywriting Code from the market to add some additional content and training.

When I open up membership again, it may not be as affordable as it is now. If you’re interested, I suggest joining now.

David Ogilvy is one of the most famous names in advertising. And the headline he wrote to sell Rolls-Royce cars is nearly as famous.

Here is what Ogilvy wrote:

At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock

But did you know Ogilvy didn’t actually write this sentence? The proof is right in the original ad itself. Here is what the first paragraph says…

‘At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise comes from the electric clock,’ reports the Technical Editor of THE MOTOR.

So here is what we know:

The Technical Editor of THE MOTOR magazine wrote what became Ogilvy’s headline.

Ogilvy’s genius wasn’t his creativity, nor even his research. His genius was his ability to use a proven idea to position the Rolls-Royce favorably within its market.

But the story goes even deeper than this. That’s because there’s evidence that Ogilvy’s headline pre-dates even the magazine he referenced in his ad.

As Robert Rosenthal reports on his blog “Freaking Marketing,” a variation of the headline first appeared in 1933 in an ad to sell Pierce-Arrow automobiles. The headline reads…

The only sound one can hear in the new Pierce-Arrows is the ticking of the electric clock.

Could it be that what appears to be a singular moment of genius was really just a latent idea that had been bouncing around the advertising world for years?

We’ll never really know. But one thing’s for sure. Ogilvy nailed it when he wrote that headline. It was the right appeal for the right product at the right moment in history.

What does all of this mean? Well, for one thing, originality doesn’t count for as much as we’d like it to. As Rosenthal writes: “You don’t take originality to the bank.”

Most advertising breakthroughs come from the synthesis or adaptation of time-tested ideas that have already appeared in the past.

Would you like help learning this important skill? Then you might be interested in this…

==> http://www.BiggestCopywritingSecret.com

-Ryan M. Healy