I’m so old, I’ll betcha my tie has gone in and out of style at least five times.

Not that I pay much attention to such things, mind you.

My professional life revolves around marketing trends. And there again, my advanced age means I’ve seen many promotional styles over the years.

But through it all, the principles of creating effective sales copy pretty much stayed the same. And for one simple reason:

Our prospective customers weren’t changing much.

In 1975, for example, my average 65-year-old prospect had been born in 1910. In ’85, I was writing primarily to folks who’d been born in 1920. In ’95, my average prospect had been born in 1930.

All of these prospects had common values. They all had memories of the Great Depression… World War II… and of gathering around a flickering black-and-white television for Ozzie and Harriet and Father Knows Best.

Their Weltanschauung was formed at a time when a man’s word was his bond and good character meant everything.

They were raised by their parents to revere the government… trust the family doctor… respect their employers… believe what the media told them. And also to assume that most of the advertising they saw and heard was true.

It was for these generations that the great advertising masters created their legendary ads. And it was from these generations that the masters learned what worked best before passing it on to us in their classic books.

Now, these generations are being gradually replaced. Oh, what a difference a single generation can make!

Today’s 65-year-old prospect was born in 1942. Way too young to remember World War II, let alone the Great Depression.

More important, he turned 18 in 1960. And he acquired his skills as a consumer smack-dab in the middle of the “Question Authority” era of the 60s and early 70s. Vietnam and Watergate produced the most cynical generation America had ever seen.

What’s more, that generation did an excellent job of passing its skepticism on to its children. Those hyper-cynical “Generation Xers” are now your 26- to 47-year-old prospects.

Meanwhile, two additional sea changes have been giving our prospects even greater reasons to distrust anything they see, hear, or read. Including our ads.

The first one began with the appearance of The National Enquirer, packed with stories of alien encounters and other such horsepucky.

Soon, other publishers figured out they could get rich by appealing to our baser instincts. And tons of “me-too” tabloids — featuring stories of the lurid and bizarre — began springing up like crazy.

Finally, the national media figured it out too — and started spending less time covering news that matters.

They became obsessed with Joey Buttafuoko, Lorena Bobbit, Monica Lewinsky, the status of Britney Spears’s underwear — and, of course, UFOs.

Now, I ask you. Can you imagine the venerable Walter Cronkite reporting on such things?

Neither can our prospects.

And now, while the once-respected media have been busy debauching themselves, a second sea change has taken place. The Internet — an even less responsible medium — has taken center stage.

Since people can pretty much say whatever they want on the ‘Net — whether it’s true or not — many do.

And so, for consumers whose IQ is larger than their shoe size, online advertising claims are taken with a grain of salt.

What does all this mean to you?

Well, for one thing…

Everything you think you know about marketing is becoming obsolete.

The advertising masters — Kennedy, Lasker, Hopkins, Collier, Schwab, Caples, Reeves, Ogilvy, and others — created their classic ads for a radically different audience.

It’s time to stop asking, “What did the masters say in their books?” and to begin asking, “What would they HAVE DONE if they had been presented with today’s prospects?”

As a marketer, overcoming your prospects’ skepticism is your greatest challenge.

The good news is, it can be done. Because though our prospects are radically different than their parents and grandparents, they have one thing in common with them:

They like to spend money.

The desire to feather our nests… purchase products that can make us richer or healthier… buy things that save us time, effort, or money… spend on things that assuage boredom or improve status… is every bit as powerful as it ever was.

Nevertheless, the way in which we deliver the message that our products can satisfy those desires must change.

Today, it’s all about developing a relationship with your prospect. It’s about building credibility and loyalty over time.

Marketers who do that are growing by leaps and bounds. Those who cling to the old models are losing ground.

Today’s prospect is likely to ignore sales communications that look like sales communications.

Instead, newsy leads that key on something they are already thinking about often work best.

Lower-key, value-added advertorials that reward prospects for reading by delivering useful information is leaving the high-energy language of the carnival barker in the dust.
It’s all about persuasion.

Falling back on the old ways and just throwing around a bunch of promises is easy.

Thinking is hard.

Climbing inside your prospect’s skin… fully understanding what he must first know before he’s likely to purchase your product… then presenting that information in a way that’s engaging, entertaining, and credible — and doing all that without having your sales copy sound like sales copy. That is the hardest kind of hard.

But it’s worth it.

A while ago, I wrote a series of friendly e-mails inviting prospects to attend a free teleseminar on international investing.

More than 5,000 people signed up. And the call delivered valuable, actionable advice to help investors profit in foreign stock markets.

It also sold somewhere north of $1.5 million in subscriptions in a matter of hours.

Meanwhile, we blasted an “obvious” USP-based promotion to prospects.

It barely registered on the response Richter scale.

Worth thinking about…

P.S. At Early to Rise’s Info-Marketing Bootcamp this November, I’ll be sharing even more insights about what is working in Internet marketing today — and what isn’t. I’ll reveal how to boost response and sales in today’s market. And I’ll tell you exactly how to avoid the mistakes that have been slowly killing so many online businesses in the past couple of years. Find out more about Bootcamp here.

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

It was 1898.

James Webb Young dropped out of school and started working for a book publisher. He was 12 years old.

By the time he turned 22, he was advertising manager. In 1912, he joined the prestigious advertising agency J. Walter Thompson. And he quickly became known as an “idea man.”

In 1917, Young became vice president of the agency. In 1919, he wrote one of his most famous ads. It was for the deodorant Odorono, and ran in the Ladies’ Home Journal.

At the time, women found any mention of underarm odor to be in bad taste. Cleverly avoiding the word “armpit,” his headline grabbed attention with “Within the Curve of a Woman’s Arm.” But then readers were hit with this: “Persons troubled with perspiration odor seldom can detect it themselves.”

Outraged, more than 200 women canceled their subscriptions to the magazine. Despite the controversy, sales of Odorono went up 112 percent.

Young believed the secret to coming up with great ideas was to use a method similar to the one Henry Ford used to produce cars. And in 1940 — at the height of his career as an advertising legend — he laid out his five-step method in a small book titled A Technique for Producing Ideas.

For marketers, it’s a secret so powerful that mastering it can mean the difference between success and failure. Consistently come up with ordinary ideas and you’ll make an ordinary income. If you work for somebody else, you’ll be easy to replace. If you’re a freelancer, you may starve. Consistently come up with great ideas and everyone will want you to work for them.

As motivational author Robert Collier once said, “A single idea, the sudden flash of a thought may be worth a million dollars.”

It was worth multiple-millions to Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia. In 1995, while working on starting their own business, they worried that their bosses might see the e-mails they were sending to each other. That’s when they hit on the idea for a Web-based e-mail system that could be accessed anonymously. As a result of that idea, Hotmail was launched on July 4, 1996. And they sold it to Microsoft less than two years later (on Sabeer’s 29th birthday) for $400 million.

Mark Zuckerberg got the idea for Facebook from his days at Phillips Exeter Academy. Like most colleges and prep schools, they had a long-standing tradition of publishing an annual student directory complete with headshots. Today, Facebook is valued at over a billion dollars. (At its peak, it was estimated to be worth $15 billion.)

Merv Griffin’s wife came up with the idea for one of his most successful ventures. They were flying from New York to Duluth one day back in 1964. Griffin was mulling over game show ideas when his wife noted that there had been no successful “question and answer” shows since the quiz show scandals. Then she said, “Why not do a switch, and give the answers to the contestant and let them come up with the question?” With that one twist of an idea, the hit show Jeopardy! was born.

These examples illustrate the principle behind James Webb Young’s five-step technique for generating ideas: “An idea is nothing more nor less than a new combination of old elements.”

With that in mind, let’s take a look at how to apply the process to your marketing efforts …

Step 1. Gather the raw material.

In Young’s words, “In advertising an idea comes from a new combination of specific knowledge about products and people with general knowledge of life and events.”

So before you even attempt to come up with an idea, assemble as much information as possible about your prospect, your market, and your product. Approach this systematically. Dig deep. Find all you can.

Young offered two suggestions to help you get the most out of the gathering stage.

• Grab a supply of 3 x 5 index cards and write down specific information as you gather it. One item per card. Organize the cards by subject. This will bring order to what you’re doing and reveal any gaps in your knowledge.
• Log general information in a scrapbook or file. By general information, he meant newspaper articles, magazine articles, etc. that are related in some way to what you’re selling.

Step 2. Chew and digest the raw material.

Take all the information you’ve gathered and go over it “with the tentacles of your mind.”

Specifically, Young said …

• Take a fact. Turn it several different ways.
• Bring two facts together. See if they fit.
• Try to find a relationship between facts.

Out of this, tentative or partial ideas will come to you. No matter how crazy or incomplete they are — write them down. (Use the 3 x 5 cards.)

Even if you think you’ve exhausted the possibilities, keep going. Your mind will get a second wind. Eventually, you’ll run out of insights. Everything will be jumbled up in your head.

That’s when you stop.

Step 3. Turn the process over to your subconscious.

Forget everything you’ve done so far … and do something completely different. Listen to music. Go to a movie. Go golfing. Go shopping. Play tennis. Anything that will take your mind off the task of generating ideas.

Young isn’t the only one who has advocated this approach.

According to Dr. Maxwell Maltz, author of Psycho-Cybernetics, when people try to solve a problem through conscious thought, they become anxious and fearful of the results. That brings the creative process to a screeching halt. It’s a lot easier, said Maltz, if you let go of the problem and let your subconscious mind take over.

Master copywriter Gary Bencivenga explains it this way:

“You’re effortlessly teaching your mind what’s going to be happening. Your subconscious mind … is a goal-striving mechanism. When you give your subconscious a target that you want to hit, it will pull into itself and eventually share with your conscious mind all kinds of resources that you never knew you had within you to make that happen.”

Step 4. Let the idea hit you.

An idea will come to you when you least expect it. It might be when you’re half awake in the morning. It might be in the middle of the night. You might be brushing your teeth, driving to work, or standing in line at the coffee shop.
“This is the way ideas come,” said Young. “After you have stopped straining for them and have passed through a period of rest and relaxation from the search.”

Step 5. Test, edit, refine, and polish the idea.

Now it’s reality-check time. The idea will almost certainly need a little “tweaking” before you can build a marketing campaign around it. What kind of tweaking? The best way to find out is to run it by people you trust and ask for feedback.

That’s it. Five simple steps for generating an endless stream of ideas.

Try it. If you get the results Young predicted, you’ll have mastered one of the most important skills for success as a marketer.

P.S. Producing winning ideas is just one element of the American Writers & Artists Inc.  Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting.  In this program — which I’ve taken myself — Michael Masterson and dozens of other master copywriters reveal the secrets of effective advertising copy. Even if you’re not a writer, you can learn to write moneymaking sales letters (and more) with their step-by-step guidance.

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

We despise bloggers who are just plain copycats of other successful bloggers, and we admire the top bloggers for their freshness and originality.

So we say, “copying is a recipe for failure.”

Not true.

You’ve already read the article about Mozart, the great music composer, being a copycat. (If you have not, read it here.)

The fact is, all masters of every field were once newbies, and the way most of them learned their craft was by the unpopular technique of…

Copying.

E.g. Tiger Woods copied his father, and then imitated his coaches who were former pros of his time.

Michael Jackson copied from other great dancers like Bob Fosse during his early days.

Even great copywriters like John Carlton learned their skills by copying other great copywriters (maybe that’s why it’s called copy-writing, lol…)

Michael Masterson recently talked about this in his newsletter. I’ll quote what he wrote:

Aristotle, perhaps the greatest of all thinkers, called this process mimesis.

Here is what he said about it in Poetics:

“Imitation is natural to man from childhood, one of his advantages over the lower animals being this, that he is the most imitative creature in the world, and learns at first by imitation. And it is also natural for all to delight in works of imitation.”

Then Michael went on to describe how his friend imitated a great writer called H.L. Mencken, and how his early attempts to copy him were obvious and awkward. But the more he did it, the better he got.

Eventually within three years, he developed his own version of the craft and became a bestselling, prize-winning author.

And here’s the key. You are not going to copy forever. You copy so that you can arrive at a level where you can be original.

You see, whenever we start to learn something, as beginners, we know next to nothing about the craft.

We only have a general idea of the technique, what is good technique and what is bad. But we often don’t have a clear understanding of why and how to become good at it.

Take copywriting for example.

You probably have a general idea of what is good salesletter. It’s one with a attention-grabbing headline, evokes your emotions and compels you to take action.

But that does not mean you understand why it is good salesletter, and how you can write a good one.

You have to learn it. And the fastest and most effective way for a beginning to learn the skill of writing salescopy is… guess what?

Copy great copywriters.

That’s right. Copy their salesletters by hand, word for word, as practice.

I’m not inventing this idea. Many top copywriters first learned how to write by copying great salescopy. In fact, that’s how people were taught to write for centuries. Again, quoting Michael Masterson:

Did you ever wonder how your grandmother — with just a high school education — was able to write such beautiful, thoughtful letters? It’s because copying the great writers of her day, by hand, was part of her regular schoolwork.

We no longer employ mimesis in teaching writing. It went out of style in the late 1960s. That’s when the idea of letting children “express themselves” swept through the American education system.

As a result, our generation has became both semi-literate and ignorant of many great works of literature. This is a tragedy that has worsened over time.

It’s sad to know that the most effective way of learning writing is being despised in our present day.

But I’m thankful that at least I’ve been exposed to mimesis before, albeit to a small degree. In my country Singapore, the way we learn and memorize Chinese characters is by copying them, stroke by stroke, and doing so repetitively until we can write them without thinking.

It’s called Rote Learning. Learning by copying and practicing the same thing again and again. By doing so, you quickly create permanent motor pathways in your brain, which is what happens when you learn and master a skill. The more developed the network of motor pathways in your brain, the more well-developed your skill becomes.

It’s similar to how people learn martial arts. You copy from the master, then you practice the same kick, the same punch, the same moves, again and again until you can do it well.

(But at the same time, we are taught in school that copying is downright wrong, when we are already using the copying method as the fastest way to learn a skill. How ironic.)

You and I should bring mimesis and rote learning back into our lives.

We should copy (ok, model) the A-list bloggers, how they write, the topics they choose, the plugins they use, the way they monetise the blog, how they do their marketing and promotions, etc.

Eventually, you become very competent in the skill of blogging and you understand deeply how it works. That’s the time when you start developing your own style and angle. That’s the time when you start differentiating yourself by being…

Original.

(Read the previous two sentences again. It’s important.)

Most master copywriters do just that for copywriting. Like I said before, they start out copying the works of other great copywriters, then only and only when they have become very competent, do they start differentiating themselves with their own style.

AWAI (American Writers & Artists Inc) is a copywriting school started by Michael Masterson, and one of his core methods was to have the students read and copy the works of the great copywriters of the day.

The list of master copywriters he mentored in his school and who used mimesis to further their careers includes Clayton Makepeace … John Forde … John Carlton … Bob Bly … Paul Hollingshead … and Don Mahoney.

(As a side note, John Carlton calls himself the most ripped-off copywriter, maybe because he knows that as a master copywriter himself, other people are going copy and imitate him, so he’s going to be ripped-off anyway, lol…)

By the way, I’ve just enrolled into his copywriting school. I believe that copywriting and blog writing have a lot in common, and I know that my writing skills is going to be a very important key to my success as a blogger, so I’ve taken the plunge and started my first lesson.

And guess what my first exercise is? You got it – copy a great salesletter.

Here’s what Michael Masterson says about copying or rote learning,

Rote exercises are more than just memorization. They teach you on a deeper level. Through the exercises you’ll be doing in this program, your ear will develop a sense of what good copy sounds like. Your mind will instinctively know when copy is powerful and when it’s weak. You’ll be able to carry these senses over to your own work.

Many of my friends and former colleagues have commented that I write pretty well. As I reflect on this, I guess it was because I read many great salesletters on the web. It gave me a general idea of what good writing sounds like. And it looks like I’m already experiencing what Michael Masterson is saying to a certain degree.

So if I were to read and copy great salesletters, I will become much better at this instinct and carry it over to my writing.

Why don’t you do the same? If you are not comfortable with salesletters, you can read the blogs with great writing, and…

Copy the blog articles by hand.

Some great blogs you can start with are Copyblogger, Men with Pens, Steve Pavlina, and Yaro Starak.

And don’t just copy it for the sake of copying it. As you write out the sentences, think about how each sentence is constructed, what kinds of words are used, what kind of images comes to mind, how the writing makes you feel, etc.

When you do that, you’ll develop a keener sense of good writing and bring it over to your own blog.

If you are planning to become a top blogger in your chosen niche, you should read the top blogs in your niche and copy by hand what they are writing.

The more you do that, the better you understand why they write what they write. Then the better you know your common target audience, and the better you get at writing relevant articles to serve their needs. Also, you should…

Copy their topics.

The top blogs arrived at where they are because they have a keen sense of what kind of topics resonate with your market. Don’t plagiarize, but write about the same topics they cover.

Then when you have become very familiar the market, you can start introducing ideas that have a higher chance of being accepted by your readers, because you understand them deeply and you know instinctively what will resonate with your audience.

For me, I realized that some of the ideas I write may be out of touch for you. So I’m shifting my overall strategy. I’m going to copy Yaro Starak.

So from now on, I’ll write more about the topics that he writes to appeal to you and to a wider audience. How does that sound to you?

I have learned many valuable lessons from my 15-year partnership with Agora’s legendary CEO, marketing genius Bill Bonner. None is more important than the Big Idea.

In my father’s time, this concept was best understood by David Ogilvy, one of the most successful commercial advertising men who ever lived.

In our time, that position is held by Bill. He’s widely recognized as the man who brought the big idea into consumer direct marketing and sold more than a billion dollars’ worth of publications by doing so. I know. I saw him do it.

I want to share Bill’s secret with you today.

I won’t be able to show you everything about it and exactly how to execute it. But I will tell you why and how his concept of the big idea is unique, powerful, and profitable.

It may be the best direct-marketing technique of them all.

When I started consulting with Agora in the early 1990s, I came equipped with half a dozen theories about direct marketing that I had used to start a bunch of successful businesses (including one that hit $135 million).

We applied some of these to the Agora product line, and did very well. But when I worked directly with Bill, I discovered an entirely new way to create blockbuster promotions.

I had never heard of the big idea. But when Bill told me about it, I went directly to Ogilvy’s book, Ogilvy on Advertising, and studied it from cover to cover. I remember being particularly struck by the following:

“You will never win fame and fortune unless you invent big ideas. It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.

“Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science, and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be well informed, or your idea will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process.”

Ogilvy also explains how to recognize the big ideas of others.

(This is a great way to figure out if your big ideas pass muster too.) Just ask yourself these five questions:

1. Did it make me gasp when I first saw it?
2. Do I wish I had thought of it myself?
3. Is it unique?
4. Does it fit the strategy to perfection?
5. Could it be used for 30 years?

The first package that came over my desk my first week with Agora was a prime example of a big idea promotion. It was written by Lee Euler for a newsletter called Strategic Investing. The copy was formatted as a “bookalog” (a direct-mail format, new at the time, that looks like a paperback book) and titled “Plague of the Black Debt.” It was a huge success.

If memory serves, we mailed more than 14 million of those bookalogs and generated more than $7 million in revenues. The novelty of the format was an important part of the promotion’s success. Just as important was the copy itself.

It opened with this:

“You don’t have to be a conservative, a liberal, or anything at all to understand that America is about to be flattened by a tidal wave …

“That’s right, folks. Now that Clinton’s budget bill has passed – and if his economic projections are on target – we’re going to add $1 trillion to the federal debt in the next four years. That’s more than George Bush added in his four years. And it’s almost as much as Reagan added in eight years.

“It doesn’t matter whether you prefer my figures or Bill Clinton’s. We’re merely talking about different shades of disaster. When you’re dead, you’re dead. There aren’t some people who are ‘more dead’ than others.”

This wasn’t the first big idea package Agora had mailed. The very first promotion Bill wrote for the International Living newsletter was based on a big idea. It was the “control package” for almost 20 years. Thirty million pieces must have been mailed. (If Bill had gotten two cents per piece – standard for copywriters – he would have made $600,000 in royalties!)

The big idea of the International Living package was presented this way:

“You look out your window, past your gardener, who is busily pruning the lemon, cherry, and fig trees … amidst the splendor of gardenias, hibiscus, and hollyhocks.

“The sky is clear blue. The sea is a deeper blue, sparkling with sunlight.

“A gentle breeze comes drifting in from the ocean, clean and refreshing, as your maid brings you breakfast in bed.

“For a moment, you think you have died and gone to heaven.

“But this paradise is real. And affordable. In fact, it costs only half as much to live this dream lifestyle … as it would to stay in your own home!”

I was eager to learn how to write big idea promotions myself. But it wasn’t easy. My first few attempts fell flat. I asked Bill about it and, as I remember, he gave me a Yoda-like answer that I didn’t really understand.

Bill’s protege at the time was John Forde, a bright young man with a classical education. John had developed an intuitive way of decoding Bill’s cryptic way of answering questions. He was very helpful in getting me closer to mastering the big idea.

Writing about it some years later in his Copywriter’s Roundtable e-newsletter, John had this to say about the big idea:

“Think about it.

“When you have a ‘great’ conversation … read a ‘great’ book … or see a ‘great’ documentary … what grabs you? Is it the litany of small details? Or the golden thread that unites them?

“More often, for most of us, it’s the latter.

“And the more you ‘get’ the core idea behind a story, a speech, a revelation … the more memorable that one core message becomes.

“This is just as true in sales copy.

“One message, well developed, just has more impact than ads – short or long – that are overloaded with competing ideas.”

When I finally figure out how to apply David Ogilvy’s concept of the big idea to direct marketing, I was able to teach it to some of Agora’s young marketing bucks. One of them, Porter Stansberry, soon wrote one of the biggest big idea packages in Agora’s history.

His big idea, in a nutshell, was that the Internet was going to have as big an impact on the 21st century as the railroad had had on the 20th century. Here’s how he expressed it in his lead:

“Imagine yourself wearing a top hat and tails, on the balcony of a private rail car, the wind whistling past as you sip the finest French champagne …

“It’s 1850; the railroad is growing like a vine towards the west. And, although you don’t know it yet, the same rail that you are riding on today will soon more than triple your wealth, making you and your family into one of the great American dynasties …

“America’s economic history is illuminated by such stories of quick fortunes made by daring entrepreneurs with new technologies – railroads, motorcars, and more recently, computers. I’ve spent nearly my entire professional life studying exactly how great entrepreneurs made their fortunes – both in the past and today. What I’ve learned contradicts what most people believe about wealth building – and explains why 95% of mutual fund managers can’t beat the market’s average return.

“I’m writing to you today to show you what I’ve found. This year, four out of the six stocks I’ve picked for a well-known investment club have more than doubled the S&P 500′s return for all of last year. Meanwhile the other stocks are poised to earn more than my first recommendations combined by the end of this year. I’ll show you exactly how I did it. But for now, flash back again – it’s 1908 …

“You’re an urban banker in Detroit, living a life of country clubs and summer ballroom parties …”

Throughout its history Agora has published hundreds of big idea packages. And they have been a big part of the company’s growth – from an $8 million business when I started working with them to one with revenues in excess of $300 million today.

The big idea is now widely known and talked about. But most direct-response marketers who attempt to use this technique fail miserably because they don’t’ really understand how to do it.

Recently, Bill and I met with the writers from one of Agora’s financial advisory divisions. They presented us with a number of leads that they thought contained big ideas. In almost every case, they were wrong. One of these leads predicted that China and the USA were going to be battling it out over the dollar, and this was going to have a major effect on investing in the next 10 or 15 years.

“Well, that’s not really a big idea,” Bill said.

They all looked at us wide-eyed. “How could that not be a big idea?” the writer of the lead said. “Our two economies combined dwarf most of the rest of the world. If we get into a major fight with one another, it will affect every investment everywhere.”

“That’s a big concept,” I chimed in. “But it’s not a big idea.”

“Isn’t that just semantics?” someone else asked. “Big idea, big concept. Don’t they both mean the same thing?”

The answer was no. A big and definite no. But try as we did, we were not able to get them to understand exactly what we meant by a big idea.

“It’s ironic,” I remember thinking. “I’ve become a Yoda too!”

Obviously, there was a gulf between our understanding of this important technique and the definition that was being given to this third generation of copywriters who were producing the promotions Agora was relying on.

So I set to work writing this – an attempt to explain, in the clearest terms, just what the big idea is and what it isn’t.

Let’s start with a definition that borrows from Ogilvy: A big idea is an idea that is instantly comprehended as important, exciting, and beneficial. It also leads to an inevitable conclusion, a conclusion that makes it easy to sell your product. Furthermore, it is an idea that will continue to be important and exciting for a long time.

That’s a mouthful. So let’s break it down.

A big idea is important.

By important, I mean important to the customer – not the copywriter – and relevant to the product being sold. The devaluation of the dollar may be important to American investors, in general. But it won’t be important to a customer who is being asked to buy a newsletter about a type of investment that won’t be affected by the dollar’s decline. The swine flu may be important to this same customer – but it cannot possibly be relevant in a sales letter that is selling investment advice.

A big idea is exciting.

You are not going to excite your customer by repeating the predictions or promises that the rest of the media is publishing. They have already been exposed to those ideas. To provoke real excitement, you need to go beyond the conventional. You need to find some new angle that makes your customer sit up and pay attention.

A big idea is beneficial.

The excitement created must benefit the customer. Put differently, it should make the customer want to buy the product being sold. Let’s say you’re selling grass-fed beef. You can get your customer excited by telling him about how quickly people in this country are becoming poor. But that kind of excitement will make him less – not more – likely to buy the expensive type of meat you’re selling.

A big idea leads to an inevitable conclusion.

The big idea must contain some internal logic that is fundamentally simple. It must be easy to grasp and easy to see how the product you are selling solves a particular problem or delivers on a stated promise. The best big ideas tie into something that makes the product unique. As soon as the customer hears the idea, he begins to feel the need for the product, even before it is mentioned in the copy.

The best big ideas do all of that work with a very few words. The sale is half-made in the headline or by the end of the first paragraph.

Let me give you three examples.

In this first example, the big idea is aimed at readers concerned with their health:

How the French Live Longer Than Everyone Else …

Even though they eat like kings and smoke like chimneys!

This headline offers to answer a riddle that has puzzled the reader for many years: why the French – who eat cheese, meat, and rich sauces – stay so thin. And another riddle the reader just discovered: why the French – who smoke like chimneys – outlive everyone else too!

Implicit, here, is a promise that will appeal to almost anyone: You can eat like the French eat … and lose weight … and live longer.

This next example is a big idea that would interest avid golfers:

Want to slash strokes from your game almost overnight?

Amazing Secret Discovered By
One-Legged Golfer Adds 50 Yards
To Your Drives, Eliminates Hooks and Slices …
And Can Slash Up To 10 Strokes From Your Game
Almost Overnight!

The idea that there’s a secret discovered by a one-legged golfer is exciting.It implies that if the reader has two legs, he’ll have an even greater advantage. Plus, the promise that this secret could add 50 yards to his drives and slash up to 10 strokes from his game is both VERY important and beneficial.

The reader can’t help but come to the conclusion that he needs this secret.

Finally, here’s an example geared toward savvy investors:

Outlawed for 41 years, now legal again,
This investment launched the largest
family fortune the world has ever seen …
and could return 665% in the next 12 months.

The big idea is that this secret investment was once illegal. It’s exciting, because it’s the same investment that launched the largest family fortune in history. What’s more, once the reader learns what this investment is, he could stand to make a 665% return on his money in a year or less. That makes it important and beneficial.

The inevitable conclusion: “I’ve got to read this and find out what this investment is.”

If you would like to become a master of the big idea, you can get step-by-step instruction – with plenty of examples and expert guidance – from American Writers & Artists Inc. (AWAI). They’ve got the best course on copywriting available today, one that I first created 12 years ago with several fellow master copywriters. The Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting has been improved and added to regularly since then. And it really is the best way to learn the skills you need to break into this lucrative field.

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

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Claim your FREE access to a rare video footage of Michael Masterson and Rich Schefren talking about the Big Idea, by signing up at http://www.bigideablogger.net/subscribe/

You see, I was having lunch with two entrepreneur friends. We were talking about how gurus always have their own famous concepts or Big Ideas.

Like how T Harv Eker has his Big Ideas about the Financial Blueprint and his famous “Give me 5 minutes and I can predict your financial future for the rest of your life.” And how Robert Kiyosaki has his Cashflow Quandrant (the E,S,B,I diagram).

Then one of my friends asked, “Do you know who Noah St. John is?”

“Nope.” I said nonchalantly.

“This guy is THE up and coming guru in personal development. He has a lot of concepts that are pretty common. But he has one that is really good. It’s about Afformations.”

My mind lit up. “Oh, Afformations! I’ve heard about it before! So that’s the guy you are talking about.”

Then it hit me.

I remembered his Big Idea BETTER than the person himself!

The experience I had was so amazing to me, when I reached home, I opened my Gmail and searched for “Afformations.” I vaguely remembered I had read about afformations in an email.

One result came out. I opened that email.

Turns out that Noah St. John had guest posted on the March 14, 2009 issue of Early to Rise (my favorite email newsletter by Michael Masterson.) And he had only guest posted once.

Amazing.

He had only ONE contact with me.

Yet his Big Idea stayed in my mind ever since.

And it stuck in my mind even BETTER than the person!

As I reflected on what happened, I realized that it’s really similar to my experience with how I got to know of prominent bloggers and internet marketers. Often…

I remembered his Big Idea BEFORE I remembered the person.

I didn’t realize it then, since there was never a time where I forgot about someone before a friend asked me about that someone and me replying that I remembered his Big Idea but not him.

Let’s look at a list of whom I remembered their Big Ideas before their names.

Big Idea: Copyblogger

Name: Brian Clark.

Big Idea: Problogger

Name: Darren Rowse.
(You may not realize this, but back then in 2003, there was no such thing as a professional blogger. Problogger is the FIRST blog to introduce the concept of problogging, and so it became Darren’s Big Idea. He did not realize it then, but he knows it now.)

Big Idea: Diagram on the cover of Internet Business Manisfesto

Name: Rich Schefren (Internet Business Strategist who is called Guru to the gurus. Yaro Starak calls him his mentor.)

Big Idea: Butterfly Marketing (or Viral Marketing)

Name: Mike Filsaime

Big Idea: Mass Control

Name: Frank Kern (also known as the surfer dude)

Big Idea: Product Launch Formula

Name: Jeff Walker

Big Idea: Marketing With You

Name: Alex Jeffreys

Big Idea: “Attraction is not a choice”

Name: David DeAngelo (pen name of Eben Pagan, guru who dominated the dating niche)

Do you know of these people? If so, did you know of their Big Ideas before you knew them?

These people may have their Big Ideas packaged in different ways. Maybe it was  their blog name, or their flagship product, or their trademark diagram, or their trademark saying.

But whatever form their Big Idea came as, their Big Idea stuck in my mind FIRST, before I associated their Big Idea with the guru and remembered their names.

Why does this happen?

Why does a Big Idea work so powerfully that it can precede you to getting yourself known?

Let’s go back to my experience about Noah St. John and his Big Idea

As a person who is also into self-help kind of stuff, I do know of quite a few gurus. Many times, their ideas are similar to one another. But every famous guru always have one or two ideas that stand out.

Noah St. John’s Afformations idea stood out.

His idea is basically, instead of saying affirmations, you ask affirming questions. And he calls it Afformations. It’s simple, but revolutionary.

When I first read about his Afformations idea, it immediately created a NEW CATEGORY in my mind.

He instantly became “The Afformations Guru” to me.

With only ONE contact with his Big Idea…

He had gained and secured a POSITION in my mind.

Noah St. John, the name, bears no meaning to me at first. To me, he would have been lost in my memory among the sea of other personal development guru wannabes.

But his Big Idea carved a position in my mind and left its mark forever, opening the door for Noah, the person, to be remembered.

It’s really the same experience I had with all the gurus I know, including prominent bloggers and internet marketers that I’ve listed above.

And if it worked on you and me, it could well mean it worked on almost everyone else.

Their Big Idea, no matter the form in which it was presented, created a new category which positioned them as THE expert of that category in our minds.

They made a deep impression in our minds with their Big Idea first before we attached the person to the Big Idea. In short,

Their Big Ideas Made Them Famous

Or, their Big Idea stood out from the other ideas in the crowd, which in turn caused the persons with the idea stand out.

That’s how this blog, Big Idea Blogger, stood out. It has captured the attention of more established bloggers, like Saiful Rizal, Celestine Chua and Thomas Sinfield. One of them even wanted to interview me.

To think this blog only started 3 months ago with only 14 posts to date (excluding this one).

It was not really because I had great content. It was because I had my Big Idea – which is of course about “the Big Idea”, that every blogger should have their own Big Idea to stand out in their niche.

So do you have a Big Idea? If you don’t, you should start looking out for one. It’s going to elevate you in your market really quickly.

I told her she needs to write something that people want to read, so that they learn something valuable from her blog and will visit her blog again. That means she needs to be an expert or strive to become an expert in some topic.

“But I don’t know what to write. I don’t know anything.”

That’s a good question, one that many newbies struggle with. I too grappled with this problem when I started my first blog 3 years ago.

No one can give a straightforward solution to this one, because there is none. There is no exact step by step blueprint that works every time, at least to my knowledge. Because if there is, I will be of the first to learn of it and share it with my sister.

That’s why even the big time bloggers can only share how their blog got to where it is today, but can’t really show the exact steps about how they chose their topic.

What newbies should learn is a proper perspective. The correct mindset. Because without developing a proper mindset of blogging, no amount of information will help them.

What’s the proper perspective a newbie needs?

There are Learning Curves.

Like all kinds of work, there is a learning curve to becoming an expert blogger. But what most don’t realize is that there are TWO learning curves.

1. Learning Curve for Blogging and Marketing

The first is probably what’s already talked about very often – blogging and marketing skills like writing, driving traffic (twitter, comments, etc), monetizing, etc.

This, you probably already know. But what most bloggers forget is that there is also another learning curve to becoming an expert in your topic.

The second part is less talked about, and the part where most newbies struggle with – the TOPIC, i.e. WHAT to write about.

2. Learning Curve for the TOPIC

Your topic also requires learning.

This stops a lot of newbies from taking action. It’s also the reason why many people stop blogging after a while, because after writing for a while, they realize that nobody is reading from their blog and they give up.

What these new bloggers may not know is that they have to be or strive to become an EXPERT in a topic to be in a position to add value to their readers, so that they will visit their blog again.

Nobody starts off as an expert in something. We all have to learn things. Different individuals learn about topics to differing amounts of degree.

The key here is to learn a topic to a greater depth and extent than others, so that you can actually teach people. That’s where you become an expert and you are in a position to add value to others.

Then people will start coming to your blog, because they are learning from you. The more value you add, the more regular readers you get.

The Role of Passion

Here is where the role of PASSION comes in. If you are passionate about your topic, it will give you the edge to learn about your topic faster and in greater depth than most people.

It gives you that drive to pursue mastery in that topic, and share your knowledge with your readers with greater fervency and detail than other bloggers.

What If You are Not an Expert in Anything?

Of course, it’s best to already be an expert in your topic BEFORE you start your blog, because this helps you to stand out from the crowd early.

Most people recognize an expert relatively quickly when they see one, and soon you find yourself getting regular readers. This spurs you early on, and you won’t give up so easily.

But for young people like my sister who is not an expert in anything, they have to choose a topic to become an expert in.

Here is where the problem lies for newbie – It’s hard to choose which topic to work towards becoming an expert in, because they don’t know what their passion is.

That’s why there is no straight-forward solution to this. You have to choose, and the problem lies in how and what to choose BEFORE you start your blog.

My take on this?

Just do it. LEARN as you BLOG.

Choose a topic, start blogging and adjust your topic along the way.

Because there are two learning curves to blogging, by simply taking action and starting your blog, you are making progress in the first one – the Learning Curve for Blogging.

Start a personal blog and start blogging about anything first. With your blog as your platform, just start learning about wordpress and the various plugins, twitter and the various social media tools, commenting around and making friends, etc.

All these are valuable experience you get when you TAKE ACTION.

Then take this opportunity to blog about anything under the sun first. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but this is a necessary experimental stage.

You can even blog about blogging, reporting on what you have learned as you do it.

Along the way, you’ll find yourself gravitating and getting interested in some topic, and you realize that you are naturally keen at learn quickly about that topic. Or there may be people who start asking you for help about a certain topic, because they perceive you to be good at it.

This may be where your PASSION is. Now is the time where you start narrowing down your posts to blogging about that particular topic. You embark on the second learning curve – the Learning Curve for the Topic. You start focusing your efforts to becoming an expert in that topic.

How you become the expert is by first learning as much as you can about your topic. Read as much as you can, do your research, take up courses and learn by doing. Do as much as you can, and do it fast. Then blog and teach what you have learned.

Specialize Along the Way

A liver specialist is an expert, but a general practitioner is not. Just by specializing alone, you have a greater chance of being viewed as an expert.

After learning about your general topic, you need to specialize. Narrow your focus to a sub-topic where you have the most chance of gaining prominence.

So if you are blogging about the topic of “make money online”, you have a greater chance to succeed if you specialize on a specific area like twitter marketing rather than the broad topic of making money online. More about this in a future post.

You certainly do not need to know everything, because that would be impossible. But you need to know more about a certain area than most people in your market to be in a position to teach others.

How Darren Rowse Did It

If you read about how problogger Darren Rowse started, he blogged about anything under the sun. As he blogged, he realized that many people were asking him for help about blogging tips.

Because Darren himself was interested in blogging, and there was a need to be filled, he started problogger to focus on blogging tips. And we know where he got to today.

He says he regrets not narrowing his focus earlier, but I’d say if he had not experimented in the beginning, he would not have known where to narrow his focus to.

Likewise for new bloggers, it is sometimes necessary to experiment around before you find a topic which you can see yourself becoming an expert in, then focusing on becoming an expert in that topic.

How Charles Did It

You may not know of it, but I had started a personal blog before Big Idea Blogger.

At first, I was learning how to blog, so I blogged about my learning experiences. So I blogged about how to use the sidebar widgets, how to track readers using Google Analytics, how to insert adsense, and even how to install a blog.

There were a small local group of people in my company who were learning how to blog too, so they were reading my blog because my blog was the only blog they knew about “how to blog”. I was also a newbie, but because I started my blog a few weeks ahead of them, they were learning things from my blog.

It was a valuable experience for me, because without the skills I gained then, I would not have known how to startup Big Idea Blogger quickly when I had my idea.

But after my early “success”, I made a BIG mistake – I stopped blogging.

I thought that since there is so much information on what I am blogging, what’s the point?

I failed to realize that just by keeping up with my blogging, I am improving my blogging skills, getting to know more friends, and making progress in the first learning curve.

Now I had lost so much time, during which I could have become a prominent blogger, maybe even an A-list blogger.

That’s why my advice would be to simply start your blog, and if you have started yours but are a bit lost, don’t worry because you are in the experimental stage. Just keep on blogging to make progress in the first learning curve.

Then as you blog, as you find yourself gravitating towards a certain topic, or getting people asking you for help about a certain topic, narrow your focus to this topic, start on the second learning curve and you are on your way to becoming an expert and a problogger.

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I got to be careful with what I say here.

Because you might get the wrong idea that the following statement is totally wrong.

MYTH  – BE A FRIEND TO YOUR READERS

This statement is NOT wrong.

But like what I quoted before, “Balance is the Key to Life”. You got to be able to see the other side of the coin.

First, let’s see what’s true about being friends with your readers.

The whole part of this comes from the concept “Relationship Marketing”. It’s true that connecting with the people in your market is going to draw people to your blog.

The trust and perceived relationships your readers have with you is going to instrumental in converting them to customers.

However that’s where the problem lies – converting readers to customers. For many bloggers, their readers don’t buy anything from them.

It’s ok if you are just blogging as a hobby, but if you intend to money from your blog, it’s going to be really frustrating.

Why is it so hard sometimes to make sales even though you have built a group of regular readers?

Because more than just a friend, you need to be an EXPERT. And not just another expert, but THE expert.

You see, people buy information products because they perceive that it’s going to help them…

1. Solve their pain or problems, or

2. Gain pleasure by accomplishing something or meeting an irrational desire.

This means that you need to be THE expert in a certain topic. You need to be skilled in solving a problem for them.

The “relationships” in relationship marketing only helps in building TRUST with your readers in the context of the general mistrust people have of internet marketers.

But it does NOT help you one bit when your readers only see you as a FRIEND.

Let Me Give You an Example…

Your water pipe has burst. Who would you call to repair it?

a) Your Neighbor (FRIEND), or

b) Your Plumber (EXPERT)?

???

You would call the PLUMBER because he is the EXPERT.

You won’t call in your neighbor, even if you trust him as a friend.

Because your friend can’t solve this problem for you. The plumber can.

You may TRUST your friend to refer a plumber to you, but it’s not the same TRUST as the TRUST you have with a plumbing expert.

The trust in the plumber comes from delivering genuinely good service at a good price, that he won’t do a shoddy job or trick you into paying for new parts that are unnecessary.

The same applies to becoming a successful problogger.

People only buy from you when they trust you as the EXPERT, not as their mere friend.

They trust you that you know how to solve their problems or help them accomplish something.

You need to show that when it comes to certain problems, people can come to you for professional advice to solve them.

Therefore I’d advise you to think of it this way…

TRUTH – BE THE EXPERT

Right from the beginning, you must maintain the mindset that you are going to be THE go-to expert in your chosen blog topic.

You are not out just to make friends with follow bloggers in your niche, but to become their paid advisor or coach.

You need to think less of being a mere “blogging-friend”, but think more like a MARKETER.

In Relationship Marketing, this means – yes you need to think “relationships”, but think even more of “marketing”.

Here are some steps to get you started…

1. Find out the problems that people in your niche are facing

Join the conversation that’s going on. Visit other blogs and forums. Engage the people there.

2. Find out what’s not being solved properly

As you talk with them for a while, you will spot a few recurring problems that (to you) is not being solved in a satisfactory manner.

3. Step out and let your market know of your ability to solve them

Introduce your solutions to the market, show why your solutions are better, and spread your ideas through marketing.

4. Find out how to go from being an expert to becoming THE expert in your niche, so that people buy from you instead of your competition

There are probably already many experts on your topic. To stand out from the rest, you need to narrow down to a specific sub-niche or sub-market where you can dominate and become THE expert.

It’s easier to be the BIG fish in a small pond, then expand the pond to a bigger pond, rather than get lost at sea.

Meaning it’s easier to establish a position as the expert in a sub-niche, then expand your reach, rather than get drowned within a multitude of experts in the mass market.

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I was reading the comments from a recent post at Yaro’s blog. The subject was about making money blogging, and the above comment was made by a guy named Jo.

I can sympathize with Jo’s lack of motivation when he’s not earning any money out of his blogging efforts, but part of the reason why he’s discouraged is because of his wrong thinking in the first place.

He said that blogging is a job. This means he is expecting to get paid for what he does right from the beginning.

But he is not having the right mindset. It’s the mindset of an employee.

And because blogging is an entrepreneurial activity, this mindset is going to hold him back.

Now I’m NOT saying you shouldn’t expect to get paid. I’m saying you shouldn’t expect to get paid in the beginning.

In Robert Kiyosaki’s book, “Before You Quit Your Job”, Robert shared something that forever changed the way I viewed jobs and work.

Rich Dad was asking young Robert to work for him for no pay. When Robert asked why, Rich Dad explained,

“This is not a job. This is HOMEWORK.”

Rich Dad was telling Robert to NOT treat it as a job, but as a learning opportunity. He was giving Robert some business HOMEWORK to do before Robert started out on his own business.

In school and in life, we don’t get paid to do our homework. As a matter of fact, we have to pay others to do homework.

Doctors and lawyers had to spend money to attend classes and do their HOMEWORK in college before they get paid to practice their profession.

Sports players had to spend years paying for coaching and doing their HOMEWORK, practicing and improving their skills in their sport, before they got their job as professional sports athletes.

Successful entrepreneurs had to do their HOMEWORK, paying the price for real-world business lessons, sometimes losing huge sums of money, before it becomes a job that pays them handsomely.

In blogging, it’s the same. Nobody gets paid as a blogger in the beginning.

It’s only after you do your HOMEWORK, by practicing your blogging and marketing skills, do you become a problogger – a “professional” who gets paid for blogging.

Jo is already treating blogging as a job he is not getting paid for, even though he has just started out. That’s why he is so discouraged.

What he, and every new blogger should do, is to

Treat it as HOMEWORK

You don’t get paid for doing your homework, but you do it because you are learning and gaining better knowledge of your topic and your market. You are practicing your writing and marketing skills and getting more experience.

And you keep on doing it to improve yourself until you become very good at what you do. That is the time when you become “a professional” and people will start paying you.

The good thing is, the homework for bloggers is comparably light.

In a traditional business, mistakes can cost you lots of money. Robert Kiyosaki went bankrupt twice. But in blogging, you don’t run the risk of losing money.

In sports, amateurs practiced their sport for free for many painful years before they turn pro and get paid. Even Tiger Woods had to sacrifice his entire childhood life earning nothing before he became a pro golfer. But in blogging, you don’t have to take that long.

So treat it as homework first. Take massive action, do as much homework as you can by blogging and marketing regularly and consistently.

The Fastest Way to Improve Your Results

On the not so bright side though, blogging can become quite frustrating if you are not getting results. There are two reasons for this:

1. You are doing your homework on your own with no idea how to improve.

Because you are inexperienced, you don’t really know where you are doing wrong, or which parts you need to improve. (Is it content? Is it marketing? Is it my writing?)

2. You have no objective feedback to know where you currently stand.

E.g. You may feel that your content is good, but can you trust your own judgment? You may be getting comments as feedback, but do they represent what the silent majority of your readers are thinking?

Or you may have attracted a big audience, but nobody seems to buy anything from you and you don’t know why because nobody’s telling you why.

Here’s where getting a mentor or a coach becomes really important. They have gone before you and have the knowledge and skills to teach, guide and provide the feedback you need to become successful.

Just like how serious athletes who want to go professional have their coaches to see what they need to work on to improve their techniques and develop training plans accordingly….

… likewise, you should seriously consider hiring a blogging coach who can develop a training plan for you, guide you step-by-step of the way, and provide you with constant objective feedback.

That’s why I recommend you to a great coach – David Risley.

David is a very successful six-figure blogger. Just last year, he earned $141,860.08 from his blog PC Mech, which is NOT in the “make money online” niche. He is also a problogger for over 7 years now.

You can trust him to know the ins and outs of blogging, what works and doesn’t work, and how to grow a blog from nothing to earning six-figures a year.

But besides all the reasons outlined above, like the need to know which specific areas you need to improve and getting expert feedback…

… here’s the best reason why you should consider taking up his coaching:

Many bloggers are good at attracting fans to their blogs, but suck at converting them to customers. The information by other bloggers also revolves around attracting readers, not buyers.

But unlike most bloggers who don’t know crap about marketing, David is a true marketer as well.

With David as your coach, you will learn

• how to attract the right audience from the first place – not just any Tom, Dick or Harry, but highly-qualified prospects who are ready to buy from you.
• how to build their trust in you as the EXPERT (and not as a mere friend), and guide them along till they become paying customers, earning you some really good profits.
• how to build a blogging BUSINESS that runs without you, and not just become a professional where you become tied to just another job.

You will learn all these and much more at David’s coaching program. It is specifically designed to train you in both blogging AND marketing skills (the more crucial part being marketing).

You can literally have your hands held by a successful problogger for six months, where he’ll guide you and help you personally.

But you need to hurry. The doors to his coaching close in two days.

Go here now for the details. I’ll see you inside:

David Risley’s Coaching Program