Dramatic Sales Writing

And here's another posting, this one reaction favorably
to James's opinion that probably only a few of the
nearly 300 copywriting students attending the 2004
AWAI Bootcamp knew who Benjamin Graham was.


Thanks for the encouragement, James.

By that I mean -- if only a handful of AWAI's most dedicated
students (the ones at Bootcamp) know who Benjamin
Graham is, there's obviously very little competition for
copywriting for financial products.

I shouldn't imply it's impossible for anyone to succeed
there without already knowing some basic stuff . . .

. . . but, if you're starting out without knowing about
the father of Value investing, how do you get to
writing about gold mines or constructing synthetic
puts and calls with commodities contracts?

The Fundraising course has an interesting interview by
Robert Bly of Jerry Huntzinger (who's a top fundraising
copywriter) where they sort of compare notes -- and
Bly says that many top copywriters are getting out of
the financial field because it's gotten so complex.

And several of the top copywriters interviewed in
the Financial course echo that same theme. They
obviously haven't let it stop them, but they said
there is a ton of information to digest on their
packages. Where research for another kind of package
might take up 40% of their time, for financial
packages it's 70%.

And if you don't already know who Benjamin Graham
is . . .

And to answer your question about the stock market -- it
depends on what my client thinks!

(In the above interviews, both Bob Bly and another
financial copywriter say that they have worked
simultaneously on packages that had totally
opposite opinions on market direction.)

I think this:

In the long run bull stock market that began on
Wall Street about 200 years ago, all bear markets
are temporary retracements, even the Great Depression.

This bull market will continue until civilization
ends in catastrophe, in which case we'll either be
dead or too busy just surviving to care about
our stock portfolios :)

Here's something I posted to a copywriters' discussion
board, since one member attended David Garfinkel's
Breakthrough Copywriting seminar in February and
highly recommended it. I wasn't there, but I was
supporting his support of Garfinkel, based on my
experience:


I heard David Garfinkel on a conference call he did with Michel
Fortin to promote his training.

He spoke the 7 strands of copywriting "DNA" he's discovered.

For example, he says Gary Halbert's Coat of Arms letter was
so successful because it tapped into what he calls the
"Your Hidden Greatness is Discovered" DNA.

Mmm, I thought. What a great concept. A few other stories
do too.

Ugly duckling is really a swan.

Baby born in manger is really Son of God.

Spoiled and sheltered prince is the Enlightened Buddha.

Young orphan boy is only one who can pull sword
from the stone because he's really England's greatest king.

Young half-sized hobbit is only person in Middle Earth
capable of resisting the temptation to give in to the
evil Ring of Power and so the only one who can carry
it to the only place that can destroy it and so save
Middle Earth from domination by evil.

And so on.

Yes, powerful stuff.

I know you're sworn to secrecy, James, but is one of
the other DNAs Boy Meets Girl? Revenge? Biter Bit?


By the way, to the above paragraph, which I intended
at least 90% as a joke -- James responded with a very
serious and huffy, "I'm not at liberty to discuss that."

Whew, maybe I was warm, huh?

I wonder what other standard literary plots David
had adapted to copywriting?

copywriting courses