I’ve got a salesletter swipe file the size of Mount Everest.

It’s like the equivalent of having an Imax movie theatre screen swinging from the ceiling in your livingroom.

I keep it out so my info-marketing buddies can drool. One of them calls it a copywriters wet dream.

But as I make this candid confession, I hope my buddies aren’t reading this blog.

You see I’ve been keeping a secret stash of extra special salesletters. Salesletters that I only expose to the light of day when I need to buy a car, pay for a first class trip around the world, or put an extra $20K in the bank.

What makes them so special, you ponder?

They’re salesletters that tell a story. And in my world, they are the air I breathe. The cream of the salesletter swipe file crop.

The Scientific Explanation - Alexis Dawes Style…

I’d love to give you some detailed psychological mumbo-jumbo as to why people get into stories, but I gotta get my kid in a few minutes, and you did come here looking for a primer.

So instead let’s just look at the entertainment industry.

Studios spend hundreds of millions of dollars making films because people like movies. In book publishing, sales of fiction titles were up in 2005. We like to be entertained. And stories entertain us at some primal level.

When you sell information on the Internet you’re usually in a competition against one, five, ten, or even dozens of other infoproducts within your niche.

If everyone writes a salesletter that sounds like a massive pitchfest, the prospect is probably going to pick the cheapest one, and be done with the sale.

That’s why when I sit down to write my salesletter I start off with a story. A nice entertaining story.

You See, The Story IS The Pitch

The story enables you to emotionally (that’s the magic word here) connect with the readers problems, fears, hopes and dreams. It puts you eye to eye with the reader, and allows the reader to identify with you.

It’s like that in real life too.

Tania - my cousins friend - has a tendency to abrutly end their telephone conversations whenever my cousin starts telling stories about her kids. Tania doesn’t have children. So she doesn’t identify with certain topics that my cousin talks about. They are finding it harder to connect as friends because their lives are so different.

The power of a story truly permeates our lives in so many unconscious ways.

So how do you successfully storytell in salesletters? How do you connect in such a way that practically forces a reader to want to do business with you?

It all starts with imagination.

In your mind go back to the situation that you’re going to write about.

Relive it. Think of all the emotions you felt.

Remember what you did… how you did it… your facial expressions… the smells in the air… the sounds you heard. Were you nervous? Were you shaking with fear? Were you elated? Grinning from ear to ear? Sweat dripping profusely from your chin? Did thoughts of suicide run through your mind? Dig deep. Relive it. Make it real all over again.

While you’re in this heightened emotional state, sit down at your computer and tell the story as you feel it. I must emphasize as you feel it.

If you’re not reliving the moment from an emotional standpoint, it’s NOT going to work.

Emotionless copy is boring copy. And boring copy means slow sales.

You have to paint a mental picture for your prospect. Use your honesty and candor to make prospects trust you. They will know that you’ve been where they are, and that you understand them.

A good story makes defenses come down, and credit cards come out.

And that’s better than sending out personalized e-mail any day.

Soon I’ll show you how to reach this emotional ferver even when you don’t have a personal connection to the topic you’re writing the salesletter for.

So I guess you’ll have to keep visiting for the next part of this story… (Gotcha!)

Maybe I’m a contrarian thinker.

The yang in the world of yin’s.

I was visiting a popular Internet marketer’s blog this weekend. A smart chap who’s currently making his rounds at many Internet marketing seminars.

Anyway, the blogger relayed a story on how one of his customers had used his fee-based information to make tens of thousands of dollars in a short period of time.

A person commenting on the post said something to the effect of “I’m tired of hearing about all of these success stories that come from other Internet marketers. Let’s hear about success stories from info-marketers outside of the IM niche.”

(Just to be on the fair side, the blogger DID have other success stories that didn’t center around Internet marketing.)

In any case, I come across quite a few people online who share this exact same sentiment. They want to make money selling information online.

But they think it’s taboo to create Internet marketing infoproducts. They believe that you have to write about other topics first to earn your stripes in this business.

Now here’s where my contrarian thinking comes into play.

If you notice that a lot of people are making money selling Internet marketing information, then why not create an Internet marketing information product?

Most info-marketers don’t want to create a Pulitzer Prize winning tome. If you’re anything like me, you want to write to make money.

Not a little bit of money.

A LOT of money. Tons of it.

You want to be able to put it in a big ole’ bathtub and swim in it, then take it out and go buy a new Mercedes, or send your kid to an Ivy League school, or buy that 20 acre farm so you can chill with the cows and horses all day.

I don’t see the nobility or the sexiness in being poor. (And yes… I’ve been poor.)

So if that means writing Internet marketing infoproducts – where the customers are always hungry as hell – then that’s a niche I’m going to target.

And look you don’t have to be a freakin’ expert to compile a report with let’s say 10,000 low volume keywords pulled from the Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool. Yet, that type of information can be sold to people like me who specifically build sites around lesser searched terms.

If you really put on your thinking cap, there are literally dozens upon dozens of Internet marketing infoproduct topics that don’t require you to be raking in 6 figures a month to write about.

I mean journalists don’t usually have direct experience with every single topic that they write about. Does that make them any less effective in relaying the information to the general public? Nope!

As a writer, I like to go where the money is. I like getting rich quick. I’ve always made tons of cash selling Internet marketing information. And I still help hundreds of people in the process. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

Don’t knock the Internet marketing infoproduct niche until you try it.

Alexis Dawes

Are you interested in creating e-books or other informational products for writers?

Seems like a such a lucrative niche, doesn’t it? I talk to a lot of different people in my everyday travels, and whenever I tell them I’m a writer, there’s almost always some expressed interest in doing what I do. A lot of people want to be writers. Countless. I think it’s amazing.

So it would seem obvious that creating e-books for writers and budding writers would be a profitable point of interest. But for many unsuspecting authors entering this playing field it’s not.

I consider myself fortunate in that I’ve created an e-book for writers that sells really well at Desperate Buyers Only. However the more I talk to other authors focusing on the writing niche, the more I realize that I’m probably an exception, rather than a rule. E-books for writers don’t always fly off the virtual shelf as one might come to believe.

While a gazillion peoople may want to be writers, they are not the heartiest of buyers for ‘how to become a writer’ material. According to the word around town, these folks are downright cheap and somewhat hard to sell to. And that sentiment comes from both newbie’s and authors who are household names in the writing niche industy. It’s like the secret you don’t learn until you’re knee deep in quicksand.

So how do you crack the safe? What does it take to sell to writing material to writers?

It’s really not that difficult when you remember that budding and wannabe writers look at writing as a fantastic adventure. What makes them “oooh” and “ahhhh”?

They think of the fame and notoriety of seeing their name on that piece of paper. Being paid big bucks over and over for something they’ve done only once. Possibly being on television, or seeing their title in the local bookstore. 

For me the natural high of being a writer is the money. I come from a family where my mom had to go without buying $2.00 pantyhose for work in order to send me to private school. Being able to give my family certain luxuries that I didn’t have is a big deal for me.

So when you write your web sites salesletter you have to focus on romanticizing your book. Put some S-E-R-I-O-U-S emotional backbone in it. Don’t just tell me what your book is about, and what I’ll learn.

Writers tend to be natural visualizers. So you have to create your salesletter so that they see the end result of having your e-book. Agora Publishing does a kick ass job in this department. Check out how they sell their copywriting course at (http://www.awaionline.com/copywriting/index.php).

The first several paragraphs don’t even talk about the course. It preps the prospect by introducing them to the lifestyle associated with being a six figure copywriter. “Retire this year and still make more money than most doctors.” That’s powerful stuff. It adds romance to what could be a rather dull writing niche.

One excellent way to do this is by telling your own story at the beginning of the salesletter. Make your prospects feel that you understand them by showing them you’ve been where they are.

If you can’t tell your own story, then show how other writers are making their dreams come true. How much do top writers in your chosen niche typically earn? How many hours do they work? What other perks do they receive?

You don’t want people to ‘want’ your e-book. You want them to salivate for it. You want them to come back on payday. And part of that process is making your topic sexy and exciting.

Good luck!

Alexis