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

This blog gives advice. But as I stated in the headline, there are also some harsh realities of doing business online.

And I think it’s only fair to give them an equal voice so that less seasoned netpreneurs can see the perils as well as the profit points.

I got an e-mail several days ago from some woman who was clearly on a psychopathic rampage. Mind you, she wasn’t a customer of mine. She didn’t show up in any of my customer databases, nor did she ask for a refund.

Maybe her husband had just run off with some woman named Alexis and she was pissed off at the mere sight of my name. Perhaps her dog named Alexis had just bitten her on the bum and she had to get 10 stitches. Could be a competitor. I don’t know. I don’t care.

I’m just glad I use a P.O. Box now instead of my home address. Crazy people worry me.

Although at least she acknowledged that I’m a good copywriter.

 ——————————————————-

Let me tell you something. You are very skilled with words. I see that

But you think you are slick when you are not. The FBI and the police

have been notified about your sites. I hope you enjoy your time in jail

Your Telephone number is a random voice box A.K.A – Fake

Your Street Address does not show up in an undisclosed database A.K.A – Fake

You are scamming people day by days writing novels of crap trying to persuade them to buy junk for prices like $24.95, and what do they get in return? crap.

-THIS IS AN OFFICIAL NOTICE YOU HAVE BEEN REPORTED TO THE FBI-

And the Internet crime bureau at http://www.ic3.com/

As I said -have a nice time in jail