Michael Fishman gave a presentation which completely shocked me. I had never heard of Michael Fishman and had no idea what to expect.

Michael is a 20 year veteran direct mail list broker who has been part of the most successful direct mail campaigns in history including the launch ofDoctor’s Book of Home Remedies. He worked side-by-side with copy writing legends Eugene Schwartz and Gary Bencivenga.

In other words, Michael spent 20 years living and breathing legendary copywriting. Lucky for me he passed along some simple yet powerful copy tips. (If you get this right, failure becomes extremely difficult).

Michael’s advice for writing an effective headline is to include these 4 C’s:

1. Credibility: Try to work credibility into your headline. Here are some examples:

“4 out of 5 Dentists Recommend...”
“A Solution that is Clinically Proven to ....”

2. Community: Customers respond when they are part of a community or group of people who have similar problems, etc.

For example, one of the members of the group sells hearing aids. He uses a headline similar to this one:

“We’ve helped 5,000 people hear again…”

3. Current Events: This “C” is really important. Headlines that are news related are highly effective.

For instance, if you are selling a program for diabetics, you could use a headline that says something like:

“A Solution for the Diabetes Debacle in America…”

There is a diabetes problem in America which has been reported quite often in health related news articles and other media.

4. Caring: This is where you show your desire to help your future customer. To build on the above hearing aid example, you could say:

“We’ve already helped 5,000 people hear again and we’d love to help you too.”

In sum, your headline is your most important element of your sales copy. I encourage you to go back and review your existing headlines and check for the “Four Cs” of an effective headline.

From Left to Right: Lloyd Irvin, Ken McCarthy, Greg Davis, Chris Chico, Ben Moskel

Ken McCarthy, also known as the “Godfather” of Internet Marketing, sat down for a 60 minute interview.

Below is an excerpt from the transcript:

Hi, this is Ken McCarthy and today I’m talking with Ben Moskel.  Hey, Ben?

Yes, Ken, I’m here.

Great.  Ben’s a System grad.  Some of you may know his story but I love telling it and, if you haven’t heard it, it’s pretty interesting.

As you know, for many, many years now, I’ve always given away lots of free information.  In fact, if you look back I might be the first internet marketing person that gave away tons of free information.  Good, useful information on the front end as a way of demonstrating our skill and experience.

And, my theory was, hey, I’ll give away some really good stuff and people will be able to use it.  They’ll test it.  They’ll see that it works.  They’ll make money.  And, then, they’ll realize, you know, if I want to learn more and get into this in-depth, then I should go to the System Seminar.

So, we’ve been doing that for years and it works pretty well.  As anybody who’s been in the system knows, we’re always selling out and we’re not doing a whole lot of hype and we don’t have a big circle of promoters.  We just sort of put the word out that we’re doing something and magically everybody appears.

So, doing this approach seems to work and seems to be very sustainable.  A lot of people ask me how I find the faculty members I find and this calls going to be sort of an x-ray into the process that I use.  Part of it is I’m doing constant research.  I’m never willing to rest on our laurels, you know.  And, really great events come from having very, you know, experienced, knowledgeable, active people who are doing what’s working today.

I don’t have a lot of old timers around unless the old timers are still doing really good work.  I don’t have celebrities around because I have no time for them.  I’m really looking for people that are just good and their work is cutting edge.

And, Ben is one of those people and we are going to talk about another one of these people, named Greg Davis, who Ben and I met pretty recently.

We were so impressed by Ben’s work, I mean, well, you know, Greg was, actually Greg was impressed by Ben’s work, too.  But, Ben and I were so impressed by Greg’s work that within a week of meeting him, we each got on a plane and flew down to Maryland to spend two days going in-depth into what he does.

Ben, you’re in the business of buying traffic from pay-per-click search engines and directing that traffic to affiliate programs.  Is that right?

That’s right.  Yes.  That’s internet marketing in a nutshell.  Yep.

And, that can be tricky and you’re in a fairly challenging marketplace.  Can you tell people the market that you’re in?

Get the First Half of the Interview by sending me an email: benmoskel@gmail.com

Here is what one of our new members experienced while applying for affiliate partners in Commission Junction:

Here is my response:

A -

You are not alone in your bewilderment here!

Unfortunately merchant partners fail to see the potential in developing affiliate relationships. To understand this, first let me explain the nature of the affiliate relationships.

First, an advertiser – also known as the “merchant” decides they want to have affiliates promote their products. Because running an affiliate program is a full-time job, the advertiser will then look for an affiliate network to operate their affiliate program.

In this case, the advertiser decided to hire Commission Junction. Commission Junction then takes care of all the day-to-day managing activities of the program, such as tracking sales, issuing commission checks, etc.

In return for this work the affiliate network takes a cut of all the sales generated by its affiliates. For example, if you are getting paid $10 for a sale, Commission Junction may be taking $3.

Affiliate networks, like Commission Junction, are a necessary evil. You will discover that other than issuing your commission check, large networks including Commission Junction do nothing to deserve their high fees.

They provide zero support and often fail to recognize when good affiliates apply to join a program. In any event, here are some suggestions on what to do if your application is denied:

1. Consider contacting the merchant company directly. You can usually find some contact information right on the company’s website. Explain to them that you have an affiliate site, how you plan on promoting their products, etc.

2. Consider joining other affiliate networks outside of Commission Junction. In Chapter 4 of The Online Entrepreneur – available to members in our training center – you will find a large list of other networks. Often these networks have the same program or comparable programs.

3. Write an email to the merchant via your Commission Junction account. You can usually contact the advertiser via CJ. Just look for the merchant’s contact information in your CJ account. This is probably a last resort type of thing because it may take up to a week for CJ to route the email onto the advertiser – if they bother to do so at all.

Remember, don’t get too caught up on a specific program. There are likely similar offers available who are ready, willing, and eager to have you as their affiliate!