Here's Another Valuable
FREE Marketing Lesson!

Note 1:  This lesson is from an original issue of The Antin Marketing Letter.  The only changes I've made is to update the address and contact information.  I published The Antin Marketing Letter back when I was partners with my brother, Alan.  So when you see reference to "we" or "our," that's who I'm referring to.

Note 2:  The newsletter was printed on 16 pages so this web page is rather long.  In the printed version I put the actual sales letter on right hand pages and the analysis on left hand pages.  That way readers could easily look back and forth between the analysis and the copy it referred to.  On this web page, I've put the newsletter copy (including the analysis of the sales letter) first, and followed it with the actual sales letter.  Every relevant part has a hyperlink so you can click back and forth between the analysis and the copy it refers to.

Note 3:  This is a great lesson on copywriting.  No matter what kind of business you're in or hope to be in, one of the most profitable skills you'll ever develop is to be able to write a complete and compelling ad or sales letter.  This is just one of my lessons on copywriting, but I think you'll find it quite valuable.  To learn more about copywriting (as well as all kinds of other marketing techniques), make sure to visit Your Arsenal Of Common Sense Marketing Products.

Note 4:  The PUMP program described in the following newsletter is still available (when openings exist).  We've made a few changes in the program, but the important elements are still included.

From: Overland Park, Kansas
March 8, 1994
Tuesday, 3:16 P.M.

Dear Friend and Subscriber:

This Is A VERY SPECIAL Issue Of
The Antin Marketing Letter -- Read It Carefully!

We sent this issue via PRIORITY mail for two reasons. First, it's a very important, special issue which teaches some pretty hot stuff, and it contains an incredible offer.

Secondly, the recent Las Vegas seminar threw us off schedule so this issue is over a week late.

Man, are we ever charged up!

We just got back from Ted Thomas' seminar. What a show! We met and worked with over five hundred attendees who picked our brains from seven in the morning till midnight for three days running.

We did 64 half hour consultations, made more deals than we can count, and the crowd's response to us was so great our egos will probably take weeks to shrink back to normal. (Can you imagine us with even bigger egos?)

In fact, we're going to also send this special issue of the newsletter to all five hundred or so people who attended the seminar. You'll see why in a moment.

We've received tons of requests for another issue on copywriting. The first issue on this important topic was January of 1993 (dated 1992 - Brad got sloppy - Bad Brad).

Judging from our mail and phone calls, many of you really loved the way we taught basic copywriting by actually writing an ad for Brad's condo right there on-the-spot and teaching you the main points in a running commentary.

Well, we're going to do the same thing, this time writing an extremely powerful sales letter instead of a space ad.

And get this, instead of writing an ad for a condo (or something else you wouldn't be interested in), we're going to make this sales letter do double duty.

It's going to be an actual sales letter talking about a very exclusive new service that some of you will go absolutely nuts over and profit handsomely from.

OK, before you sit down to write any kind of ad, you must first decide what your offer is, and what makes it so good.

If it isn't strong enough, what can you do to make it more powerful?

A solid offer will frequently succeed in spite of mediocre copy, but even the most brilliant copy won't salvage a weak offer.

For this example, we're going to offer something of incredible value at a ridiculously low price. In other words, for our best prospects, this offer is nearly irresistible.

Here's how we came up with it. We had promised to consult with all of our subscribers who attended the seminar. We had 57 of our people attend, so we were busier than a cat with two tails.

While we performed our consultations, several people gathered around us and listened in. We must have done a good job, because 38 of them decided to subscribe right there on-the-spot.

Anyway, one question which kept coming up was...

Well, as you know, our fee for telephone consulting is $1,000 an hour. When people actually implement the things we suggest during a consultation, they almost always make a lot more than that. So, it's a good deal all around.

Hmmm. Not many people would consider $1,000 per hour very economical regardless of the results.

Then Alan came up with an idea. What if we started a mentor program where participants could call us whenever they needed help?

What if we came up with a way to do this for a single up-front fee which covered unlimited consulting for a whole year?

We mentioned the idea to a few of the people at the seminar, and they went nuts over it. In fact, a couple of them were ready to sign up right there -- without even knowing the price.

So, we're going to use the sales letter for the new mentor program as our copywriting example for this issue.

We wouldn't exclude you from any offer we make, but once people get to meet us in person, they get a better feel for how much we can help them.

So, even though general marketing wisdom suggests that our subscribers will react more readily to any offer we make, we suspect that after really seeing us in action, the seminar attendees will snatch up the available spots in the program in only a few days.

The first thing you'll notice is that this issue is twice as long as usual. We didn't want you to think that we were trying to send you just a sales letter instead of the newsletter.

Finally, we put little line numbers next to each part of the sales letter we talk about. That's so you can easily go back and forth between the teaching commentary and the sales letter.

Now, before we go any further, read the entire sales letter. Go ahead, it starts on page 3 and continues on all of the right hand pages through page 15.

Actually, just keep reading the letter starts just a few lines from here.

[You'll notice the sales letter is contained within individual "cells."  The actual letter was printed normally, but we've broken it down into these "cells" so you can follow along with the analysis.]

When you've read the entire sales letter (uninterrupted), you'll get a sense of the power and the flow of it. That's an important part of a winning sales letter. It's got to flow smoothly.

Immediately following the letter, we'll dissect and analyze it together.  You'll want to go back and forth between the letter and the analysis to really understand what's going on, but I've provide plenty of clickable links to get you where you want to be.

We'll resume following the letter...