"High Bidder" by David Garfinkel
Fortune Magazine Names Meg Whitman, ebay CEO, as the "Most Powerful Woman in Business."
What This Means to You as a Marketer and Copywriter...
Congratulations to my San Francisco Bay Area neighbor Meg Whitman for receiving this honor.
Not only is it a major achievement for her, but, since ebay is a totally Internet-based company, it's a landmark event for the Internet business community as well.
I was editor of a very expensive printed and mailed newsletter during the dot-bomb era called "What's Working Online," and it was all I could do, as a direct marketer, not to end nearly every story with the assessment: "This company is a joke."
With $3.2 billion in projected revenues for 2004, ebay is no joke.
But when you look at how ebay makes its money...
... you realize that its success is proof positive of something I have been saying for a long time:
The Internet is a direct-marketing, direct-response medium.
And companies' fortunes will live and die online by the quality and sales effectiveness of their copywriting.
Lord knows we have enough negative examples to fill several books... and indeed those books have been written.
But now we have the first of many positive ones: ebay.
Postive in that the whole business model, at the foundation, is based on copywriting.
Here's why I say that:
You can put the same item up for sale on ebay, with the same pictures, and with
a) a neutral, wimpy or skimpy description, you'll get a modest amount of money,
b) but with a winning, desire-inducing, action-stimulating, feeding-frenzy-causing description, you'll get a much larger sum of money.
The difference? The description.
And what is the description? It's copy. Plain and simple.
Headline.
Benefit statements.
Bullet points.
Proof of claims.
Call to action.
So here's my call to action to you: whether you want to be the next most powerful woman (or man) in business... or you just want to make a few more bucks on the Internet (or elsewhere)...
... sharpen up those copy skills.
Starting now.
There's a new literacy today. No federal programs supporting it (except the one that prints small green bills with pictures of dead presidents on them). No commissions studying it (except the dispersed aggregate "commission" known as "the marketplace"). No statistics officially available (but you would find those statistics in the closely-guarded sales conversion numbers of Web sites with good copy).
What is this new literacy?
It's copywriting literacy.
For your own economic future, make sure you get some.
David Garfinkel is one of the best copywriters on the internet and was a speaker at Armand Morin's Big Seminar Series and Carl Galletti's Internet Marketing Super Conference. You can learn more about his books and training courses by clicking the links below.
David Garfinkel is founder of the World Copywriting institute and is considered by many people to be the best teacher of copywriting in the world. The stated mission of the World Copywriting Institute is to “eradicate copywriting illiteracy in the world.” Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the world’s best selling series of marketing books, Guerrilla Marketing, says, “David Garfinkel is the best copywriter I know.” Sign up for David’s free World Copywriting Newsletter. and you get a free one-hour downloadable teleseminar on copywriting. Also visit David’s World Copywriting Blog:
E-book Secrets Exposed
By David Garfinkel
This incredible ebook explains things nobody else has ever published before! This ebook explains the real way to make real money online with ebooks... Finally! Somebody gives people the truth about what it takes to make massive amounts of money with your own ebook... whether you wrote it or not!
KillerCopyTactics.com
By David Garfinkel
A fully interactive multimedia course by David Garfinkel, the man many call "The World's Greatest Copywriting Coach." David will show you "how to turn words into cash" in this groundbreaking tour-de-force. This course sets the bar for what Internet based learning should be.
AdvertisingHeadlinesThatMakeYouRich.com
By David Garfinkel
This ebook makes it unnecessary to write another headline ever again. David Garfinkel has been described as, "the world's greatest copywriting coach." He's a successful results oriented copywriter and his new ebook shows you exactly how to adapt proven money-making headlines to your business.