I wrote this arti­cle way back in 1998. It seems to have made a resur­gence, espe­cially with today’s econ­omy. So I said to myself, “Why not repub­lish it?” So here it is. Enjoy!

If there is some­thing about which I’m pretty adamant, it’s the idea of attract­ing qual­i­fied prospects who are will­ing to do busi­ness with you. And this involves many dif­fer­ent things.

Posi­tion­ing is one of them. In fact, it has been one of my favorite mar­ket­ing con­cepts for this very reason.

How­ever, this fun­da­men­tal mag­net­ism is not only based on pure mar­ket­ing prac­tices or strate­gies. It also involves some­thing at a much deeper level that is far more effec­tive than any other mar­ket­ing tool or process in existence.

This “thing” to which I am refer­ring is, I believe, the most impor­tant mar­ket­ing secret I can ever teach you — and it’s far from being a secret at all. It is con­sid­ered as one sim­ply because it is often neglected or ignored by many mar­keters and businesspeople.

What is this “secret” that’s so elusive?

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When my wife released her con­tro­ver­sial report, Inter­net Mar­ket­ing Sins, we received mixed reac­tions. As expected, of course.

Some peo­ple thought it was about time some­one spoke out on these under­handed tac­tics and stu­pid mar­ket­ing tricks. Oth­ers praised Sylvie’s efforts and gushed her with appreciation.

Oth­ers, on the other hand, didn’t feel as… appreciative.

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Words are pow­er­ful. They are the crux of our exis­tence as copy­writ­ers. And your choice of words is cru­cial in get­ting the results you seek, whether you’re a copy­writer or not, and be it in busi­ness or in your per­sonal life.

To com­pel oth­ers to do what you want them to do, words do the job. So it goes with­out say­ing that you need to choose your words. And you need to choose them care­fully. Because words are more pow­er­ful than you think.

How pow­er­ful?

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Greg Rozsa, my friend who started Help​With​Ka​t​rina​.com and who has already brought tons of sup­plies to the home­less in and around New Orleans (you can see pic­tures he took on the web­site), receives hate mail on a daily basis.

This breaks my heart.

But what’s worst is that his web­site was tem­porar­ily shut down today because of com­plaints. Now, I acknowl­edge the fact that scam­mers are ram­pant and come out of the wood­work to take advan­tage of sit­u­a­tions like these. But Greg is a good man with a big heart.

And there’s some­thing else that irks me to no end…

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