The dif­fer­ence between good copy and great copy are in the results achieved. In direct response specif­i­cally, results are based on the num­ber of actions the copy generates.

The more actions the copy dri­ves, the greater the copy is.

My friend John Reese, a mas­ter at sim­pli­fy­ing what we often tend to unnec­es­sar­ily com­pli­cate, says it best. He says the only met­ric you should ever really count on is this:

How many said “Yes” or “No.” And that’s it.

Sounds sim­plis­tic, I know. But here’s the key point: your copy may get read­ers and it may get great feed­back. It may enter­tain and it may edu­cate. It may inform and even inspire.

But if it doesn’t sell, it doesn’t matter.

Now, what makes copy nudge peo­ple into action requires a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent things. So let me share with you three pow­er­ful ele­ments that can help you turn your not-​​so-​​good copy into good copy, and your good copy into out­stand­ing copy.

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If you have been liv­ing under a rock in the past few weeks, then you might have missed one of the biggest ker­fuf­fles in Inter­net his­tory. Or so it seems.

No, I’m not talk­ing about the con­tested elec­tions in Iran.

I’m talk­ing about the recent Face­book user­name frenzy, when Face­book allowed its users to reg­is­ter user­names, mak­ing pro­file addresses shorter and more memorable.

Lead­ing up to it, they used a count­down timer. Brilliant.

Last week, I was watch­ing a movie with my wife Sylvie Fortin. At 12:01 AM, I decided to log onto Face­book using my iPhone, just to see. And wouldn’t you know it? I man­aged to secure Face​book​.com/​m​i​c​h​e​l​f​o​r​tin for me, and Face​book​.com/​l​i​c​o​r​ice for our fan page.

(Sylvie also cap­tured “sylviefortin” for herself.)

The Licorice Group, LLC is the name of our pub­lish­ing com­pany, located in Las Vegas, Nevada. Obvi­ously, “miche­landsylviefortin” was way too long and would defeat the pur­pose of get­ting a shorter mnemonic. So I decided on “licorice.”

Any­way, you might be won­der­ing why I said this was a ker­fuf­fle. Well, hold on tight, because this one is a doozie (and there’s a mar­ket­ing les­son in here, too)…

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I’m going to tell you why long copy is here to stay, no mat­ter what Michel Fortin and John Reese tell you.

And when it comes to guys who keep their ear to the ground and their eyes on the num­bers (and test results), no one has my greater respect than those two guys.

Yes, atten­tion spans are dwin­dling. Yes, it’s becom­ing more and more an audio-​​visual world on the Web.

But let’s look at the whole ques­tion from a consumer’s point of view.

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First off, this post is in no way com­pre­hen­sive. There are many dif­fer­ent ways to mon­e­tize your blog.

Of course, there’s sell­ing ad space on your blog, such as through the use of pay-​​per-​​click net­works like Google AdSense — which is the most popular.

But offer­ing will­ing adver­tis­ers to directly spon­sor your blog by buy­ing a post, an ad, or a link is one area that’s becom­ing increas­ingly popular.

Sites like ReviewMe​.com, PayPer​Post​.com, and Text​-Link​-Ads​.com are effec­tive in allow­ing blog­gers to get paid for sell­ing con­tent or links on their blogs. Basi­cally, these net­works bring both blog­gers and adver­tis­ers together.

Granted, this has been the sub­ject of a lot of con­tro­versy lately, par­tic­u­larly about dis­clo­sure. (And yes, all the links above are my affil­i­ate links.)

But what if you want to make money directly? What if you want more con­trol over how you mon­e­tize your blog? What if you want to make money based on sales (like an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion) and not just ad clicks or views?

Well, here are a few cool Word­Press plu­g­ins I found.

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If you’ve read my report, The Death of The Saleslet­ter, then you know that many of my “pre­dic­tions” (I’m using quotes for a rea­son) were based on actual test results. Many of them were made by, or done based on tests from, John Reese.

John is one of my men­tors. He’s not only a multi-​​millionaire but also a vision­ary. And lately, John has proven this to be true. Recently, he released a fas­ci­nat­ing report enti­tled The Rebirth of Inter­net Mar­ket­ing, which I highly encour­age you to down­load and read — if you haven’t already.

While John touches on many aspects of the trends affect­ing Inter­net mar­ket­ing (such as adver­tis­ing, con­tent, author­ity sites, and more), for me the most salient point is, with­out ques­tion, the decline in long-​​copy saleslet­ters, and the increas­ing pop­u­lar­ity and ver­sa­til­ity of video-​​based salesletters.

How­ever, there are a few things to note.

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Sad day. I’m speechless.

In case you haven’t heard, the infa­mous Gary Hal­bert, the Alpha Shitweasel, the Prince of Print, died in his sleep on Easter Sunday.

All I can say is, the copy­writ­ing world has lost one of its biggest icons. There will NEVER be another Gary Hal­bert, that’s for sure.

John Reese left the mes­sage on my copywriter’s board just after mid­night. John Carl­ton, who was Gary’s best friend in this biz, wrote a blog post that says it all. (It lit­er­ally brought tears to my eyes.)

I remem­ber two years ago when I did a sem­i­nar with him, John Carl­ton, and Mark Joyner, called the “Fusion Sem­i­nar.” (There are some incred­i­bly funny sto­ries from that sem­i­nar, which I will share with you some time soon!)

Rest in peace, brother. You can also lis­ten to two inter­views I’ve done with Gary Hal­bert, and one with John Carlton.

Click here to lis­ten to four hours with me and Gary Halbert.

“If you only have time for one clue this year, this is the one to get: We are not seats or eye­balls or end-​​users or con­sumers. We are human beings — and our reach exceeds your grasp. Deal with it.”
— From “The Clue­train Man­i­festo,” Harper Collins, April, 1999.

“One of the best kept secrets in Amer­ica is that peo­ple are aching to make a com­mit­ment, if they only had the free­dom and envi­ron­ment in which to do so.”
— John Nais­bitt, author of “Mega­trends” and “High-​​Tech, High-​​Touch”

My ini­tial intent wasn’t to write this report. It’s the result of a post I was envi­sion­ing for my blog at MichelFortin​.com. The prob­lem is, the blog post be-​​came so long that I felt a need to do either one of two things.

I had to either: edit my post and shrink it down to a bare min­i­mum (prefer­ably around 500 words), or break the arti­cle down into sev­eral installments.

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