One of the many tools avail­able that I absolutely love is Amem­ber from CGI-​​Central. Amem­ber not only man­ages my mem­ber­ship sites, it also han­dles dig­i­tal prod­uct sales, deliv­ery, and protection.

For instance, it pro­tects down­load pages, offers back­end sales and automa­tion, allows pro­tec­tion of “exter­nal” fold­ers and files, and it even comes with a built-​​in autore­spon­der. (And that’s just a par­tial list.)

I use Amem­ber with Word­Press for my mem­ber­ship sites, such as, for exam­ple, the all-​​new Suc­cess Chef Uni­ver­sity, among many others.

But Amem­ber does have its flaws…

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I am not a copy­writer. I make my fair share of sales online, but I have to assume that most peo­ple buy from me because they know me and like me. Either that or they really want what I am offer­ing, and just roll their eyes and hunt for the order but­ton. Because my copy skills stink — and they stink bad.

Over the years I have read every­thing that I can get my hands on about copy­writ­ing, and I’ve even made some sub­stan­tial improve­ments. But just recently I found a much bet­ter (read: eas­ier!) way to write sales copy.

It’s a back­wards fill-​​in-​​the-​​blanks strat­egy, but it works.

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What­ever claim you use to gain atten­tion, the adver­tise­ment should tell a story rea­son­ably com­plete. If you watch returns, you will find that cer­tain claims appeal far more than oth­ers. But in usual lines a num­ber of claims appeal to a large per­cent­age. Then present those claims in every ad for their effect on that percentage.

Some adver­tis­ers, for sake of brevity, present one claim at a time. Or they write a ser­ial ad, con­tin­ued in another issue. There is no greater folly. Those seri­als almost never connect.

When you once get a person’s atten­tion, then is the time to accom­plish all you can ever hope with him. Bring all your good argu­ments to bear. Cover every phase of your sub­ject. One fact appeals to some, one to another. Omit any one and a cer­tain per­cent­age will lose the fact which might convince.

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Ryan Healy, a tal­ented copy­writer whose blog I love read­ing, recently said that copy­writ­ers shouldn’t be cheap, espe­cially when they start out.

It’s a pow­er­ful notion, because many begin­ning copy­writ­ers believe that being cheap will get them more busi­ness. (There are other ways around this, of course. Know­ing how to mar­ket your­self is one thing. Focus­ing on a spe­cialty, a niche, is another. But more on that at another time.)

The bot­tom line is, if you low­ball your rates, you will not get as much busi­ness as you think you’ll get. Sure, you will prob­a­bly get some. But it’s the kind of busi­ness you don’t want.

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