is a trend in

World Wide Web

technology, and

web design

, a second

generation

of web-based communities and

hosted services

such as

social-networking sites

,

wikis

,

blogs

, and

folksonomies

, which aim to facilitate

creativity

, collaboration, and sharing among users.

The anchor text or link label is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. The words contained in the Anchor text can determine the ranking that the page will receive by search engines. Since 1998, some web browsers have added the ability to show a tooltip for a hyperlink before it is selected. Not all links have anchor texts because it may be obvious where the link will lead due to the context it is used in. Anchor texts normally remain below 60 characters. Different browsers will display anchor texts differently.

HTML, an acronym for HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for web pages. It provides a means to describe the structure of text-based information in a document—by denoting certain text as links, headings, paragraphs, lists, etc.—and to supplement that text with interactive forms, embedded images, and other objects. HTML is written in the form of “tags” that are surrounded by angle brackets. HTML can also describe, to some degree, the appearance and semantics of a document, and can include embedded scripting language code (such as JavaScript) that can affect the behavior of Web browsers and other HTML processors.

Affiliate marketing is an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts.

Affiliate marketing is also the name of the industry where a number of different types of companies and individuals are performing this form of Internet marketing, including affiliate networks, affiliate management companies, and in-house affiliate managers, specialized third party vendors, and various types of affiliates/publishers who promote the products and services of their partners.

Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.

Affiliate marketing—using one website to drive traffic to another—is a form of online marketing, which is frequently overlooked by advertisers.^{[citation needed]} While search engines, e-mail, and website syndication capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. Still, affiliates continue to play a significant role in e-retailers’ marketing strategies.^[1]

Tag

A tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information (such as an internet bookmark, digital image, or computer file). This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching. Tags are chosen informally and personally by the item’s creator or by its viewer, depending on the system. On a website in which many users tag many items, this collection of tags becomes a folksonomy.

Tagging was popularized by websites associated with Web 2.0 and is an important feature of many Web 2.0 services. It is now also part of some desktop software.

BacklinksBacklinks (or back-links (UK)) are incoming links to a website or web page. In the search engine optimization (SEO) world, the number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page (though other measures, such as PageRank, are likely to be more important). Outside of SEO, the backlinks of a webpage may be of significant personal, cultural or semantic interest: they indicate who is paying attention to that page.

In basic link terminology, a backlink is any link received by a web node (web page, directory, website, or top level domain) from another web node (Björneborn and Ingwersen, 2004). Backlinks are also known as incoming links, inbound links, inlinks, and inward links.

PageRank is a link analysis algorithm used by the Google Internet search engine that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references. The numerical weight that it assigns to any given element E is also called the PageRank of E and denoted by PR(E).

The name “PageRank” is a trademark of Google, and the PageRank process has been patented (U.S. patent 6,285,999). However, the patent is assigned to Stanford University and not to Google. Google has exclusive license rights on the patent from Stanford University. The university received 1.8 million shares of Google in exchange for use of the patent; the shares were sold in 2005 for $336 million.^[1][2]

Web search engineA Web search engine is a tool designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. The information may consist of web pages, images, information and other types of files. Some search engines also mine data available in newsbooks, databases, or open directories. Unlike Web directories, which are maintained by human editors, search engines operate algorithmically or are a mixture of algorithmic and human input.

A meta-search engine is a search tool^[1] that sends user requests to several other search engines and/or databases and aggregates the results into a single list or displays them according to their source. Metasearch engines enable users to enter search criteria once and access several search engines simultaneously. Metasearch engines operate on the premise that the Web is too large for any one search engine to index it all and that more comprehensive search results can be obtained by combining the results from several search engines. This also may save the user from having to use multiple search engines separately.

The term Metasearch is frequently used to classify a set of commercial search engines, see the list of search engines, but is also used to describe the paradigm of searching multiple data sources in real time. The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) uses the terms Federated Search and Metasearch interchangeably to describe this web search paradigm.

ACTION DEVICES: Copy planted throughout a direct mail package that urges the reader to respond immediately – typically by calling a toll-free telephone number or completing and returning the response device (order form).

ACTIVES: 1) Members or subscribers who have not yet expired. 2) Customers who have made purchases within a given time frame. In many companies, active customers are defined as customers who have made a purchase in the preceding 12 months.

ACQUISITION COST: The cost associated with generating a new customer. Example: If we spend $500 to mail 1,000 pieces and get a 1% return, that’s 10 customers – so our Acquisition Cost is $50 per customer.

ADVERTISING MEDUIM: Refers the specific way in which your ad is delivered to the prospect. Examples of different mediums are the mail, TV, radio, the Internet, billboards and more. The medium in which your ad is run plays a huge role in everything that you consider in the process of creating a promotion.

ADVERTORIAL: The process of blending advertising with free information. The term is literally a synergy between the words ‘advertisement’ and ‘editorial’ – and it developed when advertisers realized that if they made their ads look like editorial articles, and provided the prospect with valuable free information, readership would be increased. And not only readership but response increases, because the valuable information drives the prospect deeper into the ad. This makes him more likely to buy.

ADVOCATE: When you stand up for your prospect, or when your editor or spokesperson stands up for him, this is referred to as advocacy. Clayton is a firm believer in the editor or spokesperson being an advocate for the prospect – that he demonstrate a commitment to the prospect’s needs, feelings, challenges and well being. For example, Dr. Martin Weiss and Dr. Julian Whitaker – two spokespeople Clayton has written for – are strong advocates for the prospect. Both are extremely committed to the prospect’s safety and success, even if it means going up against some of the strongest, most powerful institutions in the world.

AFFILIATE: An Internet marketing term used to designate a company or individual who promotes your product for a percentage of sales. For example, a company may put one of your banner ads on their site, and then collect a percentage of the sales that ad leads to. Or an affiliate may send out e-mails for your product launch to their list, and collect as much as 40-50% of the sales from the product. Affiliate marketing is powerful precisely because it’s so win-win: You get to access large quantities of target prospects without paying money upfront. And you only pay after you make sales. So there’s little or no risk to you – and your affiliate partner gets to sell your product without the cost of product development, overhead or any of the other expenses that go along with running your business.

APPEAL: Another way of talking about a benefit. Some of your benefits will have stronger appeal to target prospects than others.

ASSIGNMENT: A term for a copywriting job or project.

ATTRITION: A reduction in response to a promotion or mail list due to repeated use.

AVERAGE UNIT OF SALE: (Also Average Sale or AS) The total revenue divided by the number of orders generated by a promotion. Also abbreviated as “AUS,” this number is often used by marketers to gauge the effectiveness of copy in selling prospects on placing larger orders.

AWARENESS: – Refers to how aware the prospect is of his desire for the benefits your product offers. This idea was introduced by Gene Schwartz, because your ad – especially your headline – must address the prospect’s level of awareness.

BACK-END: The sale of additional products after a new customer has made his first purchase.

BANNER AD – A small ad–with a visual component and headline – that’s placed on a website. A banner ad can and should be carefully tracked for how many clicks it produces, as well as the percentage of those clicks that actually results in sales or opt-ins. Which raises another point: The goal of a banner ad is usually to drive a prospect to a sales letter/landing page with the hope that the sales letter will convert him into a buyer. But other times, it may be used to send the prospect to a squeeze page, where the copy attempts to get him to provide his name and e-mail address.

BANGTAIL ENVELOPE: An envelope with an extended flap or extra flap containing the response device.

BELIEFS: The beliefs your prospect holds that influence his buying decision. He may believe strongly in natural health … he may believe that drugs are inherently destructive … he may believe that Wall Street is dishonest and out to rip him off … the list could go on forever. This is a key part of understanding your prospect, because what he thinks and how he acts will strongly influence his response to your promotions.

BENEFITS: What your product or service really brings to the prospect’s life. A benefit is all about the positive impact your product has, one of the many ways his life is improved by buying and using your product. Fundamentally, people buy things because they benefit them in some way. The process of clarifying and then showcasing your benefits goes to the very heart of direct response advertising.

BIG SELLING IDEA: The powerful, unique idea that drives your promotion. There are virtually an infinite number of possibilities for your Big Selling Idea. But it’s purpose is simple: If you can get your prospect to believe in this idea, it’s much easier to get him to buy your product. Some examples that have worked well … Natural “Pennies-a-Day” Cures that Make Expensive Drugs and Medical Procedures Obsolete …Billions of Dollars in Free Money Is Being Given Away by the Government – And You’re QUALIFIED … and so on.

BILL ENCLOSURE: Promotional material enclosed with a bill, an invoice or a statement.

BILLBOARD: As in billboarding your benefits. This is a loose term for when you showcase a group of related benefits on the cover of your promotion. For example, many magalogs have groups of connected benefits on the front cover, and the purpose of these cover benefits is to pull the prospect into the promotion.

BINGO CARD: Reply card inserted in a publication. Used by readers to request literature from companies whose products and services are either advertised or mentioned in editorial columns.

BIZOP: An informal expression for the “business opportunity” market. This is the market where prospects are sold on the possibility of making more money through some kind of new venture – whether it be real estate or Internet marketing.

BODY COPY: The middle part of your promotion, between the lead and the closing copy. This is where you make your argument … expand on your benefits and then prove them … keep your prospect’s attention and interest in a peak state … until he’s ready to make a buying decision.

BONDING: The process where you establish trust and rapport with your prospect. This takes you OUT of the role of a salesman, and into the role of trusted friend and advocate. The premise is simple: People always prefer to buy from those they like and trust.

BOTTOM LINE: The name that runs through Boardroom’s main newsletter publications: Bottom Line Health … Bottom Line Personal … Bottom Line Retirement. You may have heard Clayton mention these publications before.  That’s because many of the top writers in the world have written for them.

BOUNCE BACK: A flyer or other promotional material designed for insertion into a package in which products are delivered.

BRC: Business Reply Card.

BRE: Business Reply Envelope.

BREAK-EVEN: The amount of revenue a promotion must generate in order to offset marketing costs. In some cases, direct marketers may also include fulfillment costs in the break-even calculation.

BREAKTHROUGH: This is a loose term that marketers use for a big discovery or “aha!” that heavily impacts their success or results.

BULLETS: Marked by the little symbol that separates them from running text, these are little sentences (or series of sentences) that present a benefit, and often tease the prospect with an element of intrigue and curiosity. Bullets play a huge role in Information Publishing and Information Marketing, because they enable you to sell the benefits of the information in a much more exciting and fascinating way.

BUMP: The process where you attempt to get the prospect to buy a more expensive version of your product, or another product – at the point of sale. For example, imagine you are buying something online. The page where you’re finalizing your order asks you if you’d like the ‘deluxe’ version for another $39 – or if you’d like to try a related program for 30% off the normal price. This act of making an additional offer to bring in more revenue at the point of sale called a ‘bump,’ because you’re bumping the prospect up to a higher level of purchase.

BURST: A graphic device often used next to photographs of products or premiums, containing value or offer statements: “A $39 Value, FREE!”

BUYING BEHAVIOR: Observable patterns of behavior you see in your prospects that govern their buying decisions. For example, you might see that your customers buy more from e-mail campaigns than sales letter pages. Or you might observe that your customers are looking for more in-depth, higher ticket programs that do much of the work for them. There are a million possibilities, but any time you see consistent purchasing patterns in your prospects or customers – you have an example of buying behavior.

CALL TO ACTION: An informal term for when you push your prospect to act on your offer. You could use expressions like … “Send for your free trial offer, TODAY” … “order today and you’ll receive 5 free gifts” … “call now before you forget” … and many more.

CELL(S): A portion of a promotion used for testing purposes. When testing several headlines for example, each headline is mailed to a set number of names. These names are referred to as a cell.

CHARTER OFFER: This is the name for first time a company offers a new product or service to the prospect. The product itself may not be new, but it’s the first time the prospect has had a chance to buy it. It’s used most often in the newsletter industry, but applies elsewhere.

CLAIM: Another word for promising a benefit. The advantage of using the word ‘claim’ sometimes is that makes it clear that you need to back it up with proof. Many marketers simply think they can present a benefit and then that’s all. But when you realize that a benefit is just a claim, you understand that you must immediately back it up with proof for it to be believed.

CLAIM DENSITY: This is the term Gene Schwartz introduced – it refers to the depth of the promise or claim you’re making. And ‘depth’ is when your promise is well targeted to his desires … it’s quickly followed or joined to proof … has a strong emotional component … and fits well with every other aspect of your promotion.

CLOSE: The final stage of your promotion, where your copy pushes for the sale. The goal of the close is to take all of the interest and desire that’s been activated in the prospect, and then get him to take action on the offer. This process mimics what good salespeople do in person, they carefully guide the prospect to making a purchase decision that’s in his best interest.

CLOSING COPY: The copy that’s used in the close.

CODING: A series of letters and or numbers printed on response devices that tell the marketer which list and/or creative test cell generated each order.

COLD: As in ‘Cold List’ or ‘Cold Prospect.’ This refers to when the prospect or list has no prior relationship to you, your product or company. The term ‘cold’ is another way of saying that there’s no bond or rapport between you and the prospect. As you might guess, this type of prospect is much harder to sell than a ‘warm’ or ‘hot’ one. See also ‘Hot’ or ‘Warm.’

COMPETITION: The name for any company or product that offers the same or similar benefits that you do. To truly be considered ‘competition’ they must be a viable alternative to what you offer, and they must advertise in the same or similar mediums that you advertise in.

Competitive intelligence is the process by which organizations gather and use information about products, customers, and competitors, for their short term and long term planning.CONTINUITY OFFER: Very similar (often identical) to the ‘Negative Option,’ a continuity offer is one where the prospect gets billed each month. Sometimes it can simply be for a defined period of time, such as 12 months. Other times, it will keep going indefinitely unless he cancels.

CONTROL: This is the direct mail, space ad or Internet promotion performing best for a company right now. It’s the benchmark against which variables and new promotions are tested against to measure response rates, average sale or return on investment. When a new promotion performs better than the control that promotion becomes the new control.

CONVERSION: An Internet marketing term that describes the process of converting a website visitor into a customer. True to the fundamental tenets of direct response advertising, this process is entirely measurable using tools like Google Analytics and others. For example, if you know that you have 50,000 unique visitors each month, and you make 500 sales to new customers each month, you’re converting 1 out of 100 visitors. In other words, your conversion ratio is 1%.

COPY: The sales message used by direct response marketers to compel prospects to purchase their products and services.

COPYWRITING: The process of writing advertising.ANY wording that takes place within an advertisement, whether it’s direct response advertising or otherwise,  is considered ‘copy.’ And the process of creating those words is called ‘copywriting.’

COST PER INQUIRY (C.P.I): Total cost of a lead production promotion divided by the number of leads or inquiries generated.

COST PER ORDER (C.P.O): Total cost of promotion divided by the number of orders generated.

COST PER THOUSAND (C.P.M): 1)Total cost of a promotion divided by how many thousands of impressions were made. A mailing costing $100,000 that mails to 200,000 prospects has a CPM of $500/M ($500 per thousand). 2) CPM is also applied to components of total promotion cost, such as mail list rental, printing costs, postage costs, etc.

CREDIBILITY: Anything you do that increases the feeling of legitimacy and overall trustworthiness in your prospect. With so many companies promising the moon and then under-delivering (or sometimes outright lying), prospects have become increasingly skeptical of advertising. Many times, they begin with the assumption that you’re NOT telling the truth. But the proper use of credibility elements – such as testimonials, track records, endorsements, a guarantee, and many more – helps readers to believe and trust in what you’re promising.

CROSS-SELLING: Selling a promotion across the board to other demographic lists within the house.

CUSTOMER ACQUISITION: The type of promotion that has the direct goal of acquiring new customers. The goal of a customer acquisition promotion is NOT to make a profit, it’s to bring in as many new customers as possible at break even or less – and then let the backend products make the profit.

For example, many of the top direct response information publishers – such as Phillips, Agora, Healthy Directions and others – have introductory newsletters written by experts. Some of them give financial advice, others give health advice, certain ones are focused on retirement and saving money, and so on.

These newsletters usually range from $39 to $199 – and they’re not designed to immediately make money. The promotions selling these newsletters are called “Customer Acquisition” packages because they get sent out to new lists, in order to bring new customers into the company’s pipeline. Once the prospect buys that first newsletter, the company usually begins selling them progressively higher priced items (also known as the ‘backend’).

Many top copywriters spend much of their time writing these kinds of promotions. That’s because the markets they sell into are highly competitive, the cost to acquire a customer is high and only the very best copy will do.

On the Internet, an example of a Customer Acquisition promotion would be a very low-priced product – such as a $19 e-book. It’s hard to make any real kind of money on such a product these days, but bringing a new customer into the company’s database creates wonderful backend opportunities to sell products for $99 … $299 … $499 … or more … monthly continuity programs and more. These can be VERY profitable.

CUSTOMER FILE: This is your company or client’s list of customers. Many companies do little or nothing with their customer file, which is a tragedy. That’s because using the proper breakdown and promotional strategy with your customer file can make you an absolute fortune. The top direct response marketers break up or ‘segment’ their customer file according to purchasing patterns, so they can modify their promotional strategies accordingly. This is what allows highest response on backend promotions, and leads to explosive growth and profits for the company who does it.

CUSTOMER RECORD: A computerized record of a customer’s name, address, telephone number, credit card numbers, buying history, etc.

CUSTOMER SURVEY: This is where you poll your customers, often through the Internet, to find out their interests, desires, problems, concerns, hopes, dreams, objections and more. The goal of such surveys is to get to know your customers on a much deeper level, create products and advertising that better matches them, and make much more money in the process. One great resource for doing this online is www.surveymonkey.com.

DATA CARD: Most major direct response mailers store information about their target prospect on what’s called a data card. This card contains relevant information about their average age, sex, habits, buying behavior and purchases, income and more. If you choose to work for a company that uses direct mail, be sure to ask them for the data card.

DATABASE: A collection of customer records containing vital information about each customer or prospect.

DATABASE MARKETING: Also known as House File Marketing. Promotions that are sent to existing customers.

DE-DUPE: A process by which duplicate names are removed from a mail list prior to mailing. De-duping is also called a “merge-purge,” as names from all lists to be used are merged into one large file and then the duplicates are purged in order to cut postage costs.

DECK COPY: The copy right below the headline, which … expands on the headline … further stimulates his interest … and attempts to drive him into the heart of your promotion. Sometimes deck copy is followed by teaser bullets, other times the promotion goes right into the “Dear Friend” type of salutation.

DEMOGRAPHIC: The characteristics of human populations and population segments that contain key facts such as age, education, income and sex in order to identify consumer markets.

DESIRES: What your prospect wants, related to product and area of expertise. For example, if you sell nutritional supplements, you will consider your prospect’s health desires and how your product fits in. If you sell gardening books, you will consider your prospect’s gardening desires. And so on. As human beings, we literally have an infinite number of desires – but for the purposes of copywriting, only the relevant ones count.

DIFFERENTIATE: When you hear the word ‘differentiate’ in marketing, it’s referring to the act of making your product or service appear different. It first came from a classic book written by Jack Trout called, Differentiate or Die, and the premise was that only the companies who differentiated themselves well enough to stand out would survive.

DIMENSIONALIZE: Not a word you’ll ever find in a traditional dictionary, rumor has it this term was invented by marketing guru Jay Abraham. It refers to the process of drawing out and expanding on something. For example, to ‘dimensionalize’ a benefit (see the term ‘Dimensionalized Benefit’ below) would be to take it and expand it in vivid detail. To dimensionalize a fear would be to expand and flesh it out on a much more graphic and impactful level.

DIMENSIONALIZED BENEFITS: This is the specific category of benefits, where a vivid and compelling picture is painted. The purpose of doing this is so that the prospect can better imagine and mentally experience a key benefit of your product or service – BEFORE he orders it or tries it out. The goal of this kind of benefit is to put your prospect into a world where he vividly and seductively experiences the amazing effects of using your product or service.

DIRECT MAIL: The type of marketing and promotional strategy that uses mail to acquire new customers, and sometimes uses mail to sell backend products to those customers.

DIRECT MAIL PACKAGE: This is another name for a product promotion that’s sent out via direct mail.

DIRECT MARKETING: Promotions that target a specific audience based upon demographic and/or psychographic traits.

DIRECT RESPONSE MARKETING: Promotions that solicit an immediate, measurable response from recipients.

DOMINANT RESIDENT EMOTIONS – A term Clayton invented and popularized, which refers to emotions found in the prospect that are both ‘dominant’ and ‘resident.’ By ‘dominant,’ he’s talking about the strongest emotions that prospect is experiencing, relevant to the product he’s selling. And by ‘resident’ – he means that which is deep and long-standing in the prospect. An example of dominant resident emotions in a health prospect would be anger and betrayal anytime an authority lies or misleads him (like the FDA or pharmaceutical companies) and the feeling of freedom and power that comes from being in charge of one’s own health and body. The word ‘resident’ applies because these feelings are not fleeting, they’re predictable and constant – and can be harnessed for explosive results in your advertising.

DOUBLING DATE: The date at which a marketer typically has received half of the total revenue a promotion will produce. Doubling dates are used to predict the final result of each list and creative test cell in a mailing, thus enabling marketers to plan subsequent promotions more quickly.

DOWNSELL: This is when you make an lower priced offer to prospects who failed to take you up on your original offer. For example, imagine that you had a list of 50,000 of people that you promoted a $1,000 Internet marketing product to. 1,000 responded and you made revenues of approximately $1 million. If you went back to the 49,000 people on your list who DIDN’T buy with an reduced version of your product for $197, that would be considered a ‘downsell.’ The advantage of downselling is that you’ve already done lots of work in attempting to convert your prospect into a customer … why not use that work and momentum to see if he’ll take a lesser version of what you’re offering. The beauty here is that you often make a bunch of money that you would have otherwise left on the table.

DUMMY NAME: A name inserted into a mailing list that enables marketers to track how the list is being used. Marketers will typically plant dummy or “seed” names on their own customer files to ensure that list renters are using the file in accordance with list rental agreements. Marketers will also plant dummy names on competitors’ files in order to monitor how competitors are promoting to their customers as well as the promotions sent to the file by other list renters.

EDGE: A loose term for any kind of competitive advantage. For example, The Total Package gives you a distinct ‘edge’ over other writers who don’t have access to this info. Building proof and credibility into your product gives it an edge over others selling similar things.

EDITOR: The person who writes and oversees a newsletter. Because newsletters and newsletter promotions are such big part of our industry, certain editors have become very famous and we use their names a lot. If you were to write sales copy for a large company like Boardroom, Agora, Phillips, Healthy Directions, Weiss Research and others – you may end up promoting a newsletter. In that case, you’d need to get to know the editor, his or her viewpoint, tone, beliefs, style and more.

E-MAIL LIST: Direct response is very much about list marketing. And a big part of what we do online is build e-mail lists of targeted prospects through squeeze pages, joint ventures and more … establish a relationship with people on that list … and then sell them our products and services. Building a list on the Internet is a science in and of itself, and for skills like that that I suggest you check out the website of a top Internet marketer, like Rich Schefren www.strategicprofits.com.

E-MAIL MARKETING: This is the process by which you communicate and promote to your target prospects via e-mail. It works best when you’re able to build a large list of qualified prospects and then make offers to them, based on your knowledge of their psychology, feelings, buying behavior and more.

Often times, you may ask them to place their order directly from the copy within the e-mail. Other times, you may use the e-mail to drive them to a landing page. Then the landing page will attempt to sell them on your product or service.

EMOTIONAL BENEFIT: This is the positive feeling that a prospect gets from buying your product or service. It can be anything from the desire to feel cool … feeling superior to his buddy … the greed of making a killing in the market … and more. Emotional benefits are often the strongest reasons why someone makes a buying decision, so it pays to carefully study how your product’s benefits impact the prospect emotionally – and how you can trigger these emotions throughout your copy.

EMOTIONS: It’s often said that “People buy on emotion, and justify with logic.” Which means it’s crucial that your sales copy always trigger the strongest, most relevant emotions for driving your prospect to action.

ENTREPRENEUR: The term we often use for a business owner. While The Total Package is targeted more to copywriters and marketers, entrepreneurs can use this information to better recognize good copy … refine and enhance existing promotions … help the copywriters working for them to improve … and more.

EXCHANGE: An agreement between mailers to exchange an equal quantity of mailing list names.

EXPIRE: A customer or subscriber who is no longer active.

FASCINATION: See also the definition for ‘Blind Bullet.’ This is a term that I believe Gene Schwartz invented to describe how certain bullets are designed to fascinate the prospect so intensely, he’s forced to respond.

FEATURES: The specific trait or attribute of your product. Every feature is worth noting, and the point of listing out your features is to convert them into benefits. Remember also that not every feature will have a benefit to the prospect. For example, one feature of a book may be that it’s 75 pages long – but there’s not really a benefit to that. But another feature may be that it offers twelve 30-day meal plans. That one has immense benefit to the prospect.

FEELING: Used most often to describe what the prospect is experiencing on an emotional level. Because people are so often governed by what they’re feeling in the moment, understanding what you’re prospect feels is key to your success.

FIRST CLASS MAIL: This is a higher grade of mail than many bulk mailers use. Clayton often advises his clients mail their promotions via first-class mail because it allows the copywriter to list the full dollar value of the premiums.

FLAT BENEFIT: An occasionally used expression that describes when a benefit fails to excite or intrigue a prospect. He reads it and has little no reaction – it’s ‘flat.’

FORMAT: This is the way in which you deliver your advertisement. In direct mail, some of the most common formats are the standard envelope … the jumbo envelope … the magalog … the tabloid … the bookalog … and sometimes the flyer, postcard or brochure. Obviously, the format you choose for your advertisement is going to heavily impact your writing process and overall strategy. For example, a magalog or bookalog requires much more copy than a 8-12 page sales letter.

Another format possibility is a space ad that runs in magazines or newspapers. The size you have available for your space ad is going to determine what you’ll be able to say, and how much you can say.

On the Internet, you can deliver promotions via e-mails … landing pages … using a more traditional website.

The more clear you are in the format you’re going to be using, the better you’ll be able to adapt and adjust your writing process accordingly.

FRONT-END: The opposite of the ‘backend,’ this is another way of talking about customer acquisition. Front end products are usually cheaper and not designed to make a profit; rather, their purpose is to bring in new customers that can be profitably sold backend products.

FULFILLMENT: The delivery of the product or service to the customer.

FUNCTIONAL BENEFIT: This is type of benefit that’s worded in terms of what it does for the prospect. This is a very important stage in your benefit writing process because it’s the point at which your product comes to life. For example, some nutritional supplements contain an ingredient called enzymes.

It actively brings value to the prospect.

GEOGRAPHIC: Selection or division of a mail list or other advertising medium along geographic lines. Geographic selects may be by state, county, metro area, city or zip code.

GUARANTEE: Typically a promise to refund a customer’s money if he or she is less than satisfied.

HARD OFFER: An offer where payment is required upfront. Most offers fall into this category. For a contrast, see the definition of a ‘soft offer.’

HEADLINE: The gateway into your ad.  This is what many advertising gurus throught history believe is the most response-impacting aspect of what you do. There have been times, in major advertising campaigns, they’ve seen a lift in response by up to 15-20 times just from a change to the headline. The purpose of your headline is simple: a) to grab your prospect’s attention … and b) to get him to read the next sentence in your ad. Obviously, this is much easier said than done and coming up with the perfect headline is something writers spend days – even weeks – working on.

HEADLINE “BLOCK”: – A term for when you struggle to come up with a winning headline.

HEALTH AND HEALING: The most famous natural newsletter in existence. Written by Dr. Julian Whitaker, it was the first heavily promoted natural health letter. Clayton launched it in 1991, and it became one of the biggest successes in direct response history.

HOT LIST: This term sometimes refers to you or your client’s list of hottest customers or prospects. If you’re talking about a ‘Hot List’ of customers, you’re talking about the customers who’ve purchased the most from you – and who’ve made the most recent purchases. If you’re talking about prospects, your hot list would consist of prospects who’ve demonstrated the most interest and qualified themselves best. For example, people who sign up for an early notification list of a product release are much hotter than others. In contrast to a ‘cold’ prospect the term ‘hot’ signifies how much more likely and ready this prospect is to make a purchase with you. It’s important to remember that prospects don’t stay ‘hot’ forever, so you must capitalize on them being in this state as quickly as possible.

HOUSE FILE: A mailing list containing records of all active customers, expired customers and inquirers.

HUMAN NATURE: Used in our industry to refer to common, predictable patterns of human behavior. When marketers talk about human nature, they’re referring to how understanding people increases your success in selling to them. And it’s true: The more you understand people and how they act, the better you can predict and guide their actions.

INBOUND TELEMARKETING: The process of handling incoming calls from customers or prospects.

INFORMATION MARKETING: The process of selling information-based products. Many of the greatest opportunities for copywriters and entrepreneurs are in creating and selling information products. There’s no relationship between the cost to product them in the price – CDs that cost $2 to produce could be sold for $200 or even $2,000. This provides the opportunity for outrageous profits. Also, there’s an art to selling these kinds of products – one that involves the use of a lot of bullets and fascinations.

INFOMERCIAL: A direct response ad that plays on TV. Usually about 30 minutes long, infomercials are designed to look and feel like a ‘show.’ Throughout the show, information about the product and its benefits are delivered to the viewers. And about every 5-7 minutes, a more condensed sales pitch for the product – whether it’s an ab roller, magic cookware, a miracle chopper or anything else – will presented with a call to action and an 800 number.

While there are some key differences between writing an infomercial and a print or Web promotion, much of what you’re learning in The Total Package still applies. You’re going to need to grab your prospect’s attention … sell him on your benefits … prove those benefits … keep him interested long enough to reach the point where you get him to act on your offer. Just watch some successful infomercials and you’ll quickly recognize many of the techniques you’ve read about in The Total Package.

INQUIRER: A prospect who has requested more information about a product or service.

INSERT: Promotional piece placed in an outgoing package or invoice.

INSTALLMENT BUYER: A person who has ordered goods or services, but pays for them in periodic installments.

INSTALLMENT OFFER: This is the kind of offer where the customer is allowed to make payments rather than pay the full cost of the product in advance. Installment offers mean the prospect has to fork over less money upfront, reducing his risk, and often boost overall response.

INSTITUTIONAL ADVERTISING: This is the kind of advertising you DON’T want to run. It attempts to build up the name or brand image of the company, rather than elicit a response. Institutional advertising is never tested, and therefore is almost always a complete waste of time and money. Many advertising agencies will attempt to convince unsuspecting companies to run these kind of ads, because they’re more “creative.” The good news is that simply reading The Total Package all but guarantees you’ll never be able to use this kind of advertising, ever.

INTEGRATED MARKETING: A combination of two or more forms of marketing used to sell a product or service (e.g. a direct mail campaign combined with a series of television commercials).

JOINT VENTURE: This is where you partner up with another person or company who has access to prospects for your product or service. For example, if you’re selling a joint health supplement and you know of a website that has compiled a large list of people who are interested in joint health, you could joint venture with them. By partnering with them and send a promotion to that list, you’ll take advantage of their relationship with prospects. You’ll make much more money in the process – and they’ll usually get a cut of the sales or profits you make. So they benefit as well.

You can use joint ventures to build up your list and acquire new names,  or you can directly send promotions to someone else’s list and give them a percentage of the sales. There’s quite a bit you can do in this area. If you Google the term “joint ventures,” you’ll come across some very good resources on the subject.

KEY CODE (KEY): Group of letters and/or numbers, colors, or other markings, used to measure the specific effectiveness of media, lists, advertisements, offers, etc.

LANDING PAGE: The is the term Clayton and his clients use for a long copy sales letter on the Internet. You’ll recognize these pages by the headline on top of the page, and then the long scrolling page that ends with the guarantee and order button. Much of the direct marketing that’s done on the Internet is an attempt to drive prospects to a landing page. The landing page (sales letter) is then supposed to convert that prospect into a customer by getting him to buy the product.

LETTERSHOP/MAILHOUSE: Company which performs the mechanical details involved with mailing including addressing, imprinting, collating, inserting materials into envelopes, etc.

LIFETIME VALUE: The total revenue a customer will generate for a company. May be expressed as total gross revenue or total net revenue.

LIFT: A simple term used to designate an increase in response. Sometimes, by making a simple change in your copy, you can get a ‘lift’ of 10%, 20% or more.

LIFT LETTER: Usually a smaller note or letter inserted along with the main sales letter as a way of emphasizing a particular sales point.

LIFT NOTE: The little additional inserts that go inside a direct mail envelope. They’re designed to increase the selling power of a direct mail promotion. Your lift notes can be based on your guarantee, testimonials, a personal message and many other possibilities. The process of writing lift notes is valuable, even if you don’t write direct mail, because it can be easily adapted to the Web for greatly increased success.

LIMITED TIME OFFER: This is an offer made with a strict time deadline. This adds urgency to the offer, and often increases overall response.

LIST: This is one of the most essential aspects in direct marketing. In fact, copywriting legend Gary Bencivenga has demonstrated that the list is the second most crucial part of a direct response promotion, behind the offer. You see, the list is the group of prospects your promotion gets mailed to. In direct mail, list selection is an elaborate and highly scientific process that involves entire departments and list brokers. Targeted lists get mailed the promotion and then response is measured.

On the Internet, lists are gathered using joint ventures, opt-in boxes and squeeze pages. Then that list is marketed to using e-mails and landing pages.

On an advanced level, marketers will ‘segment’ their list, separating prospects according to what they’ve purchased … how recently they’ve purchased … and how much they’ve purchased. This allows you to be much more systematic in your promotions, and often leads to dramatically higher response.

When writing your promotion, studying your list is a big part of knowing your prospect. You must carefully consider the list your copy is going to before getting started.

LIST SELECTS: Processes of segregating smaller groups within a list. Typical list selects might be by sex, geographic selects, or other selects based upon the amount customers have spent, largest purchase, etc.

LONG COPY: The is the term for extended direct response promotions – often going 12, 16, 24 pages or even more. There’s often a debate, especially on the Internet, about whether long copy works better than short copy. In the mail, most tests have shown that long copy outperforms shorter copy. On the Internet, it’s contextual. There are times when long copy works best – especially when the prospect has no knowledge or awareness of the product. But other times, when the prospect is more aware of the product and its benefits – shorter, offer-driven copy works better.

MAIL DATE: The date a mailing is delivered to the post office for processing.

MAIL ORDER BUYER: Someone who orders and pays for a product through the mail.

MAIL PREFERENCE SCHEME (MPS): A service where consumers can request to have their names taken off or added to lists.

MARGIN: The gross profit on sales derived by subtracting the cost of goods sold from gross revenue.

MARKET: The group of target prospects for your product or service. It requires significant research and analysis to fully understand your market, its trends, what’s working best right now, and any other factor that influences it.

MARKETER: We use this term most often to signify someone who works professionally as a consultant or business builder – not merely a copywriter or entrepreneur. A marketer generally doesn’t write copy himself, he works to apply tactics and strategy to a business in order to increase its performance. Still, we’re all marketers in one sense – because it’s impossible to write copy or grow a direct response business without a certain level of marketing understanding.

MARKETING INTUITION: This is the process of being able to instinctively know how a prospect is going to think, feel and respond. While not something you can consciously practice, marketing intuition comes from experience in working with prospects, markets and the principles taught in The Total Package. And the advantage is HUGE: It allows to instinctive recognize winning products and ideas before others … to avoid wasting time on things that aren’t going to work … to be more accurate in all your advertising efforts, because you intuitively know what the prospect wants and needs. Clayton is a perfect example of this in the investment market right now, he’s so in tune with the prospects and so on top of what’s happening on Wall Street each day, that he can instantly recognize whether something will succeed or fail with his prospects.

MASS MARKET: When a product is almost universally appealing to people, or at least is desired by a large percentage of the mainstream population, then marketers will often refer to it as ‘mass market.’ To understand what this looks like, think about the difference between a self-help course that uses hypnosis and brain wave therapy and one created by Anthony Robbins. The one using hypnosis and brain wave therapy is going to appeal to a much smaller group of people who are interested in that – a ‘niche market.’ Whereas the Anthony Robbins product is based on basic motivational stuff – it’s so widely appealing that it can be sold effectively on infomercials.

MATTE FINISH: Dull paper finish without gloss.

MATURE MARKET: This refers to a market with lots of competition, and highly sophisticated prospects. Mature markets are much more difficult to sell products into because the prospects have heard all the claims and have become more distrustful of advertising. With all the competition, it’s much harder to stand out. For example, health and financial markets are so mature and difficult, companies are forced to hire top copywriters in order to defeat the competition. See also the definitions for ‘Maturity’ and ‘Sophistication.’

MATURITY: Designates how evolved a market is. The weight loss market is the perfect example of one that’s highly mature. Over the last century, prospects have been hit with virtually every possible type of promise, and every possible “new discover.” And because of that, the burden of proof and uniqueness is much, MUCH higher than it would be in a less mature market. You must understand the level of maturity or ‘sophistication’ in your market before you can conquer it.

MECHANISM: Also referred to as Mechanism of Action, this is the unique vehicle by which your prospect can achieve your benefits. A new dietary system is a mechanism for delivering the benefit of weight loss. The same goes for an herbal “fat blocker.” Same benefit, but different mechanisms. Revealing the mechanism adds overall believability to your promise, because it gives your prospect a glimpse into exactly how he’s going to achieve the benefit. Mechanisms are especially needed in competitive markets, because it’s what allows you to stand out and appear unique to your prospects. Looking back to the example of weight loss, new diets and weight loss products can succeed if they promise a strong and exciting enough new mechanism.

MERGE-PURGE: See “De-Dupe.”

MOMENTUM: The amount of power and intensity found in your body copy. Copy that reads quickly and easily … copy that’s harder to put down than to just keep reading … this is copy with momentum. The advantages of writing body copy with high levels of momentum are that your readership increases, more of your prospects make it to your order form … and you sell more product as a result.

NEGATIVE OPTION: A buying plan in which a club member or customer agrees to accept and pay for products or services announced in advance at regular intervals. The customers can stop the company shipping the products only if they notify them, within a reasonable time after announcement, not to ship the merchandise.

NESTING: Placing one enclosure within another before inserting them into a mailing envelope.

NET NAME ARRANGEMENT: An agreement where the list owner agrees to accept adjusted payment for less than the total names shipped to the list user (e.g. pay for total names mailed after duplicates are eliminated).

NET SALES: This is a little different than profits. ‘Net sales’ usually refers to the total revenue generated by sales of a product, minus fulfillment and marketing costs. That means that if you’re selling a course on the Internet for $500 … you sell 500 in a month … production and fulfillment costs you $25,000 … PPC advertising costs you $50,000 … your net sales number for the month is revenue ($500 x 500 = $250,000) minus costs ($75,000). That means net sales for the month is $175,000. As a copywriter working under a typical Internet royalty arrangement, you would have made about 10% of that, which is $17,500.

NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISITION: Promotions designed to attract new customers.

NEWSLETTERS: Often used as vehicle for customer acquisition, this is a publication direct response companies put out in order to build relationships with their products … and then sell them further products down the line. Many print newsletters delivered in the mail also come with other offers from the company. Take Alternatives newsletter written by Dr. Dave Williams. It often comes in an envelope filled with other offers for natural products and supplements – items the reader of the newsletter is qualified and likely to buy.

NICHE MARKET: The opposite of mass market. A niche market is a narrowly defined, specialized subject of interest that you can sell products into. The term ‘niche marketing’ has become something of a cliché in recent years, but the overall concept is solid: Pick a well-defined group of prospects … understand them on a deep level … create products specifically tailored to their most urgent desires … and then sell to them, outmarketing your competition. Many of the opportunities you’ll have as a copywriter will be to write for markets like this.

NIXIE: Undeliverable names on a mailing list.

NTH NAME: Method of selecting names from a larger file to create a smaller but geographically similar file. If a large file has 100,000 names and a mailer wants to test only 20,000 of them, the list would be sorted by zip code and every fifth name would be selected for testing.

OFFER: All of the factors included in the proposition being made to a prospect or customer – including price, quantity, length of subscription or membership, discounts, free gifts, guarantees, etc.

OPT-IN: This is the act of a prospect choosing to get on your e-mail list. It’s an essential step in direct response marketing on the Web, because it allows you to build a qualified list … legally. Sending out e-mails to prospects who have not officially opted in to your list and given you permission to contact them is called spam, and is against the law.

OUTBOUND TELEMARKETING: Calls that are placed by a marketer, as opposed to inbound telemarketing where the customer calls in first.