Dana Bristol-Smith asked me to write her promotion for her upcoming one-day speaking workshop. Her title "Presentation Skills Essentials" drew a BLAH from me. I renamed it "How to Give Powerful Presentations in Eight Hours." She loved it.

I reinvented her marketing copy, wrote some short e-mail messages, and gave her a couple of strategic scenarios to think about. And within two weeks of sending it to her e-mail list, she sold out and have plans for a second event.

Christine Macdonald asked me to critique a letter she sent out to a list of 1400 business opportunity seekers through e-mail. It was a form letter she customized to intrigue prospects to go to a website that contains a video presentation of the opportunity. Problem was: she got zero replies.

The letter was designed to reach warm market prospects. Her prospects were from a cold market list. So I wrote a shorter, tighter letter that told very little about the opportunity. Instead I focused on introducing Christine and how the opportunity gave her more freedom from the money-for-time trap. Its purpose was to intrigue prospects to respond to her.

And they did...

More than 65 people responded. And they got an e-mail reply that sent them to the website link. Now she has qualified leads to work with.

Ted Pett, Jr. filed a complaint against Chase Manhattan Bank. He wanted to reach the public with special reports warning consumers about the games creditors play. In this study, I critiqued the copy for one of his reports. (My comments are in blue.)

As with some newbie writers, Ted is a "just-the-facts, ma'am" writer. This might have worked in 1976, but it won't work in 2006. Today you've got to engage your readers or risk losing them forever. And in this case, people would have demanded refunds.

In the next study, I take a well-written letter and add one of the most compelling elements in any response-driven marketing: Emotion. Although it was for a bunch of sheet metal, nuts, and bolts—emotion can magically make an inanimate object come to life.

A baseball can become a rare collector's memorabilia. A cubic zirconia necklace can become a family heirloom. An escape ladder could mean the difference between life or death. Click here to see the before and after from that study.

Larry and Barbara opened a general auto-repair shop. Through a mutual friend, I suggested they market to their community specializing in one or two areas such as brakes, exhaust and/or oil changes. I put myself in the customers shoes and asked why I would bring my car into a new, unknown shop.

That fell on deaf ears. Six months later, they're not doing very well and face closing their doors.