A few weeks back Frank Kern was causing a bit of a storm with his marketing for his “Mass Control” program.  One of the tips he shared was what he referred to as John Carlton’s 3-step copywriting formula.  To recap, it’s…

1. Here’s what I’ve got.

2. Here’s what it will do for you.

3. Here’s what I want you to do next.

(Let’s leave aside for the moment the fact that John Carlton himself talks about 4 steps.)

With this fresh in my mind, I came across a wonderful example of a concise, tighly written lead generation ad on Lawrence Bernstein’s “Info Marketing Blog” (a real treasure trove of direct response marketing information).

It’s from legendary copywriter Bruce Barton and it’s in the post titled “Bruce Barton: The Advertising Copywriter”. It’s a letter promoting The Alexander Hamilton Institute, which was a highly regarded executive development organization.

What struck me about the letter was it’s simplicity and elegance.  The headline was “To Men Who Want To Work Less And Earn More” and from that opening thought the letter just flows so smoothly.

To illustrate what I mean, here are the subheads…”How To Work Less”…”How To Earn More”…”Here’s Proof The Institute’s Training Pays Financially”…”Send For The Facts”.

You could use this letter as a template for almost any lead generation project.

Well worth your time to read the whole post.

P.S. Just got Ben Settle’s “The Copywriting Grab Bag” today.  Once I’ve had a chance to go through it, I’ll let you know what I think.