Master copywriter John Carlton is holding a workshop this coming May 2-4.  What’s interesting is the way he and his business partner Stan Dahl have chosen to market the event.  They’ve decided to auction off the 20 available places on eBay.

They are using a “Dutch Auction” process.  How this works is that if you want to attend, you submit a bid along with everyone else who is interested. When the auction closes, the 20 people who submitted the highest bids get a place.  The price for each place is then determined as the price bid by the lowest bid in the top 20.  So, everyone who attends get to pay the same price. 

Now, I have to give credit to John Carlton, he has been testing out a lot of new ideas and approaches lately and taking risks (for example, the “open survey” he did to ask why more people hadn’t joined his coaching club).  I have to wonder a little about the wisdom of this latest idea.

Clearly, the hope is that there’s going to be a frenzy of interest and people are going to end up bidding and paying a higher price than they would otherwise.  But for this to happen, it seems to me you need two preconditions…

1. Firstly, you need a big crowd, more than the 20 available places, who are serious about bidding.
2. Secondly, what you’re offering needs to be something that the crowd desperately wants.  The proverbial “Greed Glands” need to be fully activated.

Now, I’m sure John Carlton has a huge crowd that follows him and is potentially interested in attending a workshop.

However, from what I’ve seen so far, condition #2 isn’t in place.

The workshop is called “John Carlton’s 17 Point Copywriting Checklist Workshop”.  The big promise is that John has finally figured out his exact process for writing killer copy and that with this 17 point checklist you have the “keys to the vault” to produce winning promotions and make tons of money.  From the headline, seems to be aimed at marketers and business owners, rather than specialist copywriters.

Excuse me if I find that a less than compelling proposition.  Sure, any workshop or event with John Carlton is going to be well worth attending.

However, in the situation we’re looking at, the bidders need to be hungry and rapid!  This event seems to be just another workshop.

Contrast this with the situation when Frank Kern used the auction approach to market a very exclusive event by Neil Strauss, legendary “pickup artist” and author of the bestselling book “The Game”.  In this case, Neil had never held a workshop like this before and attendance was very limited.  Plus, the market is one that is truly “rapid” for the product.  The auction was, unsurprisingly, a huge success.

But Frank Kern is an absolute master of creating rabid (I’m using that word a lot today!) desire for a product.  In the case of John Carlton’s workshop, that step seems to have been glossed over.

It’s all very well me pontificating, but what’s actually happening?  If you head on over to the eBay page “John Carlton’s 17 Points Of Copywriting Workshop” you can follow the action.

As at the time of writing this post, the clearing price is US$1,125 and there is 16 hours 44 minutes to go before the auction closes.

Now, of course, a lot of the action is going to happen in the run up to the close.  And I’m no expert on auctions.  But, I have to say that at this point it doesn’t look like this idea is proving to be a runaway success.

We”ll have to see what happens at the close.  But, to me, if the clearing price isn’t well over US$5,000 then I’d suggest that’s a disappointing result (check out the copy for the workshop…there’s a clear indication that the minimum price should be US$5,000).

Couple of observations…

1. As mentioned, I think there hasn’t been enough effort put into making the event a “must attend”.  The title sucks, in my opinion, as well.
2. The process seems to have confused people.  Stan Dahl has put up a video to explain how the auction works plus there’s now a “Frequently Asked Questions” page (an essential part of any promotion like this).
3. Everyone seems to have got caught up in the novelty of the auction process, rather than selling the event! Emails I’ve received from people like Rich Schefren focus on this angle.  This is a big mistake, in my opinion.  It’s falling into the trap many mainstream copywriters make with cute, funny or curiosity-based headlines…that fail to contain a relevant benefit!  On it’s own, novelty is not going to sell.

OK, that’s my 2 cents!  In less than 24 hours we’ll know the result and “Mr Sceptic” here may well be left with egg on my face! I’m working without a net here, folks! 

Goes without saying, of course, that I am a huge admirer of John Carlton’s work.  I have most of his materials including the “Freelance Copywriters Course” and the swipe files are one of the most valuable parts of my library.  Plus, I take my hat off to John and Stan for testing  different approach.

Tune in tomorrow to see what happens!