It's a lot of fun to use, but it's often over-looked.

Want to know what it is?

O.K., I'll tell you. It's...

Sweepstakes!

And here's how you can start using sweepstakes as a lead generation tool, to build your list of prospects:

Let's say you own a retail furniture store. Here's what you do:

You run a display ad (or even better yet, you use several press releases) that says you're going to be giving away a brand new set of living-room furniture valued at $10,000 Dollars, delivered to person who comes into your store... registers for contest... and comes closest to guessing how many square feet your entire furniture showroom display area is.

The person who guesses closest, gets furniture delivered straight to front door of their home.

You should film that entire delivery, by way, and have that video clip playing on a television monitor over-and-over again at front of your store, to build enthusiasm up for your next sweepstakes.

Also, if you're really clever... team up with a local interior decorator and tell people you'll be giving away a professionally designed custom layout as well, courtesy of this interior decorator.

Let your sweepstakes entrants know, charge for interior designer alone is worth "X" dollars.

Or, you could even team up with one of your furniture suppliers, and instead of having a "Guess how many square feet our showroom is" contest, you can have a "Tell me how many king size [insert your furniture supplier's name here] beds we have in our showroom" contest.

See which of your suppliers would be willing to share cost of your contest with you, or maybe they'd spring for whole shebang.

Anyway, you call your lead-generating contest:

"The $10,000 Dollar Sweepstakes!"

Then, you promote living daylights out of it!

You do a direct mail piece promoting it (postcards may even work in this case)... use your local val-paks... run display ads... have banners announcing your sweepstakes all over your store... and you give every single interior decorator and moving company you know, brochures about it, to hand out to their clients.

This does 3 things for you:

First, it gets people interested in you.

Second, it forces people to come into your store to sign up and register to win sweepstakes. You automatically get foot-traffic, and names and addresses of qualified leads, you wouldn't have had without sweepstakes.

And third, since your prospects have to guess how large your showroom is, it forces them to walk around your entire store in order to make any kind of accurate "square footage" guess, right? And do you have any idea what each-and-every one of these qualified leads will be doing when they're browsing up and down each of your lovely furniture showroom aisles?

They'll be checking out all your furniture!

Mom's will be thinking "Oh, this would look so nice in baby's room."

And seniors will be saying "Wow, that would look great outside on our patio."

And crooked CEO's like Ken Lay from Enron will be licking their chops, saying "Hey, I can use a bunch of my shareholder's money to buy all those brand new top-of-the-line Herman Miller chairs, for all guys back at office!"

Whatever.

The point is, people aren't just going to come in, see your "$10,000 Dollar Sweepstakes" sign-up booth at front desk, fill out form, toss their entry into box, and then leave.

Now at first blush, you might think giving away $10,000 Dollars worth of furniture is a lot to give away for FREE.

But au contraire... let's look at numbers here. Remember, before you ever make any kinds of marketing decisions, you must look at your numbers.

Because...

You are in numbers business first, NOT... marketing business!

So... here are some numbers:

True?

You probably subscribe to a handful of newsletters like mine... you've read a few of classic copywriting books by Claude Hopkins... John Caples... or Victor Schwab, and... you may have even read some "modern-day" books by guys like Dan Kennedy... Gary Halbert... and Joe Sugarman.

And this is good -- you're definitely going down right track here.

Keep doing this, because knowledge applied in right direction, really is powerful.

And in case you missed it...

The key word here, is... "applied"!

Anyway, what I want you to do right now, is to...

Completely Stop Reading These Books!

At least for a while anyway.

You see, you may not know it, but you could learn just as much -- if not more -- about writing effective sales copy, by reading fun stuff too, like fiction.

No, I'm not kidding, and let's face it, you also get a lot more involved and emotionally attached to characters in a good novel, then in a good "How To" book, any day.

Right?

See, I just finished up a few AWESOME novels, and I'd like to show you what to look for when you're reading a good novel, and how to use this information to easily learn how to improve your sales copy.

Ready?

O.K. then.

The first book I want to tell you about is called "Motherless Brooklyn", by an author named Jonathan Lethem, who's actually from Brooklyn.

If you like a good old-fashioned murder / mystery / adventure and suspense book, only one that takes place in modern times, then grab yourself a copy of this book -- you won't be sorry.

It's like a spy thriller, only there's no spies in this one -- just petty thugs and slick Brooklyn street hustlers.

Anyway, here's why I loved this book: Check out how well this guy writes, from page 155:

“The four of them wore identical blue suits with black piping on legs, and identical black sunglasses. They looked like a band that plays at weddings. Four white guys, assortedly chunky, pitched in face, with pimples, and indistinct. Their car was a rental. Chunky sat in backseat waiting and when two who'd picked me up crushed me into back beside him, he immediately put his arm around my neck in a sort of brotherly choke hold. The two who'd picked me off street -- Pimples and Indistinct -- jammed in beside me, to make four of us on backseat. It was a bit crowded.”

WOW!

I mean, how much cooler do you get than that?

Notice how Lethem's writing:

Short, stacco sentences! Lethem's writing exactly same way he'd be talking, if he was telling you this story in a conversation, instead of writing it.

Descriptive as all get out! He tells you what guys looked like... he gives you a visual and psychological anchor, by telling you they also resembled a band that plays at weddings... and... he also gives you an overview of their physical characteristics.

And thing is, physical attributes he's describing, are vivid and stereotypical enough, that you can start picturing other visual, physical, and personality characteristics typically associated with people who share these same "trademarks".

This guy's simply brilliant!

He’s specific! They're not just "blue suits", they're "identical blue suits with black piping on legs, and identical black sunglasses".

Being specific makes entire scenario much more believable and life-like. (Just same way it does when you're writing your sales copy.)

Do you see what my point is, about all this?

If you don't, then you're really missing out on a very valuable lesson here.

See, each of these techniques Lethem's using in his fiction writing, are same techniques you should be using in your sales copy.

They get your prospects more involved with message you're trying to deliver. And, if your prospects are actually taking time out of their lives to devote some mental "shelf-space" to you and your message... it brings them closer to you, and... closer to...

Buying From You!

Another book I just finished reading, is "Holes" by Louis Sachar.