In Dan Kennedy’s No BS Newsletter, his partner Bill Glazer hosted a “Find the Fatal Flaw” contest where entrants needed to correctly identify the fatal flaw in a magazine ad. Of the thousands of subscribers, I was one of the few who won.

What was the fatal flaw? The magazine ad tried to sell readers on receiving a CD and attending a seminar. This is a common marketing mistake.

Instead, the ad should have focused on only one thing. In this instance, it should have pitched the CD to the reader. Once the reader committed to receiving the CD, it could have been shipped (with a sales letter) to pitch attending the seminar.

In other words, when you’re writing copy, focus on the single action you’re trying to get the reader to do. Calling for the reader to take two or more actions in the same sales copy is fatal.

About the Author

With an advanced international law degree from Georgetown University and more than 14 years of real world legal experience, Attorney Mike Young shows entrepreneurs how to protect and grow their businesses online. He's the author of "Internet Marketing Legal Secrets Revealed," "How to Create Your Own Internet Business Without a Lawyer for Under $175," and the creator of Website Legal Forms Generator^TM. Not just a lawyer who focuses exclusively on Internet and marketing law, Mike’s been working with computers for more than 27 years (his first computer was an Atari 400 with 8 KiB RAM) and started representing Internet businesses back in 1996.