Today we’re going to talk about an emotion that gets short shrift in copywriting, but I believe is the most powerful of all when it comes to motivating people. That emotion is: Envy. It’s controversial, because there are so many prohibitions against it. We’ll talk about those today. But it’s also widespread, from solopreneurs to marketing from the largest corporations in the world. Some observers have suggested, for example, that Apple is expert in making its products objects of aspirational desire by creating envy, subtly, in its ads. We have a lot more examples of envy in marketing, some of them very concrete, in today’s show. To find out more about coaching: https://garfinkelcoaching.comDownload.

How do you put together a seven, eight or even nine-figure promotion? (Just in case you weren’t sure, “nine figures” means north of 100 million dollars. And yes, you’re about to meet someone who has written a promotion that took in more than $100 million.) But in fact, there are precious few copywriters who have done all this and will tell you how. However, our special guest today is one of the few who can, and will—and he’s Henry Bingaman. All told, Henry’s copy has generated well over $300 million. He’s written blockbusters for Newsmax, Natural Health Sherpa, and Money Map Press, as well as other top publishers. And just as important to me, Henry is both trusted and feared by those at the top. I can’t think of a better way to demonstrate trust than by what top copywriter Marcella Allison said: “I practically have Henry Bingaman on ‘speed dial’. Seriously. Whenever I’m faced with a difficult choice, or major business or career decision, he’s the first person I reach out to!” And as for fear, it’s the right kind. The legendary late Clayton Makepeace said, “Henry is on the short list of copywriters I would never dream of going up against. He really is that good.” So now you know a little about Henry. But what you’re going to hear about on today’s show is Henry’s awesome Seven Stories method for writing powerful, long-lasting, chart-topping sales letters and VSLs. Free bonus from Henry: “8 Questions To Discover Your Big Idea” https://www.henrybing.co/idea/ Download.

You can have the greatest product, the greatest headline, the greatest targeting, the greatest offer, and the greatest price. But you know what’s going to torpedo your entire promotion in a New York minute? It’s: if your prospect doesn’t believe you. We covered one aspect of believability last week, but we have some fresh tips today. Because believability is the pass/fail test every ad must pass in order to work. Period. But that’s not the end of the story. In today’s Old Masters Series episode, we draw on the considerable wisdom of the great John Caples, and a new book I just found out about. Unlike the classic Caples work Tested Advertising Methods, this book is readily available on Amazon for the low, low price of $8.86. And the Kindle is even less. It’s called Making Ads Pay, and it’s worth far more than the asking price. In this book Caples has a whole chapter on making ads believable. We’re going to talk more about that today. Making Ads Pay, by John Caples: https://www.amazon.com/dp/048648601X Download.

You can have the greatest product, the greatest headline, the greatest targeting, the greatest offer, and the greatest price. But you know what’s going to torpedo your entire promotion in a New York minute? It’s: if your prospect doesn’t believe you. Believability is the pass/fail test every ad must pass in order to work. Period. But that’s not the end of the story. In today’s Old Masters Series episode, we draw on the considerable wisdom of the great John Caples, and a new book recommended on twitter/x by a current copywriting master and friend of the show, Doug D’Anna. Unlike the classic Caples work Tested Advertising Methods, this book is readily available on Amazon for the low, low price of $8.86. And the Kindle is even less. It’s called Making Ads Pay, and it’s worth far more than the asking price. In this book Caples has a whole chapter on making ads believable. We’re going to talk about that today. Making Ads Pay, by John Caples: https://www.amazon.com/dp/048648601X Download.

What do the world’s most experienced, successful copywriters really think? What if I could get them all together in one room and ask them to share their best ideas and techniques on specific copywriting topics they know most about? If you’ve ever wondered those things, you’re not alone. Our special guest today, Jack Turk, wondered the same thing. And next week, he’s going to give you an answer, at no cost to you, to hear what some of the world’s top copywriters have to say. Including David Deutsch, Dave Dee, and another David, I can’t remember his name right now. Plus many more! Jack’s going to tell us all about it midway through the show. You should know he has decades of experience writing for the big guys, like Microsoft and Kodak. Plus many smaller businesses including dentists, attorneys, even magicians. As the voice of Dan Kennedy at GKIC and of many other high-profile thought leaders, Jack’s sales copy has generated millions upon millions of dollars. Plus, he’s now known as the world’s FASTEST Copywriter. You can sign up for free access to the Copywriting Summit here: https://go.360summits.com/t?orid=579093&opid=150 Download.

When you’ve got to make a pitch to a prospect, whether in person or in writing, you face a weird paradox: The more successful the prospect, the less time they have for you. Cramming a ton of benefits into a short pitch tends to work against you. Who can process all that data in such a short period of time. Lucky for you, there’s another way. It’s called “stacking microstories.” Today I’ll show you how to put together a complete pitch that takes less than five minutes to deliver. You can use this for any product or service. You could put it in an email or on a sales page. And you could deliver it in spoken form to a prospect. I’ll give an actual demo of a microstory stack that takes far less than 5 minutes, so you can see for yourself how this works. Get The Persuasion Story Code here: ‪ https://www.amazon.com/Persuasion-Story-Code-Conversational-Storytelling/dp/B0CFCVDZ7T Download.

If you’re thinking hiring a copywriter OR you’re considering getting a coach, you might be wondering: What can a copywriter do for me that a coach can’t? And vice-versa: What can a coach do for me that a copywriter can’t? Coaching and copywriting are two professions that have grown impressively over the last 20 years. The Internet and a fast-changing world have a lot to do with it. But a lot of people are unclear on what they do and what kind of results they provide. Because while both copywriters and coaches are in the business of helping people get what they want, the ways they go about it are as different as night and day. Today our special guest is Sean McCool. He’s been writing hard-hitting, high-earning sales letters for large publishers like Agora and Stansberry Research for 15 years, plus he’s worked for a lot of smaller direct-response oriented businesses, too. The important thing to know up front is Sean is also a life coach with clients including actresses, children’s book writers, entrepreneurs and even a member of the World Martial Arts Hall of Fame. So, like me, Sean is a coach as well as a copywriter. I thought it would be fun to talk about the similarities and the differences. One thing it will do for you as a viewer or listener is put into sharp relief what copy can and cannot do for you… and whether you should be on the lookout for a coach yourself. Sean’s website is: https://seanmccool.com And you can find his podcast here: https://persuasionbythepint.com/ Download.

When you start a launch, do ripples of fear tie your stomach up in knots, because you feel like you’re starting from zero and you feel you’ve got way too far to go, and not enough time to get there? It’s a common problem, and one today’s guest set out to solve. Brenna McGowan is a launch strategist, copywriter and the creator of what she calls “Anticipation Marketing.” She’s developed a system so the water is warm even before you jump in to start your launch. She has a complete pre-launch strategy that comes before the launch, and her clients have tripled and even quadrupled sales as a result of using the pre-launch approach Brenna recommends. I was introduced to Brenna by Joshua Lee Henry, who you’ll remember from many shows he’s been on here. Joshua Lee told me that Brenna read my book The Persuasion Story Code and told Joshua Lee that many of story types mentioned in the book were central to her pre-launch strategy, which she’s going to tell us about today. To get Brenna’s pre-launch cheat sheet, go here: https://brennamcgowan.co/cheatsheet/ Download.

When you sit down to write an email, you are presented with a barrage of questions and problems. Not only how to get it opened, but how to get click-throughs. An even bigger problem which most people don’t deal with is, how does your subject line affect the number of sales you ultimately make? Our guest today, returning champion Donnie Bryant, has spent a lot of time thinking about these questions—and a lot of time rigorously testing different approaches to come up with some definitive answers. Donnie has written a great new book, “Subject Line Science,” which we’ll talk about today. To refresh your memory, since it’s been three years since Donnie was on the show, Donnie has generated over $130 million for his clients, which include Agora Financial, Dan Kennedy's GKIC and Early to Rise. He's shared the stage with copy legends like Parris Lampropoulos, Clayton Makepeace and the other David, David Deutsch. Today Donnie is going to zero-in on his current focus, which is email subject lines. I’ve read his book and you should too—I’ve learned a lot. But even before you see his book, you’re going to learn plenty on the show today. Get Donnie’s book here: https://subjectlinescience.com/ Download.

What do you do when copy is coming in fits and starts… or, worse than that, you are staring at a blank page, which is staring back at you? Our returning champion today, Dr. Doug Pew, has some answers for you. What he has to say is information and specific steps you’ve probably heard nowhere else before. And Doug should know. He’s written music performed at Carnegie Hall and an opera that was featured at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. He’s also written a lot of other sophisticated music. And plenty of six- and seven-figure copy, too. Doug has developed a can’t miss method for getting out of “stall” and into flow. I’m really grateful and amazed that he’s agreed to share it with us today. You can contact Doug by email: doug@dougpewcopywriting.com Download.

When you’re writing a long-form sales letter, you’ve got to cover a lot of info, and some of it is quite detailed. The problem is, how do you keep your reader engaged and keep the excitement building all the way through? And suppose you know you need to use stories but you are so tired of worn-out hero’s journey stories? Our returning champion today, Joshua Lee Henry, recently solved those problems and wrote a home-run promo featuring a very exciting expert, a veteran of high-level military intelligence. He ended up using a number of persuasion stories and he’s agreed to come on the show today. To tell us what he did, why he did it, and how he did it. RESOURCE: My book, The Persuasion Story Code https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFD2KXNQ Download.

Have you ever written a really good sales page or video sales letter script, and you’re sure you’ve done everything right, but it’s still not converting the way you know it should? Sometimes it all boils down to that final push. More than a call to action, the final push is a collection of simple but crucial elements to help your prospect get across the finish line. These tips were discovered from rigorous testing and study by an old Master, Clyde Bedell. We’re going to share some of his best ones on today’s show. So, we’ve done a couple of different Old Masters series episodes before on Clyde Bedell. To refresh your memory, besides being a highly successful advertiser, he was a prominent teacher. For example, he built a national sales training program for Ford Motor Company in the 1930s. When he was teaching copywriting at Northwestern University, he couldn’t find a suitable textbook, so he wrote one. That turned into “How To Write Advertising That Sells.” It was first published in 1940—13 years before I was born. The book is 8-1/2 by 11 and a massive 539 pages. It’s pretty hard to find a copy these days, but I found one copy on Amazon for $736. Lucky for me, I got my copy years ago when it was easier to get and not quite as expensive. Today we look at Chapter 8, which he simply called “Try For Action.” It’s chock-full of tips on how to get your prospect across the finish line to click the buy button. Download.

Have you ever been working for a client on a project where you know exactly what hook and offer will convert in the market, but your client has a different opinion and is strongly opposed to what you want to do? By the same token, have you ever had a client urging you to promote their product a certain way, when you have strong evidence or knowledge that it’s not what the market wants? Every experienced copywriter has faced one of these problems, or both of them at the same time. It’s very frustrating when you can’t do the job you were hired to do, if that job is to get sales for your client. Today we’ll break this down and look at how to get past these problems and to a solution that works for everyone. Download.

If you’re haunted by low open rates, dismal click-through rates, miserable engagement and pathetic conversions, there’s almost certainly something you’re not doing enough of—or maybe not doing at all—that could increase your numbers dramatically at every turn. And that’s writing in a much more visual way. Picture copywriting, we call it. Which is not as hard to do as you might think it is. The best visual storytellers in the world are comic book artists and filmmakers, and today we’re going to take a few of their most powerful techniques and show you how to easily include them in everything you write to get better results all-around. RESOURCES: Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-McCloud/dp/006097625X Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, by Sean Howe https://www.amazon.com/Marvel-Comics-Untold-Sean-Howe/dp/0061992119 Download.

The confused mind buys nothing. So if you are confusing the reader, they’re not going to buy. How does this play out? When you are selling a course, a technology, or a health supplement, you often run into a familiar brick wall: This thing is so complicated. I know it works, but how do I explain it so the average consumer can quickly grasp it? Today we kick around some little-known (yet completely common-sense) techniques to go from “incompressible” to “I want it!” Resource: My new book, The Persuasion Story Code https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFD2KXNQ Download.

Whenever you’re about to roll out a huge campaign on Facebook or Youtube, you’re facing a huge risk. How do you know your ad is optimized in the four most important ways to get you the biggest bang for your buck? For most people, it’s a roll of the dice. Or time to call in an expert in statistics. Because optimizing is so complicated that most people don’t know how to do it—or get it right without taking weeks and weeks and spending hundreds of dollars in ad spend, just to test and get it right. The four things you need to optimize are 1) your hook, 2) your headline, 3) your pain point, and 4) your call to action. Lucky for you, Nathan has gone through weeks of testing and tweaking to come up with a method to do it fast, do it cheap, and do it right. What do I mean by that? What Nathan figured out allows him to figure out what’s going to work in his main copy before he writes a word, for about $8-$15 a day. In three or four days. He calls it Sprint Testing, and he’s going to lay it all out for you today. Reach out to Nathan: https://advertisingalchemist.com Download.

We’ve talked about the path of mastery in copywriting before, and a key part of moving ahead in your skills as a copywriter is regular practice. But how do you practice your skills if you don’t already have lots of work to keep you busy? Today’s guest, Wendy Ann Jones, confronted that important question herself when she first started writing copy. She couldn’t find a good answer in anything available, so, created the solution herself. It’s a terrific book called The Copywriter’s Workout and Wendy really thought through what copywriters need to work on. Using this book you can even create a portfolio to show off your practice work to prospects, so they can at least get an idea of what your writing’s like. But most important to me is that this book can serve as a lifetime desktop companion for a copywriter who wants to stay in shape. Wendy has agreed to join us today and tell us all about it. On the show, Wendy explains what went into creating the book, and how other copywriters have used it to their advantage. Wendy’s website: https://www.wendyannjones.com/ The Copywriter’s Workout (book): https://www.amazon.com/Copywriters-Workout-Copywriting-Kick-Ass-Portfolio/dp/195955591X Download.

What does testing your online ads at a nine-figure level look like, and how do you think about it? Our special guest today, Walter Burch, is CEO of Envoy Media Group, a performance-based marketing company. Envoy has spent many, many millions of dollars of its own money on Facebook, Google and YouTube ads over the last 18 years. His company has generated more than $1 billion in sales for national clients, using their own money and developing their own methods through imagination, testing, refining. Walter has some unusual ideas about copy and how to partner with the company you’re promoting, that he’ll share with us today. Needless to say, these are gargantuanly SUCCESSFUL ideas, so you may want to take notes! Download.

It’s a common mistake copywriters make, but it’s one you MUST not make, because it can be fatal. And that’s: writing copy that’s boring. Sometimes copywriters make the mistake of trying to put something funny in the copy that draws attention away from what you’re trying to sell. You definitely want to keep the tension going while you focus on the problem you’re promising to solve. But there are ways to do it that don’t detract from the sales appeal of the offer itself, and that’s what we talk about today.Download.

Online education is growing faster than you can keep up with. That’s great news if you’re riding the boom wave yourself. The problem, though, is that as the space gets more saturated, course creators need ways to stand out. How do you become known as the go-to expert in your niche? Our returning champion today, Doug Pew, has some answers for you. Besides writing blockbuster copy for course creators, Doug also coaches people to put together powerful courses and ramp up their sales growth. Doug believes that a course business should be built more like a religion instead of a school or academy, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today. Because that is how he has helped his clients develop six and seven-figure businesses from their courses. Contact Doug: https://dougpewcopy.comDownload.

How do you keep your prospect’s attention and even create unexpected moments of fascination throughout your copy? One of the greatest sure-fire solutions, that is, paradoxically, one of the least-well-known, is microstories. These little gems have all the power of stories with none of the heavy-lifting requirements of a hero’s journey story. You can easily sprinkle microstories throughout your copy, replacing interesting parts of your pitch with little gems that are truly intriguing. Not only that, but these microstories can make up complete posts on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. And there’s a real good chance that they’ll be more interesting than if you presented the same information without putting it into a story. Today we find out what microstories are, how easy they are to create, and how to use them to maximum advantage. Action Steps: 1. You can use stories anywhere in your copy. Most of them don’t need to be hero’s journey stories, but you can always fit in a microstory to get more traction with your prospect’s attention. 2. On TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms, try microstories to get greater attention and engagement from your viewers. 3. Use microstories to make your proof elements more interesting, and increase their convincing power. 4. Get The Persuasion Story Code to learn how to do microstories. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFD2KXNQ Then, start using microstories a lot more than you’re already doing! Download.

Sometimes when you’re doing a funnel or you only have a limited space or number of characters to start your sales process, you have no choice but to use short copy. We all run into that situation, even if we prefer long-form copy. But then we run into a brick wall–the time and difficulty of actually writing short copy that works. Why does it take longer to write a good Google ad for a powerful 280-character Twitter/X post than it takes to write a couple pages of copy? It’s maddening when it takes LONGER to write only a few words than it takes to write an entire short sales page—and it hardly makes any sense either! Today we look at why shorter takes longer and some ways you can come to peace with this infuriating contradiction—and save some time in the process.Download.

When you sit down to write your copy, do you shake in fear because of the terror of the blank page? Or, maybe you’re not terrified, but you’re frustrated because you don’t know where to start? Today we talk about a game-changing method developed by one of our industry’s great Old Masters, Eugene Schwartz. He delivered a powerful secret in an obscure talk he gave in the early 1990s to Rodale Press. You won’t find this secret in either of his landmark books, Breakthrough Advertising or the Brilliance Breakthrough. The secret is explained in these words from his talk: “You do not write copy. You assemble it. You ware working with a series of building blocks and putting the building blocks together, putting them in certain structures. You’re building a little city of desire for your person to come and live in. You are assembling claims that are simply images that people will pay for.” The key idea here is assembling, not writing. And that’s a very important insight. Which we’ll really get into today. Resources: Copywriters Podcast notification list: https://www.garfinkelcoaching.com/podcast/ My new book, The Persuasion Story Code: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFD2KXNQ Download.

If you’d like to know what goes on behind the scenes in the world of financial copywriting, our guest today has the inside story. Aaron Gentzler is the CMO of Mauldin Economics, a major financial publisher based in Northern Florida. He’s been in the business since 2006 and tells us about his own journey, as well as some of the experiences he’s had training and advocating for younger copywriters. Just as important, he’ll let you know what he has seen that spells bad news for people trying to get their foot in the door in the first place. Plus, he shares in-the-trenches insights about what works and what doesn’t work with stories in copywriting. Contact Aaron at aaron@mauldineconomics.com Download.

Too many copywriters shoot themselves in the foot by not giving enough attention and energy to bullet points. Why? Because they don’t realize how valuable bullets are to increasing sales. In fact, many prospects would have stayed on the fence if not for a single bullet point that really zero’s in on what they were looking for in the first place. We’re going to give you a quick but thorough walk-through on how to get the most out of bullet points in your copy. Download.

The one part of your copy that kills more sales than anything else is your call to action. But this same part of your copy can boost your sales immeasurably if you do it right. The problem is, most copywriters are so obsessed with their headline and opening story that they don’t put enough juice into the call to action. They simply ignore it, when it is the most powerful and important last step before you make the sale. It’s understandable that people focus so much on the headline, when you hear things like “80% of your persuasion power is in your headline.” The thing is, there’s still that other 20%. And a big part of that 20% is a strong, compelling call to action. We give you some steps today to get you to 100% on your call to action. Download.

Three things that can make a massive difference in the response you get to your copy are your headline, your hook, and your mechanism—if you have one. (Not every promotion has a mechanism.) When you get down to brass tacks, the big question for any one of these three things is: How do I come up with a new one? Because you know, as a copywriter, that a killer headline or a breakthrough mechanism can turn your promo from average or good to awesome and even spectacular. If there were a magic pill you could take that would allow you to generate great headlines, hooks and mechanisms on demand, and there were no toxic side-effects, you’d take it, right? Well, our expert author today has identified that magic pill. Not only that, but he can tell you how to get it for yourself. Now this could have been an Old Masters Series, but the author is 89 years old and it looks like he’s still alive. Usually Old Masters Series shows feature authors that are no longer with us. Today’s author is named John Adair. He’s written more than 50 books, and he has a particularly good one on real-world, practical creativity for business. Inside this book is the magic pill I was telling you about. The book is called “The Art of Creative Thinking” and it’s one of six different books on Amazon with the same title. Fortunately it’s still in print and we’ll put a link to the correct one in the show notes. I’ve read a lot of books on creativity, and this one stands out to me. It has both philosophy for being more creative, which we’ll call mindset today, and actions you can take, which we’ll call tips. The one thing about the magic pill Adair offers is it’s not fast-acting. Creativity occurs on its own schedule. Actually, you can create an idea, a name, a headline, a hook really fast. But usually it takes longer to create a good one. And to create a breakthrough one that can lead to huge sums of money… sometimes that can take even longer. Now we did a show a few weeks ago involving creativity, and Nathan asked a very important question: What do we, as copywriters, need it for? One reason that’s such an important question is, our distant cousins in the image and name-recognition sector of advertising and marketing often use creativity for reasons we direct response reasonable people would consider a huge waste of time and money. So let’s answer Nathan’s question a little more fully. Broadly speaking, a great copywriter in the 1960s, I think it might have been Ogilvy or Leo Burnett, said, “If it doesn’t sell, it’s not creative.” So here are the kind of uses of creativity I have a hard time seeing as selling. Unfortunately, what I’m about to describe is the kind of thing most people think of when you say creativity in advertising. But these are exactly the kind of things I’m not suggesting you use what we’re going to cover today for: 1. Goofy entertaining districting gimmicks that don’t enhance the sale. Emus that ride around in fake police cars, fantasy locations people get teleported to in order to make an ad interesting, pro football stars playing golf. Sometimes I wonder if ad agencies create this kind of foolishness because they, or their clients, are embarrassed about actually selling. 2. The second thing we’re not talking about are ridiculous claims that obviously are not true, but are entertaining in their hyperbole. Because no “reasonable person” could ever possibly believe them, advertisers are betting, they won’t get dinged under truth in advertising laws. But again, they don’t enhance the sale. These stupid claims are so ridiculous, that when you use them, they do make you look like you’re embarrassed to actually try to sell what you’re offering. So, yes, you can use creativity to develop both of those really bad example categories of stuff, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Because you can ALSO use creativity to develop things that enhance the sale, which in turn improves the response you get from prospects, and increases your profits. Everything we’re going to talk about today in the realm of tips and mindset fundamentals is helpful in developing better versions of things on this list: Headlines Hooks Big Ideas Mechanisms Product names Branding You can apply the creativity material we talk about today to any of those. And just coming up with a better Big Idea can revolutionize a product’s sales. The same thing is true for many of the other things on the list. So that’s where I’m suggesting you apply new levels of creativity. The Art of Creative Thinking, by John Adair https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AZW4CCK Download.

Today’s show is important for everyone involved in copy. It’s especially important for the big thinkers, the visionaries, the big-picture people. We’re going to talk about a subject that makes some people quake in their boots. And that subject is details. They are not as easy to deal with for some people as they are for others. Details do not seem as important as The Big Idea to a lot of marketers and copywriters. And listen to what people say about details. The famous architect, Mies van Der Rohe, said “God is in the details.” He also said, “Each material has its specific characteristics which we must understand if we want to use it. This is no less true of steel and concrete.” So you can see he was really into details himself. Then there’s the famous saying people say a lot on TV and in movies, and also every day in real life. That saying is: “The devil is in the details.” So right there, we have details spanning the moral spectrum from God to the devil. Clearly, they are important. But the question remains: Are they good or are they bad? And how about this saying: “Don’t sweat the small stuff. And it’s all small stuff.” Hmmm. Sounds like they’re talking about details there, too. This applies to copy because we have a natural bias against details. In this way: We are about things that are dramatic and exciting. We like to make big promises. We are seeking to guide emotions in a powerful way. And think about it. A headline like “The important difference between black and tortoise-shell plastic barrettes from Dollar Tree” just wouldn’t cut it. Or… would it? We explored this today. I wanted to put this together because of a conversation I had with a client who had nothing but glowing testimonials and over-the-top claims on a sales page. The person I was talking with was very successful personally, and had a very successful business. But I quickly realized he was leaving a lot of money on the table because there might be a couple of problems for some prospects: • Credibility • Identification Now there’s always tension between awesome excellence (which may be the God’s honest truth about your product, your personal story, and the results people eventually get working with you or using your product) and the everyday life your prospects are now living. The emotional part of your prospect, the part that dreams, wants to think big. Loves to imagine wild, wonderful, luxurious scenarios in the future. But, the rational part of your prospect needs to confirm that what they are reading, or have recently read, isn’t a just scam and a waste of their money. This is where credibility and identification come in. At least some part of your copy, to perform at its best, needs to be credible to your prospect. That mean, from a practical point of view, talking about things they are familiar with in their real world. Right now. Not in the future. Identification comes in when the prospect can see themself right now in some way in your copy. Maybe in the before part of a before-and-after testimonial. Maybe in a description of an ordinary person struggling with the same problem your prospect struggles with. Maybe in a bullet point that talks about improving something specific in their current life. Resolving the tension between over-the-top and the mundane stuff of the real world requires delving into the nitty-gritty. That is, details. A related tension that causes us problems in our copy is the tension between the grandeur of the big picture—walking on the beach at sunset in some exotic tropical location—and the unglamorous detailed experience of the prospect’s daily life—the embarrassment and discomfort of toenail fungus. Both are about feet, right? Walking, and toenails. Now you might or might not mention both things in the same promo, much less in the same sentence like I just did. But being able to shift lenses, so to speak—to go from the wide shot on the beach to the close up of the toenail—is more important and useful a lot more often than you might think. We talked about how the nitty-gritty fits into testimonials and case studies, bullet points, and other parts of copy, and why you can’t ignore it, even if it doesn’t seem that important to you. Because it is important to your prospects. Links: Copy review sessions with me https://www.garfinkelcoaching.com/copy-critiques/ Stealing Fire From The Gods, by Jim Bonnett https://www.amazon.com/Stealing-Fire-Gods-Complete-Filmmakers-ebook/dp/B003FQM2SE Rocket Fuel, by Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Fuel-Essential-Combination-Business-ebook/dp/B00U27BMSK Download.

Let’s talk story. Experienced copywriters know that a story is the best way to introduce a product, bring a benefit to life, answer objections, and do a whole lot more. Why? Because stories galvanize the attention of your prospect. A story reaches deeper into the mind of someone, deeper than any other form of communication. But somewhere along the way, Hollywood got in the way, as it has a habit of doing. Because the hero’s journey is the go-to template for movies and other forms of fiction, a number of people started solemnly proclaiming that all stories in copy should be hero’s journeys, only hero’s journeys, and nothing but hero’s journeys, so help you Hollywood. Well… there’s only one problem with that idea. It’s simply not true. I’ve just written a book, just about to be released, called “The Persuasion Story Code,” where I identify and explain 25 different types of stories that work not only in copy but in all forms of persuasion, including face-to-face selling. On today’s show, I went into a lot of depth about the kind of stories we cover in the book. Here what I said about one, to give you some context: Persuasion stories are not entertainment. They’re stories that get results. Here’s an example of a persuasion story that got a result: A man walks up to the counter at the gate, 10 minutes before takeoff. The flight is full and everyone before him has been screaming a blue streak at the flight attendant staffing the desk. “No,” she says to the man before he can say a word. “I think I know what you’re going through,” the man says to her with a grimace. “I manage a store downtown, and the last three days before Christmas, our customers are just like the people here. Rude, impatient, and they won’t listen to reason. Sometimes you wonder why you took a job like this in the first place.” The flight attendant looks at him for a few seconds. The hint of a smile dances at the ends of her mouth. “May I see your ID?” she says. He hands it to her. She types into the computer, prints out a boarding pass, and gives it to him along with his ID. Then she says to him, almost in a whisper,
“We had a cancellation in first class. I’m upgrading you. Get on the plane NOW.” OK, so what did the man do? Either very deliberately or more likely, simply out of compassion, the man told the woman a story—about what goes on in his store before Christmas, and how he understood what she must be going through—and, after she heard it, she changed her mind. What he told her, whether or not he realized it, was a persuasion story. And, probably to his great surprise, he got a seat on what he thought was a fully-booked plane. Now, people tell stories like the man did all the time. Most of the time, people telling the story don’t even realize it’s a story. And neither do the people hearing the story. This is what I call a persuasion story. They make up the engine of persuasion in sales letters, and also in everyday life. I’ve identified 25 kinds of these stories, and I’ve written a book about them called “The Persuasion Story Code,” organized into six chapters. Here’s a short summary of what we cover: • Origin Stories, which build confidence by showing how a person’s or company’s background makes them solid and worth doing business with • Stories About Your Prospect’s Pain, which build trust by showing you understand the dilemma your prospect is in, thus creating valuable empathy • Stories That Predict The Future, painting a compelling word-picture of how much better your prospect’s future can be • Reassurance Stories are probably THE most effective way to deal with early doubts and worries that come up—especially when a prospect is really interested • Stories That Explain walk the fine line between interesting but neutral explanations and persuasion that puts up prospect defenses. These stories persuade while explaining! • Stories That Build Trust organize credentials, reviews, expert endorsements and case histories into powerful persuasion tools that eliminate last-minute doubts This will change your copy and really all your sales efforts for the better. Here’s a link to get your copy of the book. You can get your copy here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFD2KXNQ Download.

When you are a copywriter, do you look at the world differently? Old Master Clyde Bedell emphatically says yes. Clyde Bedell is not all that well known these days. We featured his work last year in an episode where we talked about his seven keys to believability. Though he’s not all that well known today, decades ago Bedell was one of the top guys you would turn to if you want to learn how to write copy that works. Besides being a highly successful advertiser, he was also a prominent teacher. For example, he built a national sales training program for Ford Motor Company in the 1930s. When he was teaching copywriting at Northwestern University, he couldn’t find a suitable textbook, so he wrote one. That textbook eventually turned into “How To Write Advertising That Sells.” It was first published in 1940—13 years before I was born. This book is 8-1/2 by 11 and a massive 539 pages. It’s pretty hard to find a copy these days, but I found one copy for sale on Amazon for $956.62. Lucky for me, I got my copy years ago when it was easier to get and not quite as expensive. Today we looked at a chapter from this massive book called “Copy’s Point Of View.” It covers key points on how copywriters need to look at the world if they want their copy to convert. We started with the understanding that what we’re going to talk about today is not how a copywriter necessarily sees the world 24/7. It’s not that you have a completely different way of eating breakfast… of buying shoes… or of dealing with annoying relatives. This is about how you look at things when you’re writing copy. I saw an interesting meme on Twitter, quoting Gary Bencivenga. It said: “Copywriting is not a secret formula, it’s a way of thinking.” That way of thinking is what today’s show is about. We covered four big parts of the copywriter’s mindset. This will be useful to new and advanced copywriters alike, as guard rails on what to focus on when you’re writing copy. In the show, we looked at some ads to illustrate some of the key points in what Bedell had to say. Bedell’s book is all but unavailable. However, here are two other books mentioned during the show: Twenty Ads That Shook The World, by James Twitchell https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-That-Shook-World-Groundbreaking/dp/0609807234 How To Write A Good Advertisement, by Victor Schwab https://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Good-Advertisement-Copywriting/dp/1648373143 Download.

The quote you are about to read is from a letter not written by today’s special guest and returning champion A-List copywriter, Mike Pavlish. This from a very controversial Old Master, the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. In a letter to author Marie Bonaparte, grand-niece of Napoleon Bonaparte, Freud wrote, “Despite my 30 years of research into the feminine soul I have never been able to answer the great question, ‘What does a woman want?’” A lot of people think Freud didn’t understand much about women in any way. Now our guest today does have an answer to that. Not a universal answer, but a proven answer to the more practical question, “What do women prefer in how you write to them in sales copy?” Mike Pavlish has this answer because he has written more than 400 long-form sales letters and video sales letters to women, for products include health, diet, fitness and beauty. For 32 years. Overall, Mike’s copy to male and female audiences has racked up more than $725 million in sales. Today, he shared 12 tips with us, based on what he’s learned over many years, up to and including this year. Mike told us that women and men respond VERY DIFFERENTLY to words, phrases, benefits, tone, personality and claims. The default of a lot of copywriting, “dude copy” or “macho copy,” doesn’t work. What does work? Most important of all, you need to understand that men are much easier to sell to than women, Mike said. Men make more impulsive purchases, take more unproven risks, and buy for simpler reasons. But women are far more complex in their buying behavior, Mike said. Women have a key primary need than most men don’t understand and appeal to when they write. Mike explained what this need is and gave good and bad examples to make it clear how to phrase winning copy in this regard. Mike also shared specific, ready-to-use secrets about tone… wording… connecting with women’s conversational style… the importance of relationship… and many other key tips. You can contact Mike at mike@mikepavlish.com. Download.

In an earlier part of this century, I produced an audiobook with my late friend and mentor Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the bestselling Guerrilla Marketing series. It was called “Guerrilla Copywriting.” I’m sad to say Jay’s no longer with us, and neither is the audiobook. It’s out of print. So I’m free to share my half of the material. This is the fourth and final installment of the tips. I’ve expanded them and added some examples to make them easier to grasp. Before, with the audiobook, you had a whirlwind tour of copywriting rules and techniques. Today, we slowed down the train down a little bit so you can take a look around and think about how you can use these in your own sales copy, landing pages and TikTok videos. But here’s something you’ll never find on a TikTok video: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Of course, that may change if someone sees this as a TikTok Copywriters Podcast “Copy is Powerful” challenge. But that’s not what I was hoping for. Now today we had some interesting techniques you can use, as well as super-important reminders, because even subscribers to Copywriters Podcast can get so caught up in their offers that occasionally they don’t give fundamentals the attention they deserve. We talked about a way to use stories that most people never do: to anticipate and eliminate objections, before they ever come up. We also covered: • The two jobs really great copy has • Why you should never just “sell a product” • Every prospect’s secret last name • Why you should always build up the value of your offer to the max Besides that, we talked about two writing techniques most people don’t know about: First, starting sentences with Seducer Words, and second, the enormous power of Hypnotic Stems. Download.

If you’d like to find out about one of the largest and most lucrative niches in copywriting, today’s show is just for you. Supplement copy is that niche, and our guest today is an expert on writing copy and building offers for health supplements. Steve Erl has written copy for some of the best-known names in the business. His clients include Newmarket Health, Dr. Al Sears, Pure Health Research, BioTrust, and many others. Supplement companies can grow very quickly. Steve has been writing copy and developing offers for a skincare and pet brand that has grown from $5 million to $100 million in the last four years. With his help, of course. Steve’s been writing copy full-time for nine years, and recently started a couple businesses himself he told us about on the show—mentoring, and a newsletter on supplement copy—which may be of interest to you if you decide to get deeper into this part of copywriting yourself. First, though, Steve’s walked us through three of his most important experiences and lessons, to give you an idea of what the world of writing supplement copy is like. Steve told us about a seemingly terrifying experience which was a blessing in disguise—copy that got sent back from his client after four weeks which had, in his words, “the heart ripped out of it.” But what happened next was jaw-dropping and eye-opening. The next lesson came from a much bigger win. His copy was so good, the copy chief said, that it was outpulling the control. But oddly enough, it didn’t become the control. Steve shared the interesting information he picked up from that one. Writing copy in the supplement field can make a writer gun-shy, because of all the compliance requirements and the knowledge that sooner or later, there will be a lawyer looking over your copy. But what Steve learned was, don’t write for that lawyer—write to sell the product, and let the lawyer do their job later. Third important lesson. Steve just started an email newsletter called Supps Copy Chief. He told us about it, and you can find out more here: https://suppscopychief.com Reach out to Steve here: steve@suppscopychief.com Download.

Our returning champion is Joshua Lee Henry, the high-powered copywriter and copy chief. He should be a familiar name and face to you by now, with his four great previous appearances on the show. He’s talked about writing leads and offers. And he even did the first and only guest Old Masters Series on this show, about John Caples. Joshua has a very impressive copywriting background and is currently copy chief for Money and Markets, an imprint of Agora’s Banyan Hill company. Today’s show with Joshua is a little different. Instead of tips on writing copy, to be blunt, we’re talking about jobs. As you may have noticed, the copywriting world is in a very uncertain state. A perplexing economy that is roaring along as more and more people are just hanging on by their fingernails is one reason for the uncertainty. Another is the rapid growth of AI, especially ChatGPT. Will it replace human copywriters, many people wonder? Well, not in the financial copywriting space, at least not this year. All you have to do is listen to what Joshua has to say. If you know what to look for and where to look, you’ll find there are opportunities galore right now. Joshua begins by telling us about SEVEN financial publishers who are hiring copywriters right now. Some of these companies are huge. He also tells us about a public financial newsletter company whose stock is up 60% since January. So things are definitely popping in financial copywriting. Again, as I said, if you know what to look for and where to look. The readers (or potential new readers) of these newsletters are numerous. In the tens of millions. Joshua shares some hands-on, real-world tips for getting your foot in the door at the financial publishers. And, for listeners and viewers of Copywriters Podcast only, he’s making a special offer for a training program called The World Of Financial Copywriting. As of today enrollment is closed, but they are opening up registration again for the next five days from the day we release this podcast. And you can get a big discount, using this link: https://copychief.thrivecart.com/wofc/?coupon=DAVID Download.

Long before there was even TikTok, there was a company called Sherwin-Williams. Their famous logo showed a planet-sized can of paint pouring onto a globe, with the tagline “Cover The Earth.” They still use that logo today. But I think in spirt, if not in reality, they need to share their slogan with AI. Because AI is drenching its way into everything. We have a guest today, and he’s our returning champion, attorney Rob Freund. Rob knows advertising and IP law for marketers as well as anyone I’ve ever met. And we’re going to have a wide-ranging discussion with Rob about AI and the law as it applies to copy and other topics of interest to you and me. I am constantly impressed by Rob’s savvy posts on Twitter, and sometimes astounded by the stories and examples he comes up with. We’ll talk about some of them today. And I stand in the company of giants who are also impressed: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Bloomberg Law, Vox and Forbes. They’ve all quoted him. Plus, he’s lectured about social media law at the University of Southern California and other major institutions, in the U.S. and in Europe. We started by talking about an unusual and slightly disturbing thing that AI said regarding Ben Settle, which Ben posted on Twitter… and a really disturbing story about a lawyer who counted on AI in a way that may get him in trouble with the court. Rob found this story in The New York Times and posted it on Twitter as well. We also tackled important issues like: • Does using AI open a copywriter up to legal liability for plagiarism/copyright infringement? What can we do to make sure we’re on the right side of the law? • From an intellectual property rights perspective -- if you use AI to help you write your copy, who owns the work? • What are the legal implications of people using deep fake technology to create testimonials and phony images of celebrities? Or AI fake voices? And, looking into the future, we asked Rob this question: In the same vein as any developing technology that starts out with no regulation, like the wild west, but eventually starts to get regulated… How do you see AI regulation, especially in the advertising and IP spaces, developing? To connect with Rob: Instagram @robertfreundlaw Twitter @robertfreundlaw https://robertfreundlaw.com Download.

On December 1, 1975, a giant in direct mail died. That was Ed Mayer, who had written a definitive book on the subject 25 years earlier, called “How To Make More Money With Your Direct Mail.” Mayer was a man of many hats—a practitioner, an industry executive, and a teacher. In his obituary, the New York Times reported that Mayer had taught more than 20,000 college students and business executives the hands-on secrets of direct mail. Now you might reasonably assume the following: That was then and this is now. So much has changed. Today, we found out. To prepare for the show, I combed through the book and found 10 great tips that apply whether you were doing direct mail in the 1950s or online marketing today. In some cases, I updated the tips. But more often than not, what worked then works almost exactly the same today. I selected these 10 tips based on this simple idea: Just leaving out ONE of these could crater your sales—or vastly reduce them, at the very least. So even if you tell yourself you know these… ask yourself, are you doing the updated version of every one of these? Because if you’re not, you’re probably leaving money on the table. Let’s take that money off the table and put it back in your pocket. The tips we covered spanned the whole of direct marketing. Mayer knew it all: copywriting, offer creation, fulfillment, list selection and list management. He was truly an industry expert. Our topics included: the one thing that stops sales from happening, more than anything else… the one thing every piece of copy needs to do… why research makes the difference between success and failure in direct marketing… the kinds of words you should never use in your copy… when it’s a good idea to use the same copy over and over again… and much more. The book is called How To Make More Money With Your Direct Mail, by Ed Mayer. It’s out of print and extremely hard to find. Not on Amazon. A couple on eBay. Download.

When you’re being bold and aggressive with your copy, there’s a three-word question you really need to ask: “Is it legal?” That’s because, very simply, you’re putting your business at risk if it’s not. Today we have an expert who lives with this question all the time, and helps his clients get the best answers. Robert Freund is an experienced advertising attorney who focuses his practice on social media marketing and e-commerce issues. His clients include direct-to-consumer brands, marketing agencies, and individual creators. I am constantly impressed by Rob’s savvy posts on Twitter, and sometimes astounded by the stories and examples he comes up with. And I stand in the company of giants who are also impressed: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Bloomberg Law, Vox and Forbes. They’ve all quoted him. Plus, he’s lectured about social media law at the University of Southern California and other major institutions, in the U.S. and in Europe. So as you can see, Rob really knows his way around the most important issues involving advertising and the law. I was grateful he agreed to share some of his wisdom. Here are the questions we asked him: 1. Let’s start, as they say, at the beginning. A lawyer has so many specialties to choose. How was it that you came to specialize in advertising law? 2. Could you run us through a few basics - things people should know, but either don’t know, or do know but ignore? - Especially, where do people push the line with claims and promises, when it turns out they’re also tempting fate? 3. You had a very interesting tweet a couple weeks ago. Let me quote from it. “The lesson for brands: your policies are not just boilerplate—they can save you from potentially devastating liability exposure. “And it’s not enough to write a good policy; you must also carefully consider how the terms are presented to your users to ensure you can enforce them.” What this says to me is every promise you make online has weight and consequences, or at least might. Could you talk about that? 4. Let’s take this one step further: Do you have a horror story for someone who went over the line? What were the consequences? 5. And, on maybe a happier note, can you tell us about someone you’ve taken out of the fire and away from the host stove, thus avoiding them a trip into the frying pan? What did they do and how did you help them back to safety. 6. Tell us more about your practice, who should get in touch with you with what kind of problems, and what’s the best way to reach out? To connect with Rob: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/robertfreundlaw/ Twitter https://twitter.com/robertfreundlaw https://robertfreundlaw.com Download.

One of the most powerful forms of stories for copywriters is the case study, and I think it’s fair to say most of us don’t use as many of them as we should. Today we’re going to talk to an expert who has vast and successful experience in this kind of marketing. Our guest today, Joel Klettke, is the founder of Case Study Buddy, a business that helps companies like HubSpot and Loom to scale up their case study production and include it in every segment of their marketing—from lead generation and upsells to outreach and nurturing. Overall his company has done more than 2,000 case studies for more than 300 clients. Joel’s also a copywriter and a proud dad of two. I believe his one regret in life is being a fan of the Calgary Flames hockey team. I don’t blame him one bit. The last time the Flames won the Stanley cup was in 1989, and I suppose we should just leave that there. But lucky for us, Joel knows a lot about case studies and he’s generously agreed to share some great tips and insights with us today. Here’s what we asked Joel: 1. What are case studies, the way you look at them? 2. What are the different types of case studies? 3. Why do case studies work, and how do they work? 4. How did you get into specializing in case studies? 5. What does Case Study Buddy do for your clients? 6 . Could you give us an example of a good case study? 7. What would be an example of a bad case study? 8. What are your top tips for writing great case studies? Joel’s company has a newsletter you can get for free: https://casestudybuddy.com/newsletter-sign-up/ Download.

We’ve been talking about AI on this show for a while, and today we’re going to roll up our sleeves. Well, Nathan is, anyway. I may ask a few questions or make some comments, but Nathan is center-stage today. That’s because he has figured out how to use ChatGPT to assist him with writing his emails. They key word is “assist.” It does require work and thought on the human’s part. But, the good news is, AI is helping him save time and become more productive. There are some caveats, which Nathan will cover. Meaning that you can’t just push a button and get fully-finished copy, ready to mail. Here are some notes Nathan prepared for the show, which includes an amazingly generous full set of working prompts to get an AI started writing emails for you. Nathan’s notes for today’s show: This is made for use with the FREE version of ChatGPT. There are paid tools out there that can get close to duplicating this process. I wanted to make this accessible to everyone. What you'll get at the end is a way to crank out emails to send your list and increase your sales. All you need is to be able to copy and paste nine prompts. If you're not great at writing emails, this will make you decent. If you're great at writing emails, this will make you a lot faster and a lot more valuable to your clients. To get the full list of prompts and marketing data sheet template, Go to https://advertisingcheatcodes.com/ai-emails/ Or Contact Nathan at AdvertisingAlchemist.com Download.

The question is: How do you bring your prospect right there when they are reading words you have written, maybe thousands of miles away? The answer was revealed 99 years ago, but it’s not widely talked about in copywriting. Until today. In this special episode of our Old Masters Series, we look at a book by George Hotchkiss published in 1924. He has some ideas about using techniques novelists and hypnotists use. But using them in your copy, to bring your offer to life. To get your prospect to see and experience the best of what you have to offer. All through the words you choose. The book is simply called Advertising Copy. To the best of my recollection, superstar copywriter David Deutsch told me about this book many years ago. So thanks, DD! Now the author, George Hotchkiss, was both a successful copywriter and a major educator in copywriting. He started out as a newspaperman, and then went on to become a copywriter for the George Batten Company, which later became the giant ad agency BBDO. Also, he joined the faculty at New York University in 1908 and went on to start NYU’s Department of Advertising and Marketing. And stayed with them for decades. Guy knows how to write copy and how to teach. On this podcast, we talked about something else from the book Advertising Copy in a show three years ago. The topic at that time was Reason-Why Copy. But what we’re going to talk about today appeals to a different part of the prospect’s brain, and in many ways may be more important. On the show, we talk about six great techniques to amp up your copy. For now, though, let’s look at the power of what we’re about to explore. Let’s say you accidentally cut your finger with a knife, and you’re looking for some sympathy. You could say, “I injured a part of my hand in an accident.” Not very powerful. Or, you could say, “I cut my finger with a knife by mistake.” OK, that might work better. But let’s take it to the next level. How about: “I was cutting up some onions for soup I was making. The knife slipped and wouldn’t you know it, I cut my index finger. It hurt like hell. Felt like an electric shock that came out of nowhere. I howled, and then, suddenly, blood was spurting all over the place. I had to wash it and put some ointment on it, and wrap it up tight with a gauze bandage until the bleeding stopped.” There you go. Now you’ve got a much better shot at getting some sympathy. Why? Because you brought your senses and emotions into the description. And, along the way, your listener’s senses and emotions, too. That was a gory example, so let’s turn to something a little more pleasant. Your sweetheart buys you some fine Swiss chocolates for Valentine’s Day. What do you say to your friends, to make them jealous? You could say, “Dylan bought me some chocolates for Valentines.” OK. That’s nice, but it’s a little vague, right? To make your statement more evocative, you might say, “Dylan got me some Lindt dark chocolate truffles for Valentines.” Better. But how about, “I was so happy with what Dylan got me for Valentines. Lindt dark chocolate truffles. They are so smooth and creamy, and I get a jolt of pleasure each time I eat one.” Again, the description of emotion -- happy -- and sensory experience -- smooth, creamy -- makes it all seem so much more real. And sometimes you want to take your prospect right into the experience of your offer. That’s what we’ll talk about today. Everything we’ve just looked at and cover today is based on an important rule: Demonstration is the most powerful form of selling. We’re going to talk about how to demonstrate, in your copy, the specific things that make people more likely to buy. For this kind of verbal demonstration, Hotchkiss uses three different terms at different points in the chapter we’re taking this from. Those terms are mostly interchangeable, and they are: “Descriptive Copy, Human-Interest Copy, and Direct Sense Description. The best copywriters all use these techniques at key points in their copy. Some of them do it on purpose, knowing how and why they’re doing it. But I suspect most of them just do this by instinct, because they know intuitively that these techniques work. One top copywriter, my good friend John Carlton, is very deliberate and explicit about this. His copy is filled with examples worth studying. And in his teaching, he talks about power words. A lot of them, especially the strong verbs he suggests, are very evocative of specific images, feelings and emotions. So today, we look at what descriptive copy is, why it matters, when it works and when it doesn’t, and how to use it. Download.

In the great financial meltdown of 2009, Colin Chung lost his job with eBay. Despite having no experience in copywriting, he decided that was the next part of his career path. In 18 months, he doubled his eBay income and was earning six figures for the first time in his life. As a freelance copywriter. In one year, he doubled it. Before long after that, Colin was making really big bucks. Not only that. He ended up writing for major clients, including Jay Abraham, Clayton Makepeace, Mike Dillard, Agora, and even a Shark Tank investor! Also, from 2014 to 2020, Colin was the primary coach for John Carlton’s Simple Writing System, where he coached many freelancers, business owners, and other aspiring copywriters. After all this, Colin has decided to reveal his secrets. And I say “secrets” because his approach, as he describes it, is different from the approach any other successful copywriter I’ve ever talked to or heard of. Colin has coached individual copywriters and managed teams of copywriters for clients. His experience goes far and wide. But only recently has he decided to go public with this. Colin also has a very modestly-priced course to help you ramp up your own freelance business. Check it out here: https://garfinkel.thefederation.io/ Download.

About a month ago we did a selection from my half of the no-longer-available Guerrilla Copywriting audiobook. It was so popular, we thought we’d do it again. Here’s some background: Sixteen years ago, in 2007, I produced an audiobook with my friend and mentor Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the bestselling Guerrilla Marketing series. Jay and I originally thought about doing a book together, but that never happened. However, we did do an audiobook. It was called Guerrilla Copywriting. Unlike a lot of things he did and I lot of things I’ve done, this one didn’t sell that well. I don’t think either of us had the bandwidth to promote it, but there may have been another problem -- we tried to jam too much good information into too little time. We had sixty really powerful tips for writing copy. Jay would do one, then I would do one. It ended up being 60 tips in 60 minutes. Plenty of value, but maybe we would have been better off slowing down and taking some time to talk about each tip. Well… the audiobook is out of print now, so I’m free to share my half of the material. I took a look at it the other day and, I gotta admit, it’s pretty good. A couple things needed to be updated -- a lot has happened in 16 years. But for the most part, we’ve got eternal principles that are completely workable today. OK. Today we cover a third quarter of my part, and we’re going to take 25 minutes to half an hour to discuss. You’ll see why it makes more sense to do it that way. I’m starting to think the original was four times as fast as it should have been! Some of this you’re familiar with but you’ll probably see in a new light. And you may hear a few things that are new to you. Everything’s useful, and it stays true to one of the main goals Jay and I had when we did this originally: It’s designed to make you more profitable, and it’s information you can put to use right away. A lightning tour of what we talk about: What to sell people more of… The one kind of humor that always works in sales copy… The Guerrilla Copywriting Four-Point Fail-Safe Copy Formula… How to extract some winning techniques from journalists and use them in a copy context… A golden rule for graphics… The important difference between prevention and cure… and, how to create urgency. Download.

You can’t go a day in copywriting without someone bringing up AI. It may not have taken over copywriting yet, but it has definitely taken over the conversation. In case you haven’t gotten your feet wet yet with GPT 4, Jasper, Copy AI or any other one of the handful of AIs people are currently using, I can tell you, people ARE using it, in predictable and unpredictable ways. Today Nathan and I discussed what we’re hearing and what we’re doing. We started with a really interesting discovery Nathan made that not only saves massive amounts of time on a project, but also slashes the learning curve on how to get AI to do exactly what you want it to do. I shared what I’ve heard from two clients who have an unusual amount of expert knowledge about AI… as well as being top-notch copywriters on their own. You’ll be surprised about one expert’s prediction on who will thrive and who will suffer in copywriting, thanks to AI. Different probably than what you’ve heard before. And another expert solved a tough business problem of his own… in about 10 minutes! Beyond that, a little bit of AI news that may surprise, scare or delight you! Download.

Today we look at bullet points in an exciting new way. Now, in copy, bullet points in copy are specialized and different from bullet points everywhere else. Because in most forms of writing, bullet points condense facts and offer a summary. Not in copy, though. See, in copy, bullet points are condensed, emotionally driven, focused statements or promises that are sometimes powerful enough, by themselves, to make the sale. A few episodes ago, Nathan mentioned that when he’s looking at sales copy, he looks at the bullet points first. I’d never heard anyone say that before, and I thought it was interesting. I gave it some thought. I realized that bullet points do a lot more for Nathan—and for nearly everyone else reading copy—than most people realized. Then I went through three classic ads—one by Ted Nicholas, one by Gene Schwartz, and one by Mel Martin, all hall of fame copywriters. I hand-copied more than 60 of their bullet points onto a giant sheet of paper. That was quite an emotional roller-coaster ride, all by itself. In the process, I realized these master copywriters were doing a lot more with their bullet points than what we usually think of when we write our own bullet points. I’ll tell you about my findings and share the exact bullet points the greater copywriters wrote. To get us started, so we can all remember the enormous sales power of bullets, let me share with you a story I told six years and two months ago, on one of the earliest episodes of this podcast: An Afghanistan vet and his wife went to the housewares department of a “big box” store. They were looking for an electric can opener. The vet was an amputee. He only had his right arm. The salesman showed the man and his wife the best model, and started rattling off all the features: U.L. Approved, cordless operation, easy to clean, 5 star reviews online. The couple listened politely but didn’t say a thing. This made the salesman nervous. “Are there any questions I can answer for you?” he said. “Just one,” the vet said with a smile. “If I get this model, can I open a can with just one hand?” The salesman was embarrassed that he had failed to mention this, but he recovered quickly enough. He said yes—and the couple happily bought the new can opener. Every customer is like the vet. I don’t mean that every customer is an amputee. What I mean is that there’s usually one performance, or benefit, that towers in importance over all others. Maybe they don’t realize they’re looking for it, but when they find out, that alone may be enough to get them to buy. Bullet points are where you highlight individual benefits. Usually not features, but benefits. It’s worth getting good at them, because better bullets mean more sales. We covered some major highlights of all bullet points, and then dug into the copy of the three great copywriters: Ted Nicholas, Gene Schwartz, and Mel Martin. We looked at how each of them used the following types of bullets: 1. Bullets that answer objections 2. Bullets that assert benefits 3. Bullets that create curiosity 4. Bullets that stun and fascinate 5. Bullets that deliver a warning Download.

Today we return to Old Masters Series with a guy I’m going to call The Godfather of Creativity, Alex Osborn. He’s best known for inventing brainstorming, which was first used at his advertising agency BBDO (the O was for Osborn). But he has done a lot more than that. For example, in 1954 he co-founded the Creative Education Foundation. And he’s written a number of books. The best-known one was the bestseller Your Creative Power. However, a lesser-known book, Wake Up Your Mind: 101 Ways To Develop Your Creativeness, is what we’re going to use today to get into some really interesting, practical ideas about creativity and writing copy. First, we went over over a few things about creativity as we define it. First of all, creativity is not coming up with harebrained ideas like lizards that play golf to sell life insurance. Not in the way we’re talking about today. Creativity is finding better ways to get a prospect excited about and committed to buying what you are selling. No lizards required or desired. Second, in his book, Osborn says something dear to my heart: Schools teach the wrong things for creativity. This was back in the day; this book was published in 1952. I don’t know what schools teach these days, but, if the main purpose of school is to teach kids to score high on standardized tests so they can get into a platinum-level college, that works against developing creative abilities. Someone named Burdette Ross Buckingham wrote a book in 1926 called “Research for Teachers,” and Osborn says ever since that book came out “educators have increasingly leaned on statistics. This has led to accumulation of facts, and deprecation of the generation of ideas.” He goes on, “Creativity necessarily lacks exactness.” One of the guiding questions of schools is, “Can it be tested?”, and Osborn says this question gets in the way of schools developing creativity skills. That is, since creativity is not exact, so you can’t test or measure it. Now science, technology, engineering and math are survival skills in the jobs economy these days, but remember that the people who built the companies that hire all those people, had far greater imaginations than most of their employees. That is, they have much better practical creativity skills, among other things, than your average bear. Something to think about. The third thing that’s really important before we got into these seven steps of creativity: In real life creativity may not work this way exactly, and Osborn says so in his book. Sometimes you take these steps out of order. Sometimes you don’t take all of them. He writes: “The more I study and practice creativity, the surer I feel that its process is necessarily a stop-and-go, a catch-as-catch can, a ring-around-the-rosie; and the more I doubt whether it can ever be ‘exact’ enough to rate as scientific.” Osborn says, “The most we can honestly say is that it usually includes some or all of these phases.” I would have to agree. There’s no set formula for creativity, but knowing these seven steps will put you in a better place to come up with profitable creative ideas than not knowing them will. Osborn had an unusual comment about the importances of mental and emotional effort in creativity. He says “Writers recognize as ‘rhythms of creativity,’ the ups and downs of their power to produce. Since each person’s talent is the same from day to day, those cycles must be solely cycles of energy—a fact which helps prove how dependent upon our drive creativity can be.” We then proceeded to go through Osborn’s Seven Steps, and added a tip about reading books a special way to increase your creativity. A good show, well worth taking in. Link to the out-of-print 1952 book this podcast is based on: Wake Up Your Mind-100 Ways To Develop Creativeness, by Alex Osborn https://www.amazon.com/Wake-Your-Mind-Develop-Creativeness/dp/B0000CI7JO Download.

Three weeks ago we did a selection from my half of the no-longer-available Guerrilla Copywriting audiobook. It was so popular, we thought we’d do it again. Here’s some background: Sixteen years ago, in 2007, I produced an audiobook with my friend and mentor Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the bestselling Guerrilla Marketing series. Jay and I originally thought about doing a book together, but that never happened. However, we did do an audiobook. It was called Guerrilla Copywriting. Unlike a lot of things he did and I lot of things I’ve done, this one didn’t sell that well. I don’t think either of us had the bandwidth to promote it, but there may have been another problem -- we tried to jam too much good information into too little time. We had sixty really powerful tips for writing copy. Jay would do one, then I would do one. It ended up being 60 tips in 60 minutes. Plenty of value, but maybe we would have been better off slowing down and taking some time to talk about each tip. Well… the audiobook is out of print now, so I’m free to share my half of the material. I took a look at it the other day and, I gotta admit, it’s pretty good. A couple things needed to be updated -- a lot has happened in 16 years. But for the most part, we’ve got eternal principles that are completely workable today. OK. Today we cover about quarter of my part, and we’re going to take 25 minutes to half an hour to discuss. You’ll see why it makes more sense to do it that way. I’m starting to think the original was four times as fast as it should have been! Some of this you’re familiar with but you’ll probably see in a new light. And you may hear a few things that are new to you. Everything’s useful, and it stays to true to one of the main goals Jay and I had when we did this originally: It’s designed to make you more profitable, and it’s information you can put to use right away. Download.

People outside of marketing and copywriting might think “swiping” is something you do on your phone with a dating app, or maybe that it’s slang for shoplifting. Not wrong, but today we’re talking about what copywriters and marketing strategists mean when they say “swiping.” And that is, taking a proven form (whether that’s actual words or something a little more conceptual) and finding a way to use it yourself. It could be word-substitution in a headline. For example, we’ve seen countless examples of headlines that have swiped the originals: Who Else Wants A Whiter Wash? and Who Else Wants A Beach Body? Swipes would be Who Else Wants A Six-Pack That Gets Admiring Stares? Who Else Wants More Free Time Than You Ever Dreamed Of? Our guest today has a much broader and, I would say, more profitable vision of what swiping is and what it can be. His name is Corey Haines and he has a lot of experience in SaaS marketing. In case you’re not familiar with the term, SaaS stands for “Software-as-a-Service.” He also writes a weekly newsletter on SaaS marketing with more than 18,000 subscribers. Corey’s also cofounder of SwipeWell and has a whole lot of knowledge and wisdom on swiping than I’ve ever heard from anyone else. Here are the questions we covered on the show: - How do you definite “swipe file”? - Where did the concept of a swipe file come from? - Why is a swipe file valuable to a marketer and copywriter? - Where do you find good marketing inspiration to swipe from? - What are some examples of using a swipe file day to day? - What are some examples of taking inspiration from other industries to come up with creative marketing campaigns? To get a free trial of the software, go to: https://swipewell.app To find out more about Corey, go to: https://corey.co Download.

We’ve got a very special episode today in our Old Masters series—featuring some wisdom from David Ogilvy. He was legendary in advertising during the Mad Men days. Kenneth Roman wrote a book about Ogilvy called “The King of Madison Avenue.” I believe his book “Ogilvy on Advertising” was the only book on the subject to reach widespread bestseller status, far outside the reaches of the industry. Over 100,000 copies sold. For a business book, that’s like over 1 million sold for a novel or general-interest book. Ogilvy was more of a team leader and team builder than a solo operator. More like a Joe Schriefer or a James Patterson—Patterson was an executive for J. Walter Thompson before he became a best-selling novelist—Ogilvy was more like those guys than like a Gene Schwartz or a Gary Halbert. But don’t get me wrong. Ogilvy was also a terrific copywriter. He started out in direct response and understood the principles of that kind of copywriting inside out. I found something the other day, paging through Ogilvy’s autobiography, that’s a perfect fit for this podcast. Ogilvy had 11 rules for copywriting. Four of them are more focused on big ad agencies, but seven of them are great for us, and that’s what we’ll cover today. So what talked about today comes from is “David Ogilvy: An Autobiography.” This guy had quite an adventurous life, and after he retired he moved to live in a chateau in France. Here on the cover of the book you can see him staring menacingly at you, smoking a cigar. There are swans in the background. Ogilvy had this thing about trumpeter swans, which have the largest wingspan of any swan known to man. I don’t know if those are trumpeter swans on the cover, but there’s a really good chance they are. Ogilvy was an eccentric man with wide-ranging interests and an adventurous spirit. But when it came to copy, he was straightforward, and serious. And he was focused on getting results, even when he was writing consumer advertising with no response mechanisms. The rules we covered today come from his years of hard work, both writing copy himself and leading other copywriters. We talked about Ogilvy’s stance on studying advertising throughout your career, how much difference in response you can get when you improve the copy in an ad, whether a Big Idea matters or not, and a lot more. A link to get the book “David Ogilvy, An Autobiography”: https://www.amazon.com/David-Ogilvy-Autobiography-Trailblazers/dp/0471180025 Download.

Sixteen years ago I produced an audiobook with my friend and mentor Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the bestselling Guerrilla Marketing series. Jay and I originally thought about doing a book together, but that never happened. The audiobook was called Guerrilla Copywriting. Unlike a lot of things he did and I lot of things I’ve done, it didn’t sell that well. I don’t think either of us had the bandwidth to promote it, but there may have been another problem -- we tried to jam too much good information into too little time. We had sixty really powerful tips for writing copy. Jay would do one, then I would do one. It ended up being 60 tips in 60 minutes. Plenty of value, but maybe we would have been better off slowing down and taking some time to talk about each tip. Well… the audiobook is out of print now, so I’m free to share my half of the material. I took a look at it the other day and, I gotta admit, it’s pretty good. A couple things needed to be updated -- a lot has happened in 16 years. But for the most part, we’ve got eternal principles that are completely workable today. OK. Today we cover about quarter of my part, and we’re going to take 25 minutes to half an hour to discuss. You’ll see why it makes more sense to do it that way. I’m starting to think the original was four times as fast as it should have been! Some of this you’re familiar with but you’ll probably see in a new light. And you may hear a few things that are new to you. Everything’s useful, and it stays to true to one of the main goals Jay and I had when we did this originally: It’s designed to make you more profitable, and it’s information you can put to use right away. Download.

Today we took a new look at an old question: What does it take to become a really, really good copywriter? I wanted to answer this question by zeroing-in on the path of mastery. I’ve been learning about the path of mastery for a long time. What I found out goes against what I learned in school and what I see on TV and in the movies. Our culture celebrates achievers but it does NOT respect the path of mastery very much. I’m lucky in that I know a number of copywriters who are well along this path, including a few who are personal friends and a few more who are my mentoring clients. To prepare for this show, I went back to the books I’ve been reading since 2009 to flesh out my ideas and observations. A few surprises, some new information. But nothing that goes against anything I’ve noticed and concluded up until now. So what I did was pick some key points from great books about mastery, and weave all that together with some practical, down-to-earth tactics and approaches for getting really, really good at copywriting. The way I see it, in copywriting, the word “mastery” is a term to describe having so many skills and so much knowledge at your fingertips that what you do looks effortless to someone watching you. It’s not really effortless, but it’s certainly different, when you do something after having prepared yourself to get really good and having done it in a certain way. And there is a known and documented way to get to this place. A better way to say it is: to get on this path. Because mastery, it turns out, is much more a path than a place. It’s more a journey than a destination. It’s more a way of continuously working on your skills, rather than a badge that you put up on your website. When you’re well along the path of mastery, you may be able to solve problems and come up with ideas in a fraction of the time it takes someone with less experience to do the same thing. When you do it, often seems effortless to the person watching. If they knew what was going on under the hood, they would know better. It’s not excruciating, but it’s not always that easy, either. In copywriting at the highest levels, being able to perform at a high level is important. Why? Because somehow, as copywriters we find ourselves, in situations where we have to fix things or change directions under great time pressure. If you have the ability to go with the flow in situations like that, it can make all the difference in the world. On today’s show, we didn’t talk that much about the amazing feats of master copywriters. But we took a really good look at how they got there and how you can get there, too. Because when the heat is on, you’ll want to be there yourself. When everyone’s counting on you, you want them to feel good about how you perform. The advantages are: you have more choices and more opportunities. You end up working with more interesting people on more interesting projects. And, last but not least, you end up getting paid a lot more money. Here are the four parts of today’s show: Part 1: Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect — But Practice for Mastery Keeps Making You Better and Better What famed cello player Pablo Casals said about practicing. The definition of the kind of practice that makes mastery possible from the leading expert in the field, Anders Ericcson. Plus more from author Daniel Coyle and Robert Greene. Part 2: The Two False Flags On The Path Of Mastery My favorite expert on mastery is the late writer George Leonard. Some important insights from him on what the path is like, along with two misleading signs to watch out for, and why they occur from time to time. Part 3: So What Do You Practice, Anyway? Killer wisdom from martial art great Bruce Lee, as well as a couple other great insights from master teacher of hypnosis Igor Ledochowski and author Robert Greene. Also, a key finding from neuroscience about mastery, from author Daniel Coyle. This part of the show gives you a clearer picture of how practice fits into your journey as a copywriter. Part 4: What Gets You On The Path And Keeps You Going The surprising personal quality that gets and keeps you on a path to mastery. Spoiler alert: It’s not innate intelligence or talent. But, according to Robert Greene, it IS genetic. Books mentioned: Mastery, by George Leonard https://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfillment-ebook/dp/B01ND0X91Y Mastery, by Robert Greene https://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Robert-Greene-ebook/dp/B007V65PBK The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-Grown-ebook/dp/B0026OR1UK Peak, by Anders Ericcson and Robert Pool https://www.amazon.com/Peak-Secrets-New-Science-Expertise-ebook/dp/B011H56MKS Download.

Today we returned to the Old Masters Series, but with a twist. We used some secrets from one Old Master to look at the famous work of another. This all came about last week, when I was going over the chapter on Intensification in Breakthrough Advertising with a client. Breakthrough Advertising, of course, is Gene Schwartz’s masterwork on copywriting. Part 2 of the book is seven chapters on “the basic techniques of breakthrough advertising.” And the first of those seven sets of techniques is what Gene Schwartz calls “Intensification.” Basically, how to get your hands on your prospect’s feeling of desire, and push it through the roof. I was struggling with how to put this on a podcast. And then I had an idea: Why not take John Caples’s famous ad, “They Laughed When I Sat Down At The Piano… ” and see how Caples used the intensification techniques. You might not be surprised that, even though the ad was written nearly 40 years before the book was, Caples knew what he was doing and used a bunch of the techniques. So, as we get started, you should know there are actually 10 Intensification steps in this chapter. Plus three other tricks. Again, this is all in one of 14 chapters of the book. We only covered five of the 10 Intensification steps today. First, because we did not have time for all 10. Second, I wanted to leave out five so you’ll be encouraged to get your own copy of Breakthrough Advertising from Brian Kurtz. We’ll give you a link in the show notes. Really, it’s one of the best copywriting books ever written. As you have already gotten a glimpse of there is so much in each chapter that you can spend years, and make a fortune, learning what’s in the whole book. Now, as to Caples. Gene Schwartz actually mentions this ad as a great example of one of the intensification steps, and we’ll cover that step. But it turns out Caples included more of than one Instensification step. It’s interesting to look at this ad, one of the most famous in history, because of the unusual way Caples uses the steps. He skips around from the normal order you would put them in. You’ll see what I mean in the full podcast. Here are the five Intensification steps we covered: 1. Present the product. 2. Put the claims in action. 3. Bring in the reader. 4. Bring in an audience. 5. Make a damaging admission. And a link to get Breakthrough Advertising: https://breakthroughadvertisingbook.com/ Download.

Today’s podcast is about a topic that is so important, we quote from three Old Masters, even though this is not an Old Masters Series show. The topic is: making your copy believable. Two of the Old Masters, right now. In his book “Ogilvy on Advertising,” David Ogilvy writes these words: “Says James Webb Young, one of the best copywriters in history: ‘every type of advertiser has the same problem: to be believed.’” And that only makes sense, when you think about it. Because no matter how good your copy is, if people don’t believe it, what good is it at all? We’re going a long way to solve that problem on today’s show. First, something from the third Old Master. We did a show on this topic a year and a half ago as part of our Old Masters Series. I’ll do a speed recap of the best of what we covered about believability then from a chapter A.O. Owen wrote in an old copy book about 100 years ago. His tips were: 1. Use exact numbers. Instead of “around 150,” use the actual amount, like, for example, 154—if that’s what it is. 2. Use the actual names of streets, cities, states or provinces, countries, and people’s name. Owen’s example was It is more believable to say “styles now reigning from Rue de la Paix, Paris, to Fifth Avenue, New York,” than to say, “styles now reigning from the fashion centers of Europe to those of America.” 3. His third tip was what we call today “the damaging admission.” Basically, admit you’re not perfect. In an sales letter by Million Dollar Mike Morgan that brought in over $10 million, one line that’s a great example, in the voice of the finance guru he was writing for, went like this: “No one has a crystal ball to predict the future—not even me.” 4. And the fourth one from this podcast was to mention motivation—your reason-why for doing something or the self-interested reason why your prospect should respond. This from a successful promotion I wrote years ago for Mendelson Auto Body Inc. in San Ramon, California: Here's A Special Offer To Keep Your Car Looking New! Plus, You Get A FREE Gift To Protect Your Car All Summer Long Two very self-interested reasons for people to take him up on his offer. So those four tips from A.O. Owen, with some modern examples, are as valid in 2023 as they were 100 years ago. But let’s move on to what we’ve got for today. It’s brand new, yet the advice is eternal. I pulled most of what we’re gonna talk about from a new book I’m writing which I’ll tell you more about in a month or two, when I should be ready to publish. For today, I took some copy for a bonus in an imaginary info-products course. It was pretty good to start with. Then I screwed it up four times, each with a different believability destroyer. All in the service of hopefully helping you avoid making the same mistake! Download.

I’m excited that we’re finally doing a show on Artificial Intelligence and Copywriting. This has been a long time coming. Nathan has had quite a bit of experience finding out on real assignments what AI can do and can’t do. I have less experience, but I do have some. One thing is for certain: AI is here to stay, and it is slithering its way into copywriting. It’s not going to replace all of us tomorrow, but if your skills are limited as a copywriter, you may want to upgrade your skills, or become a real AI jockey, or both. Today we’re going to talk about what AI does well and how it can save you tons of time, once you learn to use it. Also, what it doesn’t do well yet… and may never really be able to do at all. We started with my unabashed opinion of what AI is when it comes to copywriting, and things could only get better from there. In fact, Nathan had a number of positive things to say, including the best uses for AI when you’re a copywriter—things I had not considered or heard before. However, good copywriter that he is, Nathan doesn’t even think of having the AI engine actually do his writing. He’s saved that for himself. We also talked about where AI falls short, in ways you may or may not have already realized. Writing copy, after all, is a skill that most people don’t have or even understand. But it is and will remain necessary and vital for an increasing proportion of the world’s business for years to come. We also took a little peek into the future, to plot where we may be headed. Find Nathan's website at https://advertisingcheatcodes.com/ Download.

Today we’ve got an urgent topic that everyone in copywriting has questions about—and we’ve got an expert to give us some much-needed guidance. The topic is content. What do you do with it. When does it replace copy… when is it inappropriate… and when does content blend with copy and actually enhance the selling power? And our expert is Scott Aughtmon, founder of Direct Response Content Marketing. Full disclosure: Scott and I have been friends for a while, and he invite me to speak at a marketing class he was teaching at UC Berkeley six years ago. These days, Scott does a lot of marketing work in the tech space. He’s also the author of the book “51 Content Marketing Hacks” and created an infographic called “21 Types Of Content We Crave.” That infographic has gone viral, and we’re going to talk about a few of those types today, and give you a link at the end to get the full list. Scott told us how and why he got into content marketing, and a little bit about the surprising history of the infographic. If you overlook the importance of content every step of the way in your sales funnels, you’ll want to hear what Scott had to say, because he understands the value of content in a direct response context, and explains it better than anyone else I’ve ever heard. Scott reviewed five of the 21 items in the infographic, and we discussed why people crave them: • Content that reminds us there’s more • Content that inspires us to action • Content that reminds us we matter • Content that educates while entertaining us • Content that creates a fresh point of views, even about common things You can get a free copy of Scott’s infographic here: https://www.directresponsecontentmarketing.com/2019/09/12/the-21-types-of-content-we-crave-infographic/ And you can get his training on the 31 Types of Content We All Crave for $79 (instead of $99) and free PDF copy of his book, 51 Content Marketing Hacks. Offer good until midnight on 3/31. Here’s the link: https://tinyurl.com/4k3hp45xhttps://tinyurl.com/4k3hp45x Download.

Our returning champion is Joshua Lee Henry, with a first: He came by to do a GUEST Old Master’s Series show. Joshua asked me if he take a new look at the work of John Caples, the great copywriter and author. I said OK, as long he talked about something different than we have talked about on the many shows we’ve already done on Caples. Joshua put together a collection of unique items that filled the bill. So I was really happy to bring him back for this special show! As you may remember, Joshua is a high-powered copywriter and copy chief for Agora. He started his career 13 years ago writing fundraising letters for victims of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Joshua has been pastor of a megachurch and as a freelancer, has written for such famous clients as Jay Abraham, Brian Tracy and the Zig Ziglar corporation. Today, we found out what he discovered, digging into the archives of John Caples. Joshua broke it down into six lessons: 1. 4 Ways to Profit by Removing The Guesswork 2. How to Secure Testimonials 3. Appealing to the “Lazy Instinct” 4. The Value of Illusion 5. Write Long and Boil It Down 6. The Most Important Quality for a Writer is Sincerity Joshua rose to the challenge and we appreciate him for it! Here are a couple links: A training program Joshua’s part of: World of Financial Copywriting, https://bit.ly/3CaB9S8 And if you want to reach Joshua personally, his email is: joshualeehenry @ activatemyadvertising.com Download.

Our guest today is Meg Casebolt, founder of Love at First Search and host of the Social Slowdown podcast. I think the key words are “love” and “slow,” and let’s see if I’m right. Meg’s been very successful with a long-term search-engine optimization strategy she uses for her clients. One example that you should find interesting: Meg’s client Sara Frandina showed up third for the keywords “conversion copywriter” -- and this was organic, not an ad -- yesterday when I searched for that term on Google. Third on the first page of organic search for “conversion copywriter.” Not too shabby! You may remember legendary copywriter Gary Bencivenga had a huge success with the headline “Get Rich Slowly.” Well, Meg’s approach is similar. She doesn’t go for the black-hat tricks and other gimmicks popular among some marketers. “We don’t believe in quick-fix formulas that promise the world—but break your heart when you see they don’t work,” she says. One key element of Meg’s long-term, long-lasting approach: The strategic use of empathy in keyword research. Empathy, which could be seen as an appropriate expression of love. It’s an approach I’ve never heard of before, in the specific way Meg talks about it. So I was very excited to talk with Meg about it. She began with a great example -- a stark contrast between a bad example of empathy (that is, hardly any empathy at all) and the good use of empathy. This was for keywords in weight loss. From there, Meg shared her four strategies for coming up with a comprehensive empathy-based keyword strategy: 1. Empathize with your customers’ journey to find an answer 2. Understanding the WHY / Setting yourself apart 3. Providing a solution 4. Be empathetic when developing content This was a very valuable look at how to thrive in today’s content-based search engine environment. Meg’s website is: https://loveatfirstsearch.com/ Download.

Now that it’s late January, you should be well into your New Years Resolutions or goals for the year, or maybe decided, “Ah… I’ll wait till next year.” What I’d like to do is niche down to just copywriting. Do you have copywriting goals? I’ve got five skills or skill sets that are worth improving this year, and I want to give you a peek under the hood. Every one of these can put more power in your copy and more profit in your pocket. They’re not flashy but they are high-octane. And I’ve found the most successful people never stop improving, so it’s worth at least considering these and see if they feel like a fit. So there are the five skills. You probably have most or all of them already. The idea is that by getting better at any one of them, you copy improves in multiples. Skill #1: Research We talked about three kinds of research: fact research, emotional research, and situational research. Most people know what fact research is, and even getting better at this could really help anyone’s copywriting. But emotional research and situational research take copy to a whole new level. Skill #2: Rewriting Building off this quote from Ernest Hemingway: Don’t get discouraged because there’s a lot of mechanical work to writing. There is, and you can’t get out of it. I rewrote the first part of A Farewell to Arms at least fifty times. You’ve got to work it over. The first draft of anything is shit. When you first start to write you get all the kick and the reader gets none, but after you learn to work it’s your object to convey everything to the reader so that he remembers it not as a story he had read but something that happened to himself. We talked about what real rewriting is like… why it’s so important… and the best way to do it. Skill #3: Metaphors We were so fortunate to have the Queen of Metaphors, Anne Miller, on the show a few weeks ago. We talked about her book, The Tall Lady With The Iceberg. Tucked away in the back of the book are a series of very practical, valuable routines on how you can get better and better at using metaphors in your copy—and everywhere else! We cover those in this part of the podcast. Skill #4: Go Beyond Swiping There’s a level of copywriting that Gene Schartz talks about in “Breakthrough Advertising” that goes way beyond swiping, or simply following formulas to come up with a headline or body copy. Gene says, “The idea for an ad or a headline demands its own shape. It cannot be fitted into someone else’s solution. The problem defies a formula. And the third, analytical approach -- with no answers, only guideposts and questions -- offers the only way.” We talked about these three levels of copy creativity here. Skill #5: Get Better At Identifying and Writing To Your Prospect’s Level of Market Awareness This another one of the many gems from Gene Schwartz’ book Breakthrough Advertising. Here are the five stages in a nutshell: Stage 1- Ready to buy your product Stage 2- Has heard about your product, but doesn’t want it (yet) Stage 3- Wants a product that does what yours does -- but doesn’t want yours (yet) Stage 4 - Has a need, but doesn’t see connection between his need and your product Stage 5 - Complete unawareness We talked about getting more familiar with these five stages, and how to use them. One more thing: If more than one of these appeals to you and you’ve already decided to improve the skill or skills, don’t dive into all of them all at once. Better to do one at a time. Maybe one a week, or one every two weeks, or one a month. But, if you can, do something every day to improve one of these skills, and stick with one for at least a week, you will find you have some impressive breakthroughs in 2023. Book links: The Tall Lady With The Iceberg, by Anne Miller https://www.amazon.com/Tall-Lady-Iceberg-Metaphor-Metaphorically/dp/0976279444 Breakthrough Advertising, by Eugene Schwartz https://breakthroughadvertisingbook.com/ Download.

We’re back from last week with Joshua Lee Henry, who shared the first five of his 10 Commandments of Compelling Offers. As you may remember, they were great. To refresh your memory, Joshua is a high-powered copywriter and copy chief. His first appearance on Copywriters Podcast was a few months ago, when he gave us a great interview on putting together compelling leads. And, like I said earlier, today, he’s back with part two of The 10 Commandments of Compelling Offers. It’s not surprising that Joshua would be sharing his own copywriting version of the 10 Commandments, since 12 years ago, Joshua was a pastor for a megachurch with more than 5,000 members. It was at that time he began is copywriting career, writing fundraising letters for victims of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Fast forward to 2018, when Joshua started freelancing and wrote for big names including Jay Abraham, Brian Tracy and the Zig Ziglar corporation. Like a lot of high-performing copywriters, Joshua moved under the umbrella of Agora, where he has written promotions that have made millions. These days, he is copy chief for Money & Markets, an imprint of Agora’s Banyan Hill company. Now before we get to part 2 of the 10 Commandments, allow me to share with you this Prime Directive: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. 1. 6. Take Away a. Makes prospects qualify themselves. Which is a stronger sale and better customer. b. Reenforces prospects buying decision. c. Reduces refunds and cancels. d. Play hard to get. Don’t be desperate/needy. e. People want what they can’t have. f. Example from entrepreneur coaching program: “If it’s going to be tough to scrounge together $5k…OR you can’t imagine investing that much in anything, no matter how much more precious time and additional income it gives you…Then chances are this program is not for you. Likewise, if you have any doubts that we can deliver the goods…No hard feelings, just don’t apply.” g. Example: “10X Fortunes is exclusive and aggressive by design. This service is ONLY for people interested in making an extreme fortune, fast. And have the guts to go after a new 1,000% winner, every month this year.” 2. 7. Risk Reversal a. Shows skin in the game. b. Carries the burden of proof. c. Different than a satisfaction guarantee. d. Try before you buy offers. e. Bill my later offers. f. Example from options service: “Test Drive Wednesday Windfalls Options Service for the next 30 days for only $1. Then, at the end of the month, if you’re happy with the gains you’ve made and want to continue...Do nothing and we’ll automatically upgrade you to official membership at the normal annual price.” g. Example from investing service: “When we make our first 1,000% winner, I’ll PAY for your second year’s membership” h. Example from online marketer: “If it doesn’t work, I’ll pay you $200.” 3. 8. Guarantee/Warranty a. Satisfaction, quality or performance based. b. Questions asked and no questions asked. c. 100% Money-back? There are other options (i.e., different service/product, offering a second year, discount on another item, gift card, etc.) But money-back is perceived as the safest offer. d. Longer guarantee is better. e. Make it conditional, upon a customer behavior. f. People know they’re going to cancel when they order. Most everyone else will forget to cancel unless there’s a big problem. g. Example: Real estate marketing biz that required agents to submit their marketing materials printed on their stationary before eligible for the refund. h. Example: Have to have completed a certain amount of modules in an online course. i. Example: Must attend all online course sessions over a period of time to be eligible for a refund. j. Example from investing service: “If we don’t make at least 12 triple-digit winners this year, I’ll pay for your second’ years’ membership” k. Example from Patriot Health Alliance: “Give Patriot Power Greens a fair and honest try for at least 30 days. If, after trying a full canister, you don’t feel like you have more energy, clearer thinking, better digestion, a healthier heart and less pain when you move around then I want you to simply send back any unused canisters along with a simple 1-page note giving me your honest feedback of the product. Just a simple handwritten note will do. Just write your honest feedback on a sheet of paper and put it in the box along with your order when you return it. We’re putting all of the risk on our shoulders and backing your order with a never-before-seen 200% money back guarantee.” l. 4. 9. Deadline a. People need to be pushed to act sometimes. b. Make it a real deadline with real consequences. c. Give them a waiting list if they missed out. d. Build up the FOMO for next time. e. After a few days reopen and send them an email about an available opening. f. Example from real estate investing biz: “But FAIR WARNING — after these 100 spots are filled this special edition of the Investor’s Toolkit will be removed from the market.” 5. 10. CTA a. Tell people exactly what you want them to do. b. Make the buy button or CTA absolutely clear. c. Repeat the CTA several times. d. Have only 1 CTA per marketing piece. e. Make it a two-step ad. I.e. download this report, then a CTA for booking a consultation or “strategy session” f. If needed, switch up the CTA at later stages in the funnel. g. Example: Ability to call in to tele-sales at the lifetime upsell. h. Example: Giving a phone number to call Joshua is one of the instructors in the World of Financial Copywriting program. You can get more info about it here: https://bit.ly/3CaB9S8 And if you want to reach Joshua personally, his email is: joshualeehenry @ activatemyadvertising . com Download.

Our returning champion is Joshua Lee Henry, the high-powered copywriter and copy chief. You might remember him from a few months ago when he gave a tremendous interview on putting together compelling leads. Today, he’s back with The 10 Commandments of Compelling Offers. Not surprising, since 12 years ago, Joshua was a pastor for a megachurch with more than 5,000 members. It was at that time he began is copywriting career, writing fundraising letters for victims of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Fast forward to 2018, when Joshua started freelancing and wrote for big names including Jay Abraham, Brian Tracy and the Zig Ziglar corporation. Like a lot of high-performing copywriters, Joshua moved under the umbrella of Agora, where he has written promotions that have made millions. These days, he is copy chief for Money & Markets, an imprint of Agora’s Banyan Hill company. The last time he was here, after he gave us great information about leads, I asked Joshua if he had more that he’d like to share. He has a very busy schedule, but he managed to squeeze in some time for us, to talk about compelling offers. He started by giving us some important pinpointing information about how detailed and elaborate your offer can be. But he emphasized that the more of these commandments you combine, the stronger your offer is. The first commandment covers what you get, but it’s way beyond a laundry list of the components that make up the package of what you’re selling. Joshua shared some techniques to strengthen the “WYG” (what you get). Second, third and fourth commandments go into great (and valuable!) detail about explaining the price. Putting $(number) in your copy just ain’t gonna cut it, as you undoubtedly know if you’ve been writing long-form direct response copy for specialized offers. Joshua gave some powerful tips about presenting price justification, payment terms and special discounts. He also gave strong examples of price-related copy from successful offers across the web. And the fifth command is a detailed breakdown of bonuses and premiums—what they are and how they work. Some new ideas as well as some important established truths it always helps to be reminded of. Joshua went into so much detail that we only had time for five of the 10 commandments on today’s show. He promised to come back next week to give us the remaining five. Joshua is one of the instructors in the World of Financial Copywriting program. You can get more info about it here: https://bit.ly/3CaB9S8 And if you want to reach Joshua personally, his email is: joshualeehenry(at)activatemyadvertising(dot)com Download.

If you’ve ever wondered what a metaphor is and how to use metaphors in your copy, today you will get your questions answered. Because we have a guest who I consider to be the reigning expert on the question, Anne Miller. She’s author of “The Tall Lady With The Iceberg.” For my money, it is the best book ever written on how to use metaphors to sell, to explain, and to win people over. Anne understands and teaches this information better than anyone else I’ve ever seen. She’s also a coach, speaker and seminar leader. Her huge client list ranges from Columbia University and The Wall Street Journal to Revlon, Citibank and Yahoo. As well as clients in Australia, South America, Europe and Asia. Dozens and dozens of household names and major niche organizations. For us in the copywriting world, Anne’s expertise in creating and using metaphors is what excites me the most. Many copywriters and business owners use metaphors, but not too many people do it all that well. And that’s about to change today. Anne covers a lot of ground on today’s show. Here’s what I ask her: 1. What is a metaphor, anyway? 2. Why are metaphors so important? 3. You have a very handy four-step metaphor workout. Could you share it with us? 4. What are the main ways we can use metaphors in communication? 5. Could we talk about a few different kinds of metaphors, with examples 6. How about which mistakes you should avoid when using metaphors? You can get in touch with Anne on her website: https://www.annemiller.com Here’s the link to her book, The Tall Lady With The Iceberg: https://www.amazon.com/Tall-Lady-Iceberg-Metaphor-Metaphorically/dp/0976279444 Download.

Today we’re back with Peter Visser, who has developed an impressive business with partners. It’s an online education business that teaches people how to trade in the stock and Forex markets. What I found so interesting, and I think you will find it interesting too, is his marketing approach. While it seems typical at first glance, as you start to look into it a little further, it’s not typical at all. In last week’s show, we talked about how he sells to a webinar with ads he says are “‘zero-claim,’ so they always pass compliance.” The ads go to a webinar that has no sales pitch, as Peter describes it. The webinars have generated six figures a month for the last year. From there, he has a copy strategy using one-to-one emails, and a particular way of writing copy that doesn’t risk the wrath of the regulators. Today we’ll talk about the second part of his funnel -- the pitch his company uses to qualify leads, and his overall approach for writing highly persuasive copy without making any claims. Peter tells us about a one-on-one email pitch. “It allows us to qualify hundreds of inquiries per day for our $5,000 program.” It’s a three-step process that “primes the prospect for a high-ticket sale before they reach the closer.” As a result, he says, this keeps his close rate above 40%. Also, we take an in-depth look at copy without claims! Whether you end up using this approach yourself or not, it’s certainly something you would like to find out more about. Peter and his partners also offer a program for traders to start their own online education businesses, not reselling his courses but based on their own experience and expertise. To find out more, go to: https://cashwithcourses.com/yes To contact Peter, use this email address: peter at cashwithcourses dot com Download.

Today our guest is Peter Visser, who has developed an impressive business with partners. It’s an online education business that teaches people how to trade in the stock and Forex markets. What I found so interesting, and I think you will find it interesting too, is his marketing approach. While it seems typical at first glance, as you start to look into it a little further, it’s not typical at all. He sells to a webinar with ads he says are “‘zero-claim,’ so they always pass compliance.” The ads go to a webinar that has no sales pitch, as Peter describes it. The webinars have generated six figures a month for the last year. From there, he has a copy strategy using one-to-one emails, and a particular way of writing copy that doesn’t risk the wrath of the regulators. Today we’ll talk about the lead generation process, and the pitch-free webinars themselves. Peter has generously agreed to come back next week to tell us in detail about how he gets customers, once they’ve watched the webinar. Here is what he talked about today: - The ad strategy that got his company 50,000 registrants and 7,500 attendees from Google ads over 12 months. As I mentioned, Peter says, “These are ‘zero-claim’ ads, so they always pass compliance.” Peter got a return on ad spend of 3 to 4 times—even when show-up rate was very low (which is a typical problem with webinars). - The “Pitchless Event”: How his company put on 20 webinars in 12 months that generated six figures apiece, without a sales pitch during the webinar. An important point for follow-up sales that were initiated after the webinars: Peter got more than 100 five-star reviews on Trustpilot. I’ve never heard of anyone doing an online education business quite this way, so I was very eager to have Peter come on and break this down for us. Peter and his partners also offer a program for traders to start their own online education businesses, not reselling his courses but based on their own experience and expertise. To find out more, go to: https://cashwithcourses.com/yes To contact Peter, use this email address: peter at cashwithcourses dot com Download.

We’re back with top copywriter Mike Pavlish for part two of his in-depth information on video sales letters that sell like crazy. And Mike should know. He’s written dozens of VSLs that have brought in 10 million dollars or more. In fact, over the last 30 years, Mike’s copy has brought in three-quarters of a billion dollars in sales. And his work is still bringing in the big bucks today. I want to share with you something from last week, because it’s well worth repeating. High-powered entrepreneur Alvin Huang says this: “We’ve tested Mike Pavlish’s copywriting agains 5 other A-list copywriters, including many of the top names in the world for sales letters and VSLs. Mike’s copy has won every single time. For us, Mike Pavlish has been the Steph Curry of copywriters.” But Mike may be an even better teacher than Steph. I know I learned a lot from him last week and have even used some of it for a VSL between then and today. To review, last week Mike gave us some great tips on doing research for a winning VSL, told us about the four types of VSLs and how to use each one, and described the complete package of what you need to make your lead capture and hold your prospect’s attention. Today, he gets into the nitty-gritty about what makes an effective opening story. Mike is the only person I’ve ever heard talk about TWO kinds of mechanisms, and why you should include both in your VSL script. In addition to keeping your prospects on the edge of their seat, this two-mechanism approach will lock-in their decision to buy from you, and lock-out everyone and everything else. If, that is, you use it the way Mike describes it! Mike also reveals some secrets about your product and offer… AND… he shares some unique (and highly valuable ideas) about creating urgency and adding to your Average Order Value. Which is finished up by a separate but also tremendously worthwhile set of tips on upsells. Download.

Our returning champion is superstar copywriter Mike Pavlish, and even though this is Copywriters Podcast, I’m not exaggerating when I say “superstar.” Mike’s been at it for over 30 years, and his copy has sold three-quarters of a billion dollars in products and services. Because Mike is going to give us some closely-held secrets about VSLs that sell like crazy, you ought to hear what one of his clients says about Mike. I happen to know this client, because he flew over from Singapore nearly 10 years ago to attend a seminar I had organized. His name is Alvin Huang and listen to what he has to say: “We’ve tested Mike Pavlish’s copywriting agains 5 other A-list copywriters, including many of the top names in the world for sales letters and VSLs. Mike’s copy has won every single time. For us, Mike Pavlish has been the Steph Curry of copywriters.” You know, there’s only one way to get a testimonial like that, and that way is to earn it with results. So we’ve talked Mike into sharing some ideas with us about how to get those results with a VSL. Mike has written more than 150 VSLs (long-form, which he’ll explain in a minute) and dozens of them have brought in $10 million or more in sales. On today’s show, Mike told us about the kind of research you should do to get your “raw materials” for a winning VSL, and what it is that makes VSLs perform so well in an online environment where there are so many other things competing for your prospect’s attention. He also described the four types of VSLs (long-form, 30-60 minutes, is one of the four) and explained how to use each one, depending on your desired result. And Mike introduced a new idea I’ve never heard before: How to use proof early in your script to tease benefits you will reveal later. He also revealed what is the one type of story that you should use in a VSL, and… he went into great depth on what you should include in your lead, and what are the other key elements of a winning VSL. All in all, a detail-rich, highly valuable interview for Copywriters Podcast. Download.

For a lot of us, the hardest part of writing copy is getting started. Today we’re going to dive into some very handy tips from Old Master John Caples. He is, of course, famous for his ad which has the headline, “They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano… but When I Began To Play… ” Caples was what we would call today a data-driven marketer. He made his choices based on test results as much as anything else. He was highly successful and author of some of the best books every written on direct response marketing. In “Tested Advertising Methods,” he has an entire chapter devoted to seven proven ways to start your copy. Imagine how much easier it will be to write if you have some sure-fire ways to get started. That’s what today’s show is about. Now, to come up with these seven techniques, John Caples didn’t brainstorm a bunch of ways to start copy. He didn’t even draw on his massive, successful experience as a copywriter and a copy chief for six of them. No, for this chapter, he did something better. He found the best source of leads where the words HAD to work. And that was the Reader’s Digest. Now you may not be familiar with Reader’s Digest, but if you are as old as I am, you probably are. If for no other reason that you remember copies of the magazine lying around the waiting room of the dentist’s office. Reader’s Digest was the largest-circulation magazine in the United States until 2009. Millions and millions of people would read these articles each month. And so the editors had to make sure that every word counted. They couldn’t take risks or allow flights of fancy. Every article needed to make sense to every reader. From the first word, and all the way through. When you’ve got millions of readers, you’ve got to be a simple, straightforward and yet as compelling as humanly possible. It was against that backdrop that Caples began his research. He thought: If editors use something to start articles in the Reader’s Digest over and over again, it’s not by accident. They have to KNOW that it works. So he started cataloguing and counting the different ways the articles started. He figured, if it will work in editorial, it will also work in advertising. I think he was absolutely right, and it was a brilliant way to show copywriters proven ways to start their copy. He came up with six ways that were repeated over and over, and added a seventh one. All of this is from Chapter 9 of “Tested Advertising Methods.” I’m going to summarize what he found and then we’ll bring it into the 21st Century. And, along the way, give you a little toolkit to get your copy started faster and with more confidence. Link to get “Tested Advertising Methods”: https://www.amazon.com/Advertising-Methods-Prentice-Business-Classics/dp/0130957011 Download.

How would you like to DOUBLE your conversions after prospect opt-in for a lead magnet? I mean… who wouldn’t like that, right? Now one thing that keeps us, as direct marketers, from reaching new heights, is our ingrown conservatism. Which is normally a good thing. When something works, we stick to it. Other people in marketing and advertising often seem to compete to see how much money they can waste by being “creative” and trying out whatever comes to mind in the moment. Meanwhile, direct marketers see their job as making money for their clients. So we tend to stay focused on what has proven to work in the past. And most of the time, it’s a good idea. But sometimes, sticking too narrowly to the tried-and-true can box us in. We have to balance our data-driven decisions with breakthrough innovations that could still conceivably work within the bounds of direct marketing. Enter Jason Strachan. He’s our returning champion today. Jason is a bold copywriter and marketer who’s willing to jump out of the box to try something new and see if it works better. Of course he’s not the only one in our business who takes these kind of risks. But he is one of the few I’ve ever talked to who has taken a controversial, yet proven new idea, adapted it, and gotten outstanding results. So Jason didn’t try something entirely out of the blue. He did use a proven concept. The difference is, the concept Jason was about to try had been used in a different context, and some very experienced people doubted it would work the way Jason wanted to use it. But Jason stuck with it, and it worked — big time! For his promotions so far, his adaptation of the idea led to a 40% conversion rate on an upsell, and, more important for todays show, more than DOUBLING the conversion after an opt-in from a lead magnet. On today’s show, Jason walked us through the typical optin sequence, and explained the thinking behind it. The old way has worked very well for a lot of marketers, and it’s worth taking a few minutes to understand where we’re starting. Then, Jason explained how he learned about this new approach, and the outsize results he got on a couple of campaigns — even though experienced direct marketers were very skeptical about the idea ahead of time when Jason ran it by them. This is a little-known strategy well worth learning about and considering using for your own promotions. How to get in touch with Jason and get his book: advertisingalchemy at gmail dot com www.10magicwords.com/book Download.

Most everyone accepts that stories are THE best way to grab and hold someone’s attention. But does that mean ANY story you use in your copy will help you with your sales? A lot of people seem to have never asked or considered that question. Today we dig into it. You see, Joseph Campbell’s 1949 book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” eventually launched a revolution in storytelling. Especially among professional storytellers. Campbell’s idea of The Hero’s Journey has become accepted truth as THE way to tell a story for many people. Is that really true in copy? We take a careful look at this question today. And we come up with some answers so you don’t make the mistake I’ve seen so many copywriters make with their stories. I want to say up-front that I am not against Hero’s Journey stories. I have spent a large part of my life studying them and an even larger part of my life reading, watching and enjoying them. My main point today is that you should use them as they were intended to be used, and where they work. I like hand-held power drills, but I don’t think you should use them to open a can of chili. It’s interesting, for example, that a typical movie is a two-hour hero’s journey. It starts with an ordinary person on an ordinary day, who gets thrown into a long and complicated challenge that changes the person’s life. Tests, discoveries, friends and foes abound. As you watch the story, or read the story, at more than one point you say, “How is he going to get out of this one?” or “Is it even possible she can make it through this problem?” And while, for example, the studios MAKE two-hour stories in the form of a hero’s journey, they don’t SELL them that way. Studios sell movies with little movies of 30 seconds to two minutes called “trailers.” A trailer has high points from the movie, called “moments,” and one overriding question or theme to get you intrigued enough to buy a ticket or pay for a view on your TV and devote two hours of your life to watching the movie. That’s a hint right there on one major difference between dramatic stories and sales stories. Now, this is not to say that there are no similarities between the two types of stories. One thing they have in common is that they cause emotional responses in the viewer or reader. Sometimes huge ones. All good stories have an emotional impact of some kind. Another thing they have in common is that they are about people, not things or ideas. Usually, one main person. Of course there are other people in a story, too. But usually it’s about one person. Sometimes a tight-nit group of people, or a pair of people -- like a buddy movie. But, that said, there are a lot more differences than similarities. We to talk about five of the key differences today. Download.

Our guest today is a true A-List Copywriter. Doug D’Anna has written for just about about any major direct mail publisher you can think of. His client list includes Agora, Boardroom, Forbes, Prevention Health Books, Personal Finance, and dozens of other big-ticket clients. Like just about every other copywriters starting out, Doug was severely underpaid for his work at first. He turned that around on a project that earned him one-quarter million dollars in royalties about 30 years ago. He kept on going from there, and he’ll tell us all about that today. What does it take to bring in the big bucks in copywriting? Doug has figured it out. He’s also discovered how to get some pretty impressive public endorsements, like this one from legendary copywriter Gary Bencivenga: “Writers who can consistently create powerful direct marketing campaigns are as rare as trumpeter swans. I know of only about six in the entire country. Doug D'Anna is on that short list of star writers I never hesitate to recommend.” Today, Doug has agreed to share with you vitally important information about how to get paid what you are worth, which, as you can see by now, he made a lot of effort to learn and profit from himself. I also have some vitally important information for you: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Doug took us right back to the beginning, when he was struggling to get paid enough to make copywriting worth his while. It all changed when a man named Richard Stanton-Jones at Phillips Publishing hired Doug to write a promotion for a publication called Retirement Letter. Stanton-Jones put a lot of time into working with Doug, and did it ever pay off! Doug’s promo got double the response of the current control — and it launched his career. Discovering what he was worth came to Doug in phases. The more he found out, and the more successes he racked up, the more he raised his fees — even once doubling it in a one day! Doug shared some of his best secrets and strategies in this action-packed, value-rich show. He’s also offering a $51 discount ($299 instead of $350) to podcast listeners on his powerful home-study course: “How to Sell Yourself as a Copywriter. Just use this link: https://dougdanna.gumroad.com/l/nmufa/DAVIDGDownload.

Our guest today is Joshua Lee Henry, a high-powered copywriter with a very interesting career before he started writing copy. That began 12 years ago, when Joshua wrote fundraising letters for victims of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. At the time, he was also a pastor for a megachurch with more than 5,000 members. Fast forward to 2018, when Joshua started freelancing and wrote for big names including Jay Abraham, Brian Tracy and the Zig Ziglar corporation. Like a number of high-performing copywriters, Joshua moved under the umbrella of Agora, where he has written promotions that have made millions. These days, he is copy chief for Money & Markets, an imprint of Agora’s fast-growing Banyan Hill company. After I spoke at Brian Kurtz’s mastermind a few weeks ago, where Joshua had also spoken, Joshua reached out to me with an idea that was truly mind-boggling: How to structure a lead that truly gets and keeps 100% of a qualified prospect’s intention. I’m not sure he put it exactly that way, but that’s what I took away from it. Joshua offered to share his structure with you on this show, and I said yes. Joshua has taken some well-known copy elements, added a couple of his own, and come up with something truly bold and audacious. What makes his approach almost impossible to ignore is a deft combination of shock, and carefully-selected breathtaking facts. All the while, everything is legitimate and on the level. And proven. What’s the unique about this approach is the way they are combined. Very powerful and a little unusual. Joshua originally developed the mind-boggling lead method for financial promos only. But for today’s show, he went out of his way to find examples of each element in non-financial promo’s. So, there’s something for everyone here. You can get more info about the program World of Financial Copywriting here: https://bit.ly/3CaB9S8 And if you want to reach Joshua personally, his email is: joshualeehenry@activatemyadvertising.com Download.

Today’s show is our attempt to answer this question: How do you add more impact to every single sentence? It started last week when I read this article from The Economist. It’s a British magazine, and it used to be my favorite. I hardly read it at all anymore. But… I was scrolling through Twitter and the AKA, also called the All-Knowing Algorithm, served up an ad for an article in The Economist with the headline, “What to Read To Become a Better Writer.” So, I clicked. You know, many people say that the AKA knows even more than Google! The article starts with a very strange picture. Three women at an outdoor café. Two are having a drink, laughing, having a great time. The third one is writing on an old-fashioned portable manual typewriter. Scowling and trying desperately to concentrate while her friends are partying. I have always thought the British have a strange way of looking at things. The article recommends five books. I cherry-picked some tips from three of them that would be especially useful for copywriters when you want to add more impact to your writing. The main thing I was looking at when I was cherry-picking these ideas from more than 1,000 pages of books is: What’s going to give each sentence in your copy more impact? I know a lot of people recommend power words or startling statements, but a reader can only take so much of those things. Too much electric intensity can wear out a reader. For most of your copy, what’s important is clarity and momentum. Clarity often comes from leaving things out or fine-tuning some of the words you use. Momentum comes from moving your reader emotionally, which is what we usually think of as entertainment. In movies, novels and songs, that emotional movement comes from the reader’s or listener’s reaction to a story about someone or something else. In copy, we focus on something else: The readers themselves. People get moved when they think about something wrong in their lives, and they get just as moved, though in another direction, when they think about getting something they want that they couldn’t get before now. The books I went through are not copywriting books, and so they cover things that are different from what we’re concerned about when we write copy. But there’s one area of nearly 100% overlap: Impact. Writing that keeps the reader reading. And that’s what I was looking for when I got these tips for you. I found the best stuff from three books, and we’ll put links to them in the show notes. They are: On Writing Well, by William Zinsser. I first read this book nearly 50 years ago, when I was a journalist. I’ve come to appreciate it more over the years, and have assigned it to mentoring clients to polish up their writing skills. Other copywriting teachers also assign this book. It’s mostly for journalists and business writers, but many of his ideas work for copy, too. The second book I learned about in the Economist article: Style Lessons in Clarity and Grace, by Joseph M. Williams and Joseph Bizup. The two Josephs go into a lot of depth about little things that make a big difference. We’ll cover a few of those things today. The third book, I didn’t like a whole lot, even though the writer of the Economist article did. I don’t think there was too much we could use, but there was one very important thing in there. So I’m not recommending it, but I’ll include a link just in case it piques your curiosity. It’s called A Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century, by Steven Pinker. Book Links: On Writing Well, by William Zinsser https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0090RVGW0 Style Lessons in Clarity and Grace, by Joseph M. William and Joseph Bizup https://www.amazon.com/dp/0134080416 The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century by Steven Pinker https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00INIYG74/ Download.

If you’ve been a copywriter, a media buyer, or a business owner for a while, you have probably realized there are things that happen in this business that people don’t talk about a lot. At least publicly. I’m talking about stuff that you kinda wished you knew about ahead of time, so you wouldn’t be so floored when it happened to you. Copywriting and direct marketing make up a great business, and I’ve found most people, most of the time, are pretty decent. But not everybody all the time. And I know we generally like to be constructive and optimistic on this podcast. But I think it’s also valuable to know how things can go upside down or sideways. You can’t always avoid it, but you may be able to stop it or fix it before it gets worse. Or at least deal with it better than you might have before you knew about what we’re going to talk about today. Sometimes I think the best background for being a copywriter is having a previous life as a firefighter, an ER surgeon, or a hostage negotiator. Because on those occasions when things start to go sideways or upside down, it’s good to have crisis-management skills in the real world. I wanted to put this show together because I thought about some of the things I wish I had known about before I became a copywriter, a direct response business owner, and later a coach. To be sure, there are a number of annoying, disrespectful, and sometimes sheerly incomprehensible things that do happen. I don’t think it’s a good idea to believe you can wish it all away just by keeping a positive mindset. You know, because… some days are just better than others. One of my favorite success writers, Robert Ringer, has a “Theory of Sustenance” which says, “Keep a Positive Attitude Through The Expectation of a Negative Result.” A lot of fancy words, right? What does his elaborate theory mean? It basically means: Shit happens. Do not worry about this, or let it throw you off balance. Sometimes, you’ll find that negative results are simply an inevitable part of the process of success. Including great success. With practice and intention, you can learn to let go of the pain after a bit of time, and hold onto the lesson. Because there’s always a lesson. I figured, we might as well talk about problems, just to be prepared for them before they happen. Everything I’m going to talk about today has happened to me or to someone I know. Download.

This is a unique edition of our Old Masters Series, because I knew this copywriter personally. It’s Joe Sugarman, and Joe passed away in March of this year. I was sad to see him go, as were thousands of others. Outside of the direct marketing world, Joe is known for his BluBlockers sunglasses, which he took to great success using infomercials. Joe also came up with the Batman credit card. He printed up a huge number, only to find DC comics wasn’t interested in selling them. So he gave them away at events. Joe was a fun guy. And as you’ll hear about in today’s show, quite a prankster from early in his life. Joe wrote a book called Triggers in 1999, and we looked at a few of the most powerful ideas in the book. The information in this value-packed book is familiar on a surface level to most copywriters and marketers, but Joe brings it to life in a unique way with some great stories. Each trigger, by the way, is a powerful copy element that will increase your conversions. I think the reason he calls them triggers is that they trigger action on the part of the prospect. We took a deep dive on 5 triggers in today’s show. Here’s what we covered: Trigger 1: National Hermits Convention: Desire to Belong Trigger 2: The Snowmobile That Bit Me: Exclusivity Trigger 3: Our President Drives A Rabbit: Proof of Value Trigger 4: Instilling Authority In The Men’s Bathroom: Authority Trigger 5: Help, It’s A Fire: Sense of Urgency Link to get Triggers: https://www.amazon.com/Triggers-Prospect-Motivate-Influence-Persuade-ebook/dp/B00O3QEFSKDownload.

Our guest today, Jason Strachan, went through a powerful turnaround over 10 years ago. He was deeply in debt, not doing especially well as a copywriter. He heard about Gary Bencivenga’s famous “Bencivenga 100” seminar in New York, but there was no way he could pull the money together to attend. However, when Gary offered the seminar on DVD, Jason moved heaven and earth, and might have missed a couple meals, to come up with the money to buy the recordings. And what he learned changed his life. Jason says, “I’ve always had this uncanny gift for assimilating new information when it interested me.” He put what he learned to work and his copy generated tens of millions for clients around the world. Fast forward to today. Jason has boiled down what he has learned over time into a formula made up of only 10 words, and written a book about it. I’ve reviewed the book, called The Magic Word Method.What I like about it is, any one of these words can be used, both as copy and as a strategic idea, to refresh and turbocharge just about any copy you’d like to perform better. The words are not unusual or unfamiliar. You’ve heard them before. But the way Jason looks at them is unique, in my experience. That’s why I invited him to come on the show and share his viewpoint and some tips from his book. Jason told us about the steps along his path from struggling, in-debt newbie to successful, world-class copywriter -- and how he came up with the 10 Magic Words concept. We went through three of the words from several angles: How it was used in a winning headline, why this particular word is so powerful, and some of Jason’s own experiences with how to get the most from this word both in copy and, as used strategically to boost response. And, he told us about his new book, The Magic Word Method. He has a very tempting offer with lots of bonuses. To get Jason’s book, go to: www.10magicwords.com/book If you’d like to reach out to Jason personally, here’s his email: Advertisingalchemy at gmail dot com. Download.

Our guest today has a unique vantage point in copywriting. As an executive at Boardroom for 34 years, Brian Kurtz worked with many of the most successful and famous copywriters of our time, including Gene Schwartz, Gary Bencivenga, and many others. As the guy in charge, Brian was responsible for selling well over one billion dollars’ worth of products, “$39 at a time,” to millions of people. Seven years ago, Brian started a second career writing books and running mastermind groups. As well as republishing old direct marketing classics. I’ve wanted to have Brian on the show for a long time, and I was thrilled when he agreed to talk about the copywriting legends he has worked with. If you’ve ever wondered what the people at the top of this game were and are like, today’s your lucky day. Brian’s here to tell you. Brian started out by zeroing-in on what the greats of yesteryear (and some of the superstars he worked with are very active today) do differently from other copywriters. We can all suppose, imagine, or try to find hints from stories and their work. But Brian worked closely with these writers to create winners. After some sharp insights about what makes the champions a different breed, Brian and I spent a lot of our time talking about the man who just might be everyone’s favorite Old Master, Gene Schwartz. We went way beyond Gene’s two famous books as Brian shared some stunning stories about working with Gene, and his life outside of writing copy. Brian has a number of offers, including a special one (number 3) for Copywriters Podcast listeners only: 1) Opt in to Brian’s weekly blog at briankurtz.net (and there is lots of free content at that link as well) 2) Go to OverdeliverBook.com to buy his book. You’ll get instructions on how to buy it on Amazon, and send him the receipt to get the bonuses. Less than $20 for the book, and the bonuses are incredible. 3) My favorite: Special offer on Breakthrough Advertising / The Brilliance Breakthrough: Both books together for $300 -- a $35 saving. And free shipping If you’re outside of the US, Brian will take half off of expedited shipping. So, $300 for both books, $330 for outside the US. We haven’t set up a link for this special offer. It’s good for up to one week after the podcast. You have to email Brian: brian at briankurtz dot net for this special offer, and be sure to put “Friend of David” in the subject line. Download.

He’s back -- and I’m talking about Copywriters Podcast’s very own, Nathan Fraser. Nathan’s out with a new book, Sales Funnel Cheat Codes. This is my favorite book of his so far, because it’s so right-on target and full of useful strategies and tactics for putting together a sales funnel that works. The book is chock-full of systems, funnel diagrams, strategy, and simple rules to save you from a lot of mistakes and help you make a lot more money. We had a lot to cover on today’s show. Here’s what I asked Nathan: - What led up to you writing this book? - What’s the worst-performing funnel you ever created? - What’s the best-performing funnel you’ve ever created? - You have an interesting statement in the book: “Advertising is the art of buying customers.” What do you mean by that? - You mentioned that how-to articles and product comparison articles are great places to run your ads. What did you say that? - Who was Monster and what did he teach you about how great ads work? - Could you give us some tips about advertising to customers in the five levels of awareness? - Tell us more about the book! You can get Sales Funnel Cheat Codes here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B6FWJG3S Download.

OK, we’re back with part 2 of deep headline wisdom from Old Master John Caples and his book “Tested Advertising Methods,” originally published in 1932. Last week we covered the first half of his chapter called “Twenty-nine formulas for writing headlines,” and like I said last week, this chapter is pure gold and no fat. This week we cover the second half. There was simply too much in one chapter to cover it all in one show. Now these formulas are simple, and in most cases you have to do the heavy lifting. They are formulas, but not templates. He shows you where to start, which is always half the battle when you’re writing anything. So today we’re going to cover the second half of Chapter 5 in Caples’s landmark book, “Tested Advertising Methods,” 4th edition. Two groups of headline formulas in the second half of the chapter that, for me, are more fun and more interesting than the ones we covered last week. Don’t get me wrong. The ones we covered last week, which I summarized just a moment ago, are very powerful and very effective. I just don’t think most of them offer as many creative possibilities, that will still get results, as the ones we’re going to cover today. And to be sure, your headline does not need to be quote-unquote creative. It just needs to be fresh and interesting enough to work. But, after all, if you can have a little more fun coming up with it—no harm in that! To emphasize how important headlines are and what a tightrope you’re walking with them, let’s start with these powerful fourth paragraphs from the Chapter 3 “Right and Wrong Methods of Writing Headlines” in “Tested Advertising Methods”: Remember that the reader’s attention is yours for only a single, involuntary instant. He will not use up his valuable time trying to figure out what you mean. He will simply turn the page. Do not run advertisements without headlines. Some advertisers do this in the mistaken notion that it is smart, modern, and sophisticated. Because they do not test their advertising, these advertisers do not realize that about the only person who reads their copy is the proofreader, who is paid to read it. --- And this is something you should commit to memory, what he says next: -- You can’t expect people to read your message unless you first give them in the headline a powerful reason for reading it. To run an advertisement without a headline is like opening a store without hanging out a sign to tell people what kind of store it is. A few customers may come in the store, but many prospective customers will be lost. If there is any exception to this rule, it is where an excellent picture of the product is used. For example, a beautiful, four color picture of delicious peaches with the name Del Monte at the bottom of the page conveys a message without a headline. Here are the 15 formulas we cover today: 1. How to 2. How 3. Why 4. Which 5. Who Else 6. This 7. Wanted 8. Advice 9. Use a testimonial-style headline 10. Offer the reader a test 11. Use a one-word headline 12. Use a two-word headline 13. Warn the reader to delay buying. 14. Let the advertiser speak directly to the reader 15. Address your headline to a specific group or customer Download.

Today we go deep into the headline wisdom of Old Master John Caples and his book “Tested Advertising Methods,” originally published in 1932. What’s so important about this book for today’s show is, it contains a chapter called “Twenty-Nine Formulas For Writing Headlines,” and this chapter is pure gold, no fat. It’s hard to appreciate the immense value of what he says in this chapter. I had to go through it several times to make it into podcast material. It’s clear and simple, but it’s dense. In fact, there’s so much there that I couldn’t fit it into one podcast. We’d have to cover one formula a minute. Going that fast would make it incredibly hard to develop useful ideas. It would all go by in a blur. So today is Part 1. We’ll cover 14 formulas. And we’ll cover the other 15 next week. By the way, don’t get intimidated by the word “formulas.” While Caples is accurate in describing them that way, they’re MUCH easier to use and understand than you might imagine. Now the headline formulas are in the last of four chapters about headlines. And it really makes sense to devote that much space in a book to the subject. Because headlines are BY FAR the most important part of your ad, and account for as much as 80% of how effective it is. To put the formulas in context, let’s quickly talk about the key points in the three chapters that lead up to the fourth chapter. You could go horribly wrong if you didn’t follow the guidance he has in those three chapters. The main thing he says is that headlines need to speak to the self-interest of the reader. Sounds simple enough, but so many headlines fail this simple test. Because… what is self-interest? In advertising, self-interest is what your prospect already wants or doesn’t want. Either something they want to move toward, or something they want to move away from. We’ll have a number of concrete examples of this as we move forward. The most important thing for now to get is: you may think something your prospect should want, or needs to figure out is self interest—but it’s not. Self-interest needs to be basically primal. Direct. Immediately recognizable. Primal things people want to move towards are things like: Money, health, popularity, prestige, pride. And primal things people want to move away from are things like: Threats, disrespect, loss of freedom, illness, pain. Stuff like that. Remember, copywriting is about what people instantly respond to, not what you think they should respond to. And all of this applies to headlines, especially. Keep in mind what I just said as we go through the formulas and the examples. Curiosity, which definitely attracts attention, does not usually set the frame for the copy by itself the way a good headline needs to do. However, curiosity combined with self-interest can work wonders. Again, more about this in a minute. And two other ingredients that work incredibly well when combined with self-interest are: - Quick and easy - News. Here are the short-form formulas, which we cover in depth on today’s show. 1. Announcing 2. Announcement Quality 3. New 4. Now 5. At Last 6. Put a date in your headline 7. Write like a news headline 8. Feature the price in your headline 9. Feature reduced price 10. Feature special merchandising offer 11. Feature and easy payment plan 12. Feature a free offer 13. Offer information of value 14. Tell a story and next week, we’ll cover the other 15. Download.

Our Old Master today begins a chapter of one of his books with this question: How do you cope when readers do not believe what you have written? And, he answers it: You plug the gaps where belief leaks out. Sounds like a great plan, but it leads to two more questions: 1. What are those gaps? and 2. How do you plug them? Now what’s especially interesting about this Old Master is that he’s not a copywriter. But he is a very successful writer and, for my money, the best teacher of how to write fiction you can find anywhere. And, even more interesting -- the gaps where belief leaks out for fiction writers are largely the same ones that cause problems for copywriters. And so are the fixes. I’ve tweaked his ideas ever so slightly to make them a perfect fit for copywriters. Our Old Master was named Dwight Swain. We talked about five mistakes Dwight Swain identified in the chapter “The Dynamics of Disbelief” from his book “Creating Characters: How to Build Story People.” His main point in the chapter is, when you’ve done everything else right, if your editor doesn’t believe the story could have actually happened, then the editor knows readers won’t either, and therefore the editor won’t buy your story. Good stories are believable, even though, if they are fiction, they never really happened. There’s a phrase, “the suspension of disbelief,” that describes the enjoyable experience we have when we’re watching something on the screen that we know is not actually true, but it’s done well enough so we can pretend that it is. In copy, the same thing applies, with a twist. We’re not telling a story strictly for entertainment, at least not in direct response copywriting done right. We’re making a claim and we want to make it believable enough so that people take the action we ask them to take. At least some of them. Dwight Swain was one heck of a writer. Pulp fiction, magazine articles, screenplays, novels, and lots of other things besides some great books to help other writers. Here’s a recap of the five mistakes we covered in detail on the show. Though you may already be familiar with the terms, in Swain’s view of the world, they have very specific meanings I haven’t heard about much elsewhere: Mistake #1: You fall out of viewpoint Mistake #2: You fail to do enough research Mistake #3: You’re telling, rather than showing Mistake #4: Gaps between motivation and reaction Mistake #5: Not “planting” Dwight Swain’s book: Creating Characters-How to Build Story People https://www.amazon.com/Creating-Characters-Build-Story-People-ebook/dp/B00AHYAVBC Download.

Our guest today, Kyle Jordan, has a website where he breaks down online ad sequences. The series of breakdowns is called “Full Funnel Nudity.” We’ll get to that soon enough, but first, about Kyle: His first client five years ago was a technical marketing course company called Data Driven Marketing. As a copywriter and marketing strategist, Kyle increased the traffic to their website by about 400%; doubled the size of their email list in one year; and helped them come up with six new products. But most important, with this first client, Kyle learned the technical side of online marketing from a copywriter’s point of view, in a way that few others have. This know-how led to his specialty, which he calls Funnel Renovations. He has helped multiple clients rehab their funnels and double their sales, just by fixing the funnel alone. He’s also written for famous professional athletes and influencers -- always with the goal of growing the sales of the business. Kyle shared some tips with us today from in-the-trenches about getting your funnels to perform better. He started by telling us about his most unusual motivation for becoming a copywriter and why it was so important for him to succeed in the field. From there, he shared a number of profitable tips: • The #1 mistake that kills a funnel’s conversion rate • Why if you’re not trying to get the last word in, you’re leaving money on the table • The single biggest reason eCommerce brands should hire a copywriter • A stupid simple way to increase your average order value by as much as 30% • Why you should disgust everyone who passes through your funnel He also told us about a great hack for increasing email open rates and engagement that gives you real-time market research results, and takes it to a new level. Finally, you’ve got a website is called “Full Funnel Disclosure” and on it is his collection of breakdowns called “Full Funnel Nudity”: https://fullfunneldisclosure.com His email address: kyle at fullfunneldisclosure dot com Download.

A lot of copywriters would like to know how to get into financial copywriting, and our special guest today, Rob Braddock, is just the copywriter to tell you. He started his financial copywriting career about five years ago at Agora Financial, where he did well. Rob left Agora to work at WealthPress. Working with a high-powered team, he wrote copy that resulted in millions of dollars of additional sales. All told, Rob counts about $60 million in sales in his career so far. Not too shabby. He’s gone off on his own and has been a freelancer since last December. Rob agreed to come on today to help people who want to get into financial copywriting understand how he did it, and give them some ideas on how they could get started. Rob’s a Marine Corps veteran and had personal experience doing face-to-face sales before he ever wrote a sales letter… a couple things to keep in mind about what has made him so successful. One thing I especially appreciate about Rob is how he gets straight to the point without getting too deadly serious about it. I predict you’ll have a lot of fun listening to us today. Some of the points we covered: Rob tells us what he think is the most important thing about financial copywriting that most people don’t know, but need to know — and how he found out about that most important thing. The best way for someone new to get their foot in the door in financial copywriting. Steps a copywriter should take to become someone who writes financial promos that sell $1 million or more. The biggest misconceptions people have about financial copywriting. What Rob wishes he knew when he first started financial copywriting? The next step for someone who wants to get into financial copywriting should take. You can contact Rob at his website: RiseAndMind dot com. Download.

Our guest today is Million-Dollar Mike Morgan, who has broken sales record after sales record with his sales letters and VSLs. Mike is now copy chief for Money Map Press, a major direct mail publisher. He’s also a still-very-active copywriter. He doesn’t have time for many podcast interviews, so we’re especially grateful that he could join us today. Here’s why he’s here: Let’s say you’ve just written a great sales letter for a product launch. Well, guess what? Your work is NOT done yet. You still need emails — lots of them. To your list. To your new customers, after they buy. And for affiliates to mail out for you. Plus, you ALSO need ads and advertorials. To get prospects to your page. Oh, and don’t forget. All these things have to be done FAST. Well… Mike has just the solution to your problem. And I’ve got to say, it’s pretty cool. On the show, Mike told us how he did a lot of these things intuitively, but had to develop a system for a new group of copywriters getting started at Money Map Press. He basically needed to open the lock to the treasure chest in his unconscious mind, and share what was already there. What he discovered is that, for the “ads for the ad” (emails, advertorials, Facebook and Google ads, etc.), 90% of the work had already been done, in the writing of the main sales piece. Knowing what to look for, and what to do with it once you found it, was one of the main unique value points of Mike’s system. He also explained why speed takes care of so many problems. Going for perfection right out of the gate slows you down and doesn’t get you perfection in any case. But speed blazes a trail that can lead to perfection, if you navigate it right. Mike gives you some great hints on how to do that. You’ll get a lot from this show, even if you only write sales letters. Because of a lot of the ideas and methods Mike discloses are just as valuable for getting started on a big project. Download.

If you run ads for your business, here’s a tantalizing question for you: How would you like to increase your response by 30%, without writing any new copy? How about 300%? Impossible, you say? Don’t say that to our special guest today, Katie Switzer. Because once she explains a few things, she is going to give you real-world examples where these kind of increases have actually occurred. Katie started out as a mechanical engineer. She learned marketing when she started her own online business for other parents -- she has four children herself. Soon she was taking on marketing clients. Her main focus was improving conversions based on market research and data-driven copywriting Katie has also worked as a marketing manager for a marketing analytics software company. These days, she’s helping business owners collect and understand their marketing data — and use what they find to improve their results. I’ve got to admit, I was pretty excited to hear what she has to say. Here’s what we asked her: 1. At the most basic level, what are analytics and how does a marketer use them? 2. Could you tell us about the biggest mistakes people typical make when they try to use analytics? 3. Let’s say you have a small list or you’re running a small campaign. Can you use analytics profitably without buying expensive software? 4. How has Facebook made meaningful tracking more difficult, and what are the limitations, especially these days, on using Facebook Business Manager, to get good analytics? 5. Now let’s get into the advanced stuff — attribution software and multi-touch models. Could you tell us about those? 6. What are “the most valued customers”… why do they make up the key metric… and how do you find them? 7. What are some of the big wins you have seen people get with analytics? You can reach Katie by email: katie at engineeredmarketing dot io Download.

The ‘R’ word is popping up a lot these days. That word is “recession,” and there’s a good reason everyone’s talking about it. Prices are going crazy. It seems like everything’s doubled in the last few months. If unemployment weren’t so low, it would be a slam-dunk and everyone would say we’re in a recession. This is important for copywriters and entrepreneurs, because there are specific strategies you can use to stay afloat and even grow your business in a recession. We’ll talk about them today. Are you skeptical that anything could work in a recession? A Forbes magazine article says that seven billion-dollar family fortunes trace back to getting started during the Great Depression. So it’s possible to do well when the economy’s in the tank. Now some experts I’ve seen on TV say we’re not in a recession yet. A really bright guy on the left says we’re pretty close, and just as bright a guy on the right says there’s a very good chance we’ll go into a recession soon. I don’t agree with either of them. I think we’re not going into a recession, at least until after the elections in November. I think the politicians who have most to gain from no recession will make sure we stall it until they get reelected. But I’ve been wrong about the economy before. So even against my own predictions, I think it’s a good idea to know what to do now so when things start to look really bleak, you’ll have a plan you can go to. Because sooner or later there’s going to be one. That’s not just me talking. That’s history talking. We’ve had five major recessions since I’ve had a job or a business, and eventually we’re headed for another one. The best news of all is, the ideas we’ll talk about today will work great even when we’re not in a recession — and work even better once we are. So let’s start by figuring out what a recession is. It’s a scary word, and it’s easy to think it means the economy has rolled to a dead stop. Or has collapsed completely. Game over. Economic Armageddon. And that’s very dramatic, but in truth, that’s not what a recession is. A recession is when the economy slows down. Keep that in mind as we go through this. Yes, there are problems. There are even some human tragedies. Sometimes a lot of them. But that doesn’t mean the economy has up and left and gone to another planet. No. It has slowed down. Another thing to remember: A recession doesn’t affect everyone the same way. Let’s say there’s a business where 10 employees there are your customers. Five of them get laid off. The other five stay on at the same salary they had before people started getting laid off. The five people who got laid off are a lot less likely to buy from you, in most cases, than the five who still get paychecks on a regular basis. One customer groups has suddenly become two very different ones. So even people in the same neighborhood are not all the same, when it comes to what kind of customer they’d be in a recession. And there’s another thing before we get into what to do (and what not to do) in a recession. What’s going on in the economy and specifically in your target market is very important. You need to pay attention and keep tabs on it. But there’s something that’s far more important, and that’s your mindset. Now if you’re skeptical about mindset, I understand. There’s a huge industry developed that says if you’re just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, and you tap your red shoes together and repeat a magic phrase over and over, that is simply all you have to do and you will live a rich and satisfying life. I never got the red shoes myself, but from what I’ve observed and experienced, it doesn’t exactly work that way. A positive mental attitude is definitely important, but it’s hardly enough. The mindset I’m talking about is much more real-world. First of all, it’s a perspective. A way you look at things. Expecting that you’ll be successful but knowing it’s not always easy and you may have to try more than one path to get a result you’re looking for. But it’s more than that. The mindset I’m talking about involves your hands, your mouth, and your ears. Your hands - What you do. Your mouth - What you say. Your ears - How you listen. It’s what you focus on. And where you don’t obsess, too. It has to do with you how you use your mind to run your day throughout the week. A bias in favor of action and replacing perfectionism with repeated efforts and adjustments, especially if something doesn’t work the first time. That’s at least as important as any marketing or copywriting moves you make during a recession. Besides that, on today’s show, we dig into: • What NOT to do when a recession hits • What to do MORE of, and • 3 proven Recession-Fighting Strategies you can use right away, whether we’re in a recession or not! (They increase income either way.) • And 4 overall principles to get the most from your business during a downturn. Download.

After a long pause, we are back with our popular Old Masters Series. Today, a deep dive into an important part of the work of Clyde Bedell. He’s not all that well known these days, but decades ago he was one of the top guys you would turn to if you want to learn how to write copy that works. Besides being a highly successful advertiser, he was a prominent teacher. For example, he built a national sales training program for Ford Motor Company in the 1930s. When he was teaching copywriting at Northwestern University, he couldn’t find a suitable textbook, so he wrote one. That turned into “How To Write Advertising That Sells.” It was first published in 1940—13 years before I was born. The book is 8-1/2 by 11 and a massive 539 pages. It’s pretty hard to find a copy these days, but I found one copy on Amazon for $736. Lucky for me, I got my copy years ago when it was easier to get and not quite as expensive. We zeroed-in on one chapter which I would call “7 Keys To Believability.” The word for believability that Bedell used was “conviction.” Same idea -- you want to get your prospect convinced that what you’re selling is valuable and worth buying, just by the way you write about it in your ads. As we go through these 7 keys, you may be reminded on things you’re not doing as well as you could, or you aren’t doing at all. What we’re covering today is a little different in that we’re looking at elements of copy through the lens of believability, which is all-important. A focus on believability. Copywriters and entrepreneurs intuitively know this is important, but I’ve never really seen a checklist-based system for maximizing believability. This is that system. The 7 Keys To Believability we’ll cover are: 1. Present the Main Ideas 3 Times 2. Tell of the Product’s Popularity—Who Uses It And Likes It 3. Zero-in with Bona-Fide Testimonials—And Authority’s Approval 4. Give Assurances and Proof—Build Confidence 5. Guarantee If You Can 6. Make Your Offer Vitally Valid—Be Congruous 7. Convey the Value Definitively—PositivelyDownload.

A big question, maybe THE big question, copywriters ask themselves when they sit down to write, is this: “Where do I start?” Of course you’ve got to already know... your product and its benefits. You’ll need to put together the best offer possible. You may need an origin story for the product. Knowing the price and guarantee are important. But this is all for naught if you don’t have a deep and thorough understanding of your PROSPECT. Because if you’re selling to the wrong person -- or to nobody in particular -- your copy is not very likely to work. I came across eight killer questions -- not for copywriting, but for writing screenplays. From the excellent new book, “The Protagonist’s Journey,” by successful screenwriter and college professor Scott Myers. These questions on his list are for getting to know the hero of the film you are planning to write. Today, though, we’ll look at how we can tweak these questions just a little to create a very powerful tool for anyone who writes copy. Just like with a screenplay, a copy project can seem completely out of control when you start, too. So, in the same way, the same questions, converted for copywriting, will help you get to know your prospect very specifically and in important ways. Three reasons these questions are so valuable: 1. They get you out of your client’s head and into your prospect’s head, where the sale is actually made. (or, if you’re writing for yourself, out of your own head and into the prospect’s head) 2. These questions force you to zero-in on important parts of your copy which are easy to overlook — but, because it’s so easy to overlook them, a lot of people do. Now you don’t have to. 3. These questions unearth and explore the many facets of emotional motivation in your prospect — the secret ingredient missing from so many sales letters, and the one thing that propels conversions into the stratosphere. I’m going to give you a couple different ways to use these questions. A long way, and a short way. The long way is to go through the questions methodically and write out the answers. And research, or think deeply about, the questions you can’t already answer. That’s not going to work for everyone, all of the time. So there’s a much faster way you can still benefit from these questions. And that’s this: Use the questions as a quick checklist, before you write. To make sure you have the questions answered in your own mind or in your prework. And fill in quickly wherever you come up short. Here are the questions, which we discuss in some detail on the podcast: 1. Who is the prospect? 2. What does the prospect want? 3. What does the prospect need? 4. What is the eventual resolution of the prospect’s want and need? 5. What is at stake for the prospect? 6. Who or what opposes the prospect? 7. What does the prospect fear the most? 8. Why does this prospect need to have this product at this time? The book is: The Protagonist’s Journey, by Scott Myers https://www.amazon.com/dp/3030796817 Download.

Our returning champion is Dr. Harlan Kilstein, who has a brilliant innovation in copywriting he’s agreed to share with us. Harlan was a guest here two years ago when he gave us some much-needed information about Facebook compliance. But don’t make the mistake of assuming Facebook is the only thing he knows anything about, because Harlan is a super-successful copywriter and entrepreneur who knows a LOT about a LOT of things. He’s written super-profitable copy for many big names in the direct-response business. He’s created several very successful businesses of his own. And recently he’s come up with a “new” system to sell called Interactive Sales Letters. I put “new” in quotes because it’s not really new at all. In one way. The concept behind it has been around, and proven, for decades. But the way Harlan is using the concept is brand-new… it’s working… and that’s what he’s going to tell us about. 1. To get us started, what is an interactive sales letter and what about the results you’ve gotten so far should make us want to find out more? 2. Your idea comes from a lot of history of proven techniques. Could you start by giving us a bird’s-eye view of what Publishers Clearing House and Reader’s Digest did, back in the day? 3. You and Jim Van Wyck had a landmark consultation with Jay Abraham, when you and Jim both had large Positive Changes franchises. What was the advice Jay gave you that gave you further evidence of some of the techniques you put into interactive sales letters? 4. How did “Laser-Focused Leads” help you move down the path to interactive sales letters? 5. What was your first full-fledged interactive sales letter and how did it do? 6. Could you walk us through some other recent project? You can get ahold of Harlan using this email address: overnightcopy at gmail dot com. Download.

If you wanted to find out how to make your Facebook ads start working again, who would you turn to? Well, we’ve found someone I think you’ll like. His name is Depesh Mandalia. Besides being a successful online agency owner, with over $100 million in sales for clients to his credit, he is also a gifted speaker, coach and teacher. Depesh left the corporate world when his job kind of evaporated during the 2009 financial meltdown. But he landed on his feet and within 36 months he had his first seven-figure year, at first as an affiliate marketer. He began training entrepreneurs and other marketers in 2018, with something he calls the BPM method. Today he’s going to tell you about it and why it’s very profitable with Facebook in the current environment, even after Apple has clamped down on the data available to marketers. The title of this episode is “Why Nobody Can Make Facebook Ads Work Anymore.” Obviously our guest and his students still can, and what Depesh had to tell us was great. I started out by drawing one distinction right away: What’s important is both copywriting, and strategy. Now the best copywriting has a strategy behind it. A lot of people write ads and copy, the “what,” without getting enough into the “why.” Depesh has a neat list of five questions that include three “why’s,” and we’ll talk about that in the show today. But the unavoidable truth is, you have to think a little harder these days if you want to make things work. With that, here’s what I asked him: 1. Depesh, you say that copywriting is your “secret weapon.” I wouldn’t say that’s true of every Facebook advertiser, but I’m glad to hear it from you! What do you mean by that? 2. So, in the big picture, how has Facebook advertising recently become harder to make work? 3. Could you review what Apple’s privacy moves have done to Facebook advertisers, and how we need to adapt as a result? 4. I love what you say about the evolution of technology -- fast -- versus the evolution of the human mind -- much slower. Let’s talk about how the teachings of the old masters and how they apply to Facebook advertising. 5. Could you talk about the four things you focus on to build the perfect ad campaign? 6. One thing that’s really helpful is a simplified way to get started on strategic thinking, and you’ve come up with a . Could you walk us through your Five Ws? (Here are Depesh’s Five W’s.) A: PLAN 1. WHO are we speaking to? 2. WHAT is the transformation you are offering? B: ATTACK 3. WHY (emotional) - state shifts 4. WHY (rational) - benefits C: WHY not? (Barriers, Objections) 7. Could you tell us about your 7-Figure Facebook Ads Course? Depesh’s 7-Figure Course: https://garfinkelcoaching.com/depeshDownload.

I’ve been aware that there’s something out there called “TikTok,” but I didn’t pay much attention to it, other than the occasional TikTok video reposed somewhere else. The reason I didn’t pay much attention was I thought it didn’t have much to do with business, and it didn’t have anything to do with advertising. Ummm… I was wrong. TikTok had almost $5 billion in revenue last year, and it had over a billion users. Not only that. 11% of them were over 50 years of age -- old folks, like me. Then I learned about today’s guest, Emmanuelle Daigle. Emmanuelle is a marketing agency owner and the founder of TokTrend, a community that keeps business owners up to date on TikTok and Instagram reels trends. As an early user of the TikTok platform, Emmanuelle has a deep understanding of its users preferences and how to create ads that convert (because spoiler alert, your Facebook ads won't cut it there). Emmanuelle told us about TikTok from way back when, and how she has seen it evolve from its early days. She explained two really important points for anyone planning to advertise on the platform: • How TikTok is similar to Facebook, and • How TikTok is very different from Facebook. This matters a lot, because what’s considered a good ad on Facebook is likely to be considered stodgy and out-of-place on TikTok. Now, with all that revenue ($5 billion last year), some companies must be spending a lot on TikTok advertising. Emmanuelle shared how some consumer brands have sold out on their offers with TikTok ads. Interestingly, organic content -- non-advertising that you post for free -- can also generate a lot of interest and business, because TikTok’s algorithm is fundamentally different than most other platforms. Facebook and the like have social algorithms -- based on your connections. TikTok tracks your interest and adapts much more closely than other platforms do, according to Emmanuelle. Therefore, if you hit the right theme, you have a much better chance of going viral on Tiktok. Emmanuelle also share some tips for creating your own TikTok content and advertising. https://toktrend.io/ Download.

One of my Facebook friends asked a question in a copywriting group about whether there are more kinds of proof than what most people think of – namely, logic and testimonials. This got me to thinking. I realized there are other kinds. These other kinds of proof are just not that obvious to everyone. In fact, the less obvious they are, the more they fly under the radar, and... the more powerful they are likely to be. Proof is one of the most under-used parts of copy, but it’s one of the most important. Why? Because it’s going to be really hard to get people to believe you without enough convincing proof elements. And no belief = no sales. So you definitely need all the proof you can get. I’ve identified four kinds of proof the best copywriters are already using all the time, but most people don’t fully understand or even know about at all. At least some of them. And we’ll go over all four today. So we’re took a deep look at four kinds of proof. Believe me, there was some overlap between the categories. Still, each kind is basically different enough to deserve a category of its own. So yes, sometimes you could come up with a piece of proof that could definitely fit in more than one category, depending on how you look at it. That doesn’t matter, though. The important thing here to understand is that you need to use as much proof as you can get. Remember, maybe you’re sold on your product, but your prospect probably isn’t. Just because someone knows you, likes you and trusts you doesn’t necessarily mean they will buy from you. Because, unless they have had experience already using a very similar product from you in the past, the chances are really good that they have their doubts and you can’t count on them to believe you completely about any particular product, just because you say so. If you’re not already big on proof, you’re probably not getting nearly the sales you could be getting. And if you are big on proof, then you need to listen closely to find out what you’re not already doing that you should be doing from now on.Download.

When you’re all but done with your copy -- especially long-form copy, like a sales letter or a VSL script -- you’ve got to take one final pass to make sure everything is right. Of course you’re looking for the numbers to add up and the words to be spelled right -- you know, if you’re into “spelling,” that is. But there are bigger-picture copy edits to do. I haven’t heard much about them from other people, but our guest today, the Copywriters Podcast’s own Nathan Fraser, has a list that is going to knock your socks off. I mean it. This is good stuff. Top pro’s know this and use this, but Nathan’s the first person to write it down and organize it, all in one place. Best of all, it’s an addition to his already very useful and extremely reasonable book, “Sales Page Cheat Codes.” Nathan told us about three simple copy-editing cheat codes that can boost the conversion power of your copy in a big way. The first one is a form of big-picture editing: Looking at two goals (your own, and your reader’s) and pretty much ruthlessly editing out anything that doesn’t move the copy in those two intertwined directions. Sounds simple and self-evident. But there are lots of snaggles and pitfalls that can get in the way if you’re not careful. Nathan explains what the biggest ones are, and how to steer clear of them. The second cheat code is also deceptively simple. It’s to acknowledge and deal with your prospect’s objections. And these are beyond the well-known ones like, the price is too high, or, what happens if I don’t like the product? Nathan gets into the psychology of the prospects as they read your letter or watch your video. He pinpoints three areas of doubt that can kill a sale… or lead to a boatload of extra sales if they’re handled well. He tells you how to handle them the right way. Finally, all work and no fun makes Jack a dull copywriter. My words, not Nathan’s! But his third area of editing sales copy has to do with making sure your copy is fun and easy to read! Nathan has four key tests that are easy to do that fit into this part of his list. I love how he starts the first one: “Forget everything you learned in high school English class. Your English teacher was wrong about almost everything.” Then he gets down to specifics about the RIGHT way to make your copy fun and very readable. By the way, you can get all of these cheat codes, plus a whole lot more, in the latest edition of Nathan’s new book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09VRRL75Z Download.

As copywriters, we draw inspiration and know-how from all kinds of sources: professional salespeople… music… the sports world… fiction… even, the movies! But I have to admit, our guest today is the first copywriter I’ve ever heard of who draws her approach from The Simpsons! Yes, those Simpsons. Marge, Lisa, Bart and of course, the most unforgettable one, Homer. Copywriter Sage Polaris has come up with an ingenious system for seeing the Simpsons as personality archetypes — and using that viewpoint to reach more buyers in every promotion. Apparently it really works, too. Today she’ll tell us how she used this system to write copy for a $1.25 million launch. Overall, Sage has written copy for more than 400 clients, with millions more in sales results. Now, getting your copy to that level of performance is rare enough in and of itself. But bringing it into the frame of everyone’s favorite cartoon dysfunctional family is unique, it seems to me. Here’s what Sage told us about on the show: • The four personality types of Bart, Homer, Marge, and Lisa – and what triggers their buying decisions • How to put these high sales conversion methods into practice, particularly regarding overall placement of testimonials, when branded photos and selfies are most effective, how music lyrics and puns can be used to close sales, and more. • How she used this exact method to earn her client $1.25 million in a single launch • How to discern when to write to just one or a couple of the buyer types • How these high conversion methods can help you connect beyond paid traffic and apply to organic traffic as well (Sage loves using this to build her audience in Facebook Groups) Sage is offering a free report, “3x Email Open Rates in 3 Steps.” Go to: https://sagepolaris.com/davidrocks Download.

About 30 years ago, I saw my first Gary Halbert newsletter. It was printed, on paper. I was blown away. I didn’t know what I was reading. But I couldn’t stop reading it. In fact, I must have read it 20 times. I had been writing professionally myself for almost 20 years. But I knew I didn’t know how to write like Gary was writing. And for a good long while, I couldn’t figure out what he was doing. Now, I know. What Gary did, the way he wrote, was unique and is still beyond my powers of description today. I wouldn’t ever pretend that I could write the way he could – I can’t. Who can? But I did figure out a couple of key things, that launched my copywriting career and led to millions of dollars in sales. The first thing was that he knew how to sell with the written word. Which is something we’ve talked about a lot on this podcast. The second thing was that he wrote in a totally conversational way, at the same time he was selling. And that’s something we’ve never really dug into before today on this podcast. But today we do. Look – It should be the easiest thing in the world, but for most copywriters, it’s one of the hardest things to do. I’m talking about writing like you talk. Or, to use the technical term, “conversational copywriting.” But face it. The more your copy comes across like you talking to your prospect, the less likely your prospects are going to think to themselves, “Oh, this is an ad” — and put up their defenses. The worst thing about this is, as far as I can tell, no one else has thought that this is a skill that can be taught. Most copywriters and copy chiefs grudgingly admit that the better copywriters can do this and the lesser copywriters can’t, but that’s about as far as they go. I think different. I think most people can learn this, but it’s not a matter of wishing it and having it so. It’s a skill. It doesn’t come naturally and it doesn’t just sort of seep into your writing by itself over time. I think it’s a skill you can learn, piece by piece. And I’ve broken it down into pieces and steps to learn it. Today, we’ll look at • Why it’s so hard • Why it’s so important to write in a conversational way • What gets in the way for most people • And four comprehensive action steps you can take to get better at it.Download.

We’re back with Bill Schley, the New York Times Bestselling Author and award-winning Brand Specialist. I’ve gotten to know Bill well over the past few months, working with him on the launch of his new online program, The Brand Titans MasterCourse. I invited Bill to come back because I’ve gotten really intrigued by his approach to branding. Anyone else in direct marketing will find it intriguing, too, because there’s a seamless connection between what we do and what he does. I have to say he’s the first branding expert I’ve run across who not only states the purpose of branding is to set a company apart to maximize sales… … but also who has a proven system to show anyone in any business the exact steps to take to do just that. Bill’s been at it for more than 30 years, after getting his foundation at the legendary New York agency Ted Bates and Company, headed earlier by the great Rosser Reeves. And companies are counting on Bill even today to help them stake their claim in the competitive marketplace. This year, he’s helping a high-eight-figures conglomerate in a very hot tech sector get their branding in tip-top shape. And a tiny startup he recently branded has been scooped up by a division of a large publicly traded company, which is looking at pouring millions of dollars into the recently acquired startup, thanks to the branding Bill initially provided for it before the acquisition. After going through his course and the bonuses in great detail, I can say with confidence that any copywriter or business owner can get a lot out of what Bill had to say today. He started by explaining the conditions that make the correct branding of a business increase its sales — something I believe every copywriter and business owner needs to know. I’ve actually ended up rebranding products on the last two copy critiques I’ve done, as only part of the work with my clients, just based on what I’ve learned working with Bill. Bill went on to clear up the widespread confusion — even among many so-called marketing “experts” — about what is a brand, and what is not. Following from that, he explained the mistakes people are typically making in branding, especially today, where there are some dangerous trends that woo people into going for euphoric feelings about their brands, instead of thinking about the customer first, and what message is going to make them curious and increase their desire for specific products and services. Then Bill shared some instructive stories about brands he has built (one was worth over one billion dollars, not just according to Bill, but also according the the company’s chairman). He also gave a few important tips and guidelines for building your own brand. And, naturally, he told us all about his course, which provides an easy-to-follow, step-by-step roadmap for building a brand for any business. You can find out more about his program, the Brand Titans MasterCourse, at https://garfinkelcoaching.com/brandingDownload.

If today’s guest looks familiar to you, that might be because you’ve previously seen Rabbi Evan Moffic on Fox News or CNN, where he is frequently called in for commentary and analysis on events in the news. But here’s something you probably didn’t know: Rabbi Moffic is also a copywriter! He’s a former mentoring client of mine. I’m proud of the work we did together and where he’s taken it, and I’ve gotta tell you: He has found uses for what he learned in copywriting in places I’ve never heard of copywriting being useful, or even thought of before! Evan is the senior rabbi at Makom Solel Lakeside, a 600-family synagogue in the Chicago suburbs. A Stanford graduate, he’s also an popular speaker at churches, where his goal is to bring the value of Jewish learnings to as many people as possible. Evan has written several books, including ‘What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Jewishness of Jesus’ and ‘What Every Christian Needs to Know About Passover.’ His latest book is about anti-semitism. But today, Evan has agreed to talk about the role of copywriting inside and outside of business and religion. I really enjoy the way he looks at copywriting, and I know you will, too. Evan started by telling us how new things he learned about copywriting helped him write the most effective fundraising letter ever for his congregation! But for him, copywriting has had a much more wide-ranging impact. It has, in fact, changed his overall approach to persuasion, and even modified his perspective on human nature as a whole. Part of his work as a rabbi is to counsel members of his congregation, when they request it. And, as mentioned before, Evan speaks all over the country to Christians about The Old Testament and other Jewish topics. He’s a welcome speaker at these events — he only goes where he’s invited! — but there are opportunities to use to tools of copywriting to help make his concepts easier to understand and accept. As a writer, Evan has used copywriting not only in emails — as you would expect — but also in his books. And, as the father of two very bright daughters, he’s found copywriting comes in handy in family conversations. This is an unusual podcast today in that I can’t remember anyone on the show who has taken such a universal approach to copywriting — or, at least, talked with us about it. You can find out more about Evan on his substack: rabbi.substack.com Download.

Let’s welcome back for his third time on Copywriters Podcast, Kevin Rogers. No matter what we do, we can’t seem to scare him away. No, actually, we’re really grateful to have him back. Kevin has been on before to talk about humor, and we greatly appreciated that. But today he’s here to talk about something different -- ten rapid-fire steps to get a first draft of your sales paper down on paper or screen. Besides being a successful and experienced stand-up comedian, Kevin is an A-List copywriter and author of “The 60-Second Sales Hook.” He’s also the founder of Copy Chief, a powerful online community for copywriters. But let’s get to his 10-step speed process. Now Kevin wants to be clear: “If you’re out to beat a control, this isn’t the process for you. When you’re writing a magalog to beat another magalog, there’s a much longer process of review, with the team, and things like that. Instead, he says, “This is for a copywriter who knows the product very well. Whether it’s your product or a client’s product. “In that case, you know the audience very well, all the benefits very well, the features pretty well — but, you have this pressure to come up with a new ad. “It’s called the 4x6 copywriting formula. It’s the 10 essential parts of a sales pitch. Four of them, if they are not present -- the buyer’s brain will not let them proceed.” Kevin says this process lets you write first draft in about 60 minutes. It’s especially useful if you have to write a new ad for a product you’ve already written sales copy for. A couple resources to get more from Kevin: - https://copychief.com - his podcast: http://copychief.com/ccrDownload.

I’m going to tell you three words that can help you charge higher prices than you’re charging now — even higher prices than your competitors. Those words are “emotional risk displacement.” To be honest, I have NO idea of what they mean… but… our guest today does. He’s back! I’m talking about our returning champion, John Williamson. Today, he’s going to talk about Unique Selling Propositions and charging higher prices. And, if we’re lucky, he’ll tell us what “emotional risk displacement” means — since those three words CAN put more money in our respective pockets. John is coming to us from an undisclosed location on the side of a mountain in Scotland. Over the last 30 years, he has generated millions of dollars in sales for himself and his clients with his own special brand of unique selling propositions. He says, “A great Unique Selling Proposition will enable you to steal the attention and win the sales. “Including ‘financial risk reversal’ in your USP will win you even more sales. “But, you can take the process of USP development even further by embedding ‘emotional risk displacement’ in your USP … AND win all of those extra sales at HIGHER PRICES.” On today’s show, we talk about how it’s possible to charge higher prices than your competitors … and STILL get the business. John discusses: • Why increasing prices is paradoxically the first thing you should figure out how to do if you want to increase sales. • Why most people could care less about a money-back guarantee … and what they would prefer you gave them instead. • How to determine the optimum price you should charge to maximize both revenue and profit. • Why even rich people like a bargain and how you can give them what they really want without lowering prices by even a dime. • How to completely eliminate discount requests and have people pay full price with a big fat smile on their faces. • Why you should tell people what your ‘pricing philosophy’ is upfront, before you tell them anything about your product or service. • Why you should NEVER rely on your accountant or CPA to tell you what you should be charging. John’s Facebook Group is “Attention Bandits.”: https://www.facebook.com/groups/attentionbanditsDownload.

By popular demand, we’re back with the always surprising John Williamson today. He’s going to talk about a serious problem every business faces, and some ready-made solutions to this problem. John is coming to us from an undisclosed location on the side of a mountain in Scotland. Over the last 30 years he has generated millions of dollars in sales for himself and his clients with his own special brand of unique selling propositions. The problem, of course, is getting and keeping the attention of customers. In a way that leads to sales, and repeat sales after that. John says, “Right at the heart of your attention getting should be your brand.” A lot of us direct marketers don’t pay a whole lot of attention to branding these days, but John argues that we should. All the time. But not just any kind of brand. One that pulls its weight in getting attention and adding new customers. How do you do that, and how to you make it pay off if you don’t have a huge budget to establish this brand in the way a big corporation will try to do? John discusses: • Why ‘branding bravery’ is the only way to win the war for attention. • How any business – no matter how boring the industry is - can be decommoditized through branding. • Why trying to come up with a brand name you love is almost impossible (and if you do love your brand name it’s … probably … not … very … (gulp!) … good. • How to make your brand stick in someone’s mind like it’s been tattooed on their brain from their very first exposure to your business. • How to use a linguistic shortcuts to get you people to resonate with your brand by relating it to a story they already have in their head. • How to give your brand ‘conversational currency’ (… so that - incredibly - other businesses prefer to promote your business over their own business!). • The specific 5 words people will say to you over and over again, that will let you know your branding is working. John’s Facebook Group is “Attention Bandits.” : https://www.facebook.com/groups/attentionbanditsDownload.

People start out writing copy all kinds of different ways. But how many times have you heard, “It all started with beer?” I’m not talking about drinking a beer. I’m talking about brewing your own beer! That’s how our guest today, Billy Broas, got started in online marketing: He launched a website for his fellow home beer brewers. That was in 2010. His online course sales from the site got to the point where Billy was able to leave his job and become an entrepreneur. He hired me as a copywriting mentor in 2015, and his since gone on to do great things helping people launch online courses. Especially the new wave of instruction called cohort-based courses. Now, course creators are very often not copywriters, which makes sense. But Billy is, and, as a teacher, he needed to find ways to get some important copywriting concepts across to them quickly and meaningfully. On today’s show, we talked about what I consider a brilliant construct to do just that, called The 5 Lightbulbs, today. Billy told us how he came up with The 5 Lightbulbs construct, and what it is. As it turns out, it worked just as well back in the day — like 100 years ago — as it does today. In other words, it’s kind of universal. Bill walked us through Old Master Max Sackheim’s famous ad, written in 1919, with the well-known headline “Do You Make These Mistakes In English?”, to show how it follows the 5 Lightbulbs formula to a tee. But in 2022, it’s a very flexible formula, for copywriters and non-copywriters alike. Billy told us about: - How non-copywriters use it to organize a sales letter - How marketers use it to sequence emails in a sales campaign - How teams use it as a common language, or a shorthand Bill also offered Copywriters Podcast listeners a free 5 Lightbulbs worksheet, to audit any marketing message, available at https://5lightbulbs.com Download.

Just like Tom Hanks knows how to make movies, Kevin Rogers knows how to navigate comedy. Really. He spent years as a professional stand-up comedian, sharing the stage with other great comics like Chris Rock, Billy Gardell, and many others. You may be more familiar with Kevin as a superstar copywriter and copywriting educator, which is how he spends most of his working time now. He has created Copy Chief, a community-based forum and training center for copywriters. This was after he had reached the top echelon of pro copywriters himself. Kevin’s also the Amazon best-selling author of The 60-Second Sales Hook, where he shows how to use a proven joke formula to create a powerful marketing hook. Kevin has many, many more credits to his name. But as you can see by now, Kevin is the perfect person to come on the show to talk about an increasingly high-wire act for copywriters, and really anyone in business who has a sense of humor: What you can get away with, and what should you avoid at all costs, when it comes to using jokes in the era of ‘woke.’ Kevin has gotten back to doing standup on a limited basis, and as for the copy he writes, he says he doesn’t use a lot of humor there to begin with. Comedy, therefore, is still very much a part of his life — just not part of his copy. When Kevin coaches or does presentations, though, his funny side continues to shine through. However, he’s aware of what’s going on throughout the copywriting world, and in today’s show he talks about specific examples of, as he puts it, “people who I think are using humor wisely” in their own copy. If there’s anyone who can guide you and your jokes through the land-mine-strewn fields of cultural correctness that we all have to navigate these days, it’s Kevin. You’ll really appreciate his perspective and spot-on suggestion on how to keep your sense of humor without losing out to the woke crowd. A couple resources to get more from Kevin: - https://copychief.com - his podcast: http://copychief.com/ccr Download.

These days, more and more people from more and more backgrounds are thinking about writing sales copy, or actually doing it. The main reason is the number of online business has exploded. This is due in part to all the people who spent so much time at home during the pandemic. But there are other reasons as well. One important one is, a lot of people who didn’t like to buy online in the past will only buy online now, if they possibly can. So, a much bigger market. Anyone who didn’t start out their career as a copywriter knows that it takes some adjustments. Writing copy is hardly like writing term papers at school or even writing weak-kneed prose at advertising agencies. Copy is muscular, and it has a job to do — it has to sell something. Today I thought we could take a look at what people from six specific backgrounds need to know and, just as important, need to change about their thinking in order to write copy that works. I asked myself the question, what are the most common categories of people I’ve either mentored, or critiqued copy for, or done copywriting and marketing consulting for? And what showed up as the most important change they needed to make to become more successful with their copy? The categories are: Entrepreneurs… Sales Pros… Licensed Professionals, like doctors and lawyers… Experts in their respective fields… Software developers… and journalists and content creators. People from each category bring a lot to the table… but they all have similar things, within the category, that are holding them back. So I thought deeply about what those things are. Don’t worry if you’re not in one of these categories and never were. There’s some fun and some insights for you anyway. Because at least until maybe recently, very few people grew up wanting to become a copywriter. In most families, kids didn’t even know what copywriters were… and neither did their parents. So, it’s never too late to find out what changes you need to make, from where you stand now, to become really good at writing copy. You’ll find some good first steps in today’s show. Download.

We are back with the unconventional and immensely creative marketer, John Williamson. Last week he went in-depth on his powerful technique called Emotional Lockpicking™, and we asked him to join us again, which he agreed to do. John lives in an undisclosed location on the side of a mountain in Scotland. Over the last 30 years he has generated millions of dollars in sales for himself and his clients with his own special brand of unique selling propositions. He’s also come up with some very interesting ideas about elevator pitches, unique selling propositions, and even how to close a deal with a stuffed tortoise. I find his ideas fascinating and he’ll share some more of them with us today. One of John’s favorite quotes is: “All things being equal, people buy on price. Which is why your number-one job as an entrepreneur is to ensure that ‘things’ aren’t equal.” Probably related to that idea is a speech he has given over 250 times called “How to Charge Higher Prices Than Your Competitors… and STILL Win the Business.” On the show, John reminds us again that for a marketer today, the most truly scarce commodity is… attention. Not only is less and less of it available, but it’s becoming more and more expensive for a business to get the attention of their prospects, if they can get it at all. Lucky for us, John has spent years developing unusual and unusually profitable techniques to do that. Sometimes at a surprisingly low cost. Among the things he talks about are: • How to rope in the attention of the very best customers in the market… weeks, months, and even years before your competitors even know who these customers are. • The elevator pitch that turns into an earworm they can’t get out of your head. John explains how to put one of these together, and how it’s been used to get business in the course of a seven-floor elevator ride! • How he has created out-of-the box USPs that seem to break all the rules, but also punch right through the ceiling on sales records!Download.

Here at Copywriters Podcast, we pride ourselves on having unconventional guests with unique marketing ideas, but our guest today, John Williamson, really takes “unconventional” to a whole new level. John lives in an undisclosed location on the side of a mountain in Scotland. Over the last 30 years he has generated millions of dollars in sales for himself and his clients with his own special brand of unique selling propositions. He’s also come up with an innovative copywriting concept he calls “Emotional Lockpicking.” I find it fascinating and he’ll share it with us today. Plus, he has loads of other money-making ideas I promise you haven’t heard anywhere else before. One of John’s favorite quotes is: “All things being equal, people buy on price. Which is why your number-one job as an entrepreneur is to ensure that ‘things’ aren’t equal.” Probably related to that idea is a speech he has given over 250 times called “How to Charge Higher Prices Than Your Competitors… and STILL Win the Business.” On the show, John reminds us that for a marketer today, the most truly scarce commodity is… attention. Not only is less and less of it available, but it’s becoming more and more expensive for a business to get the attention of their prospects, if they can get it at all. Lucky for us, John has spent years developing unusual and unusually profitable techniques to do that. Sometimes at a surprisingly low cost. Among the things he talks about are: • How to rope in the attention of the very best customers in the market… weeks, months, and even years before your competitors even know who these customers are. This is possible with one of John’s most prized inventions, Emotional Lockpicking. • The elevator pitch that turns into an earworm they can’t get out of your head. John explains how to put one of these together, and how it’s been used to get business in the course of a seven-floor elevator ride! • An amazing one- or two-word addition to your copy using a method John has refined and perfected. The method is called “egoic labels” and just these one or two words have seriously boosted response rates for copy in many industries.Download.

Our guest today is famous in digital marketing circles as an online advertising expert. His name is Justin Brooke and I’m so happy he can join us. Justin is the founder of Adskills, a great training company for online advertising. He’s also a super-experienced media buyer, having spent more than $10 million for lead generation as well as eCommerce campaigns. While Justin could give us super-valuable information on a lot of things, there’s one topic he knows a lot about where I’ve found it’s really hard to find any other expert who is also a good teacher. Justin is both – that is, an expert, and a really good teacher, and that topic is advertorials. It’s great that we get to talk to him about that today. Here’s what we ask him in today’s show: 1. For people who don't know -- What are advertorials, and how are they useful in marketing? 2. How did you get into writing, and teaching about, advertorials? 3. What are the key differences between an advertorial and... - content/articles - sales letters/ads? 4. Could you give us an example of a successful advertorial? 5. What are some mistakes people make when they try to do advertorials, but mess up instead? 6. What are some of your best go-to tips to creating successful advertorials? 7. If someone wants to learn more about advertorials, what would you recommend? AdSkills.comDownload.

In just about every copywriter’s life, there comes a time when you ask yourself, “Why on God’s green Earth are all my clients making money hand over fist, day after day, month after month — and I just get paid just once?” It’s a fair question because, more often than not, as copywriters, we end up essentially inventing our clients’ businesses. With our copy. With our ideas. With our expert guidance. To create a money machine. Our guest today has a solution to this problem copywriters have. His name is Jason Moffatt, and his nickname is “profit Moffatt” for a reason. He’s figured out how to do profitable deals, both for his clients and for himself. He started his copywriting career reading books and courses while waiting in his spy van during private investigation stakeouts. After 17 years in Internet Marketing, Jason teaches digital marketers and copywriters how to get their slice of the pie by acquiring significant equity chunks on any project they work on. He spends most of his time on Hawaii’s famous island of Maui, playing guitar and helping fellow entrepreneurs and copywriters get paid far better. We started out talking about what Jason calls “The Inception,” which is his term for the great opportunity right under the nose of most copywriters. But there are a few changes you need to make to your mindset to see the opportunity, and take advantage of it. Jason explained that clearly and in useful detail. Most copywriters have a million-dollar talent that most of them are unaware of, and Jason talks about how to recognize it and how to leverage it in your business negotiations. Also, why even though you have other talents of great value, your ability to write copy that converts is disproportionately valuable to a prospective business partner. Jason then talked about some first steps, but probably the most important one is selecting the right partners for an equity deal, and keeping your distance from the ones who are highly unlikely to work out. He had some great info on finding partners, negotiating terms... and sealing the deal. For more, here’s Jason’s course on getting equity deals: https://equity5000.com/davidDownload.

One reason it's hard to write copy is when you start out, you've got so much in front of you, it can seem overwhelming. Not only that, but just one you get in the groove for writing copy for one part of the letter or VSL, you have to shift gears. That's because different sections of what you're writing have different rhythms. Each one has a different feel. For example, a story needs to have good momentum to it. But it's not nearly as fast-paced as good closing copy is. Today we're going to talk about some ways you can overcome this problem, and it has to do with warming up to write each section. Just like if you were going to warm up to work out or go for a run, you can warm up to write each section of your copy differently. This will help you a lot, especially if you've got a big project and you feel like you're facing a brick wall. We talked about Gene Schwartz’s big concept of copywriting: That it’s not “writing,” but in fact is really “assembling.” He mentioned this at a talk he gave to people at Rodale, which used to be a big publisher based almost entirely on direct-response marketing. They closed their doors five years ago, after 87 years in business. When Gene Schwartz talked about assembling, he meant you have a bunch of little parts, and then you put them together. When you do this, it helps if you first have a structure -- that is, if you have an idea of which part goes where, and why it goes in that particular place. But don't worry if you don't have that sense when you start. Because often the structure, in the same way as your headline and your hook do, will "reveal itself" as you work through other parts of the copy. In today’s show, we talked about six “parts” you assemble. And we’ll talk about them in the order that they usually appear in a sales letter. You may or may not want to do them in that order. We'll talk about that as we go through them. We covered six key parts of copy, and talk about how and why to warm up for each one when you're first writing. They are: 1) headline, 2) lead, 3) bullets, 4) story, 5) closing copy, and 6) testimonials. The reason you want to warm up is the same as why you'd warm up when you're working out — to loosen your muscles (in this case, your mental muscles), and to get the momentum of FLOW going.Download.

Whether you’re running a business or running someone else’s Facebook advertising for them, it always seems like there are a million things to keep track of as far as advertising is concerned. No doubt about it; there are. But there are a few things that are truly make-or-break, day in and day out. A few crucial things that will define the line between profitability and losing money. A few things that determine sale or no sale. In other words, a few things that matter a lot more than the others. Nathan Fraser calls these few things “Advertising Cheat Codes.” Now don’t get him wrong, the other things are important, too. But I’m going to say the difference is, you can slip on the other things a little now and then and they won’t tank your business. But screw up regularly on the big things, and you could be in for some tough times ahead. Fortunately, once you know what these few, very important things are, you don’t ever have to screw up on them. Nathan told us about three of the most important Advertising Cheat Codes today. His first Advertising Cheat Code is “Stick the Landing.” The standard meaning of these words is to execute a perfect landing after an acrobatic move — especially in gymnastics — or, more generally, to accomplish an impressive feat successfully. Nathan’s use of the phrase is not so far from the second definition, but of course it does have a very specific meaning when it comes to advertising. One that can make all the difference between failure and success. His second Cheat Code is, Stand-Out Advertising. If you have a wild imagination, like I do, you might be picturing a guy walking up and down the sidewalk wearing a huge sandwich board. You know, where each side is a placard almost as tall as the guy himself. While that could fit into Nathan’s overall definition, that’s not what he means by Stand-Out Advertising. But what he does mean could result in a lot of extra sales for your business. And Nathan’s third Cheat Code is “Big, Beautiful Back Ends.” Now pull your mind out of the gutter -- he’s talking about something else! What’s vitally important are two related concepts: How much it costs you to acquire a customer, and how well you determine the lifetime value of each customer. Nathan makes it easy for you with some pinpoint advice in this part of the show. The bottom line is, Big, Beautiful Back Ends = more revenue and more profits. You can get more on each of these PLUS two additional Advertising Cheat Codes, here: https://advertisingcheatcodes.com/Download.

Today, let’s talk about staying with big copy projects, once you get started. You know, they say “begun is half done.” That’s true, but then there’s the other half, and that’s where we run into trouble sometimes. The half that’s not done yet, but still needs to get done. We’ve covered the steps of how to write a sales letter before and we’ll cover it again, but that’s not what I want to talk about today. This is more about how you need to prepare and what you need to do when you’re working to finish your project and have the best copy you can have. I’ll give you a hint as to where we’re going. I’ve invented something called the Frustration-Flow Scale. All the way to the left is frozen in frustration. All the way to the right on the scale is floating in flow. Effortless and fun. The trick is to get on the right side of the scale and stay there, for as long as possible, as often as possible. So all the things we’re going to talk about today are ways to get to and stay on the right side of the frustration-flow scale as much as possible. Not so much so you have a nice day, as, if you are in a flow-state, you are much more likely to get your project done. Look at it this way. You’re doing a jigsaw puzzle. You’ve got a round piece and a round hole where it looks like it should fit. Frustration would be struggling, pushing, scrunching, scheming to get the round piece in the round hole. Flow would be just slipping it in without so much as giving it a second thought. That said, in what we’re doing today, getting to flow is the end result. It’s how we want our work to go, but you can’t just “drop into it” with being prepared. Frustration will derail you over and over again if you haven’t done things ahead of time to prevent it. Think of frustration as a series of detours that keep you from arriving at flow. It’s much harder to keep going on a big project when you keep banging your head on the wall or get your momentum interrupted because there are things that need to be done before you can move forward. Today’s show is about heading them off at the pass -- that is, clearing away the frustrations in advance. Or, doing what you need to do, ahead of time, to be prepared for steps in the process so they don’t turn into huge stuck points that mire you down. We’re going to move quickly through three sets of skills and knowledge that will help you get the dang thing DONE: First, mechanics. Second, market knowledge. And third, mindset. And I’ll suggest some resources along the way to help you with these things. Here’s a cheat sheet for after you’ve listened to the show, to review all of these skills, and the kind of knowledge you need to line up. 1. Mechanics: Learn to do the little things extremely well (learned from Guy Michelmore). Breaking a complex idea into smaller, simpler parts Mapping out your sales letter into chunks Getting human stories Writing compelling headlines and subheads Using picture words 2. Market Knowledge Historical knowledge Real-time knowledge Human nature knowledge 3. Mindset Focus Flexibility Faith Flow Resources mentioned in the podcast, with links: $100 MM offers, by Alex Hormozi https://www.amazon.com/dp/1737475731 The Brilliance Breakthrough, by Eugene Schwartz https://brilliancebreakthroughbook.com/ Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich, by David Garfinkel https://www.amazon.com/dp/1683501454 Scientific Advertising, by Claude Hopkins https://www.amazon.com/dp/0844231010 How to Make Your Advertising Make Money, by John Caples https://www.amazon.com/dp/B083C548ZZ How to Write a Good Advertisement, by Victor Schwab https://www.amazon.com/dp/162654963X Triggers, by Joe Sugarman https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00O3QEFSK https://www.brain.fm/ Download.

We’re back with the legendary Bond Halbert, who I am proud to call my friend. On the last show, Bond talked about better ways to get started in copywriting. On today’s show, Bond will share with us some crucial insights about what working copywriters are doing wrong, and how to fix those problems. Bond’s father, of course, was the famous copywriter Gary Halbert, and Bond is among Gary’s first very successful students. In fact, Bond was closest to his dad in both a personal and professional relationship. More recently, after copy chiefing some of the largest financial promotions of our time, Bond pioneered many tactics for getting the highest email open rates in any industry. After Gary passed away, Bond and his brother Kevin took over TheGaryHalbertLetter.com and the brothers have put out great copywriting products, including the Halbert All-Star Audio Series, which I am proud to say I was invited to participate in. Bond and Kevin also have started the Gary Halbert Copy Club Facebook group, which has an astounding membership of more than 21,000, as of the day of our recording. That is HUGE for a copywriting group on Facebook! Bond mentors copywriters and we’ll give you contact info for him at the end of the show. Today, Bond talks about the biggest mistakes copywriters are making, starting with how to know if you’re talking to the wrong audience. This happens a lot more than most copywriters realize, and Bond has some quick and accurate ways to find out if there’s a problem, and if there is, how to fix it. Besides that, clients make fundamental marketing mistakes all the time. Bond provides time-tested ways to correct their mistakes so your clients can get better returns on their advertising. More than that, Bond shares some insider tips on easy ways to make light bulbs go off in your client’s head, so they start to see your as more valuable… and, of course, pay you more. Timing issues: Bond shares the hilarious but vitally important “porcupine in heat” theory, as well as how to know when you’re mailing too much and when you’re not mailing often enough (it’s not the same for every type of business). Also, some ninja research tips to help you multiply client profits, and get paid higher royalties from clients as a result! This is a great show for copywriters at all levels. Here’s how to get in touch with Bond, and a couple of resources: bond@thegaryhalbertletter.com important blog post: https://bondhalbert.com/bond-halbert/something-most-marketers-get-wrong/ Gary Halbert Copy Club on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/garyhalbertcopyclub Download.

We’re so lucky to have Bond Halbert on the show today. Bond is my friend and has been a great supporter, professionally, for years. Bond’s father, of course, was the famous copywriter Gary Halbert, and Bond is among Gary’s first very successful students. In fact, Bond was closest to his dad in both a personal and professional relationship. More recently, after copy chiefing some of the largest financial promotions of our time, Bond pioneered many tactics for getting the highest email open rates in any industry. After Gary passed away, Bond and his brother Kevin took over TheGaryHalbertLetter.com and the brothers have put out great copywriting products, including the Halbert All-Star Audio Series, which I am proud to say I was invited to participate in. Bond and Kevin also have started the Gary Halbert Copy Club Facebook group, which has an astounding membership of more than 21,000, as of the day of our recording. That is HUGE for a copywriting group on Facebook! Bond mentors copywriters and we’ll give you contact info for him at the end of the show. What we talk about during the podcast is something we get a lot of questions about all the time, and that is, how do you get started as a copywriter? Bond began with a brilliant and intriguing idea for every copywriter — but particularly for those of us just at the beginning: How to earn as you learn. And there’s more to this than making money. When you follow these tips, you’ll be able to prove — quickly — that you’re a professional copywriter, and work your way up the pay scale much faster than most people do. Now, this may sound silly until you face this problem head-on. And believe me, it’s already happening. What to say when a prospective client wonders why you’d be a better choice than using AI to write copy instead. It’s a compelling argument, and it will help you save jobs you otherwise would have lost out on. Bond also talked about the number-one thing that keeps copywriters from moving up to the A-level. No matter how good your copy gets, unless you follow this advice, you may be stuck at a lower level for much longer than you’d like. One more thing you’ll love: How to dramatically increase your value to any client by only writing a few words. It’s a brilliant idea… I know it will work… and, I’m a little embarrassed to say, I’ve never thought of it or heard it anywhere else before. Plus a lot more! This is one show you’ll really want to give your full attention to. To get in touch with Bond, here is his email and a couple of weblinks: bond@thegaryhalbertletter.com important blog post:https://bondhalbert.com/bond-halbert/something-most-marketers-get-wrong/ Gary Halbert Copy Club on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/garyhalbertcopyclub Download.

Every year, between 20 and 30 lucky people get a phone call that goes something like this: "Congratulations! The MacArthur Foundation has determined that you are a GENIUS, and we'd like to send you some Mo-NAY! Unlike my parody of the actual phone call, the money is serious — these days, $625,000, paid over five years. To use however they want. Now that's great for them, but so what? How does this have anything to do with copywriting? It's simple. These people get the award because the foundation gives it to them explicitly because of their creativity and originality. Something every good copywriter wants to get better at, too. Now… stay with me here… What if you could travel around the country interviewing these people and coaxing from them their creativity secrets? Well, maybe you could. But someone already did. And she wrote a great book about it. Denise Shekerjian interviewed 40 MacArthur fellows, as they are officially called. The book she wrote is titled "Uncommon Genius: How Great Ideas Are Born." I cherry-picked some of the best revelations. Especially those thought would help us copywriters increase our own personal creativity. So, here's what we're gonna do. I selected three categories that all of us can relate to: intuition vs. judgment… luck… and staying power. The last one being, what motivates you to stick with a problem or a project that is giving you a hard time? And for each of the three categories, I shared insights from three MacArthur geniuses. Nine in all. There's no one answer that the author got from every genius on every topic. Which makes sense, since these people are unusual individuals. They range from movie directors to composers to anthropologists to professors. And who knew that professors could be so creative? But some of them really are. We'll take a tip from each genius and then look at how some of their ideas could prove to be a boon for a copywriter or other creative entrepreneur. link to the book: Uncommon Genius: How Great Ideas Are Born, by Denise Shekerjian https://www.amazon.com/dp/0140109862 Download.

We don’t usually give out formulas on this show, but today I’m going to start with one: Empathy = $80 million. I got that -- actually, I created it -- from looking at the work of our guest today, Emily McGuire. She’s a big-time specialist in email marketing. And her email campaigns have earned clients over $80 million in revenue. The reason I put empathy in the formula is that Emily says her guiding principle is “Leading with empathy… figuring out where your prospects and repeat customers are in their buying cycle, or customer journey… and re-engaging them when they start to cool off.” In her business, Flourish and Grit, Emily has worked with consumer brands, health and wellness businesses, and Software-as-a-Service companies in the tech space. Her most famous client is probably Adam & Eve, the adult toy store. She used the empathy approach to increase their profits by 36%. Here’s what I asked her: 1. Emily, I’m just betting you polarize audiences when you tell them that if they want to sell more with their emails, they should stop pitching a product or including a “buy” like so often. First, do I have that right? And secondly, if I do, why do you say that? 2. Could you walk us through some examples of how you have helped companies improve sales and strengthen their communities, using your approach? 3. Let’s delve into the kind of copy you write and the framework it fits into. Could you share a few paragraphs from a couple different emails, and tell us about the overall email it fits into? 4. This has been great, Emily. How about some tips for writing the kind of emails you’ve been talking about? To get Emily’s report on Action Guide on increasing email open rates and join her email list: https://www.flourishgrit.com/openDownload.

Today’s show is part of our popular Old Masters series, and we’ve got some unusual info and ideas from a copywriter of old, John Starr Hewitt. This comes from a book we’re pulled from before, from 1925, called “Masters of Advertising Copy.” From everything I’ve seen in this book, Hewitt is the only contributor who gets down to cases when it comes to what it takes to become a master in copywriting. His ideas are decidedly different, even for today. He talks about the subtle skills a copywriter needs to develop, and the subtle changes that occur as you get better and better. I agreed with most of what he said. I didn’t have an issue with any of it. Some of it was a little hard to understand and apply for copywriting today, but most of it translates very easily. And all of is interesting. More than how to structure an ad or how to do your research, this chapter by Hewitt focuses on awareness. What you need to pay attention to both with your product and regarding the world at large. Since this is new information, the way he presents it, I think you’ll find it useful and maybe give you some new ideas. So let’s talk about John Starr Hewitt and his chapter. I couldn’t find out much about him personally or career-wise, except it looks like he was from New Jersey. His main idea is: What you see and what you feel is a major set of factors in your success as a copywriter. It's interesting that this was from 100 years ago, when only recently have authenticity and deep empathy become so important, maybe again or maybe for the first time, for copywriters. Because he was writing almost 100 years ago, every copywriter Hewitt refers to is a “he.” I hope you can look past that and understand that for the sake of accuracy and not adding awkward extra language to the quotes, you can assume “he” means both “he” or “she” for today’s show. OK, let’s get started. Hewitt begins by saying: “The more one sees of the difficulties of copywriting, the deeper grows the conviction that really great copy depends even more on seeing and feeling than it does on writing. “The man who sees and feels can hardly help writing sincerely. … “To express fully a fine, deep feeling calls for a writing skill possessed in the highest degree by only a few in each generation.” I agree. There will only be a few who are truly at the top of their game. But that doesn't mean it's game-over for everyone else. Because in copywriting, you can make a really great living, even make millions, without being one of the few very, very best. However, you still have to really home in on some key skills and get as good as you can at them. And Hewitt sounds more than a little like John Carlton when he says: "So it behooves the copywriters to grow up, get his work-bench in order, and learn to practice his art as a mature and conscious craftsman.” Link to free download on GoogleBooks, Masters of Advertising Copy: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Masters_of_Advertising_Copy/ufQiAQAAMAAJDownload.

So, with the year 2021 just days behind us, I thought it would be fun to reminisce about my early days as a copywriter. It was definitely a second career for me. I had started out as a business journalist. Of course, not knowing anything about copywriting when I first started, I assumed writing copy couldn’t be all that different from writing news and feature stories, right? I was about as wrong as I could be. And, of course, I found out. I learned the hard way. I seem to have developed a knack for learning that way. I don’t know if I can save any new copywriters from the painful lessons I had to learn the hard way, but hope springs eternal. And who knows, even experienced copywriters might remember something they had forgotten, or, get some new ideas from hearing the old truths. Each of these things I talk about on today’s show are now like iron laws that I remember, observe and respect every time I sit down to write copy myself, or critique copy for my clients. Resource: Copywriters Podcast Episode 174: Believability in Copywriting https://copywriterspodcast.com/index.php?podcast=1110 youtube: https://youtu.be/FQS3JViJqn4 Download.

Our guest today, Chris Haddad, sent shock waves through the copywriting world a couple weeks ago, with the launch of his much-awaited online training program called “The P.I.G. Method.” “P.I.G.” stands for “Punch in the gut” and I would say that’s a fairly universal description of how Chris’s copy in his video sales letters affects viewers. When you watch one of Chris’s promotions, or read his copy, you go on an emotional roller coaster ride that’s right up there with what you experience with a blockbuster Hollywood thriller. Chris does have a background in theatre and film. But his greatest accomplishments, I would argue, have come in the digital marketing space. Chris has created products and promotions for them which have brought in millions of dollars and caused quite a stir in the marketplace. However, The P.I.G. Method is the first time, as far as I can tell, that Chris has revealed his secrets of how he puts the promotions together. Which is something a lot of people have wanted to know for quite a while. On today’s show, we covered Chris’s experience with actually writing the copy for his promotion of The P.I.G. Method. That might seem ho-hum to you, but not to me. I’ve written copy for my own products, and I’ve always found it to be a challenge, since I’m the client as well as the copywriter. It’s not impossible, but there are just some roadblocks to get out of the way. Chris, however, didn’t have the same problem so many other copywriters have had. It was especially interesting to hear him describe his own writing process, and you might be able to pick up some valuable tips for yourself, writing any copy -- for your own products, or otherwise. Chris also gave us some new sneak peeks at a few of the gems inside his P.I.G. method.Download.

Our guest today, Chris Haddad, sent shock waves through the copywriting world 10 days ago with the launch of his much-awaited online training program called “The P.I.G. Method.” “P.I.G.” stands for “Punch in the gut” and I would say that’s a fairly universal description of how Chris’s copy in his video sales letters affects viewers. When you watch one of Chris’s promotions, or read his copy, you go on an emotional roller coaster ride that’s right up there with what you experience with a blockbuster Hollywood thriller. Chris does have a background in theatre and film. But his greatest accomplishments, I would argue, have come in the digital marketing space. Chris has created products and promotions for them which have brought in millions of dollars and caused quite a stir in the marketplace. However, The P.I.G. Method is the first time, as far as I can tell, that Chris has revealed his secrets of how he puts the promotions together. Which is something a lot of people have wanted to know for quite a while. On today’s show, we covered the product creation process, which is especially tricky for a copywriter or anyone else who has to reverse-engineer their own method and techniques. Not quite like doing brain surgery on yourself, but, it is a challenge because for most people, especially high performers, actually figuring out your own process and spelling it out for others is difficult. That’s because so much of the information is intuitive, or what is frequently known as “unconscious competence.” Chris also gave us a sneak peak at a few of the gems inside his P.I.G. method.Download.

Today's podcast comes from a handful of idea generators I found in "The Copy Book —How Some of the Best Advertisers in the World Write Their Advertising." I found out about this book from our friend Sean Vosler, who's been on the show before. It's over 500 pages long, and while it's interesting, most of it does not really apply to direct response copywriting, which, after all, is what this show is about. Nevertheless, there were a few gems I found that are great idea generators for all copywriters. So that's what we're going to focus on today. We've got seven idea-generators, coming from four different copywriters. I'll mention their names as we get to each one. Obviously these are people who know their way around writing advertising. And, like I said, I carefully selected each idea generator because I can see how you can apply this to what you're doing when you're writing copy yourself. The Copy Book https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/graphic_design/all/43914/facts.dad_the_copy_book.htm Download.

We have an extra-special guest today, and I will tell you about him after I tell you about his book. Nine years ago, someone -- and I’m sorry I can’t remember who it was -- told me about this amazing book called “The Micro-Script Rules.” I went crazy when I got it and have been recommending it to people ever since. Fast forward to earlier this fall. My client Billy Broas emailed me, having recently spoken with the author of that book, Bill Schley. He wanted to introduce the two of us. Long story short, Bill is what I would call an expert in branding that sells. In fact, he’s the only person I know who has a pretty foolproof system for creating branding that rockets companies to the top of their niche. He’s been doing that for about 30 years -- companies of all kinds. I was able to get him to come on the podcast and talk about that. Normally we direct marketers are a little hesitant to listen when anyone talks about branding, but I promise this. You’ll want to hear what Bill has to say. That’s because he’s worked in New York City at Ted Bates and Company, where legendary branders came up with household names that are still around today, decades later. Bill was a part of that process, but like a lot of young people in New York at the time, he never got a clear explanation on how to do this. He was just supposed to watch and “get it.” Lucky for him, he did, and that led to him doing it successfully over and over until he was able to figure out consciously what he was doing intuitively. It all starts with the Big Idea, and Bill has some insights and how-to’s about that which are clearer and better than anything I’ve ever heard before. When he worked at the agency in New York, he was just supposed to watch and “get it.” Lucky for him, he did, and that led to him doing it successfully over and over until he was able to figure out consciously what he was doing intuitively. And that’s the first thing we talk about on the show, where Bill gives us some revolutionary perspective about branding and the Big Idea. Then, we go on to talk about The Micro-Script Rules, one of my favorite marketing and copywriting books of all time. For everyone besides Bill, here’s a hint as to why I like it so much, and it’s the little quote above the title: “It’s not what people hear, it’s what they repeat.” And the subtitle is, “How to tell your story (and differentiate your brand) in a sentence… or less.” Pretty powerful ideas. Finally, the special surprise. Bill tells us about something coming in a few months that everyone should be interested in. Link to Bill’s book, The Micro-Script Rules https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JMWD9GZ Download.

We’ve got a very special guest today, Kenneth Yu. I really want to thank him for staying up very late to join us. As we’re recording this, it’s the middle of the night in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where Ken is based. He’s going to tell us about what he calls “the most persuasive story structure on Earth,” and he has a point. He calls it “the scalable parable,” and this refers to the way religious stories are structured. Now, from a sales point of view, the Holy Bible had sold five billion copies, according to the Guinness Book of world records, and that was 1995. More than any other book in the English language, and almost certainly more than any other book in the world. Scalable parables are great in religious texts, but what about in copy? We’ll find out today. Ken is going to tell how he used this religious story structure to get the number one biz-op Clickbank offer last year. More important, he’s going to tell you what you need to do to use this same structure in your own copy. Ken’s got some amazing copywriting street cred. He’s written for big online publishers including Agora and Mind Valley. He’s also worked in the big corporate advertising markets with the Ogilvy agency, and picked up a handful of international awards for his work. Here’s what I asked him: Could we start with what you did on Clickbank that worked so well for you? I’m very curious to know, how did you discover this holy grail formula, the scalable parable? Ken, why is storytelling more important to a company’s revenues than most people think? When you say, “Nature abhors a vacuum,” which we’ve all heard before, you have a special meaning for that phrase. Could you tell us about it? What’s different and more powerful about religion-based storytelling? What are the steps to creating a holy grail story? Please tell us how this all fits into creating a “tribe of customers,” and how to do that? Finally, how can people find out more about The Scalable Parable? Link to Ken’s site: https://scalableparable.com/garfinkel/Download.

We’re back with an episode in the Old Masters series -- four Old Masters, in fact. These four people are the co-authors of the book “The Principles Of Advertising,” first published in 1915. I ran across it while tracking down something else I had learned about from Copywriting Historian Sean Vosler, who has been on this show before. The authors are: Harry Tipper, Harry L. Hollingsworth, George Burton Hotchkiss, and Frank Alvah Parsons. It’s interesting to see how much has changed and how little has changed in the last 100 years. Of course the world has changed and the channels of communication are different. But people are pretty much motivated by the same things they always have been. And what works in ads hasn’t changed that much, either. So the book we’re going to look at today was published over 100 years ago. It was written as a textbook and that should scare anyone off. But the good news is, two of the authors are ad professionals, and two are professors. The language is a little old-fashioned, but the information is practical and clearly comes out of real-world experience. The book has 33 chapters! Far more than we could cover in one podcast, or even two. So I selected two big-picture chapters and three chapters about copy, and we have some of the most important and usable points from each one. Now if you’re a copywriter, you might think the big-picture stuff isn’t really necessary or relevant. And strictly speaking, it’s not. But look at it this way: If you were a skydiver, sure, you’d want to know how to put on a chute, how to jump out of a plane, and how to open your chute well before you hit the ground. But it would probably also be a good idea to get a general understanding of how gravity works, and that falling objects pick up speed at 32 feet per second every second. Same idea here. Besides, all this general context stuff will directly help you, as a copywriter, get more sales from your copy. Not the skydiving stuff, but the advertising stuff. The book is out of copyright now, and available free as a PDF download from Google Books. Here’s the link: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Principles_of_Advertising/vFdCAAAAIAAJDownload.

When you need some good advice for your business, who you gonna call? My way of looking at is pretty simple: You need someone who knows it, not only because they’ve studied it, but because they’ve also done it. Successfully. In the best of all possible worlds, more than once. For instance, if you wanted to take a cooking class, would you choose a class given by someone who has read all the cookbooks… watched every episode of “Master Chef”… and knows where you can get the freshest ingredients in town… but has never cooked a meal for anyone besides himself? Of would you want to learn from someone who has a decent education in food preparation but has also cooked and served hundreds of meals to happy customers, friends and family? Me, I’d choose the second one. Because he’s not only a teacher, he’s a doer. Now, you may know Nathan Fraser as the announcer and co-confabulator on Copywriters Podcast, but today you’re going to discover another side to Nathan. He’s also an experienced entrepreneur and copywriter who has gone through the trials and tribulations every successful businessperson goes through before they find out what really works. Just a few weeks ago, Nathan released a new book called Start-U Cheat Codes: Success Shortcuts For Your Start-UP (Or Small Business). I rushed to get a copy as soon as I found out about it and I was floored. By how simple it was. By how powerful it was. And by how had nuggets for ANY business in it. While it is pure gold for a start-up, it’s also a can’t-miss diagnostic tool for any business of just about any size. I talked Nathan into discussing it today. You probably think I’m kidding, but at first he thought I was kidding when I asked him to do a show about it with me. I wasn’t. You’ll see why in a minute. I told Nathan: I truly don’t know if you realize how much pared-down wisdom you packed into that book. It reminds me of “Obvious Adams,” a simple, short book that we talked out previously on this show. The reason it does is, it covers the basics so well, so simply, so elegantly, it’s hard to miss the essentials when you read it. And that’s rare among business books. I was wondering if we could talk about your own history as an entrepreneur. Your experiences, in a nutshell, and what got you to where you are today? So, as I see it, your book sets out to solve a lot of problems start-ups and small businesses face all the time, and they don’t really know how to solve them. Could you talk about the problems you see, both with start-ups, and with small businesses that are only performing at a fraction of their potential? You’ve also seen people who solved some of these problems, starting with yourself. Could you tell us how you discovered the path to success, and how you’ve helped others do the same? There are a couple of key things in your book that really stood out to me, and I was wondering if you could talk about them. The first one is the idea of the “Genius Zone.” I think that’s so important for people to understand. The other thing is multiple streams of income. Someone with a job usually has just one. Many business owners have only one. Could you talk about having more than one and what that looks like? Finally, tell us more about the book. How have people responded, and how does everyone else get a copy if they want it? And they should! link To Start-Up Cheat Codes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09HRPXFGRDownload.

We’re back with our Old Masters Series, and this is the last part of a four-part series -- What Your Prospects Most Want To Know. I would add, what is it that they want to know right away, and whether or not you tell them might decide whether or not they keep on reading? The answer is still: What will your product, or service, do for me? But this time, we’re going to take it from a different angle. Up to now, we’ve talked about what your product can help them do, gain, and save. But this time, it’s what your product will help the prospect be. This is different and may in many ways go deeper than before, because this is about identity. So here’s what we’re going to do today. We’ll go over seven things Schwab found prospects want to know if your product can help them be. I’ll show you how and why. We’ll cover some examples you are probably familiar with in general, like product categories, or in specific, like promotions you’ve probably heard of. Again, let me remind you that Vic Schwab spent 44 years working in advertising and kept a lot of notes. Everything here is based on testing and very scrupulous observation, with an eye towards what stimulates inquiries and what generates sales. From the eye of a master. That’s because Ad Age magazine called Schwab “the greatest mail-order copywriter of all time.” In 1941, he wrote a series of five articles for Printers Ink magazine and titled the series “How to Write a Good Advertisement.” In 1961, he expanded that series into the book, “How to Write a Good Ad.” The book is so important that my mentoring clients and I spend almost half a year going through this book in a special way I’ve developed. It’s as good in its own way as Gene Schwartz’s “Breakthrough Advertising.” In short, I’d saw Schwab’s book is a gold mine for copywriters. Also, a quick reminder: Everything in this and the other three podcasts in this series come from page 47… the first half of the page. That might seem like a lot of podcast based on very little information, but remember, he spent 44 years testing and tracking ads and reviewing other top-performing ads. So it’s condensed practical wisdom. The book and the link: How to Write a Good Advertisement, by Victor Schwab https://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Good-Advertisement-Copywriting-ebook/dp/B01AXJ7SES/ Download.

The market research company Ipsos recently did a poll that found 46% of Americans believe in ghosts. I found that annoying because they didn’t ask Americans how many of them believed in monsters. It’s so important which words you use when you’re taking a survey. Ipsos also found that 7% of Americans believe in vampires, and 6% believe in zombies. With Halloween coming up, I thought this would be a good time to do a show about monsters. Specifically, the Five Monsters of Copywriting. Especially for all the copywriters who can’t go trick or treating because they are locked in a room on a deadline. Now, look. The Ipsos poll also found that 88% of parents eat their kids’ Halloween candy. So I guess being a copywriter on deadline isn’t as bad if you’re a parent. But let’s talk about these Monsters. They are the very things that keep us from writing. I saw this sad plea for help on Twitter on in late September, from newspaper humor columnist Alexandra Petri. She wrote: “Friends if you see me on here next week, please bang a rolled up newspaper on a table nearby. So that I get startled and scuttle away. I am supposed to be working on my book.” Imagine that. She thinks that her friends can scare the monsters away from her by banging a rolled up newspaper on the table, miles away from wherever she is at the moment. Well, what are these monsters, anyway? Everybody knows about these monsters, at least vaguely. Everyone at least has an inkling. But we’re not afraid to talk about things other people are afraid to talk about. Even if we are afraid of those things ourselves. You know, they say the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have a problem. That may be as far as we get with some of these monsters. Other ones, we might have a solution or two so you can scare that one away WITHOUT having to get someone else to bang a rolled up newspaper on the table. These are monsters all of us face every day. Some of us have learned how to deal with them some of the time. A few of us deal with them well almost all of the time. You’ll want to listen to see how many of them you recognize, and maybe get some new insights on what you can DO about them!Download.

We’re back with a special Gold Edition of Copywriters Podcast. The reason it’s a Gold Edition is because we are taking a deep dive into the gold mines of copywriting history. The two men who invented copywriting as we know it are Claude Hopkins and John E. Kennedy. And the man who hired them was Albert Lasker. I came across this book, The Man Who Sold America, which has information I’d never seen anywhere else before. That was probably because one of the authors, Arthur Schultz, is the former CEO of the ad agency Foote, Cone and Belding — which gave him and his co-author Jeffrey L. Cruikshank access to private papers and other information that was not available to anyone else. You see, Foote, Cone and Belding used to be called Lord and Thomas. That was the agency Albert Lasker ran when he hired Claude Hopkins and John E. Kennedy. I probably never would have even known about this book if I hadn’t been told about it by Brad Nickel, one of my mentoring clients and a previous guest on Copywriters Podcast. It’s a big book, so I’ve selected a handful of key highlights from more than 400 pages that go deep into Lasker’s life, and his experiences with the two copywriters. This podcast contains three sections, and each section is focused on one person. First, Albert Lasker… then John E. Kennedy… and last, Claude Hopkins. We look at how their lives and careers intertwined. I think it’s very interesting that all three of them got to where they were and did what they did through some personal connections. In the case of Kennedy, a personal connection he proactively created himself. Here’s the book this information was taken from, and adapted considerably for today’s show: The Man Who Sold America, by Jeffrey L. Cruikshank & Arthur W. Schultzhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B003SNJYTYDownload.

We’re back with Mike Pavlish for part two of $10-million-plus sales letters, especially in the supplement industry. As we mentioned last week, Mike is a superstar copywriter. He has written promotions for health supplements for some of the most successful supplement companies in the world, including Agora, Dr. Al Sears, Healthy Directions and many others. Mike has also written for smaller entrepreneurs who sell supplements online. All told, Mike’s sales letters and VSLs have sold more than half a billion dollars worth of supplements. Half a billion dollars. Last week, Mike shared with us some incredibly valuable information about how to prepare before you start writing, and some insider tricks for getting your copy read and acted upon. But there’s so much more he has to share that we asked him to come back for a second show, and he agreed. Today talked about a new set of really valuable techniques and ideas, including: • How to use stories to draw in your prospect • TWO types of mechanisms (first we’ve ever heard of this) • The best ways to present proof • How to maximize the perceived value of your product • How to get a high average order value Plus, a LOT more! Mike’s website: https://www.mikepavlish.com/ Download.

Get ready for a master class in creating eight-figure sales letters, from a copywriter who has done it… over and over and over again. I’m really excited that today, we have Mike Pavlish on the show. He has written promotions for health supplements that have in many cases brought in more than $10 million apiece. And he’s done this for some of the most successful supplement companies in the world, including Agora, Dr. Al Sears, Healthy Directions and many others. Mike has also written for smaller entrepreneurs who sell supplements online. All told, Mike’s sales letters and VSLs have sold more than half a billion dollars worth of supplements. Half a billion dollars. It’s not often we get someone at this level of accomplishment on the podcast. Mike shared with us how he does what he does… in considerable, incredibly valuable detail. That is, how to develop and write supplement promotions that bring in $10 million or more. Here are some of the things we covered: • How to know if your niche is good • What to look for in a product, if you want a big success • What your research should focus on • What’s different (that copywriters need to know about) today, compared to even the recent past • Mike’s deceptively simple but super-powerful way of writing irresistible headlines! Mike Pavlish’s website: https://www.mikepavlish.com/Download.

We’re back with our Old Masters Series, and this is part 3 of a four-part series -- What Your Prospects Most Want To Know. I would add, what is it that they want to know right away, and whether or not your tell them might decide whether or not they keep on reading? The answer is the still: What will your product, or service, do for me? But this time, we’re going to take it from a different angle. Up to now, we’ve talked about what your product can help them do and help them gain. But this time, it’s what your product will help the prospect save. Some things will be familiar, but I suspect you’ll hear some things you’ve never thought of before. So here’s what we’re going to do today. We’ll go over all seven things Schwab found prospects want to know if your product can help them save. I’ll show you how and why. We’ll cover some examples you are probably familiar with in general, like product categories, or in specific, like promotions you’ve probably heard of. Again, let me remind you that Vic Schwab spent 44 years working in advertising and kept a lot of notes. Everything here is based on testing and very scrupulous observation, with an eye towards what stimulates inquiries and what generates sales. From the eye of a master. That’s because Ad Age magazine called Schwab “the greatest mail-order copywriter of all time.” In 1941, he wrote a series of five articles for Printers Ink magazine and titled the series “How to Write a Good Advertisement.” In 1961, he expanded that series into the book, “How to Write a Good Ad.” The book is so important that my mentoring clients and I spend almost half a year going through this book in a special way I’ve developed. It’s as good in its own way as Gene Schwartz’s “Breakthrough Advertising.” In short, I’d saw Schwab’s book is a gold mine for copywriters. Also, a quick reminder: Everything in this and the other three podcasts in this series come from page 47… the first half of the page. That might seem like a lot of podcast based on very little information, but remember, he spent 44 years testing and tracking ads and reviewing other top-performing ads. So it’s condensed practical wisdom. The book and the link: How to Write a Good Advertisement, by Victor Schwab https://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Good-Advertisement-Copywriting-ebook/dp/B01AXJ7SES/Download.

I’m thrilled that our guest today is Daniel Throssell, a very unconventional and highly successful copywriter from Perth, Australia. He’s the driving marketing force behind the blockbuster bestselling book The Barefoot Investor. Daniel has a slew of very impressive testimonials on his site, to give you and idea of what other top people in copywriting are saying about him: Our friend Ben Settle calls Daniel, “One of Australia’s top copywriters.” Andrew Campbell, Harmon Brothers Ad Agency, writes, “In my role, I work with some of the best writers in the world. When I saw your copy, I knew you were one of the best, too.” And our friend Justin Blackman characterizes Daniel this way: “A wacky, wacky man of tremendous talent.” There’s one more person I’d like to mention in this intro, and that’s Copywriters Podcast subscriber Stuart Marmorstein. Stuart reached out to me personally and recommended Daniel. Stuart also helped us get in touch, and thanks for that. Stuart was particularly impressed by Daniel’s Parallel Welcome Sequence, which kind of takes the first emails someone gets when they join your list -- and turns it on its head. That’s the first thing he’s going to tell us about today, along with some highlights from his tremendous book launch. Daniel shared with us what he learned from the Barefoot Investor launch, and how it led to his Parallel Welcome Sequence… and how he uses a contrarian approach to “warm up” his own new subscribers, instead of cooling them down. Plus, he shared more email tips that every copywriter and company can learn from… and use! Daniel’s website is https://persuasivepage.com/. He also revealed how be broke an ironclad rule of copy -- which is, don’t use humor -- and turned entertainment into a marketing plus for his business.Download.

We’re back with our Old Masters Series, and this is part 2 of a four-part series -- What Your Prospects Most Want To Know. I would add, what is it that they want to know right away, and whether or not your tell them might decide whether or not they keep on reading? The answer is the same as last time: What will your product, or service, do for me? But this time, we’re going into entirely new territory than we did last time. First let me say that this show is the Old Masters Series because it comes from a very special book: “How to Write a Good Advertisement,” by Victor Schwab. And I’ll remind you: Schwab identifies four categories of things a prospect wants a product to do for them: 1) help them gain something, 2) help them be something, 3) help them do something, and 4) help them save something. Last time, we talked about what your product will help them do. This time, it’s what the prospect will gain. And you might be surprised some of things old Mr. Schwab came up with. So here’s what we’re going to do today. First, we’ll go over all seven things Schwab found prospects want to know if your product can do. It doesn’t have to do more than one, and, as we’ll discuss, it may not even have to do one of these seven, but these are all proven winners. I’ll show you how and why. We’ll cover some examples you are probably familiar with in general, like product categories, or in specific, like promotions you’ve probably heard of. As for our source of this list of eight things: Vic Schwab spent 44 years working in advertising and kept a lot of notes. Ad Age magazine called Schwab “the greatest mail-order copywriter of all time.” In 1941, he wrote a series of five articles for Printers Ink magazine and titled the series “How to Write a Good Advertisement.” In 1961, he expanded that series into the book, “How to Write a Good Ad.” The book is so important that my mentoring clients and I spend almost half a year going through this book in a special way I’ve developed. It’s as good in its own way as Gene Schwartz’s “Breakthrough Advertising.” In short, I’d saw Schwab’s book is a gold mine for copywriters. Today, we’ll look at how you can use one or more of these seven things in your copy. Now, as I mentioned before, you don’t have to use one of these. But, your odds are usually a lot better if you do. But we’ll look at how you can use the general idea and adapt it to something else, if you think that will work better for you. Also, a quick reminder: Everything in this and the other three podcasts in this series come from page 47… the first half of the page. That might seem like a lot of podcast based on very little information, but remember, he spent 44 years testing and tracking ads and reviewing other top-performing ads. So it’s condensed practical wisdom. And a link to the book, How to Write a Good Advertisement, by Victor Schwab: https://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Good-Advertisement-Copywriting-ebook/dp/B01AXJ7SES/Download.

We’re back with Craig Dave Carbol and today we’re going to really dig into his secrets about writing exceptional copy for eCommerce landing pages. Craig was with us last week. He has written for such well-known clients as Jon Benson and Mind Valley. But what really sets him apart are his accomplishments in eCommerce, where he has written for big brands in consumer markets like apparel, athletic gear and outdoor living. His copy has raked in more than $33 million in sales in the last year and a half. Craig has come up with a system for writing copy just like he’s writing. The system is teachable, and it’s called Cashvertorials™. He’s told us about it today and walk through a promotion he did using this very renegade and very profitable form of copy. To get free access to Craig’s course, go to: https://www.cashvertorials.com/Download.

As some viewers have noticed, I wear a Pinky and the Brain hat. In the excellent cartoon where this comes from, when the Brain bonks Pinky on the head with a big hammer, it’s just another event in the day. No harm, no foul. The action continues like nothing happened. We’ll get to why I bring this up very soon. But I think you are in for a jolt of a very different sort with our guest today, power copywriter Craig Dave Cobol. He specializes in copy for eCommerce sites and his copy has racked up an astonishing $33 million in sales for his clients over the last couple years. He’s done this using a system he developed called “Cashvertorials™,” which is based on some carefully researched and tested neuroscience and persuasion material that he’ll share with us today. I should also mention that, like Nathan and myself, he’s a musician. One thing that sets him apart is he speaks Swedish, as does the world’s current top songwriter, Max Martin. Craig shared with us a slightly frightening and totally compelling account of his journey from being a “regular” high-powered copywriter to becoming a true renegade, with his new system. With innovative techniques like polarizing product reviews, cognitive ticklers, and product transformation, he shared with us a new way to galvanize prospect attention and bring in big sales numbers. You can learn about Craig’s free course here: https://www.cashvertorials.com/ Download.

So, you’ve probably heard the old but very true saying that goes like this: “Writing is rewriting.” And you must know by now that it means, you rarely get it 100% right on the first draft. All well and good. But the question is, how do you know what to rewrite? How do you even know what to look for? That’s what we covered in last week’s show, but we only got through half the list. Today, we’ll get through the other half. You see, I realized, every time I critique copy, I look for the same things. There are certain things that any piece of copy needs to have -- certain tests it needs to pass -- if it’s going to work in the marketplace. Previously, on Copywriters Podcast, we covered these first five qualities of copy you must look at. Now, we’re going to cover the last six. A lot of what we talk about today has to do with your prospect’s experience reading your copy. We get into three factors that keep people engage. But we’ll also cover three factors that are crucial in deepening your prospect’s understand of what your product can do for them. This, in turn, deepens their desire. And you know what happens next? That magical sound: ka-ching! Finally, I’ve helped people in more than 100 industries with their marketing, and my critiques have added a lot to their bottom lines. What I told you are the first things I look at. There are other thing that I didn’t have time to get into today. If you’d like me to critique your copy, just go to this page on my website and fill out the application. It takes just a few minutes: http://garfinkelcoaching.com/copy-critiqueshttp://garfinkelcoaching.com/copy-critiquesDownload.

One of the things people ask me for the most is copy critiques. Whether it’s an A-Lister with multiple controls for a big publisher… a B-Lister gunning to become an A-Lister… or a business owner who wrote their own copy, I look at the same things. It’s interesting, because the better the copywriter, the harder I have to look. The guys who are really good make everything appear to be smooth and perfect. There’s usually a handful of tiny, almost hidden flaws. Once those flaws are fixed, the copy gets supercharged to a new level. Even so, no matter who wrote the copy, I look for the same things. There are certain things that any piece of copy needs to have -- certain tests it needs to pass -- if it’s going to work in the marketplace. Today I’m going to share five of those things, and show you how I look at them, so you can do the same for your own copy. I’ve got six more, but they’ll have to wait until we do another show. So today’s episode is not about how to write a sales letter or a VSL. Either you already know that, or you can get my book, or Nathan’s book, or listen to a number of our other more than 200 podcasts for that. Plenty of good info out there on the writing phase. Maybe you’ve heard the phrase: The total is greater than than the sum of its parts. It’s a powerful idea. Once you put copy together, you’ve got a number of moving parts, working together. If one or more of them gets out of true, you could end up with a big problem. So this is not about how to write your copy. It’s how to go over it after it’s written. I made an effort to spell out my own thought process when I do a paid critique. What I did was mentally walk through what I look at along the way. I came up with 11 necessary things that need to be right, to make sure the copy as written stands a good chance of making the maximum sales. We’d have to rush through all 11 to fit them into one show, so I’ve broken the list into two shows. Today’s list is of the first five, and we’ll do the remaining six on a future show. To book me for a copy critique, go to: http://www.garfinkelcoaching.com/copy-critiques/ Download.

We’re back with our Old Masters Series, and this topic is so big and so important that we’re going to take four shows to do it. The question is: When your prospect starts to read your copy, what is the one thing your prospect wants to know, more than anything else? I won’t keep you waiting. The answer is simple. What your prospect wants to know is: What will your product, or service, do for me? It sounds like a simple question. Maybe even a stupid question. But it is neither stupid nor simple. Because the answer you give, and the way you put your answer together, will make all the difference for how long your prospect keeps reading. And, at the end of the day, whether or not your prospect actually buys. This show is in the Old Masters Series because it comes from a very special book: “How to Write a Good Advertisement,” by Victor Schwab. I’ll tell you more about the book in a few minutes. For now, Schwab identifies four categories of things a prospect wants a product to do for them: 1) help them gain something, 2) help them be something, 3) help them do something, and 4) help them save something. Today, we’re going to drill down on the things your prospect would like to know that your product will do for them. And you’ll see how you can use this information in your own copy. So here’s what we’re going to do today. First, we’ll go over all eight things Schwab found prospects want to know if your product can do. It doesn’t have to do more than one, and, as we’ll discuss, it may not even have to do one of these eight, but these are all proven winners. Vic Schwab spent 44 years working in advertising and kept a lot of notes. He took his fund of knowledge and organized it into this book, “How to Write a Good Ad.” It’s so important that my mentoring clients and I spend almost half a year going through this book in a special way I’ve developed. It’s as good in its own was as Gene Schwartz’s “Breakthrough Advertising.” In short, I’d saw Schwab’s book is a gold mine for copywriters. After we review the eight things, we’ll take a look at a few examples of how they show up in well-known ads. Then we’ll look at how you can use one or more of these in your copy. Now, as I mentioned before, you don’t have to use one of these eight. Your odds are usually a lot better if you do. But we’ll look at how you can use the general idea and adapt it to something else, if you think that will work better for you. And finally, we’ll look at what else you need to think about to really bring your prospect off the fence, once you have told your prospect what the offer will do for them. How to Write a Good Advertisement, by Victor Schwab https://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Good-Advertisement-Copywriting-ebook/dp/B01AXJ7SES/Download.

We’ve got a very good show today, because our special guest is Thomas Dean Donnelly, an experienced Hollywood screenwriter. He’s also a teacher of writing all across the country, ranging from back east at Long Island University to here out west at the University of Southern California. The Hollywood Reporter ranks USC as the top university in the world for studying film. But Tom’s screenwriting credits are even more mind-boggling. He’s been at it for over 25 years, and projects he’s written for have grossed in excess of a billion dollars around the world. He’s worked on franchises ranging from Marvel’s Doctor Strange to The Walking Dead. He’s adapted the classic works of writers including Ray Bradbury, Stan Lee and Robert E. Howard. So it’s a bit of an understatement to say that Tom’s been around the block and he knows what he’s talking about. Today he’ll share some of his adventures in the film world with us… give us a few powerful screenwriter story secrets… and reveal the best single solution for writer’s block I’ve ever heard. Tom started by telling us about a chance connection he met through his work with the Boy Scouts that made him familiar with the copywriting world -- and a lot of what he talked about on today’s show is very relevant to copywriters. He gave us the insider’s view of writing hit movies for a living. This is information that would be hard to come by for anyone not already in the business. But perhaps the most stunning revelations he made were about story. Now, we're talking about storytelling a lot on this podcast, but Tom’s point of view is unique, and he’s got the track record -- and deep knowledge -- to back up everything he says. You’ll get tips that will help you with every story you write from now on. And I love what he had to say about writer’s block. I’ve never been satisfied with explanations I’ve heard about it, or solutions to get through it, until I heard what he had to say. This information may save you from a lot of grief and wasted time. Thomas offers private consultations. You can find out more about that on his website: http://sevenminutescreenwriter.com/ Download.

Elmer Wheeler may have been the best-paid copywriter of all time, on a dollars-per-word basis. In the 1930s, Texaco paid him $5000 to come up with the question “Is your oil at the proper level today, sir?” In 2021 money, that was the equivalent of about $95,000 — for nine words. Or, more than $10,000 for each of those nine words. But those nine words had some other dollars attached to them as well. Texaco estimated gas station attendants who asked customers that question ended up opening one-quarter of a million car hoods — and, you can bet, selling lots and lots of extra motor oil soon after they did. By 1938, Elmer Wheeler had worked out tested selling sentences for 5000 products, according to an article about him in the New Yorker. One of those sentences, for Barbasol shaving cream, reportedly increased sales by 300%. In 1940, he wrote a book called “Sizzlemanship: More than 2,000 Successful Selling Pitches to Command Instant Attention and Buying Action.” It is out of print today, but there’s a Kindle edition available on Amazon for a few dollars. He’s definitely one of the most interesting and, I’m sorry to say, overlooked Old Masters in copywriting. But we’re going to do something to correct that overlooked part today. I have a hard copy of the book and I pored over it to find a few examples of his tested selling sentences we could look at today. Now remember there are more than 2,000 tested selling sentences in the book. Even if we were to read them without saying anything else, that would take several podcasts. So what I’ve decided to do is find five categories of sentences that would give every copywriter a real edge, once this information is incorporated in their thinking and their copy. Elmer Wheeler was way ahead of his time, nearly 100 years ago. But we can all benefit from his timeless, market-tested wisdom. And that’s what we cover in today’s episode. Sizzlemanship, by Elmer Wheeler https://www.amazon.com/Sizzlemanship-New-Tested-Selling-Sentences-ebook/dp/B01M691BVVDownload.

We’ve had really good responses for our Old Masters Series shows, where we look at one important copywriter from the past, and people were literally falling all over themselves when we brought on Sean Vosler a few weeks ago to talk about the founding fathers of copywriting. We had to send out the special writers unit of the Copy Patrol to pick those people up off the floor. But my friend and client Jason Parker made a suggestion that kicks things up a notch even higher. The idea involves finding the best single idea from the greatest copywriters, that we can all use today. I really appreciate Jason’s suggestion and want to give him a shout-out right here and right now. I should also say that I spent a lot of time mulling this over, and today’s show is what I came up with. We’re going to look at five “keepers.” A keeper in this case is an idea you want to carry with you for the rest of your life, because it’s so good. Five keepers from five of copywriting’s greats. They range from the early 1900s to the last 20 years. The way I chose these five keepers was by asking: What’s one thing that not only worked when the copywriter introduced it, but works just as well today? Also, what’s something simple enough that we can talk about in just a few minutes, and everyone will understand it. With one exception. One of these concepts, from Gene Schwartz, really takes a while to make it your own. I included because it’s so important, and so rarely understood, that it was worth breaking the guidelines to get you started on it if you don’t already know it and use it. Besides Gene Schwartz, the other four copywriters are: Claude Hopkins, John E. Kennedy, John Caples and Gary Halbert. Links: breakthroughadvertisingbook.combreakthroughadvertisingbook.com thegaryhalbertletter.comthegaryhalbertletter.com Download.

We’re really lucky today to have Marissa Morgan as our special guest today, and you’ll see why in just a minute or two. I met Marissa as a guest on her show earlier this year, and you’ll hear more about that in a few minutes. But that show is only the latest chapter in Marissa’s very impressive resume. Before we get to the highlights, let me share the one reason you should pay very close attention to everything she says and does today. It’s that that Marissa excels at two of the most important skills to have at this time in history. - Being on TV, and - Selling on TV. Marissa has more than $25 million in sales to her name on Home Shopping Network and other TV shopping channels. Personally. But wait, there’s more. A lot more. As an actress, she’s been on TV shows including Ray Donovan, Fuller House, and Bixler High Private Eye, just to name a few. Most of the time, she gets cast as a news anchor or a police officer. She’s done stand-up at The Comedy Store and The Improv in LA. And while she still appears on ShopHQ TV today, she’s also got an exciting new role that’s really relevant to online entrepreneurs with a startup called ngagge, which she’ll tell us about in a bit on today’s show. Here’s what I asked her: 1. Marissa, welcome and thanks for joining us. I’m a big fan of yours and I’m also a big fan of the Showtime series Ray Donovan. You got a role very few people get to have in acting, because you “played yourself.” Could you tell us about it? 2. So let’s talk about Home Shopping Network. I know it’s only one of several TV shopping channels where you have hosted, but it’s definitely the best known to most of our subscribers. Tell us about how you got started… a memorable experience or two… and what your learned in your training. 3. OK, so, moving into the world of the online entrepreneurs and copywriters, what can you tell us about selling online when it’s just you and your computer rather than a whole studio setup? What are people doing right? What are people doing that’s not quite right? What do you notice most frequently that people can do to improve? 4. And this brings us right up to the present. You have a show on ngagge, where I was fortunate enough to be your guest. Tell us about the company, what you’re doing, and what opportunities there are for our listeners? https://www.ngagge.com/Download.

One thing that’s new to you when you become a copywriter, unless you’ve owned a business, grown up in an entrepreneurial family, or been in a business-like music or acting, or professional sports -- That one new thing is risk. It’s not that risk doesn’t exist anywhere else; of course it does. It’s that there are unique kinds of risk in copywriter that will be new to you. I haven’t heard anyone else talk about this before, so I wanted to give you something you could really dig your teeth into. And that’s what we did today. So here’s why we tackled this topic. It’s because risk is here, and most people in copywriting don’t know how to deal with it in a way where they end up winning most of the time. I’d like to help change that. I put this show together to: - encourage you to take some of the risks you’ve been reluctant to take - help you start to weigh upside and downside in any risk you are considering taking - and give you a framework to look at risk, since it’s such a big part of copywriting in so many dimensions. There are many kinds of risk a copywriter faces — as does a business owner whose marketing is based on direct-response copy. We covered many of them briefly. What we zero’d-in on and spent more time on was what I call “internal risk.” That is, going beyond who you think you are now to do the things you really want to do! In that area, there are certain kinds of risk I believe you need to take, in order to grow — and one particular risk you should NEVER take, as doing so will constitute not being true to yourself. Also, we covered where to get advice about taking a risk you’re thinking of taking, as well as the two kinds of people you really shouldn’t ask at all! Download.

Today we’re going to take a deep dive into neuroscience, which is basically the study of how the brain works. Now, deep breath. This is not a med school class. In fact, to the great disappointment of my mother, I never went to med school, and I never will. Sorry, Mom. No, this is about how the brain works when you’re reading the written word. It’s very specific and it applies to how people take in, and accept or reject, what you’ve written. So it’s narrowly focused, and great for copywriters. It’s from a book called “Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence,” by Lisa Cron. She really knows her stuff when it comes to stories. She’s worked with major publishers and movie studios. Plus, she teaches at UCLA Extension in the Writer’s Program. Again, what she says for novelists and screenwriters is also hugely important for copywriters. Because as writers, we all face the same problems — how to get people to start reading, keep reading, and buy into what you’ve written. We’ll dig into some great details in a moment. So, let me tell you a little about this book, because it has a strong copywriting connection, right from the start. Eight years ago a big name in copywriting told me about the book, but he made me promise not to tell anyone else about it. I kept my promise and a couple years after that, he said it was OK to share the info with others. Four years ago, I mentioned it briefly on a podcast in a group of books I was recommending copywriters to read. But we didn’t go into any detail at the time, like we’re going to do today. Recently I read it again, and there were tons of things I saw in it that I hadn’t seen the first time. The book didn’t change, so, it must have been me. This isn’t complicated or technical. After all, the neuroscience has already been processed by a writer in a book for writers. But I think it opens up some new possibilities for writing easier and coming up with much better copy. What today’s show is about is, how the brain processes information when it gets ready for you to buy something. I’ve seen bits and pieces of this info here and there. But this is the first time I’ve seen it all in one place, in a writer-friendly format that’s ready to use. After you’ve heard the show, you might want to get the book. It’s available on Kindle. Here’s the link: https://www.amazon.com/Wired-Story-Writers-Science-Sentence-ebook/dp/B005X0JTGIDownload.

For many copywriters, there comes a point where you know you have the basics covered. It’s always good to review them regularly, but what you’re looking for really is an edge here and an edge there. Stuff that gives you an advantage when you use it. These aren’t always big things. Sometimes a strategic word or phrase can give you a bump in conversion or average order value, all by itself. I’m not recommending you depend on these little things to make a big difference for you, without also covering the basics, like good headlines, stories, hooks, offers and things like that. But experienced people know: Sometimes to get a prospect off the fence and into the “customer” column, all it takes is one or two emotion-charged moments during the course of otherwise very good copy. We’ve got a grab-bag of stuff for you today. The main thing they have in common is they are all designed to keep your prospect’s curiosity and engagement high, from the first word of your copy to your final call to action. I call our first section “similes that sparkle, similes that sputter.” You can think of similes like adjectives on steroids. They usually have the word “as” in them. They’re not always adjectives, but they’re usually descriptive and they do it by making a comparison. You could say something is “beautiful,” or you could enhance it by saying something is “beautiful as a sunset.” That phrase is a simile. Our second part is two short quotes about planning and preparation. I think you’ll find you’re taking a new look at these activities after you hear what I have to say. And our third part is 10 magic words. These word work wonder in headlines, stories and offers. They’re all battle tested and just one of them may give you the edge you need in the next copy you write. Here’s a link to the book I used to find the good and not-so-good examples in the first section of the podcast: Happy As A Clam, and 9999 Other Similes, by Larry Wright https://www.amazon.com/dp/0671874748Download.

Our guest today is a copywriting historian and eight-figure practitioner of direct response copy. His name is Sean Vosler and I’ve wanted to have him on the show ever since I saw some of his detailed, comprehensive mindmaps connecting the early pioneers of advertising to the world of today. He’s also the founder of Increase.Academy and author of the best-selling guide “7 Figure Marketing Copy.” He specializes in helping business scale to seven and even eight figures. We’re going to talk about a bunch of things today, including how he scales businesses with direct marketing copy. But just as important is his unique and penetrating research back into the 1880s and 1890s, where he is on a mission to find out how we got to where we are today in the world of direct response marketing. Of course, one of the reasons Copywriters Podcast got to where we are are today is the following: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. On today’s show, we heard some wild tales about: -Why Sean is so eager to get to New York - The great copywriters of the late 19th Century, and how their influence stretches from Claude Hopkins to all of us today - How he got into becoming such a prodigious copywriting historian - His new book, 7-Figure Marketing Copy You can find out more about the book at: Sean.co/copywriterspodcastSean.co/copywriterspodcast Download.

Every marketer has their favorite books and experts. One of mine is Dr. Robert Cialdini, who wrote “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.” It’s a classic and I’m sure many of you have read it and found it incredibly useful. That’s not his only book, though. Dr. Cialdini got together with a couple of friends… a prof and consultant from the UK, Steve Martin -- no, not THAT Steve Martin -- and a prof from the UCLA biz school, Dr. Noah Goldstein. They put together a neat book called “The Small Big.” It’s unique as far as I know because it lists tiny little things you can do, or changes you can make, that turn a no into a yes. For some reason it was very hard to find when I got my copy a few years ago. Luckily, today it’s really easy to buy on Amazon. Even as a Kindle. OK. So what we’re going to talk about today is a little different than what we usually talk about, or what I’ve heard anyone talk about in the area of copywriting. This is not about hooks or bullets or storytelling., Or smart hacks to make an upsell bring in more revenue. Now before we get into this, I want to point out that these little hacks, by themselves, are not designed to make money for you. They’re not. Instead, these are what I would call “strategic tactics.” By that I mean, little things that can turn the tide. What’s so appealing about them to me is that they have all been proven through research experiments AND they ring 100% true to repeated experience on my part. These tactics were not originally developed for copywriting, but for persuasion at large — often in large organizational settings. But it’s easy to see how they can be transformed into powerful boosters for any copy that’s fundamentally sound to begin with. Here are the tips we explore in detail, with easy ways to apply them to copy: 1. Creating Maximum Credibility for an Expert One small thing you can do to massively increase your prospect’s confidence in the expert in your copy — or, if you’re writing the letter for yourself, boost confidence in your own expertise. 2. How to Keep ’Em Keeping On This tip gives you a way to maximize getting other people to take action and follow through. It’s useful not only in sales copy, but also in online courses and live trainings. 3. Getting People To Join The Group of “Rebel Individualists” This one’s pretty cool, because it takes advantage of two contradictory aspects of human nature: Going along with the crowd, since we are, after all, herd animals; and, being an individual, not a sheep. -- Plus, a surprise bonus tip on one simple thing you can do to instantly increase your creativity! The book we talk about on today’s show: The Small BIG: small changes that spark big influence — by Steve J. Martin, Noah Goldstein, and Robert Cialdini https://www.amazon.com/small-BIG-changes-spark-influence-ebook/dp/B00HQ2N5CK/ Download.

Today we return to our Old Masters series, but this one is really different. We’re going to look at some of the best specific advice from two people who weren’t copywriters. One was a teacher of writing who really had a big influence on playwrights and screenwriters. The other one didn’t even teach writing at all. At least not writing as we know it. We’ll get to these people in a minute. What they had in common was, they had mastered how to create works that really reached people emotionally in a way that most writers, including most copywriters, only have at best a vague way to do. When you apply what I learned from them to what we do, I call this “to-the-bone” copywriting. Because it reaches deeper into your prospect than even some of the most successful sales letters. And by doing so, it will make any sales letter even more successful. You’ll have to take a leap of faith and see if you don’t agree once we get knee-deep into this “to-the-bone” stuff. So when we get to the phrase “the art and science of copywriting,” today’s show is about the art part. Not art for art’s sake, but some modified artistic ideas and techniques for pragmatic purposes. Copy that connects better; reaches people more deeply when they’re reading it; and, converts better as a result. We’re taking from the works of two Old Masters, and you may never have heard of them before. That’s alright. They come from fields other than copywriting. But they had such an overwhelming influence on major art forms in the 20th century, where emotional connection and meaningful audience experience are the coin of the realm, that I was sure I could dig out some ideas and shape them usefully for copy. Our first old master was a man by the name of Lajos Egri. Originally from Hungary, he came to the US and wrote a book for playwrights called “The Art of Dramatic Writing.” Many writers and directors in Hollywood have used his ideas for putting films together. “The Art of Dramatic Writing” is really too heavy-duty for copywriting purposes. But Egri also wrote a book that is out of print today and very hard to find called “Your Key to Successful Writing.” This was almost a for-Dummies version of his original book. Very solid, but pared down to the basics. I found a couple of to-the-bone secrets in there that are nearly ready-made for copywriting. Our second Old Master is very well known to students of classical music and almost invisible to nearly everyone else. But, she is almost solely responsible for American concert music starting to be taken seriously in the rest of the world, starting in the early 20th Century. Her name was Nadia Boulanger, and she lived in Paris. Americans including composers Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Burt Bacharach and Quincy Jones are among the people she taught, and she influenced all of American and European music tremendously. She was also a composer, conductor and performer, but most of her work was her teaching. Now, she was a music person, not a words person. Very literate and educated, but everything was music for her, writing music, analyzing students’ music, talking about music. The book we’re drawing from is called “Mademoiselle” and it consists of reconstructed conversations she had. This book is also out of print and hard to find. The reason I chose Lajos Egri and Nadia Boulanger for today’s Old Masters Series show is, they helped writers and composers make a deep emotional connection with their viewers and listeners in ways few other teachers were able to. So what they have to say will be very useful to copywriters looking for their next edge.Download.

Our guest today has taken copywriting knowledge over the paid-content platform Patreon, and he’s the first person I’ve heard to do this. Eddie Shleyner started out writing copy for some large business websites. Meanwhile, he kept some notes to himself as he was figuring out copywriting in a hectic corporate environment. One thing led to another, and there have been some pretty interesting developments, which you’ll hear about today. Here are the questions Eddie answered: 1. You’ve taken a different approach to copywriting from anyone else I’ve come across. Could you tell us something about the results you’re getting -- in terms of clients and income? 2. You’ve told me about your career path, and it’s definitely different. Could you share the highlights of how you got to where you are today? 3. What mistakes did you make and what did you learn from them? 4. And what were the things you tried that worked out really well? 5. So you have 20,000 subscribers… which is pretty awesome for any copywriter and really, more than most online businesses have. What would you say, from a content creation point of view, are the most important things you did that built up your subscriber base? 6. Please tell us more about your subscription service for copywriters on Patreon? Eddie’s Patreon page: Patreon.com/VeryGoodCopyDownload.

Among those of us who watch cable television, everyone’s favorite copywriter bad boy is Don Draper of the show ‘Mad Men.’ Along with his secretary who became a copywriter, Peggy Olson, Don Draper is the reason this is the first edition of the Fictional Old Masters Series. Yes, they are fictional characters. But a lot of factual research went into creating these characters, And I was able to pluck out a few gems from the hours and hours of dialogue they spoke on the show. My goal today is to make this useful as well as maybe a little entertaining. So to talk about ‘Mad Men,’ we really have to begin with Matt Weiner. The show was his brainchild. Now Weiner was not an ad man, much less a Mad Man. In fact, he was a cable TV drama writer. He wrote the pilot for ‘Mad Men,’ on spec, in 1999. David Chase, who was doing ‘The Sopranos’ for HBO at the time, was so impressed with the script that he hired Weiner to write and executive produce that show. Weiner joined ‘The Sopranos’ team and had a lot of success. Eight years later, in 2007, Weiner got his show with ‘Mad Men.’ The first episode launched six weeks after the last episode of ‘The Sopranos,’ but on a different cable network, AMC. ‘Mad Men’ won tons of awards, and continued to 2015. I bring up all this history because it leads to an important question: Consider it was fiction, how authentic was Mad Men, compared to real Madison Avenue advertising? To answer that question, let’s turn to the acclaimed high-drama film producer Alfred Hitchcock. Weiner has said that Hitchcock was a major influence on him. And Hitchcock was a much stronger believer in facts that most people would expect. In the 1967 book ‘Hitchcock/Truffaut,’ Hitchcock muses, “What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out.” So he was pretty much saying drama should be close to real life. But not like real life, because drama should never be boring. And Weiner seems to have adopted that attitude. The scenes from ‘Mad Men’ were artistically enhanced, for sure, but they weren’t from a different universe than the one we live in. Weiner did a lot of research, and he acknowledged in interviews that the character Don Draper was based in part on the famous Chicago copywriter Draper Daniels. Here’s something Draper Daniels wrote: NOW… AT LAST… THE NEW AMAZING Gem of genius slowly blazing. The one man who, without a doubt Knows what this business is about. The man who screams, when words are changed, That all the changers are deranged. Still, were he quieter or politer, He wouldn’t be a copywriter. So, finally, before we dive into the takeaways, let me introduce you to our two Fictional Old Masters. Don Draper begins the show as a creative director and junior partner of a Madison Avenue ad agency in New York. He’s a hard drinker and a chain smoker. He has some deep secrets in his past and he has a lot of sex partners besides his wife. Not what you would call a boy scout, back in the day. He was also what we call a genius copywriter. He had an uncanny knack for coming up with really good advertising ideas. We’ll be focusing more on his copywriter chops and less on his lifestyle. Peggy Olson started out as Draper’s secretary and moved up to becoming a copywriter, where she got her own office with a door that closed. It may sound trite now. But I worked in a big Rockefeller Center building in New York very close to the fictional Mad Men office, and I had an office with a door that closed. Some of the other writers I worked with didn’t. Not only was it status, but it made a huge difference when you needed to concentrate and write something. Draper was always pushing Peggy to be better. For as broken a man as he was, in that era, his behavior would be called “supportive,” at times. When he switched agencies, he asked her to go with him. In her character in the show, you can see how difficult it was for women at the time, but even so, how it was possible to grow and succeed. In the show, we then proceed to the five takeaways.Download.

I am thrilled to announce our returning champion, Ted Prodromou. Ted’s known as America’s Leading LinkedIn Coach. He’s the best-selling author of The Ultimate Guide to LinkedIn for Business, and the Ultimate Guide to Twitter for Business. We had Ted on the show not too long ago, and with all the changes going on over at LinkedIn, it was time to bring him back. He’s founder of Search Marketing Simplified, a social media marketing firm. Besides Copywriters Podcast, Ted has also been featured on Entrepreneur.com, The New York Times, CNBC and Forbes. I don’t see any reason to wait a minute longer, except to say this: Here’s what we asked him: Let’s start with you telling us what’s new on LinkedIn? How are people using marketing on LinkedIn these days, and what kind of results are they getting? What are some LinkedIn marketing techniques most people don’t know about, or don’t use, or are using wrong? If someone’s brand new to LinkedIn, what are the first steps? What are the most common problems your clients come to you with, and what can you tell us about what you advise them? Ted’s books: The Ultimate Guide to LinkedIn for Business https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Guide-LinkedIn-Business-million/dp/1599186403 The Ultimate Guide to Twitter for Business https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Guide-Twitter-Business-Characters/dp/1599184494 Reach out to Ted: www.YourLinkedInCoach.com Download.

I’ve been reading a book called “Hackers and Painters” by Silicon Valley philosopher Paul Graham, who’s also a painter. He has a PhD from Harvard in computer science, and co-founded a startup that sold to Yahoo for about $50 million. Plus, plenty more accomplishments. Smmmmart guy. In the book, he makes a comment that really sounds simple-minded when you first hear it. But when you think about it for a little while, you realize it’s profound: “Nearly all great paintings are of people, because people are what people are interested in.” After all, the Mona Lisa wasn’t a painting of a BUILDING. Well, you might ask, what about copy? I would argue the same thing applies. The copy that sells the best is mostly about people. An obvious example is the Wall Street Journal sales letter, which has been tracked to sell more than $2 billion in newspaper subscriptions. No other copy has ever been tracked to come anywhere close. It starts out: On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both were personable and both—as young college graduates are—were filled with ambitious dreams for the future. All about people. It just doesn’t get much more human than that. Today we’re going to talk about why what I’m calling “human copy” sells more for you, and three ways to use the power of human copy. Including some things I bet you’ve never heard before. We’ll cover three areas: 1. How ‘Human’ Copy Increases Your Prospect’s Confidence In What You’re Writing About 2. Why ‘Human’ Copy Glues Your Prospect’s Eyes To The Page (Or Screen) 3. What ‘Human’ Copy Does To Connect You And Your Prospect At A Deep Level Books from the show: Hackers and Painters, by Paul Graham https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Painters-Big-Ideas-Computer-ebook/dp/B0026OR2NQ The Art of Readable Writing, by Rudolph Flesch https://www.amazon.com/Art-Readable-Writing-Readability-Formula/dp/006011293X The Adweek Copywriting Handbook, by Joe Sugarman https://www.amazon.com/Adweek-Copywriting-Handbook-Advertising-Copywriters-ebook/dp/B008O5K0JEDownload.

So, for today’s show, I’d like you to imagine you could get on the Copywriters Podcast Time Machine and travel back 31 years to 1990. Location: Key West, Florida. One of Gary Halbert’s legendary week-long seminars. Let’s take this one step further. After you get off the time machine and onto the ground, you find out you have been selected to write copy, on the spot, under Gary’s watchful eye, for people who attended the seminar. What an opportunity! Well, since all that is all imaginary, you’ll be happy to know we have someone who’s actually been there and done that… and is going to tell us all about. He’s our guest today — Richard Dennis. Richard’s going to share a lot of his experiences from those exciting early days for many of us in direct marketing copywriting. And at the end of the show, he’ll tell you about an intriguing offer where you can get use of some of his copy at no charge. Here’s the link he referred to in the show: www.LinkedLeg.com/Download.

Today we’re going to look at copywriting from an unusual angle. Not so much how to do it or what are the new developments, but what specifically does advertising do that makes it increase sales. This is part of our Old Masters Series. We’re taking from a book by the great copywriter James Webb Young, who also wrote the classic “A technique for Producing ideas,” which we’ve talked about on other shows. The book we’re talking about today is called “How to Become an Advertising Man,” originally published in the Mad Men era, in 1963. About one-third of the book is about the five ways advertising increases sales, and that’s what we’ll talk about today. I’d like to point out that this book was written for people who create paid advertising, including direct response copywriters. And though in some ways it is a more general advertising book, the author looked at what we do from a direct marketing perspective. Now, you can use one or more of these five ways that advertising increases sales in any piece of copy you write. But if you’re doing content marketing, you need to use at least one of them in every piece you write. We go into detail on each of the five ways, with a few examples and guidelines for each one.Download.

We’re back with the Sherlock Holmes of marketing, Meron Bareket. He’s put the recent and planned future actions of Apple through a “Marketing MRI” and all I can say at this point is, fasten your seat belts. Big curves in the road ahead! I’ve known Meron for a few years, since he became my mentoring client. His powers of observation and analysis have always impressed me, and there have been times where I’ve had to really concentrate and think deeply just to keep up with what he’s saying… as I have told him myself. He’s a delightful and very perceptive person — and quite an effective copywriter and marketer. As our returning champion, Meron revealed: - Just exactly what Apple is doing that’s having such a big effect on Facebook ads - The difference between what you can do now and what you won’t be able to do in the future, on Facebook - What Google’s doing that will reduce advertising options even further - What mistakes you should avoid at all costs (as a result of the changes) - What you CAN do to remain productive as an advertiser Meron’s web page: SaveYourStats.com Download.

Today’s show is a new chapter in our Old Masters Series, with wisdom from someone who people I know knew and knew about. Brian Kurtz wrote an intro to this Old Master’s book, and Denny Hatch raved about the book in his newsletter, which was called “Who’s Mailing What.” Now one of the great things about the kind of copywriting we cover on this podcast is that, unlike with a lot of other forms of advertising, with direct response copywriting you can measure sales results. You can’t do that accurately with a billboard or a Superbowl ad. As direct marketers, we determine our results through testing. And the dean of testing is not as well known as famous copywriters of his era, like Gene Schwartz and David Ogilvy – but he was just as important. His name was Dick Benson, and we’re going to cover some of his best testing secrets. He wrote an excellent book, Secrets of Successful Direct Mail. But lucky for you, I also had access to something I call The Private Direct Marketing Archive adjacent to Lincoln Center in New York City, also known as the PDFMAALC/NYC. Others like myself who have had the privilege to visit this valuable resource in person also know it as Don Hauptman’s extensive, custom-built filing system in the West 60s. Nice! Don raided the archive for me in a systematic, organized way and Fedexed about 10 articles and photocopy sets, ranging from the 1996 obituary for Benson in the New York Times to a three-page spread in the broadsheet trade newspaper Direct. Special to Copywriters Podcast. Lots of information you won’t find in the book, or nearly anywhere else, but, of course, you’ll get the best of it here on the show. From all of this research — one book, and 10 supplementary pieces — I pulled out seven tips and rules on testing, each of which can make you extra money. Benson worked with many large publishers and even founded the first direct-marketing ad agency, in 1961. He was widely regarded as the authority on testing for decades. Now, at this point, you could easily say, “I don’t do direct mail. Postage stamps, commercial printers and mail carriers have nothing to do with my marketing.” or, you could say, “There’s a tremendous amount of high-value, battle-tested science accumulated from direct mail testing. I wonder what I could learn from it in 2021 that would supercharge my own online marketing.” Yes, you could say that. And it is from that point of view that we looked at the seven brilliant discoveries of Dick Benson. Dick Benson’s book, Secrets of Successful Direct Mail https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Successful-Direct-Richard-Benson/dp/0844231789 Download.

Our guest today is Troy Steine, and what he has to say will be of interest to every copywriter! He’s going to tell us how to close more copywriting deals. Now Troy is a soft-spoken guy, but make no mistake — he is a sales powerhouse. He has sold and helped others to sell hundreds of millions of dollars of offers and products. Today, Troy specializes in working consultants, coaches, copywriters and online entrepreneurs. He’s the head sales advisor at PeacefulProfits.com and works with people who are looking to launch, grow and scale their businesses. Full disclosure: Troy is a former mentoring client of mine, and that’s one reason he understands the business of copywriting so well. On our show today, Troy covered: • What he has discovered speaking to dozens of copywriters and business owners over the last 12 months • How his experience in many types of sales has led him to what he’s doing today • This one’s especially important! The big reason people who have a conversation with prospects never end up getting that person as a client • A framework for successfully getting sales • How you can best position yourself to get the most business Troy is willing to take follow-up questions from Copywriters Podcast listeners. His email is: tdsteine@gmail.comDownload.

I met Josh Rosenberg in Las Vegas a few years ago at Mark Ling’s mastermind. We had a very animated conversation at dinner, and then all of us headed over to one of the wildest and most memorable parties of my life. It’s a fitting memory, because Josh takes a bold approach to copywriting and marketing, and he’s going to share some highlights today. Josh got into copywriting in 2008. He had a corporate job he hated. He learned copywriting and web marketing from the ground up, and as his career took off like a rocket, he became a much happier camper. But he’s about as unconventional as you get. For example, when he’s working on a piece of copy and he asks his friends to review it, if they tell him it’s “good,” he’ll tear it up and rewrite from scratch. He won’t actually start to use the copy until his friends stop complimenting him and start demanding to buy the product. Josh’s work has generated over $100 million for businesses in almost 60 industries. And he prides himself on getting paid far more than most other copywriters do. Here’s what I asked him: 1. Where do you find clients who can pay you top dollar for your work? 2. Okay, so now that you know where high paying clients what do you actually say and do in order to get their attention so they’ll agree to get on the phone with you? 3. With so much competition out there in industries like info products and eCommerce, how do you stand out from other copywriters? I’ve heard you comparing how clients pick which copywriter to hire very similarly to ordering a bottle of wine at a restaurant. Can you tell us what that means? 4. So you’ve set yourself apart from everyone else, got a potential client on the phone, what do you say when they ask about your rates? 5. I know you’re very proud of the fact you’ve figured out how to get paid upwards of $25,000 before you even get hired or are asked to do any work. I’m dying to know, how does this work? Josh’s Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/copywritersclubhouse Download.

We recorded today’s show a few days after the Superbowl, and I’d like to talk about the most admired and most hated athlete in America, Tom Brady. People seem to run very hot or very cold on him. Personally, I like him. He lived in my part of the country earlier in his life; he graduated from the same college I did; and he used to come back here summers to work with Tom Martinez as a personal quarterback coach. Martinez was also the football coach at the College of San Mateo, where legendary coach Bill Walsh once played. Football royalty. So, you have every right to ask, what in the WORLD does this have to do with copywriting? Well, I know about Tom Brady’s secret frustration. And what I know is not from any inside information, but just from a fact of life which also affects copywriters. Tom Brady’s work ethic is not the only reason for his incredible success. It’s also his patience, when he worked and worked and worked and worked and worked without seeing any progress. And then one day - shazaam - a breakthrough. There’s a brick wall he kept running into. A brick wall we ALL run into, if we really want to get really good at something. Then one day, the door seems to magically open, and you break on through to the next level. We talked about the brick wall today and I laid out the formula for getting through it. What you need to know to get to the next level of copywriting. The brick wall I was referring to before has a technical name, among those of us who study it and those of us who coach people for performance improvement. It’s called the plateau. When you’re climbing a mountain, there are stretches of the path where you are moving upward. And there are stretches of land on your path that are flat. You have to move across these flat areas to get to the next part where the path continues upward. In geography, the flat area is known as a plateau, and that’s where the term comes from. We talked about George Leonard’s book Mastery a few shows ago. He has a chapter in the book titled “Loving the Plateau.” In that chapter, he writes “The achievement of goals is important… We are taught in countless ways to value the product, the prize, the climactic moment. “But even after we’ve just caught the winning pass in the Superbowl, there’s always tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. If our life is a good one, a life of mastery, most of it will be spent on the plateau. If not, a large part of it may well be spent in restless, distracted, ultimately self-destructive attempts to escape the plateau. “The question remains: Where in our upbringing, our schooling, our career are we explicitly taught to value, to enjoy, even to love the plateau, the long stretch of diligent effort with no seeming progress?” It’s a good question, the one that George Leonard asks. I’ll hazard a guess. Most people aren’t taught to value or even love the plateau. And when it comes to copywriting, that may be the number one reason people give up on trying to get really good about it. Yet you’ve got to. Put in the darkest terms, I’ll quote Winston Churchill: “When you’re going through hell, keep going.” It’s amusing, and it’s easy to focus on the word “hell.” But I’m here to tell you today to focus on four other words instead: “going through” and “keep going.” Now, to get a little clearer on the concept: A plateau is not writer’s block or burning out. No, a plateau is where you keep working on what you’re doing, and it seems like you’re making no progress. We talked about what that looks like… what you need to know about plateaus that will help you keep going and realize all is not lost but, to coin a phrase -- and that’s really what we copywriters do, you know, coin a phrase -- the best is yet to come. Books referred to in this show: Mastery, by George Leonard https://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfillment-ebook/dp/B01ND0X91Y Peak, by K. Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool https://www.amazon.com/Peak-Secrets-New-Science-Expertise-ebook/dp/B011H56MKS Atomic Habits, by James Clear https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break-ebook/dp/B07D23CFGR Download.

Today we’re back at it in the Old Masters Series. We’re going to talk about how to make a fortune during a recession. Now a lot of people think now is the worst time to make a lot of money, but it all depends on your perspective. People who are good at spotting opportunities learn how to adjust the way they look at things depending upon the environment. When the storm clouds of recession and depression show up, they use it to their advantage. Not to take advantage of helpless people, but to recognize the opportunities in the changed circumstances. Bill Benton was such a man. He was 30 years old when the Great Depression hit in 1929, but he didn’t let that get in his way of becoming a millionaire by age 35. He saved companies with his unique ad strategies. And he even bought one for peanuts that later was earning him $2 million a year. Now let’s talk about you. Times are tough and you have to make a choice — do you want to go along with the doom and gloom thinking of the naysayers, or see this as a legitimate opportunity? Now, to be sure, things aren’t easy and right now a lot of people are in such bad shape that they can’t take advantage of opportunities, or create new ones. If that’s you, I understand. But if you even see a glimmer of possibility for building business during hard times, today we’re going to look at someone who did it and see what lessons we can draw from his amazing story — and use today. That person is Bill Benton. He founded his own ad agency just before the great crash of 1929, and emerged very wealthy and powerful, right in the middle of the Great Depression. In an interview Studs Terkel’s great book “Hard Times,” Benton refers to what his friend the economist Beardley Ruml said: “In all catastrophes, there is the potential of benefit.” We’ll look at how you can do that in today’s show. I’ve boiled down what I’ve learned to five principles of how Bill Benton did so well during the Great Depression, and we take a deep dip into each one: They are: 1) Ignore the doom and gloom 2) Feet on the ground, eyes on the future 3) Use the power of great content to multiply the results from advertising 4) Make direct response advertising your foundation, not your skyscape 5) Imagination really is more powerful than knowledge — but first you gotta have the knowledge. Books referenced in the show: The Lives of William Benton, by Sidney Hyman https://www.amazon.com/Lives-William-Benton-Sidney-1970-04-20/dp/B01FELATKU Hard Times, by Studs Terkel https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Times-History-Great-Depression/dp/1565846567Download.

Rocky is an entrepreneur, coach, consultant, and the creator of a program called Platinum Path, where he helps people reinvent their expertise and shift into a high-priced, lifestyle-friendly business model. Over the last 20 years Rocky has helped his clients bring over 100 million dollars in training and info products to the market. He's consulted on over 3000 projects for clients ranging from billion-dollar brands like Pearson, Wiley, and Macmillan, to experts, authors, and entrepreneurs in 7 countries and over a hundred different markets. But he’s accessible. You can hang out with him every day in his free Facebook group, called The Power Persona Project. Rocky talked about how and when personal branding is a plus for a copywriter, and some inside secrets you can use for yourself or your clients. Effective branding requires inner and outer work, Rocky says. He gave some great tips and benchmarks to give you a fuller working understanding about personal branding. Rocky’s Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/powerpersona Download.

We are back with another show in the Old Masters series. Today it’s How I Learned The Secrets of Success in Advertising, by G. Lynn Sumner. Guy Sumner originally published the book in 1952, and it was recently reissued. You can get it on Amazon now. We’ll put a link in the show notes. I only heard about this book from friend of the podcast Don Hauptman. The author Sumner was really an Old Master -- here’s an article about him from the New York Times of May 15, 1940, announcing he was re-elected as president of the Advertising Club of New York. That was 81 years ago! There’s one secret that’s particularly important, as important today as it was when the book was written. It has to do with the one thing that separates ordinary copy from blockbuster copy, and that’s imagination. Sumner has some great ideas about how to develop it, and that’s what we’ll talk about today. A lot of people believe that imagination in advertising is just coming up with some wild and crazy idea… throwing it up against the wall… and then hoping and praying it will stick. The problem is, sometimes it does, but almost all the time, it doesn’t. Let’s talk about how to vastly increase your odds by using your imagination to increase sales. We’ll start with an important question: What is creative thinking? Some creative people truly believe creative thinking is a magic thing you can’t describe, learn or teach. And for them, that may be true. A lot of people who haven’t learned how to think creatively yet think the same thing. So what follows from this is the idea: “Creativity — either you get it, or you don’t.” Guy Sumner doesn’t see it that way, and neither do I. Sumner says, “It is taking known facts, known elements, known functions and arranging them in new patterns.” He admits this is not easy, because it requires focused thinking to do this rearrangement. Now, what about creativity and copy? That’s where Sumner talks about another important quality, imagination. If creativity is the lab where new stuff gets designed, imagination is the art department where it gets put together in the most appealing way. Stated another way, imagination is what you use to make your creativity add value to your copy. Sumner talks about watching his mother make a cake. The flour, sugar and eggs would just sit there in the pan. The flour, sugar and eggs were the creativity. Then, his mom would in that magic ingredient, baking powder. Then, when you put it in the oven, the ingredients would rise and form a delicious cake! Sumner goes on to say that imagination is the “baking powder” of copy. We go on to detail the four steps of feeding the imagination that leads to blockbuster copy ideas. I know from personal experience, and the experiences of my clients, that these are as good today as they were in the 1940s and 1950s, when Sumner was writing about them. Here’s the link to Sumner’s book: How I Learned The Secrets of Success In Advertising: https://www.amazon.com/How-Learned-Secrets-Success-Advertising/dp/0981643213 Download.

We all need a lawyer sometimes. But haven’t you ever thought: “Wouldn’t it be great if there were a lawyer devoted to copywriters and other creative professionals -- not only that, but she put together customizable contracts especially for people like us?” Well I’ve got two pieces of good news for you: There is such a person. Her name is Amy Nesheim. Secondly, she is our special guest today and she will give us some important information about Copywriting and the Law. Amy explains some things you might never find out about otherwise, unless it’s too late: The kind of mistakes copywriters make all the time that puts them at legal risk (so you’ll know not to make them) Do copywriters need to worry about whether their copy is legally compliant? Or is that all on the client’s shoulders? What kind of claims should copywriters worry about in their copy? Do you see anything frequently on sales pages that you think could be problematic? What can a copywriter do to protect themselves from potential liability? What Artful Contracts is, and how copywriters can take advantage of this website. https://artfulcontracts.com/ Download.

Our guest today has a curious connection to copywriting. Though he is not a copywriter or even a traditional entrepreneur by trade, he is one hell of a copywriter anyway. His name is Dickie Bush and he describes himself as a macro investor. I’m not sure what that means but I think it has to do with hedge funds and numbers with lots of commas in them. Dickie caught my eye on Twitter because of an online writing program he has called “Ship30for30,” which gets people from all walks of life to write something every day, for 30 days. It’s a paid program he had to learn how to write copy to sell it. He did, and he told me yesterday he’s getting 10% conversion on his sales page. That’s a skilled copywriter, no matter how you look at it. Dickie is a keen student of, and I would say expert in, growth of all kinds. How people grow, how systems grow, how businesses grow. This of course is very closely related to what we do as copywriters, since a good copywriter will help a business grow tremendously. There’s more, and covered a lot in our freewheeling conversation. Dickie’s online program: https://ship30for30.com Download.

Our guest today is Roy Furr, a top copywriter and one of the best thinkers about copywriting I know. Roy’s been at the top of the game for over a decade. Perhaps he’s best known for writing the sales letter for Brian Kurtz’s legendary Titans of Direct Response event. He’s done many seven-figure promotions for clients and coached, trained, and mentored other copywriters. Glad to have a great copywriting coach on the show! Roy has also published his daily Breakthrough Marketing Secrets newsletter since 2014. Today he’s going to tell us about “The #1 Most Underrated Copywriting Skill.” I agreed with Roy about this skill and I couldn’t wait to hear what he has to say about it. His point was important: You can have … the best headline … the best hook … the best stories … the best bullets … the best offer … and the best all-the-rest, but if you don’t have a solid, sense-making, easy-to-follow structure to put it all in, then, it’s all for nothing. He’s right, of course. What’s great about what Roy says is he gives you lots of ways to make sure your structure is good, and also gives you access to free and purchasable resources to help you more. Here’s the link to follow if, after you listen to the show, you’d like to go further with this very important topic (and many of Roy’s other great tips, courses, and services): https://www.BreakthroughMarketingSecrets.com/garfDownload.

I don’t know how controversial what we say on Copywriters Podcast is, because I don’t have much data or gut feel on the subject, one way or the other. But I think I can say with great certainty something that nearly everyone would agree on. And that is this: The single hardest part of writing copy is getting started. The terror of the blank page. Where do you start, anyway? I mean, after you’ve done all your customer research, your product research… after you’ve written all your bullets… after you’ve brainstormed and schemed and planned… you’ve got to finally grab the beast by its lapels and get started. And you know what’s really hard about getting started? Finding your hook. Now, I can’t do that for you here today. But what I can do is offer some guidance and a few trampolines to get you going. I’ll give you three specific ways to create a hook… and tell you about the one way too many people default to, way too often, that really doesn’t work. So here’s the deal. Whatever you say in the beginning of your copy has a hugely disproportionate impact. It’s not just copy, really. It’s any communication. What you say or write at the start sets the tone, frames the conversation, prepares your reader or your listener for what’s next. People have these unspoken, often even unheard, questions in their mind. Not only “What’s this about?” but “Does this have anything to do with me?” and “Can I trust the person who’s saying this to me?” Whatever answers to those questions pop up will determine the frame of mind in which your prospect will hear or read what comes next. Again, this usually happens below the threshold of conscious thought. And ultimately, we’re talking about the level and quality of their engagement. Is it open, curious, receptive? Or is it skeptical, cautious, even bordering on hostile? Your hook -- your headline and the words that come right after your headline -- will determine that. Because your hook is what starts everything off. When you start right, you’ve got a shot. Start wrong, and you’ve pretty much blown it. We’ll start with the one thing a lot of people do that they shouldn’t, because it kills their chances. And then we’ll go onto three other things that give you a much better shot. Download.

So, I’ll start with this question: If you had the most powerful persuasion method ever developed at your fingertips and you didn’t use it to persuade yourself to live the life you really want -- what’s up with that? I saw a quote on Twitter that said: The problem with the rat race is if you win, you’re still a rat. It’s a real problem for a lot of us. Not the rat race so much as trying to fit in and do what we perceive everyone else thinks of as “normal” -- as opposed to going for what you really want. Now, to be sure, you’ve still got to make a living and if you’re the breadwinner in a household, provide for others. But I think it’s tragic if you believe you have to torture yourself to do it. One way to stack the odds a little more in your favor is to take the tools of copywriting and turn them on yourself. Use copy skills to “sell” yourself on getting what you want. That’s what today’s show is about. Now, a quick note: This is not a sermon about the Law of Attraction. Too many people put way too much focus on the first part -- “Attract” -- and don’t pay enough respect to the second part of the word, which is, after all, “action.” You have to do more than just think about something to make it so. But… you can use copywriting combined with taking action to make things so you might not have thought possible before. The premise - figure out what you want - maybe you’ve been afraid to dream this big - maybe you were willing to do this before, but you didn’t know how - The two biggest problems with most goals getting achieved are - lack of motivation on your part to take the action you need to take to achieve the goal - lack of belief that it’s possible, that it makes sense, that it’s the right thing to do - What we’re going to talk about today takes aim at solving both of these problems -- getting these obstacles out of the way - we’ll use the copywriting techniques of creating compelling benefits to help you with your motivation - we’ll use the copywriting technique of reason-why to help get those doubts and lack of belief out of the way - So the idea is very simple, and it’s familiar to everyone who writes copy. Take what you’re going for and turn it into benefits, like - bullet points - stories - slice of life scenarios (“imagine what it’s like when you have a personal tattoo artist who will show up at your house with the press of a button,” for example) - Then, come up with one or more reasons-why - why what you want is important and necessary - why there’s every reason you can have what you want - why now is the right time for you to get/learn/develop these new things - Now, in what you’ve created, you have the two missing elements that most goal programs are lacking. - Next step is to write yourself a VISION SALES LETTER - For four reasons - to really sell yourself on getting what you want - to get motivated to get started on it - to actually get started - to keep going To recap, two reasons this could work better than anything you’ve tried before 1. It harnesses your imagination in a very powerful and unique way, with all the benefit statement -- unique because the benefits are vivid and specific 2. It convinces you to “buy” (meaning: “buy in”) to your goals and vision with a level of confidence that’s rare or nonexistent among other forms of goal-setting. So we look at three ways of using this Dream Bigger technique today: 1) in copywriting 2) in your business as a whole 3) in all of your lifeDownload.

As we’re recording this in December, one of my heroes died just a few days ago. The great test pilot Chuck Yeager. The whole idea, and the book and movie, called “The Right Stuff” was pretty much inspired by him… his courage… his innovations… his incredible skill. Here’s something from an obituary of sorts in the New York Times. “In his memoir, General Yeager said he was annoyed when people asked him if he had the right stuff, since he felt it implied a talent he was born with. “ ‘ All I know is I worked my tail off learning how to fly, and worked hard at it all the way,’ he wrote [in his memoir]. ‘The secret to my success was that somehow I managed to live to fly another day.’ ” It sounds folksy and simple-minded, doesn’t it? Don’t let it fool you. What he said there was profound. The Chuck Yeager story brought to mind a book called “Mastery” by George Leonard. One of my all-time favorites. It’s not about copywriting, but Leonard was a very good and successful magazine writer and author, among many other things, and he knew a lot about mastery. Today I want to take a few tidbits from his book, which are gold nuggets in their own right, and talk about how to use them to get really good, and stay really good, at writing copy. So one thing to understand about Mastery, as George Leonard saw it and as I see it, too, is that it’s not a destination. It’s not like you’re a not-master and then one day you’ve achieved mastery, and you can go about your business drinking scotch or going fishing or climbing at the climbing gym. Mastery is a way of doing things and is more of a path than a destination. Once you get on the path of mastery, you should never be done. It’s an evolving thing. It’s true that there are people who are masters in life, but it doesn’t mean they’re done practicing or done learning. Or done growing or improving. It’s just an ongoing thing, and to a lot of people, that’s a surprise. But it’s true. George Leonard was on this path. He taught aikido at his own dojo in Mill Valley California -- he died about 10 years ago after a long life. But 20 years ago, when I recorded my first copywriting product, one of my students had been an aikido student of George’s. In the book, he had a chapter called “Pitfalls Along the Path.” He listed 13. I’ve combined a few of them and left a few of them out, as I’ve reshaped them for copywriting. So this is only a few ideas from one chapter of his book, combined with a lot of stuff about getting good at copywriting. I’d urge you to get this book and read it more than once: Mastery, by George Leonard. It has made a huge difference for me in my life. But on today’s show, we talk about six roadblocks that could keep you from getting where you want to go. A book well worth getting and reading -- more than once: Mastery, by George Leonard https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01ND0X91YDownload.

I saw this article on the Slate.com website: “Whatever Happened to the National Enquirer?” For years, the Enquirer was a go-to resource for many copywriters, including me. Quoting from the article: “For decades, the Enquirers’s circulation was in the millions.” But in recent times, the article says, quoting journalist Lloyd Grove, “its circulation consistently plunged, year after year.” Grove blames the Internet for the Enquirer’s death spiral. It couldn’t speed up to adjust to the rhythm of the Internet, among other things. There’s a lot of political intrigue behind what happened, too. What’s most interesting to me, though, is the Enquirer before its fall. What I learned from it back in the day… and how those lessons apply so powerfully to copywriting, even today. One reason I liked the Enquirer so much was because they published a story about me. The headline for that story was particularly interesting. They quoted me saying something I never actually said: “I owe my success to the Enquirer… says leading ad exec!” Personally, I didn’t get all that upset that they twisted the story that way. But my mother did. “You don’t owe your success to them -- you owe it me!” she bellowed. Thankfully, Mom got over it. Besides the fact that they gave me nice press coverage, the main reason I liked the Enquirer so much was because of their approach to writing, and we’ll get into that in a minute. But I want to say something else first. One really great thing about the Enquirer, back in the day, was that reading it let you take the temperature, so to speak, of the popular culture. I stopped reading it a few years ago because the content changed. First, it became too political, in a really nasty way. Second, they stopped doing what was known in-house as “aspirational stories” -- anything positive or inspiring. They used to do that a lot, but they hardly do that at all anymore. It stopped being fun to read. So today’s show is about the National Enquirer of days gone by -- lessons that are still valid and valuable for copywriters today. I organized this show into three parts: 1. National Enquirer Headlines - a unique approach, that made stories all but irresistible to read 2. How National Enquirer stories were put together - using a time-tested method that I’ve never heard any other experienced copywriter talk about 3. Four National Enquirer writing secrets at the most basic level - these are easy to do, and very powerful, but most people don’t use them most of the time. Download.

Our guest today is Donnie Bryant, a direct response copywriter and marketing consultant. Since 2007, he's written sales copy in more than a dozen niches. Agora Financial, Dan Kennedy's GKIC, and Early to Rise have all been clients. He's also shared the stage with legends such as Lamar Tyler, David Deutsch and the late Clayton Makepeace. I heard Donnie speak on an invitation-only copywriting webinar hosted by Agora Financial a couple years ago. He said some things about curiosity and neuroscience, as they related to copy, that caught my interest so much I knew I wanted to have him on this podcast some day. That day is today, and we’re lucky to have him. Here’s what I asked him: So we can both admit neither of us remember exactly what you talked about on that Agora call, but I believe you are a big fan and ongoing student of neuroscience, as it applies to copywriting. Could we start with this question: 1. What's the most surprising thing you've discovered about how neuroscience affects how copywriting works? 2. You have said that “salesmanship in print” is an outdated term. Especially considering that you live in the great city of Chicago, where the phrase was coined, that’s a little surprising. Why do you say it’s outdated? 3. At one time in your life you used to sell jewelry face-to-face. I believe you learned a tactic then that makes it painful not to buy! Could you tell that story? 4. I hope you’ll forgive me for bringing up Chicago again, but it is the home to some of our greatest comedians, Donnie. You have a technique copywriters can use to engage readers’ minds more deeply… and you say this can be done by swiping a technique mastered by top comedians. Tell us about that. 5. OK, let’s get into neuroscience again for a second. What is the REAL neurological reason it is critical to nail your headline and lead on every piece of copy? 6. You have said that AIDA should really be CDA. What do you mean by that?Download.

Since we’re getting near the end of the year from HELL, I wanted to have a feel-good show to cheer everyone up. It’s a long answer to the question: What are the greatest things about being a copywriter? I think sometimes we get so caught up in the what’s and the how’s and the why’s of copywriting that we don’t take enough time to appreciate all the unique aspects of being a copywriter that can make it so much fun… and so rewarding. Listen, I’m not going to skip over the money part. That’s important. But there’s so much more than that. So what I’d like to do today is talk about the things you can appreciate if they’re already true for you… and things you can look forward to if you haven’t enjoyed them yet. I put this podcast together this a little while before Thanksgiving, so I was in a grateful frame of mind. I realized a lot of us in this line of work get used to it after a while, and start to take some of the unique aspects of copywriting for granted. I thought, why not celebrate the good stuff. If nothing else, reflecting on those things will help you through tedious and difficult times. Plus, if you’re just starting, I do want to assure you, there’s light at the end of the tunnel… and most of the time, it’s not the headlight from a train coming right at you! So, what we’re going to talk about breaks down into 3 categories: The Work, The Perks, and The Jerks. Seven things in all… enjoy!Download.

There’s one word keeps popping up this year when I’m talking to copywriters, and that word is “compliance.” If you don’t get the gist of what this means and what to do about it, you can get your ads shut down in a heartbeat. In fact, your whole ad account. This happens more often than you think. But if you navigate the compliance maze successfully, you have a real advantage. In some cases, you will be able to sell where you competitors can’t. And of course there’s a lot of money to be made when you do paid advertising right. I wanted to take one show to talk about this. I’m not the world’s expert on compliance myself but I’ve helped others make their copy compliant nonetheless. We talk about that and how you can take steps to avoid problems in this area. What I am and what I am not, as far as copy compliance goes: First, I’m not a walking encyclopedia on copy compliance rules and regulations. That might be one reason I suggest everyone with a big promotion get a legal review before they launch. I have a working knowledge of compliance, but things change all the time. What I am is: pretty good, when I’m presented with some copy and a clear reading of the rules, as my client understands them, at two things: - Reworking copy to give it the maximum shot at success within those rules, or - Finding a workaround that works and will keep them out of trouble. Now, let’s talk about compliance and reasons for it. Then I’ll give you some things you can do to keep from really stepping in it. Your reason is probably to stay out of Facebook jail or an official government jail. Believe me, there are all kinds of charges that can be made against someone for false advertising if a prosecutor wants to make them. From the point of view of the people seeking your compliance: It used to be the only compliance you had to worry about was with the Feds and the states, and this usually had to do with scamming people. These days, it’s more complicated: Google, like a newspaper publisher of old, makes money primarily by selling ads within an environment of factual credibility. Whether you agree that’s the case or not, that’s usually how they see it. So… any ads that go against their notion of factual credibility -- like saying you have the fastest weight-loss system in both the known and unknown universes -- would be out of compliance. For, among other things, using a superlative -- “fastest.” Facebook is like a TV network, where they are letting you advertise so long as you can keep the entertainment ton consistent with the environment they believe they are creating and maintaining. So a lot of things direct-marketing advertisers normally do, “don’t fit” in the Facebook environment. That’s how I see it, in terms of themes and intentions. Now, the difference between a good hook and a really bad hook? A good hook intrigues the prospect without giving away the whole story so your prospect has to read more to find out. A really bad hook outright deceives the prospect and this opens you up to a world of hurt, sooner or later. You can almost always find a way to make a good hook compliant. A bad hook will rarely be compliant and even if you get away with it, you’ll still end up with a lot of unhappy customers, who feel ripped off. And they may come after you. OK, that’s the background. In the show I detail five steps I use with clients to help them stay in compliance.Download.

Today we are back in the Old Masters series, with some helpful hints from a little-known but highly successful copywriter from the early 20th Century. He’s simply known by three initials: J.K.F. This was a guy who literally started out writing copy for food. He was quoted as saying, “No one wanted an advertising man like me. Had to eat so made a deal with the mate and cook of a ship who had opened up a restaurant on 23rd Street. Every week I put a poster in the window inviting people to come in and eat. In payment, whenever I felt hungry I went in and ate on the house.” He started out like that, but he ended up as a rich and successful CEO of New York ad agency. J.K.F. wrote a chapter in the book “Masters of Advertising Copy” called “Copy Don’ts.” We’re going to talk about some of them today. It turns out there were 38 “don’ts” in his chapter, and we wouldn’t possibly have time to cover them all adequately in a 30-minute podcast. So we selected eight of the best and fit them into five categories: 1. Facts and research 2. The state of mind of your prospects as they read your copy 3. The importance of being proactive about persuasion 4. The danger of distrust, and how to avoid it 5. Generating ideas that sellDownload.

Our guest today is Kira Hug. You may know of her from The Copywriter Club or The Copywriter Underground, where she is Co-Founder. She also heads a micro-agency, as she calls it, where she leads a team of copywriters on projects for course, membership and product launches. In fact, her specialty is personality-driven launch copy and brand strategy. I’ve known Kira a while, and was really intrigued when I learned she knows a lot about working with junior copywriters. It’s a topic both beginners and veteran copywriters can benefit by learning more about it, and that’s what she’s going to talk about today. Here are the questions we covered on today’s show: What is a junior copywriter, and what has been your experience either working as one or working with them? What are the different ways you can work with junior copywriters on a project? What can a junior copywriter do to land a copy gig with a pro copywriter? What are the pros and cons of adding a junior copywriter to your team? How do you decide to pay a junior copywriter? How can you avoid disasters when you work with a junior copywriter? What can a junior copywriter do to nail a subcontracting gig with a pro copywriter? When is the right time to hire a junior copywriter? What are the tasks I could expect a junior copywriter to do/learn realistically? What’s the next step to becoming, or finding, a junior copywriter?Download.

I see a lot of questions from beginning copywriters, working pro’s, and business owners that all boil down to this: “What can I do to get good at copywriting and stay good?” Of course, the answer that first comes to mind for me is, “Hire me as your copywriting mentor.” But that’s not always practical for a number of reasons. I can only work with a few people at any time. A lot of people are too early in their skills for mentoring from me. Some people don’t want to make the investment, and some people don’t have enough time for it. All of those things make sense to me. But I want no copywriter left behind. No business owner, either. And most of all, no, I’m not running for president. But I am doing a podcast. So, I put together a carefully selected list of hacks and reps to help you get good and stay good. Four of these groups of activities, you can do by yourself. The fifth one does involve other people, and I’ll offer you a variety of training and coaching options I can personally recommend. 1. Read copy every day. Even better, read it out loud. 2. Storytelling - handwrite a few pages from the opening of a few favorite fiction books. If I did it today myself, it would be Orphan X books by Greg Hurwitz An example from one of my mentoring clients 3. Books you could get a lot out of by just reading once - Tested Advertising methods, by John Caples - How to Write the Perfect Sales Page, by Nathan Fraser - Breakthrough Copywriting, by me, David Garfinkel 4. Books you should read multiple times - Scientific Advertising, by Claude Hopkins - A Technique for Producing Ideas, by James Webb Young - Breakthrough Advertising, by Gene Schwartz (makes more sense when you have a little more experience) 5. Take a course or join a group - John Carlton - Kevin Rogers - Copywriter ClubDownload.

Today I’m so pleased to have an old friend on the show who has branched out beyond direct-response copywriting. In the early 2000s, Michel Fortin was a living legend who wrote the first online sales letter that brought in $1 million in sales in one day. I am forever grateful to Michel for being my presentation partner in my famous 2005 Las Vegas Breakthrough Copywriting seminar. We also took the stage together a few years later at Harv Eker’s Marketing Event, and we sold somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000 worth of products during our presentation. A number of things happened later, and not all of them good for Michel. But he took his career in a different direction, and today he’s an expert in SEO copywriting, which means optimizing your copy for the search engines. You have to understand that everything Michel has to tell you today can make you a lot of money, if you listen and act on what he says. 1. Michel, 15-20 years ago, you were a renowned direct-response copywriter, and a highly revered partner of mine in the two presentations, which I just mentioned in the intro. You still are, in my mind. But fast-forward to 2020, over the past decade, fate took your career in a different direction. Could you tell us about that? 2. Let’s talk about SEO copywriting. What is it these days, and how does it work? 3. Could you drill down to how you use SEO copywriting for traffic, and for conversion? 4. I know this is ignorant and prejudiced, but I always thought that SEO copywriting meant stuffing as many keywords into your copy, to the point where it draws a lot of traffic but where it is barely readable. Please adjust my attitude and give us some tips on how people who have not reached your level of expertise can use SEO copywriting methods.. 5. What’s counterintuitive about SEO, CRO and UXO? That is, what works that you wouldn’t expect, and what doesn’t work that you think shouldn’t work? 6. As time moves forward, how do you think SEO copywriting will evolve?Download.

Our guest today, Mike Giannulis, is a serial entrepreneur who understands, and has depended upon, the value of copy to really grow the business. When I met Mike and we started working together, his main focus was copywriting. But he has built several seven- and eight-figure businesses from scratch. And his the business he runs now, he told me, is currently on track to generate eight figures of revenue per year. It’s called Sanetris, with its products and programs focused on health and wellness. He has about 30 people on staff. Mike also has a personal story you may have heard about. And one time, he weighed 540 pounds, but he has lost and kept off more than 300 pounds. Today, we’re going to talk about something Mike has a lot of successful experience with: taking what you know, and turning it into a product that sells. 1. Mike, this is an appealing idea! To start, could you give us your definition of “productizing your knowledge?” 2. What would you say is the kind of knowledge that is good to productize, and which kind isn’t? Both for the point of view of the marketer and that of the consumer? 3. What have you found that’s counterintuitive -- that is, what works, or is a good idea that doesn’t seem like it would work, and what doesn’t work that seems like it should, when it comes to productizing knowledge and selling it? 4. Could you talk about the role that copywriting plays in the productizing-knowledge process? 5. Mike, tell us how you have used this in / to build / your business.Download.

Our guest today, Mike Giannulis, is a serial entrepreneur who understands, and has depended upon, the value of copy to really grow the business. When I met Mike and we started working together, his main focus was copywriting. But he has built several seven- and eight-figure businesses from scratch. And his the business he runs now, he told me, is currently on track to generate eight figures of revenue. It’s called Sanetris, with its products and programs focused on health and wellness. He has about 30 people on staff. Mike also has a personal story you may have heard about. And one time, he weighed 540 pounds, but he has lost and kept off more than 300 pounds. Today, we’re going to talk about a different transformation in his life, though. The journey from copywriter to CEO. Here’s what we asked him: 1. Mike, we were working together when you made the transition from copywriter to CEO. I continued to work with you on copy topics, but as I recall, you hired a different coach for your new role as CEO, which of course was a smart thing to do! ☺ Could you tell us about the new skills you needed to develop, as you transitioned from copywriter to CEO? 2. A copywriter, if they’re any good, is focused on the copy and the results it needs to get. A CEO has to lead, guide, and keep track of a business. (I hope I got that right!) What mindset changes did you experience as you moved into the CEO slot… and could you give us an example or two of what that looked like? 3. I’d like to look at the last question from an activity point of view, rather than a mindset point of view. Could you talk about the day-to-differences of managing people and processes, as a CEO, rather than primarily managing words and images, as a copywriter? 4. What was your biggest challenge as a new CEO? How did you deal with it? 5. What was your biggest surprise as a new CEO -- what you expected to happen that didn’t happen, or what you didn’t expect to happen that did happen? 6. If you met a copywriter who was considering expanding their role to CEO, what’s the most important advice you would give them?Download.

Today we’re back with our Old Masters series, with a topic that has been begging to be on Copywriters Podcast for a long time: Reason-Why Copywriting. First, a little about our Old Master, and he really deserves the title, even though he is not particularly well known these days. It’s George Burton Hotchkiss. We’ll be drawing from a couple chapters in his book Advertising Copy, published in 1924. Almost 100 years ago. Hotchkiss worked as a reporter for the old New York Sun newspaper, and after that, became a copywriter for the ad agency which later became the famous firm known today as BBDO. Later he went on to found the Department of Advertising and Marketing at New York University, where he was chairman and where he worked for 48 years. What he says about reason-why advertising in his book is really not that different than what’s true and what works today. We’ll dive into it and pull out a few of the most important pieces. Now, reason-why copywriting. It’s alive and well today, but people don’t talk about it a whole lot. We’re going to spend a few minutes talking about reason-why copy, and then I’ll give you some examples of parts of a promo written first as reason-why copy, and next as emotional copy. But first, let’s get clear on our terms. What is it? In short, reason-why copy appeals to the prospect’s reason, while what we’ll call “emotional copy” appeals mainly to emotions. Now to be sure, you can mix elements of the two kinds of copy in the same email, or ad, or web page. But for this show, we’ll treat them as separate and opposite. Just to make it clear what reason-why copy is. Hotchkiss says, “If all buyers were logical and all purchases were based upon a deliberate choice, there would be little place in advertising for anything except reason-why copy. “Human beings, however, are not wholly logical. And they all make purchases that are not even sensible.” (For example, the Fender Jazzmaster guitar I bought. It’s mostly for surf rock and jazz. And I don’t play much of either one. But it felt so good to get it — NOT logical!) So you understand that reason-why copy is more matter-of-fact than emotional copy, for starters. OK. The next question is, where do you use it and when shouldn’t you use it? • Use it for high-end offers. People with more money spending or investing larger amounts tend to respond better to reason-why copy than purely emotional copy. • Use it for B2B offers. Let’s say you were selling a grinding machine to factories. Reason-why copy is going to work better than sensual, dramatic, emotional copy. • Of course you can use some aspects of reason-why copy in anything, even a low-end bizop offer or a straight consumer offer. But for those kind of offers, you’ll probably want to lean more heavily on emotional appeals. Hotchkiss has 21 sections in two chapters about reason-why copy. We can’t get to all of them, but here are the two most important: First, evidence. Hotchkiss says, “In a mail-order advertisement, where the object is to secure immediate response, it is often desirable to cram the copy full of facts. If the reader is unwilling to read so much material, he is not a sufficiently good prospect to be ready to purchase the article or to seek more information about it.” So, facts. Evidence. And the kind of advertising we talk about on this podcast is advertising designed to get an immediate response. The second really important factor in reason-why copy is logic. That’s much to go into in-depth here, but this really stood out to me, when Hotchkiss says, “It is commonly complained that people do not think.” Hotchkiss doesn’t buy this argument, but he says, whether it’s true or not, he goes on, “This, however, is no excuse for the copywriter. He must be a logical thinker. He needed not study formal logic, but at least he should be able to trace an effect to its cause and a cause to its effect. And he should be able to present that train of ideas so that his reader will follow it. “His facts and his conclusions must not be confused; they must be arranged in orderly sequence.” This is a tall order. But I’ve found the most successful copywriters are very, very good at this. Including the best female copywriters. OK. Evidence and logic. Sounds pretty boring, right? But many people have said Gary Bencivenga’s copy was reason-why. I’d agree. And considering the results he got, you could hardly call that boring. Because it’s all in how you use the evidence and logic. There are ways to make it interesting, even if it’s not terribly emotional. Let’s get into some examples. The background is, I’m breaking out some things I’ve been doing as part of my mentoring and critiques, and now offering them as separate services.. Since not everyone wants to learn copy or have their copy critiqued, but a lot of business people might want one or more of these services. For example, USP. I’ll be launching a USP-building service later this year. USP stands for Unique Selling Proposition. It’s very similar to a Positioning Statement, and from a direct-response point of view, it’s almost identical with branding. Because a good USP sets you apart from competitors and bonds your customers to you. This is something I’m already doing, by the way. I’ve helped copywriters get their USP, and I’ve worked with a few companies to help them get theirs, too What I’m about to share with you are some rough-draft pieces of copy to promote this new service. What I will do is share the same piece of copy, like a headline, written in the reason-why format, and next, written as emotional copy. Then we can talk about each one afterwards. 1. Headline The reason-why headline is How to get the same powerful marketing weapon the world’s largest companies have — at a fraction of the cost And the emotional headline is: Imagine your business becoming a “household name” among your customers and prospects I think they’re both good headlines. The difference is, it’s pretty easy to prove the first one. Large companies all have USPs. Most small businesses don’t. A USP truly is a powerful marketing weapon, because of how it helps you win the battle for the prospect’s preference. And while it will cost a bit to work with me, what I charge is still a lot less than the hundreds of thousands of dollars large companies often pay for their positioning and branding statements. So, all provable. Now, if instead of a USP service, I were selling a regular consumer item, like strawberry jam,, emotional copy might actually be a better choice in the headline. But for what I’m selling here, I’m going with the reason-why headline. 2. Now let’s move onto the big promise -- what they prospect can expect to get from this USP service. The reason-why version is: A custom-develop positioning statement, based on what research says: • Is important to you • And is important to your customer OK. Now let’s hear a big promise for the same service in the language of emotional copywriting: You’ll have a unique identity in the marketplace you’ll be so proud of, and your customers will fall in love with your business. I guess both are good, but I like the first one, because I know I can deliver that. The second one… I have yet to see a positioning statement customers fall in love with, with the possible exception of Wal-mart’s old one, which they tragically replaced in 2007: Always low prices. People who love to shop could fall in love with that now-retired USP. (Nathan comments) 3. Testimonials play a role in reason-why copy. It’s just that they’re a little more fact-based and a little less emotional. Here are two examples to compare. I made these up but I could get similar testimonials from a handful of clients very easily, because I’ve had people say these things to me in casual conversation. The reason-why version of a testimonial: “I was reassured after David found unique appealing benefits in our business that we were simply too close to for us to see them ourselves. We feel like our USP is our new ‘secret weapon’ in the marketplace -- even though we will make sure it’s no secret at all!” And the emotional version: “We are so thrilled with the new USP you put together for us. Getting it was like unwrapping a whole bunch of brand-new presents on Christmas morning!” Of course, the first one is more logical and factual. The second one is based on feeling. Just as important, the first one is about utility -- how the client will actually use the new USP. 4. Now lets look at two versions of the offer -- first, a reason-why style offer, and second, an emotional-style offer. The reason-why offer is: This is your opportunity to set your business apart from all others in a way that is important to you AND to your customers. This means you will frequently be the first choice for people and companies you most want to do business with. And the emotional one: Now, at long last, customers will fall in love with your business. And it won’t be a one-night stand, either. It will be a satisfying, long-term relationship! You can see the difference. The first one is definitely impactful. But it’s based on some practical considerations that would make business better for you. The second one is purely emotional. It may be true, but it just as easily could be seen as fantasy. OK, now you’ve got the basics of reason-why copy. If you find you lean way in the direction of reason-why copy, you might want to add more emotion to what you’re doing. And vice-versa. And if I accidentally made you want to get a USP package from me, I don’t even have a web page up for it yet. But you can send me a note using this email address: podcast@davidgarfinkel.com Please put “USP” in the subject line so I can find it quickly. We’re going to put the detailed show notes up today with all the examples and quotes so you can study them if you’d like to get a better idea of reason-why copy. And the email address. The Hotchkiss book is out of print and very hard to find, but if you’d like to try, it’s simply called “Advertising Copy.” Download.

Our returning champion is Dr. Doug Pew. As you may remember, Doug is an award-winning musician and composer, and a former university professor of music. His compositions have been performed at the Kennedy Center and even Carnegie Hall. You heard that right! A true over-achiever! Through a perfect storm of bad circumstances, though, Doug got fired from the university and found his way to copywriting, where he has flourished and inspired many others. He’s done work for Ray Edwards and many private clients. And just yesterday Doug was named Copy Chief at Mike Shreeve’s notorious No Pants Project. In case you didn’t know, this is a big deal! Doug’s list of credentials is much longer than we have time for here, but recently I heard Doug on Nathan’s podcast talking about something he does that is totally unique, as far as I know. And would be incredibly valuable for you to know about. It’s using a composer’s secret to generate a lot of high-quality emails fast. I mean, who wouldn’t want to know how to generate a lot of high-quality emails quickly? Plus, stay tuned. Because at the end of today’s show Doug will share a free resource with you that I promise you will absolutely love! 1. Doug, you had been writing email successfully for clients and even for your wife’s business before something that happened that took email to a whole new level of meaning for you. Could you tell us what happened? 2. Now, you are an accomplished, award-winning musician and composer. And there’s a technique that composers use, that you’ve been able to use to generating a lot of unique email ideas quickly. Before we get to your email technique, could you explain the composer’s technique and give us a simple example? 3. OK, now, let’s talk about the email technique. How do you “transpose” it from music to email? 4. OK. Want to take us on a “test drive” of your email technique? 5. OK, this app you’ve been talking about. Want to tell us about it? musicofcopywriting.com/conservatoryDownload.

Emotions make the world go round. One particular emotion, and that’s love -- according to the late singer-songwriter from the 60s, Deon Jackson, love is the emotion that makes the world go round most of all. But there are 11 other emotions that make the world go get their credit cards and push the order button. It’s conventional wisdom among a lot of copywriters and marketers that there are only two emotions that do that: greed, and fear. But today we’re going to show you others, that you can use in your copy. We think you’ll be surprised, and by the end of today’s show, you’ll agree with us. You’ll see that each of these emotions, when presented in the right way to your prospect, demands action. And action is what it’s all about. We only had time for half the list last week, so we’ll do a part 2 today and get the other half. Now, embedded in the word “emotion” is the word “motion,” and that’s not just a bunch of lame wordplay. It’s important, because people rarely take action -- that is, they rarely go into motion -- without the motivation of emotions pushing them. And direct response copywriting is all about getting people into motion. If we can understand these emotions well enough to spur them in our prospects, then we stand a chance of making more sales. What’s more, by giving your prospect copy that lets them experience these emotions in relation to how your copy helps them, you make reading your copy a more meaningful experience for them. That’s really important. The list comes from this book by one of David’s favorite writers, Intelligence in the Flesh by Guy Claxton. Guy is a very clear-seeing professor in the UK and he writes about the brain, learning, creativity and in this book, as well, some new insights about the body-mind connection. The list of emotions he put together are drawn from the lifetime work of two geniuses: Professors Paul Ekman from University of California, San Francisco, and the late Jaak Pankseep of Bowling Green University. Just as important, everything about these emotions in the book rings true to me after 30 years in direct-response copywriting. Each of the emotions starts somewhere… has a predictable path… and has an ideal goal at the end, where the emotion is resolved. These emotions don’t stand still. But each of them bugs the person who has that emotion and won’t resolve until the person does something about it. I want to reiterate that happiness is what our prospects want, and if you honestly believe that your product or service can lead to happiness, then you owe it to your prospects not only to tell them, but also to show them by letting them experience the emotional change they want in real life, but first in their imaginations. book: Intelligence in the Flesh, by Guy Claxton https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01344K3O6Download.

Emotions make the world go round. One particular emotion, and that’s love -- according to the late singer-songwriter from the 60s, Deon Jackson, love is the emotion that makes the world go round most of all. But there are 11 other emotions that make the world go get their credit cards and push the order button. It’s conventional wisdom among a lot of copywriters and marketers that there are only two emotions that do that: greed, and fear. But today we’re going to show you others, that you can use in your copy. We think you’ll be surprised, and by the end of today’s show, you’ll agree with us. You’ll see that each of these emotions, when presented in the right way to your prospect, demands action. And action is what it’s all about. We’ve only got time for half the list today, so we’ll do a part 2 next week and get the other half. Now, embedded in the word “emotion” is the word “motion,” and that’s not just a bunch of lame wordplay. It’s important, because people rarely take action -- that is, they rarely go into motion -- without the motivation of emotions pushing them. And direct response copywriting is all about getting people into motion. If we can understand these emotions well enough to spur them in our prospects, then we stand a chance of making more sales. What’s more, by giving your prospect copy that lets them experience these emotions in relation to how your copy helps them, you make reading your copy a more meaningful experience for them. That’s really important. The list comes from this book by one of David’s favorite writers, Intelligence in the Flesh by Guy Claxton. Guy is a very clear-seeing professor in the UK and he writes about the brain, learning, creativity and in this book, as well, some new insights about the body-mind connection. The list of emotions he put together are drawn from the lifetime work of two geniuses: Professors Paul Ekman from University of California, San Francisco, and the late Jaak Pankseep of Bowling Green University. Just as important, everything about these emotions in the book rings true to me after 30 years in direct-response copywriting. Each of the emotions starts somewhere… has a predictable path… and has an ideal goal at the end, where the emotion is resolved. These emotions don’t stand still. But each of them bugs the person who has that emotion and won’t resolve until the person does something about it. I want to reiterate that happiness is what our prospects want, and if you honestly believe that your product or service can lead to happiness, then you owe it to your prospects not only to tell them, but also to show them by letting them experience the emotional change they want in real life, but first in their imaginations. On the next show, we’ll go over six more emotions. book: Intelligence in the Flesh, by Guy Claxton https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01344K3O6 Download.

We’re back Carline Anglade-Cole, is a top copywriter with a track record and a level of creativity anyone else would be jealous of. Her latest book is called, “My Life as a 50+ White Male.” That’s because, as a biracial woman, Carline has successfully found a way to get into the mindset of her prospect. Which, as you can imagine, is quite different than she is! Last week, Carline traced back the lessons of her career as an in-house copywriter for Phillips Publishing, and especially her mentorship with the late Clayton Makepeace. She’s back today because she has agreed to share some of her highly valuable freelancer secrets, which everybody needs to hear -- even if you’re not a freelancer! She generously agreed, and that’s what we’ll talk about today. Here is what I asked her: 1. In your new book, you write: “You’ve got to remember, when you’re a freelancer, your first client is YOU!” Sage advice, and I’ve never heard it put quite that way before. How about a couple tips for freelance copywriters on marketing themselves? 2. You were raising your kids both in your time as a team member at Phillips, and as a freelancer. Could you talk about the challenges you faced in your two roles as mom and copywriter, and how you handled the challenges? 3. What were the most important lessons you learned from your first gig, writing the male potency product promo? 4. What are the biggest mistakes you see freelance copywriters making? What should they do instead? 5. This part in your book really impressed me: “If I was not comfortable with the product, why should I try to sell it to my market? These folks are counting on me to look out for them. “I really believe that’s a big reason for my success. It’s much easier to write strong sales copy and get controls when your products actually help people.” Could you talk about that and how it has guided your career? 6. Tell us more about your book! Carline’s new book: https://www.amazon.com/Life-Year-Old-White-Male-Direct-Response-ebook/dp/B08DJDDKPY Download.

Our guest today, Carline Anglade-Cole, is a top copywriter with a track record and a level of creativity anyone else would be jealous of. Her latest book is called, “My Life as a 50+ White Male.” That’s because, as a biracial woman, Carline has successfully found a way to get into the mindset of her prospect. Which, as you can imagine, is quite different than she is! I asked Carline if she would trace back the lessons of her career as an in-house copywriter for Phillips Publishing, and especially her mentorship with the late Clayton Makepeace. She generously agreed, and that’s what we talked about. Here are the questions I asked her: 1. I’m going to guess most people outside direct marketing have no idea what a big publisher like Phillips even is (or was, since Phillips now has a different name). But I also imagine a lot of people in direct marketing who’ve never worked on staff for one of these big publishers think the organizations are different than they really are. When people ask you about working on staff for a company like Phillips, what’s the biggest misconception you find they have -- and what was the reality for you? 2. You had the good fortune to have Clayton Makepeace as a mentor. Could you walk us through a few high points of what it was like to get a copy critique from Clayton? 3. Regarding copywriting, what was the most important thing Clayton every told you? 4. You say in your book that sometimes when you face a tough copy decision, you ask yourself, “What would Clayton do?” Could you tell us about a time or two that happened, what your thought process was, and what you ended up doing? 5. In your book, you write, “Anyone can learn to write in any niche.” Could you explain how that is even possible? (Your male potency supplement story would work well here, if you like.) 6. What’s your advice to women — especially, women of color — who want to make waves writing promo’s for the big publishers? 7. Tell us about your new book! Carline’s new book: https://www.amazon.com/Life-Year-Old-White-Male-Direct-Response-ebook/dp/B08DJDDKPY Download.

Last week we talked about the Big Four questions you need to answer when you’re designing a new product you’d like to sell a lot of. You can also use these questions to fix a product that’s not selling very well. As I said last week, I really got a lot out of interviewing my friend and former mentoring client Chris Haddad over the last two shows. One of the things that struck me about what he said was: That he creates products exactly, or almost exactly, the way he writes sales letters and VSLs. I’ve been doing that for so long myself that I had forgotten most people don’t know about this trick. And if they know about it, they don’t do it. Then, a couple weeks ago, I did a consult for a client who wanted help planning a new product. I realized this would be the perfect opportunity to reverse-engineer what I did and share it with everyone who listens to the podcast. This is information I’ve been using for years, but frankly it’s never occurred to me to share it before. This week we’re going to drill down with seven detailed questions that really help you hone your product’s appeal. Especially after you’ve handled the Big Four questions that cover the big picture. We’re continuing from where we left off last week. If you haven’t watched or listened to that show yet, it might be worthwhile to listen to it first before you listen to this one. Now, I do a lot of copy consults for people, usually on their sales copy after they’ve got the product done and when they’re just about ready to launch. I’ve been able to help people avoid problems and also crank up higher sales with these consultations. But I would be able to help them a lot more if they brought me in at the time they were conceptualizing the product. Most people don’t do that, but one client did last week. In light of what Chris Haddad told us in one of his interviews, I took a lot of notes on my questions. I’m keeping my client’s particular answers confidential, as I always do. But as we get into the seven nitty-gritty questions this week, I’ll fill in answers for one of my products, and I’m hoping Nathan will have some experiences with his own products, or his clients’ products, early on enough in the development cycle so we can show you how this works. These questions really force you to focus on what’s important to your prospect — what’s going to grab their attention right away, and hold it. Use them correctly, and they’ll end up thinking, “Wow! This product was built just for me!”Download.

I really got a lot out of interviewing my friend and former mentoring client Chris Haddad over the last two shows. One of the things that struck me about what he said was: That he creates products exactly, or almost exactly, the way he writes sales letters and VSLs. I’ve been doing that for so long myself that I had forgotten most people don’t know about this trick. And if they know about it, they don’t do it. Then, last week, I did a consult for a client who wanted help planning a new product. I realized this would be the perfect opportunity to reverse-engineer what I did and share it with everyone who listens to the podcast. This is information I’ve been using for years, but frankly it’s never occurred to me to share it before. However, it just did occur to me, so let’s do it. If you are planning to create a new product, or fix one that isn’t very popular… then this will be valuable to you. Now, a lot of people still try to create products using the “Field of Dreams” approach. I’m referring to the Hollywood movie about baseball, which has the memorable, but financially toxic, line in it: “Build it and they will come.” Hey, even Hollywood, which lives in a magical world of its own, doesn’t entirely just build a movie and hope the audiences will come. They do test screenings of different versions of a movie to see which one audiences like better before they release a movie. But we’re not Hollywood, and especially when you’re creating a product for a particular niche, rather than a mass movie-going audience, you have access to better information than Hollywood does when they try to come up with a new movie that’s familiar, yet different. And, if the stars align, something good enough so a lot of people are willing to pay to watch it. I do consultations for people, usually on their sales copy after they’ve got the product done and when they’re just about ready to launch. I’ve been able to help people avoid problems and also crank up higher sales with these consultations. But I would be able to help them a lot more if they brought me in at the time they were conceptualizing the product. Most people don’t do that, but one client did last week. In light of what Chris Haddad told us in one of his interviews, I took a lot of notes on my questions. I’m keeping my client’s particular answers confidential, as I always do. But I’ll fill in answers for one of my products, and I’m hoping Nathan will have some experiences with his own products, or his clients products, early on enough in the development cycle so we can show you how this works. Now, when I did my consultation with my client, she found three missing things in the product she was planning. When she adds those things, I think her sales will later end up being a lot higher. There’s another thing to consider, though. If you can’t answer some of these questions in a way that directly shows what your product is, the way you have planned it, you may need to go back to the drawing board, or abandon the idea altogether. Because… while it’s possible, it’s really hard to sell people something they don’t want. In the show, we go over the Big Four Questions you really need to drill down on to get the product aligned with the prospect’s wants and needs, as well as values, mindset, and their current experience of life. This is part one of a two-part series. We’ll go over some additional important detailed questions in next week’s show.Download.

We’re back for another show with legendary copywriter and info-products publisher Chris Haddad. As a freelancer, he was so good that one of his clients referred to him as “moneyfingers!” We happened to be working together at the time, and I told him he should take the word and run with it. Which he has — Mr. Moneyfingers. As a marketer of his own products, Chris went way outside of the niche and managed to get himself on a national TV show with Rachel Ray. This was for his product “Text the Romance Back.” Though he really is legendary today, he was once just an under-the-radar copywriter. That was a long time ago, for sure. I bring that up only to point out he’s worked his way to where he is. Today’s show is called “My Life In Copywriting,” and Chris has agreed to take us on a VIP tour of how he got to where he is today. Here are the questions we asked him: 1. What was your first big win as a copywriter? 2. When you started writing for people like Joe Barton and Jeff Walker, what do you think you did that got such big results? 3. Normally I wouldn’t bring this up, but if you’re willing, I’d really like you to talk about keeping your business alive when you were seriously sick with Lyme disease. I thought it would be of interest because there’s so much concern about covid and health in general these days. 4. You made a transition from copywriter to business owner, something that would scare a lot of copywriters. Complete with employees, systems and everything that goes with having a business. Could you talk about the challenges, and what you learned? 5. Looking at the world as someone who has been a copywriter for hire, and, if I remember correctly, you hired copywriters at one time. How did that work out, and, what tips would you offer copywriters today? 6. Wanna talk about your latest project and how it’s going?Download.

We’ve got legendary copywriter and info-products publisher Chris Haddad on the show today, and for that I am grateful. As a freelancer, he was so good that one of his clients referred to him as “moneyfingers!” We happened to be working together at the time, and I told him he should take the word and run with it. Which he has — Mr. Moneyfingers. As a marketer of his own products, Chris went way outside of the niche and managed to get himself on a national TV show with Rachel Ray. This was for his product “Text the Romance Back.” Though he really is legendary today, he was once just an under-the-radar copywriter. That was a long time ago, for sure. I bring that up only to point out he’s worked his way to where he is, and I’m hoping he can share some stories and secrets you’ll find inspiring as well as useful for wherever you are on your own path. Here are the questions we asked: 1. Chris, welcome and thanks for joining us! I’ve found people at very high levels in this business speak about your work in hushed tones, unless they have a competing product, and then their voices get a lot louder. Could you tell us how you get started on a project, and how you’ve been able to create so many winners? 2. The stories you write at the start of your scripts and letters are like nothing I’ve ever seen. You seem to get so deep into the mind of your prospects that I wonder if you use acting techniques to emotionally “become” your prospects. How do you get so in touch with the inner dialogue of the people you’re selling to? 3. I think it’s fair to say that you’re a contrarian. What are some things “everybody” says you should do in copy that you disagree with — and what do you do instead? 4. What’s the most interesting feedback you’ve gotten from customers and JV partners about your copy? 5. Your copy is so in-your-face, and Facebook doesn’t look kindly on really strong copy, in my experience. How do you work around that, or, do you simply not advertise on Facebook? 6. What advice do copywriters need to hear in 2020 that no one else is telling them?Download.

Have you ever noticed that some copy you read is immediately believable, while other copy leaves you wondering whether it’s the real deal or not? One of the most important reasons copy is believable is whether the copywriter used one or hopefully more of a few little hacks. Today, continuing our Old Masters series, I found an extremely valuable chapter in an old book that spells out what these hacks are. I’ll leave it to you to decide how valuable they really are, and whether you are already using them, or should use them even more than you do now. So, again -- I’ve noticed a lot of copywriters miss out on these things. It hurts the believability of your copy when you don’t use use things. I’ve picked five of them from A.O. Owen’s chapter in Masters of Advertising Copy. But to make them a little clearer and more obvious, I’ve included examples from three winning pieces of copy, so you can see and hear exactly what they look like. The first place I went looking for examples was from a famous newspaper ad from the 1970s, The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches, by Joe Karbo. The second source of examples was a sales letter I wrote for a local business in San Ramon, California in 2006. Once he mailed the letter, his business was flooded with customers. The ad was for a summer special to get your car detailed. The business was Mendelson Autobody. And the third sources of examples was an online sales letter that’s running right now, and has just crossed the $10 million mark in sales. It’s by Million Dollar Mike Morgan. It’s a financial promotion, and for business reasons I don’t have permission to tell you anything more than that about the letter. But I will mention that Million Dollar Mike is a former guest on Copywriters Podcast. OK, so as for the old master, A.O. Owen. I can’t find out much about him other than what it says at the beginning of the chapter, which is that he was a well-known sale promotional copywriter and copy chief with large publishing houses who has lectured on copywrting and written many ads of all types. I believe he wrote the chapter in the 1920s. But as you will see, what he wrote is every bit as true today as it was 100 years ago.Download.

Lori Haller is known as the Lion Tamer of Copywriting, because she has successfully collaborated with some of the most headstrong personalities in the industry… and afterwards, everyone left as friends! Lori is a creative strategist, speaker, author and trainer. Her company, Designing Response LLC, has been creating award-winning, sales-generating direct mail, online promotions, space advertising and design for more than 20 years. She’s worked with every big name in direct response you can think of. She’s the author of AWAI’s Ultimate Guide to Building a Highly Profitable Graphic Design Business, and she works with clients around the world. On the show, she talks about little tweaks in the way your promotion looks that can lead to big gains in response. Lion Tamer Lori says her quest is “to annihilate the great, grey wall of type.” Meaning, she wants to page to be as interesting to look at as it is to read. To most copywriters, that might seem like no big deal. A typical copywriter would say, “Copy is king!” And Lori would be first to agree! But, she would add, if your page makes the reader feel uncomfortable in any way — not because of the words on the page, but the feeling the reader gets simply by trying to read it — then all the hard work the copywriter has done, is for naught. On today’s show, Lori talks about little-known distinctions in things like color, type font, and designing your page so it will work on multiple platforms (like a large computer monitor, a tablet, AND a smartphone)… information some of the largest direct marketers in the world pay her a lot of money to help them with, day in and day out. Find out more about Lori: https://lorihaller.com/http://lorihaller.com Download.

The number one thing you’ve got to do as a copywriter is first, get people’s attention. Sounds obvious, I know. But how many times have you had to write a headline and you spent hours, not knowing where to start? It happens to all of us. I found an old book in my personal library that can help you out. It’s called “The Magic Power of Emotional Appeal,” by Roy Garn. It was a best-seller, way back in 1960. And so this is part of our Old Masters series. And it turns out the author boiled it all down to four specific ways that get attention. After doing a lot of research and field testing. We will reveal all four ways today and give you some ideas on how to weave these emotional appeals into your copy. This is a book about what makes people tick. And once you have deeper insights into what makes people tick, it’s one hell of a lot easier to figure out how to get their attention. Here’s an important quote from the book: “The people with whom you live, work, and interact rarely want to think; they emotionally enmesh with what they feel. These individualized feelings are emotional activators, as well as barriers to communication.” Now, let me add, when you can tap into the right feelings for the right reasons, you can own the attention of other people, including your prospects. This may be the best book I’ve ever read about human nature. It’s out of print, so if you hunt it down, I ought to give you a heads up: If you are very analytical and/or you’ve had a lot of advanced education, you might find it tedious and/or rambling. I’ve taken that part out and slanted it hard towards copywriting. It wasn’t as simple as it sounds. But once you get below the surface, you realize it’s actually pretty deep and insightful. Just not presented in the book in a structured and logical way. It’s extremely conversational and emotional. Here are some hints about what we cover in today’s show: 1. The first attention-getting emotional appeal speaks to the primary unconscious objective of every living being. 2. They’ve written songs about it, they’ve got huge buildings and institutions devoted to it, they even made a movie with Paul Newman and Tom Cruise about the color of this emotional appeal. 3. People with dirty minds only think of one or two things when they hear this emotional appeal. But it actually goes much further than what they’re thinking of. 4. This one’s so obvious it’s easy to overlook. But it’s reasonable to say that this appeal has sold more expensive goods and services than anything else in the world. The Magical Power of Emotional Appeal, by Roy Garn: https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Power-Emotional-Appeal-Situation/dp/B000FJEPRU Download.

Our guest today has lived the kind of life most of us only see on TV and movies. He worked as a specialized contractor in Iraq in PsyOps, which in a way is like the military version of persuasion or direct marketing. Of course, much of what he did is classified, but he’ll share some insights that don’t compromise sensitive information today. He’s also worked at the heartbeat of world media, as an editor for CNN, NBC, Sky, CNBC and MTV. Our guest is Christian Dixon, and these days, he’s pursuing copywriting with a ferocity I see only in the most obsessed practitioners of the craft, and I would include Nathan and myself in that group. We invited Christian to come on the show to talk about what he learned in his other professions that would be interesting insights for copywriters. And while this is NOT the most interesting insight, what I am about to say IS nonetheless important. And that is this: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Here’s what we covered: PsyOps lessons: 1. In terms of the actions people will actually take in life, people will do more / give more / take bigger risks for a cause they believe in than they will do for themselves alone, or even for their families. 2. People being interviewed/interrogated will give up more information when the questioner uses sincere empathy and a gentle approach than they will when the questioner uses a tough and confrontative approach. TV editing lessons 3. People tend to believe what they see more than the words they hear. 4. Sequence is more important than content in determining what meaning or conclusion a viewer will come away with (the magic of editing). 5. A single powerful idea or theme, well illustrated, communicates and convinces more than a complicated idea with a lot of data. 6. Finally, with all your skills, talents, and experience, what was it about copywriting that made you want to get really good at this craft?Download.

I’m in a book discussion group with a client and two of his friends. The only problem is, both of his friends are also podcasters, so you can imagine how hard it is to get a word in edgewise. The book we were discussing last time was Jonathan Haidt’s A Righteous Mind. This is an especially important book because it offers some concrete ways to bridge the big political divide going on in America and really much of the rest of the world right now. I want to focus on something else in the book that’s not political, though. Several times the author makes a point of emphasizing that people are very concerned with what other people think about them. We talk about that idea and break it down in today’s show. For now, I want to say this is something that a lot of copywriters and marketers miss the mark on. Which is a shame, because it’s a powerful selling tool. You could hardly say it’s unknown, but it’s not very well understood, either. Once you see what I’m going to show you, I think you’ll understand it a lot better. We start by looking for the deep underlying message in a TV commercial for the prescription drug Linzess. Though the spoken words and words on the screen are all about the medical condition and the drug, the story portrayed by the actors and scenery are quite different. We look at how the advertiser used the concern about what other people think to sell a drug designed to help people with belly pain and constipation. Then, we review with Jonathan Haidt said, as well as two little-known parts of Vic Schwab’s “How to Write a Good Advertisement” and Gene Schwartz’s “Breakthrough Copywriting.” Both of these Old Masters knew the how-other-people-think element of copywriting extremely well, and have some really important things to say about it. Finally, we look at how we, as direct marketers, can use this sales angle. Obviously we don’t have the wherewithal to set up, hire for, and film a commercial like Linzess did. Fortunately, there’s a much simpler way to use the what-people-think angle, subtly, in your copy. We’ll share an example with you.Download.

I was watching TV last Sunday, and since we record a few episodes ahead, I was watching TV on the last Sunday of May. The show was “Meet the Press,” and it always starts with the announcer starting by pointing out that this is the longest-running show on TV. Of any show. From a marketing point of view, that’s an enviable place to be. Usually, when you’ve been on the air since 1947, that lasting power alone simply radiates trust. People tend to trust anything that’s been around a long time. So it really caught my attention when in the waning seconds of the show, the moderator, Chuck Todd, said something I’ve never heard him, or anyone else on TV, say before: “Thank you for trusting us.” The reason this caught my attention really doesn’t have much to do with Meet the Press, which is by far not one of my favorite shows, nor what it might have said about Chuck Todd, who, to be honest with you, is not my favorite TV personality. I was a little stunned by the words “thank you for trusting us” because I don’t think anyone in Chuck Todd’s position would utter words like that unless he, and a lot of very nervous people around him, were worried about keeping the trust of the viewing audience. And don’t think for a minute this rising tide of distrust is limited to that moderator, that show, or that TV network. It is widespread. It is, frankly, everywhere. And as a marketer and copywriter, this is something you need to be aware of and to adjust your marketing message to. I have handpicked three emotional triggers from my book Breakthrough Copywriting. I have never shared these three before, because, frankly, they are pretty intense. But I think they are good medicine for the distrust that ails us. (first) Trigger 2: Empathy through shared misery When people are hurting, scared or mistrustful, showing them that you know how they feel will bring down barriers and make them much more open to what you have to say. I’ve heard that empathy is easier for some people than for others. I have also heard a theory that either you’re born with it, or you’re not. I don’t know if that’s 100% real, but I do know that some people have natural empathy and others have to work at developing it. Right now I would say it’s simply one of the most important qualities and assets you can have, as a copywriter and as a business owner. (second) Trigger 6: Sour Grapes to Vintage Wine Sometimes severely underpromising the results you know your product can get, can increase sales. If you go too far past what people think is real and possible for them, even if you know that much more is real and possible, you’re going to lose a lot of sales. This, again, is why it’s so important to know your customers. (third) Trigger 11: From Desperation to Salvation Trace the path of from complete helplessness to an amazing turnaround, that you can actually deliver with your product. A lot of people are feeling pretty desperate right now. If you have a legitimate offer that will help them out of the quicksand, this is a great format to use to tell your story. All of these are from Chapter 10 of Breakthrough Copywriting. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1548706957 Download.

We’re back with another show in our Old Masters series. A return visit for the ideas of Claude Hopkins, but completely different material since last time, when we pulled out some key points from his book Scientific Advertising. As I said before, and it’s worth repeating, When I first started learning how to write copy, everybody told me “read Scientific Advertising.” It’s a book written in the first part of the 20th century, over 100 years ago, by Claude Hopkins, who many consider the father of direct-response copywriting. I did read the book. I read it again. In fact, I read it 15 times. But for today’s show, on the advice of my friend and previous Copywriters Podcast guest Don Hauptman, I looked into an excellent book from long ago called “Masters of Advertising Copy.” The book has 25 chapters, and each is written by a different copywriter. I knew we had to start with the one by Claude Hopkins. His chapter is humbly titled, “Some Lessons I Have Learned In Advertising.” But to give you an idea of how eternal every single one of Claude Hopkins’s lesson is, I couldn’t find one that is not in active use today. Five lifetime lessons from Claude Hopkins 1. Demonstration and samples Sampling and demonstration, which are different forms of the same thing, make up the best way to sell anything. Features by themselves usually don’t sell. Features + benefits work some of the time. But demonstration, where the customer gets to sample the product personally, usually works best of all — because people know from direct experience what they’re getting and what the benefits will be. 2. Free gift and curiosity You can get people interested by offering a free gift, and you’ll do even better if the gift is a mystery until they get it. People always like to feel they’re getting “the better end of the deal.” This is a proven way to operationalize that desire on the part of prospects into a way to get more sales. 3. Power of drama with a boring product Drama will help you sell a lot more products, and if you dramatize a boring product, you can sell it when you couldn’t sell it before. This is similar to the idea in Jeff Walker-style launches. The drama adds to interest in the product in a way that’s hard to match with anything else, when you do it right. It’s hard to get this right, but when you do, you’ve got a gold mine on your hands. It’s hard to get it right because it’s like marketing entertainment. Publishing a best-selling book, or releasing a hit song or a movie, is usually much chancier and harder to do than simply making a lot of money with a good product. 4. Test everything Test small before you scale up. Early on in his career, many companies came to Hopkins with product ideas they were certain would be winners. Hopkins says he made “several great mistakes by relying on my judgment and on theirs.” 5. Seeking out the details that convince Your USP can be buried in trivia (or so it seems to many business owners and execs). But that “trivia” can be a detail the decides the prospect to buy from you, and become a customer. Gene Schwartz even developed a category of copy to label this kind of description: Mechanism. The key is not just using a mechanism in your copy, but using it convincingly to make a customer see why you are the preferable choice in the marketplace. Resource: Masters of Advertising Copy, Edited by J. George Frederick: https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Advertising-Marketing-Routledge-Editions-ebook/dp/B086H4L4K8Download.

Our guest today is Harlan Kilstein. He’s a copywriter, an entrepreneur, and a whole lot more. Here are 7 facts you probably didn't know Harlan. 1. John Carlton and I took turns humiliating his copy when he got started. Unlike most people, he took the feedback and turned himself into a great copywriter. 2. He's an ordained rabbi. 3. His sidekick, who we hope you don't hear in the background is named Kalba. She's a Pomeranian. He name means Bitch in Hebrew. 4. He lost over 60 pounds doing Keto practicing what he preaches. 5. His office is a mega shrine to the singer Meat Loaf. 6. He has nearly 2 million followers on social media. 7. He would do anything for love but he won't do that. I don’t know what “that” is, and hopefully we won’t find out on today’s show. Harlan, welcome. And Kalba, please keep it down. Here are the questions I brought to Harlan: 1. Big-picture, what are you doing for business on Facebook? 2. When did you first learn about Facebook compliance rules, and how did you find out? 3. What difference does it make — that is, how much more latitude do you have in your marketing — when you’re posting or advertising inside your own group? 4. What would you say are the two-three most important changes you’ve made in copy, both on and off Facebook — as a results of compliance rules? Could you give at least one before-after example? 5. What would you say are the biggest mistakes you see other people making regarding Facebook compliance? 6. Tell us about the Keto project I helped you with. 7. What additional advice do you have for copywriters and marketers, especially re: Facebook compliance? If you're having issues with Facebook compliance and you can't figure out if it's your ad, your landing page or just that Mark Zuckerberg doesn't like you, just send Harlan a message on FB. Harlan on FacebookDownload.

If you’ve noticed that your copy isn’t converting recently as well as it used to, maybe it’s too complicated to read. Now, copywriting experts have been saying what I just said since the time of Claude Hopkins, more than 100 years ago. Which is since the dawn of time, as far as direct-response copywriting goes. But in the last few years, things have changed. Simply writing less complicated copy isn’t good enough, because the way people read has been altered. People now read by text messages. By Facebook. By Instagram. By Youtube. Some people I find worth listening to are saying that people’s brains have changed. It’s not my original idea, and I’ll get into this in more detail in just a little bit. But the way we’re spending so much time with our screens is literally rewiring our neural pathways, and this changes our brains. Which changes the way we read. I’m gonna say that, as marketers and copywriters, we have been living in a world that is not as literate as it used to be, and this is by a wide margin. Since we can’t customize our copy for every individual reader, we have to pick one person to represent all of them. And I think the reality is, in a lot of cases, that one person, that avatar, is someone I would call post-literate. Post-literate. Not illiterate. Post-literate means they can read, but they don’t want to. Maybe not the way that you do. They don’t want to have to focus very much at all. They don’t have patience for anything too complicated. So, the market is not the same level of literate that we used to think we could write to and sell. On average. Of course, there are some 15-year-olds who sound like Oxford professors when they speak. But I’m talking about the market in general, the broad swath of people who might buy your offer. The target prospect you are trying to reach, for most businesses. We’ll look at what’s happening and why. I’m also going to suggest three simple, powerful things you can do in the way you write your copy that will reach the increasing post-literate portion of your market, and will work just as well with the literate members of your market as it always did. Here are some of the many topics we covered in today’s show: Multitasking The shrinking percentage of the market that can still read Something Gene Schwartz said (long before the current situation arrived) that could be very helpful now How farm animals think (and why that matters to marketers and copywriters) Our genetic need for storytelling — a key to reaching “non-readers” Three easy changes you can make to your copy to reach more prospects. One article and three books mentioned on today’s show: Adam Garfinkle article: https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-erosion-of-deep-literacy The Brilliance Breakthrough, by Gene Schwartz: https://brilliancebreakthroughbook.com Thinking in Pictures, by Temple Grandin: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001ODEQS4 Wired for Story, by Lisa Cron https://www.amazon.com/Wired-Story-Writers-Science-Sentence-ebook/dp/B005X0JTGIDownload.

What is an offer - Not just what you’re selling, although that’s a big part of it - It’s how you sell it. How you present it. How you arrange it. - For testing, it’s one of the Big Three (besides headline/hook and pricing/payment plans) - Maybe you’ve heard: “The best product doesn’t win. The product with the best marketing wins. - Often, the product with the best marketing ends up being the product with the best offer - The conventional wisdom on what an offer is: - core product plus bonuses - dollar value, dropped to selling price - value stack: taking what’s in the offer and making it seem as valuable as possible Why most offers don’t work nearly as well as they could… or… don’t work at all - Sometimes they were just thrown up there like spaghetti against the wall, to see if it will stick - But often, the reason they don’t work is because - They’re what the business owner wants to sell the customer -or- - They’re what the business owner thinks the customer should want -rather than- - A watertight fit with what the customer really wants How to go about building an offer that will work - For a product - special, high-value related bonuses, or discount - For service businesses - free initial consultation, but craft it to be valuable. Offer some specific, tangible-as possible outcomes for the prospect — no strings — that you can deliver in the course of a session - For digital subscription businesses or software: free first month. Don’t expect “free” to carry the offer by itself. Make sure they know what they’re getting ahead of time, in as much benefit-rich detail as possible Other factors - value, security (risk-reversal), and the “perfect fit” - the emotional wrapping paper on a solid, attractive offer Examples of great offers Infoproduct/software (easy to discount) - Carlton - Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Rebel Marketer - 80% off ($20) - Kirk Hunter Orchestra - Reg 500, on sale for 100. On the advice of my music teacher, I grabbed itDownload.

On today’s show, we look at two very interesting questions: First, how do you market your business when you have a highly specialized business almost nobody has even heard of before? Second, how do you use copy in your business, when you’re not a copywriter yourself and you’ve never been able to find a copywriter that gets how to communicate what you do? Our guest today, Rick Harmon, will help us get the answers to both questions. And this information will be very useful to any business owner who writes copy, and lots of useful tips for most copywriters, too. Rick’s specialty, in a nutshell, is to make loans that help people straighten out messes with inherited property. Probate lawyers have a saying: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way. But when there’s no way in sight, Rick Harmon will find a way.” Actually, they don’t have that saying at all. I made it up for this show. But they should, because that’s what Rick does. He straightens out probate messes that no one else can straighten out. Now, sounds like a great service, but as long as it’s a business, you need to get clients. And that’s where Rick’s unusual story comes in. We asked him these questions: 1. Can you give our listeners a little “slice-of-life” story that gives us a sense of how upside-down and inside-out things can go in your business? 2. Our mutual friend, the great sales trainer John Paul Mendocha, said something you have found incredibly useful in your marketing: “All sales is a process of disqualification.” What does that look like in real life? 3. Strategic Relationship Marketing We start with a quote from a Hollywood composer, Bear McCreary, who wrote scores for many shows and films, including Battlestar Galactica, The Walking Dead, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: “The kind of business skills that you need are really social skills. The smartest business move you can make is just being smart socially, politically. Understanding how to walk into a room and make everybody feel validated, make everybody feel like they’ve made a good decision in hiring you, or they should make a good decision hiring you. “These are things that are political skills and social skills, but they’re sort of necessary in any business. If you walk around with an ego, if you walk around making people feel like you deserve the job, then ultimately that’s a bad business decision because you will just quit getting hired, whether or not your work is good.” Rick, how does that square with your experience? 4. Finally, please talk about the lifetime value of a customer, and the value of the back-end, as it applies in your business.Download.

Last week I got this really intriguing email. It led to a website with this copy on it: “Look, I know everyone hates saxophones. And with good reason. Excluding Colin Stetson’s amazing work, and Tom Waits of course, I also tend toward hating on saxophones myself. “But is it really fair to judge an instrument by it's past misdemeanors ? Can the sax be rehabilitated and made sexy again ? “Here at Sound Dust we say HELL YES!” I’ll tell you more about this soon. For now, I want to point out that this was not just negative copy. Not just hater copy. This was a complaint. A complaint about saxophones. Now, whether you like saxes… hate ’em… or have no opinion at all about saxes, there’s a really good lesson in this copy. And it has to do with something we’ve never covered on this podcast, even though this technique is used all the time… and quite successfully, I’ll add. The technique is what I’m going to call “complaint copywriting.” Now, to be clear, we’re not talking about “compliant copywriting,” which is also important but an entirely different thing. Complaint copywriting is important because it is at the heart of what motivates customers deeply. Not all the time, but when it hits, it’s a home run. A grand slam. Big payoff. We talk about: 1. How complaints are different from ordinary objections, and why answering them in the right way is so much more powerful than merely overcoming objections 2. What complaint copywriting looks like in real life, and how people have used them or can use them to make a lot of money in their copy 3. How to put complaint copy together — a short (but complete) step-by-step process 4. Three unique things about complaints, and why you should seek them out (even though, it’s true, it’s not always all that much fun to listen to them).Download.

People use the term “control freak” like it’s a bad thing. And let’s be clear. Sometimes it is. But our guest today is obsessed about control and controls in the best possible way. He’s copywriter Brad Nickel, originally from Madison, Wisconsin and now living in Valencia, Spain with his girlfriend and their French Bulldog, named Renée. Disclosure: Brad’s a client of mine. He writes copy and manages email lists for 8-figures health companies. And this is where the conversation turns to control. Brad has written “control emails” that get used over and over again by his clients and their affiliates. His copy has brought in tens of thousands of leads and customers… and helped his clients make tens of millions of dollars. Today he’s going to tell us how he does this, and give you some tips you can use yourself. Here are the questions I’m going to ask him: What is a control? What is a control email? What are some examples, and why do you think they worked? Could you break down of the structure of a control email, and what you think about when you’re putting together an email that could become a control? What are some do’s and don’ts? What’s counterintuitive about what usually works? Brad’s email: bradnickel@gmail.comDownload.

I have often wondered whether direct-response copy would work in large, more conventional businesses. Our guest today put my question to rest. Let me introduce you to my friend Jim Van Wyck. He’s been a direct marketer since the early 1990s. And because of businesses he built with direct-response copy, he’s had two seven-figure exits and one eight-figure exit. In case that jargon doesn’t mean anything to you, I’ll break it down. A seven-figure exit is where you sell the business for more than one million dollars. An eight-figure exit is where you sell the business for more than 10 million dollars. Jim opened an indoor tennis club in the early eights. He co-founded a bookstore in the early 90s. He had a small chain of weight loss centers in the late 90s in partnership with his wife. Jim worked closely with a regional insurance brokerage in the 2000s, which was sold to a Fortune 500 company. More recently, he co-founded another insurance agency selling health insurance nationwide, and he was the CEO of that business. He’s currently creating HealthAmigo.com, which is a national telemedicine and healthcare services company, and he’s the co-founder of that. A lot of businesses to keep track of, but I wanted to give you an idea of how prolific Jim is when it comes to business building. I asked him to come on the show today to talk about the vital role of copy in his businesses. Here are the questions Jim answered: 1. We have a famous disclaimer at the top of the show, which award-winning composer Dr. Doug Pew even set to music! But in a private conversation, you said most people have no idea what legal compliance is like until you set up an insurance company. Could you talk about that? 2. Now you have some copy, in story form, that will be used on a video for Health Amigo. Please read it out loud to us and then let’s talk about it. 3. How did you get started with copy? It was in the Yellow Pages, right? 4. Please share the ironic story about the scathing columnist for the Calgary Herald. 5. Any other stories about copy you’d like to tell us? 6. From a learning and knowledge perspective, what would you suggest to fellow business builder who want to write their own copy? 7. For business owners who don’t want to write copy themselves but plan to hire copywriters, what do they need to learn and/or know? 8. In your experience, what’s the difference between using copy for lead-generation (for brick & mortar and service businesses) compared to using copy to close the sale (for mail-order and online digital product businesses)?Download.

I’ve been wanting to do a show on this topic for quite a while. I kept hitting a roadblock in my mind every time I started to prepare. Now, with the coronavirus keeping so many kids out of school and at home, I realized I needed to get past the roadblock. And, ironically, it was the stay-at-home order that cleared the mental roadblock out of the way. Here’s an outline of what I came up with. Since Nathan has a young person he helps with her homework, he had some real-world-inspired insights that are especially worth listening to. 1. What gets in the way (or would get in the way) of making copywriting a class in all elementary, middle, or high schools. 2. Who should teach kids copywriting, and who shouldn’t 3. Which kids should be taught copywriting, and which kids shouldn’t 4. What to teach, and what not to teach 5. What a typical copywriting assignment for a young student, might look like 6. The big idea about teaching and learning copywritingDownload.

When I first started writing copy, before there was an Internet, we had an old saying: “There’s no such thing as copy that’s too long. Only copy that’s too boring.” Great point back then. Because short copy was what you would see on wasteful print ads, and on tv commercials that were trying to convey a feeling, instead of trying to sell something. But try talking smack about short copy to someone who’s writing ads for Facebook or Google. Short copy is now part of the toolkit of hard-core direct-response copywriters. Today we take a look at short copy from this new point of view: 1. What is short copy that works for direct response in today’s environment? 2. Why did direct marketers oppose short copy in the past? 3. The concept of the “horizontal sales letter” (funnel). 4. The job short copy has to do in a direct response campaign. 5. How today’s short copy has changed the game as far as graphics and appearance go. 6.Two questions I used critiquing a client’s funnel the day before we recorded this show.Download.

Have you ever given up on time management, because every technique and system you’ve tried just doesn’t work for you? If so, it’s not your fault. Time management systems don’t work for creative people in most cases. But in our second Old Masters show with Robert Updegraff, we’re going to show you an approach that does. It’s from a 1958 book “All the Time You Need” by Robert Updegraff. It’s out of print, but you might be able to find a copy on Amazon. Thanks to Copywriters Podcast guest expert, master copywriter David Deutsch, for telling me about this book many years ago. What’s great about this book is it shows you how to solve the biggest problems that rob you of time, and rob your time of its potential to be productive for you. I’ve used all of the ideas here, but I don’t use all of them all of the time. That would be impossible. You’d spend more time using his time-maximizing techniques than getting anything done. I can tell you: - they work, and - it’s better to use one or a few than to try to use all of them perfectly What’s good about them is these are all biased towards practical creative people, including of course copywriters and entrepreneurs. Four parts to what we’ll cover today - The two dimensions of time - The four enemies of clock time - The four enemies of energy - Using your unconscious mind to supercharge your creativity and productivity The two dimensions of time Productivity is about how much you can produce in any given amount of time. In one hour, if you are sleepy, distracted, pissed off and would rather be or be doing something or somewhere else, you probably won’t be all that productive. But… if you are focused, and excited – even on fire about something you’re doing, during that same period of 60 minutes you can get a lot better stuff done. Maybe even more than most people get done in a full day. Two dimensions: calendar/clock time energy The Four Enemies of Clock Time 1. Procrastination Updegraff’s method for overcoming procratination: - if you’re stalling on something, take a moment to visualize what it is that you need to do that you’ve been putting off. - then, decide: to do it later, or never to do it. And if you decide to do it later, set a specific time when you plan to do it, and stick to it. 2. “Sometime-itis” Saying you’ll do something “sometime” is usually no better than procrastination. 3. Condoning inaction This means being vague about when you’re going to do something you need to get done but don’t want to do right now. Updegraff says that some people will spend more time coming up with excuses why they didn’t do something than the time it would have taken to do the thing they’re making excuses about 4. Regretting Spending time dwelling on what might have been or what you might have done differently can really eat into your work productivity if you spend too much time on it. Updegraff says, “The person of mature mind knows every day spent in regretting is a day wasted. When an experience is passed, it is beyond recall. We can learn from it, but we cannot correct it.” Yes, there are lots of exceptions to these four assertions. Meaning, sometimes you won’t be able to make them work the way you’d like. But bringing them into your work process can help you be a LOT more productive when you’re writing or coming up with new ideas. Defeating the Four Enemies of Energy Energy is the second dimension of time, particularly when it comes to productivity, in Updegraff’s view of things. I happen to agree with him. Scott Adams talks about this in one of his books, too, but in a different way. Here are the four enemies Updegraff id’s: 1) Frustration “Our frustrations burn our energy three or four times faster than it is consumed by our work.” His point is not to avoid frustration, but just expect it. And don’t overreact. Don’t wallow in it. Sometimes, when you’re really frustrated, go do something else for a while. Come back to it and your unconscious mind may have solved the problem your frustration was causing. 2) Irritation “A brief flash of impatience, exasperation, or even anger is sometimes highly beneficial in that it stirs us to decision or action.” But again, wallowing in irritation does nobody any good. And it certainly hijacks your attention and your energy from creative productivity. 3) Impatience This is interesting. Updegraff sees impatience as being stalled, stuck, pinned to the wall. And slowly seething that something’s not ready or getting done fast enough. He says, “Keeping busy at something — almost anything — is a simple antidote for impatience.” 4) Worry My point of view is that some worry is good. Like with a launch, for example. You want to think of everything that reasonably could go wrong, and then take steps to prevent those things from happening. But then, be done with it. The kind of worry that Updegraff sees as an energy drain is obsessive worry. If you do that and you can find a way to stop doing that, you’ll probably see a dramatic increase in your creative productivity. He says, “Worry saps the spirit and drains the nervous system at an appalling rate.” Partnering up with your unconscious mind I’ve used this one a LOT. It always works, as long as you don’t rush it. In my experience. Updegraff suggests you use the unconscious mind for: - solving problems - developing ideas - formulating plan Here is how: - Write down the problem you want to solve, or the kind of idea you want to develop and how you’ll use it, or what you’ll be creating a plan for - Ask your unconscious mind for a solution. Give it a deadline. At least a few hours or overnight. - After you do this, forget about it for a while. Do something else. Don’t consciously think about the problem. Let the unconscious mind do its magic. - The idea will come to you. Possibly when you least expect it. Have some way to record it, whether audio or paper and pen, nearby as much as possible. - You get better at this, the more you do it. -- Summary: - Two dimensions of time: clock/calendar time, and energy - Four enemies of clock time: procrastination, sometime-itis, condoning inaction, regretting - Four enemies of energy: frustration, irritation, impatience, worry - Enlist your unconscious mind to help you with creative jobs All the Time You Need, by Robert R. Updegraff (used copies): https://www.amazon.com/All-time-you-need-greatest/dp/B0007E2IQ8Download.

Tell me if you’ve had this experience: You get up in the morning, and within a few minutes this sharp pang of confusion runs through your body as you wonder, “What world am I living in?” Yep. These are disorienting times, that’s for sure. We’re all doing the best we can to adjust to it. And based on my very limited view of what’s going on, most people are doing OK. I know some people are suffering terribly right now. I have one friend who had what he was pretty sure was coronavirus, and he got through it. I’m grateful for that. And I’m aware there are many others who are having a pretty tough time with it. What I want to talk about today is not the present, but the future. And not the general state of the world, but copywriting in what’s starting to be called “The New Normal.” Yes, it’s the doctors, nurses and first responders who will get the world at large through this. But copywriters can do a lot to help keep some businesses afloat and maybe, just maybe, increase the number of employees of those businesses who keep getting paychecks. So on today’s show we looked at these topics, which are important to copywriters and business owners: 1. Where we are now. Not everyone’s in the same place or headed in the same direction, and that’s vitally important to understand as you move ahead with marketing. We look at what people in the market want (and will want, for at least the next six months), and what negative feelings people are having. And how this applies to you and your business. 2. What “the new normal” will mean for existing businesses driven largely or completely by copy. Tone of messaging matters. The mood of the market has changed, and we need to adjust. 3. What “the new normal” will mean for businesses that didn’t use copy in the past. “Remote selling” is going to be a new concept for a lot of traditional businesses. Of course it’s the stock-in-trade of copywriters. A look at how copy may find its way into a broader range of businesses than ever before. 4. What all this means for copywriters. We’ve seen a lot of mistakes made in the first months of the pandemic. And a lot of good things, too. Some idea on how to maximize the odds that your copy will be well received, and your response will be as high as possible.Download.

Today in our Old Masters series, we have someone a little different whose work we’re going to look at. His name is Robert Updegraff. He wasn’t really a copywriter, but experienced copywriters and marketers know him. In today’s show, we’re going over a short book he published originally in 1916. It’s called Obvious Adams and it’s a story about a copywriter that took the business world by storm. Jack Trout, author of the modern marketing classic “Positioning,” wrote an article about Obvious Adams in Forbes. This is a guy who knows a thing or two about marketing, and he called Obvious Adams “the best book that I have ever read on marketing.” The hero of the story, Obvious Adams, had a knack for finding the simplest, most obvious idea. And his ideas led to great increases in sales. It turns out, that’s exactly what a viral idea is. Today, we’ll show you what to look for in an idea — whether it’s a positioning statement, or a headline, or a product idea — to see how likely it is to go viral. We’ll talk about the book and include the five tests for a marketing idea that Robert Updegraff added to the book years after it was first published. I first came upon Obvious Adams in the early 1990s. As I reviewed it for this show, 30 years later, I realized what a major impact it had on my thinking. In the story, the advertising agency who first hired Obvious Adams when he was 18 says his initial impression was that he was “a very ordinary-looking boy, it seemed to me, rather stolid, not overly bright in appearance. [Stolid is an old-fashioned word which means calm and not particularly emotional.]” What set Obvious Adams apart in the story was his uncanny ability to find the obvious selling points in a product that no one else could, and that the clever copywriters scoffed at. But over and over, the ads he wrote out-performed everyone else’s. As he rose to the top of the agency, he stayed the same, never became a snazzy guy but kept focusing on the obvious, and large clients sought out his help personally. I’ve heard some rumors that the author modeled this fictional character after the great copywriter Claude Hopkins. I can see some similarities and I really don’t know for sure myself. Some people who read the book believed Obvious Adams was a real person, and wrote to Updegraff, asking how they could hire him. Others understood he was a fictional character, but couldn’t replicate his thinking. That is, try as they might, they could find the obvious in what they were selling, themselves. And they wanted to. After the book was published, the author figured people would get the idea and be able to start focusing on obvious ideas on their own. But it didn’t turn out that way. In a second section of the book, years later, he wrote: “BACK IN 1916 when Obvious Adams was first published, I thought getting businessmen to do "the obvious" would be simple enough: that it would only be necessary to point out the obvious solution or course of action. But I was quite wrong. The reason, he said, was that it involved logical thinking, which he called “the trickiest of mental processes.” So, to help people along, he developed “five tests of obviousness.” And before he announced them, he provided, of all things, a disclaimer: “They are not sure-fire. Nothing is in this complex and changing world. But they are good rule-of-thumb checks.” Personally, I think these are great tests. You don’t have to pass all of them to have a good promotion. I’ll mention this again at the end: You should consider all of them. Just thinking things through this way will sharpen up your thinking and could easily improve your promotion. I’m going to add one 21st-Century example as we go, and we may come up with some others along the way. The good news about this book is you can get it on Amazon for a few dollars. It is well worth your time and money. We’ll put a link to it in the show notes. Five tests of obviousness 1. The problem, when solved, will be simple. - Complicated solutions to problems are ways of someone trying to show off how smart they are or a sign of laziness. A solution that is simple borders on the invisible, and that’s OK. Especially with copywriting. Nobody cares about how clever your whiz-bang solution is. They care about their problem, and how certain it seems that you can solve it. The more “obvious” the answer, the more certain they will feel that you can. Einstein said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Updegraff wrote: “The history of science, the arts and great developments in the world of business is a history of people stumbling upon simple solutions to complex problems.” Our example, which we’ll use throughout to measure against each test, is the same. It’s the messaging Steve Jobs came up with originally to sell the iPod: “10,000 songs in your pocket.” 2. A question: Does it check with human nature? To pass this test, your idea needs to be quickly and easily understood by ordinary people. For copywriters and marketers, you don’t need everybody if you’re writing for / selling to a niche audiences. But what it does mean is that everyone across your niche should get the idea instantly. Updegraff says, “The public is curiously obvious in its reactions — because the public’s mind is simple, direct and unsophisticated.” Let’s look again at the iPod tagline: “10,000 songs in your pocket.” 3. Put it on paper “Write out your idea, in words of one and two syllables, as though you were explaining it to a child.” This is a cheap and quick way to troubleshoot an idea, project, plan, offer. If you can’t explain it simply, that’s a sure sign you have more work to do on it. Key point: Most ideas ultimately involve more than one person, even if one person only came up with it and handles all the details. In copywriting and marketing, for example, even if you are a one-person business, for your idea to succeed, it also involves customers, who have to understand it in order to take advantage of your offer. And most ideas, especially the bigger ones, involve more than one person. Like: partners, employees, investors, and contractors — as well as, of course, customers. How do you expect to get their buy-in if they can’t easily understand your idea? “10,000 songs in your pocket” works as something you can put on paper in one- and two-syllable words. Especially is you write out the words “ten thousand.” 4. Does it explode in people’s minds? When you share your idea, or post your copy, and you get responses from people like, “Why didn’t I think of that?” you know you’ve passed the “explode-in-people’s minds” test. It most likely means you’ve got an idea that’s both new and familiar. And that sounds easier to come up with than it actually is. This rare combination almost always leads to blockbuster success. Updegraff says, “If an idea or proposal does not ‘explode,’ if it requires lengthy explanation and involves hours of argument, either - it is not obvious or - you have not thought it through and reduced it to obvious simplicity.” you know you are creating mental “explosions” when you see instant and intense reaction from people to your idea. A great example and step-by-step method to help you learn to do this is in Oren Klaff’s new book, “Flip the Script.” I would say “10,000 songs in your pocket” definitely exploded in people’s minds! 5. Is the time Ripe? Timing is everything. So make sure you don’t get a yes to either of these two questions: Is your idea too late? Is it too far ahead of its time? An idea that passes all the other test of “obviousness” will still not work if it is not timely. So pay careful attention to this one. Updegraff said that you don’t need to pass all five tests to have a successful idea/offer/hook. But it’s a good idea to consider every one of them, and see if it applies. For example, test #4 -- “Does it explode in people’s minds?” mind end up a “no.” That where you need to put more work into your idea. Steve Jobs got the timing just right with “10,000 songs in your pocket.” Summary: The Five Tests 1. The problem, when solved, will be obvious. 2. Does it check with human nature? 3. Put it on paper. 4. Does it explode in people’s minds? 5. Is the time Ripe? link to Obvious Adams Download.

You may know Nathan as the producer and my confabulation partner on Copywriters Podcast, and some of you know he’s an accomplished and profitable copywriter himself. But not everyone knows another aspect of Nathan’s public face, and that is as a very provocative Facebook poster. His posts trigger people in a way I’ve never seen before. A lot of them are funny and nearly all of his posts are thought-provoking. I asked him if he would share the story behind what he thinks and why he does what he does, and he readily agreed. So that’s what we did on today’s show. 1. You seem to thrive writing Facebook posts that polarize a lot of people. Some love these posts and some people really get triggered. Could you talk about why you do this? 2. Could you share some of your “greatest hits” — posts that you consider among your most controversial? 3. A lot of times your posts are ironic, or downright sarcastic. Do you find that some people miss the irony or sarcasm and take what you say literally? 4. I’ve noticed three kinds of posts that you do - triggering (which is most of them) - personal reveals (where you tell a story that makes you come across as genuinely vulnerable and authentically human) - marketing tips (which are educational and useful) What’s your strategy in the mix of what you post? 5. Now, let’s talk marketing. I think you’ve mentioned that you deliberately say things that will strongly attract certain kinds of prospects, as well as push others away. How has that worked out and what do prospects say to you about your posts? 6. I’ve gotten the impression that early on, you put a lot of thought into your strategy. Could you walk us through your thought process leading up to what you’re doing today? 7. What do you think of the way most people use Facebook, especially for marketing themselves and their businesses in unpaid posts? What would you suggest they do differently? Nathan's Book, SalesPageBook.comDownload.

We’re back with another episode in the Old Masters Series. Today we’re going to talk about Robert Collier. Most people know of him as the author of The Robert Collier Letter Book, which we’ll talk about in this show. But it’s important to know that besides being one of the best copywriters of the first half of the 20th Century, Collier was also a prolific and highly successful author. One of his other books, for example, sold 300,000 copies. We’re going to take some powerful ideas from just a couple pages of the Robert Collier Letter Book. It’s such a rich resource. My pal John Carlton, who has been on this podcast three times, says that book was one of the three books he referred to all the time when he was just starting out. Here are the seven topics we cover in the show: Word Pictures: After you get your reader’s attention, “your next problem is to put your ideas across, to make him see it as you see it — in short, to visualize it so clearly that he can build it, piece by piece in his own mind as a child builds a house of blocks, or puts together the pieces of a puzzle.” Six essential elements of a sales letter (VSL, sales page, ad): 1. The opening: Not only do you need to capture attention. You need to speak to what the reader is interested in, using language that the reader instantly recognizes. Also, keep in mind that the opening “sets the table” for what comes next. 2. The motive, or reason-why. Collier talks about the reason why the prospect would want to buy your offer. I agree with that. There’s also another kind of reason-why: The reason why you’re making the offer. This is also important — and necessary — when you are offering what might seem like an unreasonably low price or good deal. You need to state a reason that makes sense to your prospect. 3. The description, or the explanation: When describing what you’re offering, Collier suggests that you start with the big picture — features, overall benefit — and then immediately fill in the details, like benefits, fine points, and what sets this product apart from competing products. Why it’s better. 4. The proof or the guarantee: Collier presents this as one or the other. Actually, and especially these days, you need both: convincing proof of your claims throughout your message, and the strongest guarantee you can offer. 5. The snapper or the penalty: What happens if the prospect DOESN’T take action? We see this in a lot of different forms these days. What’s important is that you don’t leave it to the prospects to figure this out on their own. Spell it out for them. 6. The close, “which tells the reader just what to do and how to do it, and makes it easy for him to act at once.” This is one place where you definitely do NOT want to get lazy. Every time the reader isn’t 100% sure what to do, how to do it, or whether it’s too hard to take action, you lose sales. So follow this one carefully! Robert Collier Letter Book: Letters Download.

The online marketing world has gone crazy with targeting. It’s great for all the media buyers and traffic managers, since they can get paid work out of it. Targeting… like Chicken Man of old-time radio, targeting — It’s everywhere! But what good does all this targeting do copywriters… and the marketers they work for? Today I’d like to look at targeting from a copywriter’s point of view. Not how to do targeting, but how to make the most out of what the media buyers and traffic managers deliver to you. At the core, copywriting is about writing precisely to your qualified prospect’s state of mind. Targeting is the way, unless you know each prospect personally, to find out as precisely as possible what your qualified prospect’s state of mind is. Let’s look at two types of targeting and figure out how each one is useful — or not useful — for different kinds of offers, and how you can use it: Traditional and Tuning-Fork Targeting Traditional 1: Demographics and Geographic (measuring prospects: age, number of kids, ZIP code, region of the country, net worth, number of guitars in the household) Traditional 2: Psychographics, which opens the passageway to Tuning-Fork Targeting (identifying what prospects feel and do)... Tuning Fork 1: Psychographics - Affinity - easiest - membership, interests, subscription - the problem with this is, what they like doesn’t tell you what they buy (except, maybe, other memberships or subscriptions) Tuning Fork 2: Values - a little harder to determine - religion, politics, other cultural and life choices - Only of limited use unless you are selling religion, politics, or a lifestyle product or service Tuning Fork 3: Behavior - This is the holy grail, but it’s hard to get this information from most targeting methods - However, two dependable sources of behavior are: 1. Previous buyers (buyer lists, endorsed mailings) 2. Retargeting (if they keep clicking on an ad after they know what you’re selling, the clicking behavior is valuable targeting information) In conclusion... From a copywriter’s point of view, the best targeting is information that can predict how likely it is for the prospect to buy.Download.

Today we have one of the world’s great teachers and practitioners of direct-response copywriting on the show — Don Hauptman. You’ll see what I mean about teaching in a moment, when Don shares the most successful copywriting techniques he’s learned in 45 years — techniques you may not be using, or not using as well as you could, yourself. As a copywriter, Don’s accomplishments are legendary. He’s a ten-time winner of the Newsletter on Newsletters promotion award for subscription acquisition packages. Don’s the copywriter who created the ads with the classic headline “Speak Spanish Like A Diplomat.” Those ads (and variations of it, such as “Speak French Like A Diplomat,”) sold tens of millions of dollars worth of language course in many languages for Audio-Forum. His work has been featured in college advertising textbooks and collections including “Million Dollar Mailings” and “The World’s Greatest Direct Mail Sales Letters.” These days, Don’s officially retired. But he still does pro bono marketing, consulting and fundraising work for non-profits and friends’ businesses and professional practices. Also, Don’s the author of a very valuable book, “The Versatile Freelancer,” which he’ll tell us about later. In the show, Don talks about the techniques that give copy its power, persuasiveness, motivation and credibility. These are techniques that keep readers reading, and gets them to respond the way you want them to. Don says, “In a lot of copy I see, these principles are absent, omitted, overlooked. Why? And how can you avoid these mistakes?” And then he proceeds to explain what they are, how they work, and how you can put them to work in your own copy. 1. Adding human interest to your copy. One step copywriters skip is finding and adding the inherent drama of stories that add to the emotional response of the reader. He shares some examples from highly successful ads and reveals the hidden psychology behind these successful stories. 2. Making your proof convincing. Credibility overcomes reader/listener/viewer skepticism. But vague generalities and promises made but not backed up won’t get the job done. Don shares which details he used, and how he used them, to create conviction in readers, which leads to the “yes” we’re all looking for. 3. When content market brings prospects closer to buying. Sometimes the best way to make a sale is to give something valuable away first. Don explains how he did this in some of his winning promotions, and the proven best ways to use these techniques yourself. Don’s book, “The Versatile Freelancer” http://versatilefreelancer.com Download.

We’re back with another show in the Old Masters series today. First I need to tell you about something you probably never knew about before: The RCA principle. I end up telling even some of my advanced mentoring clients about the RCA principle, which I learned about from Joe Karbo in his book “The Lazy Man’s Way To Riches.” The RCA principle is a copywriting concept that goes like this: “Build the best radio you can, and take as many parts out of it as you can until it stops working.” In copywriting terms, that means: Write the best (whatever) you can, and then whittle it down to the smallest number of words, possible. So that’s the RCA principle. Sounds simple enough, right? All you have to do is write big and then edit it down to as tight as possible. The problem is, most people I talk to about this have NO IDEA how to do this. Fair enough. I didn’t learn this in school myself. Even on the college newspaper. Even in my private tutorial with the department chairman who used to write for Time magazine. So, to do today’s show, I had to turn to the Old Master of concise, powerful writing himself, Rudolf Flesch. You know him already through the readability index he helped create, although you may not have realized it. If you look for a readability score on your copy, as many writers do, that comes directly from Flesch’s work. He was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1911. In 1938, he fled to the United States to escape the Nazis. By 1943, he had earned a PhD in Library Science from Columbia University. It was then and there he developed the Flesch Reading Ease Formula, which has evolved into the “readability index” that so many copywriters use today. I took one of his books, The Art of Readable Writing, and cracked it open like a walnut. Then I picked out the most important pieces… … .to show you how to use the tools of an Old Master to implement the RCA principle. On the show, we go over these five steps, harvested from The Art of Readable Writing. And, as a special bonus for Copywriters Podcast subscribers, we also showed an equivalent step each time for achieving a Joe Karbo RCA principle result. 1. Research and organize KARBO EQUIVALENT: Design the biggest, best radio you can. Don’t build it yet. Just design it. 2. Give shape to your idea KARBO EQUIVALENT: Build the biggest, bestest radio you can. 3. Make longer words shorter KARBO EQUIVALENT: Use chips, PC boards, or anything else you can to make the big bad radio work more efficiently, 4. Organize your copy with shorter words into a chronological story. KARBO EQUIVALENT: Rearrange the parts of your big new radio into the smallest space possible. 5. Edit ruthlessly to get your story into the fewest words possible. KARBO EQUIVALENT: This is where you take out all the parts of the radio until it stops working. The Art of Readable Writing, by Rudolf Flesch link (for used copy): https://www.amazon.com/dp/006011293X Download.

Our guest today was featured on the National Geographic channel last week for something no one would want to be seen for: The show “Locked Up Abroad.” The episode is about the time Jesse spent in prison in Thailand, and how copywriting helped him cut, oh, 20 years off his sentence. And he turned his life around after he came back to the USA. Actually, that’s not the most important thing about copywriting Jesse’s going to share today. He made a discovery at an AWAI meeting that I’ve never heard anyone else talk about the way he does. And for every beginning copywriter who wants to get more clients, Jesse has some unique ways to do it. Best of all, they don’t require serving time in Thailand or anywhere else. Besides writing copy and appearing on TV, Jesse speaks a lot at direct marketing events like Dan Kennedy’s Renegade millionaire, where he shared some of what you’re going to hear in full today. This show is a wild ride. Here are the questions I asked him: 1. First, tell us about how you escaped a life sentence with copywriting… 2. Back in the US of A, how did your first efforts at finding work, work out? 3. You told me your brother was your mentor, back on the path to success and financial stability. What did he teach you about? 4. So let’s get to your stunning discovery at AWAI. What did you find out? 5. Tell us a little more about the Copykickstart course. link to his course: copykickstart.com/win discount code: DAVIDDownload.

We’ve got another episode today in our Old Masters series. New York City, 1892: An advertising man named George P. Rowell starts a weekly advertising journal called Printer’s Ink. Decades later, another man, George Laflin Miller, started writing a column for Printer’s Inc., under the pen name “Aesop Glim.” In the 1940s and 1950s, Aesop Glim’s column was the Copywriters Podcast of the time, as best I can tell. I couldn’t find out much more than that about Mr. Glim, also known as Mr. Miller. But I did find in my bookcase the book “How Advertising Is Written — and Why.” This book has some terrific, unique ideas and techniques, and we’re going over them today. The book is concise, only 150 pages. But it’s powerful. Eight chapters, with three to nine meaty sections in each chapter. I’ve cherry-picked four key ideas that I haven’t seen presented this way elsewhere. We’re covering the bare bones of Aesop Glim’s ideas and filling in the blanks with our own examples and comments. 1) The substitute for inspiration — is saturation! Instead of waiting for inspiration to strike, saturate your mind with • facts • experience • knowledge about user experience “The trouble with inspiration is that — like luck or lightning — you can’t possibly tell when it will strike.” 2) Headlines - 3 steps Headlines need to “reach out from the page, seize the lapels on your prospects, and persuade them to read the first paragraph of your copy.” 3 steps of the job of the headline 1. select the right prospects 2. “arrest” them 3. persuade them to read your first paragraph 3) The Rudyard Kipling Secret For Copy - Minus One We’re going to have our first poetry reading on Copywriters Podcast. Title - I keep six honest serving men I KEEP six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who. Aesop Glim left out “how.” So: when - where - who - what - why Example: Yesterday (WHEN), in Australia (WHERE), one of my clients (WHO) had a major breakthrough (WHAT) because of one stunning idea he swears he’ll use from now on to write copy (WHAT). Next-level tip from Aesop Glim: Put most of your copy in the present tense. Same sentence that way: In Australia, one of my clients is having a major breakthrough because of one stunning idea he swears he’ll use from now on to write copy. Present tense in headlines: Compare Old Dutch Cleanser Chases Dirt to Old Dutch Cleanser Might Conceivably Remove The Accumulated Filth If Properly Applied Use singular instead of plural: Easier to visualize one hour one cake of soap one man … than a lot of them. 4) 3 things that have to happen for an ad to work. The ad must be 1. seen 2. read 3. believedDownload.

Our special guest today, Doberman Dan, has been a direct-response copywriter and serial entrepreneur for 33 years. He’s started four of his own nutritional supplement business, and sold three of them. As a copywriter, he specializes in the health, fitness and bodybuilding markets. But he’s written in many other markets as well. Our special guest today, Doberman Dan, has been a direct-response copywriter and serial entrepreneur for 33 years. He’s started four of his own nutritional supplement business, and sold three of them. As a copywriter, he specializes in the health, fitness and bodybuilding markets. But he’s written in many other markets as well. Dan’s work has appeared in Entrepreneur Magazine, Penthouse, Investors Business Daily, The National Enquirer, and many other newspapers and magazines. He’s been publishing The Doberman Dan Letter for the past nine years, and it counts many of the world’s most successful marketers among its subscribers, including me. We’re going to a wild ride through Dan’s life and times today and find out how his unusual experiences — and there are many — have contributed to what he knows and teaches about copywriting. He’s been publishing The Doberman Dan Letter for the past nine years, and it counts many of the world’s most successful marketers among its subscribers, including me. We took a wild ride through Dan’s life and times today and find out how his unusual experiences — and there are many — have contributed to what he knows and teaches about copywriting.Download.

One of my best-performing sales letters took three months to write. A big part of the time it took to write it had little to do with the headline or the rest of the copy. The letter crushed it. Literally. We broke the server the first day. This was for a small company and total sales were over $1 million on their mentoring program I had written the sales letter for. To prepare for that letter, I sought out stories from people in the marketplace who would end up being prospects and customers for the mentoring program. When I did the interviews, talking to people who were very different from me, I learned things about their motivations and their preferences that never would have occurred to me on my own. I don’t think the letter would have broken $1 million in sales or sold out in three days if I hadn’t done the work to get those stories out of prospective customers. Today, we talk about getting stories before you start writing your copy. In this fast-paced show, we cover: >Why it’s important to get stories from clients and their customers — two reasons most copywriters never consider >How most people screw this up… and… how to fix this >Who you want to talk to (far more types of people than you think now) >How you want to talk to the people you’re getting stories from (vitally important — makes all the difference) >What kind of questions to ask >What you want to get from the people you interview >What to do with what you getDownload.

In the offices of the most successful direct marketers in the world, when a promo isn’t making the money it should, you’ll hear most people speak these three words: “Call David Deutsch.” Because he’s the guy who can fix it. And, he’s our guest today. David’s promo’s have come close to pulling in $1 billion in sales. He’s written for Agora and the company formerly known as Boardroom (it’s now called Bottom Line Publications). David works with copy teams in the U.S. and around the world. He’s the author of Million Dollar Marketing Secrets and Think Inside The Box, two books I’m proud to say I have in my most important bookshelf (the one closest to my computer). I’m also proud that David’s a friend as well as a colleague. Today he’s going to talk about something you might have never thought had anything to do with copywriting. My goal, by the end of today’s show, is for you to see how it has EVERYTHING to do with copywriting. That topic is pitchmen. From Billy Mays and Ron Popeil to the carnival barker at the county fair, pitchmen — and pitchwomen — hold some secrets that make our copy better. And David knows more about them than you would ever imagine. Here’s what David talked about with us on this special show: - How he got into studying pitchmen. - Who pitchmen are and why what they do is so close to writing copy - Why he has studied pitchmen (and why you should, too) - With a pitchman, it’s NOT “all in the wrist” — it’s all in the VOICE - What pitchmen do all the time that the best copy does as well - Think word choice is important in copy? Take a close look at what pitchmen do! - How and when pitchmen reveal the product they’re pitching - How pitchmen MAXIMIZE the chance that every prospect will buy There’s so much good info in this show you may want to listen to it more than once! Go to David’s website and get a free report: “Copywriting from A to Z” www.DavidLDeutsch.comDownload.

John Caples is best known as a pioneer and master practitioner of testing copy, but he was also a brilliant copywriter. His first year writing copy, he wrote an ad with the headline “They Laughed When I Sat Down At The Piano… But When I Began To Play…” which is famous to this day. He taught copywriting at Columbia Business School in New York. Caples is truly an old master, and that’s why we’re including him in our Old Masters Series. His book “Tested Advertising Methods” has so much value for copywriters we could barely cover a few parts of a few chapters. But it’s easily available on Amazon, and I’ve included a link at the bottom of the show notes on copwriterspodcast.com Here are the key points. Much more detail in the recorded podcast itself. 1. The kind of headlines that attract the most readers Based on tests, usually headlines with a combination of self-interest and curiosity, work best. Sometimes, adding or implying “quick and easy” will boost response even further. 2. How to put enthusiasm into your copy Forget about everyone except your prospect… write fast… get worked up… let momentum launch you into a wave of enthusiasm. 3. Simple hacks to get more opt-ins Lots of proven “little” things will increase your response dramatically. Most people fall short here on some of the basics. 4. Simple hacks to multiply your copy’s selling power The key word here is “simple.” Fight every urge to be philosophical, elaborate or flowery in your writing. Tested Advertising MethodsDownload.

When I first started learning how to write copy, everybody told me “read Scientific Advertising.” It’s a book written at the beginning of the 20th century, over 100 years ago, by Claude Hopkins, who many consider the father of direct-response copywriting. I did read the book. I read it again. In fact, I read it 15 times. For today’s show, I reviewed it. This is part of our Old Masters series. I pulled out five powerful takeaways and we’re going to talk about them and how they apply to copywriting today. In the show notes on copywriterspodcast.com, you’ll find a link to get the book on Amazon. All I can say is, it’s well worth it. One of the most valuable books I’ve ever read. Here are the key takeaways. Much more detail on the podcast itself: 1. The only purpose of advertising is to make sales “Advertising is multiplied salesmanship.” Ask this question about your sales copy: “Would it help me sell them if I met them in person?” 2. The right headline can increase sales by 5 to 10 times. You can use your headline to target a particular type of prospect. The trick is to call out the type of qualified prospect that there are the most of. 3. Psychology is the gas in the engine — and the GPS — of all advertising. We can’t actually read people’s minds. But we can keep track of all their different behaviors. And the more specific things we know about what people respond to, and how they behave, the better our copy will perform. 4. The more specific you are, the more people will believe you. It’s always a bad idea to lie about specifics. But it’s always a good idea to include as many meaningful specifics as you can. “Platitudes and generalities roll off the human understanding like water from a duck… [but] the weight of an argument can often be multiplied by making it specific.” 5. How to guarantee your advertising WON’T make a profit. You can lose a lot of money by trying to change people’s habits. “It is a very shrewd thing to watch the development of a particular trend, the creation of new desires. Then at the right time offer to satisfy those desires.” Link to Scientific Advertising on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0844231010Download.

Today we return to our new series called “Old Masters,” and we’re going to look at another list from Maxwell Sackheim’s book, “My First 65 Years In Advertising.” Sackheim started in direct mail in 1906. In 1927 he was a co-founder of a highly successful direct-mail business, The Book-of-the-Month Club. He wrote a very famous ad with the headline, “Do You Make These Mistakes In English?”, which ran for 40 years and was always profitable. The list we’re going over today is called “Seven Deadly Direct Mail Mistakes.” But don’t worry if you don’t do direct mail yourself. It’s based on hard-won wisdom and it applies just as well today with Facebook ads and funnels as it does to actual direct mail. (Seven deadly Direct Mail mistakes) 1. Failing to Give The Reader a Good Reason to Open Your Envelope This applies to ALL forms of direct marketing. Almost all forms involve more than one step — whether the first step is opening the envelope, responding to a print ad, or clicking on a Facebook ad. Be sure that you’re giving your prospect a strong reason to take the FIRST step. Cheat Sheet Question #1: Did I give me prospect a good enough reason to take the the first step? 2. Failing to Give The Reader a Good Reason for Reading Your Mailing Every step of the way through your funnel, make sure you give your prospect a good reason to read it and move on to the next step. Cheat sheet question #2: Did I give my prospect a good enough reason to read this copy and move on to the next step? 3. Making Trivial Tests Important tests are of major elements that can really affect response. Headline, lead, offer, pricing, for example. Test the things that are most likely to make a real difference in response. Cheat sheet question #3: Make sure you’re testing elements of your copy that are likely to make an important difference. 4. Making Sales, Not Customers It costs a lot to acquire a customer. Why WASTE that money when you can turn it into profit by making additional offers to each customer? Cheat sheet question #4: What am I doing to increase the lifetime of each customer, and extend the lifetime value? 5. Believing that People Won’t Read Long Letters “People read long books, take long trips, watch long movies and plays, and read long letters — provided they justify the time. They must be interesting. They must promise a profit, in entertainment, in money, in enlightenment.” Cheat sheet question #5: Am I providing all the information my prospect needs—and doing it in a compelling way? 6. Letting the List Go to the Last “The reasons many mailings fail is that they are directed to too many wrong people.” Same is true for ads and other types of copy that are targeted wrong. Cheat sheet question 6: Am I targeting the right people? 7. Forgetting that Your Letters Are You “Every letter you send is your personality on paper. Whether you mail one or one million, each letter tells who YOU are.” Cheat sheet question #7: Am I writing to my customers like I would talk to a friend?Download.

Today we’re starting a new series called “Old Masters,” where we find wisdom from some of the Founding Fathers of copywriting and see how we can apply them today. On this show, we’re going to look at a list from Maxwell Sackheim’s book, “My First 65 Years In Advertising.” Sackheim started in direct mail in 1906. In 1927 he was a co-founder of a highly successful direct-mail business, The Book-of-the-Month Club. He wrote a very famous ad with the headline, “Do You Make These Mistakes In English?”, which ran for 40 years and was always profitable. Today the list we’ll go over is called “Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes.” There’s nothing obsolete about anything on this list. And I’ve added a lot of information for each item on the list so you can put the information to work right away. 1. Failing to Give The Reader a Reason to Read Your Ad You need to make a promise that your reader will find worth reading the rest of your ad. Cheat Sheet Question #1: Did I give my reader a good enough reason to read the ad? 2. Using Headlines That “Whisper Sweet Nothings” You need to get readers excited about something that’s important to them, in a direct and powerful way. Cheat Sheet Question #2: Does your headline reach out and grab the reader? 3. Using Pictures that Do Not Talk Any picture you use needs to tell a story, by itself, that furthers the purpose of the ad itself. Cheat Sheet Question #3: Is the picture so good that it could partially or fully make the ad work by itself? 4. Giving In To The Curse of Cleverness If you try to show how entertaining you are more than how much you know and care about a problem the prospect has, and how you can solve it… you’re making a deadly mistake. Cheat Sheet Question #4: Am I making my prospect laugh… or am I locking in my prospect’s serious attention? 5. Going Around Robin Hood’s Barn A lot of advertising makes readers jump through mental hoops to understand what it’s trying to sell you. Make yours a smooth glide in a straight line. Cheat Sheet Question #5: How easy is it to follow my pitch all the way through? 6. Leavin’ ‘em Dangling Always give your reader something to do. Otherwise, risk losing them forever. Cheat Sheet Question #6: Did I give my prospect something specific to do? 7. Using “Yackety-Yack” Copy Don’t waste your reader’s time. Make everything you say interesting, useful, intriguing, or curiosity-provoking. Cheat Sheet Question #7: Am I providing interesting value every step of the way?Download.

Sara’s dad was a lawyer. After she finished college, she wanted to go law school, but her Legal SAT scores weren’t good enough. So she tried stand-up comedy, but that didn’t catch fire. So, she became a billionaire instead. The youngest woman billionaire ever, according to Forbes magazine in 2009. A few weeks ago, I saw that Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx, had a class on entrepreneurship up on MasterClass.com. I was curious and so I watched a few sessions. Not only was it the best program on business I’ve seen on MasterClass, but it’s also the best program for copywriters and entrepreneurs I’ve ever seen by a “big name” in business. Sara Blakely is a gifted teacher as well as a standout entrepreneur. I picked three lessons from the treasure trove of suggestions and ideas that make up the class. The reason I picked each one is that it would help copywriters as well business owners, and two of the three are things we haven’t talked about nearly enough on this podcast. But everything she had to say was unique, valuable and interesting. So here’s something really ironic about Sara Blakely. She said right on her Masterclass that for the first 16 years of her business, she didn’t do any advertising. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. So why are we devoting an entire show to her? Here’s why: What she DID do, to get the business up and running -- and what she continues to do on a daily basis -- are so valuable that they really transcend copywriting and spending money on ads. They are at the core essence of what we do as copywriters and business owners, which is to GET and KEEP customers. It’s also nice to get advice from someone who is actually running a huge business, rather than making their living running around sharing their theories about how the world might work and making their living doing seminars. In contrast, Sara’s making her living serving customers and innovating new products for her business. We cover three tips. You’ve probably heard them before, but Sara has a unique take on them… and, she’s made them work to literally build a business from scratch. Which gives them extra weight. Her first tip: Protect Your Mindset. Sara shared a very personal story about how she protected her idea from the criticism of others until she was ready to share it… and how she knew she was ready. We talk about how to protect your mindset so your ideas don’t die abornin’. Second Tip from Sara: Create Big Ideas Sara admits she takes idea-creation very seriously, and she devotes time every day to doing it. We’ll share her method and talk about what everyone has in common when you need to create big ideas, as well as what’s unique to each person. Third Tip from Sara: Connect… Really Connect Probably the most underrated asset in business is the act of deeply connecting with your customers. Sara turned her ability to do that into a net worth of more than one billion dollars in less than 10 years. We explore how copywriters - as well as business owners - can leverage this underrated asset themselves.Download.

Our guest today really gets around. Richard Miller is founder of Mission Control Studios in Phoenix. Have you ever heard of David DeAngelo and a product called Double Your Dating? David’s real name is Eben Pagan, and Richard helped him with every seminar and info-product. In the copywriting space, Richard’s worked with me and helped John Carlton with all the video in version 2.0 of the Simple Writing System. Richard has a vast array of experience in the world of seminars, video, and info-products. He even has a project he’s working on that got 1 million views the first day it was on YouTube… and this project gives new meaning to the term “killer content!” Here are the questions he answered: 1. What is the most important thing people need to know when it comes to creating video content/infoproducts? 2. Why should you listen to your producer, especially if you know more about your content than they do? 3. What did you learn from Dean Graziosi about creating best-selling info products? 4. You have an unusual info-product you’re working on with Sammy the Bull. Tell us about it. 5. If someone wants to work with you, what can you do for them and what’s a good next step? Richard’s email: richard@tetpros.comDownload.

In the opening of the movie “Echo In the Canyon,” the late Tom Petty is showing Bob Dylan’s son, Jakob, a Rickenbacker 12-string electric guitar. He plays about six chords, stops, and says, “You can’t afford the rest.” And laughs. What’s underneath the joke is: They’re making a movie, and if he went much further, under music industry rules, the movie-makers would have to pay a large royalty for whatever song Petty was playing if it went on long enough. It’s definitely a joke because there are many full songs throughout the movie, which I thought was excellent, by the way. But it brings to mind an important question: What’s the story about royalties, or percentage-of-sales payments, for copywriters? We hear about them all the time but for most people, they’re a huge mystery. I have some experience with percentage deals myself, and I have a lot of clients who do as well. So I thought we could take a deep dive into this topic today. • What they are and how they work — or how they’re supposed to work (big picture) • The publishing industry (includes film, TV, music, as well as books and newsletter publishers) • Everyone else • The type of client you want to do a percentage deal with • The type of client you really DON’T want to do a percentage deal with • The best type of client to do a percentage deal with Some questions: 1. If it looks like a good deal, what’s a fair percentage to charge? 2. Does taking a percentage change your fee? 3. How do you know when you’re ready to do this?Download.

Our guest today comes to us through the magic of the Internet from Galicia, Spain — and he knows a lot about mastermind groups. Whether you know what a mastermind group is or not, you’ll know more about that today. And I think you’ll quickly see why they’re important for direct response copywriters and direct response business owners. Stan is the organizer and co-host of the Platinum Mastermind Group with John Carlton, the legendary copywriter who was on this show a couple of months ago. But Stan’s done a lot of other things, out in the business world, too. In a past life, he designed and helped bring to life cutting-edge information systems for the likes of like Wells Fargo, Exxon, Starbucks, and even the US Air Force and NATO. Over the last 10 years, working with Carlton, Stan launched the Simple Writing System copywriting training program, and a bunch of other things including the Platinum Mastermind. These days, Stan’s major focus in business is helping clients build and activate funnels that actually work, and bring in the bucks. 1. Stan, thanks for being here. You’ve got a lot of experience on this topic, but for our listeners who aren’t really sure, can we start at a very basic level: What is a mastermind group, and how do they work in general? 2. What’s the best thing you’ve ever seen come out of a mastermind group, in terms of a win for a member? 3. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen come out a mastermind group, in terms of a fail for a member? 4. You’ve attended a lot of mastermind groups, plus you’ve handled the nuts and bolts of the Platinum Mastermind for a decade. Could you talk about what you’ve seen that works, in terms of the way mastermind groups are set up and the way they’re run, and what doesn’t work? 5. This next question is for people brave enough to attempt to do what you do for every meeting: deal with hotels. Could you offer some suggestions and warnings? 6. Let’s say someone is thinking about joining, or starting, a mastermind group. What are the key questions they should ask, or maybe better, get answered, before they go ahead and pull the trigger? 7. Finally, give us the quick version of what the Platinum Mastermind is like, and how people can find out more about it? More info about the Platinum Mastermind You can contact Stan directly by email: ChatWith@Stan-Dahl.com Download.

On the podcast Masters of Scale, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman interviewed Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb. Chesky tells of advice he got 10 years ago, when the company barely had any customers at all. He got the advice from one of the wisest men in Silicon Valley, Paul Graham of Y Combinator. The advice was simple, but powerful: “Get to know your customers by one.” Brian Chesky and his Airbnb co-founders followed the advice. He remembers, “I’d just spend time with them, and I’m like, What if I did this, what if I did this — and from those questions, a handcrafted experience is born.” He also said, “You literally start designing touchpoint by touchpoint, the creation of a peer review system, customer support, all those things came from us. We didn’t just meet our users, we lived with them. I used to joke that when you bought an iPhone, Steve Jobs didn’t come sit on your couch.” Well, good joke, but, Steve Jobs used to walk around the Apple Store on University Avenue in Palo Alto and ask people who were trying out Macs what they liked and what they didn’t like about the Mac. Anyway, that’s beside the point. I just wanted to give a shoutout to Steve Jobs. Meanwhile, Airbnb is slated to go public next year with a valuation of $35 billion. Not bad for 10 years work and starting out by going over to visit your customers at their homes. There’s a reason I told you this, and it’s not to suggest that you go live with your customers! I’m telling you because Brian Chesky of Airbnb made one of the four choices copywriters can make for empathy that we’ll talk about today. All four are important, and we cover them in the podcast. First though, we cover what “empathy” is. I’m using one of the best definitions I’ve ever come across, and naturally, it’s from a Hollywood screenwriting guru. I say “naturally” because screenwriters, just as much as copywriters, need to have strong empathy for the people involved in what they write, in order for it to connect with readers and viewers. Next, we go over the four choices you have for empathy each time you start a new project. You can only make one of them, and a couple of them are weak substitutes for the real thing. We’ll go into detail about all four. By the time you’ve finished listening to this show, you’ll have a much better idea of what empathy is; how to achieve it (and how not to); and why it’s important in the success of your copy.Download.

Our guest today Adam Bensman is both state-of-the-art and very old-school. Let’s start with the old-school part: Adam started out as a door-to-door salesman. I call that “old school” because, well, first, I did that once. So did Gary Halbert. And nearly every experienced, successful copywriter I know says that the best possible training you can get for direct-response copywriting is face-to-face sales. Adam has risen to the heights of the business world. He’s been COO of a multi-million dollar company. He’s written copy for high-end coaches, consultants, Software-as-a-Service companies and financial experts. He counts more than 10 million deliveries of emails he’s written, and says he has personally or contributed to nearly $100 million in sales in the last six years. Whew. Now, here’s the state-of-the-art part. Remember I said old-school and state-of-the-art? Adam has group and personal mentoring to help copywriters start earning from $10 to $25K per month in as little as 30 days. I know you’ll want to hear about that. Here are the questions he answered in today’s show. 1) Adam, today you are going to generously share with us some information that has made you and a lot of other copywriters a lot of money. More than that, it has provided a level of confidence and freedom most freelancers could only dream about. The main topics we’re going to cover are discovering your niche, and getting paid for all the work of value that you really do for a client. Let’s start with your own story. How did you discover this or otherwise figure it out yourself? 2) So let’s talk about discovering your niche. Could you tell us about a client who made this discovery for themselves, and especially how the thinking about it was very different from the way they were thinking about it before? 3) So if one of our listeners would like to do the same thing for their own copywriting business, what are the first two or three steps they should take? 4) Now you have another game-changer for us. I guess everyone on the writing side of the game grumbles copywriters don’t get paid what they’re worth — except for the top, top ones. You have a way around it. Could you walk us through a story about someone who made the switch from not getting paid fairly to getting paid for everything they’re contributing to their client’s business, and how they made the shift? 5) I know in the time we have remaining you can’t walk us through the whole process, but could you give us some pointers on how you help people make the shift? 6) Finally, let’s talk about your services. I have this weird feeling there might be a few listeners who would like to get some of the results you’ve been telling us about today. What do you do, and how can people find out more about you and get in touch with you? Adam’s website: BrainHickeyDownload.

The famous investor Warren Buffett is famous for saying that when it comes to investing, he has two rules: 1) Never lose money. 2) See rule #1 To be sure, Warren Buffett hasn’t ALWAYS been able to follow these rules. Because, of course, he is an investor and some things are beyond his control. His insurance company General Re lost $2.4 billion after the attacks on 9-11. Even so, his overall company reported a profit for 2001, though much smaller than the profit from the year before. Now copywriting has rules, too. We’re going to focus on three of them. They’re not quite as clear-cut as Warren Buffett’s rules, but they’re just as important. And unlike Warren Buffett’s rules for investing, the three copywriting rules are all tempting to break. Everyone should know what these rules are and how to avoid temptation. Even more important than the rules themselves are the sneaky ways temptation tries to get you to break them. In your mind, each one seems perfectly reasonable and logical. On today’s show, we spend a little time on each rule and why it’s so important… and most of our time on the nine temptations that can lead you astray… hurt your sales… damage your customer relations… and even put your business at risk.Download.

Direct response copywriter Matt Rizvi has worked with famous people known for being strong independent thinkers who focus on the power of the individual. People like Dr. Ron Paul, the congressman from Texas; best-selling author and financial guru Pamela Yellen; and investment analyst Porter Stansberry. Matt’s sold millions with his copy. He’s the founder of DailyCopywriter.com and the DailyCopywriter podcast. Where I was a guest myself. While I was getting ready to be his show, I noticed on his website he mentioned he uses “a unique type of ethical copywriting.” That really intrigued me, because I’ve always believed in ethical copywriting but I think we don’t spend nearly enough time talking about it, whether it’s on this podcast or in the copywriting world at large. So I invited Matt to come on the Copywriters Podcast to talk about it, and here he is. It seemed like such a natural fit to me. We covered these questions: 1. Matt, what is your definition of ethical copywriting, and why is it important? 2. What events or experiences led you to focus on ethical copywriting? 3. A lot of copywriters might be less than ethical in the way they write. Just for our listeners who aren’t up to speed on this issue, what does less-than-ethical copywriting look like? 4. Could you walk us through a promo you did and share two or three decisions you made to stay on the right side of being ethical? 5. You have cubs you mentor. What are two or three tips or guidelines you share with them to stay ethical? An example of one of these ideas in action would be great. 6. In the short run, UNethical copy can bring in windfalls. But long-term, there are consequence. I recently heard about a guy who was a household name in direct marketing 20 years ago — got hit for a huge fine for his marketing — and has all but disappeared. What would you say about the short-term profitability vs. the long-term profitability of ethical copy, and the relative ease and/or difficulty of writing each kind of copy? Matt’s websites: DailyCopywriter, MattRizvi Download.

Legendary copywriter and teacher John Carlton returns from last week. Thousands of copywriters and entrepreneurs have learned from Carlton. He still gets royalty checks every month for ads he wrote decades ago. And if you pull him away from writing copy, he plays a mean electric guitar. Carlton agreed to come back because he had more to tell us than we could fit into one show. I’m proud to call him my friend and to have partnered with him on more things than we have time to mention in these show notes. But let’s summarize what you’ll get from listening to John Carlton on this show: He shares some key but little-understood insights from advertising greats of the past, Claude Hopkins and Rosser Reeves. Insights that, once understood, will help you dominate your market, even if your products are 99% the same as most of their competitors. Also, one of Carlton’s most valuable concepts — being a "sales detective" — gets elucidation and clarity I’ve never heard before, and I’ve spent a lot of time talking with and listening to Carlton in years past. You’ll also hear the key insight he got from Napoleon Hill. Once you hear it, ask yourself this question: So maybe I already knew it. But do I actually DO it? It’s a key question. And taking action on the answer makes all the difference in the world. Finally, Carlton’s unique and can’t-miss method for getting clients and their customers to open up and "give you the goods" that you need to write winning ads. There’s a fundamentally different way of interacting with people that most writers simply don’t know how to do, and John spells it out. It’s not that difficult and certainly not impossible to learn. You’ll want to hear what he has to say and decide for yourself if this is something you want to start doing.Download.

Our guest today is John Carlton. In case you don’t know who he is, maybe you haven’t been paying attention. But you definitely should. John has been a force of nature in copywriting and copywriting education for decades. He was Gary Halbert’s business partner. He worked in Jay Abraham’s office. He’s one of the few people allowed to speak on Dan Kennedy’s stage. I met Carlton at the Gary Halbert Hurricane Andrew Seminar in the early 90s. About 15 years later we did our first seminar together, and we’ve been friends and partners in crime ever since. And like all great copywriters, John’s letters and ads have sold millions upon millions of dollars worth of stuff. In this episode, John reveals the ONE BOOK he read eleven times that got him a job in Jay Abraham’s office (a book you can easily get on Amazon for a few dollars). He also provides some very pragmatic and little-known information about how a copywriter should read a book, which is completely upside-down from how you were taught to read a book in school. Carlton used this approach to become one of the top direct-response copywriters in the world. Definitely worth checking out. Many people approach copywriting mostly as an intellectual activity. Big mistake, says Carlton. It’s all about wisdom-inspired action and very little about deep, wide-ranging intellectual knowledge. “I’d rather take a streetwise salesman and turn him into a copywriter, than take a guy with a PhD in English lit and try to turn him into a salesman,” John says. What’s the difference between someone telling you, “I like your product” and “I WANT your product?” All the difference in the world, John says. He explains how copywriters look at this and what they do to move from getting the reaction, “I like it” to “I want it.” The copywriter’s perspective is paramount to success. You’ll hear some things that are disturbing, some things that are enlightening, but all them are enriching and will stay with you as you move ahead in your copywriting and entrepreneurial career. Links for this show: John Carlton’s website: john-carlton.com John Carlton’s Simple Writing System: CarltonSystem.comDownload.

When I was but a wee lad, not even 40 years old yet, I worked in the Chicago News Bureau of McGraw-Hill as a correspondent for a number of niche business magazines. One of my most important clients was Engineering News Record, or ENR for short. Now this was an interesting challenge, since I had trouble screwing a nut on a bolt. And I’d never taken an engineering course in my life. I had to get up to speed super quickly on a whole range of things, to write about concrete, rebar, sheer forces, cantilevers, and all kinds of technical construction stuff that was a complete mystery to me. I did it, and it really paid off. I became ENR’s golden boy in the field, and when the San Francisco bureau chief job opened up, they lobbied to get me in it. And, for the first time in 40 years, San Francisco’s McGraw-Hill World News office had a new bureau chief: me. Now, the reason I’m bragging about this is to put some focus on a skill I developed that helped me get through many trials by fire. (That would be, each article I had to write for ENR.) The skill was, becoming a subject matter expert in a hurry. I’ve used this in copywriting, too. It’s one reason I’ve done work in more than 100 different industries. Today I’d like to share with you my step-by-step method for becoming an expert in a hurry. I’m going to share all my show notes on this episode with you on copywriterspodcast.com . So you can print them out and use them when it would be useful. -- Now I will say that my ENR experience came in handy 30 years later. That was when Kim Phelan, who was with GKIC at the time, asked me if I would do copy critiques for for some of their members. It turned out that Kim had worked for the Association of General Contractors and they all read ENR. So we had something from our backgrounds in common. But just as important was the way I was able to transfer the skill of becoming a subject matter expert in a hurry to any niche. I’ve been doing this on autopilot for years, but I decided to lay all the steps on the table and share them with you today. This is important because it gives you a comfort level in a new niche, and provides a kind of road map on where to go as you do the rest of your research. There are five things you need to become familiar with. I’m calling them “bricks” because together they form a little structure you can operate from. I guess I did learn something at ENR after all! Brick 1. Mindset Description/definition: The mindset is the way this market looks at things. When you’re writing for a niche or for a specific product, the first thing you need to accept is that they may not look at things the way you do, or the way a lot of other people do. Your job is to find out how they look at it. Example (keto): The keto mindset is: You can lose weight eating this way: By balancing healthy fats and proteins with a small amount of good carbs. With the right information and consistent action, you will succeed. With the wrong foods or the right foods in the wrong ratios, you won’t succeed. It’s possible to do, but you have to understand exactly how to do it, and then do it exactly that way. Questions to ask to build this brick: • What are they trying to accomplish? • What supports them in accomplishing that? • What keeps them from accomplishing that? Answering these questions helps you rapidly draw a rough outline of their world. Brick 2. Bias Description/definition: Possibly the only source of unbiased information in the U.S. is The Weather Channel, which boasts that it is the most trusted news channel on TV. But that’s only because there’s no constituency for bad weather. In other words, when it comes to weather, nearly everyone has the same bias. So, they pretend they’re not biased. But the fact is, everyone is biased. It’s just human nature. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a bad thing when a copywriter doesn’t understand the bias of the market they’re writing for. Understanding it is an important part of becoming an expert in a hurry. Example (keto): Keto is biased against traditional “food pyramid” advice as well as a lot of diet approaches that do not emphasize fats and minimize carbs. It’s not a world where “all diets are created equal, but this one might work for you.” It’s more a world where, the information you’ve been getting is wrong and could be dangerous to your health. But keto is a proven, effective path to weight loss and overall health. Questions to ask to build this brick • What do they focus on as true and important? • What do they see as misleading or unimportant? • Which people or groups do they see for them, and who do they see as against them? Example: Construction engineers see facts, data and physics as important. Professional motivational speakers, who I’ve worked for, see feelings and experience as important. Both are examples of bias. Both make perfect sense for each group. Both would be ridiculous as the primary values of the other group. Engineers building skyscrapers would be nuts to focus mainly on feelings as their basis for building decision. Motivational speakers talking to civilian audiences would be out of their mind to talk mainly about facts and data, when their job is to inspire hope. But both groups are entirely legitimate with their own biases, in the greater scheme of things. Brick 3. Jargon Description/definition: Jargon is the special language of a niche, market or community. People use it for at least two major reasons: To indicate they are insiders instead of outsiders, and as shorthand, to save time. A lot of people trying to become experts in a hurry start here. It’s better than not starting anywhere at all, but you’ll be so much better off if you have a working knowledge of the mindset and the bias before you dive into the jargon. Because, for one thing, you’ll sound more like you know what you’re talking about when you use the jargon. Example (keto): Keto has special terms of its own. The one that stands out in my mind is “the keto flu,” which is not a real flu, as best I can tell, but the body’s reaction to going into ketosis, which is part of the process of the keto diet. It feels like the flu. “Low-carb” is a big term they use. Also, some biochemistry terms, like MCTs (medium-chain-tricglycerides) and ketones. That’s just a few of them. Questions to ask to build this brick: • What are the “official words” people in this space use? • What are the “slang words” people in this space use? • Are there sayings and phrases that mean one thing everywhere else, but might mean something entirely different in this space (like “keto flu”)? Brick 4. Thought Process Description/definition: Every market has an overriding thought process. This becomes easier to understand after you’ve become an expert in a hurry in a few different markets. Golf’s thought process is about improving the game by making each component more efficient. Copywriting’s thought process is about improving numbers through better targeting of customers, messages, and offers. Financial informations thought process is about unique, credible techniques to improve cashflow from investments. The more you can get a sense of your niche’s thought process, the better you’ll be able to write for them. Example (keto): Keto’s thought process is basically, everything else is wrong, and keto is the way to go with your diet. It doesn’t work exactly the same for everyone, so you may need to make some adjustments. It’s based on solid science and proven to work Questions to ask to build this brick: • Are they more like a detective (following clues and eliminating possibilities to get to conclusions)? • Or are they more like an inventor (trying out new ideas to find out which one works)? • Do they have inclusive (everyone welcome) or exclusive (only the best can do this) mentality? Brick 5. Enemies Description/definition: Many people would like peace, love and harmony in the world, but even those people have enemies, though they’d rather not admit it. The enemies of peace, love and harmony are war, hatred, and discord. The reality of life on this planet is that everyone perceives enemies of some sort, real or imagined. Your job, as a copywriter, is to figure out who your market sees as their enemies. This can come in handy at time when you’re actually writing the copy, and it certainly will help you understand some of the things you learn along the way as you do further research. Example (keto): Keto has many enemies. Processed food. Traditional ways of eating. Big Agriculture (because of all of the grains and other carbohydrate-rich foods they produce). Nutritionists who give advice contrary to keto. Fast food. The candy industry. As just a few examples. Questions to ask to build this brick: • Who or what makes it easier for people in this world/on this path, to succeed? • Who or what makes it harder for people in this world/on this path, to succeed? • Who or what do people in this world think is an enemy — even if you don’t? Okay, so that wraps up our little crash course in how to become a subject matter expert in a hurry. As a quick review, the five “bricks” are: 1. Mindset 2. Bias 3. Jargon 4. Thought process 5. EnemiesDownload.

Our guest today, Adam Gilad, is a prolific entrepreneur, author, speaker, film producer and global teacher. He’s also a skilled copywriter, and that’s how he’s made a lot of his ventures grow. For example, The Higher Game and The Bold Life Brotherhood. He’s co-founder of this business-in-a-box curriculum of transformational games evenings and weekends that build visibility, revenue, community and customer bases. But wait, there’s more: Adam’s also a former Co-Founder and Programming Director of National Lampoon Radio and an Emmy- Nominated Executive Producer. His award-winning films have appeared on USA Networks, Lifetime and TNT, and has written for Disney, CBS, ABC and elsewhere. Over the last 10 years, he has built a dating, personal development and coaching business that has reached hundreds of thousands of people. And he’s used copywriting for that, too. Adam’s also got a strong background a creativity consultant for major companies. On the show, he gave us important, valuable details about his own double transformation. He went from screenwriter… to copywriter… and then, surprise, back to screenwriter, with some turbochargers attached to his brain and fingers.Download.

Kyle Milligan is a successful copywriter with a very unusual view of the world. Lucky for us, it’s a way of seeing things that lets him create copy that makes a lot of money. And let’s see if what you hear from him today can do the same thing for you. Kyle is on staff of Agora financial and won a coveted award for the performance of his copy: What looks like a giant gold record. This is for bringing in 51,000 new names to the company in 2018. If you think that’s easy because Agora is a giant company, take it from me. It isn’t easy. It takes skill, perseverance, and a certain special something I haven’t been able to identify yet. Now Kyle, he has identified something unique and very valuable that I’ve never heard about from anyone else: The four emotions of copywriting. He’s agreed to talk about them today on the Copywriters Podcast, and for that, I thank you in advance, Kyle. Here are the questions we discussed: We had a wide-ranging discussion of valuable nuggets for copywriters and business builders. Here are some of the questions we discussed: What is the language of copywriting? Where did it come from? Can you tell me a little bit about your big 4 emotions? How did you come up with those? What made you decide to start a YouTube channel? What is your end goal? So you've put all this into a book- can you talk about that? Kyle’s website: https://kylethewriter.com/ Download.

Kyle Milligan is a successful copywriter with a very unusual view of the world. Lucky for us, it’s a way of seeing things that lets him create copy that makes a lot of money. And let’s see if what you hear from him today can do the same thing for you. Kyle is on the staff of Agora financial and won a coveted award for the performance of his copy: What looks like a giant gold record. This is for bringing in 51,000 new names to the company in 2018. If you think that’s easy because Agora is a giant company, take it from me. It isn’t easy. It takes skill, perseverance, and a certain special something I haven’t been able to identify yet. Now Kyle, he has identified something unique and very valuable that I’ve never heard about from anyone else: The four emotions of copywriting. He’s agreed to talk about them today on the Copywriters Podcast, and for that, I thank you in advance, Kyle. Here are the questions we discussed: We had a wide-ranging discussion of valuable nuggets for copywriters and business builders. Here are some of the questions we discussed: What is the language of copywriting? Where did it come from? Can you tell me a little bit about your big 4 emotions? How did you come up with those? What made you decide to start a YouTube channel? What is your end goal? So you've put all this into a book- can you talk about that? Kyle's Website Download.

Do you ever wonder why the superstars in copywriting, and in other fields, got there? A friend of mine, Dr. Ben Mack, told me about a book that has some unique insights on the subject. I’ve met a lot of outrageously successful people and I recognized them in every page of this book, even though their names weren’t in it. I can also say that I know many highly successful copywriters that don’t fit all the descriptions in this book, but I see enough similarities so I am convinced it’s the real deal. The book is called The Superman Syndrome: You are what you believe. By Dr. Gene N. Landrum. It’s not based on random magical thinking, but on documented facts and quotes from people who have, really, changed the world. It’s very imaginative and very practical, all at the same time. In case you’re a woman, don’t feel left out. You’re included. Half of the superstars the author writes about are women. He doesn’t call them Supermen; he calls them Wonder Women. I plucked five powerful ideas from the book so you can use them to notch your copywriting and your business up to the next level. A lot of these ideas are counter-intuitive, so get ready for a wild ride and some surprises. I think you’ll end up being more optimistic than you expected. Idea 1: Superstars are so dumb, they are smart Idea 2: Overachievers Use Insecurity for Empowerment Idea 3: Iconoclasts are Maniacs on a Mission to the Impossible Idea 4: Supermen are Weak enough to be Strong Idea 5: The Path to Empowerment is Paved with Myth and Paradox Amazon link for book: Superman Syndromehttps://www.amazon.com/dp/0595346979/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_Xa4sDbXBT42CA Download.

Justin Blackman of Pretty Fly Copy knows his way around marketing, branding, and copywriting. He’s worked with clients ranging from Red Bull and 5-Hour Energy to info-marketing guru Amy Porterfield and Rob Marsh of The Copywriter Club. In fact, all that Red Bull must be working. Last year he had more than 200 clients. However he summons the energy, this is a guy who gets things done! Justin’s talked about a much-needed but greatly overlooked topic: Writing in the client’s voice (or your own authentic voice). He’s an expert on that and we really enjoyed what he shared with us. Justin answered these questions: 1. What is “brand ventriloquism,” and how did you get into it? 2. Please share with us the example of a good brand voice you developed for a person or a business, and a tip or two for our listeners on how they can improve their own brand voice. 3. What does a bad brand voice sound like? How can we avoid making the mistakes that lead to a bad brand voice? 4. Why is brand voice so important? Do you think it will become even more important in the future? Justin’s website is PrettyFlyCopy dot com Download.

It’s September, and at least when I was a kid, this was back to school month. Now, if you could do it all over again, what would you want to learn that they never taught you in school? Me, I would have liked a way to know what other people believed to be true, so I could persuade them starting with what was true for them. And, I would have liked some skills for making good decisions. Learning these things in school would have been especially valuable for me as a copywriter and as an entrepreneur. What about you? Well, along comes Napoleon Hill with a new book, out just last year. Napoleon Hill, the author of the classic Think and Grow Rich, is no longer with us, of course. He died 49 years ago. But the Napoleon Hill Foundation released a new book of his, “Success Habits,” last year. And just in time for the new school year, we have just the perfect material for this podcast. So the question that was never answered in school for me, is: How do I better understand what other people believe… and how do I make better decisions for myself? The answer is: Accurate thinking. Now here’s the most important reason you, as a copywriter, want to develop your accurate thinking skills: You’ll know a lot more about how to take a prospect from where they are to where you want them to be. And that means, more sales. But there’s more. A lot more. Like this: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Looking ahead So today we’re going to talk about what accurate thinking is, and how to get better at it. I want you to realize that accurate thinking isn’t about always being right and winning every argument. It’s also not about stripping emotion from your life. Those would not be helpful to a copywriter or a business owner. Accurate thinking is about knowing the difference between fact and opinion, and being able to figure things out better in a way that serves you and your clients and customers. It’s about being able to write copy that’s compliant, which is rapidly becoming a necessity if you want to do business online. And it’s about being clear-headed rather than uncertain and confused. What is accurate thinking? In a nutshell, accurate thinking is about getting from point A to point B, first in your mind, in the most efficient and most powerful way. It involves a set of skills that we’ll go over today. It’s very real-world. I know a number of top copywriters — people responsible for hundreds of millions of sales with their copy and the copywriters they honcho — who I would absolutely call accurate thinkers. Now, nobody would ever mistake any of these copywriters for Mr. Spock on Star Trek. That’s not what accurate thinking is all about. But I’ve had spirited discussions in person with each of them. And I’ve seen them solve problems in a systematic, intelligent way. I admire each of them quite a lot. And if we were to look at their own track records, you can’t argue with success. I am certain that their ability to think accurately has a lot to do with their success. Why this is important, and how you can use what you hear today Now, in typical Napoleon Hill style, the writing in this book is not dry, academic, or abstract. If you ever took a class in logic or critical thinking, you might recognize some of the things we’re going to talk about. But this is a world apart from the programmed boredom of high school and college. Remember: The way we think pretty much determines the actions we take, and therefore, the course of our lives. So you can “think positive” all you want. But if you’re not thinking accurately as well, you’re going to propel yourself down the wrong road and positively end up at a different destination than the one you had hoped for. Look at accurate thinking like cooking or playing golf. You can’t master the whole activity from what you hear in one podcast. After all, the book is called “Success Habits,” and habits take a while to develop. You create habits through repetition and intention. Accurate thinking is a habit worth developing, because it will help you with your goal-setting, your decisions, your communications, and, for this podcast, most important, the quality and effectiveness of your copy. What Napoleon Hill said about Accurate Thinking According to Napoleon Hill, there are three parts to accurate thinking: 1) Inductive reasoning - starting out with an idea that may not even exist in reality, and developing it to a conclusion 2) Deductive thinking - starting out with a fact you know to be true, or believe to be true, and developing it to a conclusion 3) Logic - looking at a current situation or problem, and comparing it to something similar you’ve experienced in the past. Of all of these, the third one is probably the most valuable. You can use it in a number of ways. First, to see if something makes sense. If someone tells you they have a new car engine that uses gasoline and gets 250 miles to the gallon, logic alone will tell you that’s not very likely. You would be skeptical. Anyone would, who knows anything about cars. Why? Because your previous experience tells you that cars that run on gas, or petrol, get up to 30 miles per gallon, and some hybrid cars get upwards of 130 miles per gallon. So a car that would get nearly twice that on gas alone doesn’t seem logical, on the face of it. You would need to use your deductive reasoning to ask questions and determine if what the person was saying, makes sense. How this plays out as a copywriter and business owner As a copywriter, you need to reverse-engineer the process. When you have a claim you’re making in your copy, you want to put yourself in your prospect’s shoes, looking at their thinking as the same way yours would be with the mileage on the engine. As you get better at accurate thinking, you can predict what kind of analogies you can use that will track with your customers’ own experience, and what kind of thought process they would need to go through to believe you and want to buy your product. What Napoleon Hill Said About How to Think Accurately He said there are two steps you need to take to be an accurate thinker: First, learn how to separate fact from fiction Second, take the facts and divide them: Into important facts, and unimportant facts So, what’s an important fact? Napoleon Hill says it’s any fact you can use to achieve your goal… or… any fact you can use to fulfill a desire that leads to your goal. This is so good. You see people make a mistake with this all the time when they’re looking at statistics. There are maybe 50 or 100 numbers you can look at with the performance of an online campaign, but maybe only 5 or 6 that are going to make a difference. For example, open rates usually don’t matter. If you have a huge open rate and a non-existent clickthrough rate, then what difference does the open rate make? But if you have a low open rate and a high enough clickthrough rate to make the campaign very, very profitable… again, what difference does the open rate make? It’s an unimportant fact. Knowing the difference between important facts and unimportant facts will save you a lot of time and frustration, and help you get more of what you want, more often. How to test facts Suppose someone says something to you. How can you evaluate how accurate what that person said, is? Here are three of Napoleon Hill’s best questions on the subject: 1. Is that person a recognized authority on the subject? 2. Does the person have a profit-motive that could cause them to give you inaccurate information for their benefit? 3. What is the person’s reputation for being honest? Here’s Why You Want to Get Better at Accurate Thinking As Napoleon Hill said, “The only thing you have complete control over is the power of thought. “Don’t give that up to anyone else.” And the only way to have maximum control over your thoughts is to get better and better at accurate thinking. You can find out more in the book “Success Habits” by Napoleon Hill. Get the Book Here Download.

Our guest today, Brian Basilico, is the very reason this episode is called “Content Marketing That Brings Home The Bacon.” That’s not only because he’s an expert on content marketing and he has helped a lot of people make a lot of money.. It’s also because he’s the host of “The Bacon Podcast.” In fact, bacon seems to pretty much have taken over his life. His business life, anyway. Brian has a best-selling book called “It’s Not About You, It’s About Bacon.” His Bacon Podcast was voted by Inc. Magazine as one of the top 35 business podcasts.. He’s been around a long time, and he’s a pioneer. For example, when LinkedIn started up 15 years ago, he was one of the first 1000 people to join.. Brian, thanks for coming on, and welcome! 1. So Brian, give us the Express Tour of how you got to where you are today, and especially how you discovered what you are going to tell us about content marketing.. 2. Let’s start with some basic definitions. What is content marketing… how do most people use it… and what are some misconceptions about how to use it to make money? 3. What are some of your favorite techniques to use content marketing to make money. Please give us some examples either from your own business, or from clients you’ve helped. (Or both!). 4. Do you think the ability to create profitable content marketing will become more important over time? Why?. 5. Please give us some additional tips on what to do, what not to do, and where to find great examples of profitable content marketing.. 6. So I’m going to guess that if people want to contact you, they should not go to the bacon section of Whole Foods. If that’s right, what can people get from you and what’s your contact info?.Download.

This show is especially for service business owners and copywriters who write for service business owners. I have reason to believe that this includes 68% of our audience. If that’s not you, stick around, because I think you’ll find a few tips that you can use for other types of copywriting and marketing. It all started a few weeks ago when I did critiques on lead-generation sales letters for two business owners. They were on opposite sides of the country and in very different businesses. But in both cases, they had remarkably similar problems with their copy. What’s more, I ended up using the same method, more or less, to help them turn what they sent me into powerful, response-getting sales letters. Then I was reading an interview with the great songwriter Suzanne Vega. She’s best known for the hit song “Luka” many years ago. She said something about the puzzle pieces falling into place. Then I went back to the interview and I couldn’t find it, but she did say a lot of things close to that. Anyway, that’s how it is with copy. At a certain point you’ve done enough work so the pieces fall into place. Today I want to share what the five most important pieces are for service business owners, and how they fit together. In a way, there’s a sixth piece of the puzzle, too. It’s this: OK. So here’s what we’re going to do. Of course I can’t reveal any details about either of the clients, but I don’t need to for this show. What we’ll do is, I’ll share what each piece is and give you some questions you can ask to make sure you’ve got this piece as good as possible. The first piece is the hook/headline/opening. This is where most people get it very, very wrong. A couple of reasons: First, it’s not catchy. Second, and this one’s easier to spot but sometimes harder to fix: It asks the prospect to meet the business owner where they are, mentally, rather than reaching and stretching to meet the prospect where they are. I’ll give you a simple example. Let’s say you do Facebook campaigns. A typical marketer might start out with, “Are you getting the best roi possible with your Facebook ads?” Reasonable enough question, but that’s the problem: It’s too reasonable. The prospect is thinking, “Help! My Facebook ads aren’t working. How am I going to get new business?” So a good hook would be built around what is emotionally troubling the prospect, that you can solve. Not around the end result of your solution, which would be better roi for Facebook ads. Here are some questions you can use on this puzzle piece yourself: Whose point of view does the opening of my copy speak to? If you overheard the words in a conversation, would you want to eavesdrop on the rest of the conversation? How well do your hook and opening open up the prospect’s awareness of an emotionally troubling problem they already know about, that you can help them solve? The second puzzle piece is: staying on the problem and expanding it… in an empathetic, understanding way… while you point out the increasingly negative real-life implications to the prospect of the problem. In simpler terms, this is called skillful agitation of the problem. Like with our facebook ads marketer, you put together a sequence of events that leads to spending more and more money and getting less and less business from it. A couple of problems I see when I critique copy: First, the “nice guy” syndrome. People don’t want their prospects to get upset, so they don’t do this at all. Second, the “lunge and plunge” syndrome. People who go for the throat all at once, rather than building up to it at a more digestible pace. So the prospect can digest this. Some questions to help you hone this puzzle piece: Are your statements and questions about emotions rather than facts? Is it easy for the prospect to understand that you care about their situation? Can the prospect readily relate to what you’re talking about? The third puzzle piece is a lot easier. Yet many, many business people leave it out or are very shy about including it. This puzzle piece is identifying yourself and your relevant credentials. “Relevant” means something your prospect would care about and see as making you qualified to do what you do, or maybe even seeing you as the best choice. So, having a certification from your local community college for online advertising might not be a good credential for the facebook ads expert to include. Having added profits to 11 businesses would be a very good credential. Because that’s what the prospect your facebook ads expert wants, is looking for. Some questions to help you get this puzzle piece right: Are you telling your prospects what they need to know to feel assured that you can do the job? Is it easy to understand how the credentials you give make you qualified? Are you leaving out things that will impress people without convincing them that you’re a good choice? The fourth puzzle piece is credibility and believability all the way through. This is simple but not always easy. You need to write the way you would talk, if you were actually meeting a prospect and you were relaxed and confident. I find sometimes people get too far down into technical details, or too hypey to seem genuine and authentic. I have often said that copy is the spoken language in written form. That’s worth remembering. So the facebook person might not want to say, “If you are using the facebook pixel to retarget customers who are more than one standard deviation away from your target market, that could cause unacceptable shrinkage.” Even if someone knows what it means, it makes people feel uncomfortable. You’d be better off saying something like this in your sales letter: “You want your ads to reach as many targeted prospects as possible, and avoid getting clicks from people who would never buy from you in the first place.” See the difference? Here are some questions for puzzle piece number 4: How easy is it for people to read what you’ve written and feel you know what you’re talking about? Are you keeping everything as simple as possible? Are you sounding like someone your prospect would like to have a conversation with? The fifth puzzle piece is your offer. Many people have the wrong idea that simply asking a prospect to call them is going to get them business. That’s rarely the case. What you need to do instead is offer some kind of risk-free piece of information, like a report, or a quick phone conversation, that offers specific, valuable benefits. So that if your prospect never ends up doing business with you, it wasn’t a waste of their time. People are often scared to do this. They think they’ll be giving away the store. But if you are a service business owner and you don’t have enough information and skills to give something valuable away to start the relationship, then you may not have a store for very long anyway. You could go out of business in a hurry. So, for the facebook guy, don’t say, “Need to improve your Facebook advertising? Call me at 1-800-I’m-an-idiot” Instead, say, “If you’d like to improve your Facebook advertising, I can probably help you. Let’s set up a 10-minute phone call and I’ll tell you 3 things you can do that 99% of facebook advertisers never think of, that can start to get you more business right away. And if you like what you hear, we can talk about working together.” That’ll work a lot better. So here are three questions to get the fifth puzzle piece in good shape: Are you making an enticing offer to get a qualified prospect to call you? Is the offer truly risk-free and beneficial to the prospect? Will the prospect get information or some other value from the offer that will make them more likely to work with you? Before we sum up, I realize this will be a lot easier for some people to implement than it will for others. That’s why I’m leaving all of the questions on the show notes page. And, if you would like a critique, I’m leaving the link to the critiques page on my coaching site on show notes page on copywriters podcast.com The link is to the page on my coaching site: http://www.garfinkelcoaching.com/copy-critiques/ Now, here are the five puzzle pieces again: 1. Hook/headline opening 2. Staying on the problem and expanding it in an empathetic, understanding way 3. Identifying yourself and your relevant credentials 4. Credibility and believability all the way through 5. An offer that provides risk-free benefit to your qualified prospect.Download.

Linda Perry is a copywriter in a couple niches, but she’s on with us today to share something most copywriters could not talk about the way she can. Linda is a mindset coach, and she came about her knowledge and wisdom in the trenches. You see, Linda learned about mindset where it really counts: In federal prisons, and in the courtroom. Linda was a criminal defense attorney for 17 years and she saw first hand the difference that mindset makes in people’s lives. She also learned a lot that she was able to apply to copywriting, and I’m hoping we’ll be able to get her to talk about that today, too. Linda works with copywriters and entrepreneurs on their mindset and messaging, because while most people bellyache about money, underneath earning power and success are first, mindset, and secondly, how you present yourself in words to the world. So says she, and I agree. So Linda -- welcome, and thanks for joining us. Let’s dive right into mindset. I have heard that at Kira Hug’s and Rob Marsh’s events, they call you the “Mindset Girl.” Affectionately! Could you give us a brief rundown on what mindset is, and how it affects copywriters? You have a story about Justin Blackman you said we be OK to share. Would you tell us about it? Now, as for messaging, or branding — you’ve said that most copywriters don’t need to hire you to do it for them, but it’s important for copywriters to have a unique brand message. Talk to us about that, if you would. Again, what about Justin Blackman? As our case study poster child for the podcast. And finally, money. Besides what we’ve already covered, what can you tell us about the relationship between money and mindset? Also, I wanted to ask you what you learned in your 17 years as a criminal defense lawyer that we can use in copywriting? You have a course coming up called “Master Your Mindset.” Tell us about it. We’ll put a link in the show notes: Linda's WebsiteDownload.

In Hollywood they have a joke about screenwriters: “He’s so creative, he doesn’t know how to put on a white shirt and tie.” It’s a lame joke, but it’s supposed to be a compliment. The screenwriter isn’t a boring suit. He’s more creative than that. There was one guy who was head and shoulders above everyone else in creativity. He invented brainstorming. His name was Alex Osborn. He wrote bestselling books on creativity. Most people know about his book “Your Creative Power” but his last book, “Applied Imagination, Principles and Procedures of Creative Problem Solving,” is much harder to find. Even though it was a best seller when it came out in 1953. Many people think this was his best book. And most people today could use some tips from the master on creativity, since that will get you better conversions faster than anything else. So we’re going to dip into his most important work today. In today’s show, we look at six things: 1. Why a more detailed look into creativity? It’s misunderstood. Some copywriters think it’s wasted time, and some people have the wrong idea of how to do it. But when it’s done right, it’s the most powerful way you can improve the response rate on your copy. Because it can improve so many aspects and dimensions of your copy. 2. The all-importance of imagination - Imagination (according to Osborne) is the only kind of thinking that you can’t depend on computers for And Osborne quotes a famous novelist, who 100 years in advance predicted an event that shook the world: “Whatever one man is capable of conceiving, other men will be able to achieve.” 3. The Creative Problem-Solving Process In copywriting, creativity is all about solving copy problems. The problem is almost always, how do you present information to your reader in a way that they are motivated to take the action they want. There are three steps to creativity, according to Osborn. Most business owners and copywriters skip over the first one or two of them. We cover all three. 4. Preparation and Analysis - go hand in hand Authors Michael Hyatt and Dan Pink team up with Alex Osborn to makes some very important points. If you get what this part is about and make it your own, you’ll cut years off your learning curve. 5. The basis of idea-finding One thing most people do when they’re brainstorming almost guarantees they’ll fall short of what they could come up with. We talk about it here. 6. Principles and Procedures of Idea-Finding We reveal the two — and only two — powerful techniques Osborne identified and refined for successful brainstorming. 7. Wrap-up Finally, a common-sense secret for how to get better and better at brainstorming and coming up with killer profitable ideas.Download.

Imagine a day in the future when you can’t use lead magnets or other opt-in marketing methods to get new customers. Imagine that you can’t use outbound telemarketing anymore either. Now imagine that this has nothing to do with government regulation or anything like that… but one of the warmest, friendliest companies on the planet … or so you thought… has made your job impossible. Well, that day is coming – and it might be as soon as September 17th. That company is Apple. And Meron Baraket, the Sherlock Holmes of marketing, has done some detective work to discover all this… and he’s got PROOF! We start with how Meron discovered this… including a little-known patent that spells really bad news for online marketers. Things could start to get bad Sept. 1 of this year… and will only get worse from there. The key phrase is “disposable email addresses.” Apple’s patent and plans for its next version of the operating system for iPhones really changes the game. Meron explains why. There’s also a real threat against businesses that use telemarketing coming soon. Meron gives details on this episode about that, too. He’s also going to do a one-time free online mastermind to get into solutions, with some guest experts. To sign up, go to: TheDayAfterEmail dot com Download.

We start with some very powerful copy from the great Bill Bonner, which is written in a way most copy is not written. For the purposes of today’s show, we’ll call this “writing copy in scenes.” Writing this way makes the copy come across as very immediate and real… and sets up the reader in a very good way for what comes next. In today’s show, we talk about: - What writing in scenes means, and why it’s so much more powerful than simply writing with either facts, benefits, or the type of stories most copy contains - The big difference between writing in “narrative” style, and writing in scenes - A couple of examples from outside copywriting that make “scenes” crystal-clear - How writing in scenes works, and why it works - A simple way to get started writing your copy in scenes - Some additional tips from another renowned writing teacher - The four parts of your copy where writing in scenes will make the biggest difference in influence, and conversions! Download.

How do you make Facebook actually work? That’s becoming an increasingly urgent question for copywriters and marketers across all niches. We have one answer for you today, with our special guest, Sam Carlson. He’s an online traffic and conversion guy, with a specialization in local business marketing. His agency is called 25th West. Sam and his team use digital marketing strategies to grow private medical practices. Facebook likes what they did so much that they featured 25th West on their Facebook Business™ page as a case study. We’re going to talk about that today, and a whole lot more. Sam is also Co-Host of The Next Level Facebook Ads Podcast, and I highly recommend it. We asked Sam these questions: 1. Writing ads and creating campaigns on Facebook, seems to me, like being forced to write while wearing handcuffs, and with a special pen that runs out of ink when you try to write certain words. That is, there are restrictions, that for most ad writers — especially direct-response copywriters — run counter to the way we are used to writing ads. Yet you have found a way to make it work. So much so that you won an award for your campaign from Facebook! We’ll get to the campaign in a minute. But first, please talk to us about the right mindset for winning on Facebook — I don’t mean awards necessarily, I just mean having a winning campaign and getting profitable business. And could you also talk about techniques you use and techniques you avoid using? 2. OK, let’s go over the numbers on your campaign. 3. So, how did go about getting these results? 4. What did you learn from this campaign, and how can Copywriters Podcast viewers and listeners put some of your learnings to work for themselves… especially on Facebook? 5. I know you have a podcast yourself… you and Phil interviewed me on it! Could you tell our listeners about that, and anything else you have to offer in the way of products, coaching, training, or other info stuff? Sam's Case StudyDownload.

From Kenny Werner’s book: Effortless Mastery It’s for jazz musicians, but one thing he wrote applies very much to brainstorming ideas for copy and marketing campaigns: In a chapter called “Fear-Based Composing,” he writes, “The most anxious moment for a composer is starting at a blank piece of paper.” Before I go on, I’d say, that’s true for copywriters too, isn’t it? He continues, “It is much easier to edit material than it is to create from nothing. Putting notes on paper without attachment is a great start.” I’ll comment here that “without attachment” means, without caring if it’s good or not. Let me continue now, “Once you have created ‘some stuff,’ you can begin to edit. Through the process of variation, you can create more music or improve upon what you’ve got. However, any sense of attachment to the work prevents you from seeing the possibilities. “For example, whatever notes you write can be developed by varying the order, the octave, the transposition, and so on. If you do this without any emotional attachment, without the need to create anything worthwhile (the same old trap), you are likely to come up with more attractive sets of notes. Putting some of them together, you can create longer ideas from the embryo of your original random choices.” OK. Now, I’m going to add a couple of things for copywriting and marketing. My experience and belief is that this works best when you already have a goal in mind: What you want your marketing to do. And when you know who your customer is, and you know a good bit about what you’re selling. But that said, you can do a lot of really powerful stuff following the idea that I just read to you. I imagine if you’ve never tried anything like this, you might find the whole notion scary, or think that it’s complete bullshit. But it’s not. It’s proven. And you can find a way to make it work for you. We’ll talk about it today. First, the big argument - structure and formula versus brainstorming and risking Second, the importance of minimizing risk Third, Innovating to solve problems, rather than to express yourself Fourth, how to get thereDownload.

This is especially for business owners. About half of my mentoring clients are business owners. Now when I meet business owners who don’t already have some copywriting skills and experiences, they end up falling into one of three camps: 1. Those who know they want to learn copy 2. Those who are thinking about learning copy but aren’t sure that it’s a good idea, and 3. Those who have felt some pressure to learn copy but really don’t want to. I don’t think one-size-fits-all when it comes to business owners learning to write copy. So I want to look at both sides of the question today, and even offer some tips that all business owners can use to make more money for their business. We cover: The 3 Reasons Certain Kinds of Business Owners Definitely SHOULD learn to write copy, and why this will help you with your business. Even in ways you’ve never thought of before. The 3 Reasons Other Kinds of Business Owners Probably SHOULD NOT learn to write copy, and how it could screw things up for you if do. If You’re A Business Owner Who Wants To Learn Copywriting, Some Things You Should Do (Including One Thing Copywriters Probably Wouldn’t Do) Some Tips For All Business Owners On How To Use Copy To Make More Money In Your BusinessDownload.

A client of mine made an interesting discovery. When he wrote short emails, he got mediocre click-through. When he wrote longer emails, he got a higher click-through. But when he condensed the longer emails down to the length of the original short emails, he got the highest click-through rate of all. Why is that? We discussed this and the answer we came up with is what this podcast is about. In short, intensity. It raises response rates consistently for my client in split tests to a high six-figures list. And I think everyone who deals with copy needs to know about this. What we cover in today’s podcast: 1. What intensity in copy is; why it’s important; and when it’s especially necessary to have intensity in your copy 2. The discovery, and the easiest way to infuse your copy with intensity 3. Another thing to do to maximize the intensity of your copy 4. Urgency, and not just in your close 5. The ultimate driver for Download.

OK. Everything you’ve heard about not using humor in copy, be prepared to reconsider all of it. Because of our guest today, Jon Buchan. A few years ago, Jon freely admits, “I was desperate for sales after my word of mouth work dried up.” He continues: “I got hellishly drunk one night and wrote a completely absurd cold email. “I was still tipsy the next morning and decided it was still a good idea to send it to pretty senior Marketing Directors at big brands. “To my astonishment, it worked. I got the most amazing complimentary responses and requests for calls/meetings. Here is the favorite response Jon received: "My colleague forwarded me your spam email and we would like to meet you to discuss opportunities." From his crazy drunk email, Jon has met with senior decision makers at RedBull, Pepsi, Symantec, Hewlett-Packard, HSBC, Barclays and countless other global brands, exciting start-ups and regular ol’ small and medium businesses. Since then, he’s used the same style to get senior editors at large publications to respond to me and publish his clients' content. He says he’s also used it to help people get as many job interviews as they want - and to meet people he really looks up to. Today he’s going to share his story on the copywriters podcast. First, and I really don’t think there’s anything funny about this at all: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. So Jon, welcome and thanks for joining us. 1. First, could you tell us a little about your business, and the full story about the drunken email. 2. What has happened as a result? You’ve gotten into the funny-copy-training business, right? 3. The old-school rule is no humor in marketing IF you want to get sales results. You seem to be turning this on your head. Let’s talk about that. 4. Could you give us some tips for what to do and what not to do for our listeners if they want to try your approach? 5. You have a Facebook group and a product. Want to tell our listeners about these things, and how they can take advantage of these opportunities? Charm Offensive WebsiteDownload.

Our guest today, Ken McCarthy, has been at the forefront of Internet marketing and copywriting from the start. To give you just one in example, way back in 1994, he sponsored a conference about making the Internet a place where you could do business. Before then, it was a business-free zone. His featured speaker was a pioneer of the time, Mark Andreessen, who went on to co-found one of Silicon Valley’s most important Venture Capital firms. OK. Let’s fast-forward 20 years to 2014. Five years ago. Tony Haile, CEO of Chartbeat, one of the world’s top data analytics firms, wrote this in Time magazine: In 1994, a former direct mail marketer called Ken McCarthy came up with the clickthrough as the measure of ad performance on the web. From that moment on, the click became the defining action of advertising on the web. See, it’s one thing to come up with an idea. It’s another thing entirely to be recognized as the guy who came up with it, by a leading industry authority in Time magazine. As a copywriter or business owner, why is this important to you? Here’s why. Ken’s also a copywriter. A marketer. He’s made a lot of money that way. And recently he pointed out that there are some key things no one’s been teaching that he’s decided he’s willing to share. With you. On this podcast. Things that, if you put them to use conscientiously, could make you a lot of money. Ken, thanks for being here. There’s one other thing I want to tell our listeners about themselves before we dive in: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Topics Ken covered on these calls: • Though Ken never wrote for clients — only for his own business — he claims to have made more money “in a short time than many copywriters make in a long career.” • Some basics of copy that most people who teach, or talk about copy, gloss over or miss entirely. Ken dug in and shared nitty-gritty stuff that brings in the bucks. • Ken’s discovery of a hidden treasure trove of John Caples ads (that most people have never seen, to this day)… and what he learned from that. • And many other gems — the kind of stuff that has earned Ken high respect, both in the “big-box corporate world” of advertising, as well as among the hardest of the hard-core direct marketers Ken's Website KenMcCarthyDotComDownload.

Our guest today, Ken McCarthy, has been at the forefront of Internet marketing and copywriting from the start. To give you just one in example, way back in 1994, he sponsored a conference about making the Internet a place where you could do business. Before then, it was a business-free zone. His featured speaker was a pioneer of the time, Mark Andreessen, who went on to co-found one of Silicon Valley’s most important Venture Capital firms. OK. Let’s fast-forward 20 years to 2014. Five years ago. Tony Haile, CEO of Chartbeat, one of the world’s top data analytics firms, wrote this in Time magazine: In 1994, a former direct mail marketer called Ken McCarthy came up with the clickthrough as the measure of ad performance on the web. From that moment on, the click became the defining action of advertising on the web. See, it’s one thing to come up with an idea. It’s another thing entirely to be recognized as the guy who came up with it, by a leading industry authority in Time magazine. As a copywriter or business owner, why is this important to you? Here’s why. Ken’s also a copywriter. A marketer. He’s made a lot of money that way. And recently he pointed out that there are some key things no one’s been teaching that he’s decided he’s willing to share. With you. On this podcast. Things that, if you put them to use conscientiously, could make you a lot of money. Ken, thanks for being here. There’s one other thing I want to tell our listeners about themselves before we dive in: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Topics Ken covered on these calls: • Though Ken never wrote for clients — only for his own business — he claims to have made more money “in a short time than many copywriters make in a long career.” • Some basics of copy that most people who teach, or talk about copy, gloss over or miss entirely. Ken dug in and shared nitty-gritty stuff that brings in the bucks. • Ken’s discovery of a hidden treasure trove of John Caples ads (that most people have never seen, to this day)… and what he learned from that. • And many other gems — the kind of stuff that has earned Ken high respect, both in the “big-box corporate world” of advertising, as well as among the hardest of the hard-core direct marketers. Ken's WebsiteDownload.

The TV series “Perry Mason” was an important part of my youth. It also turns out the writer who originally created the characters for the show was, for a time, the world’s best-selling author. With more than 300 million book sales to his name, Earl Stanley Gardner was a real-world expert on how to communicate with large numbers of people in an emotionally compelling way. In today’s show, we extract some secrets from a book that details the years of work, and important discoveries, Gardner made in his never-ending quest to learn how to write the perfect story. The book is called “Secrets of the World's Best-Selling Writer: The Storytelling Techniques of Erle Stanley Gardner.” Its authors are Francis L. and Roberta B. Fugate. You can get it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OQ6XDHQ/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_P9sRCbXJEMSQR Here’s what we cover in the podcast: 1. Gardner’s carefully refined five-point checklist for the perfect plot While this checklist is for fiction, there’s a lot in there that will also help copywriters improve their engagement and conversions. 2. Themes and motivations that magnetize readers to your words. Here’s a list of what we discuss. These are directly from Gardner, via the Fugates’ book: Themes: 1. Tis sport to see the engineer hoist by his own petard (the villain who overreaches himself) 2. Man in position of power abusing that power and tripped up 3. The old man who is still young 4. Man who champions the underdog 5. Why don’t you speak for yourself, John? 6. The ugly duckling who becomes beautiful 7. Man who renounces reward and is doomed to independent loneliness 8. Downtrodden person suddenly asserting himself 9. The race is not always to the swift 10. Virtue is its own reward 11. There’s many a slip twixt cup and lip 12. Haste makes waste 13. He who hesitates is lost 14. Faint heart never won fair lady Motivations: 1. Wealth 2. Happy sex companionship 3. Justice 4. Food 5. Happiness of environment 6. Opportunity to get ahead 7. Self-improvement 8. Wisdom . . . knowing more than another man 9. Influence 10. Put the overbearing boss in his place 11. Physical perfection or improvement 12. Domination of environment—mastery of others 13. Triumph of the underdog One other gem I plucked from this incredible book: “Don’t give your reader a headache.” Gardner’s early tries were too thought-provoking for the markets he was writing for, and he got some serious literary smack-downs in rejection letters from his editors (one of whom later went on to work for The New Yorker). Good lesson for copywriters in this. Shout-out to the great Scottish copywriter Colin Joss for giving me a heads-up about the book we quote from in this show.Download.

Our guest today is notorious and endlessly fascinating: Ben Settle. He’s an email specialist, author, anti-professional, and novelist. People go nuts over Ben. Including me. I once wrote to him, “You’re the f’in’ hottest email copywriter on the Web now.” But I wasn’t alone. Our recent guest Richard Armstrong says, “I start my day with reading from the Holy Bible and Ben Settle’s email, not necessarily in that order.” And the normally sober Gary Bencivenga admits. “Good copy intoxicates me. Yours is high proof. I’m enjoying it.” Well, that pretty much gives you the picture of what other copywriters think about Ben. He’s like… amazing! But Ben brings another skill to the party. While it is morbid, I have a morbid fascination with it and Ben has agreed to tell us about it today. He writes horror fiction. Let me read you this from the promo copy for Zombie Cop: The Enoch Wars, Book One. "The blood was still warm and there was meat and what looked like veins between his teeth - hanging out like dental floss." Nobody knew where the still-living decapitated head came from. But when the head bit Police Chief Rawger, he becomes a zombie with an insatiable appetite for human flesh, revenge, and power. But, unlike Hollywood-depicted zombies, he can think, speak, and strategize. He's also deranged, sexually perverted, and takes absolute pleasure in his evil acts. I think you get the idea. What does this have to do with copy? Nathan and I are hoping and praying that we’ll find out. And before we jump into the world of horror fiction, let’s take a moment to remember some comforting words that help little children fall safely asleep at night: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Wow. Now let’s get out the cloves of garlic for our personal protection and welcome Ben Settle. Ben, thank you for joining us today. 1. A lot of successful copywriters are interested in writing fiction, but most of us, including me, kind of balk when it comes to actually sitting down and writing a book. Not you. At least, not after a certain point. Tell us how this all came about? 2. So, when you have an idea for a book, what are the steps you go through to get it written? 3. We talk a lot on this podcast about taking techniques from writing fiction to write copy. But we’ve never had someone who writes material as intense as you — and I’m talking about your fiction, although I could be talking about your emails — on here before. Could you share what’s similar, and what’s different? 4. So, your emails are just bolder and more provocative than almost any other I’ve seen. OK, I’ll level with you. More than any other I’ve seen. Have you rewritten the rules for yourself, or, did you just decide a long time ago that there are no rules? 5. Could you give us a few Ben Settle tips for writing emails that get noticed and get response? 6. What do you think gets in the way of most people doing what you teach? 7. What’s next for you — in your copy/marketing business, and in fiction? Ben Settle's WebsiteDownload.

Our returning champion is copywriter Doug Pew. He was kind enough to be a guest a couple of months ago, when he talked about The Music of Copywriting. Doug is currently working on a couple of books about copywriting, but that’s not why he’s here today. The reason Doug agreed to come on and speak is The Copywriters Podcast itself. That is, Doug found himself in a bind a few weeks ago. The kind of bind every copywriter both dreams of and dreads. An onslaught of work no normal human could possibly handle. Including insane deadlines. And regular life carrying on apace. Did Doug survive it? We’ll leave you in suspense to let Doug tell you the story. But what’s most interesting is not the sheer number of words, emails, pages of sales letter, etc. that Doug produced in a stunningly short period of time. What’s most interesting is how he did it. And how we were able to help. In the same way, I hope we can help you in the future. We get into all the details in this episode, which is useful and entertaining in an unusual way! RockStar Copywriting Download.

With Brandon Frederickson Brandon is a stock market guru, turned marketer - turned copywriter. He’s managed product launches for the likes of Jeff Walker and he’s currently a copywriter for Stansberry Research, the 2nd largest division of Agora. Brandon specializes in product launches and maximizing long term value and retention. He does this by understanding how to build long term relationships with clients through marketing and copy, and by working deep inside of funnels to maximize net revenue. Brandon’s entrance into the world of direct marketing is at once impressive and hilarious. And, maybe, instructive and inspirational to anyone just getting started. Also, there are nuggets for every marketer who’s willing to listen deeply and think about his great origin story. There’s a big difference between money and fame. Or, between cash and glory. Sometimes rich people also get a lot of fame and glory, but more often than you’d think, people who act rich don’t even have next month’s rent in the bank. Brandon’s been doing well for a long time, and he’s well known but only among a select group of people who have knowledge of his extraordinary talents. It’s also worth pointing out that there’s not nearly as much glory in sweeping vast sums of the money off the table the way he does as there is in writing a sales letter that becomes a control. Nevertheless, Brandon is quickly becoming very well known in his own right not only as a copywriter, but also because of his knack for maximizing the value of each customer with the special magic he performs. Now, there is nothing wrong with making a lot of money for a client (or for your own business) by writing a profitable and long-lasting sales letter. But there is something not right with developing customer relationships and then letting them die, twisting slowly, slowly in the wind. On today’s show, Brandon will tell you how you can create multiple customer-relationship-sustaining funnels and stop leaving vast sums of money on the table!Download.

Three books I’ve been picking through for other projects, from entertainment fields, reminded me of the way we’re writing copy today: Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy, by Robert Jourdain The Writer’s Journey, 2nd Edition, by Christopher Vogler Shortcuts to Hit Songwriting, by Robin Frederick The rules used to be that copy was NOT to be entertaining. And that seems to have changed. But here’s one thing that has never changed, and never will: How it was in the past How it is now Three things that brought us to where we are today technology changes: ipad, netflix, amazon prime changes in news and politics social media: ad rules, plus the rise of content marketing How things are different now What to do differently be more aware of everyday life -- what’s going on around you, how you feel, how others probably feel use graphics to tell your story learn about engagement techniques from film, fiction, music What not to do, even today don’t turn your marketing into a comedy show or a mini-dramatic movie don’t take your eye off the ball. Remember, the primary job of your copy is to sell, or to inspire another specific action besides buying don’t sacrifice believability for entertainment valueDownload.

Richard Armstrong is a top A-List copywriter and I’m proud to say he’s my friend. He’s written for all the big mailers: Agora, Boardroom, Rodale, Kiplinger’s, Reader’s Digest, and many others. The late and extremely picky William F. Buckley, Jr. once allowed that Richard’s writing is “terrific.” The legendary Gary Bencivenga called Richard “one of the best copywriters on the planet.” And the great Dan Kennedy simply said of Richard, “I envy his talent.” Gotta agree with Dan on that one. I envy Richard’s talent, too. But envy has never prevented me from having a guest on this podcast. Today Richard’s going to talk about con artistry — and there’s a perfectly legitimate reason for that — as well as some storytelling stuff you’ve probably never heard before. 1. Richard, we’re going to talk a lot about copywriting today, but I want to start by plugging your excellent new book, The Don Con, and ask you just a little about your research for that. Specifically, what did you learn about who con artists are and what they do? 2. I know you’re going to be offering our listeners a free special report, and we’ll talk about it later. Besides your really cool book, I also got the chance to review your special report in advance, and I would like you share with us one of the most astonishing things I read in it: You said that a lot of the techniques, or maybe all the techniques, that con artists use are the same ones we copywriters use. So what are those techniques, and what’s the difference between a con artist and a copywriter? 3. In a former lifetime, I interviewed you for a webinar series and you said something that keeps echoing in my brain, for years. It was that the secret A-List copywriters know, that other copywriters don’t, is about research. Could you talk about the level of research a top copywriter does, and what’s involved? 4. Richard, as a fellow advertising guy, surely you must remember the old ad for Certs: It’s a breath mint and a candy mint. How they packed all that into one mint, I’m still puzzled about to this day. But in your own way, you’ve got a similarly rare distinction. You’re a copywriter and a novelist. Tell us, what do novelists know about storytelling that copywriters don’t know? 5. One of my favorite Richard Armstrong stories is your lift note for Kiplinger’s Personal Finance about your aunt Jane. It, of course, is great storytelling in itself. Here, let me read it out loud so our listeners will be familiar with it: Dear Friend, My aunt Jane is rich as sin. And nobody in my family can figure out why. She worked as a librarian her whole life. Her husband, who passed away a few years back, was a tool-and-die maker. They never earned much money in their lives. But boy, were they ever smart with what they had. There was a little vacation home that they picked up for a song and wound up selling for $250,000. Some well-chosen stocks that grew in value over the years. Mutual funds. Municipal bonds. Treasury bills. Even a vintage Volkswagen “Beetle” that’s worth more now than the day they bought it. Nowadays my Aunt Jane -- who we always thought was just a little crazy -- is a bonafide millionaire! One day I asked her for the secret of her success. “I have three rules,” she said. 1) Never let your money sit idle 2) Never pay more than you have to for anything 3) Never pass up anything that’s free Well, my friend, unless you return the enclosed card today, you’re going to break at least one -- and probably all three -- of my aunt’s rules. Because if you return the enclosed card, you’ll get a free issue of KIPLINGER’S PERSONAL FINANCE (Rule #3). If you decide to subscribe, you’ll get the next 11 issues at a very low price, plus three free bonus gifts (Rule #2). And instead of spending the rest of your life working for money, you’ll put your money to work for you. (Rule #1) I know my Aunt Jane wouldn’t pass up a free sample issue of KIPLINGER’S PERSONAL FINANCE magazine. But of course... She already subscribes. Best regards, Richard Armstrong Could you tell us about this piece of copy? I particularly love hearing you recount how you wrote it -- or how you gave up entirely, and it wrote itself. 6. When you’ve written controls or blockbuster promotions, beside inhuman amounts of research, what are some of the other techniques you use that might be helpful to our listeners, who are copywriters and business owners interested in copy? 7. Finally, your special report: “How to Talk Anyone Into Anything.” Besides the smidgen of your research findings that we talked about in the beginning… tell us about the other research you did writing your new book The Don Con, that led up to this report. And, tell us how our readers can get a free copy of this magnificent free special report! Check Out Richard's New Book Download.

A row of dominoes can shed some light on the secrets of the close in copywriting. So can • Picking an apple • Checking out at the grocery store • Asking someone to marry you What do all these things have in common? We explore this in today’s show. What’s important to remember is nothing happens all by itself, and that’s excruciatingly true when it comes to closing the sale. Study all the power closes and tricky closing techniques you want. They won’t do you a bit of good until you understand where they fit into the Greater Scheme of Things. We outline what makes up that Scheme in today’s show. It all has to do with creating the right energy… doing the right kind of preparation… and putting in a vitally important component right before the close. Actually, we’ll do a lot more than outline this stuff. We’ll dig deep into the nitty-gritty. And finally, after all this time, you’ll know what the secrets of the close really are!Download.

Our show today features superstar public speaker and Internet marketing trainer Tom Antion, who shares some expert info about the red-hot topic of public speaking for copywriters and business owners. Why is this important? Because “the copywriter’s journey,” as we’ll call it, goes something like this: - You start out learning to write copy. Big mystery - Suddenly, it becomes clear as something you write “hits” - Then, almost just as suddenly, the floodgates open. You have more clients than you have time to write for (on time) - Eventually, you learn to write faster - You start to make amazing money - Then, a funny thing happens. You notice that your clients — especially those selling info-products, seminars, and courses — are making even more money than you are. As in, a LOT more. Now, there’s nothing wrong with their making more money than you do. And, if you’ve played your cards right, you’re still getting paid pretty well as a copywriter. Even so, at this point in your “copywriter’s journey,” (and the same thing happens with business owners who don’t start out in the info-product business), a question occurs: “Why can’t _I_ do that kind of thing and make that kind of money?” Well, if that’s you -- you can. But you need some additional skills. And most of those skills revolve around something many people avoid at all costs: public speaking. But it doesn’t have to be that hard, or that scary. Our guest, Tom Antion, knows how to take in huge paydays speaking from the platform — and claims to have trained more public speakers than anyone else alive. I’ve known Tom for 30 years and my jaw has dropped repeatedly over time at Tom’s energy, industry, willingness to help, and ability to help other people get results. He’s a great speaker. A terrific trainer. And genuinely nice, and generous, guy. Tom very generously shared a lot of tips on the podcast. As someone who has used public speaking myself (not just podcasts, but platform speaking) to substantially grow my own businesses, I strongly recommend this value-packed, and frankly very entertaining as well, podcast interview. Screw The Commute PodcastDownload.

A little-known book called “The Act of Creation” by Arthur Koestler says that there are three states of mind all creative people use in the process of coming up with new ideas. Broadly stated, these three states are: 1. Humor 2. Scientific Thinking 3. Art While knowing about these is somewhat useful for the process of writing copy, being able to write copy that inspires these different states of mind in prospects while they are READING your copy is even more valuable. I’ve never seen anyone talk about them the way Koestler does, or even mention this book except one of the world’s greatest living creative geniuses, whose identity I reveal on the show. Then we go through each state, one-by-one, giving specific techniques and examples for each state. Variety is the spice of life, and variety in your copy is the key to more conversions. We pay particular attention to the high-wire act of using humor in copy. It’s generally not a good idea. But there are ways to adapt the principles of humor so rather than coming up with comedy, you come up with brain-jostling ideas and phrases that add extra go-power to your copy. After you have finished listening to today’s show, you’ll have a new toolkit of techniques to make your copy more interesting, and make it convert better.Download.

Driving around Orange County in Western New York. What a police officer told me that, years later, really helped my copywriting. How you lose readers… and sales crater Very few people talk about this, and when people do, they tend to give it the short shrift. But not us. We’re going to give it the long shrift in today’s episode. Why everyone struggles so much with this problem The best “greased chute” copy is not only seamless; it’s virtually invisible to the untrained eye. Most people not only don’t know what the words are, but the strategy/psychology behind them. If that’s you, relax and rejoice! All is revealed ahead. Solution #1 - Logic Logic is very compelling in moving the reader along. But how do you use it effectively without coming across as stuffy or aloof? You’ll see! Solution #2 - Comparison This is like using a metaphor, but a lot simpler and, frankly, easier to do. It’s a powerful technique. Solution #3 - Random Phrases that work Sometimes it’s simpler than you think. But you gotta use the Best Words. You’ll get some of them in this part. Download.

Before they start writing copy, people always ask me about a version of the same question: How can I make my copy succeed? But, strangely enough, after they’ve written their copy, their questions turn in a different direction. They are almost always the same question: Why did my copy fail? Today we’re going to talk about three things that really answer both questions. But before we do, let me answer a question I find on a lot of people’s minds. The question is, of course, what is the essential nature of copy and what should I do about it. How I discovered the Golden Triangle of Copywriting This whole episode came about after I did three critiques in a row one week. All experienced, successful copywriters. And all had the same three problems. Which were all very possible to fix. But my clients weren’t aware of these problems as something to look for after they finished their copy. So I thought it would be really helpful to do a podcast about them. Each problem is connected to the other two. So I put them into a triangle and called it “The Golden Triangle of Copywriting.” Don’t start at the beginning — when you’re writing copy, that’s a big mistake That is, the first point on the triangle where you should start is probably not going to be the first thing your reader or viewer will see when your finished copy gets launched. This can get a little tricky in the creative process, especially if you like to start at the beginning and finish at the end. But, doing so almost always will not give you the best response. In this part of the podcast, we’ll talk about where you should start, and why. The second point on the triangle follows naturally from the first A lot of well-meaning copywriters who think they understood what other copywriters have told them start here, at this point, and it’s a huge mistake. I’ll explain why. It could even get you in trouble (legal trouble) if you start here in your copy. But if you’re willing to put some reins on those wild horses inside you wanting to rush to the “money” part of your copy, and do some groundwork first, everything will work out so much better. The third point is where your copy should start, but not necessarily where you start writing or even brainstorming. This is the make-or-break point for copy. Frankly, it’s where I spend most of my time, and people get multiples of value, even compared to the serious fees they’ve paid to get my help. Most people think they can’t do this part themselves, or do it very well. Sometimes that’s true. But not always! I’ll share a simple trick you’ve probably never heard before (you’ve heard something like, but it’s been much less specific and far less useful), that will show you how you can handle this yourself, if that’s what you want to do.Download.

We have a Special Report from the field today. In fact we might want to call it a fast-track masterclass in music and copywriting. Our special guest today is copywriter Doug Pew. He also happens to have a doctorate in classical music composition from the University of Cincinnati. He’s won awards for his music and he wrote an operate which was performed at the Kennedy Center. Plus, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the prestigious Ferydyrik Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, Poland. Now, since this is the Copywriters Podcast, Dr. Pew has agreed to give us an in-depth look at some prized secrets only composers know, that we can use ourselves to make our own copy much more compelling and profitable. And it will be easy for you to understand, even if you don’t know anything about music other than what you like to listen to. Doug, welcome, and thanks in advance for all the hard work you’ve done putting your part of this show together. Before we get into this exciting material, I have a message that could well be called the Music of the Copywriters Podcast: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. So Doug. You’ve told me you have three musical strategies that evoke and extend emotions in copywriting. I got very excited about this idea, because that’s what every good copywriter wants to do — engage the prospect’s emotions and keep an emotional momentum through the close. 1. Could you briefly explain the concept a composer uses to evoke emotions in a piece of music? 2. Your first strategy, let’s call it “Variations on a Theme.” It's about a famous musical phrase that takes less than a second and keeps audiences on the edges of their seats for 45 minutes! Could you explain this strategy to us and then show us how it works in copy? 3. Now, let’s talk about your second strategy. We can call it “Striking a Chord.” You composed three chords that you told me caused your church audience to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit. Please tell us about that, and how we can use this, even in a non-religious context, with copy. 4. And let’s call your third example, “Off the Beaten Path,” because it involves a rhythm that is off-beat! I think you’ve got a Beatles tune in mind. Let’s hear about that. 5. Finally, I haven’t run into too many other award-winning classical composers who are also copywriters, Doug! Would you tell us about how you got into copywriting, and about your new book? 6. How can people get in touch with you? Doug's WebsiteDownload.

How a TV interview with legendary singer/songwriter Robbie Robertson put the icing on the cake for me about a crucial problem in copywriter — on towering copywriter Gene Schwartz revealed on an obscure video, and certainly is Gene’s biggest secret for all copywriter. Something not even found in “Breakthrough Advertising.” The big problem with how people go about writing copy: We’ve got to shake old habits. The most important revelation is, contrary to what most people think, copy is not “written.” This new method makes things so much easier, and makes results so much better. What Gene Schwartz said about his biggest secret: It’s a completely new and unique perspective, but it’s really consistent with everything else Gene says. Just takes it to a new level. And, interestingly enough, it’s also remarkably similar to the way Robbie Robertson wrote his most iconic hit song. The pieces of the puzzle you want to put together: A quick review of the initial work you want to do in order to take full advantage of Gene Schwartz’s biggest copywriting secrets. It’s a little bit of hard work in the beginning that makes writing the copy so much easier. Where you get the material to assemble: This is where we talk about the three main areas that you get your “ingredients” for all of the puzzle pieces. For a lot of people, at least one of these areas will be very surprising!Download.

Chances are very good you’ve seen and heard our guest before. Maybe on ABC News, or CNBC, or Howard Stern. Or somewhere else on the radio. And, if you’ve ever called Citibank, hers is the familiar voice you hear before you get to a live person. Chances are just as good you’ve heard at least one of her students and clients, too. In fact I know you’ve heard at least one of them on this very podcast, because Agora Financial, which Joe Schriefer heads up, is one of her clients. But that was before Susan started to work on him -- and I thought he was already pretty damn good. Now, there are a lot of speaking coaches and voice coaches. I know, because I used to be one of them. Not nearly as good as Susan, I’ll quickly admit. But precious few speaking coaches these days who are also masters of persuasion, and, more important, masters of teaching others to be persuasive. This is important especially to copywriters and direct marketers who are involved in any form of copy that goes audio or video. Like: Webinars, video sales letters, even radio and TV ads. And, of course, podcasts! Susan, welcome. Before we get into the interview, I want to mention, Susan is the author of “Speak to Influence: How to Unlock the Hidden Power of Your Voice.” 1. Susan, thanks so much for making the time to be with us. I knew I wanted to get to know you better the minute I heard you on the Agora Financial Copy Call, and I’m so glad you agreed to join us on the podcast. Let’s dig right in. Chapter 12 of your book “Speak to Influence” includes a section on three steps to empathy. If there’s one thing the world needs more of right now, it’s empathy. Don’t you think so? For anyone in direct marketing, this is a special challenge and a big opportunity. In written copy, empathy with the prospect is often the difference between “I’ll buy it” and “Nice try, but no thanks.” Could you share some thoughts and tips on putting empathy into a spoken pitch? 2. OK. So, I’ve saved this credibility builder for a few minutes into the show. Your voice sold $50 million worth of Topsy Tail hair gizmos on a direct response TV ad. My girlfriend knew what a Topsy Tail was, but I didn’t. And of course Nathan, with his closely cropped and very suave hairstyle, wouldn’t even need a Topsy Tail. Please tell the uninitiated what a Topsy Tail is! 3. Now, I think you attribute some of that massive home run to your ability to use the four vocal influence types. I’ve found what I heard you say about them before tremendously successful, not only in speaking but also in singing! Could you tell us what they are and how when can use them when we’re selling something out loud. 4. How about some more pro tips about narrating on a VSL or a Webinar? 5. Before we get more valuable content from you, Susan, I’d really like to hear about some of your adventures in the big time. You’ve done things like Howard Stern and network TV, that many of us would be scared to even imagine! Please tell us what it’s really like and what happened to you.v 6. OK, I think you have a covert influence secret for us -- the art of the “non-pitch.” Could you explain what that is and how to do it? 7. Any stories about what it’s like to have a famous voice in everyday life? Have you ever been caught in voice mail jail, listening to your own voice? 8. Finally — tell us a little about how you work with clients, and how people can reach out to you. Susan's WebsiteDownload.

Without a good roadmap, most copywriters are just flying blind when they sit down to craft a sales letter. Sure, having a template can help, but even that doesn't get at the underlying problem. In order to write persuasive copy, you need to understand what each section of the copy is supposed to do. This week, David and Nathan break down the job of many essential parts of your sales letter. From headlines to P.S. sections, we get deep into the psychology behind each part and how to go about writing them. Tune in and you'll discover: • How great copy is like a full-course meal • Why most copy ends up muddying the point • Whether you should start your copy with an outline or not • How to write a killer headline • Why most headlines don't grab attention (and how to fix it) • Why a great "Pattern Interrupt" might actually be hurting your sales message • How to fix your testimonials and make them more convincing • What testimonials are meant to do in your reader's mind • 5 secret messages you need to be implanting into your testimonials • The real job of a bullets section (hint: it's not what you might think) • Why a good bullet can be as hard to write as a good headline • How one single bullet can close a sale all by itself • How to win over the fence-sitters at the end of your sales letter • What a P.S. section needs to do in order to sound convincing • How Colombo can help you write a better P.S. • And a lot more Listen NowDownload.

Einstein said: “Imagination is More Important than Knowledge.” It’s a quote that has led a lot of people to think they don’t need to know anything… all they need to do is “be creative” by using their imagination, and all their dreams will come true. That’s just not true. Because that quote, while accurate, is taken way out of context. Einstein needed to add just one word to it so the quote would stand alone and capture the meaning of the sentence in context, without the words that came before it and after it. He probably had no idea, even in his wildest imagination, that the sentence “Imagination is more important than knowledge” would become a social media meme to justify that self-defeating habits of the lazy and the self-indulgent. But nevertheless it has, and we’re going to set things straight in this show, at least for copywriters. The missing word We reveal what the missing word from that quote is, right here on the Copywriters Podcast. My holiday journey learning about Brian Wilson Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys didn’t go to music school. He never even took a piano lesson. He doesn’t read music. But he wrote some of the most stunning and memorable music of his time. I found a little-known documentary about him over the holidays in December and watched it three times. I’ll probably watch it a few more times, too. I got some unique and valuable information out of it, and it was fun to watch! I learned something very important that goes against the popular notion of Brian Wilson being an uneducated, intuitive genius… something he revealed in the first five minutes of the documentary. I share it in the podcast. What Brian Wilson did doesn’t just apply to music. It applies to copy, too. We get into the most important part of what Brian Wilson did, and show how you can use the exact same principle in learning to write very creative, high-earning copy. Joe Schriefer’s personal swipe file Joe Schriefer of Agora Financial provides a huge hint about what to do — by showing what he did, himself —in the voluminous personal swipe file he provided in the $2500 product, the Agora Financial Copy Camp home study course. We discuss. It’s very enlightening, and will provide a road map for anyone who wants to get better at copy — whether or not you have access to the Agora course yourself. But please let’s not make this all about Brian Wilson and Joe Schriefer Joe Schriefer is certainly a unique individual, but some of the things he has done to achieve his level of excellence are remarkably similar to what other top copywriters have done to get to where they are. We talk about what those things are. The difference between loading up on knowledge and informing your imagination. There’s a big difference. Being an “A” student in the “copywriting literature” is, in fact, taking the easy way out. And the only prize you win for stale knowledge is the consolation prize. Know the difference. Three things you can do, starting today, to inform your imagination and get better results with your copy. Obviously, there’s no substitute for writing copy when the heat is on and the stakes are high, and living with the consequences, and learning from them. But there are some other things you can do that are time-tested and consistently proven to work. We discuss.Download.

Million Dollar Mike Morgan is a top copywriter currently working for a major division of the world’s largest financial publisher, Agora Inc. As a copywriter for Agora’s Money Map Press division, Mike’s in charge of promoting newsletters and other financial advisory services. His promotions that have made as much as $17 million apiece. Mike doesn’t like to do many interviews, but he’s one of my closest personal friends and so I was able to convince him to share some valuable inside secrets with you about what it’s really like to write for the big guys. Mike’s also one of my copywriting mentoring clients and I couldn’t prouder of him. And, he’s a Gary Halbert All-Star, one of a handful of top copywriters who Bond and Kevin Halbert invited to read and comment on one of Gary’s letters for their special audio series. 1. So tell us how you got here. Everyone’s path to the top is different, and I know for a fact yours is interesting! 2. It seems like everyone I talk to wants to write for Agora. Give us some highlights about what it’s like, and how it’s different from how you thought it would be. 3. What’s the biggest difference, for you, between writing sales copy for an Internet info entrepreneur and writing copy for a big financial publisher? 4. OK, so, not many people know this about you, but you’re a coach and teacher yourself. At least in a past life. You’ve coached copywriters and you even coached an Olympic cycling team at USC. These days you put 100% of your time into copywriting. But putting on your coach hat for just a minute, what advice would you give someone who wants to eventually become a copywriter for the big publishers? 5. I rarely talk about this on the podcast, but you and I have talked about this a lot personally, so I thought I could broach the subject here. It seems that sometimes copywriters don’t have the best people skills, which is something you’re really good at yourself. Could you talk about what difference that makes, especially in the big-time? 6. Finally, I’d like to ask you for one or two really great tips for a copywriting career nobody talks about, but you wish you’d known yourself way back when. What would those be?Download.

We’re back with Meron Bareket, who’s known as the “Sherlock Holmes” of funnels and conversions. He has the unique background and ability to find the “murderous leaks” in your online sales process — and fix them. When he combines that with his copywriting, you get outsized conversions and record profits. I know this because Meron is a mentoring client of mine. I’ve seen the kind of detective work he does and the massive sales results he’s gotten for clients. Meron can do what he does because he’s a dedicated student of buyer behavior during every step of the sales process. He uses software skills to track how buyers respond to each part of a sales funnel, and he makes adjustments accordingly. Today he’s going to talk about the just one horrible crime against marketing he sees people committing all the time. Often not knowingly or intentionally, but the results are the same. No matter how you kill the sale, you miss out on a lot of money you would have otherwise made. In this episode, Meron talks about what he calls “The Case of The Stolen Traffic.” It’s frightening on the face of it. What is worse, this could be happening to you and you wouldn’t even know it. What is more, it has the net effect of making the traffic that’s not “stolen” VERY expensive. Some key points from today’s show: • How Meron has reduced ad costs in a marketing campaign by up to 91% — simply by recovering “stolen” traffic that never should have been stolen in the first place. • How to find out if, when people click on your ad, they never make it to your website (yes, this really does happen!) — and, what to do about it • Getting emails delivered — to people who have signed up for your emails and actually WANT to receive them — is a lot trickier than most people realize. Meron shares some insider secrets. (Besides being a copywriter, he’s also a tech whiz. He has written computer code “at the server level,” for example, and created new programs to complete complex marketing tasks that no one else seems to have programs for) • Dead links in your emails. No, we’re not talking about when you put the wrong link in the email you sent out. There are other problems that keep people from clicking through once they’ve opened your email. Meron explains. Marketing Killers Cheat Sheet Download.

Meron Bareket, who’s known as the “Sherlock Holmes” of funnels and conversions. He has the unique background and ability to find the “murderous leaks” in your online sales process — and fix them. When he combines that with his copywriting, you get outsized conversions and record profits. I know this because Meron is a mentoring client of mine. I’ve seen the kind of detective work he does and the massive sales results he’s gotten for clients. Meron can do what he does because he’s a dedicated student of buyer behavior during every step of the sales process. He uses software skills to track how buyers respond to each part of a sales funnel, and he makes adjustments accordingly. But today he’s going to talk about the horrible crimes against marketing he sees people committing all the time. Often not knowingly or intentionally, but the results are the same. No matter how you kill the sale, you miss out on a lot of money you would have otherwise made. In this episode, Meron talks about the seven serial killers that take the life out of your marketing. Some copywriters and business owners know about some of these. Some don’t know about any of them at all. And I’ve never met anyone before who has such a thorough operational knowledge of all of them. Honestly, in my 30 years of marketing consulting, coaching, and copywriting, I was shocked by some of these that I’d never heard of before. We dig in deep to two of the “marketing serial killers” today, which Meron, wearing his “Sherlock Holmes” hat, refers to as “The Case of the Yawn-Inducing Offer” and “The Case of Sir Slapped-A-Lot.” He covers four key questions to replace yawns with eagerness and willingness to buy, in your prospects. And the two things you must have to avoid getting “slapped a lot” yourself!Download.

The famous English writer George Orwell is best known for his book 1984, which is a bestseller and a major cultural signpost in the English-speaking world. But lesser known is a book he published three years before. 1984 was published in 1949. But Politics and the English Language was published in 1946. In this book, Orwell lays out six iron-clad rules for writing, which are pretty good for copywriters, too — with some notable exceptions. We’ll get to those in a few minutes. But first, let me show you what Orwell was worried was happening to the English language. He gave this comparison in his book: From the Bible, Ecclesiastes, 9:11 “I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.’ Translated into the worst of modern English: “Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.” No wonder he was worried. The six rules (we discuss each one, in depth, on the show) Rule 1: Never use a metaphor, simile or other figures of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Rule 2: Never use a long word where a short word will do. Rule 3: If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. Rule 4: Never use the passive where you can use the active. Rule 5: Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Rule 6: Break any of these rules sooner than say something barbarous.Download.

Simulmedia, a 10-year-old company based in New York and LA, helps businesses use TV advertising to get better results by bringing in data analytics. Recently Simulmedia launched a marketplace called D2Cx. It’s especially interesting for direct marketers who want to reach consumers on TV without all of the old hoops that you used to have jump through. I reached out to Matt Collins and invited him to come on the Copywriters Podcast to explain this. Some listeners are not ready for TV, but I’m pretty sure some will embrace the opportunity, since the opportunity to scale your business rapidly is simply unmatched by anything else. And it’s more affordable, as I understand it, than any other big-league TV ad opportunity. Matt will set me straight if I’ve got that wrong! Matt, welcome. Matt is Senior Vice President of Marketing at Simulmedia in New York City. Previously, he was VP of Marketing and Communications at Ampush, in San Francisco, which was involved in big-time Facebook marketing. Before we start, I’d like to give everyone a message that no one will mistake for marketing: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Let’s start at square 1, Matt, and thanks again for taking time from your busy schedule: 1. Please give us a rapid tour of your background, especially in terms that would be recognizable to direct marketers and direct marketing copywriters. 2. Now let’s talk about D2Cx. What is it and how does it work? 3. In our earlier conversation, you told me that the minimum spend for D2Cx is $50,000. Could you give me an idea of what a company could get for that amount? 4. I have read that Simulmedia brings data analytics to TV advertising. Could explain what that means, and how that’s different from old-school programs for TV advertising? 5. Are there additional analytics available with D2Cx? 6. In terms of tracking results, you mentioned that there may be new third-party applications on the horizon, in the not-too-distant future. Could you talk about those and what a marketer will be able to measure with them? 7. What about the mechanics of actually producing a TV ad? I know that’s not your primary specialty, but a lot of people in this space are do-it-yourselfers. Is there a way to find out what the standards are? Is this doable if they don’t want to use an ad agency? 8. Anything else that direct marketers and copywriters should know? 9. If someone’s interested in finding out more, what are the next steps SimulMediaDownload.

A rocket scientist describes how a spacecraft takes off. There’s a big difference between the energy and controlled chaos of the lift-off and the regular, cyclical path of the orbit around the earth. What can we learn about this description when it comes to the two basic types of people necessary to make copywriting make money? Plenty. Two conversations started this all. The first one – one of those accidental things about something else entirely, that really sparked my thinking about this. The second one, with a legendary copywriter, really blew it up to get us to this point. What creative people need to know about implementers. It’s almost like the people who write the copy and the people who “get things done” are from another planet. But they’re not. They’re really two sides of the same coin. What does the “implementer” side of the coin look like? What implementers need to know about creative people. For many practical, “get ’er done” people, asking them to understand creative people is akin to asking someone who only speaks English to read something written in Greek. It seems mysterious. And, from the way implementers look at, and operate in, the world, it is. But there’s a way to understand the other side of the coin, and we’ll cover that in today’s show. How do you bring an “implementer” mindset to creativity? This, of course, is the million-dollar question. Lucky for you, we have a million-dollar answer. Maybe even more than one of them. How do you bring a “creative” mindset to implementation? Most creative people would swear that this is impossible. Probably based on their own experiences, that would be a reasonable thing to swear to – or, to swear about. But there’s another way to look at it, and that’s what we do in the show today. The world where cats and dogs can get along? Of course, that’s a metaphor. Well, not completely. I have seen photos on Facebook of a dog and a cat getting along, but, it could have been Photoshopped. The question is a metaphor for the question of creative and implementor people synching up and reducing the friction between each group. Some good ideas here.Download.

A story about my mother and the vacuum cleaner. What objections are and why it’s so vitally important that you know them and overcome them. The best way to find objections. What to do if you can’t find objections out first-hand Handling objections in your copy: • Overcoming copy with a headline • Overcoming copy with a guarantee • Overcoming objections in your bullet points • Overcoming objections in your FAQs • Two powerful ways to overcome objections that many people overlook • How to reduce the strength of objections before they ever occurDownload.

Parris Lampropoulos is one of the few true A-List copywriters in the world, and he is a much sought-after teacher of copywriting as well. This special one-hour session with Parris is a veritable masterclass. He reveals the subtle psychology and strategies behind a sales letter that trounced the previous control and went on to run for over 7 years. At the bottom of this page, you’ll receive a link to download this historic piece of copywriting excellence that Parris explains in granular — yet, easy-to-understand — detail. Never before on the Copywriters Podcast have we had such an intricate and valuable breakdown of a multi-million-dollar winner. Every copywriter and marketer should pay close attention to the wisdom and street-smarts Parris reveals here, for you can use some or many of the techniques he explains, to vastly improve the performance of any promotion you have currently running, or planned for the future. Download the PDF HereDownload.

Show starts with an editorial in a business magazine that condemned negative thinkers. Warning: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Why positive thinking is so important for copywriters — and, really, anyone in business — most of the time. Why it’s a mistake to never allow negative thinking into the copywriting process — and where you should. Three important activities for copywriters that require negative thinking: 1. Mac Ross’s “Four W’s” Here are four questions most copywriters — and most business owners — never dare to ask. But they really must ask them (as painful as it may be) if they want their ads to work. 2. “What could possibly go wrong?” The power of positive thinking can drive you right into a ditch if you don’t keep an eagle-eye out for ditches when you’re driving. Now, this works a little bit differently in the copywriting process, but the idea is just as important. 3. Problem-Agitate-Solve Dan Kennedy made this formula famous, but it’s been around in one form or another for as long as people have had problems, needed some motivation to solve those problems, and needed solutions. But some copywriters get stuck in the “think positive” straightjacket when they try to use it. Here’s what you need to do instead.Download.

What I didn’t start learning about people until I was 40. Warning Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. What “human nature” means How understanding it at the behavioral level makes a difference when you’re writing copy… and you need to get specific behaviors from people reading your copy What happens when you live in an idealized world (read: “should”) about people and how they behave… and how that affects your copy (you’re screwed, your copy’s screwed) Four surprising things about human nature I learned only in copywriting • What people are really more concerned about, as opposed to what they’re “supposed to be” concerned about… • While many people say the greatest motivator is greed… or fear… or love… or hate… what I have discovered is the greatest overall motivator to get people to start reading your copy and keep reading it until they buy is something different. • It’s like completely obvious when you find out about this one, but it’s practically a forbidden subject in school, many homes and houses of worship, and even some businesses. • Before I knew anything about copywriting, I thought branding and advertising were the same thing. As a young copywriter, I thought branding was nonsense and a complete fraud. What I learned about human nature, only last month (October 2018), helped me see the value and the severe (and sales-preventing limitations) of branding. Review of four things about human nature I was only able to learn through Next time: The Power of Negative Thinking!Download.

The newsletter publisher that made more money with people who swiped his newsletter than he did from subscriptions. Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. What swiping is The difference between swiping and stealing (plagiarism) Why swipe files are important How to build a swipe file How to use a swipe file The three levels of creativity (Gene Schwartz, Breakthrough Advertising, p59) 1. Word-Substitute Technique (“the shallowest”) 2. Through Formula (“deeper and more difficult”) 3. Analytical approach (“It means a solution which has cost you days and weeks of painful effort, and which has done its job perfectly—can only be used once.”)Download.

Part 2 of 2 For today’s special Report from the Field, I literally met our guest “in the field,” at the Platinum Mastermind Group a few weeks ago. His name is Ted Prodromou, and he’s known as America’s leading LinkedIn coach. That would be good enough if Ted knew how you could get a job on LinkedIn better than anyone else, but I was extremely impressed that he knew a lot more than that. He knows how copywriters and entrepreneurs can use LinkedIn to make large amounts of money, as he does for himself every month. Ted’s the author of Ultimate Guide to LinkedIn for Business, and the third edition will be released by Entrepreneur Press next March. I’m so delighted that he’s agreed to come onto the Copywriters Podcast and share some of his secrets. Welcome, Ted! Before we get into the questions, let me share my one and only secret for this podcast: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. 1. Ted, after listening to you, I got the impression that you really see LinkedIn differently than most people see it. Could you share the highlights of what opportunities you see for freelance copywriters, and for owners of small to medium businesses? 2. What are some simple actions a copywriter can take on LinkedIn, to get more copywriting clients? 3. Let’s say a business sells online courses or other kinds of info-products. What are some basic things a business can do to bring in more sales? 4. What are mistakes you see people making on LinkedIn – both really dumb ones, and mistakes that seem like they’re reasonable things to do, but actually aren’t such good ideas after all? 5. Please give us some tips on writing a LinkedIn profile. What are the most common mistakes, and what are your most popular strategies? 6. What writing tips would you suggest for articles and other content on LinkedIn? 7. You have this great set of insider secrets you call the LinkedIn Cheat Sheet. Could you tell us about it, and how our listeners can go get a copy themselves?Download.

Part 1 of 2 For today’s special Report from the Field, I literally met our guest “in the field,” at the Platinum Mastermind Group a few weeks ago. His name is Ted Prodromou, and he’s known as America’s leading LinkedIn coach. That would be good enough if Ted knew how you could get a job on LinkedIn better than anyone else, but I was extremely impressed that he knew a lot more than that. He knows how copywriters and entrepreneurs can use LinkedIn to make large amounts of money, as he does for himself every month. Ted’s the author of Ultimate Guide to LinkedIn for Business, and the third edition will be released by Entrepreneur Press next March. I’m so delighted that he’s agreed to come onto the Copywriters Podcast and share some of his secrets. Welcome, Ted! Before we get into the questions, let me share my one and only secret for this podcast: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. 1. Ted, after listening to you, I got the impression that you really see LinkedIn differently than most people see it. Could you share the highlights of what opportunities you see for freelance copywriters, and for owners of small to medium businesses? 2. What are some simple actions a copywriter can take on LinkedIn, to get more copywriting clients? 3. Let’s say a business sells online courses or other kinds of info-products. What are some basic things a business can do to bring in more sales? 4. What are mistakes you see people making on LinkedIn – both really dumb ones, and mistakes that seem like they’re reasonable things to do, but actually aren’t such good ideas after all? 5. Please give us some tips on writing a LinkedIn profile. What are the most common mistakes, and what are your most popular strategies? 6. What writing tips would you suggest for articles and other content on LinkedIn? 7. You have this great set of insider secrets you call the LinkedIn Cheat Sheet. Could you tell us about it, and how our listeners can go get a copy themselves? Ted's WebsiteDownload.

Brian Cassingena helps businesses build out their customer acquisition funnels to create major breakthroughs in their sales and profits. He is a former Mindvalley chief copywriter. Brian’s responsible for at last count more than $4 million in revenue coming directly from his copy over the last 3 years. Last year, more than $1.3 million, just for Mindvalley alone. Brian has rolled out more than 20 major funnels, and some of these are making 6 or 7 figures per year on autopilot. Brian’s back with us from last week. Today, he’s going to talk with us about making money with daily emails. 1. Could you describe what sending a daily email means? Is it literally every day? How long are they typically? 2. When was the first time you started or took over a daily email program? Are there any results you can describe? 3. To many business owners, the idea of sending out an email to customer everyday borders on the unimaginable. What do you say to clients to reassure them what they send will be welcomed by customers, and that you’ll have enough to write about. 4. What advice would you give to a business owner who’s working with a copywriter to do daily emails? 5. What would you suggest to a business owner who wants to do it themselves? 6. And if a copywriter wants to approach a client about doing a daily email program, what are some suggestions would you have about how to go about this? 7. I’m sure you’ve seen some big mistakes people make with daily emails. What are some of them? 8. Could you share some inside secrets no one else talks about to make daily emails work? Geniuses Of Copywriting PodcastDownload.

Brian Cassingena helps businesses build out their customer acquisition funnels to create major breakthroughs in their sales and profits. He is a former Mindvalley chief copywriter. Brian’s responsible for at last count more than $4 million in revenue coming directly from his copy over the last 3 years. Last year, more than $1.3 million, just for Mindvalley alone. Brian has rolled out more than 20 major funnels, and some of these are making 6 or 7 figures per year on autopilot. Today, Brian’s going to share some of his MindValley funnel secrets with us. 1. To start with, could you give us a quick summary of who MindValley is, when you worked for them, and what you did for them? 2. Now, before we get into your MindValley funnel secrets, please give us a brief, basic definition of a funnel, so even the least experienced listener will understand what we’re going to be talking about. 3. What was your best-performing funnel for MindValley? Could you walk us through the pieces/steps? 4. The most successful people get to where they are by making mistakes, and learning from them. Could you share a few interesting mistakes you made with funnels, how you corrected them, and what you learned from the experience? 5. You’re working with other clients these days. Maybe still with MindValley, I don’t know, but at best part-time. How do you take what you learned from MindValley and apply it to developing or fixing funnels for clients? (A few nitty-gritty specifics here, please. You don’t have to give away your vast storehouse of knowledge – in fact, please don’t.  But make what you do tell us very real and easy to understand.) 6. What’s the easiest way to change an existing funnel to increase conversion the most? 7. What do you find marketers tend to leave out or overlook with their funnels? 8. Is there a bare-minimum checklist you could share with us (here, not in written form, but in the interview) that every funnel should have? Geniuses Of Copywriting PodcastDownload.

Today our special guest is Debbie Owen, who has her own podcast, The Sales Page Podcast, and is a book-launch strategist and freelance copywriter. She’s agreed to give us a crash course for coaches and consultants in writing copy that brings in business. Here are the main topics she addresses: 1. What’s the biggest mistake coaches and consultants make when writing their own copy? 2. Everyone knows you’re supposed to write down such things as, “What keeps them awake at night? What do they fear? What do they desire?” What else can make a difference in writing copy for a coaching business, when it comes to knowing your avatar, or perfect client? 3. There are so many coaches out there; the competition is stiff. How do you fight that in your copy? 4. Let’s talk about the messaging in your copy. How do you compare yourself to your competition? 5. Many coaches either procrastinate about writing their sales page because they’re afraid of a blank page, or they just sit down and start writing without a plan. What’s a plan they can use to write copy for their coaching business?Download.

Today our special guest is Debbie Owen, who has her own podcast, The Sales Page Podcast, and is a book-launch strategist and freelance copywriter. She’s agreed to give us a crash course for business owners in writing copy that brings in business. Here are the main topics she addresses: 1. What is the most important thing a business owner should start with when they think about writing copy for a sales page? 2. Many business owners try to write copy that creates a desire for the product or service they offer. What’s wrong with this approach? 3. How do you write copy for a sales page that addresses the prospect’s level of problem awareness? 4. What are some typical sales page copy mistakes business owners make when they write their own copy? Debbie's WebsiteDownload.

The Tyranny of “Show, Don’t Tell” If you take it too far, you’ll end up drawing pictures and using no words at all. How do we profitably apply this to copywriting? Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. The origin of “Show, Don’t Tell.” Why you don’t need or want to do it all the time. Where you do need to use it: 1. How your prospect feels now. 2. How your prospect will feel, once the benefits of the offer kick in 3. The experience of using your product or service 4. (Sometimes) What others will say about the prospect after the benefits of the offer have kicked in, and how the prospect will feel 5. How to order the product. The main reason you want to show, not tell, in copy.Download.

Dynasty quote How does that square with the reality about wealth? What does this mean for copywriters? Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. What the numbers say about billionaires. What the numbers say about the wealthy. What about copywriters and direct-response company entrepreneurs? Most successful copywriter/business owner 2 founders Top Copywriters Going to college / not going to college What all successful people I know have in common Taking responsibility for your own education – college or not What I did Don’t buy into the rebellions teenager/cowboy myth But don’t expect degrees or past successes to carry your bags for you The market-proven secret of successDownload.

The folly of trying to get better at “copywriting.” “Inch by Inch, life’s a cinch. Yard by yard, life’s hard.” Nobody but a fool would honestly claim that copywriting’s a cinch. But the way a lot of people go about learning it, they make it a lot harder than they need to. Today we’ll take a look at all the things people do that just too hard. Things that take much longer than they need to. Then, we look at what’s faster, easier, and works SO much better. Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Muscle memory for copywriters. - what it is - why all the top copywriters have it. Most don’t realize it. I’ve never heard anyone talk about it before. Not taboo; just like, not a lot of awareness. But I see it all the time with the other A-Listers I know and talk to. Typical ways people go about trying to get better at copywriting: - Just read and study: learn everything - Handwrite sales letters - Just do it – “natural” Only one problem. If all you do is any one of them, that won’t work. If you do all three together, they work – but it’s a tremendous amount of work, and you reach a point of diminishing returns pretty soon. What works better - Muscle memory technique 3 ways to go 1. Begin at the top of a sales letter and work your way down. 2. Start with your weakest copywriting skill. 3. Start with your strongest copywriting skill. -So which one do you choose? -Additional benefits: Besides skill development, there’s another great advantage. Download.

Our guest today is Tim Burt, who’s going to give you the inside story about writing copy for radio and TV commercials. In the last 26 years, Tim has written, recorded and/or produced more than 30,000 commercials worldwide. His clients range from small businesses to global corporations to presidential campaigns He’s the founder of TimBurtMedia.com and has created programs including Broadcast Ad Secrets, The Restaurant Marketing Series, and Broadcast Ad Secrets. Among the publications where Tim has been featured are: Radio Ink, Huffington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. Before we get into the good stuff, I have to tell you something that you’ll almost certainly never hear on the radio: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. 1) Could you explain the difference, on radio and TV, between top-of-mind advertising and direct response advertising. 2) What’s the biggest mistake you see retailers make with their advertising? 3) Please explain your concept of using a “gateway drug” on an ad. 4) On a radio or TV ad you’ve only got 60 or even 30 seconds to say something to get someone to go to a store. What are the key parts of message? Could you give a couple examples, where you break down the message and label the parts? 5) What are some of the most interesting reasons business owners give you for NOT doing what you suggest? (Could you mention the top two or three?) 6) How do you answer each reason (assuming the business owner is not a lost cause and it’s worth the effort to answer a reasonable objection) 7) What advice do you have for business owners who are interested in advertising on radio and TV, but aren’t ready yet? 8) What would you suggest for copywriters who’d like to branch out into working with retailers this way? TimBurtMediaDownload.

Ted Nicholas: You can go broke selling people what they need. But you can make a fortune selling people what they want. What did he mean? How do we apply this into what we do as direct marketers? But first… here’s something I want to tell you: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. • A fatal mistake of many marketers (hopefully not you): Trying to sell people something you want to sell them, that they don’t want themselves (i.e. Something you assume they need, or hope they will want). • What works better: Selling people something they are actively aware that they already want. Just offering them a better version. • How to find out what people want, so you’ll know what to sell them. • Two things that get in the way of doing this: - Lack of Marketing Realism - Lack of Marketing Maturity Put the odds on your side! Start out selling people what they want!Download.

Dr. Henry Heimlich story. When I first heard about this, what prompted me to research it more and get all the details? Insatiable curiosity. What insatiable curiosity is, and why it’s so important for copywriters – what we’ll talk about today. Now, you might be curious about what comes next. Well, the suspense is over. Because… Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. • Curiosity is how you get motivated to find the interesting tidbits that make your copy shine, and keeps your readers reading. • Three types of people – and, depending on which kind you are, here’s how you should approach your own sense of curiosity. • What insatiable curiosity looks like for a copywriter. • How to ask questions that people will be willing to answer. • The #1 driver of innovation is curiosity. • Why thinking about stuff after you find out is such a big part of curiosity. Stay curious! Download.

What a songwriting teacher says about how much writers hate to rewrite. It’s not just songwriters. And this reluctance is probably one of the biggest, if not the biggest, copywriters never make it to the next level in their writing and in their career. We’re going to fix that today! -- Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. -- - The two seemingly opposite puzzle pieces of putting together a magical story for your copy. When creativity meets implementation. Why they are like oil and water — they don’t mix, but most cars need both in order to operate. - What usually happens when a writer sits down to write a sales story for copy. Why faster is NOT better. What happens to make sure a good story never gets done fast with this approach. - What works so much better than the usual approach: Two stages of variation. These tricks come from world-famous writers, but they work just great for every copywriter who uses them. This could be just as fast, or faster, but it doesn’t seem that way until you actually try it. - Why writers normally do what they do — and what they miss, doing things this “normal” way. There’s a very good psychological reason for it. Too bad that, despite the good reason, doing things in this “normal” way leads to self-sabotage. - Why writers resist rewriting, and the heavy cost of this resistance. How totally understandable emotions work against writing good stories. - What to do instead of what people usually do. How to get past typical work-habit blocks to create great stories!Download.

We had Joshua Killingsworth on a few weeks ago, when he talked about how his divorce and child-custody requirements virtually “forced” him to move quickly from another business to copywriting. We got a lot of response and appreciative comments on that show. Joshua also shared his empathy-map process, which gets the copywriter very much in tune with the prospect’s thinking and feeling. Something all copywriters need to do, but, sad to say, not all actually do. Today, Joshua’s going to talk about something completely different. Something that should make him the envy of every freelancer listening to today’s show: How he closes 80% of the prospects he talks to. I’m really excited to hear what he has to say. But everyone should also be excited, as I remind you, that… -- Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. -- 1. One thing you do in your process that seems very smart to me is you make sure your prospect has an offer that makes sense by itself before you’re willing to consider them as a client. This makes sense to me because, without a compelling offer, no client can be successful, no matter how good the copywriter is. Could you talk about how you evaluate their offer and what you look for? 2. Then there’s the client – the person you’ll be working with. We’ve all made the mistake of jumping into a project, only to discover we can’t actually work with the person on the client side. How do you evaluate a prospective client? 3. You have an intermediate step after they make it over your offer and can-I-work-with this client hurdles, and before you take them on as a client. Could you describe that step, how it works, and why you do it? 4. OK, you have a step called “ask the right questions.” Of course, anyone would want to do that. But you have a special purpose in mind. Could explain that? 5. Once you close the deal, you don’t wait – you get right on it. Not everybody does. What’s your thinking on that? 6. And finally, you have a follow-up step that is brilliant. And simple. Yet so many people just don’t take this step themselves. Want to talk about that? Download.

Justin Goff has created from scratch three multi-million dollar direct response companies. His last one was a supplement company that him and his partners scaled from 0 to 23 million in sales in just under 3 years. Justin sold his stake in that company last year, took a year off, and is now helping the biggest direct response companies to boost their response and increase their average order size on their offers. He lives in Austin Texas with his 2 Great Danes, George and Dempsey 1. Justin, you seem to have a very different view of emails for marketing from just about anyone else I know. I remember once on a webinar I heard you say you would pay $5000 for a good email. Could you tell us, how do you look at emails differently than most people do. 2. How did you use emails in the companies you built? Could you talk about some individual emails and the kind of results you saw? 3. The way you do emails – how do you decide what information to put in the email itself, and what to save for the sales page it leads to? 4. If you or someone working for you is doing daily emails, how often are they pitch emails, compared to “content” emails? Is the tone usually the same with both kinds of emails? 5. Effective subject lines in emails – How similar, or different, are they to headlines that work on a sales page? 6. Your emails go into a lot of depth and do a lot of selling. How does a sales letter it leads to, work, with the way you do things? Shorter sales letters? Repeat the info in sales letter? Or straight to an order page? 7. You’re doing some work for a small group of clients with emails. Want to talk about it? 8. How can someone get in touch with you?Download.

Justin Goff has created from scratch three multi-million dollar direct response companies. His last one was a supplement company that him and his partners scaled from 0->23 million in sales in just under 3 years. Justin sold his stake in that company last year, took a year off, and is now helping the biggest direct response companies to boost their response and increase their average order size on their offers. He lives in Austin Texas with his 2 Great Danes, George and Dempsey. 1. Many of our listeners know all about controls, but some don’t. So let’s start with this question: What is “a control? 2. Why do you need to try to beat a control? 3. How do most people typically go about trying to be a control? 4. What do you see as wrong with, or missing from, this approach? And what do you do differently instead? (Justin – here, could you go through the theory/process of working on the whole funnel? If you can and you’re willing to, mention some super-simple math. Like 2 or 3 actual or potential gains you’ve seen, that most people would miss entirely, using the more conventional, limited approach of just looking at the sales letter.) 5. Are there other things you can do that usually work to beat a control? 6. What happens when a control starts to fatigue and you can’t beat it anymore? 7. What should a copywriter expect to charge for this kind of work? 8. What should business owners expect to pay for this kind of work? 9. How can someone get in touch with you? Find Justin on Facebook.Download.

On today’s show, we’ll pick up where we left off last week. Friend requested I give a talk to his group of copywriters and business owners. One of the copywriters in the group asked me: what does it take for a copywriter to go from “good” to great? And what I do work on with people when I coach them. Six things I’ve found… We’ll talk about the first three in today’s show. Warning Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. The Big Three When I start working with a copywriter, 3 questions 1. What do you want? 2. How are you gonna get it? 3. What’s standing in the way? Coaching is based on the answers to these three questions. First two – different for every copywriter. Third one – nearly always, there are six things standing in the way. Last week we talked about the about the first three. #1 Not enough confidence #2 Can’t identify your target customer and get into his/her head #3 Can’t come up with good enough big ideas/hooks #4 1 thing standing in the way: Can’t write killer headlines - some of this is skill - some of this is knowledge: lack of research & familiarity with who customer is and what customer wants - There’s some psychology in writing headlines. I coach clients in getting familiar with stages of the market, and customer sophistication. #5 thing standing in the way: Can’t tell great stories in sales copy - Storytelling is one of the simplest and one of the most complicated things in the world. - Everybody tells stories all the time. It’s a natural human activity. - But it’s a real art to tell a story concisely in a way that captivates your listeners or readers from start to finish - And telling a story in sales copy is a whole different animal #6 thing standing in the way: Can’t write killer bullets - Bullets are like freeze-dried salesmanship - I know one A-list copywriter who rewrites every bullet four times - That’s because he knows one bullet, by itself, can close the sale - It’s true that there are formulas and templates for bullets - But coming up with unique, on-target bullets is a big part of what makes a great copywriter. Recap: 1. Confidence 2. ID target customers, get into their heads 3. Come up with enough good ideas and hooks 4. Killer headlines 5. Great stories 6. Killer bulletsDownload.

A friend requested I give a talk to his group of copywriters and business owners. One of the copywriters in the group asked me: what does it take for a copywriter to go from “good” to great? And what I do work on with people when I coach them. Six things I’ve found… We’ll talk about the first three in today’s show. Warning Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. The Big Three When I start working with a copywriter, 3 questions 1 What do you want? 2 How are you gonna get it? 3 What’s standing in the way? Coaching is based on the answers to these three questions. First two – different for every copywriter. Third one – nearly always, there are six things standing in the way. Today we’ll talk about the first three. #1 thing standing in the way: Not enough confidence. - what most people think about confidence - what I’ve found real confidence is based on - how I help people develop this real confidence #2 thing standing in the way: Can’t identify your target customer and get into his/her head - most people have only a vague idea - some people focus only on demographics - most people have a hard time getting into their customers’ heads because they don’t know how to find out - I give people specific methods, and their copy goes through almost magical changes #3 thing standing in the way: Can’t come up with good enough ideas and hooks - we spend a lot of time working on this - anyone can come up with a headline; far fewer can come up with one that works - but coming up with a Big Idea is entirely another matter. And so much of this is built on the first two – having confidence (and courage to risk), and really knowing the customer. - ideation and understanding customer psychology and deep and subtle levels is very important. - so is not stopping with one idea. This, surprisingly, is controlled a lot by confidence, in a funny kind of way. Recap: 1. Confidence 2. ID target customers, get into their heads 3. Come up with enough good ideas and hooksDownload.

Imagine you like to ride a bike. Maybe you already do. So you ride every day, on mostly flat roads and paths and occasionally a mild hill. Then one day you decide to get in a race. You don’t learn much about it ahead of time. On the day of the race, it’s raining. There are oil slicks on the road. The competitors are going much faster than you are used to. Then gusts of wind kick up. And to top it all, there are hairpin turns on top of steep hills! Guess what – you’re in crunch time. It’s that special moment when all hell breaks loose and you have to follow through with whatever you started. How do you deal with that? Today we’ll talk about • What crunch time is • Why you need to prepare for it • How you need to prepare for it • And what to do when it actually happens Now hear this: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Crunch time happens to everyone. At various points in your career. Happened to me this year (weekend training). Has probably happened to you, too, Nathan? The key is NOT to try to avoid it. The key is to deal with it and come out smelling like a rose. 1. You can wish and hope and pray all you want that Crunch Time doesn’t come before you’re ready for it. But it will anyway. - When it’s likely to come - Why it’s likely to come - What it’s like when it does come 2. Why you need to prepare for Crunch Time. - Conditioning and internalization in your hip pocket - Shit’s gonna happen you had no idea was coming, and you can only learn so many things at once - You’ll have more confidence in the face of uncertainty 3. How to prepare for Crunch Time. -“Drill” in the basics. That is, get good at the core activities of your work. - Develop routines and systems. The less you have to think about and the less you have to decide, the easier it is to ramp up fast and operate faster than you’re used to. - Practice doing business tasks faster, just as an exercise. Notice where you get slowed down. Then, practice doing those things until you can do them a little faster. 4. What to do when Crunch Time comes – whether you’re ready or not. - Clear the decks. Even if you have other important and urgent priorities, getting the job done well and on time has to be JOB ONE. - Eat light. Drink enough water. Coffee as needed, if that’s what you do. You want to feed and hydrate yourself like a high-performance machine. - Go, go, go! And don’t go without sleep entirely. You’ll be surprised that you can do more than you thought you could do. After Crunch Time is over, see how you can arrange some “lazy time” where you catch up on your sleep and let your brain get some air!Download.

We have a special Report from the Field today that reaches deep into one man’s family. Our guest is Joshua Killingsworth, and while people’s last names usually have nothing to do with anything else, in this case, it holds a clue. Because Joshua Killingsworth’s copy is killing it. He’s got a webinar and sales page promo, for example, that converted 65% on a one-thousand-dollar product. He’s created a three-email sequence that is making over $20K a month for a client. With a tiny list, yet. And maybe that’s because he had no choice. Four years ago he was going to lose his share of joint custody of his daughter unless he was available on some weekdays. He became an “accidental copywriter” as a result. Today he’s going to share some of his secrets with you. 1. How did you get into copywriting and what is your background? 2. You have an avatar and empathy map you’ve developed. Something I’ve never heard of before! And you say that you believe the research that produces leads you to higher than normal conversions. Tell us about that. 3. What are the steps you use in your writing process? 4. Where do you get angles from, for your hook, your subject lines. 5. You mentioned you verify everything before the writing actually starts. Not everyone does that. Why do you and what’s your process? 6. A lot of copywriters aren’t sure how to size up a client ahead of time. You have a process for doing that – would you share it? 7. Finally, what takeaways can you give people who want to write their own copy? 8. And if someone wants to contact you, what’s the best way to do that?Download.

A few weeks ago, we had Joe Schriefer on the podcast in a special “Reports from the Field” episode. Joe said something that changed my life, and I’ve been thinking about ever since. As you may remember, Joe heads up Agora Financial, and he was one of the key players in growing it from $25 million a year to $250 million a year. The show as about how to scale up a business dramatically the way Joe has. What Joe said that kept ringing in my mind was: To grow a business big, think like the business is small. In other words, don’t get grandiose. Just do the normal things you do, but do them increasingly better. Don’t get private jets and a yacht. You would think a quarter-billion-dollar business should have a private plane, right. But that’s not how they do things. And that’s important. So it got me to thinking. There are so many people urging others to “think big.” And so many people who have these wild-ass plans that almost always disintegrate into dust. Why is that? What are those people misinformed about? And what can we all do differently so we can think bigger and actually profit long-term from our thinking and our actions? Probably the first thing is to listen to this message: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. 1. What “Thinking Bigger” Means In copywriting and entrepreneurship, it means expanding your vision – the scope of what’s possible. - most common example: increasing your revenue/income - other examples - increasing the number of clients at the same time - increasing the number of different products you sell 2. Why It’s Important Business only moves in one of two directions. Up – it gets larger, or down – it gets smaller. If you try to stay the same size, it’s really a series of episodes of getting larger, then smaller, then larger, then smaller. What a waste of time and energy. If you keep getting smaller, you eventually go out of business. So the only logical way to go is to get larger. To grow. And you need to think bigger to do that. But you need to think in the right way. 3. The Mistake Most People Make - Think of a road trip. You have a map, you have a destination, you think that’s enough. - The thing most people overlook, and this is the big mistake, is they don’t prepare for - what to do when you get a flat tire - how to deal with a road that’s washed out - what happens when you get lost - That is – they don’t know how to solve all the nitty-gritty problems and unexpected events that occur along the way - So, they end up doing what they call “failing,” and give up - There’s a way to avoid this common mistake, and that’s what we’ll talk about today. 4. The True Path - Foundation - You need to get good at the basics - If you’re a copywriter, there are a few skills you need to have under your belt before you venture into the “big time.” Like.. - Research - Coming up with creative hooks - Writing in a persuasive way - Negotiating and maintaining relationships with clients - Meeting deadlines - If you’re a business owner, there’s also a set of core skills you need to have at a certain level of proficiency - Don’t expect you will pick these up “later” after you start to “think bigger.” You need to have them in your toolkit wherever you are now, before you start to go for big, massive goals - You may have heard different. I’ve never seen it end well when someone’s reach exceeds their grasp. Like the old saying goes, you need to prepare, to win. - Why You Can’t Think Bigger Until You Can Sweat The Small Stuff - Large is just a multiplication of small - As hard as it is for most people to come up with good ideas, coming up with ideas is the easy part. - Many people who are good at ideas think implementing is the hard part. - But implementing is easy compared to solving problems that occur, especially problems you weren’t expecting. - Solving problems when the heat is on is really the primo skill - And the only way you’re going to do that confidently and competently in a big way is by getting repetitive practice doing it in a small way. - What I’ve Observed In Big Thinkers I Know Personally - They’re obsessed with details – the right details - They draw on their own experiences and advice they’ve gotten from others who have at least as much experience as they have. Not too much on theory or other kinds of abstract ideas - They’re great problem-solvers. Very creative in that way even if they’re not like your typical creative personality. - They’re decisive. And once they make a decision, they take action. - They’re not huge braggarts or overly humble. More like, matter-of-fact, but just in the larger picture that they see. - My Own Path - I started very “big” – as the news editor of a national magazine in New York, and, I was told, the ambassador for McGraw Hill to Asia, as San Francisco Bureau Chief - It was all a bunch of bullshit. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time. - Because: I knew how to report and write articles, and edit articles. I was really good at those things. But… I really didn’t know how to solve problems, manage teams, motivate individuals, or bring in revenue. All of which you really need to do to grow a business, even if the teams and individuals are outsourced contractors and organizations. - I started over when I was 40. I built skills from the ground up and started very small. I had to. I was broke and I didn’t know what I was doing. - These days, I focus on tiny little details my former self would have scoffed at. Not all the time. But I’ve learned to identify and focus on what’s important, and when it comes to solving a problem at the granular level, I’m right there. - To give one example: Often when I do a critique, I’ll find four or five crucial things that can keep a client out of trouble and lead to a huge increase in the conversion from the copy. Being able to identify and suggest that small number of things comes from having worked with hundreds of businesses and having reviewed thousands of sales letters over the last 25 years.Download.

I was looking at a new online MasterClass by Judd Apatow, a film director who specializes in comedies. His bio said he got started in the business at age 15 as a dishwasher at a comedy club… and, you know how the story goes… the rest is history. You’ll hear lots of stories like that – but few in copywriting. Why is that? And what can you do instead? That’s what we talk about today. Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Let’s go over what you need to learn first, and then we’ll talk about putting together an advanced program for yourself. 1. “College” – or, basic training - Basic programs. Two I recommend and have seen consistent results from: SWS and Copy Chief. I’m a big fan of the “person at the top” theory. John Carlton is the leader of SWS, and Stan Dahl makes a point of keeping a complex system working smoothly. Kevin Rogers is at the top of Copy Chief. Both of these guys care more than you could ever imagine, and that makes a huge difference. They and their programs have helped people get way beyond the basics, but that’s on a case-by-case basis and I want to give you something you can count on when you’re just going pro. You can’t go wrong with either of these. - Facebook groups. Not everything everyone says will be valid, but you can get a lay of the copywriting land there. Two that are robust and excellent from everything I’ve seen is: The Copywriter Club, and The Gary Halbert Copy Club. An important thing to look for is the clear-headedness of the people running the group, and their real-world knowledge and experience with copy. Kira and Rob with the Copywriter Club, and Bond and Kevin with The Gary Halbert Copy Club, all excel in that regard. - Books. There are a lot of books these days on copywriting. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, in varying proportions. If I had to suggest only five to start out with, I would suggest these for fundamentals that someone in the early stages can grasp and put to work: 1. Scientific Advertising, by Claude Hopkins 2. The Copywriter’s Handbook, by Robert Bly 3. The Ultimate Sales Letter, by Dan Kennedy 4. Advertising Secrets of the Written Word, by Joe Sugarman 5. Breakthrough Copywriting, by David Garfinkel Each of these books is a course in itself. They are not quick reads, but understand you need to rewire your mind if you are going to become a good copywriter. Most of these books are also suitable for advanced copywriters. The reason I picked them is they are comprehensive, well-organized, and easily understood by a beginner. Start writing. Get some experience. Get feedback. Find out what really works. See if you can sell your own products, or be an affiliate for someone else. Get as much experience you can in as short a time as you can. There are other great programs, groups, books and experiences that someone in their first few years of writing professionally can take advantage of. These are the ones I know best that I think are the surest bets and the best use of your time. Let’s move on to the advanced stuff, now. 2. “Grad school” – or, special ops In a lot of fields, with more organized professions, like law, medicine, or journalism, there are grad programs at many universities. Some of them are very good and produce high-quality graduates who make good money and some of them contribute a lot to individuals and society as a whole. Not so true in copywriter, as best as I can tell. There are a handful of grad programs in direct response marketing but I don’t know of any successful copywriters who have attended them. I’m going to focus here on what I know works, from my own experience, from talking with others, and from what I’ve observed with successful clients. - If you can get into a successful direct-response organization that nurtures and grows copywriters, do it. There aren’t that many. A lot of big direct-response publishers outsource to experienced freelancers. But there are some. Agora Financial and other Agora companies make it a policy to bring in copywriters and develop them, for example. - Seminars with copywriters who are successful and good teachers. Live and home-study. Nathan, you have a home-study online program on email marketing you could tell us about. … I took a lot of these when I was learning, from the best people I could find. I’m not going to make any other recommendations here but a good place to start is people whose copy makes you want to buy, and who have programs that others have said they’ve gotten a lot out of. Sometimes one person, one seminar, even one idea at one seminar can be a real breakthrough for a B-level copywriter who wants to move towards A-level. - Books for more advanced copywriters 1. Breakthrough Advertising, by Gene Schwartz. Breakthroughadvertisingbook.com 2. The Brilliance Breakthrough, by Gene Schwartz. Brilliancebreakthroughbookc.om 3. The Boron Letters, by Gary Halbert. Available on Amazon All three of these books could be read by beginners. But they’ll be much more valuable to anyone with some experience under their belt. - Mastermind Groups You can learn more in a short period of time hanging out with people who have lots of experience and are willing to help others, than you can in a long class with a teacher who understands the theory but has never competed in the battlefields of the marketplace. I co-moderate one with John Carlton and Stan Dahl. I know it’s good because the focus there is entirely on the members and solving their problems. I have a former mentoring client, Travis Sago, S-A-G-O, who’s doing some interesting things you should check out. There are many others, and some of them are good. It’s a powerful format. Do a little research before you join one. I’ve been in different masterminds for nearly 20 years and they’ve helped me way beyond how I can even explain. - Mentoring Find someone who’s been successful themself and likes to help other people develop. I have a mentoring program and openings come up from time to time. Another person two very advanced people I know of have mentored under and gotten a lot from is Parris Lampropolous, with his Copy Cubs program. There are others. Again, choose carefully. 3. Wrap up So these are the five elements of Copywriting Grad School, the way I see it: 1. Get a job at a top-flight direct response organization for a while, if you can. 2. Seminars given by successful copywriters. 3. The three books I mentioned: Breakthrough Copywriting, The Brilliance Breakthrough, The Boron Letters 4. Mastermind Groups 5. MentoringDownload.

Detectives today have a powerful tool in their toolkit – DNA analysis. Except for identical twins and maybe in the future human clones, every person’s DNA is unique, as far as we know. So if there’s a drop of blood, a hair, a small piece of skin, or any number of other tiny little pieces of a person’s body at the scene of a crime, the detective who finds DNA has struck gold. That’s because DNA leaves clues. There’s another kind of DNA you might not have heard of yet. It’s called Breakthrough Copywriting DNA. This kind of DNA leaves clues, too. For example, the first type of Breakthrough Copywriting DNA we’ll talk about today left the clue of $2 billion in the Wall Street Journal’s bank account. In short, Breakthrough Copywriting DNA is a collection of seven themes that have proven themselves to be big winners for copywriters across a wide variety of industries. A few of them are featured as Emotional Action Sequences in today’s episode. But first, let’s feature this: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Emotional Action Sequences What They Are Templates for telling simple stories in your copy that lead your prospects through different defined and predetermined powerful emotions. They serve two purposes. First, to get your prospects “out of their heads” and into their feelings. (Emotion: In music. In movies. To motivate anyone to do anything. Necessary in Buying.) Second, these particular emotions, in these sequences, will not only get prospects into their emotions. They will get into particular emotions that make them much more likely to buy. Their Origin I developed these for my $5000-a-seat Breakthrough Copywriting seminar in Las Vegas. After I gave the people there a 10-year head start on the marketplace, I released them in my book Breakthrough Copywriting, which went on to be a #1 bestseller. People have told me they are so useful that I thought I would share some of them on the podcast. How You Can Find More Of Them Available for about 12 bucks on Amazon, as a Kindle or a paperback. Why You Need To Know Them I critique copy for a wide variety of copywriters and business owners. Last year I did 5 to 10 critiques a month for GKIC. I work with Agora Financial. I also have individual mentoring and critique clients from all over the world. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, but one thing I’ve noticed nearly all copywriters have in common is not enough effective, believable emotion. Sometimes there’s nothing there at all – it’s too logical. Sometimes it’s so over the top that it’s not believable. And often it’s so sappy and contrived that it just doesn’t ring true. It ruins the magic of the rest of the copy. The Emotional Action Sequences can help you make your copy more natural and believable, by using everyday situations in a very powerful way. Today’s Selection: Three Types of Breakthrough Copywriting DNA Themes in Advertising History that have made millions. Because these are primal stories that touch and move the emotions in a deep way. Breakthrough Copywriting DNA Type 1: “The Secret Formula For Success & Prestige” WSJ letter – greatest tracked ad in history -- $2 billion The Book Think and Grow Rich – 20 million copies sold. WSJ Letter and Think and Grow Rich: Really the same story. One’s corporate; one’s entrepreneurial. That’s how DNA works. It can adapt to any form. So, for our example, let’s start with the WSJ letter, which has made more money than any other tracked ad in the world, as far as we know. Most high-end public seminars have some version of this DNA in their marketing. Whether it’s for copywriting, marketing, personal growth, or some other specialized niche, very often you’ll find this DNA threading through the marketing materials for the event. Breakthrough Copywriting DNA Type 2: “Your Unrecognized Greatness Has Been Discovered” - The underlying reason people pay: thousands for expensive watches… hundreds of thousands for luxury cars… and millions for yachts. That is, the people who buy them believe they are great, but not getting the recognition for it that they deserve. And by flashing the watch, driving the car, or appearing on the yacht, their greatness will be discovered. - Most people have a feeling that there is greatness inside them that has not been suitably recognized by the world. That’s why this is such a powerful theme to put in copy. - The example I gave in the seminar and I give in the book is Gary Halbert’s famous “Coat of Arms” letter, which has been mailed more than 600 million times. The idea here is: If your family has a coat of arms, then they must be really special. Therefore, you must someone special. In other words, you have unrecognized greatness that has been discovered. Breakthrough Copywriting DNA Type 3: “You Worked Hard and You Deserve A Reward” - Certainly, the concept of social security and private pension plans, like 401Ks, are examples of this type of DNA - Despite recent fashionable ideas like the four-hour workweek and the 10 minute workday, most people, deep down, believe you have to work hard and then you get rewarded for your hard work. - It’s also been my personal experience that, once I learned what were the valuable kinds of work I could do and once I learned how to do them really well, the best rewards came after hard work. -The example from the book is Joe Karbo’s “The Lazy Man’s Way To Riches” full-page newspaper ad. He ran it over and over again in newspapers all across the country and sold tons of books with it. The start of the ad is how he used to work long hours every week and he was still behind on his bills. But once he discovered his lazy man’s way to riches, everything changed. He started making a lot of money and had plenty of time to do other things besides work. I think an important part of what made the copy work was that he showed how he earned the right to make a lot of money, doing less work – by working hard, very hard, at first. His “reward” was the privilege of doing less and earning more. This is a very powerful theme and DNA type. Recap Breakthrough Copywriting DNA types are more than just useful templates for increasing emotion in your copy. They are universal themes that have been proven to work in highly successful tracked sales letters and ads. You can also find them in great works of literature as well as movies and TV shows. What’s important about them is that they resonate with people at a deep level, and when you use them correctly, they can multiply your sales from a piece of copy. So keep them in mind the next time you write. Here are the three we covered today: • The Secret Formula for Success and Prestige • Your Unrecognized Greatness Has Been Discovered • You Worked Hard and You Deserve A Reward How to Get The Complete Set Of All 7 Breakthrough Copywriting DNA Types Chapter 10 of Breakthrough Copywriting Download.

Direct marketers usually hate TV commercials, because they give a bad name to advertising as we see it. That is, they don’t truly sell. But sometimes I like them – not as advertising, really, but as works of art. There’s a very intriguing commercial running right now for Alfa Romeo, the luxury Italian sports car. What intrigues me the most is their tagline. In Italian, it’s La Meccanica Delle Emozioni. And, it’s trademarked. A close translation of the phrase is: “The Mechanics of Emotion.” Today we start our occasional series called Accessing Emotion. And for today’s show, I don’t want to step anywhere near Alfa’s trademarked phrase, but I’m inspired by it. So we’ll call what we’re going to talk about today: Emotional Action Sequences, Part 1. Emotional Action Sequences are proven templates for adding sales-enhancing emotion to your copy. They’re easy to use and I’ll share some powerful ones with you today. But first, and I hope I don’t get too emotional about this: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Emotional Action Sequences What They Are Templates for telling simple stories in your copy that lead your prospects through different defined and predetermined powerful emotions. They serve two purposes. First, to get your prospects “out of their heads” and into their feelings. (Emotion: In music. In movies. To motivate anyone to do anything. Necessary in Buying.) Second, these particular emotions, in these sequences, will not only get prospects into their emotions. They will get into particular emotions that make them much more likely to buy. Their Origin I developed these for my $5000-a-seat Breakthrough Copywriting seminar in Las Vegas. After I gave the people there a 10-year head start on the marketplace, I released them in my book Breakthrough Copywriting, which went on to be a #1 bestseller. People have told me they are so useful that I though I would share some of them on the podcast. How You Can Find More Of Them Available for about 12 bucks on Amazon, as a Kindle or a paperback. Why You Need To Know Them I critique copy for a wide variety of copywriters and business owners. Last year I did 5 to 10 critiques a month for GKIC. I work with Agora Financial. I also have individual mentoring and critique clients from all over the world. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, but one thing I’ve noticed nearly all copywriters have in common is not enough effective, believable emotion. Sometimes there’s nothing there at all – it’s too logical. Sometimes it’s so over the top that it’s not believable. And often it’s so sappy and contrived that it just doesn’t ring true. It ruins the magic of the rest of the copy. The Emotional Action Sequences can help you make your copy more natural and believable, by using everyday situations in a very powerful way. Today’s Selection: Three Breakthrough Copywriting Emotional Triggers • Breakthrough Copywriting Emotional Trigger 1: “Anger to Envy to Offer” The psychology of the trigger: Anger and jealousy are two of the most powerful motivators known on Earth. A therapist might tell you they are not healthy emotions, but nobody would argue that they are not widespread. And no matter how emotionally well-balanced we think we are as individuals, they are common to all of us. Nathan, let’s say you and I had a business specializing in helping frustrated corporate refugees start there own businesses. We could use this trigger as part of our copy: The company Terri worked for posted record profits this year, so it really stung when she was turned down for a raise for the third year in a row. She was steaming because the division she ran had brought in more money to the company than anyone else. To rub salt in the wound, Wanda got a sizeable raise and a huge promotion. Terri suspected that was because Wanda spent a lot more time practicing office politics than she did producing for the company. Terri called it The Wanda Insult. She was so mad at the unfair treatment that resolved to start her own business to make things right. And the first people she contacted was us, since we specialize in helping people who were superstars for someone else become superstars in their own business. • Breakthrough Copywriting Emotional Trigger 2: “Appeal To People’s Sense of Larceny” You might think good people don’t steal, and you might be right. But what people who have self-control actually do and what they really want to do are often not the same thing! When I say “appeal to people’s sense of larceny,” I don’t mean sell them instructions on how to rob a bank. The psychology of this trigger has some much more socially acceptable names: “Getting good value for your money,” “Never paying retail,” even “getting something for free!” Fact is, if you can show someone how they can get away with paying less, or even nothing at all, for something they want – in a story – you will stimulate powerful urges that can propel them to buy what you are selling. Here’s an amusing example, I heard on the radio yesterday. It was an ad for blink.com, a home security company. It was for home security cameras. First they talked about no contracts, no wires – and then the announcer said, “You can get three of our cameras for what the other guys charge for one. Plus, use this special code and we’ll give you a 15% discount.” Selling burglar alarms by appealing to people’s sense of larceny. I think that’s ironic! But that’s exactly what they were doing. • Breakthrough Copywriting Emotional Trigger 3: “Factual Format For Emotionally Provocative Language” This is one of my favorites, because it is so convincing. You use the objective language of journalism to establish believability with facts, and you continue to present your information in the factual format of a newspaper article. But notice how the copy gradually transitions into a lot of emotion, which prepares the prospect to be receptive to your offer. This could be for a diet information product: A diet followed by everyday people in Europe for centuries is sweeping the United States like wildfire – and people who could never lose weight before are having some success with it. Called the Mediterranean Diet, this traditional European way of eating has been keeping millions of people fit and healthy for generations with little fanfare. But Americans who have just discovered it are melting belly fat and dropping dress sizes in weeks. And they are shouting from the rooftops! - Notice how it goes from facts in the first three sentences to highly emotional language in the last sentence But Americans who have just discovered it are melting belly fat and dropping dress sizes in weeks. And they are shouting from the rooftops! - But the factual format remains the same. Makes the wild claims more believable! Recap You need to provoke emotion to get people in a buying mood. What we talked about today provides an easy way to do that. Three Emotional Action Sequences: - Anger to Envy to Offer - Appeal to People’s Sense of Larceny - Factual Format for Emotionally Provocative Language How to Get The Complete Set Of All 11 Breakthrough Copywriting Emotional Triggers They’re all in Chapter 10 of Breakthrough Copywriting. 12 other chapters as well!Download.

Donald Burns once helped the world's most hated man find a job. How'd he do it? By using copywriting methods while writing his resume. After all, what is a resume, if not a sales pitch for yourself? Donald gets into what works and what doesn't when it comes to resumes. He's written them for some of the most successful people out there. He even has some tips for copywriters on how they can better promote themselves. This one is a little bit off the beaten path, but jam-packed with gems that you don't want to miss. Donald's Website Executive Promotions LLC Find Donald on LinkedInDownload.

Despite what the rock group the Buggles told us, video did NOT kill the radio star. Our guest in today's special Report from the Field, Daisy Luther, appears regularly on 830 stations through the Genesis Radio Network. But to many people, Daisy is even better known as The Organic Prepper. She runs a very popular and profitable website. I met Daisy personally in late April, at a private dinner in Baltimore for former journalists who have embraced copywriting. Daisy, we’re honored to have you here and welcome to the Copywriters Podcast! Today, Daisy will share details of her business and whatever else we can convince her to share with us. As we begin, let me remind you of something: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. So Daisy, let’s get started. 1. How did you start the Organic Prepper? 2. Can you share how many visitors or viewers your website has? 3. At our private dinner, you shared some astounding information about how much content you create. Could you tell our listeners, if only to give people an idea of what is possible once you really commit to a project? 4. You have an interesting product strategy with relatively low-priced, high-value-content information products. Please explain what you offer and how your publishing and payment system works. 5. What have you learned doing all of this that surprised you? 6. In what ways do you use copywriting to run and grow the business? 7. What advice would you have for our listeners who want to sell unique, valuable content online? 8. What do most copywriters not know that you wish they did? Daisy's Website The Organic PrepperDownload.

Surprise is the “magic excitement dust” of entertainment - Music “High Time,” Grateful Dead. Circa 1970. Very touching country-rock kind of song about a misunderstanding that ended a relationship, and all the self-doubt that followed. Melancholy. Goes where you wouldn’t expect: surprise. Vs. my rewrite (Corny AF) “You said goodbye and held me tight You know I found it heartwarming Yeah, sure, I’ll miss you tonight But I’ll see you in the morning.” : not that surprising Beatles – used a lot of harmonic surprises, putting in a different chord/progression than would be expected. Lennon/McCartney have more #1 hits in history 100 than anyone else. Period. - Same thing in movies, TV and fiction Car chase – A screenwriter has to review all car chases ever done before to do something different, and unexpected: surprise Ending of a thriller or a mystery – for most people, not what they expected (although very clever people can sometimes figure it out): surprise What about copywriting? We’re not looking to create entertainment the same way a songwriter or a screenwriter is. But on the other hand, we don’t want our copy to be boring. Why surprise works to be entertaining: People have, generally, humdrum lives. Here’s how surprise breaks the “humdrum” cycle: - When surprise is exciting, inspiring, leading to hope: Influx of brain chemicals like dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin – feels good - When surprise is scary, sad, angering: Influx of brain chemicals like adrenaline and cortisol Effective in either case because, people like to be nudged out of their humdrum lives. And as copywriters, we need to stimulate emotion in our prospects in order to make them receptive to taking action – i.e., buying. So how do we use surprise in copywriting? 1) Surprising new offer / headline / product From last episode: Joe Sugarman – laser beam digital watch “Never press another button, day or night, with America’s first digital watch that glows in the dark.” In 1976, this is quite a surprise. Today, it’s no big deal. But we have to look at copy in the perspective on when it was used. 2) Unique verbs – from John Carlton John likes to use colorful verbs. Cram. Stun. Maim. Crush. Coax. He has a rule that is hard to follow but well worth it if you can do it skillfully: Never use the same verb more than once in a piece of copy. One exception: Don’t put in a lot of synonyms for “said.” It doesn’t sound natural or conversational when you say things like, “He elocuted,” or “She intoned.” It sounds contrived. “Said” and “Asked” are usually all you want to use. 3) Imaginative but easy-to-grasp metaphors and comparisons in stories and bullets. Stuff people don’t expect. Exciting, unexpected images – but nothing too hard to grasp. Smooth as a northern lake on a windless day As excited as a chipmunk who’s just broken into the almond processing plant Making more money than the pharmacist who’s running a meth lab on the side. 4) Surprising pricing / terms. Gary Halbert story – Guthy-Renker – don’t pay for 30 days – tripled response. 5) Surprising bonus! My friend Doberman Dan is really good at this. When you join his membership group, he sends a special gold-colored coin with a custom insignia on it. Recently he sent out a USB thumb drive in the shape of a knight, complete with sword! Which is appropriate for his group, because it’s called “Marketing Camelot-Knights of the Round Table.” Recap: Why surprise works (keeps the brain guessing, entertained … another way of generating emotion) Caution – don’t let your inventiveness take over the sales argument, which is the most important thing in copy. Surprise is the seasoning, not the main course.Download.

My girlfriend has a dog named Sheila, and Sheila’s an Australian Shepherd. Now, Australian Shepherds are working dogs and they always seem to need to have a job to do. Last Tuesday, Deb was sitting down to write some copy on her computer and she told me that Sheila was guarding the door for her. I thought that was interesting. Sheila didn’t know what to do, but she figured out Deb didn’t want to be disturbed. So, Sheila gave herself the job of guarding the door. Smart dog! OK, I’m telling that story to give a shout-out to Sheila. But also to show you something that today’s show’s about: How you can get instant understanding and have people remember more of what you say by communicating in images. You may not remember the whole story I told you, but I bet you understood the idea of a dog guarding the door while a writer was busy writing, and I bet you won’t have a hard time remember it. Why? Because those words, “Sheila was guarding the door for her,” creates a clear, simple imagine in your mind. Dog, door, woman, computer, writing. Simple! This is important for more than the fact that I feel good about Deb being protected when I’m not with her. Because in addition to everything else, Sheila is fierce. It’s also important because today’s show is about getting people to understand you instantly and remember more of what you say. And that’s what we’ll talk about today. First, I would like you to instantly understand this: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. The image-word / word image cycle This is a simple way of looking at how our minds work that I’ve never heard of or seen anywhere else. I think it’s right and I know it’s powerful. Gene Schwartz concept in The Brilliance Breakthrough Here’s his idea: The mind thinks in images, and then it decodes images into words. And when you hear words, it encodes the words back into images. If you can use words to create images, people will have the “coding” work already done for them. They will understand you much faster, and remember what you tell them. Direct quote from the book: “Why do we memorize images instead of words? For a very good reason: One image can be memorized as easily as four or six or eight or even ten words. So instead of storing ten separate facts at once I our memory, we have to store only one.” “Understanding is therefore image-sharing. When you and another person understand each other, you share the same images. When the two of you talk about the same things, you both see the same things. When the two of you talk about doing the same actions, you both see how to do those actions. “You have – on that subject, in that area – common minds. You think alike. And that is what communication is all about.” Why this is important The more quickly, easily, and directly you communicate images in your copy, the more people reading your copy will end up buying. Some great examples This is one show where it’s actually better to hear the examples than to read them. You’ll get more of the visual/image/instant effect as I read these to you. 1) A sentence from my critiques page on garfinkelcoaching.com “I’ve just given you a solid roadmap to begin critiquing your own copy.” Compare to a non-image rewrite of the same sentence: I’ve just given you a set of steps you can use to critique your own copy. Nt terrible – but not as instantly understandable or as memorable. This is much better: ““I’ve just given you a solid roadmap to begin critiquing your own copy.” 2) Joe Karbo, in one of his “Lazy Man’s Way To Riches” newspaper ads: He’s talking about his life after learning direct marketing, where he works only when he wants to. He says half of the time he’ll work 5 or six hours a day. “But about half the time, I decide to read, go for a walk, sail my boat, swim, or ride my bike.” You can just see that… and imagine the life of leisure, and choice, he’s describing. Compare that to this sentence, which I wrote as a non-visual example: But about half the time, I’ll engage in recreational activities. They’re usually outdoors and they involve exercise. But they’re fun. Kinda dull, by comparison, right. Not as powerful as: “But about half the time, I decide to read, go for a walk, sail my boat, swim, or ride my bike.” 3) Hemingway, The Old Man And The Sea: “He was shivering with the morning cold. But he knew he would shiver himself warm and that soon he would be rowing.” Now let’s butcher us up some Hemingway: It was morning and the temperature was low. He was just going to have to deal with it. Soon he would be getting some exercise to start his day. That’s not Hemmingway – that’s boring mediocre. Nothing like: “He was shivering with the morning cold. But he knew he would shiver himself warm and that soon he would be rowing.” 4) Headline from John Carlton ad: “World Famous Street-Fighter will give you a FREE GUN… Just to Prove He Can Take It Away From You Bare-Handed As Easy As Candy From A Baby!” I’m not going to even try to mess with that. Sometimes, you just don’t want to mess with perfection. Maybe I’m just superstitious, but I don’t want to touch it! Still, let’s hear it again and see why it works so well: “World Famous Street-Fighter will give you a FREE GUN… Just to Prove He Can Take It Away From You Bare-Handed As Easy As Candy From A Baby!” You can see it in your mind, can’t you? And it’s so good, it’s pretty hard to un-see it. 5) Joe Sugarman “Laser Beam Digital Watch” headline: “Never press another button, day or night, with America’s first digital watch that glows in the dark.” Now this is 42 years ago. I’m not going to rewrite it. Just let me read it again and see if it kinda shows up in your mind “Never press another button, day or night, with America’s first digital watch that glows in the dark.” You can see it, can’t you? You instantly understand, and if that’s something you’re interested in, you’ll remember a digital watch that glows in the dark! OK, that wraps it up. Look for opportunities to express ideas as simple, powerful descriptions of images. It will make your copy easier to read, more exciting, and it will work better. What I shared with you is a small part of one of sixteen chapters. The Brilliance Breakthrough is a book that will open up your writing and maybe even change your life. I got my copy 15 years ago from Gene Schwartz’s widow Barbara. Then it went out print. Now Brian Kurtz has brought it back on the market and I highly recommend it. It’s not cheap, and it’s worth every penny… and then some. You can find it on at brilliancebreakthroughbook.com. We’ll put that in the show notes, too.Download.

Today we’ve got another Report from the Field, and our special guest, our returning champion, is Joe Schriefer from Agora Financial. Joe, thanks for coming back! So here’s what we’re going to talk about today: Few people will ever get the chance to grow an eight-figure company into a nine-figure company. And far fewer still will ever do this with a company that’s 100% driven by direct response copy, as Agora Financial is. I’ve had the privilege of watching up-close, and maybe adding a little fuel to the bonfire. But mainly, I am in so much awe of the growth of this company. And our special guest today, Joe, is the guy in charge of the company. He doesn’t like titles so we’ll just call him Joe. That’s his name, anyway  Frankly, I didn’t know if Joe would agree to talk about his philosophy of growth. He was reasonably concerned that it would not be of that much interest to that many listeners on the Copywriters Podcast. But I suggested that it would be of great interest, and tremendous value, because at the heart of it, Agora Financial is just a grown-up version of what so many copywriters and small info-marketers are doing with their own businesses. That is, coming up with valuable products, keeping the target customer in mind, and promoting those products using direct response copy. So here we are! Before we dive in, here are some words of wisdom for you: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. By the way, and this is the first time I’ve said this on the show, Agora Financial is one of the clients who gets a legal review before they publish their copy. So if you’ve been wondering if I just made that part up – no I didn’t. But let’s talk about something more exciting than getting an opinion on what’s safe to include in your copy and what’s not. Joe, first, thanks for coming back and welcome back to the podcast! 1. So Joe, I’d like to mention that when we met in the fall of 2014 for the first time, you and Ryan McGrath and I had dinner, and you told me you’d be pretty happy if the company doubled in revenues. But it has grown to five times the size in three-and-one-half years. What’s that been like? 2. What’s the right mindset for growth, from your own experience? 3. I remember when I first met you, you were basically doing three leadership jobs, and you were in the process of training others so you could delegate to them. How important do you think it is for the person who’s ultimately responsible for the business to know every aspect of it inside-out, which I think it is fair to say you do? 4. As I understand it, Agora Financial started out in one niche, financial publishing, and now has expanded into other niches, including health, spy and survival stuff, and even Internet marketing. Could you talk about how you’ve approached this kind of diversification and what lessons you’ve learned? 5. When it comes to growing a company, what should the priorities be? What are mistakes to avoid? 6. Direct response businesses are different in some ways than other, more conventional businesses. I’m not even sure what a conventional business is anymore, but, could you talk about how someone should look at growing a direct-response-based business and what might be different from growing a different kind of business? 7. Finally, since this a podcast about copywriting, I would be derelict in my duties if I didn’t talk about copywriters, specifically. You have helped a lot of copywriters grow in their careers, and with their incomes. Could you tell me, what are the qualities that you’ve found make for success with a copywriter? 8. And once again, in case there are any job openings in the future at Agora Financial, how would you like people to apply for a job there?Download.

Featuring Joe Schriefer We’ve talked about the Big Idea on the show before, but we have a report from the field today with the best expert I know or know of on this topic, Joe Schriefer. Just on the slight chance you’ve never heard of him, Joe heads up Agora Financial in Baltimore, which consists of five publishing companies, or “imprints,” as they prefer to call them. When you put them all together, in my opinion, Agora Financial as a whole makes up the biggest, and most profitable, Big Idea production studio in the world. Joe is a humble man, so I can see you recoiling from your microphone in Baltimore, Joe, as I’m saying this. I do need to disclose that Joe is a friend and client, so you’ll understand the relationship as we continue this podcast. I have my habitual advisory, and then we’ll jump right into it. Here’s the advisory: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Joe, thanks so much for taking time to be here! And welcome to the show. 1. So let’s talk about the Big Idea. I know Ryan McGrath has this great three-step process you’ve talked about before. Could you share it here? 2. Could you talk about copywriters working at AF who have really mastered the art of coming up with the Big Idea, and how they did it? 3. You have an amazing eye for what will work, I’ve noticed. Let me tell you what I’ve figured out, but I’d like you to tell me if I’m right or wrong, and what else you’ve done and you do to keep your eyes and ears sharp. I figure a lot of it comes from a combination of experience of things that have worked, and things that haven’t. Another big piece I imagine that contributes to your ability to “call ’em” is that you read so much copy and keep track of the market all the time. Then, I suppose, it’s really knowing the target customer well. Am I right? And, right or not, what am I missing? 4. So, now that we have a sense of how you’ve learned what works as a Big Idea and how you stay in touch with what’s going on in the market, can you give us a sense of what goes through your mind when you evaluate a Big Idea a copywriter is pitching you? 5. Could you go through the training folks at AF get for generating Big Ideas? 6. Maybe we should have covered this earlier, but I wanted people to get some idea of what a big deal the Big Idea really is. Could you walk us through a few of your favorites, and explain why you like them? 7. For our listeners who would like to get better at creating Big Ideas themselves, what would you recommend?Download.

There’s an old concept in direct response called “dry testing.” Basically, it means you sell the product before you have it. I’ve heard questions about whether it’s legal to do this with physical products, but it seems to me it’s perfectly OK to do that with a course you’re planning to do. People pay now and take the course later. After all, that’s what every single university does, and some of our universities in America, like Harvard, Yale, and the College of William and Mary, are actually older than the United States itself. They were founded before 1776! So this is a traditionally accepted strategy with a proven track record. Innovation is when you take this strategy and bring it into the 21st century. That’s what Nathan did this spring, and in today’s episode, we have a Report from the Field where Nathan will share the method to his madness, and talk about results. But first… speaking of method… try this on for size: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Questions David asks in this episode 1. So Nathan, could you talk about the risk of creating a new product before you know if the market actually wants it, and, in big picture terms, how you mitigated that risk? 2. What were the steps you took? Could you break down your marketing process and copy? 3. What kind of responses did you get from people? 4. How did sales go? 5. What are your next steps? What are your goals with this course? 6. What did you learn? 7. What advice would you offer others who would like to use a strategy like yours? See the sales page and facebook ad at Nathan's website.Download.

Meeting with editor from large subscription newsletter publisher in 2006, at conference. Editor didn’t understand copy all that well – joked that “In our copywriting department, we have two divisions: The division of fear, and the division of greed.” This is a commonly accepted assumption among many copywriters AND among many copywriting gurus… fear and greed are IT. True? We’ll look at that today. Here’s something that’s definitely true: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Why do people say this? 1. What is fear? 2. What is greed? Example of fear that works: from crazyegg.com / looks like it was a product on Clickbank, but the page has been taken down. Hypothetical example of fear that doesn’t really work so well For a pest-control product: Ants have been found to carry deadly diseases including E. Coli, Strep and Staph infections, and Salmonella. What if your family came down with one or more of those diseases? Among other reasons this is not good… Example of greed that works: from: swiped.co Hypothetical example of greed that doesn’t really work so well Warren Buffett sold packs of chewing gum when he was a kid, and now he’s worth $85.8 billion dollars. But you don’t know how to teach your kids how to sell gum. We’ll show you and you can take a cut of their profits. What about the other motivations? - Discount coupon in retail advertising Everyone loves a deal. Is that greed? Not exactly. - Free trial It’s true, people are afraid a new app or a new membership site might not work for them. But is that fear? Or low risk tolerance. Risk-reversal. Not exactly fear. Maybe we should call all this “50 Shades of Fear and Greed” Because there are degrees of emotion that drive, and prevent, purchases. Nuances. Subtleties. And what about fundraising letters? - Richard Armstrong sea turtles letter (1988) - Political fundraising email from Sen. Al Franken’s Senate re-election campaign, 2013, which he won: Let’s circle back to where we started – a subscription dm letter, and the most profitable ad of all time (that’s been tracked): Wall Street Journal “Two young men” letter. (include text-first 5 paragraphs) Is that fear? Well, FOMO. Is that greed? Wanting to be CEO. Also… envy; desire for power, success; wanting to increase career odds. So, not exactly. Major certainty: Copywriting won’t work without stirring some emotion. And nearly all emotions are some form of moving away from something you don’t want (which can be construed as fear) or moving towards something you do want (which can be construed as greed). But there are a lot of steps in between raw fear and raw greed.Download.

A friend with a dog problem – biting. Found a training way to completely eliminate the problem. Product. Lead-genAd was very powerful: Biting dog? First thing they do is try to put your pooch down. Get a much happier solution! He was getting a lot of clicks on the ad. But very few conversions. Turned out the reason was his copy struck a very different tone. While the ad was scary and energetic (Tone 4), his copy was depressed and low-energy (Tone 5). Once he matched the copy to his ad, conversions picked right up. It’s all a matter of tone – in your lead generation, in your copy, and in staying consistent throughout your funnel. We’ll talk about that today. And before we do, get a load of this tone: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. The Importance of Tone - a mismatch will break trust (lead gen and sales page) - a match will keep trust (lead gen and sales page) - everything works better when you pick the right tone How to find the right Tone for your copy - who you are to your clients (persona) - how they want to be talked to - within all that, what works best Why your whole funnel should keep the same Tone - builds trust - does not distract readers into thinking they are being sold - helps set you apart from others The Five Tones Each is valid, but some will work a lot better than others. Again, to choose the right one, you need to think about who you are to your clients, how they want to be talked to, and within all that, which one converts the best. Example: Selling Copy Critiques. A lot of people do it. Their approach is often different. I’m one of those people, but I wouldn’t use all five of these tones. However, I can think of at least one person who would use each one. I’ll let you guess as to who they are. But let’s go through them one by one, because you can use at least one of these tones all the way through a funnel in just about any business. 1. Crazy Energy This is high-octane copywriting. It needs to make sense. But you can rave like a maniac with every word. How would we do this selling copy critiques? Lead gen ad: Get your copy hitting grand slam after grand slam! Headline: Your copy’s like a timid little kitten. Let’s turn it into a ROARING LION! Tip: Keep the energy high and mounting all the way through. And be the kind of person who delivers mile-a-minute, testosterone-drenched critiques. 2. Steady Driving This is steady-as-she goes copywriting. It does have a forward momentum, but it’s calm, friendly, and level-headed. What would it look like with an ad and in a headline to sell a copy critique? Lead gen ad: Step by step to greater results with your copy Headline: Our closely-guarded system for cranking up the response in your copy Tip: You need to have a very systematic, somewhat rational work style and way of interacting with others for this to fully work. 3. Up Close and Personal I would say this is more me than any of the other four. It’s very customized. A combination of systematic and intuitive. Very focused on results but not all that locked-in on how to get them. To use this approach, you need to think about how to describe what’s not a predictable experience. Here’s how I would do it: Lead gen ad: Only ONE approach will make your copy convert better. Let me show you what it is. Headline: You’re not a cookie, right? So why use a cookie-cutter approach with your copy, when a customized approach will work so much better? Tip: You really need to know yourself, and listen closely to what your customers/clients say about you, to use this approach effectively. I’ve collected enough testimonials from already successful clients who say “I don’t know how he does that” to realize that promoting my custom approach will appeal to the right prospect. 4. Serious Danger If you are harsh, paranoid or simply very critical, this is a good approach. It’s completely valid and it works with a sizeable section of the market. The point here is to NOT pull your punches. You’ll really piss some people off, but you’ll endear others to you. You only care about the ones who like your kind of approach. Lead-gen ad: Yes, your copy really does suck. DON’T let it tank your business. Headline: If you’re copy’s not working, you might as well throw in the towel now. But if you can handle the truth about what you need to do, we need to talk. 5. Sad and Gentle This can work with a sensitive subject, especially around health and death. But it’s very hard to pull off effectively. I’m going to give it my best shot in showing you how you would use this to market copywriting critiques. Lead-gen ad: You know how bad you feel when copy doesn’t work? Let’s change that. Headline: I remember the dark days of never being able to make my copy work. Fortunately I discovered something that changed all that, and I’d like to share it with you. Recap: Why tone is important, and consistency is just as important 1. People are attracted to different styles. Make yours very clear, right from the get-go. 2. Consistency of tone builds trust. Inconsistency of tone reduces trust. Go for building trust. 3. It’s easier to write more effectively in a tone that matches how you actually interact with people in the marketplace.Download.

So, I recently bought a new piece of music equipment. It came with a lot of bells and whistles, including: Opening – Eqs and Compressors Supercharger GT 99 Passive EQ 149 Vari Comp 99 Enhanced EQ 149 Solid Bus Comp 99 Solid Dynamic 99 Solid EQ 99 VC 2A 99 VC 76 99 VC 160 99 Total: $991 Doesn’t include other special effects, like reverb and overdrive. Second one, passive EQ – a Manley Massive Passive sells for just over $5K. That’s what a producer is buying something to substitute for. Reviews and expert opinions – comes really close. Results: Charles, in private fb group / Alexa enhancement / comment This is important because I went through a whole review of one piece of music a few episodes ago, based on the savings from the sampled instruments. So this is a totally different side of the bonus. Again, the $1199 does not seem so expensive anymore. What did they do? Packed in multiple strings of bonuses into the offer, to enhance value in different directions at the same time. What are some different ways you can do the same kind of things with your offers? We’ll cover that today, with three “alternative offer formulas” you’ve never heard of before. First, let me offer you this reminder: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Example: Infoproduct. How to make money in the constantly changing world of Facebook. Dress Up Your Offer: Strategy #1: Pack in valuable bonuses, even in groups of more than one kind. Product: Making money with Chameleon Facebook Bonus thread #1: Smart content marketing templates – for posts, memes, and even – gasp – podcasts! Bonus thread #2: An inside secret to cut the cost of your Facebook ads by 80% or more! Plus some ad templates. And an auto-ad-creator script you can throw into photoshop. Bonus thread #3: Facebook funnel fat remover: A 14-point investigative tool to find out where you’re spending too much for new leads in any Facebook campaign. Plus a set of tools to fix the flaws you find. Dress Up Your Offer: Strategy #2: Rework your description to focus more on user experience and results, rather than on features and process. No longer will you be whipsawed like a small boat in an ocean storm by Facebook’s constantly changing algorithms. Now it won’t make a bit of difference to you anymore. Because Making Money with Chameleon Facebook shows you how to make money no matter what they do with the algorithm. Not only that. You’ll use a unique, closely-guarded strategy for bringing in boatloads of cash with Facebook groups. Algorithm changes can’t touch you there! And, you’ll know how to test like a ninja. That will keep your cost per lead down to the bare minimum. Dress Up Your Offer: Strategy #3: Lead with a bonus (financial newsletter strategy). Start piling on other bonuses and then just “throw in” “the main event.” We could start with any of the bonuses in Strategy #1. Let’s choose Facebook Ads Cost Reducer. The whole sales letter focuses at first solely on that. Then, we offer everything else – including the main product – as a bonus. Why dressing up your offer is so important People won’t figure out the value of what you’re offering on their own. But when you carefully and skillfully create an offer that captures their imagination with its value and uniqueness, you’ll make a lot more sales.Download.

Show’s today about what I’m calling “Copywriter-Plus.” As things have become very competitive in the world of copy, this is a new strategy I’ve discovered that could help every copywriter who takes advantage of it. Also - new technology, originally developed in radio -- including recorded brief comments from people mentioned during the show. “Copywriter-Plus” is something you and I, Nathan, have been using for a long time without maybe fully realizing it. I’ll explain what it is, give some real-world, present-day examples with interviews, and tell our listeners what steps they can take to use “Copywriter-Plus” in their own business. Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. What Copywriter Plus Is: Copywriting plus one important different skill. Why It’s Valuable: Convenience for clients, competitive edge for copywriter Our examples: Nathan - Copywriter, Podcast Expert. Me - Copywriter, Coach. Client Example #1: Mike Gianullis, Copywriter and CEO - Started out as copywriter - Built $25 million organization - Recently became CEO - Currently helping clients build online stores - Using cold traffic to get leads - Recently hired three full-time copywriter - What difference does his background as a copywriter make? - [clip] - Also told me, when people approach him with new offers they want him to sell, he can evaluate them quickly and confidently because of his background as a copywriter Mike.giannulis@bpobpo.com Client Example #2: Meron Bareket, Copywriter and Tech Whiz Brings a full set of tech skills to his copywriting practice. Also has a tech team on call when he needs them. He’s able to find, fix, diagnose tech problems for clients on a project without their having to send things to a separate tech team. And he can manage design and coding people for clients, which they often don’t like to do, or know how to do. Recently he was working on a promotion for a client giving a business seminar. He ran into a nightmare of tech problems which he didn’t cause, because he had only been working as a copywriter. But his tech skills really came into play: [clip] There was one other problem. Once they stopped the emails from being scary, Meron’s investigation also found the sign-up page on the website was not mobile-friendly. He was able to get that fixed in time, and the seminar had the turnout his client originally hoped for. He prefers copywriting to tech work. But his Copywriter-Plus skill came in VERY handy for a client just a couple weeks ago. contact@meronb.com Client Example #3: Brad Nickel, Copywriter and Traffic Expert Brad got started in the ad agency world, and one of the first thing he got really good at was generating traffic from ads on the Web. He learned some tricks of the trade pretty early on: [clip] That was a while ago, and since then he has become successful and best known in his marketplace as a copywriter. But recently he was hired to do a project that a copywriter without traffic skills wouldn’t be able to do... SAAS project, financial industry, incongruency ads<-->web page; not closing; follow-up emails for those who signed up for the free trial but did not buy. And he’s been able to help his conventional copy clients tune up their funnels with what he knows about traffic. bradnickel@gmail.com How To Take Advantage of “Copywriter-Plus” Yourself 1. Inventory your skills - anything you can add now? 2. Any skill you’d like to develop? 3. Something new you’d like to learn and become good at? Download.

Today we’re starting a new special feature of the Copywriters Podcast. It’s called Reports from the Field. These are interviews with people who are not merely EXPERTS – they are also practitioners. Right now they are implementing what they are talking about. We can all learn so much from people who are in the field and taking action successfully. Our first guest on the Copywriters Podcast Reports from the Field is Victor Urbina. I know Richard well because he is in my business owner’s mentoring program. Victor sold his first business at age 12. Think about that. SOLD his first business by age 12. He has taken a traditional business route in life and he’s been very successful. He has an engineering degree and an MBA. He’s been a UPS store franchisee for 10 years. But in 2016, he started Optimum Life Labs, which develops and markets supplements to help boomers and seniors. We’ll talk about his product Joint Nirvana in today’s show, because he has built a business completely on copy and direct response and it is really starting to get traction. Like, making serious money on a daily basis. Before we start, a friendly reminder: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Now… Victor, welcome to the Copywriters Podcast. I really appreciate that you took time out of your busy schedule to meet with us today. 1. How did you get into direct marketing? 2. We started working together last summer. In mid-February, you told me you’ve made more this year with the new supplement business than you made all last year. I just want to clarify that the supplement business had more sales by mid-feb this year than it did all last year, not that I personally made more income Could you share a few key takeaways from your rapid growth and success? 3. It’s not always comfortable to talk about mistakes, but most experienced people agree you learn more from mistakes you made than from your successes. Would you be willing to talk about an important mistake or two you made, and what you learned from it, and what are doing differently as a result? 4. Let’s focus specifically on copywriting. What would you say is the biggest surprise in what you’ve learned about copy / or, about how to write copy? 5. What are the most valuable things you’ve learned about copywriting? 6. With a business based on copywriting, what is the limit you see as to how large you could grow the business? Or is there a limit? Why? 7. I know we have a large group of business owners that listen to this podcast. What would be your advice to business owners who would like to write or understand writing copy better? 8. What are the main differences in running a business like your group of UPS stores, and Optimum Life Labs, which is 100% based on direct marketing copy? 9. What’s the most important thing you’re now able to do in business as a result of your new-found proficiency in copywriting, that you couldn’t do before? Email Victor at victor@optimumlifelabs.comDownload.

This week's episode is a little bit different. David and Nathan do a bit of a freestyle rant on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, as it pertains to writing your sales copy. For those of you who might be unfamiliar with the topic, here's what we'll be covering. Physiological needs * consumer goods * food * clothing * shelter Safety needs * personal security * financial security * health and well being Social belonging * Fitting in * Trends * Identity brands Esteem * Status symbols * Luxury items Self-actualization * Courses * Self-Improvement materialsDownload.

As a journalist, I was trained to do “news stories” and “feature stories.” A news story started with a quick, curiosity-provoking sentence hinting or outright telling what the story was about. A feature story would start with an anecdote, or a startling fact, or something other than the direct subject of the story. Same as direct / indirect leads. What we’ll talk about today. Because which one you use can have a dramatic impact, positive or negative, on your sales. You need to know which one to use, when, and that’s what we’ll cover. Warning Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Direct vs. Indirect Leads Definition Direct: Where you present a Big Promise or a Problem-Solution that has to do DIRECTLY with what your offer can provide your prospect. Indirect: Where you start on a topic or subject that’s different than what your offer is really about. Both are legitimate. The thing is, there’s a lot of confusion about which is which, and when to use each type. We’ll clear that up today and it may change some minds on how to use each type. Before we got there, let’s look at an example of each type. Simple Example Say I was promoting a new course on copywriting Direct: If writing’s too hard, takes too long, or is not getting you the results you want, here is a way to make it easier, faster, and much more profitable. Indirect: First time I met Jim Camp… Both are legitimate Classic Way The Difference Is Described From Great Leads, published in 2011 Key point: The less aware the audience is, the more indirect you want your lead to be. The situation is not that simple today, and we’ll explore and explain that in this episode. Take A Look at Real Life When are we direct in a conversation with a friend? Urgency Problem-solving When are we indirect in a conversation with a friend? Delicate situation Persuasion “Shooting the breeze” To get clarification in our own minds (side note: coaching) Writing sales copy should be like talking to a friend. So maybe, just maybe, we should look at direct vs. indirect leads that way. And, with that in mind… 2018 Version of The Difference Between Direct and Indirect Leads Great Leads: Indirect lead focuses on clarification for the customer who doesn’t know much about your offer (or the problem it solves). But there’s a much more important and widespread use for indirect leads these days… and that’s for persuasion. Especially when you’re selling the kind of offer that everyone is real clear about, as well as the problem it solves… but the offer is so overpitched that a direct lead would immediately get deleted or thrown away. So – direct lead You already know the prospect – or, at least, they know you or your business Especially, when they’ve bought from you before Particularly, when you have a high-end upsell offer… either immediately after the sale, or later on down the line And, most of all – WHEN THEY HAVE A PARTICULAR, URGENT PROBLEM that they haven’t been able to find a satisfactory solution for. And you have a unique and appealing solution that of course they haven’t seen or heard of before. How to Do A Direct Lead Get right to the point Big Promise Or, Problem-Solution Example: conversation at a marketing conference about critiques How to Do An Indirect Lead Probably the best single way is to start with a story or a metaphor – or, best of all, a story that’s also a metaphor. Example – conversation at a marketing conference. Start w How to Transition from an Indirect Lead to Your Body Copy “Just as... ” “I mention that because… ” “Suppose you were to do the same thing with… ”Download.

Story about recent critique client: a couple good ideas; 20. Mandy’s question about my creativity, from her podcast interview: Question 2: One other thing I noticed about reading your testimonials… your clients are impressed with how fast you come up with great ideas. He also has this ridiculous talent for coming up with copy, like, effortlessly. It would take me at least 30 minutes to come up with what he comes up with in 30 seconds. —Fran Rengel, CEO, Enrich Marketing, Inc., Austin, TX After WEEKS of struggling to find the perfect lead for a promotion I was working on, David nailed it in only 37 seconds flat. Doberman Dan Where did it come from? I actually eat my own cooking. Today I’ll share some of the recipes with you. Before we get started on Monster Creativity, a reminder: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Monster Creativity - What it is: the ability to generate consistently good ideas – and a lot of them. - Where does it come from? - Research and stored knowledge - Experience: successful and unsuccessful, and reflection to be able to quickly spot what’s good and what sucks - Flexibility and release of fear of looking stupid - How do you develop it yourself – that’s what we’ll cover John Cleese’s breakthrough observation - It’s a skill - Skill beats talent in the long run – and it’s much more reliable in the marketplace - What are the skills and how do they fit together? Resilience beats Perfection, every time - What I learned from Richard Armstrong - What resilience is, and why it’s so important - Deliberate practice and mental representations (created by smart repetition) - How resilience and smart repetition LEADS to perfection Where Math Fits In How many combinations of six elements can you make, where you use all six? The answer comes from a branch of mathematics called combinatorics and is used in algebra, calculus and mathematical analysis. It’s really a simple thing. It’s called “factorial” Six factorial is: 6 times 5 times 4 times 3 times 2 times one. Six factorial is 720. 720 different combinations. And all you need is five or 10 good combinations for monster creativity. The Power of Negative Thinking Sometimes you need to do something conceptually similar to what’s called “an acid test” in accounting – that is, if all hell broke loose, how long would this business last? With ideas, the question is different: In what situations would this claim NOT be true? You want to then either toss or fix the idea so it’s true enough of the time to make it valid. Summary Recipe #1: Read widely, talk to people, take notes, learn to mindmap, put ideas or segments of ideas down on paper Recipe #2: Let resilience overcome your perfectionism. Develop mental models of what successful practical creativity looks like. Recipe #3: Respect the mathematical concept of factorials. Make more combinations of ideas than you need. Then sift through them to find the best ones. Then, acid-test them to see how strong your finalist ideas actually are.Download.

Native Instruments purchase - $1200 for a hard drive filled with music software and virtual instruments. This cost me more than a lot of my guitars! I called my sales engineer at Sweetwater, Brian. What he explained to me. What I’d be able to do… what I would not have to spend… or take time learning. Suddenly, it didn’t seem that expensive. Think about what it would have cost to do that in real life. Rent Davies Symphony Hall. $2500 minimum – already more than twice what I paid for the software. And that does not include • Hiring a trumpet soloist • Hiring a woodwind ensemble, with flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, saxophones, contrabassoons and bass clarinets. • Or hiring a string section, with cellos, violas and violins And that’s just for starters. Add to that the cost of professionally setting up microphones and recording the instruments; then, mixing and producing the finished piece. We’re easily now between $3000 and $4000 just for 10-1/2 seconds of music. So now you can see how suddenly $1199 was not nearly as much money. And that’s an example of how you demonstrate perceived value. Before we go further, this message: Warning Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Perceived Value It seems like a lot of hocus-pocus. But it’s not. It’s the applied use of your imagination to understand and then explain why something that seems like nothing more than a pile of features, is actually worth A LOT to your prospect. How to increase Perceived Value 1. Looking at your offer from your CUSTOMER’S point of view - What’s their life like today? - Compare your offer to the cost / or missed opportunity / of what their life’s like today to what it would be like if they didn’t have the problem, or took advantage of the opportunity. That is, what is it worth not to have this problem? Or, what is it worth to have this opportunity? And, why is our offer better (providing more value) than other solutions or opportunities available are? - Compare your offer, and the results it provides, to inferior solutions that don’t provide as much value TIP: Beware of the Curse of the Obvious. The value of your offer may be obvious to you. But it’s rarely obvious to the customer. You need to spell out, even demonstrate it. In your prospect’s life. What we’ll talk about today is a series of steps to do that. Understanding what I just talked about is crucial to understanding how to create perceived value. 2. Applying the Seven Reasons (plus 1) People Buy 1. Make money 2. Save money 3. Save time 4. Reduce effort 5. Improve health 6. Reduce pain 7. Increase pleasure Plus one: Increase prestige What you do is you look at the benefits of your offer. All the things it does for the prospect. Then you look for which of these benefits (or performances) fit into one or more of the eight categories we just discussed. Like, with my Native Instruments software – how much money would it have cost me to set up, pay people, record, and produce that piece of music. (save money) It can take a few hours to actually go through this process step by step, and we don’t have that kind of time right now, so what we’ll do today is look at three examples of the perceived value concepts developed on products based on the eight categories. 3. Example: Make money (Reason 1) Let’s say you came up with a program that could show you exactly which Facebook ads and landing pages in your niche were working, and gave you an exact algorithm for getting the right distribution for that ad. The increased perceived value: Our program multiplies every ad dollar into more revenue because of precision targeting. 4. Example: Reduce effort (Reason 4) What if you came up with an exercise machine that allowed you to get the same cardio and strength benefits of existing machines, with only half the effort on your part? For people who can’t do a rigorous gym workout–whether they’re weak, or disabled, or just plain lazy-that would be worth a lot. The increased perceived value: Get more of the positive results of exercise with less exertion. 5. Example: Improve health (Reason 5) Suppose you had a diet and supplement plan that could solve the same problem conventional medical care attempts to solve, without the dangerous side effects. I don’t even want to speculate on what that would be, what specific The increased perceived value: Get healthier in a safer way, and save enormous medical costs. 6. Summary - Look at your offer from your customer’s point of view - Develop benefits - Categorize those benefits into the seven reasons people buy plus one - Pick the best examples that demonstrate value, based on what we talked about on today’s podcast.Download.

I got this small rubber ball to squeeze to strengthen the muscles in my left hand, when I started playing guitar again a couple years ago after a 40-year “break.” You want your copy to be as strong as possible, too. Remember that good copy has a job to do… to move qualified prospects to take action. That takes muscle! Today’s episode tells you how to make your copy more muscular. Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. These are seven easy-to-use tips. You might want to cut and paste the show notes from our home site, copywriterspodcast.com, and make yourself a little checklist. Use the checklist to go over your copy after you’ve written it, to make it more muscular. I’ll give you two tips, and then five more from three great books… we’ll include the titles and amazon links in show notes. The books are: The Art of Plain Talk, by Rudolph Flesch; Writing Tools, by Roy Peter Clark; and The Magic Power of Emotional Appeal, by Roy Garn. TIP 1. Your first tip for making your writing more muscular comes directly from me. In fact, I used my recently strengthened left hand to type this up for the show notes: Use active verbs / active sentences / and write about things the reader or listener can easily visualize. Example: The Copywriting Podcast is listened to by thousands of people. // weak, passive Thousands of people listen to the Copywriting Podcast. // strong, active TIP 2. From me: Short words / short sentences / short paragraphs — but do mix it up. If every word, sentence and paragraph is short, your copy quickly becomes boring and ineffective. But do what you can to keep your writing clear and understandable by using simple words, sentences and paragraphs more often than not. Complexity creates confusion in the prospect’s mind – and the confused mind does not buy. TIP 3. In Rudolph Flesch’s The Art of Plain Talk, slavishly follow these rules from the Chapter “Gadgets of Language,” where Flesch is quoting another author, H.W. Fowler, in his book “The King’s English”: These five rules: ⁃ Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. ⁃ Prefer the concrete word to the abstract. ⁃ Prefer the single word to the circumlocution. ⁃ Prefer the short word to the long. ⁃ Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance. Let’s look at a couple of these. Prefer the concrete word to the abstract: For weight loss. Abstract: You can see impressive results in less than a month. Concrete: You can drop three dress sizes in less than a month. For Facebook advertising, Romance word: On Facebook, you’ll experience more transactions with the same ad spend. For Facebook advertising, Saxon word: On Facebook, you’ll kill it more often with the same ad spend. Note: To get you started on this, there’s a Wikipedia page on words with Anglo-Saxon origin. Link in the show notes. TIP 4. From Rudolph Flesch again, Chapter 4, “The Grammar of Gossip” Always put people in your writing, as often as possible. It makes the writing more interesting and keeps the reader engaged. “The thing to do in such a situation is to go through the text sentence by sentence and to look for the logical-not the grammatical-subject. After a while you will discover that the logical subject is always a person and that every sentence can be written so that this person is mentioned.” Non-people: The critique was so effective that when the ideas were put into effect, the conversion rate on the VSL more than doubled. A person: Brett took the ideas from my critique and put them to work. The ideas were so effective that Brett doubled his conversion rate on the VSL. TIP 5. From Roy Peter Clark: Put your strongest words at the start and end of each sentence. (example - before and after) TIP 6. From Roy Peter Clark: Use internal cliffhangers. Keeps ‘em reading! TIP 7. From Roy Garn: Use the most powerful Emotional Appeals as often as you can, logically and plausibly. The four most powerful Emotional Appeals are: - Self-preservation - Money - Romance - Recognition This is practically a full copywriting course in itself. Self-preservation can mean survival, or immortality, or even keeping your job. Money… well, as Danny DeVito said in the movie The Hiest, “That’s why they call it money!” Romance is of course love and sex, but it’s also taking an ordinary idea and making it special, like the experience of driving a new car and making it romantic. Recognition can include prestige, appealing a person’s sense of identity, and personalizing a message by using a person’s name. So that wraps up Writing with Muscle. Learn to use these tips and with practice, they’ll become habits. Next time: Increasing Perceived Value Books and links The Art of Plain Talk, by Rudolph Flesch http://a.co/3xPclwa The Art of Plain Talk, by Rudolph Flesch Writing Tools, by Roy Peter Clark The Magic Power of Emotional Appeal, by Roy Garn Wikipedia page on words of Anglo-Saxon OriginDownload.

On June 23, 1965, a group out of Detroit called The Contours released a record which became a big hit. The tune was written by written by Smokey Robinson and Bobby Rogers, and it was called “First, I Look At The Purse.” Many other groups covered this song afterwards, including the Jay Geils Band. It’s a very interesting song… but, when it comes to critiquing copy, I have my own version. Actually, I don’t have a whole song, just a title at this point. Maybe someday I’ll write the song and then release it first on this podcast, Nathan. We could even do it as a duet. But for now, just the title. It’s… “First I Look For The Hook!” In any piece of copy, your hook’s so important. We’ll get into what it is in a minute, and how you can find your best hook for any copy you’re writing. This will be a revelation to a lot of people. But before we do, first an important announcement from your conscience: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. What is a hook? How is it different than the headline? 1. My own story: Let your clients do your selling. 2. Ted Nicholas story: The only way left for the little guy to get rich. 3. Stuart Lichtman story: How to get lots of money for anything fast. What do these all have in common? (besides money) All came from paying attention First two cases, just looking and listening In the third case, research — digging, asking questions, seeing if you could look at it a different way Here’s one that’s not about money — it’s about another one of life’s necessities, beer Claude Hopkins - Schlitz First one to tell There was resistance — but they finally agreed to use it, and it worked There is a technique to create a hook quickly, which we’ve talked about twice before (most recently in “The USP Shortcut,” episode 38) STEP 1: Make a list of what people hate about competitors STEP 2: Find the one thing highest on the list that you can do the opposite of STEP 3: Use that as your hook, your USP Example - BMW, about 10 years ago Even though there’s that technique and it can work, the best hooks usually come from observation or research Here’s a short list of things to look for: What have you or your client overlooked that’s simple and emotionally compelling? What’s a memorable way to say it? What “lights up the boards?” (Gets a lot of response.) (Ted Nicholas example.)Download.

Copywriting is a lot like magic. With good sales copy, you can hold a reader captive. You can take them on a journey and open them up a world of opportunities. You can spell out some words and cast a spell on your readers. David Allan is both a copywriter and a magician. He joins the podcast this week to share some of his knowledge with our listeners. We talk about the overlap between his two worlds, including the skills he's been able to bring over from one to the other. David reveals some of the secrets of human nature that makes magic work. Then he explains how those same aspects of our nature apply to persuasive sales copy. This one is a "must listen" episode. Download.

How does copywriting apply to a sales funnel? David Allan joins us to break it down. We start with the 5,000-foot view by exploring what funnels are and how they work. Then, David goes over some simple rules to follow when building your sales funnels. We cover some of the most common mistakes people make when crafting their sales funnels. And David shares some of his favorite resources for people to learn more. If you're trying to build out a full-fledged marketing machine for your business, this is the episode for you. Download it now.Download.

When I first started copywriting, I had a real disadvantage. I had been a journalist, and the underlying belief -- at the time -- was that people are rational: You simply give them the facts, for and against, and they will make a reasoned decision. So when I started to see promotions that were working based on emotional appeals that seemed foreign and bizarre to me, I didn't understand. It took a while. But eventually, I came to realize what every successful copywriter realizes: that people are motivated by forces that had nothing to do with what I had learned in school, or on the job as a working journalist. One way I came to make sense of all of this was by looking at what's known as "the Seven Deadly Sins." That is -- all of these things you were NOT supposed to do and feel, were, in fact, what motivated large numbers of people to act and to buy. That's what we'll be talking about today. Warning Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Overview If you are deeply religious or highly idealistic, I want to make one thing very clear: The Seven Deadly Sins we'll be talking about today are presented as obstacles to overcome. When I present this information, I'm not advocating for humans to be this way. I'm acknowledging that no human alive today has been perfected, to the best of my knowledge. This is about what I have observed... what actually happens, what motivates markets in the real world, where humans are mostly NOT rational. 1. Lust definition from Wik: intense longing (more than just sex) Think about collectors. (My guitar story) 2. Gluttony definition from Wik: overindulgence, overconsumption It's certainly food. But there are people who can't get enough of anything. Think of all the wonderful wine clubs. Endless bottles of fine wines. 3.Greed definition from Wik: artificial, rapacious desire and pursuit of material possessions Certainly luxury items. Nobody "needs" them. Why do they want them? You could say greed. Really, the first three are all about untrammeled desire. Most people have a hard time controlling all their desires, and if you can find a way to tap into a desire, it will make your copy stronger. 4. Sloth definition from Wik: physical laziness - unwillingness to exert Even people who are hard-working are lazy at some times. "The Lazy Man's Way To Riches" Like with all of these, don't CALL your prospect lazy. Simply by contrasting the hard work required for other solutions and how much easier your solution is -- you'll make your point, and that can help you make your sale. 5. Wrath definition from Wik: uncontrolled feelings of rage People are REALLY angry these days. If you can show that you share their rage AND tie your offer to a solution out of that rage, it's a very powerful way to make a sale. 6. Envy definition from Wik: insatiable desire, jealousy This is my favorite - I think envy is fear of loss brought smack-dab into the present. Fear of competitors getting ahead of you. "keeping up with the Joneses" 7. Pride corrupt selfishness - putting one's own desires and urges, wants, and whims ahead of the welfare of other people Well, there's another way to look at pride. Being proud of yourself. Being proud of your kids. Being proud of your team. Old headline: "Build a Body You Can Be Proud Of" Summary Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride. These won't do all the work for you, but they will point you in a good direction.Download.

1 Bob story "Like my family's kitchen." My experience was a little different - Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford. I knew how to ask questions - but still hadn't learned how to ask engaging questions that helped people to open up. That's what I've spent the last 40 years learning, and I'll share what I can today with you. 0.1 Warning Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. 2 What interviewing is It's not an interrogation It's a conversation starts with building rapport Stan Russell - Jerry Richardson, The Magic of Rapport http://a.co/e3JqwHo Comes from experience, common sense, skills training, clarity of your purpose of the interview -- and, research ahead of time. "It's all part of the job-one must be prepared to be a host, to share food, to entertain with stories, to basically do anything and everything to make the subject feel comfortable, to put them at ease, so that when you turn on that tape recorder and begin asking questions they feel like they're talking to a friend. It's not always easy to be such a chameleon, but that is what a good in­terviewer must be." From a book I'll mention later. 3 Why interviewing is important There's stuff you need to know You can't find out all of it from book/internet research alone. So you need to talk to people. And people are glad to talk to you, almost all of the time, if you can convey to them that you are truly interested in what they have to say. That's where interviewing comes in. 4 -- 3 tips - what to do 1. Prepare. Find out all you can before the interview. Not to show off your knowledge. More to avoid annoying the person you're interviewing by showing a lack of respect for their time, asking a question you could easily have found the answer to, yourself. 2. Listen. Strive to understand what the person is saying. Don't be in a rush. Respect their time, but give them time to answer. 3. Be ready for the interview to go in a different direction than you had planned. Sometimes you'll get gems from tangents! 5 - 3 tips - what not to do 1. Avoid the urge to show how clever you are. I learned this the hard way, starting on the South Lawn of the White House in 1976. The person you're interviewing appreciates intelligence, but they may resent your efforts to one-up them. Be humble. 2. Don't be like an interrogator in a detective show on TV. Harsh yes/no questions leave people cold and defensive. You want to do the opposite -- make them comfortable so they open up. 3. Don't be in a rush. Respect the time limits you've agreed to, but be as relaxed and focused as you can be. One of the great interviewing skills is to make the person you're talking to feel like they are the most important person in the world! 6 Summary and book rec Prepare; make it a conversation where the person you're interviewing does most of the talking. You can tell a little about yourself to disclose who you are as a person, and as the interviewer doing this job -- but keep it short. Develop and maintain trust. Take really good notes or better yet, record with permission. Book recommendation: The Art of the Interview, by Lawrence Grobel. One of the great journalistic interviewers of our time. This gives you a lot more than you need to know for what you'll be doing -- unless you'll be interviewing celebrities for articles in major magazines -- but you can glean tips and techniques from one of the greats. He also taught a class on this subject at UCLA, his alma mater. He really does know how to teach through storytelling! http://a.co/iLgeYPCDownload.

I remember when I was a kid, I asked my dad about the cigarettes he was smoking. Very sarcastically, he repeated words from a commercial: "For the best combination of filter and good taste, Kent satisfies best!" I smiled, but he could tell I didn't get his little joke. Then he said, "Seriously, David - it's because Kent has this Micronite filter. It filters out the harsher parts of the smoke." Dad, being a nuclear physicist, really bought into Kent's so-called "logical" Unique Selling Proposition. He told me about the Micronite filter like it was established scientific fact. But of course, it was just a USP dreamed up by some ad agency. Now… these days the old ads for cigarettes are considered evil. And though evil they may have been, they were definitely effective. Having a good USP for each brand was definitely a big part of their success. So the question arises: Can you use a USP to sell healthy products? Good products? Products that improve people's lives? And here's the answer: Not only you can, but you should. What's more, these days, very often you have to use a USP if you want to half a chance of selling anything. And that's where the problem comes in. How do you create it? That's what we'll talk about today. In fact, I've got a shortcut method for you. But first… Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. The Importance of USP • What it is • You're always competing • Answers (sometimes hidden) question: "Why should I buy from YOU?" • Big mistake people make - they write USP's from their own / the business's point of view • Best USPs should state or imply a clear benefit to the CUSTOMER USP For a Copywriter • Two Steps • First step: Talent Stack • Term originated by Scott Adams, explained in two books • How I used the talent stack for my USP • Use your talent stack by making a list, and put together a combination that sets you apart • Second step: Make a list of common benefits, or "should-be" benefits • Through research, find out what people are disappointed or outright pissed off about among others in the field – WHERE YOU CAN HONEST PROCLAIM THE OPPOSITE USP For a Product/Service/Business • Same idea as second half of process for a copywriter • You need to do research… on your own product, and on customer views of competition • Then, an analysis: What's the one most important thing people are complaining about, that you can offer the opposite of • Once you have the concept, come up with words that convey it in a captivating and memorable way Recap of the Steps • You should be doing this kind of research anyway • So you can piggyback on what you're already doing • A good USP can make half the sale for you all by itself. Download.

Have you ever see a musician who's like this unimpressive guy, sort of could fade into the background at the drop of a pin. Then he picks up an instrument, and he's like in a different universe. What happened? He'd tell you, "I got in the pocket" or "I slipped into the groove." Another way to say that is, "I got into flow." What's what we'll talk about today. Advisory Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. What Is "Flow?" • Ease of writing • Non-stop • Low stress • Easy access to creativity • Could even feel like a rush - dopamine drop Benefits Of Flow For Writing • The writing's smoother, it's easier to read • When you're in flow and you're writing - your writing is more likely to put the reader in a flow state • A reader in flow state has turned critical thinking off. That person is more likely to be able to make a good decision about buying. • When you're in flow, access to your imagination is better. Words come easier. Metaphors come easier. Creative selling ideas (that work) come easier. • Flow helps you stay in a state of momentum and build up greater momentum. That means you'll get done writing sooner! What Gets In The Way • Not enough knowledge loaded up • Not enough experience loaded up (Mental Representations - Ericcson) • Premature Perfectionation • If you hate what you're writing. Sorry, can't help you there How To Get Obstacles To Flow Out Of The Way • Do more study and research, especially on the current project • Write a few more sales letters. You need to have those Mental Representations. • Put off your Perfectionation until you've finished a full draft. How To Get Into Flow • See if you can get out of "hurry up and wait" deadline situations. Give yourself time to ponder. • Understand flow comes best when you're in a creative space, where you're not feeling pressure, there's nothing on your mind, you're open. Not task-oriented space. • Silicon Valley solution – will ask Scott Aughtmon tomorrow.Download.

I was at a marketing conference and ended up sitting next to a woman named Maya who had the most unusual briefcase I'd ever seen. I asked her about it and she said, I got it at the Coach store. I was planning to spend no more than $300 but the Fashion Advisor asked me some questions, and she recommended this one, based on my answers. I nodded. Then she said, I ended up spending $700. And I really hate the salespeople at the OTHER stores. But Connie wasn't a salesperson at all. She just found out what I was looking for and showed it to me. I simply HAD to have it! I bit my tongue and did my best to keep a straight face. I didn't want to burst Maya's bubble by pointing out that Connie was a GOOD salesperson, and that's why she didn't see her as a salesperson at all. But Maya's attitude about salespeople would have made it very hard for her to be successful as a copywriter. That's what we'll talk about today. Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Why Sales Is So Important For Copywriters One A-lister who has thought about this a lot told me that success in copywriting ultimately boils down to: one-third writing two-thirds sales ability If You Have A Background In Sales It helps, but even there, you have differences. The mindset is the same in copy, but the techniques are different. If You Don't Have A Sales Background, Check Your Attitude If you have a negative attitude towards sales, succeeding as a copywriter is going to be very tough for you. If you're open to / interested in / sales, there's hope for you. Three key sales skills for copywriters 1. Lining up: prospects, your offer, what sets you apart Prospects: understanding them well. Their world. Their values. How they talk. What their biggest problems are, that they can't solve, that your offer can help them solve. Your Offer: What you have that solves their biggest problem or problems, and how it solves them. You really need to know this inside-out. What's Unique, Valuable, and Preferable About Your Offer: What can they get from you, they can't get anywhere else. Or, how is what you have: better, cheaper, more convenient, faster, simpler. In other words, preferable. You need to know about the other offers your prospect is looking at, to be able to get this across believably. When you have knowledge of your prospects… your offer… and what sets it apart in a favorable way, then you can line these things up and come up with some really compelling copy. 2. Anticipating And Answering Objections. In copy, think of objections as THE REASONS A PROSPECT WHO WANTS WHAT YOU HAVE TO OFFER, IS HESITANT TO BUY. There are about half a dozen basic objections most people will have about most offers: 1) It costs too much 2) How do I know it will work (in general)? 3) How do I know it will work for ME (specific)? 4) What if something goes wrong? 5) Will I be able to use it myself? 6) What do others say? You'll be able to come up with answers to these objections a lot more easily once you have the basic knowledge and understanding of the three areas from the "lining up" section, above: 1 Your offer 2 Your prospect's mindset 3 Competing offers your prospect will consider, and specifically why yours is better 3. Increasing two things: desire, and a sense of urgency. Both, of course, in your prospect. Desire: The more you can make your prospect want it, the easier it will be to get them to buy. The key here is, you're not just selling a product or service, or even just the first- level set of benefits. You're selling your prospect a better LIFE. Urgency: One way is with devices in copy Limited Quantity Deadline Price Goes Up (worked with me on Tuesday) The other form of urgency is more internal to the customer: The danger of doing nothing. What will your life be like if you don't get this offer? Summary 1. Line up customer, product, unique value of product 2. Anticipate and answer objections 3. Increase desire and sense of urgency in your prospectDownload.

They say that laughter is the best medicine. It can uplift the soul. It can make people fall in love with you. But it's one of the hardest things to accomplish in writing. And that's doubly so when it comes to copywriting. Kevin Rogers is back to join us this week. Kevin has a long history of both copywriting, and stand-up comedy. He knows what works and what doesn't when it comes to injecting comedy into your sales copy, and he's spilling the beans for you to gobble up. There's a lot of overlap between a career in comedy and a career in comedy. But it takes a man talented in both to bring these similarities to light. And in this episode, Kevin and David do just that. Kevin's Website Copy ChiefDownload.

Getting started is often the hardest thing for a new copywriter to do. That's why we invited Kevin Rogers on the podcast to shed some light on the topic. Kevin is the head of the Copy Chief community, an online resource for copywriters of all experience levels. And he brings a wealth of knowledge for newbie copywriters to the table in this interview. We cover: How to get clients when you're first starting out Classic mistakes new copywriters tend to make How to join the Copy Chief community and much more. Kevin's WebsiteDownload.

My friend Michael owns a sushi restaurant in my neighborhood in San Francisco. His place is one of a dozen, maybe dozens, in the neighborhood - I've never taken time to count all of them. Even though the restaurant has much more seating than your typical sushi bar, it's always nearly full at dinnertime. One day I pulled Michael aside and asked him how he got so many customers. "David, it's not all that many customers," he said. "It's that the customers I have, keep coming back." Does a sushi restaurant owner know something that you don't? Or even if you know it, are you falling short when it comes to taking advantage of this truth? That is: You'll make a lot more money when you find a way to get old customers to keep coming back. We'll talk about that in today's episode. But first on the menu is this: Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Most marketers leave the vast majority of their money on the table by not making additional offers to their new customers. Big mistake. True, sometimes people want to buy one thing once from you, but most would want more if you made them good offers. One of my A-List copywriter friends writes for Mindvalley. He doesn't write all their copy. In a minute you'll see why that would be physically impossible! Mindvalley makes two new offers every month to its large and growing list. It's currently an eight-figure company - between 10 and 100 million - and my friend thinks they're on their way to crossing $100 million a year. Of course not everyone can come up with 24 unique offers a year. But anyone can benefit from different variations of their strategy, and that's what this episode is about. One reason going back to old customers works so well is you have already broken down the barriers of unfamiliarity and distrust. When a customer knows you and trusts you, they are five to six more times likely to buy. When you ignore that, you truly are leaving money on the table. Let's talk about how to pick up that money off the table! Three types of copy after the initial sale 1. Sell the same thing again Sometimes, all it takes is an ask. Especially if you have a consumable product that people use up. Amazon does this to me all the time. Maybe you, too. They'll usually ask for the SAME sale inside the website. Fact is, there are some things I buy over and over again. But I don't consume them at a regular enough pace to subscribe. One example is an Italian espresso coffee. So what I'll do is order it when the bag of beans gets low. Let's say you are a golf equipment company, and the golf balls you sell are unique. Well, golfers lose golf balls. And if they like yours, all you might need is a little push - a special offer - to sell more. Let's say you have a book, and a buyer list. If people love your book, they might want to buy a copy for a friend and/or a family member. Or a business associate. If you take the initiative, and make the suggestion, you'll have a much better shot at getting them to buy. 2. Sell them something similar, but not exactly the same Two ways to do this: First way: Make frequent similar offers of products you have developed. Mindvalley is the perfect example of that. They make 24 offers of their own related products per year. And people buy them! If you are an author or a teacher/trainer/info-product creator, this is a strategy you can use at any size business. OK, you probably can't come up with 24 brand new offers a year. But you can come up with more than one. Coming up with new services will also work using this strategy. If you make a physical product, or if you have an online store, the next way is better for you. Second way: Offer a related affiliate product, or related products you buy at wholesale and sell at retail. Do these seem more like marketing strategies than copywriting strategies? Well, in a way they are. But there's no way they'll work without good copy to support the development of the relationship with the customers and making the additional sales. Now let's talk about the third type of copy: 3. Get them to buy something from you every month - Continuity program - membership site - Gift box program - Some foods and supplements I buy on Amazon offer these - Subscription to a publication - Copywriters Podcast, except we forgot to charge you for this… -- Tips: 1. Don't always go for the close in every communication. 2. You have to sell them fully each time. Trust is higher and resistance is lower, but you still need a complete sales presentation. 3. Remember why they bought from you in the first place, and reference it directly or indirectly in your follow-up communications. Download.

I started teaching writing 30 years ago, and one of the biggest challenges my students always seemed to face was the amount of time it took to write. This of course was especially true for people who had to do writing as one of a few or many tasks in their businesses or their lives. Over the years, I've developed systems and techniques that help people write faster. But I've never before shared the system for writing copy faster than I'm going to share today. This one is based on some of the same ideas I used 30 years ago for doing other kinds of writing, that worked so well. We'll move on in a minute. But first, there's this: Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. We'll cover five steps. These steps take the hard work out of writing, which is the fifth step. By concentrating only on each step when you do it, you cut way down on distractions and not knowing what to do next. This doesn't make writing copy easy as pie, BUT it makes it a lot easier, and faster, than most people do it. Step 1 - Get all your research done in advance and ORGANIZE it for yourself so it is easy to access later on. Three types of research: - product (or service) - customer (avatar) - competitors Step 2 - Write out your offer: the best possible version of features and benefits so you could sell a primed customer what you have just with your description of your offer alone. You'll be dropping this into your copy later. Step 3 - write out bullets. Anywhere from 20 (niche offer without a huge price) to 100 (for high-ticket offers in very competitive markets) - the THINKING involved in writing bullets is the hardest part of writing copy, if you're writing your bullets right - that's because you're translating your features into appealing, even tantalizing, benefits, that are very concrete and highly appealing - while you're doing this, you may get copy ideas. Even headline/hook ideas. Jot them down on a separate sheet of paper, or a separate computer document. Step 4 - Outline your copy - as bare-bones or as detailed as you like. Here's a nine-step formula to start with 1. Headline/hook 2. Lead 3. Introduce yourself or your client 4. Talk about the problem you're solving or the opportunity you're presenting up to… 5. Your offer. Make it here. Add copy for bonuses if you have some. 6. Present your guarantee 7. Make a clear but not overly aggressive call to action 8. Give believable reason for urgency 9. Strong call to action OK. Now you've got - your research - your offer - your bullet-point thinking done, and - a roadmap for your letter. you're ready for step 5: Write! Important concept - Gene Schwartz - you're not writing so much as ASSMEBLING. As you get more experienced with this method, you can cut your time by up to 90%. There are certain types of sales letters now I can write in an hour or two. They would have taken me weeks or months in the past. Not everything. Some copy still takes a long time. But with methods like this, I've cut time on everything down to the bare minimum to still get high quality and results.Download.

Copywriters are solitary creatures who spend large amounts of time alone. Yet the good ones understand quite a bit more about human motivations and behaviors than almost anyone else, including most professional psychologists. Why is that? A lot of it comes from observation and thinking about what they have observed. But more to the point, they have to… or, their copy just won't work. Last week we talked about a "core curriculum" of books people copywriters need to read. This week, we're going to talk about "the advanced stuff" – a deep and possibly disturbing survey of how and why people do what they do. Stuff you need to know if you want to improve the response to your copy. So today these words are especially relevant: Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Now, some friendly advice regarding what we're going to be talking about today. Of the dozens of books I considered for last week's episode and this one, the nine books I'm suggesting today made the cut. My advice is that you need to brace yourself when you read them. This stuff can be scary, because as you start to find out how people REALLY behave – and why – it will almost certainly shake up some of your cherished assumptions about humanity. But as a marketer and copywriter, you need to know anyway. Three categories of books: 1. Persuasion 2. Story 3. The mind, and learning -Persuasion Books 1. How to Argue and Win Every Time, by Gerry Spence • Spence is a lawyer with an incredible winning record • Learned some hard lessons early on, changed his approach • Not easy or fun, but incredibly valuable 2. Scott Adams: Winning Bigly – Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter Anymore, by Scott Adams • Visionary thinker about persuasion • This book could upset you – it's worth the disruption • I have it on order. I've only looked at the table of contents on Amazon. 3. Never Split the Difference, by Chis Voss • Former top FBI hostage negotiator • Not what you would expect • Some very valuable insights about persuasion I've never seen anywhere else. - Story Book 4. Wired for Story, by Lisa Cron • Talks about story and how the human brain responds to it • She's got plenty of Hollywood and NY publishing experience • Great teacher – clear explainer - Books on the Mind and Learning 5. Mindset, by Carol Dweck • Two types of people • Invaluable for understanding those who will/those who won't • Author is Stanford professor 6. The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle • Shows why talent is NOT the deciding factor • Lots of tips for learning and improvement • Good introduction to work of Anders Ericsson (book 8) 7. Mastery, by George Leonard • Great book by terrific writer • Helps you understand the frustrations of getting better • Short book, easy read, strangely motivating 8. Peak, by Anders Ericcson and Robert Pool • The "10,000 hour rule" demystified • Clear and well written, but not an easy read • If you want to become a master copywriter, you must read this - Evolutionary Psychology 9. The Moral Animal, by Robert Wright • Will open your eyes to things you never thought about • Not always pleasant and sometimes scary • You'll understand human nature at a MUCH deeper levelDownload.

When I first got into writing copy, I was having a hard time finding any good information about how to do it. So I took every seminar I could and read every book I could find. It was exhausting, and frankly, maybe not the best use of my time. Originally I put this episode together with the plan to come up with a handful of books every copywriter should read – what I wish I had known when I started. But my list got so long that I realized we were going to need two episodes to cover things fully. So this is part 1 – what I'd call "the core curriculum." Next week, we'll go through a second list I'm calling "the advanced stuff." First, a pleasant reminder: Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Now, to the books. Some of the books I read, like Ted Nicholas's "Magic Words That Bring You Riches," are either not available at all, or available in very limited quantities. I set three ground rules for this core curriculum: . You have to be able to get the book easily . Each book is a course in itself. You don't need a study group or someone else to walk you through any of them to get really good value from them. . They're affordable. (One is a little pricey… but… it's worth every penny.) -Copywriting Books 1. Scientific Advertising, by Claude Hopkins • The "foundation document" of copywriting/direct response marketing • Ogilvy: Read 7 times; I've read 15 times; recently re-reading • Not easy or fun, but incredibly valuable 2. The Adweek Copywriting Handbook, by Joe Sugarman • Based on a seminar Joe used to give in his home • Joe's a dm pioneer and great copywriter • Easy to read, very valuable 3. The Ultimate Sales Letter, by Dan Kennedy • Takes you through all the steps • I've always found Dan Kennedy to be reliable source of great money-making ideas • Can absolutely put you on the right path to writing a winner 4. Breakthrough Advertising, by Eugene Schwartz • Hard to read and understand • Like a gold mine. 30 years later, I'm still getting new ideas from it • Expensive for a book – but worth it 5. Breakthrough Copywriting, by David Garfinkel • Easy to understand • Comprehensive • Includes templates and tools for a copywriter - Sales/Marketing/Creativity Books 6. Tested Sentences That Sell, by Elmer Wheeler • Early pioneer in testing words, phrases, pitches • The words/sentences may or may not work for you • But the method of split testing always works. This is a good introduction to split testing. 7. Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath • Excellent book on clear, memorable communication • "Curse of knowledge" is super-valuable concept • Very practical, useful for copywriters 8. A Technique for Producing Ideas, by James Webb Young • Great introduction to / and working method for / tapping into the power of the unconscious mind for writing copy • Tremendous overall book to read for brainstorming and creativity • Worth reading more than once; I've read it five times. - Online Resource 9. The Gary Halbert Letter, thegaryhalbertletter.comDownload.

The other day I was watching a TV interview with a Hollywood actor in his 80s. The interviewer asked him, "What do you think of all the new movies with special effects and robot characters?" The actor clearly didn't want to answer the question directly. Instead, he said: "What I look for in a script is three things: 1) What's the story? 2) Who are the characters that embody the story? 3) What's the emotion?" It was a good answer, and I think the third thing the old actor mentioned is also important for copywriters. Even more than that, I think the conventional wisdom we've gotten about emotion is not nearly specific enough to be useful. I'll review the conventional wisdom in this episode, & replace it with specifics you can use. Before we do, here's something that you might not find emotional at all: Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Now, let's talk about emotion in copy. You'll often hear that the emotions you want to appeal to in copy are fear and greed. There's truth in that. But it's so broad and general. And what can you do with that information, really? It leaves you guessing. We'll get very specific in just a sec. First, let's start with some basics: - You need to provoke emotion to prompt a sale. People don't make decisions based on rational thinking, even though some think they do (and would get very upset if you told them otherwise. Hmmm… think about that!) People make decisions based on emotion. So you need to prompt emotion. - You can prompt positive emotions, but that's much harder work, since people don't always trust or believe good feelings. But they do tend to believe negative emotions more often. Negative emotions seem more "real." - So today we're going to focus on three proven uses of negative emotion. These are from Chapter 9 of my book Breakthrough Copywriting. I call them "emotional triggers." - What I'm going to share with you can be adapted in almost any selling situation to sell a product or service. Emotional Trigger 1: This one's called "Anger to Envy to Offer." Let me read some copy to you, and then we'll dig into it. This copy is for an ebook on auto repair: "For most people, the only thing worse than going to the dentist is taking your car to the mechanic. At least the dentist warns you when he's going to hurt you and he does his best to numb the pain, but Mike Thompson is different. "For Mike, going to the mechanic is never a big deal, because he's never been overcharged, and he always gets treated with a level of courtesy and respect that a king would expect. Does Mike know something you don't know? He probably does, and that's why I thought you'd be interested in his new eBook Never Let Your Mechanic Intimidate You Again: How to Stay in Control and Save a Lot of Money with Every Auto Repair You Get from Now On." OK – what's going on here? Let's talk in broad-brush strokes about the psychology of this: Anger and jealousy are two of the most powerful motivators known. In fact, someone said to me that jealousy is fear of loss brought into the immediate present. Think about that. If you see someone else walking away with something you want, that's fear of loss right before your eyes. Now, in this case, I made a statement that would arouse anger in my target market. If I had this book, and you have a car, and you've ever been treated badly by a mechanic, you'd probably buy the book right now, wouldn't you? The second thing is that I made a contrasting statement about a positive aspect of the same situation. Here is the contrasting statement. "But Mike Thompson is different. For Mike, going to the mechanic is never a big deal because he's never been overcharged, and he always gets treated with a level of courtesy and respect that a king would expect." Do you feel a little jealous of this guy? We've gone from anger, "That blankety-blank mechanic said it'd be ready at five and it's not done," to envy, "This other guy never has to put up with it," to offer, "And here's my offer." "Does Mike know something that you don't know? He probably does, and that's why I thought you'd be interested in this new eBook, Never Let Your Mechanic Intimidate You Again." The way you can use this is • Make a statement your prospect or reader can identify with – about a negative situation that gets them angry. Just not angry at you. • Then, make a contrasting statement about a positive version of the same situation. Your prospect reading this will feel envy of the person in this situation who has it better than they do. • From there, slip right into your offer – the solution that can get your prospect out of the bad situation they're currently in, and into the situation of the person they envy, from your story. Emotional Trigger #2: It's called Doubt to Confidence. Now, notice only the first emotion is negative – doubt. I mean, who doesn't want to feel more confident in life? Here's some copy for an imaginary ebook for doctors, dentists, chiropractors, and other health-care professionals. Listen: "Professionals have an especially thorny problem when it comes to marketing, because often the kind of marketing likely to work is deemed too aggressive. On top of that, ethical standards often stand in the way of getting results from ads and mailings. When I started to read Never-Empty Waiting Room, I wondered if it would have the same tepid techniques I've read about so many times before." That part was the doubt. Now, here comes the confidence: "It turns out my fears were groundless. The go-for-it methods mentioned in this book could never be called unethical, yet they work like a charm… " And you can almost feel the formerly worried prospect breathe a sigh of relief. The way you do this is pretty straightforward – you use a testimonial that starts out with the same doubts a prospect has. And you give the story a happy ending by transforming the doubts into confidence. When you ask someone for a testimonial, find out from them what specific results they are getting. Ask them to think back to when they read your copy. Was it hard for them to believe at the time that they could get these results? Ask them to include how they felt before, and how they feel now. And to tell why they feel that way. This is another reason you should constantly be gathering testimonials. Emotional Trigger #3: This one's called "Shared Outrage." That sounds like a lot of fun, doesn't it? Here's an example of this trigger in copy: "You know what it's like when diets don't work. It sucks. I remember one so-called 'diet' I went on. What a load of crap! I had stomach pains for weeks! I didn't sleep well, I was crabby and tired all the time, and at the end of five weeks I'd gained five pounds! I was so mad I wanted to smash something into a thousand little pieces. "It was then that I made myself a solemn promise—never go through that humiliation again! I wanted a way to lose weight that was easy and permanent. I searched and searched until I had all the pieces in place for the perfect program—the No-brainer, No-gainer Weight Management Plan. And now I'm ready to share it with you." See, the way this one works is you AND the prospect get mad at the same thing! And your solution solves the problem you're both mad about. And here's how you do it: First, you express your anger about a situation you're upset about, that your prospect is upset about, too. That's anger, and people can relate to that anger. But you're not angry AT them – you're angry at the same thing they're angry at. Then, you use that anger as a springboard to get to a solution. One that soothes your anger, and should soothe your prospect's anger as well. -- OK, that's it – three emotional triggers: 1. Anger to Envy to Offer 2. Doubt to Confidence 3. Shared Outrage That's three of 11 emotional triggers in total, in chapter 9 of Breakthrough Copywriting. And the book has 12 other chapters with hands-on, ready-to-use tools as well.Download.

I remember a few years ago I had had it up to here with all the bulky, complicated audio equipment cluttering up my house. I needed something simpler, faster, better. I called BH Photo Video in New York and got a salesman, Aaron, on the line who listened very carefully to me. At one point I said to him, "Listen, I am not a technical wizard. I don't want to spend 15 minutes adjusting knobs and faders just to be able to record something." "Of course not," he said. "You want to stay in a state of flow." He had me right there. I had never thought about that before, but he was absolutely right. That was why I hated all the complicated stuff – it pulled me out of my flow state. And if I wasn't in a flow state, I couldn't do a compelling recording. Then Aaron very patiently and thoroughly recommended a device called an Apogee Duet. It cost about four times what I had planned to spend. But the more he talked, the bigger a believer I became. I bought it, because I was in a state of total conviction. And years of experience has proven this was the right audio device for me. In fact, I'm using it right now, even as we speak. Copywriters can create conviction in their sales letters and ads the same way my salesman created it in me. And conviction can make all the difference with a hesitating buyer. We'll talk about that today. First, I'd like to mention this: Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. ▾ What conviction is • deep-seated belief that takes away all barriers to action • In a movie, you can see this in a major way in how the hero, eventually, gets to a point where they will STOP AT NOTHING to achieve their goal • In copy, it's seldom as dramatic as it is in a Hollywood movie. But it's just as important. Because conviction is what opens the door to a sale that sticks. ▾ Why it's important • When you have created conviction in your prospect, they are as ready to buy as they'll ever be. ▾ What happens when you create it • You put yourself, as a copywriter, in the perfect position to close the sale ▾ What happens when you don't • You might get the sale, but you risk getting buyer's remorse, which means: more refunds, and more customers from hell ▾ Where most people screw up • They do a "paint by numbers" approach to creating conviction rather than really working at it to make it powerful: research, selection, feeling, thinking • They don't create an authentic, believable conversation in their copy between themselves and the prospect ▾ Where you need to start: yourself ▾ If you don't believe in the product or service you're selling — to the point where you would buy it yourself, you've got three choices: • Convince yourself so you really do believe in it that much • Fake it. Pretend that you believe in it that much and write from that state of mind. (Not recommended, but we don't always end up writing the copy we would most like to write.) • Walk away. If you can't "mock up" a feeling of conviction in yourself, you're not doing yourself or your client (or your business) any favors. You shouldn't be writing the piece. • … but, assuming you can develop a solid feeling of conviction in yourself, here are some powerful techniques: ▾ Make it personal… relevant… meaningful • personal - Talk about how the product or service fits into the prospect's life, and what difference it will make. Aaron did that, and it made all the difference for me. This means you really have to understand the prospects and their lives, including their frustrations and why they have those frustrations. • relevant - don't give generic reasons and examples. Be specific. So it's believable. Remember again Aaron. • meaningful - Again, you need to really understand your prospect. Only then will you know what's meaningful to them. Aaron understands creative people and performers, and he knows getting in a state of flow and staying there is high on the priority list! • Use metaphors, analogies, comparisons Especially when you have something that's new or unfamiliar to your prospect. Compare it to something familiar. "It's the Swiss Army Knife of food processors." Someone who's into cooking will get that right away. • Write to a PERSON from YOURSELF Imagine someone you know, like, and care about. Write in a way that would create conviction in them. • Specifics rather than generalities Kim Phelan: Specifics spark emotions; (usually) generalities don't. • "Important trivialities" Find out the little details most people would never care about, but your prospect cares about a lot. Mentioning those can strengthen conviction.Download.

I saw a story on quora.com about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Before he became California's governor and while he was still a bodybuilder, he was walking down Venice Beach in southern California. Two young women saw his huge muscles, and I do mean huge!, and one of them supposedly said, "Ewww… I would never want to look like that!" He replied, "And you never willllll." The point being, he didn't really care what other people thought about the way he looked – he was pretty confident in who he was. Now, it's a great story and as a copywriter, you do need to worry… at least, about how prospects respond to your copy. And always keep this in mind: Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Now, let's talk about confidence, and then we'll talk about how to build and keep a high level of confidence as a copywriter. There are some people who think you can say magic words over and over and that will make you confident. It's a very seductive theory, but it's simply not true. Then there are more sophisticated theories about deliberately rewiring your brain to increase your confidence. I don't know how that works, but I've never seen that work for copywriters. I'm not against these things. I'm only against depending on them by themselves. I know some of the most successful copywriters used techniques to build on the foundation of ability, skill and copywriting experience that gave them confidence in the first place. And I want to stick to the foundational stuff in today's episode. To start with, big difference between - confidence in self and ability to get the job done, and get results, and - confidence in a particular piece of copy you're writing or you've just written Self: This is what you want to establish, fortify, increase. We'll talk about how in depth in a few minutes. A particular piece of copy: Some anxiety is the price you pay to do this work. Reasons: - You never know for sure how well it will work until you test it - The creative process includes anxiety. Universally. All writers. Musicians. Comedians. Public speakers. Artists. Many other types of performers. > Aaron Sorkin quote abt screenwriting (paraphrasing): Very productive sessions followed by long periods of depression. (He was clearly only half-kidding, if kidding at all) - This is not necessarily something to "cure" – it's something to learn to live with. Here's why: o Edge of Chaos – you're going where no one's ever been before o Creativity, by its very nature, takes you from the familiar to the unfamiliar. If it's totally familiar, it's the same old shit, and it may not work very well. If it's unfamiliar, it might be uncomfortable. - When you get into that flow state, it's an adventure. - Two pieces of advice, which I've used successfully myself: o Surrender to the weird feelings. That helps them move through you and move on. Fighting them locks 'em in. o Attributed to Fritz Perls, founder of Gestalt Therapy: "Fear is excitement without breathing." You don't need to be a nervous wreck. Everyone has their own way of handling it. I'm going through all of this in detail to point out that you can still be baseline confident and solid, and if you're freaking out about a particular project you're working on – that's to be expected sometimes. Don't confuse that with lack of confidence. They're two different things. Now that we have "The Creativity Dance" covered, let's talk about baseline confidence. Four key steps most people are too scared to take: 1. Failure 2. Resiliance 3. Reflection and analysis 4. Adjustment And start over. Most people think confidence comes from success. And there's some truth to that. But if you take a person who has only had success and put him in a situation where he fails, he's not going to handle it very well. Deep down such a person knows that. And that's why that person is not really as baseline confident as the person who's had his share of success, but also weathered his share of storms. That's confidence. The other key ingredient to baseline confidence is learning. Not just learning through doing, but learning through studying. Reading the copywriting books. Taking seminars. Studying what other people are doing with their copy. Really building a practical knowledge base about copywriting. Hey, even listening to the Copywriters Podcast. ESPECIALLY listening to the Copywriters Podcast. Hey, let me tell you about scaling the heights, in a way you've probably never thought of before. This will help you grasp what I'm saying about baseline confidence, compared to temporary uncomfortable feelings on a project. Have you ever been on the top of a skyscraper under construction? I have. Many years ago. The early 1980s. I was a reporter for a construction magazine. The contractor invited me up to the top of this building on North Michigan Avenue in Chicago. I'm not sure why. Part of the story, I guess. When I was up there, I'm not sure I had any tether. But I know the scaffolding or whatever it was called was solid around me. The floorboards were nailed down and weren't bending or creaking. It was kinda windy up there, though. I'd never been up nearly that high on a building in the open air. It was scary. But I felt confident that the scaffolding and the floorboards were solid. Now imagine that the scaffolding was rusty and not well put together. And one of the floorboards broke when I stepped on it. I would have felt entirely different. Not just scared of the heights and the wind, but really worried, maybe even terrified, that I was going to take a 200-story plunge to the ground. Let me show you how that true story provides a model for the difference between baseline confidence and the anxiety or other negative feelings you might have when you're working on some copy. The solid scaffolding and the stable floorboards are like baseline confidence. In copywriting, your scaffolding and your floorboards are you experience, including your failures – what you learned from them, and what you decided to do differently until you found out what works. The scaffolding and the floorboards are also your study and your experience with others – mentors, teachers, other copywriters, clients. All of the things we've talked about. But each new piece you write might be like walking around for the first time in the open air, 200 stories up. You have a solid foundation underneath you and around you to give you confidence, but you could still feel a little weird in an unfamiliar place. Now I want to turn the Arnold story we started with on its head a little bit. Actually Arnold DID care what people thought about him. A lot. He wouldn't have won the bodybuilding contests if the judges didn't think he was the best. He wouldn't have starred in so many movies if directors didn't like him best, and of course audiences. And he wouldn't have gotten elected California governor if enough people didn't vote for him. The key thing about Arnold and the women on the beach is, he ACCEPTED himself for who he was. He wasn't insecure about THAT. But other people do matter. And to get confidence as a copywriter, you want to be around other people. It could be work in a group. It could be taking seminars. It could be getting a mentor. It's important not to go it alone and to learn from others. That builds confidence too.Download.

With a few years of success under my belt as a copywriter, I started to notice there were two types of clients who were approaching me. The first kind of client was way better at what they did than their marketing indicated. The second kind of client had really exciting marketing that made big, big promises – but their level of quality didn't come close to measuring up. Once I realized this, I made a decision: I would only work with the first kind of client. I could help them because once their marketing caught up to the quality of what they were offering, they would make a lot more money. But I was also determined to stay away from the second type of prospect. I wasn't in the business of improving the quality of what they delivered to the prospect. So the best I could do, if I was successful, would be to increase the level of fraud in their marketing. No thanks. And that brings us to what we're going to talk about today: hype. It was hype in the marketing of the clients I didn't want to work with that pushed me away from them to begin with. But hype remains an ever-present mystery, and problem, for a lot of copywriters and marketers in a lot of situations. In this episode, I'll explain why, and what you can do about it. But first, listen to this: Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. What's hype / what's mistaken for hype but NOT hype / what's simply not hype at all - hype: big claim with no substantiation - not hype, but looks like it: big claim, with inadequate substantiation - simply not hype: usually dry, sterile facts. They are true but they don't sell. Why the hype problem? - you need a BIG CLAIM and EXCITEMENT to sell - both can be either negative or positive Problem #1: When copy's "too mild" - true, you could never be accused of being hypey - the problem is, "mild" copy almost never sells. You need to be aggressive and confident enough to get people convinced to buy from you - so mild copy won't work very well Example: Money-making skill training "Too mild" headline: You'll probably make a little extra money when you learn these skills You're off the hook for overpromising, but, you won't get enough interest or sales with such a tentative attitude. Problem #2: When copy's too "over the top" - This, of course, is hype in it's most toxic form - The problem is, people won't believe it. Or if they do, they'll get disappointed and look for a refund… maybe even seek revenge. And then there's the problem with the regulators, if they see it… Example: Money-making skill training Too "over the top headline" Make an extra million dollars a month – in your spare time! It's very appealing, but you're going to run into all kinds of problems with it. I'm giving very extreme, blatant examples to make the point. Real problems with hype follow the same pattern. And the solution I'm about to lay out works just as well with more everyday hype problems. The Solution: Deeper research plus extended creativity - So, let's say you have the same program we're talking about - You call your 20 best students - 12 of them tell you they have doubled their income in a few months - Six of them say they would give you a testimonial or case study That's the deeper research part. The extended creativity is: brainstorming how you can take that information and put it into your headline. So you come up with nine headlines that don't quite work. Your tenth one is: Many of our students have doubled their income in less than six months. Here's how you can do the same That works. It's bold. It's on the edge – but it's not hype. It's true. You can prove it. More than that, you're not saying the prospect WILL do the same… you're saying they CAN. Because not everyone will. But most people can, if they apply the training. Bottom line on hype: If you take your promise to the MAXIMUM of what's POSSIBLE… and you let your prospect know that not everyone will do this, but if you follow instructions / do the work / use the method correctly, etc., it's possible for the prospect to do that well.Download.

Whenever you look at a bestselling book by a celebrity or a politician, the chances are better than good the so-called "author" didn't actually write it. A ghostwriter did. Good ghostwriters command fees comparable to, and sometimes exceeding, the fees of the best copywriters. One of the main reasons they get paid so well is they have the ultimate "chameleon" skill for a writer – they can write convincingly in someone else's voice. As copywriters, we are often ghostwriters for our clients. How important is the skill of writing in your client's voice for you, as a copywriter? Today we'll talk about that… and… I'll give you some tips on how to do this. Before we get into all of that, a reminder: Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. So let's talk about writing in your client's voice… what it means… where it's important… and how much of it is important in copywriting. Where Writers Must Totally "Speak" In Their Clients' Voices - Speechwriters - Ghostwriters for books - Screenwriters (each major character needs a unique voice) Here, mastery of "voice" is mandatory. Fortunately for copywriters, you don't need to be this skilled in capturing your client's voice. Next Level Down: Webinars A webinar is where the client speaks through an online presentation, usually with slides, to make a pitch. Getting some sense of the client's voice is really important here, because the slides and script (or outline) needs to line up with a reasonable approximation of the way your client talks. If your client is stuck with a script that goes so far away from the way they talk, it won't ring true. And you want it to ring true. Next Level Down: Sales letters, print ads, emails There are a few basics you should cover, which we'll get to in a minute. But remember, in most cases, nobody knows what your client really sounds like. So you need far less developed skills than you would as a speechwriter, a screenwriter, or a ghostwriter for a book. A few words about writing conversationally, period. This is one of the hardest things for most copywriters – really, most writers – to master. Writing in a way that sounds like speaking. Why? How to fix it: - listen at a Starbuck's / transcribe like a secret agent - interview / record / handwrite out the way a person talks - develop an awareness. Which writing reads conversational? Why? Which writing doesn't. Why - Get The Art of Plain Talk by Rudolph Flesch. A lot of used copies are available on Amazon for as little as a few dollars. Read it. Figure out how you can put it into practice. It also looks like you can get a pdf of the book on scribd.com, if you sign up for scribd. - Practice, practice, practice. This should be natural, but the school system and other institutions have beaten our natural ability to write conversationally, out of a lot of us. So the first thing to do in writing in your client's voice is to learn to write like people speak. Any people. You. A "generic" person. By doing the things mentioned. Now, assuming you have some sense of how to write conversationally, here are some tips for - Remember you don't have to sound exactly like your prospect - Here's how you need to reflect how they sound when they talk: - values - their reason-why. Find out why they're doing what they're doing. See how you can include that in your copy. That personalizes the copy a lot without your having to be too precise in the language - still, you want to make it sound as much like them as possible. Again, interview them and transcribe the interview. Take note of o Any pet words or phases o Their overall view of the world o The rhythm of their speech o How emotional, or non-emotional, the way they talk is - No matter what you find, you still want to aim for copy that works. So make sure your final draft has - Clarity - Simplicity - Easy to understand words, sentences (high readability) - And active voice. Tight, muscular writing. Focused on action!Download.

People always ask me, what's the difference between "copy" and "branding." My answer is: There's no difference between copy and good branding. It's copy and bad branding that are so different. Here is why: Good copy is not about you, or your product. Really. It's about the customer. What their life is like right now, and what their life experience will be like once they have your product, or use your service? That's what good copy is about. And good branding is really a condensed description of what your customers experience doing business with you. Your reputation in a catchphrase. Look at it this way. You know what a half-silvered mirror is? Where you can see through one side, but the other side is a mirror. Like you see on the back wall of an interrogation room on a detective show on TV. The bad branders hold the mirror side in front of their own faces. So the customer sees the brander, the marketer. The good branders, and the copywriters, hold the transparent side to their faces and point the mirror side at their market. So customers see themselves when they look back at the mirror. All of this gets back to the topic of today's episode, Including Yourself in Your Copy. As direct marketing copywriters, we have been sternly warned not to write about ourselves in our copy (or, write extensively about our clients when we're writing copy for someone else). That's mostly good advice, but there are some exceptions. I want to dig into what they are and how to use them, today. But first, I want to talk about you… and me… and copy. Like this: Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Now, let's talk about when to include yourself… when not to… and why. When I say "yourself" here, substitute "your clients" if you're a copywriter writing for a client. When NOT to include yourself - long rants about your life that have nothing to do with what you're selling. Especially bitching and moaning about the injustices of life. This is copywriting, not group therapy via email. - your opinions, on politics, culture, sports, current events, and other external things. Now this can work in a post on your blog or on Facebook, to get people to know you and maybe start a discussion. But it's not going to help you sell anything unless it frames an argument related to what you're selling and your target audience shares the opinions you have that you have expressed in the copy. - information you think will "humanize" the copy, but actually detracts from the sales momentum. Personal info about you that ties into your offer is good – we'll get to that in a minute – but randomly trying to "humanize" your copy by throwing stuff about yourself from out of left field and into your writing is a very bad idea. - a long resume-like recital of all your credentials, degrees, certificates, trainings, and so on. Especially when they don't apply to your offer. You're trying to make a sale, not get a job! When to include yourself - Most important – your relevant credentials (difference between relevant and irrelevant – and why copy is different, say, than a resume or a platform speaker's introduction) - your experience – as it relates to what you're selling. What have you done, seen, learned, that is important as regards the offer you're making? - conversations with other people you have had, regarding your offer Why people want to hear about you (as the product/service provider) - They want to know if they can count on you – if you are trustworthy - They want to know if you know what you're talking about and what your track record is – is what you are selling, something you have competence in? - They want to know if you do your homework. That is, have you really done the study and had the experience to qualify as the expert you claim to be.Download.

Mike Shreeve joins us again to discuss what works (and what doesn't) when it comes to Facebook advertising. Topics covered include: - Could you take a few minutes to describe the Facebook ad landscape, the way most people see it? - What are misconceptions most people have about using Facebook ads? - What are the hard realities about Facebook rules regarding ads that frustrate most advertisers? - You’ve found ways to make Facebook ads work that most people would have considered difficult or impossible. Could you share some secrets? - What are the key points to remember to be successful with a Facebook ad? - What have been some of your biggest wins with Facebook ads? This is just the tip of the iceberg. Tune in to get the whole experience. Download.

Mike Shreeve is the man behind the curtain for a lot of successful people. He joins us this week to discuss how to stop chasing clients, and instead, get them chasing you. Here are just a few of the topics covered in this week's episode. - Could you talk about your own experience getting clients: What you’ve done, what you’ve learned, what you’re doing differently today than you used to? - What are the biggest mistakes copywriters typically make when they try to get clients? - What keeps copywriters happy and keeps clients happy at the same time? - You have a concept for copywriters you call “your superpower.” Could you explain that and give a couple examples? - What are the red flags you’ve discovered that warn a copywriter to stay away from a potential client? - If you could sum up everything we talked about today, what are you most important takeaways?Download.

When I first started writing copy, it looked so easy. I had been an award-winning journalist and had nabbed the San Francisco Bureau Chief job for a large news organization. I thought it would be breeze… but that wasn't how it happened. Not at first. Copy looked very simple and straightforward to me, and, on the surface, a lot like news stories. And I was good at writing those fast! Now, the more I got into writing copy, the more I found differences that weren't obvious to me when I first started writing copy. Today we'll talk about what I kept and what I threw away. Things that don't work and things that do. But first, I need to tell you something about copy. Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Advantages of journalism - despite current charges "fake news," high historical credibility. Journalists play by the rules, which are unique to journalism. The journalistic process, because it needs to happen so fast, is not 100% accurate. But it's thorough and responsible, most of the time. As a result, most people believe what they read in the paper or see on TV.- advertorial / native advertising: "Borrowed credibility" (Gene Schwartz) – the format lends itself to credibility. 5x more ad readership when in editorial format (Ogilvy)- facts make things believable. Journalists are trained to recognize and separate facts from opinions. This is different from bias. Ben Shapiro, of dailywire.com, yesterday on Joe Rogan: "Something can be true, and biased." Sometimes tricky for readers to separate facts from opinions in the final product. But a good journalist will confirm facts by the rules of journalism, and that makes stories believable. Being believable/believed is every advertiser's problem and what every advertiser wants. (James Webb Young, diary of an ad man). Journalistic techniques you probably shouldn't use in your copy: big picture: except for product reviews, most of what you'll find in a paper or on a website will not be suggesting that the reader do something, like copy does. It will usually be entertainment and information. Sometimes, more entertaining, sometimes more informative. In almost all cases, that doesn't work in copy, because you need to sell, too. Technique not to use: entertaining, silly – from a biz point of view, news stories and features are there to surround the ads in the paper. That's how newspapers make money. Rarely is a news story designed to persuade a reader to take a specific action. Technique not to use: impressionistic writing (a certain amount of mind-reading -- as a copywriter, you need to base what you write onresearch, and solid experience) Journalists have license to do this. It will help make a story more entertaining, but it can backfire on you if you use the same technique in copy. People will be very skeptical if you describe someone in an ad the way a good magazine or newspaper writer does in a Technique not to use: inverted pyramid. Wik: "Communication of major details before minor details." So readers can know all they need to know in the first paragraph. That means they stop reading. Great for informing and entertaining (news) … not so good for copy. A better big-picture model for copywriting is: promise/claim, proof, call to action How journalists work, and how copywriters can borrow their techniques - Interviews - if you're a freelance copywriter, interview the owner/founder/client - the rest are for business owners and copywriters: - team that developed the product - if info-product, interview the expert - interview customers, find out why they bought - note: an interview is much more powerful (and truth-revealing) than a survey- Confirm facts; skepticism - Ugly old saying among journalists: "If your mother says she loves you, check it out." - You have to be diplomatic, not prosecuting attorney/hard-boiled reporter, when investigating. But get to the bottom of things. Not to advertise what's wrong with the product, but to know what you're working with so you don't eventually get yourself/your client in trouble by including untrue things in your copy. - Quote sources. Journalists have "on the record/off the record." Kind of touchy to do "off the record" in copy. But on the record, with a written release, can add tremendous credibility to an ad. Always start with a hook in the lede. That's what journalists are taught to do. And if their lead sucks, their editor will probably kick it back to them, or kill the story altogether. Here are a few leads from recent news stories: Associated Press: CHICAGO (AP) — By extracting Chicago money from a measure all Illinois public schools needed to get state funding this fall, Gov. Bruce Rauner reignited an age-old but divisive political strategy on a new front. Arizona Republic: Joshua Schwabenbauer was only 26 when he died in a tragic boating accident. His organs were donated and gave four people a second chance at life. The woman who received his heart, Adelia Harris, 24, met his family for the first time. TMZ: Romeo Santos not only ripped off a musician's song and released it as his own, but he didn't even bother to change the name ... according to a new lawsuit. Nazim Guity claims he wrote a tune in 2011, titled "Eres Mia," and worked with a music producer and recording studio to mix and record the track ... and copyrighted the song in March 2014. -- Those are interesting ledes. Good for info and entertainment, but not good setups for a sales pitch. Still, notice how they grab attention and will make you want to keep on reading – if you're interested in Illinois politics (first one), if you like uplifting human interest stories (second one), and if you're interested in the music and musicians mentioned in the lede (third one). Zeitgeist / top of mind. Journalists need to keep up to date on the news overall, and will sometimes refer to other things going on as a jumping off point in a story. Example, during the Olympics, a business has record sales. A newspaper could say, "ABC company earned itself a gold medal in June for having the best second quarter in its 14-year history." Well, the business didn't really earn a gold medal. It's a reference to the Olympics, which is on everyone's mind.Let's say you had a green thumb with all the vegetables in your garden at home and you had an info-product for other home gardeners.Someone writing about you could start the copy: "I don't know if they give out gold medals for gardening, but if they did, Nathan Fraser would easily get all of them. And I just found out his ready to share his world-class gardening secrets with the public!" That could be a good lead for a sales piece, and it would tap into the top-of-mind thoughts of the Olympics. Handy technique!Download.

You can improve the persuasiveness of your copy by using hypnotic language. This episode shows you how. About 10 years ago, I took a series of seminars on how to sell from the platform when you're giving a speech. The teacher was good… really good. I decided to try to figure out why he was so good. I asked him, "It sounds to me like you're taking a sales letter and making it horizontal – that is, turning the script of a sales letter into a speech."He agreed with me. But something was bugging me… he was doing more than just dictating sales letters. I realized he was doing something else… he was slipping in hypnotic techniques as he spoke. He certainly didn't invent these techniques, but he was using them in an expert way. Today, we're going to talk about some of those techniques, and other ones, that you can use in your copy. Warning – don't drive or operate heavy machinery. You'll probably be fine – this is not "deep trance" hypnosis. But you might find your mind goes to a different place, so above all, stay safe… And here's another way to stay safe: Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Hypnotic language for copy is about bypassing the thinking mind partially or entirely and going directly to the unconscious mind, in a way that doesn't disturb the conscious mind and in fact, makes sense to the conscious mind. All of these examples do that. 1. Hypnotic phrases (examples for each) (u/c – causality) - because (Cialdini talks about this, too) Ordinary: You'll really enjoy this new course. Hyp.: You'll really enjoy this course because you'll find it easy to do things that used to be hard for you to do… or, impossible. - and Ordinary: This book gives you a lot of information to help your business. It has changed the lives of millions. Hyp: This book gives you a lot of information to help your business, and it has changed the lives of millions. - which means Ordinary: I've spent decades putting together the best possible system. People who haven't been able to "get it" before can now succeed. Hyp.: I've spent decades putting together the best possible system, which means people who haven't been able to "get it" before can now succeed. - every time Ordinary: Do this regularly and you'll see constant progress. Hyp.: Every time you do this regularly, you'll see constant progress. - when (try the same sentence) Ordinary: Do this regularly and you'll see constant progress. Hyp.: When you do this regularly, you'll see constant progress 2. Hypnotic sentence structure- The more, the more Example: The more you listen to Copywriters Podcast, the more you'll make extra money with your copy.- Reframe: "It's not that ___, it's that __" Example: (this is an old one!) It's not that advertising is a cost… it's that advertising brings more money into your business. - As you_____, you ____ Example: As you study this material, you find your confidence increases exponentially! 3. Two extremely powerful hypnotic techniques - open loops (Zeigarnik effect) Also known in the entertainment industry as a "cliffhanger." Zeigarnik's experiments found that people pay more attention and remember better when you leave them hanging in the middle of a story. Getting attention focused is what hypnosis is really all about. - embedded commandsHam-fisted: You want to buy this book. Embedded command: Depending on how closely you're paying attention, it may turn out that you want to buy this book. Recap: Phrases, sentence structure, techniques. The idea is to engage the unconscious mind in a way that positively influences the prospect's decision to take action. Next time: What I learned in journalism that helps copy – and what I had to unlearn from journalism because it was hurting my copy. Download.

What if you have some copy and you'd like it to convert better? In this episode, David shares some closely-guarded secrets on how the pro's do that. Let's say I could show you a very special slot machine. This one only takes quarters. Every time you put four quarters in, you get five quarters back. Pretty soon, those extra quarters start to add up. Wouldn't you want to play a machine like that all day? Or play two at a time? Or play 10 at a time? Or 100? That's what a good piece of copy does. After the copy is written, you spend, let's say, $1.00 in marketing, and you get $1.25 back in profits. For every letter you mail out. Or every ad dollar you spend. Twenty-five percent ROI. Nice return on your investment. But suppose the slot machine changed. Suppose it started only giving back three quarters for every four quarters you put in. What would you do? Or, suppose instead of getting five quarters back, you wanted to get six back? Or seven? What would you do then? In both cases – turning three quarter back into five quarters, or turning five quarters to six or seven – the solution is the same: Improving the performance of a piece of copy. In this episode, I'll share some little-known secrets for getting more money in for the same money you put out. But first, listen to this: Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Now … how do you fix a piece of copy that's not performing well enough, and how do you improve copy that's profitable, to make it more profitable? There are three time-tested, proven ways to do that. Adjust… Headline, Offer, Pricing. We'll go over several ways to fix each one. When you get them right, they work like gangbusters. 1. Headline You have your greatest leverage with a headline. Ted Nicholas – reported 17x improvement in response by changing a headline. Don't know which one. Radio show "The only way left for the little guy to get rich." Board lit up. He knew he had a winner. Key is to pay attention and constantly be on the lookout for words, phrases and ideas that get people interested and motivated. I critique 2-4 pieces of copy every week, and the biggest problems I see over and over have to do with weak headlines. The way weak headlines can be fixed will also work to improve performance of copy that's already working, but could work better. FIRST PROBLEM: Giant claims which are not believable and not even relevant to what the marketer is offering prospects Fix: make it believable and relevant to your solution The problem comes when the copywriter does not take the time or do the work to discover what the prospect believes to begin with, and then to figure out what the prospect wants or would like, but is possible… that the prospect believes could be possible. Do that and it becomes a lot easier, and your chance of improving your copy goes way, way up. And if you've got a piece that's working, look at how you can tidy up anything that might make it more believable and more relevant. SECOND PROBLEM: Headline does not even remotely have anything to do with "the conversation going on in the prospect's mind" Fix: tune into the conversation already going on in the prospect's mind, and join it Way too often, people depend on their own imagination by itself, or their own life experience, and make this huge leap to the idea that they have discovered or come up with something other people want to buy. People buy based on what they want and they need, not what you pretend that you know they want or need, or, even worse, what you think they should want or need, but in reality, they don't. Again, this gets back to that one piece of research that too many people haven't done: Who's their prospect, and what's on this person's mind? Now, if you've got a piece that's working, your situation might be a little different. Your headline might miss the conversation going on in your prospect's mind by an inch rather than by a mile, that's a great opportunity to fine-tune and zero-in. Get it exactly right and your response will soar up into the stratosphere. THIRD PROBLEM: Headline is more of a description than a meaningful promise to the prospect. Fix: turn headline into an intriguing promise, that relates to a big problem your prospect has and is aware of, and that you can solve Gene Schwartz in Breakthrough Advertising says it in Chapter 1 of Breakthrough Advertising. You can't put your product in the headline. You have to put something captivating about your product's performance in the headline. Example: Fan – blade / cool breeze Performance is a benefit. A good benefit can also make a good promise, and really pump up your response. The better the benefit, the better the response. FOURTH: Headline is long and rambling when it could be a lot tighter, punchier, and more effective; fix: tighten it up and make it punchier A lot of people look at long headlines and figure you can throw anything up there as long as you fill it with hype and emotion. Actually, that's not true at all. In a headline, every word has to earn its place. You know who I heard that first from? The guy who writes long headlines everyone tries to imitate. John Carlton. Who we had on the show a few episodes ago. But it's almost impossible for most people to imitate Carlton. For one thing, every headline he writes is very customized to a specific situation. For another, if you look at his headlines, you can't take out a word to make it better. Even though it's hard to tell until you really examine his headlines, every word is honed and every headline is as tight, muscular and efficient as can be. Example from a Carlton letter: Why Does This Man Have One Of The Most Dazzling Records On Wall Street? Mysterious Arizona "Human Computer" Humiliates Wall Street "Experts" For 21st Consecutive Year! You can't make it any shorter and I defy you to make it any better! Other ways to boost response Offer: FIRST PROBLEM: No imagination in presenting the offer. No excitement, no romance, no sense of possibilities. Fix: Put more emotion, creativity, context into your offer. Talk about how the prospect's life will be different and better once they have and are using your product. SECOND PROBLEM: The offer's not clear. You don't know what you get. Fix: Rewrite your offer until it's crystal clear THIRD PROBLEM: The offer doesn't highlight attractive differences well enough. Fix: Do more competitive research. Put together a chart if necessary. Point out clearly and vividly why your offer is better. Price: FIRST PROBLEM: Price is too high or too low. Do price testing. A/B splits till you find the most profitable price point. SECOND PROBLEM: Lack of payment plan or payment plan can be improved Gary Halbert story – 30 day delay Guthy Renker – conversion tripled.Download.

Sometimes you'll make more sales when copy is only PART of the picture. This episode is how copy "plays well with others." If you've ever bought a direct mail list, you can get a typical compiled list for as little as 10 cents to 25 cents a name. Sometimes for even less than that. A compiled direct mail list is usually put together from publicly available records. It doesn't tell you anything about the desires or behaviors of the people on the list. For that, you might want a response list. For example, magazine subscribers. Seminar attendees. Product purchasers. Response lists are made up of people who have demonstrated their desires through behavior. That is, they have bought something. And buying is a behavior that shows a desire. The people who sell these lists know that the names are a lot valuable. And so, with a response list, the price can climb steeply. You might pay $1 a name… $5 a name… even $10 a name. But then there's a still higher level of pricing, and that's where you buy qualified leads for prospects who are interested in making high-dollar purchases. For example, here's an interesting fact: 85% of all new salespeople in the insurance industry wash out within two years. It's not necessarily that they're all such terrible salespeople, or even that they all hate selling insurance. It's that it's so hard for most of them to keep getting enough qualified leads to stay profitable. The people who sell qualified insurance leads know this, and you can pay astronomical prices for highly qualified insurance leads from mailing list brokers and lead brokers. Remember we started at 10 cents a name with compiled lists. Insurance leads can run as much as $60 apiece… which is 600 times more than 10 cents! Maybe even more, depending on how qualified the lead is. Why? Because in the right hands, a $60 insurance lead has the potential to create a four-, five- or six-figure commission for the insurance agent. And in very rare cases, a skilled and lucky life insurance agent can make over one million dollars in commissions for selling just one policy to a lead like that! Now, what does all of this have to do with copy? Am I suggesting copywriters go into the business of writing copy that produces highly qualified insurance leads? It's not a bad idea if you can figure out how to do it, but that's not what this episode of the Copywriters Podcast is about. I tell this story – from 10 cents to $60 a name – to make this point: In an insurance sale like I described, the million-dollar commission does not come solely from copy, but the very expensive name is one part of the traditional direct marketing process. And if you use copy to solve a big sales and marketing problem – which may be only one part of the larger sales process, and could be something other than getting qualified leads – you can really boost the bottom line of a business, or, if you negotiate a good deal, make a lot of money for yourself. So, here's the point: You don't always need to use copy to close the entire sale. A lot of people think that's the only way to use copy when you're using copy to sell, but it's not. Today we're going to explore some of the other ways copy helps you get more business, when it's only part of the process. But first, here's some copy many listeners have grown to know and love: Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Let's start with what copy is good for and typically used for- small price product sale: book, gadget, everything under the sun (Amazon), tickets (stubhub), stuff in your garage that you would like to trade for cash (eBay, the owner of stubhub)- that's a "one step sale," which in the sales world is called a "one call close" - this episode was inspired by a long and spirited thread on Facebook, where I asked about closing high-end sales with copy. Some people adamantly insisted that if the copy was good enough, that was all you needed. I'm not sure how much actual experience they had, though. Most people said copy was part of high end sales, and that live conversations were used after copy generated qualified leads - to be sure, there are people like Frank Kern and Dan Kennedy who can fill $10K seminars with copy alone, and have done so more than once. And there are publications like Forbes and Bloomberg Businessweek that fill high-end conferences and cruises the same way. So it's not impossible. But I would say it's the exception more than the rule. When copy makes more sense as part of the sale - My $5000 Breakthrough Copywriting Seminar in Las Vegas. We had to talk to almost every person after they had read the sales letter. In the FB post, a lot of people reported similar experiences. Since the hardest part of marketing a high-end event is often generating a hot lead, this is a very workable situation. - Where people have to see what they're buying. You can use copy to generate leads for residential real estate. I'm sure it's possible in some cases to close the sale with pictures and sight unseen (in person), but usually a homebuyer wants to walk through the house and see the neighborhood before they buy. - With a personal service like coaching. Only mentoring one client in recent memory signed up without talking to me, and that was because of a referral from a very trusted source. Generally they want to talk with me first, after they've been to my website and filled out the application form. And I want to talk to them, too. There's some personal chemistry that's necessary to make that kind of service work. - With something like a job application. You don't usually want to hire someone just because of a résumé, which can be seen, and used as, a form of copy. You want to talk to them first. Nor do you usually want to accept a job without talking to the employer, even though with good copy an employer can "close the sale" and make someone want to apply and work for a company. People need to talk to each other most of the time in a situation like that. How to look at copy differently - Copy is leverage. The old phrase is "salesmanship multiplied." That can be insulting to women and in some businesses, women do a better job selling than men do, so it can also be an inaccurate phrase. Now if you look at copy as a sales presentation multiplied, the idea is this: You can do more, more quickly, more effectively, and at a lower cost per sale, with copy, in many cases. - So let's take the whole sales process for one product or one service and break the sales process down into connected pieces. 1) There's lead generation. 2) There's building trust and conviction. 3) There's closing the sale. 4) There's dealing with buyer's remorse. 5) There's getting referrals. 6) There's getting repeat business. And 7) in continuity, there's keeping your customer month after month. - You can use copy for any one of those seven pieces of the complete sales process. Or more than one piece, without using copy for every piece of the complete sales process. - A lot of it depends on where testing and experience shows you need human interaction. Two examples with my clients 1) Abacus. All I did with my $40 million letter was generate leads. But that was all they needed. They were brilliant at everything else. But they were at their wit's end trying to generate leads. 2) MLM training company. They did the launch. That wasn't too hard. They hired me to do the back end, an expensive mentoring program. Letter took a long time. Over $1 million in sales in a couple days. If the server hadn't melted down, it would have been more. Advice If you can sell it all with copy – do it! If you need human interaction, test and tweak to figure out what pieces of the complete sales process need human interaction, and which pieces can be leveraged and scaled up with copy.Download.

How do you create a Big Idea? Remember what Steve Jobs said about saying no to 100 good ideas before you say yes to the thing you've got to focus on? That means you've got to come up with some good ideas first- You don't necessarily need 100, but "you've got to turn over a lot of rocks" to find what you're looking for. - The key thing is going through the process of coming up with great ideas, not skipping steps, not rushing. And not stopping just because you've come up with one. Or two. Or three. This involves research. A lot of it. First, within your field – about the product, competitor's products and marketing, customer comments on Amazon and other online review sites. Napoleon Hill – synthetic creativity vs. original creativity. Synthetic OK. Then there's research outside of your field. Sometimes related, sometimes totally off the wall.- For example, these factoids from July-August 2017 Playboy magazine: According to a survey, 28% of Millennials say having sex with a new person is a good way to figure out if you're in love with them. The same survey found that 57% of Millennials say they're lonely. Playboy asks – could the second statistic have anything to do with the first one? – Idea: could you use these stats to create a Big Idea to sell relationship counseling? More tidbits from Playboy: The following are from TSA's list of Top 10 strangest items found at security checkpoints at the airport: A baseball hat wrapped in barbed wire Dead sea horses A life-size zombie (actually, a movie prop) -- Idea: could you use this to sell seats on private jets? And finally, this factoid from Playboy: 8% of Americans think it's OK to take a selfie at a funeral! -- I don't know what you could use that to sell. Maybe some of our more creative listeners will have an idea! But on a less bizarre note, you can research sales letters and other marketing materials in markets different than yours… you can read books that have nothing to do with your market, maybe even nothing to do directly with business… you can really get ideas from anywhere, once you know what you're looking for. (reticular activating system) a diffuse network of nerve pathways in the brainstem connecting the spinal cord, cerebrum, and cerebellum, and mediating the overall level of consciousness. (like a search engine for your awareness) -- example – My own reticular activating system was tuned to explanations about creativity when I was putting together this podcast – Jordan Peterson island example – otherwise, would have slipped right on by… - Finally, a resource that can get you on the path to developing unique creative advertising ideas: "A Technique for Producing Ideas" by James Webb YoungDownload.

Some copy ideas change history. They're called "Big Ideas," and that's what today's show is about. He and his team pretty much redefined the music industry, the face of personal computing, and the way we use our phones. I'm talking about Steve Jobs, of course. In 2009, Fortune magazine said, "the past decade in business belongs to Jobs." In 2017, Recode, a tech website, said, "No single device will have as much impact as the iPhone in the next 10 years." But I don't want to talk about technology or business right now. I want to talk about creativity, and not just any kind of creativity. I want to talk about that holy grail of product design and marketing and also copywriting, called the Big Idea. Steve Jobs came up with a few Big Ideas that pretty much changed the course of history on planet Earth. Forever. Here's what Karen Blumenthal, a Wall Street Journal reporter and author of "Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different," wrote about him in her book: "Jobs attributed at least some of the success to the company's intense process of elimination, which meant rejecting far more things than it accepted. " ‘People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on,' he said. ‘But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the one hundred good ideas there are. You have to pick carefully.'" If Steve Jobs left a legacy to the world's future creators of Big Ideas, those 39 words are it. They're worth saying again: " ‘People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on,' Steve Jobs said. ‘But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the one hundred good ideas there are. You have to pick carefully.'" Today's episode is about Big Ideas in copywriting – what they are, and how to come up with them. Now, here's a big idea for you before we get started: Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Alright. Let's continue. In copy, what is a Big Idea? - A big idea is something new… important… and creative. That is used in copy to sell something. First, about creativity and creative people. explanation from Jordan Peterson: creative people (artists, entrepreneurs) at the shore of an island. Can see what others can't. Now Peterson points out that while the artists are often productive, they're not making much money in many cases. Sometimes they're broke. That's because either they are so far ahead of the times that they are producing what the market does not yet want… or they're producing things that the market will never want… or, they're not skilled at marketing and selling what they have, if it is something the market would want if they knew about it and had it sold to them in an appealing way.So let's look at this same scenario as it applies to copywriters. An experienced and skilled copywriter can stand at the water's edge and get a sense of what's next in the culture, in the marketplace, and come up with a creative idea that can boost sales big time for a product.Important: The new idea is not the copywriter making up a brand new desire in the marketplace that he or she came up with in some brilliant flash of random creativity. The product the copywriter will be selling is still based on existing, predictable, and largely unchanging desires of the market. What's new is the way the copywriter came up with to get a prospect's interest and to sell the product that already taps into existing desires. That said… - A Big Idea is a concept, maybe a headline, maybe something else, that's so fresh and original it can redefine an industry, or start a new one, by itself- Gene Schwartz talks about this in the introduction to "Breakthrough Advertising: copy that opens up "an entirely new market for an existing product (example: imagine you came up with a pitch to sell Segways to golfers, that they could use instead of golf carts. There are about 25 million golfers just in the U.S. So that would be a Big Idea… )… or copy that gives an old product a brand new slant (example: bring back fax machines as a way to foil hackers)… or copy that provides a competitively-battered product a new weapon—not only to protect itself against its imitators but actually damage or destroy the loyalty of the competitors' following." (example: a Big Idea to make the Blackberry only smartphone people wanted to buy) - So again, and this is crucial, notice a Big Idea is not necessarily about coming up with a new product idea. It's more about coming up with a breakthrough copywriting idea… whether the product is brand new or well established. A Big Idea can also be something that dominates an industry. A real example: - Wall Street Journal "Two Young Men" letter. Story – college reunion; classmates – one was CEO, one was department manager at the same company who worked for the CEO. Difference: CEO read the Wall Street Journal. I don't know of any other publication that sent out a sales letter implying you would become a CEO if you subscribed."Two Young Men" highest sales of any tracked ad known: $2 billion A Big Idea can turn a niche product into a mass-market product. Another real example: -Stansberry and Associates – investment newsletter firm in Baltimore - Copywriter Mike Palmer: End of America - Idea… economic trends that would remove the US dollar as the world reserve currency – the yardstick against which every other country's currency was measured – and cause economic disaster in the US - Was used to sell a newsletter, which was about other financial topics - I used to hear it on satellite radio – a commercial for the video sales letter. Was talking to a mentoring client about this recently. He remembered the same thing. - Obviously, The End of America was a Big Idea that became a HUGE hit for Stansberry. Download.

A blockbuster Hollywood movie can make hundreds of millions of dollars in a matter of weeks. Here's how you can cash in on one of its major secrets in your copy. Nearly 20 years ago, I used to hang out with my friend John Cantu. We would meet once a month at Mel's Diner on Geary Boulevard in San Francisco's Richmond District, and we'd talk about all sorts of things. Before Cantu and I ever met, he was co-producer of a comedy club that had been located just a few blocks away from Mel's. The club was called "The Holy City Zoo." Many great comedians got their start there, including Margaret Cho, Dana Carvey, Will Durst, Paula Poundstone, and most notably, the late, great Robin Williams. Cantu had a great line about him: "Robin would work anywhere you could imagine. He'd show up for the opening of an envelope." One day Cantu and I decided to crack the code of great storytelling. I'm not sure we ever did, completely. But one thing we figured out is that movies are entertaining especially because there are so many people in the story. We went on to coach speakers with this discovery, and even did a special presentation on this subject for the local chapter of the National Speakers Association, along with our friend, the great motivational speaker Patricia Fripp. Unfortunately, Cantu passed away in 2003. But he lives on in my memories… and I think our discovery offers a lot to copywriters, too. That is, when you put people in your copy, it comes alive and holds interest. Yes, what works is different than what works in a screenplay or in a speech. We'll talk about boosting interest and getting prospects engaged in your copy, by the artful use of including people in your copy, in this episode. But first, in case you've never heard this before: Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you're writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Now, about people in your copy… Let's reach back a few minutes… that story I told you about Cantu. It's inherently interesting because it's about show business and celebrities… but did you count all the people in that story? Besides me and Cantu, there were five other people in the story: Patricia Fripp, Margaret Cho, Dana Carvey, Paula Poundstone, and of course the unforgettable Robin Williams. It was only a two-minute story… seven people. Of course four of them are famous, if you know comedy. And a fifth one if you know professional speaking. But let me tell you another story that's mostly about everyday people. I went to the bank Tuesday morning. When I got to the window, Jasmine the teller was very excited. You see, the Warriors had just won the NBA championship the night before, and they're our hometown team. She told me in great detail about watching the game with her brother, who was a Cavs fan, because he likes LeBron James. Even though his team lost, she told me, he went out to party. He asked her to go, but, she had work the next day (which was the day we were talking). She told him she needed to get sleep and she couldn't do her job very well if she was hung over. So he went out by himself. OK, there's a story. Four people in two paragraphs. Me, Jasmine, Jasmin's brother, and of course the great Labron. Don't you think this story's just a lot more interesting than, "I went to the bank on Tuesday and I had a nice conversation with the teller." This is important because, that was out of real life. That's how people talk all the time. What they talk about isn't always that interesting by itself, but it becomes more interesting when they populate their stories with other people. And the same is true with your copy. Let's start at square one. The best copy is from one person to one other person – the prospect. A lot of people make the mistake of trying to be too "businesslike" by not writing personally. Big mistake. • reveal enough about yourself A lot of people make the mistake of trying to be too "businesslike" by not writing personally. Big mistake. • write to your prospect like you know something about them, like you know what's important to them and it's important to you, too – and write in a conversational way. • "businesslike" is more formal and aloof. Not good for copy. • you don't need to overdo it. A few personal details that are meaningful to the prospect will do the trick. Another place to include people is a testimonial, or a case study. • At the very least, use names and a location. • And where it fits, an occupation. By the way, "Mom" and "homemaker" are just as much occupations you can use as "CEO" or "chiropractor" – and just as important. We're not talking about conventional social status here. We're talking about your prospect identifying with the person giving the testimonial. • Testimonials typically talk about results that people get from products or services – or, their experience using those products or services. Take it one step further by talking about how the results or experiences fit into the bigger picture of their lives. It doesn't have to be elaborate or detailed. Just meaningful and believable. And, by the way, true. And agreed to by the person giving the testimonial. Example: (not as good) "David's critique gave us tweaks that improved our conversion rates substantially. We're getting a better bang for our advertising buck." - J.E. (better) "David's critique gave us tweaks that improved our conversion by 27%. We're getting a better bang for our advertising buck. I sleep better knowing the advertising pays for itself, and then some." - Jared Excellentus, Topical Life Tips, LLC Now, let's get a little more sophisticated: What others will think of you. - Victor Scwab in How to Write a Good Advertisement: "BOY PT MOM" – "Because of You, People Think More Of Me." - One great desire wired into our neurology – the desire to improve status. - Perfect example is the famous Wall Street Journal letter, the two young men story. The young man who started out reading the Journal ends up as the CEO of the company. The guy who didn't ends up working for the guy who did. And, along the same lines, how what you sell will not only affect the prospect, but also affect others. - Say you've got a self-defense course. - Always START with self-interest: It helps the prospect protect himself or herself - Next level: It also helps you protect your family - Next next level: You can help them learn to protect themselves when you're not with them - By the way, this is a key piece of the end of the Hero's Journey. The hero returns to society with valuable wisdom, and shares it with the community. Finally, why do people and personality matter so much in your copy? - We live in a world of other people, not products and services - Your prospects aren't inherently interested in products and services - They're interested in benefits – which, really, are how a product or service will affect them, as a person, and how the product or service will affect them in the context of other people - Bringing people and personality into your copy makes your copy more meaningful… and makes what you talk about come across as more realDownload.

One of the biggest keys to improving conversions with your copy is getting inside your prospect’s head. This episode reveals proven methods to do so. When I held my Breakthrough Copywriting Seminar in 2005, one of my special guests had everyone there on the edge of their seats. It was Brian Keith Voiles. He told us how he got into his prospect’s heads. I was stunned myself by the thoroughness of what Brian told us. He said he imagined his prospect (let’s say it was a male) at the start of his day. What did he have for breakfast? What was the conversation he had with his family around the breakfast table? Then Brian walked us through the whole day, hour-by-hour. Remember, this was all in Brian’s imagination! By the time he got to the end of his prospect’s day, it was clear that Brian knew this person pretty well! Now I don’t think Brian was holding back one bit. But I do think that there were some steps for him that were so automatic – or so “already built in” based on his years of experience and writing of multiple multi-million-dollar sales letters – that he didn’t even think to mention them. Steps that came before he would mentally walk through his prospect’s day. Today we’ll talk about what some of those steps might be. I’ve never talked to Brian about this part of his own process, but I have gone through them many times myself, and coached dozens of other people on steps they needed to take to get deep inside the thoughts and feelings of their prospects. First, though, my friendly reminder: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Now, onto the mind-reading. It’s not really mind-reading, by the way. You don’t have to be a psychic to get into the inner world of your prospect. You simply need to understand human nature, and then apply this understanding to your particular target customer in light of what you have to offer. • Zero-in on the problem your prospect has, that your offer can solve, and the frustrations your prospect experiences in trying to solve this problem. - We think in generalities, but we live life in specifics - Example: Business owner looks for ROI and higher profit margins. But what they think about, as a problem, is: - the results of not having enough cash flow or margins that are not big enough. Can’t make payroll. Can’t pay taxes. Can’t pay vendors. Can’t take home a paycheck themselves. - or, the results of what it would be like to have more cash flow and higher margins. A bigger personal paycheck. Hiring more people. Buying better equipment. Taking a vacation. Getting a cool new car. - To get into your prospect’s head, you need to drill down from categories, clichés and generalities - The specifics are what resonate and what generate emotions. - This is where you need to know something about your prospect’s life and their issues. - But understand, people are remarkably similar in general. They want to get certain things done, or have things done for them, and there are specific things in the way. Your job is to figure out: What’s in the way? • Understand it’s the unconscious mind that generates the feelings that are reactions to this problem – but the conscious mind is where the feelings get put into the words that create your opportunity to get into your prospect’s head. - Forget about “logic” and the word “should.” That’s not how the unconscious mind operates. - It’s seemingly much simpler, but it’s not stupid. This could be a LONG conversation but we’d go off on a tangent. - For our purposes, let’s say the unconscious mind is very specific, but it speaks a different language. Call that language “emotions” and “feelings” - Look at it this way. Any time you feel happy or sad, angry or confident, thrilled or disappointed, that’s your unconscious mind talking to you. - Know (or imagining) the feelings of your prospect is one step. But you still need to home in on what those feelings mean to your prospect. • Use research to confirm and hone your understanding of what’s going on in your prospect’s mind. - Let’s say you’ve got an info-product on alternative cures for arthritis. You’ve thought about the initial problems, which are joint pain and discomfort in moving the body in certain ways. Then you take it to the emotions – how does the prospect feel when they try to do this, try to do that? What can’t they do now that they could do if the arthritis pain disappeared? How are they frustrated with other solutions. - You feel pretty confident about what you’ve come up with. Now’s the time to be like a journalist or a detective and confirm what you’ve come up with. - You can do this by: talking to people… eavesdropping on conversations where people complain about their arthritis… reading reviews and comments on books about curing arthritis… talking to people, like MD’s and chiropractors, who treat people with arthritis… and getting any other real-world information about what people say, think, or feel. - Your research results will let you keep, or force you to throw away, what you speculated about up until now. What your prospects actually think, feel, and say is the final authority on what’s going on in their minds. - When you’ve finally come up with verified information, you’re on the right track to getting inside your prospect’s head. • Realize the more your prospect feels understood about what he or she is feeling and thinking, the more receptive your prospect will be to learning about your offer, and, to buying. - The wisdom from the Bible, “The truth will set you free,” is important, but in copy, it’s only the first step. The keyword here is “free.” While the truth as your prospect experiences it is vitally important, it’s not enough. You have to win your prospect’s confidence. - Don’t simply beat your prospect over the head with what you have discovered. - You need to show some empathy. For the prospect to be receptive to your offer, you have to show concern and caring for what is true for the prospect. - Old saying in sales I learned from interviewing Harvey Mackay: “People don’t care what you know until they know that you care.” - You don’t need to go overboard here. You need to simply acknowledge that this is a problem for them and not make them feel like you are judging or blaming them – or, that you are being simply objective, like a computer spitting out facts. - Make them feel like you are on their side. Don’t be shy. Make it a genuine human communication. • At the end of the day, it’s the words you use that resonate most with your prospect that will determine how effective your copy is. But for this to work, there needs to be a lot of smart psychology behind the words you use. - Simplicity is the key. But don’t confuse simplicity with simple-mindedness. - You need to use a thoughtful process to take the complexity of a person’s life and experiences and boil it down to a simple way to express it, that rings true with your prospect. - That’s why this process is so important. Notice you’re going between your own human imagination and specific research to get to the right words and knowledge behind the words. - The steps again are: 1. Zero in on the problem your prospect has, and how that problem affects their life. 2. Understand the difference between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. Unconscious mind generates feelings; conscious mind generates words to describe those feelings. 3. Use research to confirm what you suspect is going on in your prospect’s mind. 4. Make your prospect realize you understand how they are feeling, and that you care about that. 5. Choose the words that accurately describe what your prospect is feeling and thinking, and make those choices based on the four steps I’ve just laid out for you.Download.

This episode covers eight reasons people buy. You’ll get an example with the same product so you can see how to apply any one of these reasons in your own copy. When I first started writing copy, I was overwhelmed with all the differences from what I had known and done before. As a journalist, there was a certain set of rules and a format to follow. Copy seemed to turn everything on its head. I was trained as an old-school journalist. Back in the day, journalists were supposed to be objective, keep themselves out of what they wrote, and give equal weight to “both sides of the story.” Of course that was a goal more than a reality. After all, some stories have more than two sides to them. But most of us really strived to be objective, impartial, and fair. I know I did. I wasn’t entirely happy with that model, because I liked to get behind things I believed in, and writing copy gave me a way to do that. One of my biggest questions when I got started was, “How to you get people to buy things?” It took me many years, but I have finally boiled it down to eight reasons. It started out as seven, so now I call it “The seven reasons people buy, plus one more.” Knowing this made writing copy a whole lot easier for me. I’m going to share my seven plus one reasons today and I hope it make things a lot easier for you, too. Now, Nathan: I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it right now: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. OK, so, to the topic at hand. First of all, let me give you the big picture, and then we’ll drill down to each reason. I’m also going to invent an imaginary product to sell, and show how to use each of these reasons to sell it. And, I’ll give you a little commentary on each one. The seven reasons people buy are: 1. Make money 2. Save money 3. Save time 4. Save effort 5. Reduce pain 6. Increase pleasure 7. Improve health And number eight is: Increase prestige. Now, for the imaginary product: It’s a magic pen. This pen is magical because it allows you to write the best copy faster and more easily than anything you’ve ever experienced before. We’ll just call it “the magic pen” in this episode. Wow… I can hear the orders coming in already and we haven’t even finished our prototype of the product yet! Of course you can build you own magic pen by learning to write copy… and this episode is about a major part of that, learning the reasons people buy about 95% of the time… so let’s get into them. 1. The first reason – make money You can make more money with this pen than you can with any other writing implement. And you’ll make more money per word writing direct response advertising copy than you can writing anything else – except ransom notes. Comments: - specific - you’ll need to prove the claim; people are VERY skeptical about money-making claims, and reasonably so. - more for b2b offers than b2c. But really just about the only primary driver in bizop and financial copywriting 2. The second reason – save money With the magic pen, you’ll never have to spend $5000 - $10,000 – even $50,000 – on an expensive copywriter again. With this pen, you can create all the high-performing copy yourself. Comments: - show how - don’t expect them to figure out the savings, walk them through ’em - people love to save money. Rich people seem to love it even more than people without a lot of money to begin with. 3. The third reason – save time Copy takes far too long to write. Now, with the magic pen, you can write great, profitable copy in practically no time flat! - nobody seems to have enough time in their life. Saving time is an increasingly powerful appeal - when you make this claim, people will be skeptical until you prove it - if you can prove it, this is a very powerful appeal 4. The fourth reason – save effort Do you struggle writing copy? Say goodbye to struggle with the magic pen. This is the easiest way to write copy you’ve ever seen! - ref: laziness headlines. Even hardworking people like easier solutions - show how your product, or service, makes it easier for someone - testimonials, time measurements, before/after comparisons 5. The fifth reason - reduce pain Does the prospect of writing copy make you anxious or give you a headache? Does writing copy with an ordinary pen give you hand cramps? Forget about those problems with the magic pen. It’s the most painless way known to humankind to write copy. Everyone who has tried it says it doesn’t hurt at all! - you need to know what their pains are - the appeal promises to eliminate those specific pains - as with all of these appeals, you need to show how and to prove it 6. The sixth reason - increase pleasure What if writing copy was actually fun? Most people can’t imagine this possibility, but with the magic pen, writing copy might end up being the highlight of your day! - as you can see from this example, it’s pretty hard to sell something as increasing pleasure if the initial activity or experience isn’t pleasurable to start with - but there’s a difference between hard and impossible - if you use this with something that’s not pleasurable to begin with, be sure to acknowledge that the prospect (probably) didn’t think this could even be pleasurable 7. The seventh reason - improve health Research is increasingly showing that stress is seriously dangerous for your health. And writing copy causes most people stress. But now, with the magic pen, you’ll not only get rid of stress hormones when you write. You’ll also increase the flow of hormones that make you feel healthier. - this one was a pretty big stretch - if it’s not a health-related product, you need to come up with a pretty good argument - I’m not sure I’d use this as my main appeal, but it could “add fuel to the fire” in an actual promo for the magic pen Now let’s get to the eighth one, which, candidly, I developed later after I had my list of seven. It answers the question: Why do people spend $100,000 on a Rolex? Why do people buy a car for $250,000 when you can even get a very nice luxury car for $50,000 or $60,000, and a good, safe, serviceable car for a lot less than that? The answer is: Prestige. It gives you status. Used correctly, something like this can get others to admire and respect you. So… 8. The eight reason: Increase prestige When people find out you’re a writer AND they see how well you’re doing in business, they will respect you as one of the very rare and successful. You can have all that and more with the magic pen. - here, you need to get into the prospect’s world - prestige is usually/almost always about what others think - you need to figure out what your product or service will do to make a good impression on others Review: 1. Make money 2. Save money 3. Save time 4. Save effort 5. Reduce pain 6. Increase pleasure 7. Improve health 8. Increase prestigeDownload.

My all-time biggest hit was a direct mail sales letter for Abacus Travel Management that generated $40 million in new business. I wrote this pretty early in my career as a copywriter… over 20 years ago. One of the biggest challenges I had was getting into the way of thinking that ran through my prospect’s minds. My prospect was an entrepreneur who had a successful company and bought a lot of travel. I had never met anyone like that before, so it took a lot of research and a lot of mental effort before I could zero-in on who this person was. What I found out was, because they were so successful, nobody would cut them any slack. Everyone assumed the successful entrepreneur had no problems, since it seemed like they had endless amounts of money and other people did all the work. The reality, of course, was quite different – these people worked harder than anyone else at their company. And what good was money if you didn’t have any time to enjoy it? So eventually I came up with the perfect headline. The idea was, here you are, you overworked entrepreneur who everyone wants something from. How would you like to get a first-class vacation at rock-bottom prices? The reason we, Abacus Travel Management, are offering this to you, is so we can give you a little sample of what we could do for all your business travel. Not just you, but everyone in your company. Prospects loved it. Abacus had to stop mailing the letter after a few weeks because they couldn’t keep up with the appointments! The funny thing was, nobody actually took Abacus up on the vacation offer… but, a lot of people hired Abacus for their companies. Here’s what’s important about that true story: A big part of the success of that letter was that I was able to get in the prospect’s way of thinking. I made them feel understood and cared about. That in itself was rare enough in their world so that they would ask for a meeting… and my client was able to take it from there and close sales. And that is how valuable getting into your prospect’s way of thinking can be. In this case, it was worth $40 million. Now, looking back nearly 25 years, I know that I was not unusual in having a hard time getting into my prospect’s way of thinking. I know this because even the most talented copywriters I coach often have problems with this at first. It’s not something they teach in school, you know. In fact I don’t know anyone who teaches a system for how to do this effectively. Today I’m going to share some steps with you on how to do this. It will make your work a lot easier and your copy a lot more profitable. But first, I want to remind you of something: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. OK, now, here are some tips on how to get into your prospect’s way of thinking: • Everyone talks about getting into “the conversation already going on in your prospect’s mind.” That’s right. But how do you do it? It’s not guesswork or magical intuition. After we go through these steps, you’ll have a basis for doing so. But you’ve got to take the steps to have any hope of accuracy. • Remember how I said I didn’t know any people like my prospects. I do now… maybe in some ways I’m one of those people… but, the important point here is, I didn’t then. So I had to find out about them. That brings us to a really important point for most marketers and copywriters: Realize that you are NOT your prospect. That means it’s incumbent upon you to find out who is. Now some steps: • Start by finding out what PROBLEMS and FURSTRATIONS are causing their problems. Remember how I said these recently successful entrepreneurs got no sympathy from anyone, because almost everyone thought they had no problems? That in itself was a problem. And of course it’s bullshit to think anyone in the world doesn’t have problems, everyone does. Key point here: Knowing the problems they have is good, but it’s only half of this step. Problems lead to frustrations… obstacles. What gets in their way as a result of these problems. Just knowing a full answer to these questions alone will get you in much better shape for getting into your prospect’s way of thinking. • Now ask: What are their values? People have different values. You need to respect their values to sell to them, even if you disagree with them. (My experience with mlm folks and the $1million one day launch.) • Ask: What are they afraid of? Even the bravest and also the most stoic people have fears. True, people like that deal with their fears differently. It’s true that there’s a small minority of people have no fears, but they are almost certainly not your prospects! See if you can figure out logically what these people would most likely have fears about, especially in relation to your offer or set of offers. • A little friendly advice: If you have an idealized view of how humanity should be, then take note of that and set it aside. A lot of people with strong political, religious, and non-religious spiritual beliefs have this kind of view. You don’t have to abandon what you believe, but it’s really important to sell to people where they are, emotionally and experientially. Be a curious researcher, not a proud idealist, when you’re doing this part of your work as a copywriter. • Now we can get to it: “The conversation already going on in your prospect’s mind.” Once you have a sense of how they live their lives, what their values are, what they’re afraid of, what they really want – and, especially, what their problems are and what frustrations that leads to – then you have the building blocks for that conversation. Three Research Tips To Find All Of This Out • TALK TO PEOPLE IN THE MARKET - don’t argue. Be curious. Seek out their opinions and respectfully appreciate what they say. Even if you can’t stand what they’re saying. Because they’re handing you GOLD. • READ UP - Look at reviews on Amazon. Look especially for strongly held opinions and complaints. If you see versions of the same thing more than a few times, that’s a good sign it’s a widespread feeling in your marketing place. • Look at successful copy from others in your marketplace. Don’t steal it. Instead, see how you can figure out what values, fears and desires this copy is appealing to. You’ll want to appeal to the same thing. Download.

A friend of mine had an old Fender Stratocaster guitar he wanted to sell. He put up an ad on Craigslist. The price was good and he got five people to come by and look at it. Most of the people liked the way the guitar played, but they all kind of hesitated and nobody bought. He asked me what was wrong. I looked at the guitar. It was clean enough and it had new strings. It sounded good, but it looked kind of dull. “Get something to polish it up with,” I said. “Then raise the price $100, and you’ll sell it.” My friend said he wasn’t that much “into appearances.” But he was so frustrated that he followed my advice anyway. And, guess what? It worked. The first person who came by from the new listing looked at the guitar… played it for five minutes… pulled the exact amount of cash out of his pocket… and walked out the door with my friend’s old guitar. My friend smiled. After the buyer left with the guitar, he admitted he was dumfounded. How could one coat of polish make such a difference? As it turns out, the same thing is true with your copy. Turning it in to a client when it’s rough and “almost good enough” does not usually work out very well. Or, if the copy is for your own product or service, showing your prospects sloppy copy will hurt your sales results. So, this episode is about polishing your copy once it’s written. Not with Fender Guitar Polish, but with a series of simple techniques and steps to make it shine… and sell. Today we’ll talk about 10 ways to polish up your copy for maximum engagement and sales. And before we get into these 10 ways, a quick announcement: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. OK, now, on with these 10 ways to polish your copy: 1. Get your spelling and grammar correct… and your punctuation, too. - Microsoft Word tool: “Spelling and grammar” under “tools” - A review will make punctuation suggestions - But the bottom line is, you’ll need to learn the rules yourself, or get a good editor who won’t mess up your copy but will fix the errors. 2. Use only one idea per sentence. - A lot of good writers will put more than one idea in a sentence at first - You need to edit ruthlessly - Either break up the sentence into two or more sentences, or choose one idea and get rid of the other or others. 3. Tighten things up. - Find the extra words you don’t need and take them out. - Especially, unneeded adjectives and adverbs, and the word “that” - Good copy moves at a pace. Extra words slow it down. 4. Cut out the boring stuff. - Famous movie director Alfred Hitchcock: “Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.” - Same with copy. The excitement and momentum come in large part from lean writing - Focus on the human elements (emotions, experience, how things affect people’s lives) and minimize the technical elements that only geeks care about. Even if you are a geek and/or are selling to geeks! 5. Read it out loud. Notice especially if you are keeping the momentum going and the excitement building. - Good copy is conversational - One of the hardest things to do is to learn to write truly conversationally - A great way to get closer to that is to read it out loud. If you stumble or it comes across as awkward, 6. Change passive sentences to active sentences. - Passive sentence: “The ball was thrown.” Or “The ball was thrown by him.” - Active sentence: He threw the ball. - Key: use of a form of the verb “to be” before the main verb. Was, were, is, will be. 7. Wherever and whenever you can, use visual and/or visceral and/or emotional language. - We experience life through our feelings and what we see. - You may have to learn what these kinds of words and descriptions are, if you’re not already familiar. - Notice in other copy. Also, The National Enquirer. Also, good fiction. 8. Build and maintain a chain of logic. - Logical thinking is not natural. It’s something need to learn. - A clean logical flow is invisible in your copy. Everything just seems to pull together. - The most important thing I can tell you is start with a strong promise you can prove and deliver on, and make sure everything in your copy flows from that and is related to it in one way or another. 9. Keep your copy focused on: your prospect… your offer… and selling your offer. - It’s easy to get off track. Rein yourself back in when you’re polishing your copy. - Think: What do my prospects need to see and hear to know this is about them, that you are for real and can be trusted, and that this is an appealing offer - Take out any tangents that are “interesting” but not relevant to your prospect, your offer, or selling your offer. 10. Make sure your close is clear… and strong. - Tell your prospect how to buy in clear, simple language. - Don’t be shy. - Make it as impossible to screw up as you can. -- If you can’t do all of these, do as many as you can. Your copy will still be a lot better than if you didn’t do any at all. The same thing applies to how well you do the ones you do. The better you do them, the better your copy will be. But if you do the best you can, your copy will be a lot better than if you skipped the “polish” step altogether.Download.

Looking for some tips on how to get over the blank page blues? We've got you covered. This week's episode is all about how to get started when you're in a slump. I used to take a lot of road trips, especially when I was in college. 500 miles from Ann Arbor, Michigan to Rockville MD. Back in the day, the length of this trip home was never a problem for me. But getting ready to go was. I was a worry-wart. Did I have everything packed? Was my tank full? Did I have enough food and coffee for the trip? Then one day I made three important discoveries: - Gas stations - Restaurants on the turnpikes - And stores near home in case I forgot something. With those discoveries, hey – getting ready was a LOT easier, and I knew in 8 to 10 hours of drive time, I’d be back home. Writing copy is a lot like that. You need to prepare, but the need to over-prepare can get in the way of you getting started. And if you find you’re missing something while you’re writing, you can always take a break and get what you need. Today we’re going to talk about getting started. This is one of the hardest parts for most people when they’re writing copy. We’ll cover some things you can do beforehand, and three ways to actually start to get words down on the page. Also, I will share with you some tricks the pro’s use when they get stuck, to keep on track. But before we get started, a reminder to our listeners: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. OK, that’s good to know. Now let’s get right into the belly of the beast – getting started writing your copy! Preparation Before you start writing, you need to have done some research. The reason for that is, if you haven’t done research, it will be harder to write anything, and what you will be writing will be off the top of your head. That’s bad for a lot of reasons. So let me tell you about the minimum and the maximum research you should do: - Minimum: product / how it works / what its strengths and advantages are. How it was developed. What makes it unique. What would make it appealing for others to buy. Other kinds of research: The sales letter might work just with product research, but it will work a lot better if you do customer research. Who is your customer; what is their biggest problem that you can solve; how do they talk about the problem. And the icing on the cake with research: Competitor research. What else will customers be looking at? Even look at competitors’ sales letters. You can go so far as to put together a matrix comparing all products side by side so you can see where you have definite advantages. Why is this so important? Because it gives you facts to start from. Your copy will be a lot more solid and believable that way. Other things in preparation that make getting started a lot easier: - Outline. Some people like this, others don’t. Advantage of an outline is you know where you’re going next. You can see the flow of the letter all at once. You can do very high level outlines, or detailed outlines. Either kind works if it helps you get a sense of the whole. Outlining software I use: OmniOutliner for Mac. Lets you collapse the outline. You can also use mindmapping software to outline – I’ll talk more about mindmapping later. - Get clear on the goal of what you’re writing. Who do you want to do what when they read it? How do you want that person to feel? Getting started - You really need to be able to focus on writing and nothing else. That means no distractions. No TV, nobody talking to you. No email. No facebook. Just writing. - Gene Schwartz method / pomodoro method. Short segments of 25 to 33 minutes. Pomodoro means tomato in Italian. You can find physical tomato timers online, as well as virtual tomato timers (called pomodoro timers). Gene Schwartz used a digital timer and punched in 3333. The idea is, you have a limited amount of time. You don’t need to rush. Just see what you can get done in that time, knowing you can stop when the timer goes off. -Talk it out to another person. Sometimes you’ll discover things speaking that you won’t find when the words are totally inside your head. It’s good to record in any case and then transcribe it. - “Theatre of the mind” technique: Imagine you’re face to face with the prospect and you want to sell them what’s going into your copy. What would you say? What would they say in response? How would you respond to that? The more conversational you can get this in your mind, the better off you are. Of course, when you actually start writing the copy, it needs to be a one-way conversation – you, to the prospect. - Start with the close. Or at some other part of the copy than the beginning. Write bullets first. A lot of copywriters really get into the mindset of the whole piece by writing a lot of bullets before they write anything else. Or write the guarantee. Or anything. Sometimes just getting started on something will get the flow going for the whole piece of copy. Tricks pros use to keep going Take a break. Before you feel you need to. Short spurts of work followed by short breaks. Take a walk, or listen to some music, or meditate. Don’t do anything too distracting or tiring, though. Save the liquor cabinet for later. Change location. You can take your computer or a pad of paper and a pen, and go somewhere else where no one will talk to you and you can work undisturbed. Sometimes a change of scene will make it much easier to write. Mindmapping. This is good beforehand, as an outlining tool. Sometimes while you’re writing you get a lot on your mind and it’s better to organize it visually so you can get back to the task itself, of writing the copy. You can learn how to mindmap on paper, and there are lots of free and inexpensive mind-mapping programs. Oh, and we announce the winner of the iTunes contest in this episode as well. Was it you? Only one way to find out. Download.

When you watch a show on TV like “Law and Order” or “NCIS,” the detectives are mighty impressive. They efficiently rule out innocent subjects and nail the killers – all inside of 60 minutes! And how do they do it? First, by doing hands-on, smart research. And then, using what they learn to develop convincing proof … … to solve the case and nail the perpetrator. Now… copywriters are usually not called upon to solve murder cases. But we still need to be just as thorough and convincing, in proving the claims that we make in our copy. First I’d like to say something about what you’ll hear today: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Good thing we got that covered, huh? Now, onto the subject of today’s podcast. You may be wondering… why is proof so important? What’s the big deal about proof, anyway? Here’s what: Once you sit down to write your copy, there’s a big difference between how much you believe what you’re saying, and what a real prospect will believe. People are naturally skeptical, and rightfully so. On a scale of 1 to 10, your belief level in what you’re saying may be a 10. But your prospect may have a belief level of a 7… or a 5… or even a 2. If this upsets you, stop taking it personally. Now. Because this is human nature. People lose more sales arguing with, or trying to change, human nature than just about anything else. They’d be much better off learning the laws of human nature and following them, even if those laws are unfamiliar, even uncomfortable, at first. You need to deal with people as they are, and the fact that people are skeptical and often untrusting, even when you might think they shouldn’t be, is just something to learn to live with. So, that, in a nutshell, is why we need proof. You’re best off starting by assuming that the prospect has no reason to believe you. Even if you think they should! So, do the right thing and give your prospect plenty of reasons! This episode covers different types of proof that work in copy. Some that you may already be familiar with, and some that you may never have heard of before. Let’s start with: • Testimonials and case studies This category includes quotes from others about you, your company, your product, and sometimes even the idea that your product represents – and, stories about customers using your product, or service – and what their experience was like. Big warning: Be very careful about reporting results. Especially financial and health results. I’m not a lawyer so I can’t give you expert or specific advice here. The general rule is to use disclaimers to let people know results are not typical or guaranteed. But if you are going to use testimonials or case studies with results, you’d be wise to consult with a lawyer who really knows advertising law – what you can get away with and what you can’t. The examples I’m giving you are safe, because no reasonable person could expect they will get the exact same results, or even comparably similar results, to the ones I’m sharing. They are examples that show my capabilities, and how my coaching and critiques have increased the capabilities of my clients. - Why proof elements need to include both emotional and logical components - The purpose of proof is to overcome skepticism and resistance. Proof by itself doesn’t sell, but it greatly bolsters the sale. 1. Testimonials – three types: customer results testimonials, customer experience testimonials, expert testimonials For the examples in this episode of Copywriters Podcast, I’m going to use testimonials, case studies, and reviews from my own website, Garfinkelcoaching.com. Because I already have permission to use those testimonials. You need to get permission to use testimonial quotes, and written permission is best. o Customer results testimonials from Brett Alcorn, an internet marketer, on copy critiques: “I’ve worked with David twice so far and will continue to do so. On one promotion, David’s small but meaningful changes increased conversions of my sales video by 139.43%. As I said before, I intend to continue working with David and would encourage anyone else to as well. His expertise is well worth the investment.” Comments: - Specifics: - Brett mentions he has worked with me twice so far - “small but meaningful changes” - 139.43% increase in conversions - His conclusion: work with me again (he’s hired me 20 times) - Any prospect who measures their results and wants better results – o Can relate o Would be interested o Customer experience testimonials (describe) From Chris Haddad, a/k/a Michael Fiore, who many now consider a legend in the digital marketing industry. “Before I met David Garfinkel I was a wet-behind-the-ears wannabe copywriter way more concerned with protecting my ego than I was with writing copy that CONVERTS. David took me under his wing, brutalized my copy, burned away the bullshit keeping me from reaching that next level and transformed me into a world-class writer with well over 9 figures in sales to my name.” Comments: - he talked about his experience - future mentoring clients can identify with Chris’s situation at the beginning of his testimonial - To this day, Chris reaches out to me when he needs some outside clarity on a situation. He actually did so a few days ago, this week. That conversation is private so that’s all I’ll say about it. o Expert testimonials From Guerrilla Marketing author and former big Ad Agency exec Jay Conrad Levinson “David Garfinkel is the best copywriter I know.” Comments: - I think the quote speaks for itself - The expertise/authority of Jay is massive. He is one of the best known authors, if not THE best known, author of small business marketing books. And he was Sr. VP for a well known ad agency, J. Walter Thompson. So surely he must have known a lot of other copywriters. Why testimonials work: People like to hear about experiences from others so they can compare that to what they want. Best of all, they like to hear it “right from the horse’s mouth.” That what a reference is. But a testimonial is the next best thing. 2. Customer Results Case Studies (describe) o From my Professional Copywriting mentoring page One of my mentoring clients, “Million Dollar Mike” Morgan, wrote a sales letter for Agora Financial that has the highest customer value in the history of the company. Another client, Angie Lole, wrote a VSL that rose to the number-two position in ALL of Clickbank. My client Jim Clair is writing copy for a group of digital fitness products that bring in eight figures a year. And his income is significantly higher than it used to be. Comments: These are one-sentence case studies that spotlight accomplishments of some of my most successful clients. The kind of accomplishments others would like to aim for. 3. Product/company history (describe) • The experience and effort that went into creating the product - Example: iCoffee coffee-maker. Sum-up: The importance and necessity of proof. Next episode: How to get started on your copy. Even when you have no idea where to start.Download.

Special Episode with copywriting legend John Carlton, on the topic of "Copywriting Is a Team Sport" Key takeaways: - Beginning and intermediate copywriters need mentors and critiques on their work. But, surprisingly, so do A-Listers and super-successful entrepreneurs. A different kind of support -- but, what's similar, is, they need to hear the truth about their work and their businesses from supportive, experienced people who aren't afraid to point out flaws and missing pieces. - Dan Kennedy on how to decide what creativity fits and what should be cut from your copy: "Does it advance the sale?" - Golden advice from Gary Halbert: "When all else fails, give people what they want." - To this day, other top marketers and copywriters count on Carlton to round out their advice and presentations: Two current examples -- Dan Kennedy at Cleveland event, Clayton Makepeace at online Mastermind. - The Mastermind process, first described by Napoleon Hill in "Think and Grow Rich," is uniquely valuable for writers and business owners - David read "Think and Grow Rich" in the mid-1980s, and has been in a number of Masterminds continuously since 1989 - Early in his career, Carlton learned and benefited from what he calls "mind melds" with people like copywriting legend Jim Rutz; marketing master Jay Abraham; some other famous people he declined to mention; and of course Gary Halbert, who was his business partner and writing partner - Sometimes Halbert would take his copy into a bar and read it to folks over a beer. If he heard, "That's a great ad," he knew he had a loser. If he heard "How can I get that???", he knew he had a winner - There's no way short of testing to know for sure if copy will be successful, but the closest you can come is to have someone with a lot of successful experience (and a lot of remembered failures) to look at what you've written and be completely honest with you - The Platinum Mastermind is a relatively small group (about a dozen people) that offers a classic Napoleon Hill-style Mastermind, using the hot-seat format Carlton has refined and perfected over many years - More info on the Platinum Mastermind: http://garfinkelcoaching.com/loveDownload.

Stephen Covey famously said "seek first to understand, then to be understood." Too bad most copywriters skim over this important part of selling. For many copywriters, market research is just too difficult. For others, they just don't know where to start. In this episode, David covers those bases, and more. Many years ago, a golf ball company was running a successful mail-order ad in a golfing magazine. The company owner decided to update the ad, and brought in a top designer from New York to redesign it. To everyone’s horror, response to the ad dropped to zero. No one could figure out why. The copy had not been changed. The market was still hot and growing. There was no bad news about the golf ball company that anyone was aware of. Turned out, the top designer had redone the coupon in the ad to be solid black, with white lettering and white blanks to fill in. This caused a problem for customers, because to fill out the coupon, they would have needed a pen that wrote in white ink! The business owner ordered the coupon to be changed back to white, with black lettering. Once the ad published with the normal coupon, response shot right back up. What’s important here is that the company could figure out what was wrong until they did hands-on research, step by step, to determine what the customer would have to do to order. This episode is all about copywriting research, which makes a huge and measurable difference in the profitability of your advertising. But first, my friendly reminder for you: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. • How to research your customers: what they want, and what they need to read or hear in order to buy 1. Basic research – talk to them o Don’t ask them about your product – ask them about their problems o Ask questions like: ■ What’s the one problem with __ you’re having trouble finding a solution for ■ What happens or will happen when you don’t solve this problem? ■ Do you have an idea of what caused this problem? o Conversationally, ask them what specific solution to a specific problem, that’s important to them, they would like… that they can’t find anywhere right now o Or, if they can find a solution, ask them about what they don’t like, or they wish they had, that they don’t, in that solution o Pay close attention to the words they use. The exact words. Don’t try to “help” them, or to correct them. Just listen and keep ’em talking. The way they talk about problems and solutions, the exact words they use, are very important in the crafting of your copy. 2. Read reviews. Especially on Amazon and social media. Pay less attention to what they gush about (positive) than what they complain about (negative) o One review doesn’t make a trend. Multiple similar complaints do o The same languaging for the same complaint in different locations (ie on Amazon, in a forum, in a blog post) is a sure sign that you’re onto something you can use in your copy. o A reminder: You don’t just want to repeat their complaints. You want to also offer a unique, valuable solution that SOLVES their complaints! 3. If you have a product going and a customer service department, listen in on the customer service calls – make sure it’s legal – or, better yet, do a shift or two on customer service. You’ll learn tons. o People never have a hesitancy to complain. o Just listen at first. Don’t try to fix it right away. o Sometimes, the REAL complaint is “below the surface.” That’s why you want to give people time to get to it. The REAL complaint is the one charged with emotion. Sometimes it will come out of nowhere. Cherish that information… it is gold. o Example: Someone is talking about dry skin… then it gets to wrinkles… finally the REAL complaint comes out: “I just don’t want to look that OLD!” • What to research about your competition – especially, how to determine what’s missing in their products, and what you can do better and/or differently to make them prefer you over your competition 1. The simplest thing you can do with the highest probability of success is find out what complaints are about WINNERS – and fix the biggest complaints in your offer – and trumpet it loudly. o The first place to start is to look at successful competing ads from present day. Just look around; opt-in to lists of competitors; watch your Facebook account. You’ll start getting related ads remarkably quickly. o The second place to look is successful ads in different fields from present day. Could be closely related or not related at all. What you’re looking for is an example of a complete package of words and … that’s plagiarism, and you wan to avoid that at all costs. More about that a little later on. o Third place to look is old ads. There are a bunch of books like The Greatest Direct Mail Letters of All Time and They Laughed When I Sat Down: An Informal History of Advertising in Words and Pictures. Also, there’s a website – swiped.co. It’s free, and it has copies of many old ads you can look at. Claude Hopkins, John Caples, etc. Has current ads too. Promo’s running right now. As best I can tell, it’s free. 2. Find out what appeal current winners leading with in their ads… especially ads that rank high (like on Clickbank) or appearing often (like Google AdWords, or Facebook ads). o By now you should be familiar with the range of features and benefits of your product and related products. o Simply find out which one(s) are being used in headlines and lead generation. o That should give a starting point for your ad. Don’t copy word for word, but use the same idea in different words. Example: For a sleep aid, instead of “sleep soundly,” you could say “sleep all through the night.” It means the same thing, but the words are different, so you’re much safer. 3. Buy a competitor’s product and go through the entire sales cycle. Note what the upsells are. A successful product with successful upsells has zero’d in on, and nailed, the exact “mass desire” that will buy the most. o Get a sense of the structure and the content o Successful promotions usually have a theme. You’ll find the theme in the main product is repeated in the upsell. I heard a great example at a seminar, I think it was Nick Andrews who said it. If the main offer is Excedrin, the first upsell should be “extra strength Excedrin.” Look for patterns that you can adapt and duplicate. o A good funnel with email follow-up is very valuable research. Learn all you can before you design yours. • The secrets of profitably researching other ads that are winners in your field and other fields. Without plagiarizing, using what they are doing by adapting it to improve results with your own copy 1. Swiping – the difference between plagiarism and borrowing/adapting concept o This is hard to teach and advanced concept – but, worth knowing about. o The important thing to remember is there is a concept behind each successful ad… at least almost all of them. Also known as the Big Idea. o It might be a metaphor… it might be a huge claim… it might be comparing a well known news situation or landmark, like global warming or the Eiffel Tower, to a specific situation your prospect is concerned about or wants. Global warming could be compared to toxic mold in a person’s home. You could make a case that there is gold buried under the Eiffel Tower. (But you need to have some backup!) And then compare it to a business or investment opportunity. o The key thing is not to use the same elements. Instead of global warming, you might talk about disappearing species of animals. Instead of the Eiffel Tower, you might use London Bridge. That steers you away from plagiarism. 2. Swiping – the difference between plagiarism and borrowing/adapting structure o Same idea here o The way to swipe structure is to identify the different elements in copy, map it out, and follow your map with different copy o Headline – warning about threat o Opening – expands on the threat o Writer of letter introduces himself and talks about his relevant experience in regard to protecting yourself against this threat o … and so on. 3. Notice how competing successful ads get into the customer’s head (conversation already going on in the prospect’s mind) and what they’re doing with their offer that is fresh and innovative. o At the end of the day, this is what you’re looking for: The conversation going on in your customer’s mind o It’s always very specific and down-to-earth o More often than not, it’s about avoiding some specific pain or achieving some specific and probably elusive goal o That, more than anything else, is what your research should help you figure out.Download.

Bullet points can be tricky to get right, but they pay off big when you do. This week's episode will teach you how. An Afghanistan vet and his wife went to the housewares department of a “big box” store. They were looking for an electric can opener. The vet was an amputee. He only had his right arm, but it worked fine. The salesman showed the couple the best model, and started rattling off the features: U.L. Approved, cordless operation, easy to clean, 5 star reviews online. The couple listened politely but didn’t say a thing. This made the salesman nervous. “Are there any questions I can answer for you?” “Just one,” said the vet with a smile. “If I get this, can I open a can with just one hand?” The salesman was embarrassed that he had failed to mention this, but he recovered quickly enough. He said yes—and the couple happily bought a new can opener. Every customer is like the vet. I don’t mean that every customer is an amputee. What I mean is that there’s usually one feature or benefit the prospect is looking for. Or maybe they’re not even looking for it, but when they find out about it, that alone may be enough to get them to buy. Bullet points are where you highlight individual features and benefits. Better bullets = more sales. And here’s the first thing I would like to remind you of: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Now, back to bullets. How to screw up a bullet point – and how not to - Don’t use bullet points to list your features example: you’ve got a device to hang business suits for guys six foot seven hand higher Don’t: • One foot taller than your average standalone suit hanger Do: • Built for guys like you, so the bottom of your suit will NEVER touch the ground or even: • At one foot taller than other suit hangers, it’s built for guys like you. That means the bottom of your suit will NEVER touch the ground. - Don’t make bullet points obscure, or hard to understand - Don’t make them so short that people need to strain their brain to figure out what they’re all about - DO: Focus on a benefit very close to what they prospect already wants, or would want if he or she knew about it - DO: Use intrigue to “tease” the prospect about unusual benefits they might want, without always spelling it out 100% example: you’ve got a tropical resort with a petting zoo for children. Don’t: • Your children will have a great time with our friendly petting zoo crew: seven sheep, two ponies, four llamas and three kangaroos. Do: • Your children will love our special petting zoo with familiar and exotic animals. They’re all safe, and your kids will learn about animals they’ve never seen before! - DO: Do your best to keep one simple idea to each bullet. Because if it is clear and compelling enough, one bullet alone can knock your prospect off the fence and convince them to buy. • What the best copywriters do when they write their bullet points - When you’re swinging for the fences, take some time crafting really good bullets ° One of my A-List friends, who has had multiple controls in the mail for a major mailer at the same time, told me he writes each bullet four times ° Another A-Lister, known for beating controls of other A-Listers, admitted that at times he would spend hours on one bullet ° If you’re going for a major-league grand slam, this is what you do. If you’re not in the most competitive market in the world, you don’t have to. But it certainly pays to put more time and craft into bullets than you have been doing in the past, unless you’ve been doing what these A-Listers have been doing. ° Most people don’t spend nearly enough time on bullets. Good idea to put more into them. - Go over the whole product slowly and carefully – when you write and edit bullets, this is a time when you really need to slow down ° Pull out as many unique features as you can ° Make each feature into a bullet ° Then make each bullet as good as you can make it ° This is what the pro’s do - Vary the length and style of your bullets ° All should be written in as few words as possible to get the idea across, like a headline or a subhead ° But some should be short and punchy ° Some can be longer and more in-depth ° As a rule, it’s always a good idea if you can start with one of the 5 W’s or an H: Who, What, Why, When, Where, How 5 tips for writing better bullet points 1. Know your prospect, inside-out, so you can write from the point of view that will most like get your prospect interested… intrigued… or SOLD.Download.

Ask any experienced, successful salesperson what the single best form of selling is, and you’ll nearly always get back the same answer: “Demonstration.” That’s why savvy car dealers let customers take a new car home for the weekend before they actually buy the car. It’s the same reason Internet marketers offer a $1 trial for the first month, on products or services that are billed for far more than that every month. They know that when people get to try what they’re selling, a lot more of those people will buy it. That’s why pet stores let people take a puppy they’re interested in, home for the weekend. In sales, there’s even a term for this kind of hands-on (paw’s on?) demonstration – “the puppy dog close.” Oddly enough, you can get your prospect to demonstrate your products for themselves without ever letting the touch the product! How? By telling them what I call “demonstration” stories. Prospects get to try out your product in their imaginations. How to create and use stories is known by some of the best marketers and salespeople—but virtually unknown by everyone else. If you don’t know what they are, we’ll turn that around now. Now for my friendly reminder: Copy is powerful. That’s why I’m going to give you some really powerful new strategies today. And then, you’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Now, most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. OK, back to demonstration stories, and other tiny little stories that really pack a wallop! And by that I mean, for the small number of words in these stories, you’ll get a disproportionate payoff. How? In advancing the sale in your copy. In getting your customers to want to learn about and then buy what you are selling, more than they did before they heard the tiny little story. • How to get your prospect to imagine experiencing the benefit of your product, without ever having the product yet So the great artist Pablo Picasso said: “Everything you can imagine is real.” Easy for him to say. When he died in 1973, he had an estimated net worth of $500 million – which would be $2.8 billion today. And on June 21, 2016, his 1909 painting “Femme Assise,” which means “Woman Sitting Down,” sold at an auction in London for $63 million and change. I’m not bringing up all these numbers to make the point that he was a great artist. I’m just saying, when someone can dream up images, put them on canvas, and sell them for big bucks, it’s easy for him to say, “Everything you can imagine is real.” But Picasso was right. In this way. If you imagine doing something or seeing something or hearing something vividly enough, your mind really cannot tell the difference between what you imagined and what actually happened (or never happened). It seems that real. This is important with the kind of stories we’re going to talk about today. Because these stories are designed to get your prospect imagining enjoying one or more of the benefits of what you are selling. In such a vivid way that they actually feel like they experienced it. Then, when they realize they don’t really have what they just imagined having, they will want it all the more! We’ll come back to that point and explore it in depth in a few minutes. For right now, let’s look at some very short stories that get the customer imagining benefits. These are from a full-page ad in the National Enquirer that’s been running for at least a year and a half. The ad is for a product called “Jitterbug,” and it’s a cell phone designed especially for seniors who do not want complicated, sophisticated smart phones like an iPhone or an Android phone. Each one of these paragraphs appears in the ad, and each one of them, by itself, is a story that gets the prospect to not only experience the benefit of the Jitterbug. They also tell a wonderful mini before-and-after story – contrasting the storyteller’s frustration with the old, difficult phone to the delights and ease of the new, easy Jitterbug phone. FIRST ONE: In quotes – “Cell phones have gotten so small, I can barely dial mine.” Close quotes. That first sentence was from a person like the prospect, talking to the prospect, and it’s in quotes. The next three sentences are from the company that makes Jitterbug. All part of the same paragraph: Not the Jitterbug Flip. It features a large keypad for easy dialing. It even has a larger display and a powerful, hearing aid-compatible speaker, so it’s easy to see and conversations are clear. That’s it. WOW! Incredible story there. I had this problem – so small, I could barely dial it. Jitterbug offers this solution: large keypad, large display, powerful speaker that works with hearing aids. Covered the waterfront in four sentences… Another one: SECOND ONE: Quote “I had to get my son to program it.” Unquote. The copy from the company follows: Your Jitterbug Flip set-up process is simple. We’ll even program it with your favorite numbers. THIRD ONE: Quote “What if I don’t remember a number?” Close quote. Friendly, helpful Personal Operators are available 24 hours a day and will even greet you by name when you call. In all – there are six short paragraphs like that. It’s 90% of the full page ad. Structure - Objection (that most prospects have about current phones) - Description (of how Jitterbug is different, better) - Gives prospect experience in imagination of new phone - Complete story: -- it was like this before -- it’s like this now -- this is much better than it was Completely different from hero’s journey. Here’s another one. By A-List copywriter Richard Armstrong. This was a control for Kiplinger’s personal finance for over a decade. This little story on a one-page letter: Dear Friend, My aunt Jane is rich as sin. And nobody in my family can figure out why. She worked as a librarian her whole life. Her husband, who passed away a few years back, was a tool-and-die maker. They never earned much money in their lives. But boy, were they ever smart with what they had. There was a little vacation home that they picked up for a song and wound up selling for $250,000. Some well-chosen stocks that grew in value over the years. Mutual funds. Municipal bonds. Treasury bills. Even a vintage Volkswagen “Beetle” that’s worth more now than the day they bought it. Nowadays my Aunt Jane -- who we always thought was just a little crazy -- is a bonafide millionaire! One day I asked her for the secret of her success. “I have three rules,” she said. 1) Never let your money sit idle 2) Never pay more than you have to for anything 3) Never pass up anything that’s free Well, my friend, unless you return the enclosed card today, you’re going to break at least one -- and probably all three -- of my aunt’s rules. Because if you return the enclosed card, you’ll get a free issue of KIPLINGER’S PERSONAL FINANCE (Rule #3). If you decide to subscribe, you’ll get the next 11 issues at a very low price, plus three free bonus gifts (Rule #2). And instead of spending the rest of your life working for money, you’ll put your money to work for you. (Rule #1) I know my Aunt Jane wouldn’t pass up a free sample issue of KIPLINGER’S PERSONAL FINANCE magazine. But of course… She already subscribes. Best regards, Richard Armstrong Brilliant. And short. Less than 300 words. Now, how would this have gone as a hero’s journey story? Aunt Jane, graduates from an archivist program with a degree in library science. Ordinary life. Gets a job. Expenses go up, faster than salary. Gets married. Starts saving. Sees the writing on the wall. Jane and husband start investing. Husband gets laid off. Government budget crunch, Jane’s job is in danger. Will she continue to invest or is she going to start looking for a new job… And so on until she retires and discovers she’s a millionaire… But what Richard did was much more pared down, much more elegant, and much more effective. The first good thing about a demonstration story is that it quickly and effectively gets the prospect imagining they have the product or are using the service you’re offering – and this increases their desire. But there’s a second good thing about a demonstration story, too… • How not having the product (after hearing or reading a “demonstration story”) has the same effect as a super-powerful “takeaway close.” In other words, your prospect close themselves! Takeaway close – works probably better than any other close. Get a prospect excited about having something, and then telling them they can’t have it - after a deadline - after a limited quantity is no longer available - at the same price after a certain date, because the price goes up and there are other versions. Usually comes at the end of a spoken pitch, or the end of your copy. Reason: Human nature. People want what they can’t have. If they can wait forever, they will… With these demonstration stories, you’re doing a second level of takeaway… because… each time a prospect reads one, they “have” the product/service in their imagination… and then, boom! It’s gone. So with the Jitterbug ad: Five demonstration stories, five takeaways. Then they end with a fairly simple and light close, which simply pushes the prospect off the fence: Enough talk. Isn’t it time you found out about the cell phone that’s changing all the rules? Call now. Jitterbug product experts are standing by. By the way, if this a phone you’re interested in… jitterbugdirect.com I don’t have any business relationship with the company, but, for example, I know this is something my girlfriend’s parents would probably be interested in! So… you can see the power in these demonstration stories • How to create your own “demonstration story.” These stories are incredibly easy to write. Here’s the catch: You need to know your prospects well. You need to know what’s on their mind. What they’re unhappy with about competing products. What they’re afraid of. How they’ve been disappointed in the past. And, most important, how they talk about it. Once you know that, you simply state their objection, and answer it in a sentence or two. Example: Website software is too rigid and difficult to use. “I used to go crazy trying to put a web page together.” Well, with EasyWeb, you can put a professional looking web page together in 10 minutes or less. And you have complete flexibility as to what it looks like – or you can use one of our six proven templates for your page if you don’t want to design it yourself. This kind of thing is easy to do if you know what’s on the mind of your prospects, and how they talk about it, and how what you offer solves the problem that you’re talking about. So the key to these stories is not the formula – that’s simple, and by now you should understand what it is. The key is knowing how to fill in the formula – and the only way you’re going to be able to do that so it works is by knowing your prospects—ideally, knowing them inside-out. You can get this information in a number of ways. By talking to prospects. Talking to customers. If you have salespeople, talk to them. If you have customer service people, ask them about the most common questions and complaints. Look on sites like Amazon where there are reviews… you’ll find common themes if you read enough and think about what you read. In short, once you start to become an expert on your own customers, the copy starts to almost write itself! Download.

Birds and airplanes don’t always get along so well. Just ask Sully Sullenberger, the Air Force Academy graduate. On January 15, 2009, Captain Sullenberger was piloting a commercial flight on an Airbus A320 as it took off from New York’s LaGuardia Airport—and the plane ran smack-dab into a flock of birds. Both engines went out immediately. One caught fire. Sullenberger quickly decided there was only one way he could save the lives of the people on the the plane, and that was to do the impossible: land it on the Hudson River. It was a risky move, but he correctly concluded it was his only option. What happened next has been called “The Miracle on the Hudson.” Captain Sullenberger and his co-pilot Jeff Skiles made a safe landing on the icy river. All 150 passengers, 5 crew members, and both pilots of U.S. Airways Flight 1549 were rescued safely. That’s a truly heroic story. And, it’s a perfect example of what mythologist Joseph Campbell calls “The Hero’s Journey.” This kind of story can work very well sometimes in sales copy. Yet at other times, a hero’s journey is the worst possible kind of story you can use. We’ll cover what a hero’s journey is – a six-step formula. When this kind of story works in your copy, and when it doesn’t. How to create your own hero’s journey. But first, let me tell you a true story about copywriting: Copy is powerful is powerful… it’s SO powerful. I’m going to give you some really powerful new strategies today. And then, you’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. You. Yes, you! Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. What are the elements of a hero’s journey story? you have an ordinary person on a typical day, who is suddenly thrown into a MISSION (Captain Sullenburger, another day, another flight) the MISSION gradually becomes more and more crucial, and difficult (bird strike! No engines) the ordinary person is now walking the path of a HERO (he’s evaluating his options, but all the doors close except landing the plane on the river. He has no other choice. None.) At a crucial point, the mission becomes a matter of life-and-death. Either literally or symbolically Happy ending – hero overcomes insurmountable odds, wins, then goes on to share what he learned with others (wisdom) Tragedy – hero fails, dies. My own hero’s journey Trying to make a living as a writer after my big corporate gig Things got worse and worse; debt; tax problems; relationship blew up I discovered copywriting I HAD to make it work Abacus letter – I died a thousand deaths writing it, but, it worked. Company went on to make $40 million with it over the course of a decade People started asking me to teach them copywriting I started to put out products, write books, and become The World’s Greatest Copywriting Coach (ORDINARY LIFE – trying to make a living as a writer SUDDENLY THROWN INTO MISSION – I need to change something to survive WALKING PATH OF HERO – It’s copywriting… and it’s do-or-die) CRUCIAL POINT – Abacus letter. HAVE to make it work or my new career dies. And I can’t go back to the old one. Life-or-death. HAPPY ENDING – It works – into eight figures of sales. I continue in my new life, adding: putting out products, writing books, and becoming the World’s Greatest Copywriting Coach. Every hero’s journey has some version of this. It’s true in romances and comedies, too. It’s true in comic books. I just saw the movie Jack Reacher, Never Look Back. Classic Hero’s Journey. The Rocky and Bullwinkle movie, from the year 2000, was basically a cartoon brought into 3D. It was a hero’s journey. Singin’ in the Rain, the 1950s romantic comedy, follows a fun and light-hearted version of the hero’s journey. It’s a flexible format… and it’s pretty universal. There are some fairly convincing theories that we are genetically wired to tell and hear stories. When this kind of story works in your copy — and when it doesn’t I started studying the Hero’s Journey in New York City in 1982, at a playwriting class, and I’ve been studying it in one form or another for over 30 years. Hollywood classes; books on fiction writing; observation and analysis of movies; writing stories… long list of different ways I’ve studied it. It took me a long time to really get. I understand it pretty well. Bringing it into copy is another story. I’ve used it; I’ve coached others on how to use it. It can really work great, but there’s one thing to remember. Often it doesn’t work, and you’re better off without it. Also, there are lots of little details to keep track of. For the story, your hero really needs an inner journey and an outer journey. And for a solid hero’s journey, what they hero wants needs to be at odds with what he really needs. Dialogue needs to match and end character traits. And it goes on and on and on. It can get really complicated. It doesn’t have to all the time when you use a hero’s journey story in a sales letter, but you do need to know what to leave in and what to take out… and while sometimes it’s no big deal and it’s a perfect fit, other times it’s more trouble than it’s worth. I’ll get into some alternatives that work better than a hero’s in many cases in the next podcast. But you still need to know how to build one in case you need to use one. How to create your own hero’s journey story It’s probably going to be a story about transformation It’ll go like this I had this problem I looked for / tried everything Nothing worked I was about to give up Then I discovered [PRODUCT] [SERVICE] I used [IT]; here’s what happened It might be easier and better in the third person Jane had this problem She looked for / tried everything Nothing worked She was about to give up Then she discovered [PRODUCT] [SERVICE] She used [IT]; here’s what happened. Next podcast: Simple little stories anyone can use along with a hero’s journey story or without a hero’s journey story at all!Download.

I was recently watching a video sales letter from an investment advice publisher. The narrator told the story of Steve Jobs, in 2008, walking in the hills of San Jose, California, with one of Apple’s best engineers. Jobs had the vision of an Apple car. The one problem he couldn’t see his way past at the time was the enormous amount of data back and forth needed to make this kind of car work. The technology was not available in 2008 to transmit, manage, store, and access all that data – fast enough to operate the kind of car Steve Jobs had in mind. Fast forward to today, nearly a decade later. The narrator of the VSL said, one company now has the technology needed to bring into physical reality Steve Jobs’s unrealized vision. That one mystery company, the narrator said, has solved the one problem standing in the way of building the Apple car. (Of course, the narrator wouldn’t reveal which company it was. You had to buy the investment newsletter for that, which I didn’t do.) Now here’s the point: Solving one crucial problem can be worth A LOT to a company… or, to an individual. Or both. And, when you put the promise of a solution to an important problem into your headline… that can be a crucial ingredient in a very profitable sales message. Today we’re going to talk about how all that works, and how you can do that… but first… Let me remind you that copy is powerful. Now, you’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. OK, now back to problems and solutions… and the problem-solution headline. • Why you get your best results when you identify the itch that they can’t scratch… and, how to identify that itch. - Let’s talk about carpet-bombing versus laser focus. Out with the carpet and in with the laser. ° O.M. Scott, founder of a company in the 1800s that today is known as Scott’s Miracle Grow ° Carpet-bombing approach. Could have advertised his original grass - seed with all of these possible benefits - The speed that the grass grows - the research that went into developing the grass seed - the cost-effectiveness of the product - that the grass seed required less fertilizer than other brands - awards the grass seed had won ° But Mr. Scott was smarter than that. He knew people didn’t care or worry about those things. ° What they did worry about was: that their grass would turn brown in the summer, or just that it “wasn’t green enough.” (You’ve probably seen people worry about this. Maybe you’ve even experienced this worry yourself about your own lawn.) ° So – he told his marketing team: “People don’t buy our grass seed… they buy greener lawns.” ° Because Mr. Scott knew the itch they couldn’t scratch was, “How can I get a greener lawn?” ° It looks simple. And the result is simple. Getting to that result, though, is rarely simple. As you will discover the next time you try to do this yourself. ° But I’d like to make it simpler for you. ° So… how do you do this for your own product or service, and your own marketing? ° Step 1. Get to know a few of the people who are likely to be your customers. ° Step 2. Talk to them. LISTEN to what they say. Listen closely. Nail down what they say and how they say it. Especially, their complaints. Not about your product or politics or religion or sports. Their complaints about the problem your product or service seeks to solve. ° Then… get the answer to this famous question: “What keeps them awake at night?” ° The answer to this is “the itch they cannot scratch.” ° IMPORTANT: DON’T rephrase it to make it more “correct.” Don’t say, “We increase the chlorophyll content of every blade of grass you grow.” Say it the way they say it, so they’ll instantly recognize it: “We give you a greener lawn.” • The hard core reality is most people are NOT driven by goals or dreams. Instead, they simply live their life dealing with one problem after another. Knowing this helps you to get people to buy into your solution. How to “reach people where they live” with your headline: ° First, understand that seeking out and focusing on problems is built into human biochemistry. There’s a solid feeling of familiar certainty that courses through us when we have the chemical cortisol in our system, which is associated with worry and danger. We automatically revert towards the negative. This default response is built in to protect us. ° For the purpose of creating your winning problem-solution headline, consider this: Every complaint you hear is the expression of a problem in search of a solution. ° Again, the language people most commonly use in their complaints, or in descriptions of their worries and their problems, is the language you want to make careful note of. (Yes, that means “write it down.”) °As a business owner or copywriter or marketing pro, you may have worked hard to keep your thinking and even all your languaging very positive. Understand – this is a learned and added skill. And that most people are not like that. Even people who are very positive most of the time are not always so positive when it comes to how they think and feel about problems. ° The key to problem-solution headlines – as with so much of copywriting – is to really understand at a very specific level how your customers actually think, feel, and talk about the problem or problems you can help them solve. ° The point of greatest pain and urgency is always a good bet on where to start, and what to talk about in your headline. It’s the itch they cannot scratch. • How to create a great problem-solution headline for your next promotion ° Here’s a classic problem-solution headline most people already know: They laughed when I sat down at the piano. But when I began to play… (John Caples) ° Why is this a “problem-solution” headline? And why is it good? ° Well-known fear of most people is public speaking. Seinfeld joke. Playing the piano in front of others has got to be right up there with public speaking. ° So what’s the problem with public speaking? People will laugh at you. You’ll be embarrassed. ° Same thing with playing the piano in front of a group. ° In this headline, the implied solution is that they weren’t ridiculing… they were impressed. Appreciative. ° WARNING: This is a very hard kind of headline to write from in many instances. Writing first person copy can be tough until you have enough experience. It requires more advanced skills than second person (you) or third person (he, she) copy. Easy and acceptable solution: Write it in third person. This way: They laughed when he sat down at the piano… but when he began to play… ° The key thing is to focus on the problem / fear of problem / your prospect has… and promise, or at least strongly hint at, a solution. Here are a few templates to get you started on your problem/solution headline: People Who Used To __(have problem)__ Now __(have arrived at this solution)__ Finally… A Way To __(solve a problem)__ Once You Know This, You’ll Laugh At __(problem)__ Famous European Secret For __(solving the problem)__ Now Available In America Why This __(someone like your prospect)__ never worries about __(problem)__ anymoreDownload.

In the late 1970s, famous copywriter Joe Karbo rocked the direct marketing world with his full-page newspaper ads. The headline was: “The Lazy Man’s Way To Riches.” Many people thought this was revolutionary. But actually, he wasn’t onto a new concept. You see, people had already been appealing to prospects’ laziness for decades. For example, in 1923, the legendary dancer and dance instructor Arthur Murray ran an ad in Popular Science magazine with this headline: “See How Easily You Can Learn To Dance This New Way.” So, it’s a time-tested technique. But can you use laziness headlines yourself? Absolutely! Even If your prospects are the hardest-working people on planet Earth, they’ll be more inclined to order your product when you use a laziness headline in the right way. We’ve got a lot to cover so you’ll really understand this and know how to do it. And we’ll have some fun along the way. First, though, fair warning: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. OK. Now that we have that out of the way and my lawyer can go off and invent other things to do for me, let’s dig into laziness headlines. • How laziness is just part of human nature (even though many people go to great lengths to hide their laziness from you). “Life is hard and then you die” - may be true, but that is not a valid sales proposition :-> - everything has an easy part and a hard part. Start by emphasizing the easy part. - human brain. Frontal cerebral cortex – ego – “hard work.” Brain stem – old mammalian brain – busy enough keeping you alive and running your emotions – they like simple, easy. And they decide what you buy. -Just because someone works hard at one thing doesn’t mean they want to, or even are willing to, work hard at everything. - Look at how many advances have been commercial advances. No-iron shirts. I don’t know much about women’s clothes, but I imagine no-iron blouses, too. Automatic dishwasher. How much easier is it to use an iPad than a vintage 1995 Windows computer? Progress favors laziness. - People are so busy these days. Who wants to add one more difficult, time-consuming activity to their schedule? • People will pay you their hard-earned money for the opportunity to be lazy The 7 reasons people buy: 1. Make money 2. Save money 3. Save time 4. Reduce effort 5. Increase pleasure 6. Reduce or eliminate pain 7. Improve health 4 of these reasons appeal directly or indirectly to laziness ◆ (1) Save time – time is work (in prospect’s mind). Less time = less work ◆ (2) Save effort – very direct appeal to laziness ◆ (3,4)Increase pleasure, reduce pain – Hard work, no fun; pleasure is fun. Hard work – pain. Less pain = less hard work. - Garfinkel’s Law of Work > applies to how easy or hard it is for people to read your copy (not whether or not you talk about laziness in your copy) > “He who works, gets paid.” (“She who works, gets paid.”) > When they work hard trying to understand what you’re saying in your copy – they get paid (by keeping the money that you were supposed to get) > When you do the work necessary to make it easy for them to read and understand, they read easy, and you get paid. When you’re the one looking out for them (and their time, and their energy, and their peace of mind) – and you show it – you are much, much more likely to get the order. • The steps to putting together a great laziness headline 1. Think about what your product or service will do for your prospect – or how it will take the burden of doing something off their shoulders 2. In what way does that make it - easier - faster - less painful - more enjoyable - or in some other way, “less hard?” 3. From that, try one of these templates How Would You Like To ____ The Easy Way To ____ Save Up To ____ With ____ What If You Could ____ What Our Customers Love Most Is How _____Download.

There’s nothing quite like watching little kids staring at wrapped-up presents under the Christmas tree. They’re so excited. They know they’re supposed to wait until Christmas to open the presents, but their curiosity about what’s inside the packages is driving them crazy! Same thing, actually, with a good curiosity headline. This kind of headline gives your prospect just enough information to keep them reading. The curiosity is like the itch that can’t be scratched any other way… than by reading your copy all the way through . Your prospect is propelled by curiosity. A quick note: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity… you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. Now… curiosity headlines. • Why curiosity is such a powerful force. (We’ll examine a few great curiosity headlines to see what it looks like when it’s done really well.) Why: people are afraid of missing out… or becoming “less than” those who know… or not getting info that can finally help them achieve their deepest desires. Some great curiosity headlines: Old classic: Do You Make These Mistakes In English? (Maxwell Sackheim) Newer Classic: Amazing Secret Discovered by One-Legged Golfer Adds 50 Yards To Your Drives, Eliminates Hooks And Slices, And Can Slash Up To 10 Strokes (John Carlton) Recent Excellent Example: It Ain’t Sexy, But It’s Got Razor Sharp Teeth (Ben Settle, talking about hearing Doberman Dan talking about paying yourself first) • What Works and What Doesn’t Work With Curiosity Headlines - What doesn’t work – something totally off topic of your copy… or, something totally unbelievable… or, something obscure and subtle Let’s say you’re marketing a lightweight portable bicycle pump that automatically inflates your tire to the exact pressure you want. Off-topic curiosity headline that won’t work: Ancient Greek Philosophers Never Knew About ThIs Curiosity headline that won’t work: Bike Manufacturers Would KILL Me If They Knew I Was Telling You About This Obscure curiosity headline that won’t work: PSI Issues Don’t Just Exist In Clean Rooms With Air Locks What works: How To Keep Your Tires At Better Pressure Than Anyone Else In The Race! • How To Develop Your Own Winning Curiosity Headline > First: Don’t start with your product or service… and don’t start with your prospect’s curiosity. Or with some clever idea you might have. Start with your prospects themselves. What’s the problem on their mind that you’re going to explain how to solve (even if that means solving the problem by buying something that solves it)? You’ll address this problem and the solution in the copy, but jot them both down. > Now that we know the problem, let’s brainstorm a few things your prospect might want to know or know more about right off the bat – without knowing anything more than they know right now. Remember, they haven’t read your copy yet and they might not know anything about your product or company. Don’t stop with one or two things they might be curious about. See if you can come up with five or six. Maybe even eight or 10! > Third – pick the one thing you think your prospects would be most curious about if you only gave them a little information in your headline, and promised more in your copy. Then write a few headlines with that one item. A few curiosity headlines. Here are four templates to get you started: 1. What ___ know about ____ that you don’t 2. How do you _______ ? 3. New discovery shows ______ 4. The secret of ______ > Now – pick the best one – or - test a few until you find the one that works best!Download.

David Garfinkel, the World's Greatest Copywriting Coach, has started a new podcast. What's it all about? Listen to find outDownload.