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: [email protected] 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: [email protected] 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: [email protected] 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.