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 You have said that “salesmanship in print” is an outdated term.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 Why do you say it’s outdated? 3.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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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