Copywriters Podcast

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

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 Hollywoo

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

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 to

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

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!”

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 enmes

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

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 bett

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

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 eterna

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 differ

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. Sin

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

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

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 im

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, a

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 bus

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.Downlo