Copywriters Podcast

Nathan Fraser, author of Sales Funnel Cheat Codes, shares strategies and tactics for effective sales funnels. Topics covered in the podcast include worst and best-performing funnels, the art of buying customers through advertising, running ads on how-to and product comparison articles, tips for advertising to customers in different levels of awareness, and more. Check out the book for detailed insights.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Guest: Clyde Bedell, highly successful advertiser and prominent teacher. In this episode, the hosts delve into Clyde Bedell's influential book on copywriting and discuss the 7 keys to believability in advertising. They emphasize the importance of convincing prospects that the product is valuable through repetition, testimonials, guarantees, and more. They also explore the impact of testimonials, including photos and full names, in enhancing credibility. Additionally, they discuss building believability through assurances, proof, and customer reviews, and introduce a sponsor and a $10 Kindle book on copywriting.