Last December, top-flight copywriter Dan Ferrari sent out an email about big changes he was seeing in the copywriting and direct marketing worlds. One part of it was the following:
So watch as companies with products and businesses that don’t really fall into our little world of internet direct response start to require the services of people that know how traffic, copy, and funnels work online, at mega-scale.
Even what you might think of as more traditional “brand” companies (if you have a keen eye, you’ll already have noticed this is happening with companies like Samsung, Bissell, etc…)
It’s going to be another area of HUGE growth and along with it, more big opportunities for the copywriters that have proven themselves.
This stuck in my head. But since I don’t go much on Facebook, since I refuse to download any apps on my phone, and since I live in a tiny eastern European country that doesn’t get too much ad targeting…
I hadn’t seen any examples of the big new players that Dan was talking about.
Well, until today.
Today, I opened up a Newsmax email. Newsmax is a massive newsletter that caters to aging baby boomers who love Trump, hate Obama, and worry about diabetes, immigrants, and race riots. Each Newsmax email has the latest-breaking news from a conservative standpoint, along with a few carefully placed links to long-form, very hard-hitting sales letters.
Except not today.
Today, the sponsored post in Newsmax was for Airbnb. The headline read:
“Earn while you’re away”
The pitch was that you could make money renting out your home on Airbnb while you travel. And the link took you to a regular Airbnb page for signing up hosts.
Now, I personally find it hard to imagine that a 65-year-old retired dentist, who’s afraid that El Salvadorean immigrants are coming to displace him from his castle of a home that he finally paid off after 30 years, will be thrilled with the idea of opening up said home to strangers while he goes traveling (where? to Bali?).
And even if he was curious about this offer, I’m not sure he would know what to do with the Airbnb page that the ad linked to.
In other words, I expect that the Airbnb Newsmax promo was a big stinkin’ flop.
But who cares? Airbnb is currently valued at $35 billion. They can afford to throw away a measly $20k or $50k on some failed ad tests.
But eventually, they will wise up, and they will ask their direct marketing to actually turn some kind of a profit.
And when that happens, you’ll see the situation that Dan was describing above:
“Big opportunities for the copywriters that have proven themselves.”
Just something to think about if you’re deciding whether copywriting is something you want to double-down on, or if you just want to keep dabbling in it from the sidelines.
If you are doubling-down, then you might like my upcoming book. It will talk about what I’ve learned over the past year while writing advertorials for some successful cold traffic campaigns. To get notified when I finish this book, you can sign up here: