A-List Copywriters

The grandmaster of marketing secrets fesses up

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A few weeks back, I wrote a post about the trouble with marketing “secrets.”

​​It’s not that packaging things up as a secret doesn’t work. It does. It works great, and that’s why so many marketers use secrets as a crutch.

Today, I want to warn you about secrets again, but from the other side. Not a warning to you as a copywriter peddling secrets… but to you as a prospect getting sucked in by the promise of secret copywriting knowledge.

And to do that, I want to share a quote I heard in a speech given by an A-list copywriter who might be called the grandmaster of marketing secrets. I’m talking about Mark Ford, who, along with Bill Bonner, was one of the key people who made Agora the direct marketing behemoth it is today.

In case you don’t know, Agora is a conglomerate of a bunch of smaller publishing companies. Much of what Agora does is sell secrets — in the finance, health, and most recently, make money online markets. From what I understand, the selling of secrets at Agora all started with Mark Ford, who literally wrote the book on selling secrets (Great Leads, along with John Forde).

So Mark Ford and Bill Bonner were talking about the psychology underlying what they do… and they concluded the following:

“There is an inverse relationship between the value of knowledge and what people are willing to pay for it. The most important things in life you’ve probably heard a hundred times before, but you’re not paying attention. When you’re in the right place and you hear it, you have that ‘aha’ moment and everything changes.”

In other words, these two guys, who have collectively made hundreds of millions of dollars selling secrets, concluded that secrets aren’t worth that much.

So what am I saying?

Nothing. Draw your own conclusions. But perhaps Mark Ford’s confession above is something to remember the next time you hear an alluring promise of “insider knowledge” and “7-figure copywriting secrets.”

Speaking of alluring promises:

I write a daily email newsletter. It’s full of non-secret, highly valuable information. If you’d like to sign up for it, here’s the link.

Jab, jab, right hook — for sales copy

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Gary Vaynerchuck has this famed marketing idea of “jab, jab, jab, right hook.”

The idea is to give value a bunch of times (the jabs) before making any kind of ask from your audience (the right hook).

I don’t subscribe to this way of splitting up value and sales.

But I do think this “jab, jab, right hook” approach can make sense in straight-up sales copy.

Fact is, when you get in the ring with your prospect, his defenses will be strong. If you try to hit him right on the nose with your most powerful claim right away, he’s just going to duck and weave and keep his guard up.

So what do you do instead?

Well, this ties into the discussion of gradualization from my post yesterday.

In a peanutshell, you jab your prospect first with a bunch of softer, less powerful, but more believable claims. Let me give you an example:

“How Doctors Stay Well While Treating Sick People All Day Long”

That was the headline of a successful magalog written by Parris Lampropoulos.

What do you think this headline is about?

Odds are, you think of clever ways that doctors avoid getting the common cold.

And that’s pretty much how the copy leads off. Here’s a breakdown of the beliefs and claims that Parris cycles through in a few paragraphs:

1. The official line is that doctors don’t get sick because they wash their hands all the time

2. But it’s not true! Studies show that three out of four doctors don’t wash their hands between patients, and over 2 million patients get sick in doctors’ offices

3. The truth is that doctors actually rely on herbs, folk remedies, and non-standard cures to keep from catching infections

5. And doctors also use these “forbidden treatments” to lower their cholesterol, get rid of pains, and prevent cancer and Alzheimer’s

Whoa! Did you catch that?

We started out talking about clever ways doctors use to keep from getting the common cold. Now we’re talking about preventing cancer and Alzheimer’s.

And over the next couple pages, it gets more extreme.

Parris shows you how there are proven but non-standard treatments, not just to prevent cancer and Alzheimer’s, but actually to cure these killer diseases.

For this audience, that’s the right hook. It takes an A-list copywriter like Parris to hold off on this knockout punch long enough that he can be sure to land it, plum on the nose.

In the words of Gene Schwartz, who first wrote about this process:

“This fact — that your most powerful claim does not always make your most powerful headline — is a paradox that many copy writers still cannot accept. Mail order advertisers, however, have a simple way of proving it. When a power-claim headline doesn’t work — for reasons either of Awareness or Sophistication — they immediately split it against a second head, with far fewer claims but far more likely to be believed. Then they build a belief bridge from this second headline, to the same exact claims they featured in the first, but now anticipated by careful preparation every step of the way.”

Screenwriting & copywriting: “If the structure is unsound, forget it”

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One of my favorite screenwriters of all time is William Goldman, the guy behind The Princess Bride and Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.

Writing about his craft, Goldman made the claim that “screenplays are structure.” He explained in more detail:

“Yes, nifty dialog helps one hell of a lot; sure, it’s nice if you can bring your characters to life. But you can have terrific characters spouting just swell talk to each other, and if the structure is unsound, forget it.”

Same thing in copywriting.

You can have all the nifty dialog and terrific characters you want, but if your arguments are out of order, or if you introduce a claim that doesn’t belong, you’re a dead duck.

Maybe you think I’m exaggerating. So here’s a relevant quote from one of the great A-list copywriters of the last century:

“If you violate your prospect’s established beliefs in the slightest degree — either in content or direction — then nothing you promise him, no matter how appealing, can save your ad.”

Ahe A-list copywriter behind this thought is Gene Schwartz. In his book Breakthrough Advertising, Gene wrote that the structure of your ad should be a bridge of belief between the facts your prospect currently accepts, and the final facts you want him to accept. Gene called this process of bridge building “gradualization.”

So how does this look in practice?

Well, in Breakthrough Advertising, Gene gave a line-by-line breakdown of gradualization in a famous ad (“Why haven’t TV owners been told these facts?”).

But that ad is kind of old. So I’ll give you a more recent example.

Except, it’s getting late. It’s time for me to quickly re-watch the swordfighting scene from The Princess Bride, and then get to bed. I’ll share that gradualization example with you, and all its structural wonder, in my email tomorrow.

What, you don’t get my email newsletter but you want tomorrow’s email? No problem. Sign up here.

A small, cosmetic copy change to keep clients happy

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“This is the best copy you’ve written for us. Really excited to test this out.”

A couple years ago, I started writing a bunch of advertorials for a client who does dropshipping.

Every few weeks, these guys would launch a new product. I’d write the advertorial and the Facebook ads that would drive hapless moms and grandmas to my advertorial horror story.

The first advertorial I wrote for this client did well, and beat the copy they were using.

So they had me write a few more. Some of these offers did well. Some not.

But overall, my approach to writing advertorials during this time was much the same in each case. The client was satisfied enough, but never made any special comments on the copy.

But then I changed something up.

At the time, I was re-reading Joe Sugarman’s Adweek book. And somewhere around the middle of that book, Joe suggests a small, almost cosmetic change you can make to your copy to get readers hooked on reading more.

So I started making this change in my advertorial copy. It took all of 5 minutes after the copy was done.

Did it make a difference?

Well, the client was happy. That quote above, about the best copy, was what he said after I delivered the gussied-up advertorial.

As for sales, the offer ran successfully on cold Facebook traffic for a few months.

The advertorial still does well for us as a back-end product, and converts at around 6% on email traffic.

I’ve been making this same change with all the advertorials I’ve written since. I can’t be sure what it’s doing for sales, but I suspect it helps a bit. And as long as it doesn’t hurt, but it keeps my client happier, that’s a win in itself.

So what is this small, cosmetic change?

Like I said, you can find it in Joe Sugarman’s book.

But if you don’t want to go hunting for it there, you’ll also be able to find it in my upcoming book on wisdom handed down by A-list copywriters.

If you want to get notified when this book is out and available, sign up for my daily email newsletter, where I write about persuasion, marketing, and copywriting lessons won on my own skin.

Don’t be a dumb bunny — get this copywriting knowledge now

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Getting to the top of any field these days takes an almost obscene amount of dedication.

Take for example A-list copywriter Jim Rutz.

At one point, Rutz was one of the most in-demand copywriters in the world.

In the early days, he was so good he worked on royalties only — he was confident he could beat any control, so higher royalties made more sense than charging fees.

Later, the line of clients who wanted Rutz stretched out the door and down the hill. So Rutz also added up-front fees to his royalties. At one point, these up-front fees reached $100,000 for a single promotion.

But like I said, it took an unholy amount of dedication for Rutz to become this dominant.

Apparently, he didn’t have much of a social life or sex life. His clever attempts at finding a mail-order bride fell through.

His home life was unusual too. When Boardroom VP Brian Kurtz visited Rutz’s home, he found stacks of direct response promotions lying around. Rutz used these promotions as furniture. It seems his whole life was largely about direct response.

I definitely don’t have this level of dedication. Perhaps you don’t either. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t things we can learn from Jim Rutz nonetheless.

For example, I always remember this Jim Rutz commandment:

“You must surprise the reader at the outset and at every turn of the copy. This takes time and toil.”

Sure, you wanna surprise the reader at the outset. Have a paradoxical headline. Or a bizarre subject line. Makes sense.

But what about at every turn of the copy?

​​Well, let me give you an example of that. Here’s a quick paragraph from a sidebar in a Jim Rutz magalog. ​​If you want to get better at surprising your readers, read this, once, twice, and maybe even print it out to form the beginning of your new nightstand:

“The ultimate nightmare: Being trapped in extreme pain, day after day. GREAT NEWS: Some doctors have learned in the past ten years how to block almost any degree of pain. But you have to know what kind of treatment to ask for… or how to get a physician who specializes in pain management… or where to find an accredited pain management facility. It’s all on page 127. Don’t be a dumb bunny and wait until you get hit by a cement truck. Get this knowledge now.”

Speaking of knowledge:

I have a daily email newsletter. There isn’t always copywriting knowledge inside. But sometimes there is. You can subscribe here.

The first commandment of A-list copywriters

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Steve Martin has a standup comedy bit about clueless guys in bars.

“The way I meet girls,” Steve starts, “is by looking cool. The important thing is to have a great opening line.”

So he takes a sip of water, grits his teeth to take the sting out, and walk over to an imaginary girl. After a cocky pause and a twitch of his brow, he unleashes the killer line:

“Yeah… I make a lot of money.”

This is how it is in marketing, too. Most advertisers think they’re being suave, and instead put out ads full of hyperbole and empty claims. When prospects see these ads, they do what most girls would do with Steve Martin above. A roll of the eyes. Instant dismissal.

But don’t take my word for it. This was the opinion of one Gary Bencivenga, an A-lister whose star shines brightest on the copywriters Walk of Fame.

According to Gary, the two most powerful words in advertising are neither “FREE” nor “NEW.” Instead, the two most powerful words are, “Yeah, sure.” That’s why Gary’s number one commandment was to put proof above all other elements in his ads.

But you probably know all this. So I won’t go on more about proof or Gary Bencivenga. Instead, let me make a confession.

For the past several months, I’ve been working on a book about something I call “insight marketing.”

My original plan was to write this book in 28 days. Well, that didn’t happen.

I’m making progress on the book (about halfway done) but it’s taking way more research and thinking than I planned originally.

So while I continue to write this book about insight, I decided to put out more tiny Kindle books on topics I already know a lot about.

And that’s where all of that Steve Martin/Gary Bencivenga stuff above hooks in. It’s the beginning of the first chapter of my upcoming book.

How upcoming? 28 days, of course. If you want to know when it’s out, you can sign up for my daily email newsletter, in which I write about persuasion and marketing, much like you read above.

The other way to persuade

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Let me ask you a personal question or three:

Are you very politically conservative?

Do you care passionately about the fate of the planet and about climate change?

Were you out in the streets last night, partying after the Toronto Raptors won the NBA championship?

If you said “yes” to any of the above questions, then I believe you’ve got a leg up in the copywriting, marketing, and persuasion game.

Here’s why.

Dan Kennedy, possibly the most influential educator when it comes to direct marketing, once shared his four guiding principles for writing direct response copy. The one that’s relevant for us right now is:

“Great direct response copy makes people identify themselves as one or the other.”

In this way of looking at the world, there are two ways to persuade. One is based on self-interest — that’s 95% of “How to write copy” guides will tell you. But there’s another way. And it’s to appeal to somebody’s identity.

As Dan puts it, “they tell you the identification, and you tell them the behavior.”

This can be overt, such as, “If you’re politically conservative, then you should be outraged at the state of illegal immigration in this country.”

It can also be more subtle. Such as, “Choosy moms choose JIF.”

Now, I hope if you dig around in your brain right now, you will find at least one or two strong “self-identifications.”

Maybe that’s an alignment with an outside group, like a party or a cause or a team.

But it might also be the kind of person you strongly feel that you are (for example, a good mom).

Once you find this self-identification in yourself, start observing your own feelings, your own behaviors and attitudes when it comes to protecting and cherishing that identity.

Bottle all that up.

And use that insight and experience to become a superhuman marketer, persuader, or copywriter, by talking to other people’s self-identifications.

You will have a new and powerful arrow in your quiver — which the majority of your competition won’t even know about.

And you don’t even have to do much to attain it besides what you already love to do.

As for me, I’ve been working lately with some choosy owners of online businesses. They’re trying to build up a stockpile of copy assets that get their prospects to buy, and their customers to buy more.

I’ve also heard from other business owners who are in the same position, but who aren’t working with me yet. And you know what they did? They wrote me an email to talk to me and see if I could also help them grow their business.