Bullets

A sexual health riddle by the 499-pound gorilla of copywriting

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Today, I will share a super valuable copywriting commandment with you.

Tomorrow, I will tell you an equally valuable commandment, which is the exact opposite of what I’ll tell you today.

How is that gonna work? We will see. Let me set it up with a little riddle for you:

* Almost foolproof contraception: It’s over 99% effective but… so new… most people have never even heard about it!

So, can you guess what this “almost foolproof” method of contraception is?

If you’ve been through my Copy Riddles program, you should be able to answer easily.

​​In fact, you should be able to answer this riddle even when the neighbor’s car alarm jolts you awake at 3am… while you’re all sleepy and a little drooly… just lifting your head up for a moment and saying, “Yes of course that almost foolproof method of contraception is —” before you drop back down to the pillow and pass out again.

But maybe you haven’t been through Copy Riddles. In that case, answering this riddle might be a bit harder. So I’ll will give you a hint that might help.

A few years ago, the Harvard Business School blog published an article titled, “When Negotiating a Price, Never Bid with a Round Number.”

They cited a bunch of scientific studies, in-lab experiments, and statistical analyses.

And the conclusion was:

Better make your prices, and really all your published numbers, jagged, specific, and unround. That’s because people don’t trust or respect a round number much — they figure that little thought and work went into it, and the number is probably not accurate or not representative.

This is really an example of the incredible uselessness of science, if you ask me.

After all, this bit of scientific research came out a few years ago.

But how long have marketers and business owners known, pretty scientifically, to make their numbers not round? A long time. For example, take Gary Halbert, the 499-pound gorilla in the world of copywriting.

Gary is responsible for that sexual health bullet above. It was part of his sales letter to sell his “Killer Orgasms!” ebook.

I won’t tell you what Gary’s “almost foolproof contraception” method is. But knowing that Gary was a smart marketer, and combining it with that obvious and almost useless bit of HBS scientific news, will probably be enough to get you to Gary’s contraception method, or at least to get you close.

But maybe you really really need to know the answer.

​In that case, you can try to dig up a copy of Gary’s book. Or just wait for the next run of Copy Riddles, which will happen in June, and probably at some jagged, specific, not-round price.

Or maybe not?

Maybe the next price of Copy Riddles will end in a zero, or maybe even two zeros?

If you are curious how or why I would possibly want to make my price a nice, even, round number, after everything I’ve just told you, then read my email tomorrow. It will tell you the answer. You can sign up to get it here.

The secret to writing subject lines with the word “secret” in them

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I’ll tell you about the subject line secret in just a second. But first, here are a few funny-if-fake headlines, supposedly written by legendary marketer Dan Kennedy:

Who Else Wants To Discover The Secret
To Writing Headlines
That Begin With The Words ‘Who Else’?

——

“Do You Have What It Takes
To Write Powerful Headlines
Which Have Quotation Marks
And Are In The Form Of A Question?”

——

Everybody Laughed When I Used
​An Old Headline Template To Create My Headline,
But When I Put It At The Top Of My Sales Letter…

In case it’s not clear, that last one is a play on John Caples’s famous ad, “They Laughed When I Bent Down To Pet The Cat… But When She Started To Hiss!”

Dan’s point was that there’s a lot more to copywriting than templates and formulas.

If it weren’t so, then businesses wouldn’t be willing to write obscene paychecks to A-list copywriters like Dan himself.

Why would they?

If templates and formulas were where it’s at… then businesses could just get any monkey with small, nimble fingers to stick “Who else wants” at the start of an uninspired or unbelievable promise… and they would still make all the sales they want.

This can either be good news or bad news, depending on your perspective.

It’s bad news because it means making money with sales copy is more involved than you might have been told at first.

It’s good news because it means there’s a natural moat around the high castle of good copywriters. And maybe more importantly…

It means copywriting can become a pursuit you can explore for a long time, and still find new and deep insights. At least that’s how it’s been for me.

But back to that secret I mentioned in the subject line.

If you want to learn how to write fascinating subject lines, rather than relying on the crutch of calling every can of tuna a “secret,” then you can learn that inside my Copy Riddles program.

Copy Riddles is built around the practice of writing sales bullets. And bullets just happen to double as great subject lines.

Also, you might like to know:

Copy Riddles is not in any way focused on bullet formulas and templates. In case you don’t believe me, here are a few relevant words from marketing consultant Khaled Maziad, who went through Copy Riddles last year:

Man, this is the best course on bullets I have ever seen. And believe me, I have seen a lot.

I loved that you didn’t include bullet templates but went deep into the psychology behind each bullet.

This course is not just about the “how-to” of writing bullets but understanding the artistry and the deep psychology behind them… Plus, when and where to use them.

It’s like going behind the scenes and watching David Copperfield reveals every single magic trick in the book… without losing interest.

So if you want to find out some magic tricks that make real money appear:

https://copyriddles.com

3 copywriting riddles to ruin your productivity

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Productivity expert (and Elon Musk lookalike) Tiago Forte recently shared three unique and counterintuitive tips:

1. No email gets answered for 48 hrs

2. No meeting gets scheduled before 1 week out

3. No project gets launched w/ < a month notice

This sounds like great advice to me. I’m all for letting emails and meetings wither in the sun and get whipped by the wind and the rain, to the point where they hopefully die on the vine.

But about that third tip with the projects… well, that’s great advice too. I just wish I had the self-awareness to follow it. But I don’t.

For example, last Friday morning, I had the idea for a new project. A training where I reveal my go-to tricks and tactics and secrets for writing these emails.

The next 18 or so hours of my life are a blur.

What I know is that on Friday afternoon, I wrote up an email to float that idea to my email list. I also included a bribe — a discount — to gauge interest. On Friday evening, I sent the email out.

Saturday morning arrived. It turns out there was interest. My inbox was creaking and straining under the load.

So I sat down, defined what the offer would be, bought a domain, renamed the offer to its current name, created the website and sales funnel, wrote an email to promote it all, and sent that out. Oh, I also wrote up a rudimentary sales page so people could actually know what they were buying.

Should I have taken Tiago’s advice and waited a month to launch this project? Probably. But it’s a moot point now. I’m in for the ride.

Over the week that’s passed since, I haven’t had time to do much to improve that sales page. That changed a bit this morning. I added 9 fascinations to the sales page about what I will reveal.

Perhaps you’d like a riddle? Here’s one of the fascinations I wrote. You can test out your riddle-solving skills and guess what I have in mind:

* How to build your authority at the expense of others in your industry. I call it the “bait & switch” email close. Readers love it, and it’s less shady than it might sound.

Maybe that’s too obvious given my recent emails. Ok. So here’s a second riddle:

* The hypnotic induction I use to get readers over dry or technical material. Goes all the way back to Dr. Milton Erickson. I find it very powerful, but but I’ve never met anybody in the copywriting space who knows about it.

Got that also? Clever hobbit you are. All right, here’s one last one for tonight:

* A cheap but effective way to use email to get on the radar of powerful and influential people in your industry. I used this to get a bunch of top Agora copywriters and marketers on my list. Also makes your emails easier and more fun to read.

Did I finally get you stumped? Or do you have guesses for all three riddles, but you want to make sure you were right?

Well, the only way to get certain answers to these riddles, plus about a dozen more, is to sign up for my Influential Emails training. The deadline to sign up is tonight, 12 midnight PST.

The Influential Emails signup page is below. It’s not beautiful, and it doesn’t represent weeks or months of copywriting effort. But if I’ve done a good job with my emails to date, and if you are a good fit for this training, I believe it will do. Here’s the link:

https://influentialemails.com

Marketing yokel discovers hidden way to write Ben Settle-style subject lines

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A long time ago in a galaxy pretty, pretty nearby, a marketing yokel subscribed to Ben Settle’s email list.

Now if you are reading this, odds are good you know who Ben Settle is.

​​No, he didn’t invent daily emails.

​​But he did do the most to popularize this marketing format… to develop it… and to teach it… so I and hundreds of other copywriters like me could get paid writing emails much like what you’re reading.

But let me get back to my story of the marketing yokel.

The very next day, our hero opened up his first Ben Settle email. The email had a big promise in the subject line, something like:

“How to have power & influence even if you don’t deserve it”

The yokel tore through the email. He was disappointed to find no step-by-step instructions there. Instead, he hit upon a link at the end, which led to a pitch for a paid newsletter.

“You got me once,” our marketing yokel muttered. “Never again.”

But the day after, a new email arrived from Ben Settle. The exact subject line is lost in the mists of history, but it might have been:

“What never to write in an email subject line”

Seeing this, our marketing yokel forgot his resolution from the day before. He opened this second email… chuckled a bit at the writing… and again hit a paywall.

“Ya sonova—”

Never again, right? Of course. The third day, another Ben Settle email arrived, with a colorful wrapper like:

“A secret way of using an ordinary pocket watch to get booked solid with paying clients”

Our hero hung his head, admitted defeat, and opened up the email to start reading.

Now here’s a Darth Vader-level reveal, which you might have seen coming. Cue James Earl Jones’s voice:

I AM that marketing yokel. Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

Fact is, I kept getting sucked into Ben’s emails until I eventually broke down. One day, I became a subscriber to his email newsletter. I stayed subscribed for over 3 years. Plus as of today, I’ve ponied up an extra few thousand dollars to buy his other books and promoted offers.

There’s more to Ben’s email system than great subject lines. But subject lines are a big part of it, especially in the early days.

Great subject lines take people who haven’t yet bonded with you… who aren’t familiar with your inside jokes… who don’t yet care about your personality and your unique views… they take those people and suck them in. Just like they sucked me in until I was ready to start buying.

But now I’ve graduated from marketing yokel to somewhat of an email marketing authority. So I’d like to share a subject line tip with you.

It’s something I learned from Ben, though he doesn’t explicitly teach it, not as far as I know. It’s a ready-made way to come up with great subject lines like the ones above. Take a look at the following:

“How to have ‘killer sex’ at any age even if you don’t deserve it”

“What never to eat on an airplane”

“How to stop smoking using an ordinary hairbrush”

These are all bullets from classic promos. Compare them to Ben’s subject lines above. You will see that Ben adapted these classic bullets, either in form or in intent, to create his own subject lines.

So that’s my tip for you for today.

If you have your own list and you want to start mailing it daily… then classic bullets offer great templates for your subject lines.

And if you have no list, but you’re hoping to work with clients…

Then to me it seems like email is it. For every successful VSL and sales letter copywriter I come across, I meet three others who focus only on email.

By the way, I mentioned yesterday I’d make a prediction.

It has to do with a stubborn belief, popular in copywriting circles, that long copy will never die.

Well, my prediction is it will.

My reasoning is that, in an age when most of us feel our sense of control is under growing threat, we become more sensitized to outside manipulation.

Anything that looks and smells like advertising will be the first victim of this new sensitivity. And 45-page sales letters will be the first to go.

I think there are signs of this already. Or maybe I’m just biased, because I myself have a hard time reading a long-form sales letter for products I’m personally buying.

In any case, email marketing is still holding on, and likely will for a while.

And if your client wants email, the first thing he (and his customers) will care about is subject lines.

So my tip for you (again) is classic bullets.

And speaking of classic bullets, my Copy Riddles program is open for enrollment for the next few days. It’s all about teaching you sales copy, using the mechanism of bullets.

No, Copy Riddles is not just for learning bullets.

It’s also not just for email subject lines.

But even if that’s all this program gets you to do… then I reckon it can easily pay for itself.

So in more words of Darth Vader, “You’ve only begun to discover your power. Join me, and I will complete your training.” If you want to find out more about the power of bullets:

https://copyriddles.com/

A chance to be afraid of how much you love Copy Riddles

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“Would I rather be feared or loved? Easy. Both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.”
— Michael Scott, Dunder Mifflin Paper Company

Today, I am officially re-opening enrollment for my Copy Riddles program.

This only happens a few times a year. And whenever it happens, I get people coming and asking me a version of the following question:

“Is Copy Riddles about how to write bullets specifically, or copy in general?”

Oh ye who don’t read the sales page. (Though I can’t really blame you. I rarely read the sales page either. And I think there’s a valuable industry prediction to be made about that… something I will talk about tomorrow.)

But to get back to the question whether Copy Riddles is about copy OR bullets. In Michael Scott’s words:

“Simple. Both.”

In a few more words:

Copy Riddles is about implanting copywriting fundamentals into your head. Stuff you can’t do without if you write sales copy… like promises and proof and intrigue… and then some of those dirty and hidden copywriting tricks you may have heard whispered about between insiders.

So that’s the outcome that Copy Riddles focuses on getting you. And the mechanism to get you there… that’s A-list bullets. Because to mangle another Michael Scott quote:

“Copywriting courses are the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about copywriting and sell it. So you know you are getting the best possible information.”

That’s not what I wanted to do with Copy Riddles. That’s why I went with a unique mechanism.

So each day, for 8 weeks, you get a few paragraphs of text… you write a few bullets based on that text… and then you compare your bullets to the bullets of A-list copywriters, selling that same text. Do it regularly… and you’ll soon be afraid of how much you love the learning that’s happening inside your head.

Anyways, that’s my intro for Copy Riddles. I’ll talk more about it over the coming week (except Thursday, something different on Thursday).

If by chance you are already convinced you want in on Copy Riddles… or if you want to (cough) read the sales page, you can do that at the link below.

Otherwise, I’ll sneak in more subtle pitches for Copy Riddles over the coming days, all the way until Sunday. (Enrollment closes Sunday at 12am PST, and the program kicks off on Monday.)

So fear it or love it… here’s the link:

https://copyriddles.com/

How to get booked solid with paying clients without prospecting any harder or dropping your prices

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Today I have a copywriting tip for you, not a lead-gen tip. But if you are looking for a way to get more client work, then here’s an idea from a recent Ben Settle email:

If you want clients who love and rave about you, be punctual.

It truly separates the men from the boys.

It also will make what I teach in my “Email Client Horde” book that’s on sale today a lot more powerful — potentially ramping up the respect and gratitude clients have for you, wanting to keep you, and not wanting to hire anyone else.

I’ve seen (and experienced) it many times.

I suspect you can, too.

Ben’s email had the subject line, “A secret way of using an ordinary pocket watch to get booked solid with paying clients.”

It’s a standard bullet writing technique. You zoom in on the solution. And then you zoom in some more. So far in, that the reader starts to wonder, “A pocket watch? Why specifically a pocket watch? Gotta find out.”

The best copywriters out there, from Gary Bencivenga to Parris Lampropoulos and David Deutsch, all use this technique regularly. But there’s a problem:

You can’t use it all the time. Your readers get wise, and get burned out. “Oh, it’s the teaspoon trick.” “Not the air conditioner secret again.” “There he goes, trying to get me to read by zooming in on a hairbrush.”

So what can you do?

There’s a second clever thing A-list copywriters do in situations like this. It’s probably obvious because you can find it in the subject line of this very email.

But if it’s not fully obvious, or you want a few examples of how A-list copywriters use this trick to create bullets that seem to be truly impossible, then you can find that in lesson 8 of my bullets course.

​​Which you can’t join just yet… but which will be available soon. If you want to make sure you get in while it is available, sign up for my email newsletter, because that’s where I will first announce it.

This 9-figure copywriter just made the sales letter discovery of a lifetime…

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Dear friend,

Normally, I don’t write about these kinds of off-limits “insider strategies” of rich and famous copywriters.

But these aren’t normal times…

And the discovery that came out of this top-secret research…

Is simply too important, and has too much money-making potential, to be ignored.

Now in the rest of this email, I’m going to be sharing exactly what this discovery is…

The science behind why it works…

And how you can begin using it TODAY to write killer copy, to make yourself more sales in less time.

Also, in just a few moments from now…

I’ll show you how a tiny mistake in your sales letter lead could be costing you 80% of your sales…

Plus you will discover the “super fun” tactic one elite copywriter, whose sales will soon hit the billion-dollar mark, has found to make his prospects keep reading… and ultimately BUY.

***

All right. Let me emerge from modeling the lead of Stefan Georgi’s Gluco Secure sales letter. (And yes, Stefan is the 9-figure copywriter I referenced in the subject line.)

I’ve been writing my own sales letter lately, to promote the official launch of my bullets course. And in the top-secret research for that, I discovered the following:

Stefan Georgi says one of the biggest jumps he made as a copywriter came by mastering bullets.

“They make great headlines,” says Stefan, “plus they are super fun to write.” But that’s not all.

Stefan says that many copywriters forget to fascinate in the lead of their sales letter.

​​The lead. You know — the part that determines 80% of your overall sales.

​​Stefan doesn’t like the chance that he’s going to lose 80% of his readers right up front. So he adds camouflaged bullets at the end of his leads. (Like I did right before those asterisks above.)

​​​​These lead bullets are a kind of sales insurance to intrigue readers and pull them deeper into your copy. ​Stefan explains:

“Because even if my lead is a bit off, or if my big idea isn’t hitting as hard as I thought it would, throwing in those intriguing bullets at the end drastically increases the chances of the prospect sticking with me. And, the longer they stick with me, the more invested they become, and the more likely they are to ultimately buy.”

“Ultimately buy.”

Ultimately, I don’t have anything to offer you to buy today. But I will soon.

It will be my bullets course. That’s where, if you like, you can learn how to write A-list bullets that go at the end of your sales letter lead… or in your headline… or anywhere else you want to get your reader’s attention and interest.

But not today. Today, if you want to read Stefan’s thoughts on bullets, or discover the other big mistakes he sees in sales letter leads, here’s where to go:

https://www.stefanpaulgeorgi.com/blog/big-lead-mistake-5-forgetting-to-fascinate/

You, your own copywriting secret weapon?

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Here are two flexible factoids, and a suggestion you might find valuable:

1. A-list copywriter Gary Halbert said curiosity is the most powerful human motivating force.

2. Another A-list copywriter, Parris Lampropoulos, keeps a “Didn’t know that!” file. This is where Parris puts new and interesting facts he comes across during research for copywriting projects.

​​But Parris has spent hundreds of hours doing research on dozens of big projects… so when he comes across something new and interesting to him, you can bet it will be new and interesting to his audience.

So I’d like to suggest you do something similar.

Invest $3 in a notebook… or invest two seconds to create a file on your computer desktop. Write “Hm, I didn’t know that, or, that’s interesting” across the top.

​​And you’re pretty much done. From then on, as you come across something that fits that heading, you just add it to your notebook or file.

The longer your list grows, the more interesting and valuable it will become, by process of elimination.

Eventually, you will have a list of things that stimulate curiosity for almost everyone in your audience. And if Gary H. is right, you will have the most powerful tool in motivating people to action.

​​In effect, you make your own curiosity and capacity to be surprised into your copywriting secret weapon.

I do this exact same thing, and it’s been valuable to me. In fact, it’s how I write these emails each day. Which brings me to my self-serving reason for telling you about this:

A reader named Glenn wrote in to challenge me on some sloppy self-promotion I committed recently.

Glenn pointed out that in the email I sent out announcing my bullets course… I didn’t feature a single Gary Halbert-style bullet.

Fair point.

My answer to this is that emails like the one you’re reading are basically the modern version of sales bullets. The only difference is you’re not restricted by space (like in a sales letter or print ad)… or by having only one shot to make the sale (like when paying for cold traffic).

Other than that, bullets and sales emails are the same.

​​You find some information that your audience might want. You condense it and sexy it up.

​​If it’s really cool and interesting information, you can choose to give it away in your copy… or if it’s meh information, then you might choose to tease it endlessly in your email or bullet, and hide the payoff in your product for sale.

In other words, if you can learn how to write sexy sales bullets… you will be a long way to being able to write emails people will want to read day after day. Particularly if you add in something new and interesting to tell your reader, which is what your “Hm, I didn’t know that” list is all about.

Anyways, that’s part of my pitch for joining my bullet writing course, which kicks off this Monday. If you’re interested in joining, then the first step is signing up for my email newsletter, which you can find here.

Looking for 7 beta-testers to pay an unthinkable amount for my copywriting knowledge

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I’m looking for 7 beta-testers for a trial run of my bullets copywriting course.

Bullets? Yes, that’s the mechanism. But the goal is to get you better at writing copy all around.

If you’re already writing sales copy, even if you’re advanced, I think this course will make you better. That’s what it did for me, even though I’ve been writing copy for money for years.

On the other hand, if you’re new, this course will implant the basics quickly and thoroughly into your brain, including the stuff that everybody talks about (“just make a big promise!”) but nobody really gives you the fine points of.

Like I said, mastering bullets is the mechanism to do this. My argument (in fact, not mine, but Ken McCarthy’s and Gary Halbert’s) is that bullets are what sales copy is all about. That’s not because you should write sales letters packed with bullets (“so 1997…”). It’s because if you can write a great bullet, you can create curiosity, you can rev up desire, you can control attention.

But the point of this post is not to sell you. If you’re not sure you want this course, no problem. It probably makes sense to skip the rest of this email.

​​But if you’ve been reading my blog for a while… or if for some other reason you already know that you do want in… the first step is to get on my email newsletter. That’s where I will share the full details of this bullet course, and make it possible for you to join.

How to win my eternal gratitude

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Today for a change I’d like to ask for your help.

As you probably know, I am currently putting together a course that teaches you copywriting by getting you to write bullets.

“Bullets?” you might say. “Like those cheesy 90s sales letters? Who wants to learn that?”

Well, that’s where I hope you can help. Because sales bullets are still around, and they are everywhere, camouflaged in subtle or not so subtle ways. Specifically, they show up in social media ads… native ads… email subject lines… article and sales letter headlines… subheads… body copy… etc. They might not be formatted as bullets… but the words and the intent is the same.

So here’s how I hope you can help me:

As you go about your day, if you spot something that could work as a bullet — whether it’s an ad headline on Facebook or a good subject line or whatever — would you screenshot it and send it to me? You will be doing me a big favor. Thanks in advance.