Insight Marketing

Blood-sucking Transylvanian copywriting secrets

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For the past week, I’ve been reading a book called The Land Beyond The Forest.

It was written in the late 19th century by a Scottish woman named Emily Gerard, who lived for a good part of her life in Transylvania (a section of today’s Romania). This book was one of the inspirations for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which was published about 10 years after Gerard’s book.

Anyways, I came across the following passage in the book, which has a lot of value if you’re a copywriter — or just trying to craft sticky messages. Gerard’s writing is in italics and indented, my comments in regular font:

“As in Italy, the recitatore (story-teller), called here provestitore, holds an important place among the Roumanians.”

People love a good story, and they always will. That’s why you should use stories in copy whenever you can.

“The stories recited usually belong to the class of ogre and fairy tale, and would seem rather adapted to a nursery audience than to a circle of full-grown men and women.”

Parris Lampropoulos once said we all believe in magic. It can be overt like these Romanian peasants and their fairy tales… but it’s true even of nerdy and rational 21st century science buffs.

“Sometimes in verse, sometimes in prose, these stories oftenest set forth the adventures of some prince subjected to the cruel persecutions of a giant or sorcerer. The hero has usually a series of tasks allotted to him, or difficulties to be overcome, before he is permitted to enjoy his father’s throne in peace and lead home the beautiful princess to whom he is attached.”

A perfect 2-sentence summary of the hero’s journey, which is one good template you can use to tell a compelling story in copy.

“The tasks dealt out to him must be three at least, sometimes six, seven, nine, or twelve; but never more than this last number, which indeed is quite sufficient for the endurance even of a fairy prince.”

Same thing in copywriting. When you’re giving proof, arguments, or examples, it’s common and effective to give three of the bunch. Plus, if you swap out “task” and put in “bonus” or “premium,” you get the structure of a good offer.

“When the tasks are nine or twelve in number they are then grouped together in batches of three, each batch being finished off with some stereotyped phrase, such as, ‘But our hero’s trials were not yet over by any means, and much remains still to be told.'”

“But wait, there’s more!” Some phrases are so valuable that they keep surfacing across cultures, across media, and across centuries.

“As a matter of course, these trials must always be arranged crescendo, advancing in horror and difficulty towards the end.”

This reminds me of something I heard in a video by copywriter Kyle Milligan. Kyle quoted Agora Fiancial chief Joe Schriefer, who apparently says, “The magic show must always get better!” In other words, the proof must improve, and the results too.

And that, young Nosferatu, is the quote I wanted to share with you.

You probably know this already, but there are predictable ways to get into people’s heads and influence them. Direct marketing copywriters have figured out many of these tricks for themselves.

​​But if you look around, there are other disciplines, or even folk traditions, that can give you good ideas for how to craft sticky, influential messages. And this passage from Gerard’s blood-sucking Transylvanian book is just one good example of that.

Kanye shows you how to win the sticky message victory

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Last Sunday, Kanye West appeared alongside Reverend Martin Short at the 18,600 seat Lakewood Megachurch in Houston, Texas.

Kanye was there to give testimony. He announced the arrogance and cockiness that people know him for is now in the service of God.

At one point, Reverend Short asked Kanye to speak about worshiping fame and money. To which Kanye replied,

“It’s like the Devil stole all the good producers, all the good musicians, all the good artists, all the good designers, all the good business people, and said, ‘You gotta come over and work for me.’ And now the trend, the shift, is going to change. Jesus has won the victory.”

Did you catch that?

Did you see how Kanye instinctively crafted a sticky message?

Rather than talking about vanity, and fame, and riches, all of which are abstract concepts that the mind can’t really latch onto, Kanye wrapped them all up in a single, crystal-clear, memorable character:

The Devil.

Which brings to mind an action-packed and high-value talk I heard by a guy named Fred Catona. Catona, who called himself the “father of direct response radio advertising,” was a high school gym teacher who first made a small fortune by selling Philly cheesesteaks by direct mail.

​​Somewhere along the way, Catona figured out the power of radio for driving traffic to his cheesesteak business. He then launched a little agency to help grow other businesses through direct response-style radio ads.

Catona’s giant breakthrough came around 1995. A guy named Jay Walker called Catona up, and asked for his help in launching a little startup in the travel space.

​​Catona took the job on. He hired the cheapest relevant celebrity he could find (an out-of-work William Shatner), and started running radio ads. 18 months later, thanks in large part to Catona’s radio ads, that little travel startup had a valuation of $20 billion. It’s still around. It’s called Priceline.

Anyways, Catona once gave a talk about his experiences and the lessons he’s learned from his massive radio campaigns. One thing he said is that you should always ask yourself, “Who is your enemy and what does he do?” Your enemy doesn’t have to be a competitor. It can simply be a way of doing business or living life, like Kanye illustrated in his testimony above.

Anyways, Catona unfortunately died a few years ago. But his talk is worth listening to. And even though it was part of Brian Kurtz’s $2,000 Titans of Direct Response, you can watch it for free once you get a copy of Brian’s Overdeliver book.

​​The book is apparently on sale now, and you can get it for $10 and with free shipping. And along with the Fred Catona talk, it’s got about $1,213 worth of other bonuses, including some rare direct marketing gems you can’t find anywhere else. In case you want to find out more, here’s where to go:

https://overdeliverbook.com/

White jazz, the world’s deadliest hitman, and Prince’s text-speak

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I took a nap this afternoon and I never recovered.

So instead of my usual, valuable, and deadly dull post, here’s a list of 7 wonderful facts from all corners of the universe:

1. The word “jazz” was invented by white people. Many black jazz musicians in the 40s and 50s resented the term.

2. There’s an area in the Dominican Republic where men are born as girls and only transition to boys at age 12.

3. True story: A robber broke into a house, but he got distracted by a plate of brownies on the kitchen counter. He was finishing up the brownies when the family returned home. The robber ran out the back door and was never seen again.

4. The Xerox 914, the first photocopier, came with a fire extinguisher in case its heating elements set the paper alight.

5. Prince (the musician) used text-speak even when writing by hand. That’s probably how he wrote Nothing Compares 2 U.

6. The world’s deadliest hitman is thought to be one Julio Santana, a Brazilian with 500 kills to his name.

7. The fear of an electric shock is uncorrelated with the probability of receiving the shock. The mere possibility triggers the full-blown response.

You can’t make this kind of stuff up.

But you can write it down as you come across it.

And it makes sense to do so. Wonderful facts like these come in very useful during those long moments when you’re lacking any inspiration.

Anyways, if you need sales copy written, and if you need it now, then I’m afraid I can’t help you. Not at the moment, at least.

But if you want to talk about how to write advertorials to promote wonderful or even weird products, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

A bizarre example of disconnected infotainment

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Photographer Leopold Kanzler worked with this beaver for two weeks hiding apple slices in his camera to get this shot. “I’m not sure who had more fun, me or the beaver, but it seemed more than happy with receiving so many tasty treats.”

I just finished reading the Dartboard Pricing book from Sean D’Souza. It’s the first of his paid products that I’ve read. And there were many things from this book, besides the content, that I thought were worth adopting.

Once upon a time I read an article of Sean’s on the topic of infotainment. He had various bits of advice, and one of them was something like:  “You can connect or disconnect the entertaining part to the information part at will.”

In other words, if you are writing an email or a blog post or a book, it’s important that the email or blog post or book is fun to read. It’s also important that it has valuable content. The entertainment and the content can be connected, but they don’t always have to be.

In Sean’s Pricing book, he has lots of what you could call infotainment. Cartoons. Stories. And then, there’s a recipe for chicken biryani, spread over 3 pages.

The cartoons and stories tie into the content of the book. The chicken biryani does not, at least as far as I can see.

To sum up, connect or disconnect the infotainment at will. But my gut feeling is — there’s value in occasionally disconnected infotainment — it keeps people surprised and gives a sense of wonder.

I don’t think it’s something to do all the time. But once in a while, it’s better to throw in something fun and bizarre, rather than fun but reasonable.