Copywriting

Halbert’s crucial bullet secret (almost unknown among copywriters)

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In his “Killer Sex” promotion, Gary Halbert wrote the following bullet:

“The two almost unknown secrets (one mental, one physical) men need to know to have rock-hard erections… at any age! (These are crucial secrets to improving a man’s sex life forever.)”

Now if you are a man… be honest. This bullet has you curious. How could you not be? “Almost unknown”… “need to know”… “crucial secrets.” What are they??

Well, I hate to break it to you. I tracked down the original book. Gary’s two secrets are not very exciting, and they are certainly not unknown.

But I’m not here to mock the value of this info. What I’m interested in is how Gary made his bullet so sexy that the payoff was almost guaranteed to be a letdown. Because if we can figure out Gary’s trick, can use it for our own promotions — whether they have genuine payoffs or not.

Now if you ask me, there’s one big thing that Gary did. And I spelled this out in today’s lesson of my free bullets course.

That lesson has been mailed out, and is no longer available. But if you’d like to sign up for the course, so you get future lessons as they come out, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/bullets-signup/

How A-list copywriters stab you in the heart, and then twist the knife

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Here’s a fascination/bullet written by Boardroom’s “secret weapon” Mel Martin:

“How to travel free on luxury cruise ships. Lots of passengers you meet on board are doing it but never tell you. Page 367”

There’s a lot of hidden psychology in this bullet. Martin uses the first sentence to stab the reader in the heart… and he uses the second sentence to then twist the knife, and to make the wound permanent.

How exactly does he do it?

Well, that’s something I looked at in detail in today’s lesson of my bullets course. That lesson is done and passed. But the course keeps marching on. And it’s still free to sign up for — if you do it now.

For more info, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/bullets-signup/

2-bit proof that keeps 8 out of 10 prospects reading and believing your sales letter

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Ken McCarthy once wrote there are two tigers all copywriters must beware of. These two tigers are always in your prospect’s mind, and they are always ready to rip your copy to shreds.

One of these two tigers is called “Bullshit!” That’s the skeptical tiger that is just looking for one small, unbelievable misstep in your copy. As soon as he sees it, he pounces. “Bullshit!” he roars, and that’s the end of your sales message.

The second tiger’s name is “So what?” The “So what?” tiger is easily bored. He’s distractible and he needs constant stimulation. Otherwise, he saunters out of his cave, his mouth stretched in a big yawn, and he tears your copy up with his giant claws.

That’s the bad news. The good news is you can use a simple 2-bit persuasion trick to keep these tigers appeased, at least for a while, at least most of the time.

I wrote about this trick in detail in today’s lesson of the bullets course I am sending out right now. You missed that lesson.

Maybe you don’t care. ​​But maybe you do. And maybe you don’t want to miss any more of this course (it will only be available for another 10 days). If that’s the case, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/bullets-signup/

What never to omit in a bullet. Never.

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Today, I sent out the first lesson in my new bullets course.

In case you didn’t read my post yesterday, here’s the rundown:

The course is free, and is delivered by email. Each email talks about a copywriting lessons I’ve figured out by comparing the source material (the book or course for sale) to the finished bullets in the sales copy.

Today’s lesson started at the beginning, with the man who invented the modern sales bullet, or really fascination.

I’m talking about the best copywriter you’ve never heard of. This copywriter is so little know because Boardroom CEO, Marty Edelston, kept this copywriter busy — and kept him a secret. Edelston never revealed who was writing all those early winning Boardroom ads. Other Boardroom employees were also under strict orders to keep this copywriter’s name a secret.

Well, the golden age of Boardroom is past. And the secret is out. The “secret weapon” copywriter was one Mel Martin.

And like I said, Martin really wrote fascinations, not just bullets.

Before Martin, most sales bullets gave straight-up benefits or warnings. But that’s often not enough, not in a competitive market. So Mel Martin added another ingredient to his bullets to make them irresistibly fascinating.

That’s what today’s lesson was all about. It’s something you cannot omit if you want to write successful bullets — or really any kind of successful copy.

Unfortunately, unless you are subscribed to get my bullet course, then you missed today’s lesson. It won’t be available again, unless I package all the lessons up one day and make them available as a course to buy.

That’s the bad news. The good news is you can still sign up to get every following bullet lesson I will send out. For example, tomorrow’s lesson is about a 2-bit bullet ingredient that will keep your reader from saying “So what?” or “Bullshit!” when he reads your bullets and your copy. If you want to get that lesson as it comes out, here’s where to subscribe:

https://bejakovic.com/bullets-signup/

Bullets course

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Two days ago, I wrote a post about a copywriting lesson milked from a Parris Lampropoulos bullet.

After writing up a few more of those lessons based on a few more bullets, I realized this stuff is too valuable to just cast out into the ether, to people who might not value it.

Don’t worry. I’m still willing to share these lessons with you.

But I’ve decided to create a little mini course around them. The course is free if you sign up for it now.

How it works is you will get an email from me every day.

Each email will talk about a copywriting lessons I’ve figured out by comparing the flour, eggs, and milk in the source material (the book or course for sale) to the crisp and shiny pastries that are the finished bullets in the sales copy.

The course will kick off tomorrow, and will run for 7-14 days, or however long it takes me to get tired of it.

If you want to opt in, you just have to fill out the form at the link below. But a warning to ye:

This course is going out live. In other words, it won’t be on autoresponder.

You can join it whenever you like, including later, and you will still get any remaining lessons I haven’t sent out.

But I won’t send you any bullet lessons you’ve missed. Because the idea is to take all this and package it up into a book or a course down the line. So if you don’t like to get it for free now, perhaps you will like to support me later.

Again, we start tomorrow, with what you should never, omit from your bullet. Never. Here’s the link in case you want it:

https://bejakovic.com/bullets-signup

Surprise! How to make your copy more appealing by saying less

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Back in the 90s, A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos wrote a control for a Boardroom book called Tax Loopholes. One of the bullets in that control read:

“Surprise! Choosing the wrong private school for your child can cost you a bundle in tax breaks. What to do on page 90.”

I found the actual Tax Loopholes book online. And here’s what it says on page 90:

“If you send your child to a special school for psychological reasons, be sure to choose the right school. Otherwise your medical deduction could be disallowed. Recent case: A psychiatrist recommended that a child attend a boarding school. The IRS refused to allow the parent to take a medical deduction because the school was not a “special” school, and the curriculum didn’t deal with the child’s problem in any way.”

So how did Parris get from the source material (boring, unsexy) to the bullet (intriguing, sexy)?

Let’s take it step by step. If I had to summarize what it says in the book, I might say something like:

“The trouble is you can send your kid to a boarding school for a medical reason thinking you can get a tax break, but it ends up disallowed because it’s not the right kind of school”

There’s one big problem with this. And that’s that very few people are thinking of sending their kids to a boarding school for a medical reason.

So now the clever thing that Parris did becomes obvious.

Because if your appeal is very specific and limited, you can broaden it simply by generalizing and omitting stuff.

That’s how a boarding school (specific and fairly rare) becomes a private school (general and pretty common)…and that’s how the mention of the medical deduction simply disappears. Now our basic-bitch summary becomes:

“You can send your kid to a private school thinking you can get a tax break, but it ends up disallowed because it’s not the right kind of school.”​​

(This is already pretty close to what Parris’s bullet says. Beyond this one insight, it’s mostly a matter of tightening up the copy.)

Now here’s why this trick is so valuable:

This generalization/omission sleight-of-hand doesn’t just apply to writing bullets. It’s something you can do in all your copy if your initial appeal is too narrow. As Parris said once (I’m quoting from memory):

“Ask yourself, does it help my case, does it hurt my case, or is it neutral? If it hurts your case or it’s neutral, take it out. Only keep it in if it helps your case.”

By the way, I’ll be going through more bullets and source material like this, to figure out how great bullet writers do their business.

If this is something that interests you, you can sign up for my email newsletter here, because that way you’re sure to get my new research as soon as it comes out.

A secret online resource to hone your copy chops

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Gary Halbert once wrote an issue of his newsletter with the title, “Let’s do the twist!”

The issue was all about how to write sexy, money-sucking bullets. Bullets that get people so fascinated they have to buy the product.

You can still find Gary’s newsletter issue online. And it’s worth reading from start to finish.

But today, I want to focus on just one piece of advice that Gary shared about learning to write good bullets.

Gary said to first find a promotion with lots of good bullets. Then find the actual book/course/info product that the promo was selling… and reverse engineer how the copywriter wrote the bullet, based on the source material.

You need both halves — the copy and the source material — to really see the clever things the copywriter did. Otherwise, you might get fooled into thinking you too can write good bullets just by imitating the form, without getting the substance.

Anyways, I started following Gary’s advice a few days ago. And I think it’s been great practice — not just for writing bullets, but for copywriting in general. For example, as a result of this exercise, I already learned one obvious but clever copywriting trick, which I’ll share with you tomorrow.

But maybe you’re wondering how you can do this yourself, so you can hone your own copywriting chops.

Like Gary says, you’ll first need a promotion with lots of good bullets. I won’t advise you there — there are plenty of people and websites to supply you with swipe copy, both for free and for money.

Instead, I want to tell you about getting the other half… the original info product.

Of course, it might still be for sale, in which case you can just order it. And if not, you might be able to find it on eBay on Amazon.

But there’s a third place you can find original direct response info products…

… online…

… completely free…

… and completely legal (as far as I know).

And in my experience, you can find stuff at this place that you might not find anywhere else, including Amazon and eBay.

For example, that’s where I found one of Gary’s info products as well as several 90s Boardroom books.

Perhaps you’re wondering what this magical place is. Unfortunately, you missed the boat on that. Because it’s something I only revealed to subscribers of my free email newsletter.

After all, I have to reward people who read my writing each day… and I have to give other people, like you, a reason to subscribe by withholding information on this public blog.

If that kind of thing pisses you off, I can understand.

But if you can get over it, and if you want to sign up for my free email newsletter so you don’t miss out on any future “secrets” I reveal… then here’s where to sign up.

How to turn good copy into great copy

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For the past several weeks I’ve been milking content ideas from a recent interview I heard with A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos. And I ain’t done yet. Here’s another valuable story from the same:

Once upon a time, while Parris was still getting his copy sea legs, he apprenticed under Clayton Makepeace.

Parris would write some copy. He’d submit it to Clayton. Clayton would fix it up, and the submit it to the client.

The clever thing Parris did was to ask Clayton for the final drafts. He’d go through and compare what Clayton had changed to the original he (Parris) had submitted.

As Parris got better and better through this process, there were fewer and fewer changes.

Until one time, there was only one change.

It was in a bit of copy that Parris had written about part-time jobs for people during retirement. One of these jobs was to be a mystery shopper. And it could earn you as much as $50,000 a year.

Pretty good, right?

Yes. Good. But then Clayton made it great, by adding a few words along the lines of:

“Imagine, $50,000 a year — just for going shopping!”

Parris said that Clayton was a natural-born persuader. And one powerful thing he did instinctively was help people “grasp the advantage.”

That’s a term from Vic Schwab’s book, How to Write a Good Advertisement. Schwab said you first show people an advantage… them you prove it… and then you help them grasp it.

You can do this grasping part in a bunch of different ways.

Clayton’s example above is of the form, “You’re doing X anyways, so why not get Y benefit?”

But there are many others. I spelled out a few of them to my email subscribers.

What? You’re not subscribed to my email newsletter? But you’re reading my stuff anyways, so why not get the full story, with all the lessons laid out on a platter for you? Here’s where to subscribe.

The round red balloon of sophistication and awareness

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Imagine a round red balloon, filled tight with air and floating in the middle of a room.

Got that image in your mind?

Ok, then let me explain why it’s important.

You’ve probably heard of Gene Schwartz’s ideas of market sophistication and awareness.

These two ideas are critical in writing advertising that sells. That’s because they tell you how to 1) get your prospect’s attention and 2) have him believe you, at least for a bit.

In a nutshell, sophistication is how skeptical your prospect is. Awareness is how much time he has spent researching his problem.

But here’s the trouble. I learned about sophistication and awareness years ago. And today, I still don’t have a 100% intuitive grasp of these ideas. I always have to “count on my fingers” when it comes to adding up where my market is in terms of these two measures.

Maybe I’m just not very smart. Even so, there are other problems with sophistication and awareness.

For one thing, these are two separate dimensions. That’s complicated. One dimension is simpler and more elegant than two.

To muddle things more, sophistication and awareness are not orthogonal. If somebody has zero skepticism to your claims… odds are good he hasn’t spent much time researching the problem.

And also, parts of the awareness and sophistication scales are not relevant to most sales copy. You’re probably not getting hired to write to a stage 1 awareness market (“$4 off Safeway pork chops this Friday!”). And if you are, you’re not getting paid much for it.

Which brings us back to that round red balloon floating in the middle of a room.

That’s my image of the typical direct response market. It combines sophistication and awareness, at least the parts that are relevant to sales copy. And it forms one simple, easy-to-understand-and-visualize dimension.

And for people who are subscribed to my email newsletter, I went into detail about how the red balloon of sophistication and awareness works, and how it simplifies things. But it’s not something I am willing to put on my blog.

Why? Because it might scratch your itch a little too well. Because frankly, my goal with these blog posts is to get people onto my email lists, where I can have more direct and immediate contact with them.

If you don’t ever subscribe to anybody’s newsletters, I can understand. And fare well.

But if you do occasionally subscribe to newsletter’s, then consider subscribing to mine. If you do decide to try it, here’s where to go.

3 reasons to 3+ your prospect

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Negotiation expert Jim Camp promoted a technique he called 3+. Camp said to cover each point of your negotiation at least 3 times in slightly different language.

“So you’re saying you want to subscribe to my email newsletter today. Is that right?”

“Are there any reasons you’d rather wait to subscribe?”

“And if you do get to the end of this post where the optin is, would you still be interested in subscribing? Are you sure?”

Camp did 3+ because he wanted to get to a decision that sticks, rather than just a flaky agreement.

But you can do something similar to get a click or a purchase from a prospect, even a flaky one. All you have to do is repeat your basic promise at least three times.

Don’t worry about annoying your reader. You won’t annoy him, as long as you surround your promise with new info. Phrase your promise in a new and surprising way. But keep hammering away at it.

Really? Yes. Because there are at least three reasons why this 3+ stuff works in sales copy.

One is that repetition creates belief. It shouldn’t, but it does. Just look at the stump speeches of politicians, or the headlines of the major news outlets. Repeat an outlandish idea one, two, three or more times, and people will adopt it as their own.

But that’s not all. Because repetition also creates desire. You’re greasing the groove.

Promise me something once, and I only hear your words. Promise me something twice, and I’m starting to imagine your promise being a reality. Make the same promise three or more times, and I’m getting impatient for the outcome.

But there’s a third and possibly most important reason to repeat your message over and over and over. And that’s the fact we’re living in a noisy world. Your reader doesn’t hear your whole message. He is distracted. He skims. He checks his phone. His mind is elsewhere.

You think you have his whole attention. You don’t. But you can still get your message across, if you keep repeating it. How many times? At least three. More is better.

None of this is new. Almost 300 years ago, Samuel Johnson said:

“Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.”

You might already know that quote. What few people know is that Johnson kept talking after the dictaphone stopped recording.

“Yes,” Johnson said, “promise is the soul of an advertisement. But repetition, constant repetition, is the body of an advertisement. So keep repeating your promise to make it more real. Even if you get tired of it. Over and over. Because eventually, your prospect will hear you. And then he will buy.”

By the way, remember that 3+ from the start of this post? About subscribing to my email newsletter? You do?

Well, I’m not sure if you’re still up for subscribing. In case you are, here’s where to go.