Copywriting

Super germ ideas for profitable ad formats

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3 years ago, an astronaut on the International Space Station bounced his way outside of the calm and protected interior so he could set up a little experiment in open space.

He left some bacteria on the outside of the station, in the cold, in the dark, only occasionally to be pummeled by murderous space radiation.

It turns out these resilient bacteria survived. I bring this up for two reason:

1) Scientists say this means life COULD have come from somewhere else than Earth, which would certainly explain how the platypus got its beak, and

2) Because I learned about this super bacteria from a stock footage, subtitled video on the BBC site today.

That was interesting to me. I realized this is where the format came from for the Facebook ads I’ve been writing a lot of.

These Facebook ads look and feel the same as the BBC videos. They are made of stock footage, with overlaid subtitles that tell a story. Except the story is not about space-riding bacteria, but about bamboo kitchen towels or silicone freezer bags.

And here’s why this might be relevant to you:

These stock footage video ads are doing very well on Facebook right now. They are outperforming other ad formats my clients are trying (and these guys do a lot of trying and testing).

So if you do any Facebook advertising, it might be worthwhile going on the BBC site and checking out some of these science videos to see what makes them tick, and how you can mimic the same.

And there’s a deeper message I want to leave you with:

If an editorial format is working for a massive site like the BBC, it’s a good idea to try to adapt it into an ad.

Regular articles and these stock footage videos are not the only formats that work for news sites. I can think of other ways that places like CNBC and CNN deliver content, which might be relevant for Facebook advertisers.

The point being, it makes sense to pay attention to your own news consumption. You might find the germ of an idea. That idea can start to spread and multiply… until it forms a colony of money-making ads for your business.

For more biologically inspired marketing ideas, you might like my daily email newsletter. In case you’re interested, put on your space suit, unlock the hatch door, and sign up here.

Getting comfortable copybragging on Facebook

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Speaking on a podcast recently, marketer and copywriter (though not freelance!) Chris Haddad had the following harsh truth to share:

“If I was a freelance copywriter, I would be posting on Facebook about copy all the time. And I would be posting all of my testimonials and all of my successes. Because that’s the gig. And if you can’t do it, you need to go out and do something else.”

Chris was saying how back in the day, what made him successful as a freelance copywriter is he was willing to go out and shout, “Hey I’m Chris Haddad and I’m fucking great.” But that kind of bragging causes a discomfort in his seat these days. It’s also one of the reasons Chris doesn’t offer any copywriting training.

What if you’re the same?

​​What if you have a fear of the spotlight, and you cannot imagine bragging about yourself on Facebook? And what if, unlike Chris, you haven’t yet reached the levels of success that allow you to say, you know what, I’ll do something else instead?

Well, I think you’ve got several options. Such as creating your own product in a non-marketing niche… or writing a daily email newsletter in hopes of establishing your credibility without bragging… or taking a page out of Sasha Fierce’s book.

Yes, Sasha Fierce.

​​Maybe rings a bell. Maybe no? It’s the alter ego that Beyonce created for herself in her early days. Here’s Beyonce:

“Usually when I hear the chords, when I put on my stilettos, like the moment right before when you’re nervous… then Sasha Fierce appears, and my posture and the way I speak and everything is different.”

Psychologists agree. By conducting experiments on children and the weak-willed, they have shown how inventing an alter-ego for yourself (or at least asking yourself, “What would Chris Haddad do?”) works wonders in changing your perspective, your resolve, and your behavior. Search online for the “Batman Effect” if you want to know more about this.

But for now, maybe it’s time to start inventing a braggartly Facebook alterego for your copywriting business. It might not be what you like to hear. But as Chris says, that’s the gig.

Some personal bragging:

I write a daily email newsletter. It’s fucking great. If you want to see what all of my raving readers are swooning over, you can sign up here.

Why don’t people like salesmen?

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I was walking through the streets of an Eastern European capital this morning, when I heard a pleasant melody.

Keep in mind today is Saturday, and this morning at 9:51am there was practically nobody out and about.

But among some sycamores in the center, I heard an accordion playing. An old man had taken a bench by himself in an otherwise empty park, and was playing a nostalgic tune. He wasn’t playing for money. Just for himself.

I found this very pleasing. Better to sit outside in a warm and sunny park than to play your accordion in a tiny apartment with the neighbors banging on the wall to get you to quit.

But here’s the dark thought that occurred to me:

It wouldn’t be so quaint if the guy were playing for money. Then it would be desperate. Right? ​​Sitting in abandoned park, while everyone else is having breakfast at home, playing an accordion in the hope somebody will pass by and like your squeezing and buttoning enough to drop a few coins in your leather case. It’s like a scene from some 1950s Italian melodrama.

So what’s the moral of this story?

I’m not sure. But I think it has something to do with how people see you if you are in the position of selling yourself or your services, and in particular, of appearing needy.

Because selling something and appearing needy are not the same. But for many people and in many cases, they seem identical. That’s why salesmen are often so unpopular.

But you can get rid of the neediness and the stigma of salesmanship, while still continuing to sell.

There are lots of ways to get to this desirable place. The easiest in my opinion is to introduce standards — who you sell to, what you sell, how much you charge — and to not deviate from that. Suddenly the aura of desperation lifts from you, even if you could use a few extra coins in your leather accordion case.

For more tips for selling yourself and your services, you might like my daily email newsletter. It’s free. It’s for freelancers, copywriters, and business owners. And you can sign up for it here.

A VSL lead idea from the Harmon Brothers Agora ad

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I watched the Harmon Brothers Agora video today.

​​You might know what I’m talking about. It’s a humorous, viral-style video by the same people who made the one for Purple Mattress — except this one is selling an Agora stock-picking service.

This video is deadpan because it moves so quickly. I counted 17 jokes — visual, verbal, and physical – in the first 60 seconds alone. That’s a joke every 3.5 seconds, and I might have missed some.

When I first saw this video, I thought it was mostly a ripoff of Will Farrell movies. But I now realize it’s actually inspired by The Simpsons, which had the same rapidfire sequence of jokes.

​​Each joke might not be spectacular in itself. But the jokes are staggered in such quick fashion and edited so tightly that your brain starts to play along.

Unfortunately, the type of humor in the Harmon Brothers video is hard to replicate in writing. Instead, this might be a good way to write a lead, particularly for a VSL in gotta-wow-em markets like bizopp or weight loss. Here’s the recipe:

Take everything you want to say, all your promises, open loops, proof, objections and rebuttals, and write an obnoxiously long lead. Don’t be shy. Then boil it down through merciless editing by at least 10%, preferably much, much more.

The resulting copy will have so much momentum, that even if none of your individual claims or promises is all that unique or impressive or believable, you will simply blitz your reader’s brain into sticking with you through the first few minutes. And that, as they say is, 50% of the battle.

For more rapidfire copy ideas, you might like my daily email newsletter. If you’re interested, sign up here.

Sweet inconsistency in copywriting education

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“The most important thing — you can know every copywriting technique in the book, you can read every book — the most important thing is to understand your audience.”
– Parris Lampropoulos

At the start of this year, I got a job to rewrite a VSL for an upsell of a successful offer.

A bit of background:

The offer was in the real estate investing space. It basically showed newbie investors how to get their leads for free using a secret resource.

​​Once people bought the frontend offer, they were shown the upsell. The upsell was about how to hire virtual assistants to automate much of the work involved in the frontend offer… so you can make more money in less time.

The question was how to position this upsell VSL.

My copywriting coach at the time said something like, “This training is the quickest way to become a millionaire real estate investor.”

That might be true. But my feeling was, for this audience, it was not believable. Most of these people had never even completed their first deal. Lots of them were retirees, or people who just wanted to quit their crap jobs and spend more time at home.

If these folks heard “You can be a millionaire,” my gut feeling was they would say, “No, that’s not me.”

And so I wrote that VSL around the promise of, “Get your first deal faster by doing less.” And that positioning turned out to be a winner. It beat out the control by 50%.

Here’s why I bring up this story from my client annals:

Copywriting wisdom is full of sweet inconsistency. Many top copywriters will tell you to make the biggest promise you can — and they will show you million-dollar ads to back up their case. Here’s a famous one from John Carlton:

“Amazing Secret Discovered By One-Legged Golfer Adds 50 Yards To Your Drives, Eliminates Hooks And Slices… And Can Slash Up To 10 Strokes From Your Game Almost Overnight”

But then you have other top copywriters, who will tell you the opposite — to make modest but believable promises. They will also show you successful ads to back up their case. Here’s one from Gary Bencivenga:

“Get Rich Slowly”

So who’s right? The “biggers” or the “modests”?

Neither, of course. Instead, it’s Parris who’s right.

As he says in the quote above, you’ve got to know your audience. Some audiences will believe any promise, so the larger it is, the better for you. Other audiences won’t. So make the biggest promise you can — as long as you’re sure your audience will find it believable.

Want to get better at copywriting slowly? I have a daily email newsletter where I share more information like this. You can sign up here.

Making missed opportunities hurt

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I’m at the seaside for a few days. Last night, after the fortieth glass of aperol, the decision was made to go for an “early-morning swim” today.

Today however, thanks to that same aperol, morning came later than usual. And then there was breakfast and some packing and a bit of standing around on the balcony. The early-morning swim plans turned into mid-day swim plans.

And then it started to rain. There would be no swimming after all.

Typical. At least in my life. Because in my experience, you can screw up in two ways:

You can take action and do something dumb… or you can not take action and miss an opportunity.

I’ve noticed in my own life that I’m much more likely to not take action, just like this morning, than to get overeager and get into trouble.

And I guess I am not the only one.

I read in Daniel Kahmenan’s Thinking Fast and Slow that we humans have a reliable bias in this direction.

It’s not just laziness.

But somewhere deep down in our monkey and lizard brains, we believe we will regret a mistake much more if we actively did something to bring it about… rather than if we just sat by, staring out the window, watching the clouds gather.

If Kahneman is right — and why wouldn’t he be, the guy’s got a Nobel Prize after all — then it’s another notch in favor of writing over-the-top, emotionally supercharged, manipulative sales copy.

Because sales copy, in spite of what many people will tell you, is not just like an ordinary conversation. You can’t just present a sober, reasoned argument and have people jumping out of bed.

Instead, you’ve got to create such desperation and fury in your prospect’s mind not only to overcome his natural laziness… but to overcome his fear of trudging all the way down to the beach, and then getting drenched in ice-cold rain. That’s gonna take some hyperbole. It’s gonna take some drama.

Finally, here’s a vision I want to paint in your mind:

I have an email newsletter. Each day I write a short email about copywriting and marketing lessons I’m learning.

If you like, you can sign up for the newsletter here. Or you can just wait. The opportunity will still be there tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that.

The unmasking of a copywriting replicant

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“You remember when you were six, you and your brother snuck into an empty building through a basement window, you were gonna play doctor? He showed you his. When it got to be your turn, you chickened out and then ran. Remember that? Did you ever tell anybody that?”

I had a Blade Runner moment a few days ago.

I was watching an episode of The Copywriters Podcast and vague suspicions started bubbling up in my mind.

I realized many of my own ideas, my memories, the advice I keep peddling to others… I realized they’re not my own.

Instead, the guy on this interview, a successful copywriter, well, somehow his ideas seeped into my mind and had influenced a lot of how I write copy, specifically those cold-traffic advertorials I’ve done a million of for the past few years.

The thing is, this copywriter doesn’t have a book or a course for sale, as least as far as I know.

Instead, all those replicant memories in my head got there after I studied a few of his sales letters, along with snippets of his ideas that appeared online.

To make things worse, The Copywriters Podcast interview wasn’t very insightful. Too much David Garfinkel, too little of this original copywriter.

But I just went online. And I found a presentation this copywriter made about 8 years ago. I watched it. My Blade Runner moment intensified. It’s unsettling. But I wouldn’t undo it if I could, because this presentation (short by the way, only about 20 mins) is so full of valuable copywriting platinum and gold.

Maybe this doesn’t mean anything to you. But maybe, if you write copy, particularly for cold traffic, you want to know who this copywriter is.

But that particular bit of incriminating information is something I only revealed to people who were subscribed to my daily email newsletter. In case you want to get on that newsletter, so you don’t miss out on any of my future unmaskings, click here.

Don’t burden busy business owners with your vague help

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A few weeks ago, a former client named Patrick sent a couple referrals my way. One of those turned into a largish project, the other might turn into something down the line.

So this week, I wrote to Patrick to say thanks. I also wrote that, if he wants, I would write some new headlines for a VSL he’s running that he could test against his control. (I’ve done this before for him as part of a project, and it had a big effect.) I offered to do this for free — just as a way of saying thanks for the referrals.

Patrick said great, and sent me a VSL that’s doing well and that he wanted to test new headlines on. I watched the VSL… wrote up a couple new headlines… sent it back to Patrick… and it’s getting tested now.

“Thanks for this,” Patrick said at the end, “and I’ll keep you in mind for future copywriting work.”

Contrary to what you might think, this email is not about greasing the groove of those client relationships with bottles of wine and fruit baskets.

Instead, I want to point out something else that can help you get work and form better relationships:

Business owners are busy. So when you make a proposal to them, be specific.

That’s why I wrote Patrick and said, “Do you want me to rewrite a headline for you as a way of saying thanks?” I didn’t write him and say, “If there’s anything I can do to say thanks, let me know.”

Don’t count on busy people to spend time and mental effort thinking about how to do business with you. Instead, put in a bit of time and thought yourself, and make a specific proposal to them.

Maybe they will take you up on your proposal… or maybe it will jog another idea in their mind that works better for them. Either way, I think your chances of making a connection jump up about a million-fold, compared to counting on them to do the work.

​​And by the way, I think this same “specific” approach is the way to go when contacting people who could be your personal mentors.

All right, enough traipsing down client lane for today.

If you want more of my ideas for how to deal with copywriting clients, you might like my daily email newsletter.

Going back to the Mark Ford well and pulling up a goldfish

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Over and over in these emails I’ve cited a quote made by entrepreneur and copywriter Mark Ford:

“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.”

I’ve used this quote to talk about the trouble with marketing secrets, about A-list copywriting wisdom, and even about Tim Ferris’s 4-Hour Work Week. And why not? I think the quote itself vindicates that I keep going back to the same well.

So here I am again, dropping the bucket in, and coming up with a little goldfish that surprised even me.

Since I’ve taken Mark’s advice to heart and started paying attention to good advice lying around in plain sight, I believe I’ve become better at writing copy. That’s because I’m noticing small and valuable bits of knowledge dropped by a guru that have little or nothing to do with the main secrets in the actual offer.

For example, I’m working on a real estate investing promo right now. And while I was going through the guru’s main “secrets” of lead generation and creative financing, I noticed a few throwaway comments he made. I took these comments and twisted them a bit to get some solid bullets going:

* How a $75 gadget (available at any electronics store) can get you thousands off the seller’s initial asking price

* The 5-word under-the-radar phrase you can use to uncover a seller’s true motivation — without the need to ask prying personal questions that put the seller on guard

* How to ethically piggyback on bandit signs put up by other investors (including investors you’ve never met) to get more sellers calling and emailing you

The point is, you can do this, too. There’s no secret, and there’s no magic.

Stop letting your attention be guided by others… and start directing it to the valuable and useful info hiding out in plain sight, all around you, right now.

​You’ll save yourself time and worry by not getting sucked in to expensive but low-value secrets. And you might even make money — assuming you’re in the business of writing fascinations.

But maybe you’re not convinced. But maybe you want more secrets. In that case, make sure to sign up to my secrets-filled daily email newsletter.

If you wish to know what advertising is, read this post

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Imagine a classy and rich office, with two well-dressed businessmen standing side by side, leaning on a desk.

One of the businessmen is old, the other is young. Even so, they look to be equals. They are busy looking over a report the younger one is holding.

Suddenly, a secretary knocks on the door.

“Message for you, Mr. Thomas,” she says as she hands the older man a slip of paper.

Thomas unfolds the paper, and as he reads the short note, his eyebrows shoot up.

He shakes his head and hands the paper to the younger man with a smile. The younger man takes a look at the note. It reads:

“I am in the saloon downstairs. I can tell you what advertising is. I know you don’t know. It will mean much to me to have you know what it is, and it will mean much to you. If you wish to know what advertising is, send the word ‘yes’ down by the bell boy.”

The younger businessman, Albert Lasker, pauses.

​​What the note says is true. He’s been in the advertising business for a few years now. He’s had tremendous success. In fact, even though he is only 24 years old, he is a partner at one of Chicago’s top advertising agencies, Lord & Thomas.

​​But he still doesn’t know what advertising really is. He doesn’t why it sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t. So he’s been asking around — other agency heads, copywriters, newspapermen. Nobody can give him a satisfying answer.

Well, nobody except maybe the guy in the lobby downstairs.

You might have already heard this story of the first meeting between Albert Lasker and John E. Kennedy, the mysterious man waiting downstairs.

​​Lasker did send the word “yes” down by the bellboy. And after a lot of negotiating and finagling, which included buying out Kennedy’s ridiculously expensive contract as a copywriter, Lasker had his answer.

It was all of three words that Kennedy told Lasker. But these three words transformed the Lord & Thomas advertising agency, and they transformed modern advertising.

What Kennedy told Lasker is that advertising is not about keeping the company’s name in front of the public. It’s not about delivering news, either, though news can be useful. Instead, advertising is simply:

Salesmanship in print

For about a hundred years now, nobody’s been able to improve on that definition. Fortunes have been made by taking this simple idea and applying it thoroughly.

​​But things might finally be changing. Perhaps Kennedy’s definition is not good enough any more. Salesmanship in print is still important. But it’s not enough. And sometimes it can even hurt instead of help.

​​So what’s a better way to think of advertising today?

​​It will mean much to me to have you know what it is, and it will mean much to you. If you wish to know what advertising is today, take a look at the following page.