Copywriting

Persuasion WarGames

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In 1983, nobody cared much about the Internet. The web hadn’t been invented yet. There was no AOL. And 99.9% of Americans had never heard the word modem.

Back then, not even sci-fi movies had a conception of anything like Facebook or amazondating.co. It took a special kind of visionary to see the big future of this new technology — and the possible risks it could bring.

Among these rare visionaries was then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

​​One evening at Camp David, Reagan watched a recently released film starring Matthew Broderick, called WarGames. Broderick plays a teenage computer hacker who hacks into NORAD’s missle control systems, and almost sets off WWIII by accident.

A few days after watching the movie, Reagan talked to his generals. He wanted some answers. Is this kind of scenario really possible?

The generals and their minions got to work investigating the topic. After some furious paper folding and shuffling, they came back with a report. “Mr. President, the situation is much worse than you might think.”

To make short tale, Reagan ordered this situation fixed immediately. So the U.S. government and military tightened up their cyber security. Several months later, Congress passed a comprehensive cyber crime bill. It’s still the centerpiece of Internet security law today.

This Reagan anecdote shows the power of a story in persuading. But it’s also an illustration of something more subtle — but just as powerful.

I’m talking about a way to persuade people who don’t currently see any problem with the status quo. This can be used widely to reach unaware audiences, and is a clever way to stir up interest and action, without triggering the brain’s anti-persuasion radar.

But today’s post is already getting as long as the script to WarGames. Interesting note about that script:

It was written by Lawrence Lasker, a family friend of Reagan’s and grandson to Albert Lasker, the “father of modern advertising.” The elder Lasker was the owner of the Lord & Thomas advertising agency, which employed such legendary copywriters as John E. Kennedy and Claude Hopkins.

But like I said, today’s post is already getting long. So I’ll tell you about this important persuasion principle in more detail tomorrow.

But do you want me to send you an email with that update tomorrow? If so, sign up for my daily email newsletter here.

Ramen and the art of good storytelling

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As the detective takes out the handcuffed con artist from the restaurant, a man passes by, running at full speed.

The running man knocks over a passerby but keeps running, all the way home.

His wife is dying. The doctor is there.

The man jumps onto his wife and tries to shake her alive. “Don’t die! We need you! Do something! Sing!”

But the woman doesn’t respond.

“Get up!” the man shouts. “Cook dinner!”

Sure enough, the woman struggles up and stumbles into the kitchen. She starts chopping onions. Meanwhile, a train passes by outside, signaling another story transition.

I’m rewatching a Japanese movie called Tampopo.

The entire movie is about food. There’s a cute central storyline about a woman’s quest to become a great ramen chef. But what really makes the movie sparkle are little vignettes like the dying woman’s last dinner.

There are about a dozen such vignettes throughout the movie, and they transition from one to the other with a light touch.

I think this makes for a good show. And that has something to do with copywriting.

A few days ago, I read an email by copywriter Donnie Bryant. Donnie has a problem with the phrase, “salesmanship in print,” which has been used for, oh, about a century to explain what good advertising is.

That time has passed, says Donnie. Advertising today, copywriting included, is no longer about salesmanship.

Rather, advertising has become “showmanship in print.”

Sure, you need to know the salesmanship basics, going all the way back to John E. Kennedy. But that’s not enough any more.

Instead, look at great films, books, TV shows. See how they engage people and how they tell stories. Start including elements of that showmanship in your own marketing and copy.

If you need a place to start, I recommend watching Tampopo. It might teach you something about storytelling, and you’ll never look at ramen the same way again.

But what if you don’t wanna watch movies with a critical eye? Well, another option is to sign up to my daily email newsletter. I watch lots of movies, and whenever I find a good lesson about storytelling, persuasion, or marketing, I make sure to share it with my readers.

The beautiful future of text sales letters

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“All train compartments smell vaguely of shit. It gets so you don’t mind it.”
— Ricky Roma, Glengarry Glen Ross

Right now, everybody’s so in love with copy.

In certain circles, this love even goes further, to a certain pride about ugly websites and ugly emails and ugly sales letters. “Who cares? If you’re interesting, if you write well, people will read your message even if it’s written on used toilet paper!”

There are even people who claim they’ve tested this. They claim that ugly, because it stands out, outperforms beautiful.

I can believe this. But here’s the thing:

If everybody’s making an ugly website in the hope of shocking people into handing over their attention… then ugly stops being different.

It gets so you don’t mind it, like Ricky Roma says in the quote above. And at that point, ugly loses its selling power.

I bring this up because I’m listening to an interview right now that Rich Schefren did with a marketer named Sean Vosler.

Rich spends the first five minutes of the interview enthusing about Sean and his work. Rich thinks this is the future of marketing.

He even gets so excited that he pulls up his text messages on screen, to prove how he just had an exchange with Jay Abraham, and how he invited Jay to join this interview. Rich thinks Sean’s stuff is so revolutionary that even Jay needs to see it.

So what exactly is Sean doing?

Well, he is selling a book about copywriting. That’s not unusual. What is unusual is that the book and its sales page are very professionally and beautifully designed (by Sean himself, who has a a background in design).

The point, as Rich puts it, is that “different is better than better.”

And in a world where many marketers are taking pride in making garish-looking sales pages… or sending boring and plain-looking emails (like the ones I send out in my email newsletter)… in that world, a beautiful design like Sean’s looks different. It gets attention. And that’s half the sale.

By the way, this is part of a bigger trend.

Last autumn, I wrote about a similar move to higher production values in VSLs. And now text sales letters seem to be headed in the same direction.

So if you are a marketer or business owner, this beautiful design stuff is something to keep in mind.

And if you are a copywriter, this is something you can bring up to your clients, and make yourself seem well-informed and cutting-edge.

But wait, you might say.

What exactly makes for beautiful design in a marketing context?

I can’t say. I’m not a designer. But if you want to see Sean’s sales page, the one Rich Schefren was so enthusiastic about, here’s the link so you can judge for yourself:

https://bejakovic.com/sean-vosler

Camelopards and soft Facebook advertorials

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Samuel Johnson, who wrote the first great dictionary of the English language, did not like to bathe.

“Mr. Johnson,” said a lady to him once, “you smell!”

“No madam,” retorted Johnson, “you smell. I stink.”

Had Johnson lived today, he might be a hard-working Facebook copywriter. At least that’s how I imagine it, after spending this morning “softening up” an advertorial supposed to run on Facebook traffic.

The original version of the copy mentioned death, bleeding, skin cancer, organ failure, and hospital visits.

The new version looks much the same. But there is no death or bleeding. Skin cancer has become growths on the skin, organ failure is now “internal systems” failure, and hospital visits have morphed into “a trip to the family GP.”

The first version was unacceptable. The second version seems to be acceptable, to Facebook at least.

But here’s the point I want to share with you, which might be useful even if you don’t write FB advertorials:

It pays to write an extreme, un-self-censored first version of your ad.

In other words, your initial draft should stink, not smell.

It’s easy to wave your arms a bit and clear out the stench from a particularly offensive passage. It’s much harder to take a bunch of lukewarm milk and turn it into pungent Limburger.

Finally, do you know what a camelopard is? You will soon. Because here, to close on an educational note, are three unique and precise definitions from that dictionary of Johnson’s:

1. “Camelopard, noun: An Abyssinian animal, taller than an elephant, but not so thick. He is so named, because he has a neck and head like a camel; he is spotted like a pard, but his spots are white upon a red ground. The Italians call him giaraffa.”

2. “Monsieur, noun [French]: A term of reproach for a Frenchman.”

3. “Oats, noun: A Grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.”

All right, one more definition. Email newsletter, noun: A sequence of formatting-free emails, containing content like you’ve just read, arriving once a day to your own inbox. Available here.

No respect at home for history’s most famous ad

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In the fall of 1925, a 25-year-old Naval Academy graduate read the 4-Hour Work Week.

The book changed his life. He quit his boring engineering job, took an evening course in copywriting, and started working at a mail-order agency.

In the first few months of his new career, the young man already wrote a string of major winners. Among them was one that became the most famous ad of all time:

“They larfed when I sat down at the piano. But when I started to play!”

The young man’s name was John Caples. That Christmas, just a few months after starting his new job, Caples headed home to visit his family. He packed some of his winning ads under his arm so he could show them off to his mom and dad.

At home, Caples’s mom started reading those winning ads out loud in the kitchen. She became increasingly concerned. “Baldy?” “Fat men?” This was not what she expected from her son. “You better not let your father see this,” she said to young John.

Fact is, direct response copy is not very reputable. You’re not writing poetry. You’re trying to persuade.

The result might be unreadable to anybody who’s not in your target market. This probably includes your parents (though my mom, an inveterate direct response customer, is always supportive).

But so what? You win either way. If your friends and family are horrified by the schlock you write, at least you have a good story you can use in your next ad. Because like John Caples showed almost 100 years ago, stories featuring embarrassment, self-doubt, disapproval — and eventual triumph — are evergreen sellers.

Sales copy written by hallucinatory voices

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True story:

An otherwise healthy woman, identified only as AB, suddenly started hearing voices in her head.

The year was 1984. The place was England.

The voices reassured AB they were medical professionals trying to help her.

They even gave AB some convincing secret info to prove their claims.

But AB concluded she was going insane. She went to a psychiatrist and was prescribed an antipsychotic medication.

The voices stopped. AB, relieved and happy, went on holiday.

But then the voices returned. They told her to head home. They sent AB to an unknown address. It turned out to be a medical center specializing in brain scans.

The voices told AB to get one of those brain scans on her own noggin.

AB’s doctor was initially reluctant — brain scans are expensive and the woman was crazy — but in the end, AB got her brain scan. And then another.

It turned out that, even though she showed no symptoms, she had a large tumor inside her skull.

One brain surgery later, and the tumor was removed.

After AB regained consciousness following surgery, the voices told her, “We are pleased to have helped you. Goodbye.” AB never heard from them again, and she continued to live a normal and healthy life.

AB’s psychiatrist, who wrote up this report, said that his colleagues fell into two camps:

Group one thought this was proof positive of benevolent telepathic communication.

Group two thought AB was a big ole grifter, and that she was inventing this story as a way of getting free access to the UK’s health services (AB wasn’t born in the UK, but she had lived there for 15 years before this case).

The psychiatrist offered a third explanation. ​​Even though AB wasn’t manifesting any symptoms, it’s likely that the large tumor in her head made her feel somehow off. It’s possible that her unconscious started slyly gathering relevant information and making its own diagnosis. Eventually, this erupted in AB’s head as hallucinations.

I find this third explanation plausible. And I bring it up for two reasons.

First, it meshes well with how I imagine my sense of self. And that’s a flimsy wooden raft, floating on the surface of a dark and deep loch.

Reason two is that this might help reduce your workload.

Because writing is work. But you know what’s not work? Having ideas pop up in your head without any effort.

For example, I sometimes just “visit” what I want to write. I look over the topic and any research I might have collected. I then go do other stuff and allow the monsters under the surface to digest that information.

For me, there’s no work. I don’t have to do it. All I have to do is simply write it down.

Maybe you can try the same. Just put a lump of an idea into your head. Then go about your day. When you start hearing voices, calmly reach for a writing apparatus and take dictation. And when the voices finish, don’t forget to say thank you, and invite them to visit you again.

Second hand news: My 10 direct response fundamentals that work almost any time

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Do direct response prospects still respond to “How to” headlines?

Or is it better to strip off the “How to” and give them a command?

I decided to test this out. The results were instructive, but not in the way you might expect.

Anyways, ​​I don’t have a live sales letter running, but I do have several large email lists that I can send A/B-split emails to.

So I prepared one email with a “How to” subject line and identical “How to” CTA text. The other subject line and CTA were the same, except if you imagine a pitbull came and ripped the “How to” part to shreds.

Result?

The “How to” variant had marginally lower open rates… marginally lower clickthrough rates… and marginally higher total sales.

In other words, a total testing washout. I repeated the test a couple days in a row, and same crabstick.

You might not be surprised. In fact, you might think this is a perfect example of testing “whispers” — irrelevant details that don’t really move the sales needle.

I agree. The only reason I tested this is because I was told, on very good authority by a very successful copywriter, that “How to” headlines, much like a love affair between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, are a nostalgic throwback to the 70s. In other words, second hand news.

Maybe you think I’m wasting your time, but there’s a bigger point here.

After doing this copywriting stuff for a while, after reading a bunch of books, watching a bunch of courses, talking to other copywriters, and most importantly, writing copy and seeing the results of actual campaigns, I’ve come to a couple conclusions.

First, top copywriters really do produce better copy and get better results. But much of the specific copywriting advice out there — “Don’t use ‘How to’ headlines in today’s market” — is really unproven intuition or personal preference.

My other conclusion is that there are just a few direct response fundamentals that really matter, and that really work in almost any context. I wrote down 10 of them. (It was hard to get to 10.)

When in doubt, I will go back to these 10 ideas. If you want, I’m sharing them with you below. You’re unlikely to find something surprising or new here. But you might find a good reminder — and that’s really what the point is. Anyways, here’s the list:

1. Markets are problems. Address problems.

2. Curiosity works to get people’s attention, and to keep people’s attention.

3. Start where the reader is. Positioning is probably the most important decision you can make.

4. Accept that you don’t have the reader’s full attention and that the channel is noisy. Adjust your marketing and your copy for this.

5. What you say is more important than how you say it.

6. Concrete beats abstract. Stories beat sermons.

7. It’s a numbers game. The best you can do is make an educated guess. Or better yet, several educated guesses.

8. Your copy can probably use more drama than it currently has.

9. New sells real well. New product. New mechanism. New understanding.

10. Give people a way to justify making this purchase. Justifications can be proof… or another dimension of benefits… or a risk-free offer.

I’m back. Just to tell you one last instructive thing. I write a daily email newsletter. If you want to read more of what I write as it comes out, then one option is to subscribe to that newsletter. If you want, here’s where to sign up.

The invaluable experience of freelancing for peanuts

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Today, I was waiting in line at the grocery store and watching the fiasco up front.

A woman of indeterminate middle age, wearing skimpy latex shorts and big leather boots, had just put all her groceries on the conveyor belt.

Only once the grocery dude rang everything up and it was time to pay, did Cruella de Vil realize she didn’t have her wallet.

Ok, it happens to everybody. But then it went to another level.

“Please put the groceries aside,” she commanded the grocery dude, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

She left the store, I guess to get her wallet.

She was back in 5 seconds.

“Could you put the groceries in a bag for me and charge me for the bag? I’ll be in a hurry when I get back.”

The grocery dude was confused but he did as he was told. Cruella left the store for a second time.

She was back again in another 10 seconds.

“Actually I’ve got my own bag,” she said. She unwrapped a little designer nylon bag and started packing her groceries inside. She still hadn’t paid or even gotten her wallet. Eventually she left for the third time.

But let’s switch to another topic for a second.

Before all this happened — in fact, all the way yesterday — I got involved in a discussion on Reddit.

The gist of the discussion was an old freelance copywriter conundrum:

Is it worth working for peanuts at the start of your freelance copywriting journey… or is it better to hone your skills in secret, and then to approach higher-caliber clients straight away?

I was on the peanuts side. My argument was that peanuts are better than no peanuts.

Other people disagreed, because they find peanuts offensive.

It’s too bad the discussion stopped there.

Because peanuts or no peanuts, I feel there’s a lot of value in getting experience with client work, even if the money is laughable.

For example, some clients can be very demanding. But when it comes to paying, suddenly they’ve forgotten their wallet at home, just like Cruella did in the story above.

Eventually, you can learn to recognize the red flags, like the tiny latex shorts or the big Doc Martens. But you have to have those experiences yourself.

That’s why I think, if you’re just starting out, it’s good to get going with client work as soon as possible. You’ll get invaluable experience in the business of copy. And the fact that a client is paying you peanuts can even be a benefit, because it can take much of the pressure off.

The Joey Tribbiani school of subtle persuasion

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Over the years, I’ve said a lot of bad things about the TV show Friends. I take it all back. Because a few days ago, a kind and multi-talented reader wrote in to point out the persuasion lesson hiding right in the pilot episode.

The scene is set in a Manhattan apartment of one Ross Geller, circa 1994. Ross’s wife has just left him. Ross is desperate. He fears he will never find love again. What if there’s only one woman for every man?

Joey Tribbiani, Ross’s man-whore friend, is personally offended by this idea. “That’s like saying there’s only one flavor of ice cream for you. Let me tell you something… there’s lots of flavors out there. Rocky Road… cookie dough… cherry vanilla! This is the best thing that ever happened to you! Welcome back to the world. Grab a spoon!”

Perhaps this scene is not terribly convincing, much like all of Friends. But it does illustrate the gist of a powerful way to create insight. And that’s persuading by metaphor or analogy.

“Romantic partners are like ice cream.” When your brain hears this, it starts to look for points of similarity. It maps obvious features of one thing to another. And if those fit well enough, your brain jumps to the conclusion that other, less obvious features map also.

“Ice cream comes in different flavors. So do romantic partners. Just because you like one flavor, that doesn’t mean you cannot like another.” Maybe you’re not convinced. But Ross is.

By the end of the pilot episode, Ross makes a bold move on his old high-school crush, Rachel. “Do you think it would be ok,” Ross asks, “if I asked you out, sometime, maybe?”

Rachel realizes she’s dealing with a child. “Yeah, maybe,” she says.

That’s good enough for Ross. He leaves the apartment, walking on a cloud. “What’s with you?” asks his sister.

A smile spreads across Ross’s face. “I just grabbed a spoon.”

Here’s why this kind of persuasion works — even outside of 90s sitcoms.

We often get entrenched in a way of thinking. Getting out of that rut can be hard. That’s what analogies and metaphors are for. They create a new perspective — a new pattern of thought — around an old and familiar problem.

Imagine a cliffside of sheer rock, jutting straight up. You want to get to the top. “But it’s impossible,” you tell yourself.

An analogy is a wooden arrow sign, stuck into the ground next to that cliff. “Hidden staircase this way,” it says. All you have to do is follow where it’s pointing.

Computer genius Alan Kay once said that a change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points. It doesn’t take a genius to see that, if you can make a good analogy to your prospect and raise his IQ by 80 points, he might finally be smart enough to see the value in your offer.

How valuable would that be for you?

Well, after the pilot, Friends ran for another 262 episodes. Today, 25 years later, the franchise is still worth over $1 billion each year, thanks to reruns.

Am I saying that analogies could be worth $1 billion to you? No. But maybe, for a split-second, your brain jumped to that conclusion.

By the way, I’m putting together a book on other strategies for creating insight in your prospect. If you want to know more and get notified when the book is out, one option is to get on my daily email newsletter.

My appeal for your help

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I recently watched a movie called Elmer Gantry, about a traveling salesman who loves hard drinks and fast women.

Elmer lands in a small town in Kansas, where he falls for a preacher woman named Sister Sharon Falconer. So Elmer joins Sister Sharon’s traveling revival meeting, preaching as the “reformed businessman.”

In his first performance, on the topic of “Christ in commerce,” Elmer sermonizes to the masses:

“I was in hell. I knew all the salesman’s tricks. Why wasn’t I rich? Why wasn’t I successful? I opened the Bible, and I read the 18th Psalm. ‘The Lord is my rock and my fortress.'”

Long sermon short, with Jesus’s help, Elmer makes the sale of a bunch of electric toasters. Hallelujah! Biggest deal of Elmer’s life.

It’s a good scene. But what’s the point of it?

Unfortunately, I don’t know.

Over the past week, I’ve watched a new movie each day, Elmer Gantry among them. And while I’ve collected a bunch of interesting scenes like the one above, I still haven’t found what I’ve been looking for.

I mentioned in previous emails I’m putting together a book about insight marketing. I pretty much have all the pieces I need, except for one thing:

A pop culture illustration of “persuading by analogy.”

That’s what I’ve been looking for. But no soap. So I’m appealing to you for help.

I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Two characters. One is trying to persuade the other. But rational, logical appeals aren’t doing it.

So character one launches into a story or a parable or an extended metaphor. Character two listens, not seeing where this is going. By the end of the story or parable, character two sees how this is an analogy to the situation at hand… he grasps the moral of it all… and he is grudgingly persuaded.

I feel I’ve seen this scene a thousand times in movies and on TV. But now that I want to find a good illustration of it, my mind has locked up, and the history of cinema has been rewritten. After a lot of thinking, digging, and watching, I’ve still got nothing.

So if you can help me out, I’d appreciate it.

Have you watched a movie in the last week? Was there a scene of persuasion through analogy?

Or maybe you know something from a book? An episode of Seinfeld? A famous court case? A newspaper cartoon? A video game?

Anything will help. Just write in and let me know. You will be my rock and fortress.