Copywriting

Cliches: Shooting fish in a barrel? Or yourself in the foot?

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Here’s a tough nut to crack:

Gary Bencivenga was a collossus of direct response copywriting. His sales letters made his clients hundreds of millions of dollars. On the topic of cliches, Gary had the following to say:

“I love clichés, and you should too! They are clichés precisely because everyone already believes them, so using them gives your copy greater credibility.”

Now here is a second quote, this one by Mark Ford. Mark is also an expert copywriter and a very successful marketer. Among his other ventures, Mark helped grow Agora from an $8-million-a-year company to a billion-dollar company. About cliches, Mark once wrote:

“Although everyone can relate to these expressions, they’ve been said so frequently that they’ve been stripped of their power. They no longer communicate profound ideas. And they don’t inspire people intellectually. And that’s why cliches are killers in direct mail. They make your copy seem obvious and predictable. […] Remember, as a copywriter, you’ve always got to keep your prospect from getting ahead of you. If he can anticipate what you’re going to say, he’ll assume he knows what’s coming — and you’ll lose him.”

So who’s right?

The most successful direct response copywriter of all time?

Or the direct response marketer who has overseen more promotions than probably anybody else?

Not to beat a dead horse… but like most things in the universe, the question of cliches is not simple or one-sided. Cliches have their place. But they also have their limitations.

I know that’s clear as mud. So I’ll give you the latest research on what cliches can do — and cannot do — in my email tomorrow. If you want to get that info before anybody else, click here and subscribe to my email newsletter.

The hottest girl on an empty beach and other ways to sidestep competition

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I went for a walk this morning next to the sea, and I saw the most amazing girl.

Let me set this up by saying the tourist season hasn’t started yet. The town I’m in is empty except for the locals. There were a few people walking dogs in the morning, but there was nobody, absolutely nobody, on the beach.

Except her.

The early morning sun lit her up from the side. She was in a bikini, standing in the water up to her ankles. She seemed to be testing out the temperature and questioning her resolve to dive in.

I walked by, spellbound. A man coming towards me seemed equally absorbed — he was staring and his jaw was hanging open.

Now if you asked me what this girl looked like, I’d have to say she was between 15 and 35 years of age. She had hair on her head. She was not visibly obese.

Beyond that, I can’t say much. For one thing, I couldn’t see her all that well. For another, I was so blinded by the fact that she was the one and only girl for a mile up and down the beach, and probably, in the entire town.

The point of this is the value of being in a marketplace of one.

Of course, one way to be in that lucky position is to find a group of people who aren’t being served by anybody else — the equivalent of an empty beach town before the season starts. That definitely works, but there might be drawbacks. There’s a good chance your prospects will be slack-jawed oglers. And there will be inevitable competition as the season heats up.

But there’s an alternative. It allows you to create a marketplace of one for yourself, even in the face of ostensible “competition.”

I’ve talked about this already a few times. It’s a trick known as helping your prospects experience a moment of insight.

There’s a lot more to be said about this topic. So I won’t do that here. But I am putting together a book about it. If you want to get notified when it comes out, click here and subscribe to my email newsletter.

Making more money without adding a single thing

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A couple days ago, an on-and-off client contacted me with a possible new job.

He’d hired another copywriter first (big mistake). No surprise, he wasn’t happy with the outcome. So he wanted me to rewrite the worst parts of the other guy’s work. How much would it cost?

It would cost a lot. But let’s take a moment and imagine a hypothetical scenario:

You go to a friend’s house. He offers you some ice cream and he says, “I forgot it out in the sun last week. It melted to shit. But after a few hours, I remembered it and put it back in the freezer. It’s all yours if you want it!”

I don’t know about you, but I’d find a way to politely refuse. Eating refrozen ice cream doesn’t sound appealing. And it could cause serious digestive regrets.

That’s how I felt about the rewrite offer. But there was something else clanging around my brain-pan, too:

“You can make a lot more money if you stop doing the things you’re doing now, without adding a single thing.”

I heard a guy named James Schramko say this in a presentation a few months back. James’s advice was to look at your current clients and get rid of the least profitable ones. Somehow, James promised, you’d make more money this way.

This might sound like “law of attraction” fluff. It’s not. It’s specific business advice.

James laid out much of his system in the presentation I listened to. This is stuff that allows James to surf most of the day while making several million dollars a year. It’s also worked for his coaching clients — guys like Ryan Levesque and Kevin Rogers.

In short, this presentation was real valuable. If you’re a copywriter and you want to work less but somehow make more money, it’s worth your time. Here’s the link:

https://copychief.com/ep-164-james-schramko/

Limitless persuasion value inside this blog post

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The first time Eddie Morra sees the magic pill, he is sitting in a bar, across from his ex brother-in-law.

“You know how we only use 20% of our brain?” the brother-in-law says as he points to the pill. “This lets you access the other 80%.”

The brother-in-law used to deal drugs. Now, he promotes this secret new nootropic, which gives users a superhuman IQ. He’s offering a sample to Eddie for free.

But Eddie shrugs. He doesn’t want the magic pill.

“Don’t be ungrateful,” says the brother-in-law. “Do you know how much this costs? $800. A pop.”

So Eddie takes a second look. And he scoops up the pill and puts it in his jacket.

The above is a scene from the 2011 movie Limitless. And it illustrates a sad fact of a persuader’s life. Many times, people won’t listen to you. Even when you clearly lay out the benefits your offer will provide them.

So it makes sense to do what Eddie’s brother-in-law did. Present a good offer… and then tell people the value of what they are looking at.

But let me tell you something even more valuable. This isn’t just a useful trick to grow the number of prospects who take up your offer.

Nope. This is also an instance of a fundamental pattern of persuasion.

Persuading people is often a two-step process. Show AND tell. Story AND lesson. Benefits AND the benefits of those benefits.

Phew. Do you know how much value I’ve just given you? Such much value. You could even say… limitless.

I’m not sure I can keep delivering value at this break-neck rate. So if you want to see me fail, click here and subscribe to my daily newsletter.

My brief and curious career as a stock analyst

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Back in 2014, I quit the one and only proper job I’ve ever had, as a buzzing little drone in a software company. I then started something I was completely unqualified for:

I became a stock analyst.

To be fair, all I was really doing was writing front-end content for The Motley Fool. But the very fact anybody would pay me to write about stocks was outrageous.

Not only did I know nothing about finance, or stocks, or business… but I also didn’t care.

There was nothing less interesting to me than how the price of Apple stock is moving, and whether NVIDIA would be a good buy at $19.

But here’s the kink in this story:

I spent each day reading about a new company, and writing up a 500-word blog post. “Yes, it’s a good buy.” “No, it won’t succeed in a new market.”

I had no idea what I was talking about. But a funny thing started to happen.

I was becoming interested in these companies. And by extension, in their stock prices. And yes, I even became interested in finance, and what all the different accounting numbers meant.

This, of course, has a very powerful implication for copywriting. The technical term for it is a “curiosity gap.”

Of course, people don’t get curious about a question they know the answer to. But they also don’t get curious about a question where their knowledge is non-existent.

The sweet spot is somewhere between these two extremes. Actually, it’s much closer to the “I know this answer” extreme.

In other words, if you want people to be curious about what you have to say, they must already know a lot about your topic.

But what if they don’t? Well, then it’s your job to tell them all about NVIDIA, in such a way that even a 2014 version of me would listen.

Finally, here’s a hot stock tip for you:

Click here and subscribe to my daily email newsletter. There’s actually nothing about finance in my emails. But if you’re interested in marketing and copywriting, I can fill in the occasional curiosity gap on those topics.

The naked blog post

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I’m writing this blog post because I want you to click on the link at the bottom.

If you’re reading my blog, I imagine you’ve got some interest in writing, and maybe you even write professionally. If so, you’ve probably found yourself, at least now and then, struggling to get started, or taking too long to finish a solid first draft.

And that’s what the other side of the link at the bottom can help with. It’s a method to quickly produce a first draft, and not just a “shitty first draft,” either. Use this method and you can get going with your writing without procrastination… and produce something that’s 50% of the way you need to go.

Now, if I had to imagine what objections you might have at this point, I would think it’s something like:

* You don’t have time to read another stupid blog post right now

* You don’t really struggle with writer’s block

* You’re dubious about “speed writing” systems

Reasonable objections all. Let me give you my thoughts on them:

* If you really don’t have time, then don’t click the link. But this blog post, which won’t take more than a few minutes to read, could save you hours or days of struggle and frustration in the coming months.

* On writer’s block: I also used to think it doesn’t affect me. I never find myself staring at an empty page. But writer’s block can be insidious. It can transform itself into excess time spent researching… or outlining… or doing other seemingly productive things which really are not. In other words, if you ever took longer to finish a writing project than you wanted, odds are that a sneaky form of writer’s block was part of it.

* You don’t have to be a fan of speed reading, speed writing, or speed chess to use this system. It’s not a matter of getting hyped up, writing at a furious pace, or being sloppy. It’s simply a process to get past the inhibitions in your brain and to start selling your offer.

Like I said, the link below will take you to a simple blog post. There’s nothing for sale and no cost to you except the actual effort of clicking. If you do click but don’t like the blog post, don’t read it. If you do read but don’t like what you’ve read, then don’t apply it.

So there’s no risk. That’s why it makes sense to at least click on the link and see for yourself.

You can even skip the intro of the blog post and jump straight into the how-to highlighted points. That will save you some reading, and you’ll get the gist of this method in just a minute or two.

By the way, it makes sense to read this now if you can. This blog post was originally based on a popular forum entry, which disappeared a while back. I searched for information on this method earlier in the year, and I couldn’t find any. In other words, it’s not certain this blog post will be there if you decide to come back to it in a year or in a month’s time.

Finally, if you need any more encouragement, let me tell you this is a technique that was recommended by copywriter Dan Ferrari. Dan said it helped him write more on a sales letter in an afternoon than he had done in the week previous. If you know Dan, you know he’s very smart and successful, and his recommendations count for something. So in case you’re ready, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/naked

“My service is so valuable… but so few companies value it”

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In the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, a banker named Greg Lippman went a-selling on Wall Street.

He wanted to get institutional investors to buy “credit default swaps.” These instruments would pay out big if the market crashed, and Lippman would get a fat fee off the deal.

Lippman had unquestionable proof the market would crash. He had a great sales pitch. And he had a killer offer — to make his investors a ton of money, with great odds, at a low price.

And yet, these stupid investors wouldn’t buy. “If it’s such a great deal,” they would say, “why are you offering it to me?” Others said, “I couldn’t explain this to my investors.” And the most common objection? “I’m convinced. You’re right. But it’s not my job to short the subprime market.”

In the end, Lippman managed to get some buyers. But these investors were already determined to short the subprime market… and were just looking for the best way to do so. Thanks to Lippman’s advice, they made out like bandits when the market came crashing down.

But don’t worry. I’m not getting enamored with investing. And this newsletter is still about copywriting. In fact, that’s why I bring up the story above.

I was reading a thread today on a copywriting forum. People were frustrated that copywriting is so powerful… and yet, most companies don’t value copywriting.

It sounded like the struggle of Greg Lippman above.

Your copywriting services might be powerful. But most businesses still won’t want in. So why waste energy approaching businesses that should see the value you’re bringing… and then getting frustrated when they fail to do so?

Instead, approach businesses that already do see the value of copywriting, and are just looking for the best way to get it. These are the businesses that will make out like bandits from your winning copy. And they won’t mind when you get a fat fee off the deal.

 

An imminent prediction about a 10x opportunity that solves an urgent problem

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A few days ago, I was chatting to a friend. She said she’s got “thanatophobia.” I looked it up. It means a fear of death.

Then today, I was reading through YouTube comments. “If you don’t like the sound of people whistling,” wrote one of the commenters, “you’ve probably got misophonia.”

I looked that up, too. It’s when a sound irritates you more than it should.

Here’s a third affliction I only just found out about:

Cyberchondria. That’s the condition when you latch on to a newfangled term, found on the Internet, which gives a Greek name to symptoms of being alive.

But let’s change tack for a second.

A while back, copywriter Roy Furr wrote that there are only three types of big ideas for sales letters:

1. Solve an urgent problem
2. Present a 10x opportunity
3. Make an imminent prediction

So let me make an imminent prediction for you:

Rates of cyberchondria will rise dramatically over the next year. Society will become more atomized, isolated, and socially distanced. People will suffer as a result. And they will want answers.

So if you want a 10x opportunity, simply keep an eye out. New terms will pop up to describe bad feelings you’ve sensed but never articulated. These new terms — and the urgent problems behind them — could be your new big idea.

As marketer Rich Schefren says over and over, “That which is most personal, is most general.” And if it has a scientific-sounding name, that certainly helps.

Do you have unexplained symptoms of malaise, boredom, or irritability? I don’t know the cause. But I might have a cure: Click here and subscribe to my daily email newsletter.

The $3.9-billion argument for soft, believable persuasion

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Michael Burry, the first guy to figure out how to make money from the subprime mortgage crisis, lost out in a way.

Burry saw the crisis coming. He realized he could make money from it by buying something called a credit default swap. This would pay out big time once crappy mortgage bonds failed.

Burry ran a hedge fund. He invested much of the money in his control in these credit default swaps. But this was a massive opportunity. Burry wanted to invest more. So he tried to raise money for a new fund, which would buy more credit default swaps.

Trouble was, Burry was an awkward guy, and not great at persuading. He shocked people with his predictions of catastrophe. Nobody gave him more money to invest.

Fast forward nine months. Burry’s ideas had spread around the industry. So another investor, John Paulson, attempted the exact same thing Burry had tried to do. From The Big Short:

“Paulson succeeded, by presenting it to investors not as a catastrophe almost certain to happen but as a cheap hedge against the remote possibility of catastrophe.”

This brings up a fundamental rule of persuasion. It’s perhaps the most important rule of them all:

Only tell people something that they are ready to accept.

In some situations, this can mean you don’t start with your biggest promise, your strongest proof, or your most shocking prediction. In the words of Gene Schwartz, the best thinker on this topic:

“The effectiveness of your headline is as much determined by the willingness of your audience to believe what it says, as it is by the promises it makes.”

So did Michael Burry lose out? Depends on your perspective. When it was time to cash in, Burry walked away with an estimated $100 million. John Paulson? $4 billion.

Want more billion-dollar persuasion ideas? Click here and sign up for my email newsletter.

Major anti-aging breakthrough = great new lead?

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In one of these posts last September, I talked about a new piece anti-aging research. It was something I’d read about in a blog post by Josh Mitteldorf.

Josh’s post described a new study performed at UCLA. Scientists there reversed the epigenetic aging clock — also known as the “death clock.” It was a limited study, but very encouraging.

Well today, Josh Mitteldorf has a new article. It covers something much bigger and more exciting.

A second team of scientists changed a bunch of old rats into younger rats. How much younger? From rat age 80 to rat age 20. And they did it by using just four injections, containing stuff from younger rats’ blood.

Josh Mitteldorf, who is a very smart and measured guy, says this is a major breakthrough that could scale to humans. He’s staking his reputation on it.

If this bubbling spring does turn out to be the fountain of youth, it’s gonna have big consequences. But either way, it’s likely to have some little consequences, too. Such as for example, being a great lead for a direct marketing promotion.

Maybe you think I’m grasping at straws. So let me refer to the current control for Genesis, Green Valley’s telomere supplement. That promo was written by Stefan Georgi and came out last September. It’s still running. And it uses the “death clock” research as its hook.

In other words, this anti-aging research is worth keeping an eye on. So if you want to read Josh Mitteldorf’s post, for yourself or for your copywriting, here’s the link:

https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2020/05/11/age-reduction-breakthrough/