Copywriting

Long-form sales copy is finally dead

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If you go on Google right now, and search for “freshly pressed olive oil,” you’ll soon find a quirky web page as the top result.

It’s for the Freshly Pressed Olive Oil Club, which mails you olive oils from around the world, right after they’ve been pressed, year round.

Here’s the interesting thing about this site for copywriters and marketers:

One of the people behind this business is Gary Bencivenga, often referred to as the “greatest living copywriter.”

Back in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and up to his retirement in 2005, Gary made his clients lots of money (hundreds of millions of dollars?) by writing long-form sales copy. His promotions sometimes spanned 40 or 50 pages.

And in fact, Gary even wrote a long-form sales letter for the Freshly Pressed Olive Oil Club.

It used to be there, right on the homepage.

But if you check the homepage of the club right now, that’s not what you will see any more.

Instead, you’ll see a quick and clear headline for the offer…

Some bullet points that have been pulled out from the original sales letter…

A bit about the founder of the club…

And a couple of buttons to buy.

That’s it. All in about 2 or max 3 pages of copy. So what’s going on?

I don’t know. But my guess is that they tested this shorter home page, and it’s working better than what they had before.

And here’s the lesson I draw from this.

If you start to learn about copywriting, you’ll quickly be told that “copy is never too long, only too boring.”

You might hear this backed up with the experience of top-level marketers and copywriters — including Gary B. — who will tell you that long copy, if done right, always outperforms short copy.

And it may be true.

IF you only have one shot to make the sale (ie. direct mail) or IF you are selling to cold traffic.

But that’s not how many online marketing situations work today.

And that’s why I say long-form sales copy is finally dead.

And in case you think this is just cherry-picking and exaggeration… then I agree with you. But I also think it’s no worse than saying “copy is never too long” — when it clearly can be.

Even if it’s written by the great Gary Bencivenga himself.

All right, that’s enough copywriting iconoclasm for today.

But in case you want more copywriting lessons — and not all of them controversial — you might like a list of the 12 best copywriting resources I’ve personally benefited from:

https://bejakovic.com/copywriters-hero/

5 lessons from the most successful email I’ve written to date

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About a year ago, I got hired to write a set of emails for the 8-figure supplement company RealDose Nutrition.

​​The goal was to promote a “reds” product — basically the good stuff in fruit minus the sugar — to people who had bought RealDose’s flagship weight-loss supplement.

RealDose already had an email sequence that was going out to these customers.

So I wrote 5 new emails that we just stuck in the middle of this existing sequence.

The result of adding in these new emails was a 3x increase in sales for this email funnel.

The thing is, one of the emails did way better than the other four. You can find it below, along with my guesses about why it did so well:

SUBJECT: The evil twins blocking your path to good health

Here’s an interesting bit of recent research:

Inflammation (caused by obesity) reduces the number of taste buds on the tongue.

When you think about it, this is really perverse.

It means food will taste more bland…

Driving up appetite and reducing the feeling of satiety…

Contributing to more obesity, more inflammation, and fewer taste receptors on the tongue, repeating the cycle one level down.

This downward health spiral illustrates an important point:

Extra weight and inflammation are very tightly linked. In fact, they are mutually reinforcing, in dozens of separate ways. The list of problems this vicious cycle creates goes on and on: hormonal changes, cardiovascular effects, problems with the immune system, additional weight gain.

So what can you do to deal with the evil twins of inflammation and weight gain?

Well, you’ve already taken the first step by getting Weight Loss Formula No. 1, which will help you lose fat.

What about the other problem child, inflammation?

RealReds to the rescue, thanks to its 8 polyphenol-packed ingredients and a healthy dose of digestive fiber.

Not only will RealReds help with its high polyphenol content (which reduces your inflammatory response), but it contains practically no sugar, unlike whole fruits. This makes RealReds the perfect complement to Weight Loss Formula No. 1 in helping you along on the path to good health.

Oh, one more important thing.

RealReds taste great, even though it’s almost entirely free of sugar. You can just mix RealReds with water, or add it to smoothies, or even make popsicles.

After all, if inflammation is going to play tricks with your taste buds, you have to fight back somehow.

When you’re ready to give RealReds a try, here’s where to start:

[link to product]

So that’s the email. Now, why did it work well?

​​Who knows. But here are my 5 best guesses:

#1. Curiosity + benefit headline

I’ve written about this before: curiosity + benefit seems to be one of the most powerful ways to open up a sales message. Curiosity alone can be too vague (“These evil twins are out to get you”). Benefit alone can be tiring (“How to beat the inflammation that’s keeping you fat”). But together, curiosity + benefit are magic.

#2. Research

People who buy health products love to hear the word “research” and love to be told about new scientific findings that relate to them. The key is to present the research in a friendly and understandable way, like I did above.

#3. Tied into where the prospect is

One of the cardinal rules of sales copywriting is to meet the customer where they are. These prospects had just bought RealDose’s weight loss product, and since this tied perfectly into the angle for this email, I called it out.

#4. “Reason why” sales argument

Reason why copy — what other kind is there? The headline + research sucks readers into accepting that inflammation is keeping them fat… and then presents the product as a way to eliminate inflammation.

#5. Close ties into the hook

I was proud of being able to tie in the close of this email (“RealReds taste great”) to the hook (“Obesity makes you lose your sense of taste”). Honestly, maybe this is just vanity, and I’m not sure it helps sales. Still, it can’t hurt to close a sales message on a high instead of simply trailing off into the call to action.

And there you have it — my most successful email to date.

The thing is, I’ve had lots of other successful emails — as well as some bombs. And I’ve learned lessons from all of them.

And when you want to read more of those lessons, here’s where to start:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

How to help your prospects grasp the horror of buying from the competition

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Having trouble getting hard? Don’t get suckered into buying yohimbe. Here’s why…

A couple of days ago, I talked about the proven and ancient copywriting principle of “grasping the advantage.”

That’s when you tell your prospect how your product is unique…

And you then paint the picture of all the ways this uniqueness will gently make your prospect’s life better.

Today, I want to point out a technique I spotted in a top-performing sales letter. In a way, this technique is the negative version of “grasping the advantage.” You might call it “grasping the horror.”

The sales letter in question was written by A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos, and it promoted a natural boner pill.

After going through all the ingredients of this pill and helping the reader grasp the advantage of each, this letter addressed the competition.

Among which, there is yohimbe. A natural, fat-burning, erection-promoting supplement.

Yohimbe wasn’t safe enough to be included in this pill, says Parris. That’s because yohimbe can raise blood pressure.

Now, at this point, Parris has basically stated the disadvantage of yohimbe. But that’s not enough. After all, maybe the prospect doesn’t realize why higher blood pressure is a problem.

Don’t worry. Parris immediately makes him grasp the horror of this disadvantage:

“Because yohimbe raises blood pressure,” Parris says, “it puts you at risk for stroke, heart attack, kidney failure, and seizures.”

Whoa. Better not mess around.

Of course, there’s some clever sleight of hand here.

Just because yohimbe raises blood pressure, it doesn’t mean it will cause stroke (in normal doses, it might only raise blood pressure marginally, not enough to create problems).

Parris gets around this with the vague phrase “puts you at risk.” This phrase connects the two pieces of information and makes the connection seem inevitable.

The result is that his prospect grasps the horror — even if the competition isn’t all that bad.

Sneaky. ​​Speaking of which…

​Be careful in case you sell a supplement or other health product through email.

Most advice you’ll come across is from people who have zero experience in this kind of marketing.

And if you follow this dud advice, it can put you at risk of losing a ton of sales, of getting mass unsubscribes, or even of getting your domain blacklisted as spam.

None of which is necessary. If you just follow the advice in my upcoming book, which you can get a free copy of here:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

“Grasping” the first image of a black hole

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Earlier today, a bunch of scientists got together around the world, in seven concurrent press conferences. Their task was to announce a monumental and counter-intuitive achievement:

The first photograph ever taken of a black hole.

There’s been a lot of buildup to this event and a lot of public interest.

And now we finally know what a black hole looks like.

It turns out it’s much as expected. Black.

But while the black hole itself doesn’t look too surprising, the freshly released image shows some other stuff too. In fact, the total image looks rather like an out-of-focus, melted piece of Werther’s candy. It’s an orangish doughnut, slightly shinier on one side than on the other.

A pretty picture.

And interesting.

But after wondering at it for a second, you might reasonably find it’s time to get back to your everyday life.

And therein lies today’s humble marketing lesson.

You see, there’s an incredible amount of scientific insight contained in this blurry picture.

That orangish blob is an infinitely complex object (literally), completely outside of the realm of anything we are used to seeing in normal conditions.

Plus there’s a mysterious and fascinating reason why one side of the blob is brighter than the other.

I found out all about this in a video put together by some well-meaning physicist on YouTube.

He used cardboard cutouts to illustrate what’s actually going on in the picture. He talked about general relativity, about something called the Schwarzschild radius, and about photons shooting off into infinity.

And after watching his video, I felt I really “understood” what the image of the black hole is.

It had much more meaning than simply seeing a blurry, half-melted Werther’s candy on a black background. The image will stay in my mind for much longer, and make a much bigger impact.

This applies to copywriting as well.

In fact, it’s a crucial but almost-forgotten lesson from Victor Schwab, one of the most famous direct marketing copywriters of all time.

Says Victor, every good advertisement first has to capture attention…

Then show an advantage…

And then, crucially, help the reader GRASP that advantage.

In other words, it’s not enough to simply say your $80 t-shirt is made from the finest, most breathable, most durable merino wool.

You also have to make the reader grasp that if he buys this t-shirt…

He will get a soft friend he can comfortably and stylishly wear — for the rest of his life.

That’s the difference between simply seeing the first picture of the black hole, and grasping what it shows.

Anyways, no self-promotion for today. If you’d like to take a look at the enlightening video I mentioned, so you can grasp the first image of a black hole ever released, then head on over here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUyH3XhpLTo​​

5 smelly sinkholes of market info for ecommerce advertorials

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Lately, I’ve been writing a ton of advertorials for viral ecommerce products — everything from dog seat belts to neck traction devices to portable smoothie blenders.

For each product, most of the “writing” is actually research.

And along the way, I’ve realized that some of the most obvious places to do market research for these kinds of products…

Are also the worst options. Here are the top 5 to STAY AWAY from:

#1. Amazon product descriptions
Market info value: 1/5

In my experience, copy is not the primary driver of sales on Amazon.

It’s not even secondary. It probably comes in fourth or fifth place, after the star rating, images, reviews, and probably price.

What’s more, I feel that much of the copy in Amazon product descriptions is actually written for the Amazon recommendation algorithm — and not for actual buyers.

That’s why this copy won’t tell you anything about your market, and why you should largely ignore it. ​​

#2. Amazon reviews
Market info value: 3/5

Ben Settle wrote recently how he doesn’t trust Amazon reviews for market research. Says Ben: Amazon reviews are mainly written by disgruntled trolls.

The situation is even worse for viral ecommerce products. Most Amazon reviews in this segment are actually written by paid shills.

On top of this, popular products can have thousands of reviews, so it makes it hard to separate the rice from the millet.

There are ways around this (that’s why Amazon reviews gets a 3/5). But the gist is that most Amazon reviews aren’t trustworthy for getting an insight into your consumer’s mind.

#3. Product websites
Market info value: 2/5

Viral ecommerce products typically have shiny websites with beautiful pictures.

The thing is, anybody who lands on these websites and decides to buy was sold long before, through other channels.

In other words, the copy on these websites is not what made people buy — and it’s not something to imitate. ​​

#4. Facebook
Market info value 1/5

Many viral ecommerce products are marketed heavily on Facebook.

Unfortunately, the copy of the ads (if there is any) usually focuses on the product, and not the audience’s desires.

On top of this, the comments that appear on these ads tend to be worthless — they usually consist of “pp” [“price please”] or “I want this!” (I guess in hopes one of your FB friends or relatives will buy you whatever it is you want).

#5. YouTube reviews
Market info value: 3/5

YouTube reviews can be useful because you can see the product in action.

However, like with Amazon reviews, most YouTube reviews of viral products are by people who are doing this for money, or because they love getting free crap to review.

In other words, most YouTube reviewers did not actually buy the product. That’s why most likely cannot tell you the real thoughts/concerns/desires of people who would buy this product.

And there you have it.

5 smelly sinkholes you’ll want to beware of.

So where should you look for good info on your market?

I’m afraid I won’t be giving away all my secrets tonight. However, this is something I’ll cover in my upcoming book, which you can get for FREE if you sign up at the page below:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

The “magic wand” technique for creating sexy sales hooks

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Here’s some hard-core nerd stuff for you:

If you are into copywriting, it helps to pretend you have a magic wand.

No, I’m not kidding.

As just one example of how useful a magic wand can be, let me tell you about a magic spell I learned from one of the most fearsome copy sorcerers out there, the mighty Parris Lampropoulos. This spell is called “The Sexy Hook.” It goes like this:

You take your magic wand…

You take your ordinary product — the thing you’re looking to promote…

And then with a wave of your wand, you say the magic incantation:

“With this wand, I now conjure the most amazing benefit/story/idea to help me promote this ordinary product.”

Sounds stupid?

Bear with me. Because stupid or not, this actually works. Let me illustrate.

I am currently re-working a sales letter for a probiotic supplement.

Probiotics can be tied to every aspect of your health. Which means it’s hard to pick just one good angle to start with.

Enter the magic wand.

I asked myself, since I have a magic wand, what would be the best possible thing I could conjure up to sell these little pills?

And I thought. And I pondered. And I reflected.

Ideally, I said to myself, I would want something that would win over the largest, most desperate, and most skeptical parts of this market.

Say, a scientific study. Which describes people who are doubled over with abdominal pain… constantly exploding on the toilet… and not being helped by any other medical treatment.

And then these suffering people would take an ingredient found in my probiotic supplement — and find their awful problems solved, beyond a reasonable doubt.

A wave of the magic wand (and several hours of research) later…

And whoosh.

There it was. The scientific study I was looking for. Published just a couple of years ago. And not part of the extensive research that the client had given me.

Real magic.

Hopefully this spell helps you the next time you’re stuck marketing your product. Just don’t share this knowledge broadly. It’s too embarrassing.

And if you have an ordinary (or extraordinary) product you’d like some help in promoting, then wave your nerd stick, head on over to the page below, and take advantage of my magical offer:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

 

5 out of 6 copywriting tricks are worthless

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In 2009, back when Twitter was blowing up, a friend of mine had an idea for a website.

It was called 5 Out Of 6, and it was a kind of “Hot or Not” for ironic fake statistics, all starting with “5 out of 6…” Here are a few examples:

“5 out of 6 bananas aren’t slippery”

“5 out of 6 Elvis songs contain the word ‘well'”

“5 out of 6 U-turns are illegal”

People could vote on which fake statistics they found funny, and they could submit their own fake statistics into the mix.

The plan was to make this website go viral, then take the best fake statistics, put them into a coffee table book, and get Oprah to endorse it. Millions of dollars would follow easily.

Alas. It did not work out.

But there was sound psychology behind the idea.

It turns out that people understand statements such as “5 out of 6 bananas” much better than “83% of bananas.”

I found out about this from Nobel-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Here’s the relevant passage from his book, Thinking, Fast and Slow:

“Why is the question ‘How many of the 100 participants…’ so much easier than ‘What percentage…’? […] The solution to the puzzle appears to be that a question phrased as ‘How many?’ makes you think of individuals, but the same question phrased as ‘What percentage?’ does not.”

In short, this is just one of those quirks of the human brain. Our brains like stories, individual people, and human-scale ideas. We don’t do well with statistics, large numbers, or abstractions.

That’s something to remember the next time you have to present numbers in a sales message.

The thing is, in 5 out of 6 pieces of sales copy, it won’t matter whether you use “how many” or “what percentage.”

It won’t matter if you use “but” instead of “and.”

And it won’t matter whether you call your offer “swoon-worthy” or “dazzling.”

That’s because in 5 out of 6 cases, what you say matters much more than how you say it.

I’ll talk more about this tomorrow. For now, if you want some swoon-worthy copy for your business, then act now, don’t risk delaying, and take me up on this free offer:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

The absolute cheapest köttbullar in a 30-mile radius

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Back in 1958, Ingvar Kamprad had a bold idea.

He was opening a furniture store — and he decided to tack on a cafe as well.

The reasoning was straightforward:

Customers with full bellies might buy more furniture.

This furniture store + cafe business became quite the success. It’s called IKEA (the “IK” in the name being Kamprad’s initials) and it does about $40 billion in sales each year.

The IKEA restaurant alone does about $2 billion. But that’s not what the company cares about.

In fact, the guiding principle of the IKEA restaurant is to offer the absolute lowest price on a food item within a 30-mile radius.

IKEA doesn’t mind if it loses money here — because its köttbullar (AKA Swedish meatballs) are known as the “best sofa seller.”

Makes sense.

People wouldn’t stay in the store as long if they get nervous or hungry…

On the other hand, if they come expressly for the Swedish meatballs or cheap hot dogs (30% of IKEA customers come just for the food), they might wind up buying some throw pillows or stuffed rats or even a new lamp.

And the point of all of this is NOT that you should offer a loss leader.

Instead, it’s a simple lesson about copywriting.

In writing copy, as when selling furniture, you need a hook.

A hook is a way of sucking people in, so you can buy yourself time to do a proper selling job.

This is important when you’ve got a huge offer — thousands of separate products — like IKEA does.

But it’s just as important when you’ve got a single product, say a supplement, with multiple ingredients or benefits.

Or when your audience doesn’t know your brand as well as they know Ingvar Kamprad’s Furniture + Meatball Emporium.

So how do you write a good hook?

The basic principle is there in the story of the IKEA restaurant. If it’s not yet clear to you, don’t worry. You’ll be able to get more info on it if you take me up on the following free offer:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

Killing your babies for you

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I’m not talking about killing your actual children, you beast. Instead, consider the following:

“Writing is rewriting.”

That’s from William Zinsser, author of On Writing Well, a popular guide to writing decent non-fiction.

I’m reading this book right now, and it makes it seem that Zinsser was a man who suffered deeply while writing.

He didn’t put much stock into his first drafts. Instead, he considered writing to be a labor of rearranging, clarifying, and tightening.

And of course, cutting out the flab. Which brings me to today’s second quote:

“2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%.”

This second bit of writing wisdom is from Stephen King.

That’s the guy who wrote Cujo and about 99 other massive best-sellers.

So when Stephen gives writing advice, it makes sense to listen. But which 10% to cut out?

For that we get to the final quote of the day, and that’s to “kill your babies.”

This phrase is apparently stock journalism slang. It goes back, in one form or another, through William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway, all the way back to a series of lectures given in 1914 by one Arthur Quiller-Couch:

“If you here require a practical rule of me, I will present you with this: ‘Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly — and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.”

There is an exception, however, to all this advice:

Don’t do excessive editing or trimming of your daily emails.

In part, this is for yourself. Excessive rewriting of your daily emails will weigh you down, take too long, and sap you of energy for writing tomorrow.

But there’s another equally good reason.

Rewriting your emails will take away quirks that make you sound more conversational.

Which will eliminate much of the human-level interest why people respond to daily emails in the first place.

It’s a balancing act.

You want your emails to be spontaneous.

As well as on point.

Of course, if this is not a balancing act you feel confident about… Then you might like my upcoming book, which you can get for free here:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

The trouble with living in the most beautiful apartment

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I spent the past few days visiting friends in Budapest. And this time, I rented an apartment with a VIEW.

The apartment is on the fifth floor of a narrow and classical building. One side of it looks to the Danube, about 20 meters away. The Chain Bridge, the central and perhaps most iconic of Budapest’s bridges, stretches across both bedroom windows and lights up the apartment at night.

The other side of the apartment has a large terrace, which is directly beneath the Castle District of Budapest. During the day, the terrace has a pleasant view of the green Castle hill. At night, the impressive Buda Castle dominates the hill and provides all-evening entertainment if you simply want to sit on the terrace and stare at it.

Now, I used to live in Budapest for over 10 years before moving away about a year ago.

So during this visit a friend asked me whether I would ever consider moving back.

And I started to say, “Well, if I had an apartment like this to live in full-time…”

But then I stopped myself.

You see, the actual apartment I live in full-time is also beautiful. When I moved into it a year ago, it would surprise me each time I walked through the door.

However, over the course of the past year, I’ve stopped noticing how beautiful my apartment is. It now takes a conscious effort to appreciate it at all.

So I realized that, even if I lived in this beautiful Budapest apartment with THE VIEW, soon enough, I wouldn’t notice how great it is any more.

And as it is with real estate, so it is with copy.

People will soon get habituated to your marketing message. And when they do, you will lose them. That’s because, unlike with real estate, your prospects will never make any kind of conscious effort to appreciate what you are doing.

This applies to parts of an individual sales message (ie. a sales letter). And it applies equally to ongoing communications (ie. daily emails to your prospects).

In other words, if you keep communicating with the same people over and over, you will need to keep coming up with fresh ideas to keep them stimulated and engaged.

If you’re looking for some help in coming up with such fresh ideas, you can get my suggestions in the following free book:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/