Copywriting

How to write copy much faster without working any harder

by

When most people sit down to write sales copy, they go about it all wrong.

First, they beat on the keyboard for a few minutes or a few hours.

Then they look over the mess they’ve made.

And then they start pulling out their hair in frustration.

Time is passing, but they haven’t written a damn thing yet. Not anything good, at least.

But not you.

Because right now, you’re gonna find out a little secret that I recently discovered in a massively successful promotion, written by A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos. I call it the “suckers lead.” It goes like this:

HEADLINE: How to [get unlikely benefit X]

LEAD: Most people [do the conventional thing and get screwed]. But not you. Because you turned to [page in the book on offer]. Here are some of the secrets you’ll learn: [list of fascinations].

Now, maybe you think this lead is obvious.

Maybe you’re saying, “Yeah, sure John. I coulda thotothat myself. I don’t need you to tell me some supposed A-lister’s supposed dumb secrets.”

If that’s how you feel, then I pity you, young starling.

Because you are likely to waste a lot of time, pull out a lot of hair, and write a lot of shitty copy.

You see, one of the things I’ve been focusing on relentlessly over the past weeks…

Is writing FASTER.

It’s not about typing furiously, about stressing yourself out, or about producing crap.

Instead, it’s about having templates, checklists, and processes to eliminate wasted work, second-guessing, and thumb twiddling.

That’s one of the reasons why I’m collecting leads like the one above — even if they might seem simple.

In fact, this is something I’ll do with the advertorials book I’m putting together. I’ll include a list of simple leads, outlines, and angles to use for various kinds of products.

In case you’re interested in seeing this when it comes out, here’s where you can sign up to get notified when I finish and release this book:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

10 fresh ways for freelancers to compete against cheaper rates

by

A question comes via the Reddit copywriting group:

“How do you compete against people who can do the same work you can, but much cheaper because they live in a country where living is just cheaper (India for example)?”

I honestly don’t think it will matter much what I say.

Because most people who ask this question are too far gone.

Like R. Kelly, fighting against his evil urges but giving in inevitably…

These people are possessed by the evil urge to believe that freelancing won’t work out for them. And like R. Kelly, they will inevitably give in to this urge. They will prove themselves right and fail.
​
Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way.

So in the interest of eternal glory and in the hope it might help someone somewhere, here are 10 fresh ways, which I’ve just baked up, to help you compete even against thousands of people who will charge much less than you:

#1. Have a track record of success. I just read that Stefan Georgi charges between $50k and $100k for a sales letter, plus royalties. His secret? The long track record of making his clients much more than he charges them.

#2. Be more likable. People will hire you just because they like you. Conversely, they will refuse to hire you just because they dislike you.

#3. Get there first. Be the first to apply for an opportunity. Or get in contact with clients that nobody else is approaching. Or that nobody else can reach.

#4. Offer a guarantee. Most freelancer copywriters don’t offer a guarantee. This includes me. I tell clients, “I guarantee I’ll work my ass off for you, and that’s it.” So if you are brave and smart and you offer a guarantee, you can stand out.

#5. Explain your service better. Like Claude Hopkins, who made Schlitz the #1 beer in America by saying it’s pasteurized after it’s sealed. Every other beer was pasteurized as well. But nobody else was explaining these facts.

#6. Explain why your service is better. Why do you deliver a better service than others — other than just trying hard?

#7. Be non-needy. There’s some magic in not worrying whether any particular client comes or goes. The best way to do this is by having other good options. You’ll be surprised how well clients will pay you when they realize you don’t need their money.

#8. Be famous. Start a blog. Get on a podcast. Get on a stage. Marry a Kardashian.

#9. Move into the profits column. Stop offering services that cost your clients money. Instead, start offering services that make your clients money, and take a share of the money they make.

#10. Let your clients sell themselves. I’ve talked about this before, but simply by asking your clients a few open-ended questions about their business, their problems, and their projects, you can often get them to sell themselves — without you saying much or anything at all.

Will these 10 tips help you? I hope so.

And if you have some more questions about the business of copy and how to make it work for you, you might like the following:

https://bejakovic.com/150-dollar-per-hour-freelancer

The Warren Beatty strategy for seducing copywriting clients

by

“Women are like a jar of olives. You can eat one, close it up. Or you can eat them all.”
— Warren Beatty

I recently read some statistics about the sex life of Warren Beatty.

The man lost his virginity at age 20.

And then, he became a Hollywood star.

Over the next 35 years, he supposedly slept with almost 13,000 women, according to the best estimates of his biographer, Peter Biskind.

That averages to a new woman every day.

Almost certainly not true. Even Beatty himself has denied the claim.

However, he has over the decades been associated with a lot of famous women, including Melanie Griffith, Darryl Hannah, Jane Fonda, Vivien Leigh, Madonna, Carly Simon, Goldie Hawn, Barbara Streisand…

Oh, and Joan Collins, who said Beatty was “so pretty but just TOO exhausting in the bedroom.”

Mind you, all those women knew about each other. In other words, Beatty’s playboy background didn’t hurt. It helped. ​​

Anyways, now that you have that in mind, I want to tell you something related that might help your copywriting career.

I am currently negotiating a project with a client that I’ve done some smaller work for.

If this comes through, it will be the biggest single project I have had to date.

But the interesting thing is how I got this client.

About a year ago, I wrote him a cold email to introduce myself.

“Sounds interesting,” he replied. “I will keep you in mind.”

And he did.

He first hired me for a single project around December, then again for something in April, then a few small things earlier this summer. And now, here we are.

And here’s the thing.

I’ve sent the same cold email to several other leads.

They haven’t hired me yet. But they have all gotten back to me very quickly, with an almost identical response.

“Sounds interesting. I will keep you in mind.”

So what was the cold email? Well, if you’d like to find that out, you can get it inside my shamelessly promiscuous A-List Zone. For more information:

https://bejakovic.com/alist-zone

A natural path to heavier testicles

by

The first time I got my testosterone levels tested was in 2012.

They came back normal. Even healthy.

I wasn’t pleased.

Because back then, I wasn’t feeling particularly normal or healthy.

I was 32 at the time, but I had less interest in sex than when I was 9 years old.

I wasn’t sleeping very well, and most days I was as tired as a used towel.

And though I did my squats and deadlifts and even hip thrusters, I wasn’t getting much stronger or more muscular.

So regardless of the reassuring lab results, I kept worrying about my testosterone levels. And I kept getting them tested, until predictably, I got one result that said — LOW.

“I knew it!” I said triumphantly.

And I set off on a multi-year crusade to get my already-normal testosterone levels back to normal.

So I loaded up on the grass-fed butter and vitamin A…

I made sure to avoid handling receipts, because, you know, CHEMICALS…

And I constantly scoured the Internet for supplements from the mountains of Peru or the jungles of Cambodia that had some bro science claims about improving your manliness.

Unfortunately, nothing changed.

My testosterone levels stayed mainly normal (“Lies!”) and I didn’t feel much progress in practical terms (“I don’t understand, you want to come over to my place tonight? To watch a movie? Why?”)

There was no saving me. I slowly resigned myself to a life of undiagnosed low testosterone levels.

And then, while browsing a science magazine at lunch, I came across an intriguing medical study:

“YOGURT INCREASES TESTICULAR WEIGHT”

It turns out some scientists, at MIT no less, fed a bunch of undersexed male mice a yogurt made with a specific strain of probiotics.

Result?

Shinier mouse fur.

Lower mouse inflammation.

Heavier mouse testicles (yes, they killed the mice and cut off their testicles and put the testicles on a mice-testicle-sized scale).

And finally: more mouse testosterone!

Now, I bring all this up for two reasons.

First, because, while a caricature, it is all true. The probiotic strain in question is called Lactobacillus reuteri ATCC 6475. ​​A bit of googling will quickly lead you to the MIT study, as well as to a recipe for making your own L. reuteri yogurt (which tastes delicious, and, you know, works, at least in my experience).

But the other reason has to do with copywriting.

Because this post uses the same basic skeleton as an advertorial I wrote recently.

It’s a good skeleton for introducing a new product, particularly one that’s got some science behind it.

If you look over this post, you can probably glean this skeleton easily with your X-ray vision.

But if you cannot, then you will want to read my upcoming book on advertorials, where I will go over this particularly skeleton in detail, along with other go-to skeletons I’ve used for advertorials.

You can sign up here to get notified when I finish and release this book:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

A hot tip for copywriters and others

by

Get ready for some hard-as-headboards teaching. To set it up, let me give you some example headlines:

A. Retire in 15 years
B. How to have a cool, quiet bedroom
C. Key to fitness at any age

Decent headlines, right? All of them have a benefit, all of them are clear, all of them are short.

However, let’s say for the sake of argumance that you wanted to do better.

How might you tweak the above headlines to increase the number of grateful readers who fall into your ad and start reading your copy?

Take a moment and really think about it.

I’ll tell you in a second, but think about it first.

All right, thought some?

Well, here are alternate versions of the above headlines. All of these alternate versions outperformed the versions listed first. And if you look carefully, all of these alternate versions have something in common:

A. How a man of 40 can retire in 15 years
B. How to have a cool, quiet bedroom — even on hot nights
C. Key to fitness at any age for men and women

We know these alternate versions outperformed the originals because these were all case studies reported by the great John Caples in his book Tested Advertising Methods.

So what’s the lesson contained in Caples’s case studies?

Well if you look at the alternate headlines, you could slice the changes in different ways:

– calling out the audience
– addressing objections
– intensifying the promise

But I think all of these different slices can be put under the single, powerful, and shady umbrella of:

Specificity.

Sure, “Retire in 15 years” actually implies “How a man of 40 can retire in 40 years.”

But that’s not how people read ads.

You’ve got a fraction of an unconscious second to wake up your slumbering prospect and get him to hear what you have to say.

Don’t count on his tired brain to do any calculating in your favor.

Instead, use as much specificity as you can. Even if it’s redundant or not actually specific, such as saying “Key to fitness for men and women.”

So that’s my hot tip for copywriters.

Or others, such as business owners who hire copywriters.

​​And if that’s you, and you are looking for more specific copywriting tips (that have to do with increasing sales), then you might like the following:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

Airbnb goes direct response

by

Last December, top-flight copywriter Dan Ferrari sent out an email about big changes he was seeing in the copywriting and direct marketing worlds. One part of it was the following:

So watch as companies with products and businesses that don’t really fall into our little world of internet direct response start to require the services of people that know how traffic, copy, and funnels work online, at mega-scale.

Even what you might think of as more traditional “brand” companies (if you have a keen eye, you’ll already have noticed this is happening with companies like Samsung, Bissell, etc…)

It’s going to be another area of HUGE growth and along with it, more big opportunities for the copywriters that have proven themselves.

This stuck in my head. But since I don’t go much on Facebook, since I refuse to download any apps on my phone, and since I live in a tiny eastern European country that doesn’t get too much ad targeting…

I hadn’t seen any examples of the big new players that Dan was talking about.

Well, until today.

Today, I opened up a Newsmax email. Newsmax is a massive newsletter that caters to aging baby boomers who love Trump, hate Obama, and worry about diabetes, immigrants, and race riots. Each Newsmax email has the latest-breaking news from a conservative standpoint, along with a few carefully placed links to long-form, very hard-hitting sales letters.

Except not today.

Today, the sponsored post in Newsmax was for Airbnb. The headline read:

“Earn while you’re away”

The pitch was that you could make money renting out your home on Airbnb while you travel. And the link took you to a regular Airbnb page for signing up hosts.

Now, I personally find it hard to imagine that a 65-year-old retired dentist, who’s afraid that El Salvadorean immigrants are coming to displace him from his castle of a home that he finally paid off after 30 years, will be thrilled with the idea of opening up said home to strangers while he goes traveling (where? to Bali?).

And even if he was curious about this offer, I’m not sure he would know what to do with the Airbnb page that the ad linked to.

In other words, I expect that the Airbnb Newsmax promo was a big stinkin’ flop.

But who cares? Airbnb is currently valued at $35 billion. They can afford to throw away a measly $20k or $50k on some failed ad tests.

But eventually, they will wise up, and they will ask their direct marketing to actually turn some kind of a profit.

And when that happens, you’ll see the situation that Dan was describing above:

“Big opportunities for the copywriters that have proven themselves.”

Just something to think about if you’re deciding whether copywriting is something you want to double-down on, or if you just want to keep dabbling in it from the sidelines.

If you are doubling-down, then you might like my upcoming book. It will talk about what I’ve learned over the past year while writing advertorials for some successful cold traffic campaigns. To get notified when I finish this book, you can sign up here:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

Opening the doors of marketing perception

by

A few weeks ago, I found myself at an open-air club in Barcelona, talking to Tony the drug dealer.

Tony didn’t speak very good English.

When he couldn’t find the right word, he would shake his fist at the sky and yell, “TEACHER!!!”

In spite of his habit of selling drugs for a living, Tony didn’t do too many drugs himself.

“Just a little ketamine right now,” he told me. “It opens up the pineal gland.” He pointed to the back of his head to illustrate where the pineal gland is.

Now, from my previous readings, I know the the pineal gland is supposed to be the seat of the soul.

If it gets clogged up, then you find it hard to see God.

When it gets cleansed, say with a bit of ketamine, then you start to see the true nature of reality.

Maybe you don’t believe in any of this.

So let me tell you about marketing instead.

I just had my first call with my new marketing and copywriting coach.

Earlier this afternoon, I was thinking to myself how I’m already a pretty good writer and I know a lot about marketing.

I wonder what this guy is gonna be able to tell me,” I thought.

Well, I’ve just had my pineal gland opened.

And I feel like I got a short but powerful glimpse of the true nature of marketing reality.

I had a similar though less powerful experience the first time I started hand-copying successful ads many years back.

There’s such a big difference between reading about copywriting theory online and seeing real ads that actually made millions of dollars.

And there’s an even bigger difference between working on moderate copywriting projects, and seeing behind the curtain of someone who works on some of the most successful current promotions.

So if you’re wondering what this has to do with you, here’s all I can say:

Find​ some way of cleansing your own doors of marketing perception and opening up your own pineal gland.

Maybe you can start by looking at historically successful ads.

Maybe you can find a mentor or a coach, like I’m doing now.

Or maybe you can get a job in a fast-moving and successful marketing organization, where you can get a lot of experience very quickly.

Speaking of which, a past client of mine, Josh Dunlop, got in touch with me a few days ago.

Josh runs a very big and successful photography instruction website called Expert Photography.

I wrote some emails for Josh in my first year as a copywriter. He’s now looking for somebody to hire full-time.

I’m not interested. But you might be. So in case you want to find out more about the copywriting position that Josh is advertising, check out the following page:

https://expertphotography.com/careers/copywriter/

Copywriting and luck

by

I just saw a cute video of a frustrated husky.

The husky is having a fit because his owner is pretending to eat one of the husky’s milk bones.

I saw this video in a Reddit post titled, “No, that’s not for you!” The post currently has 21K points and over 200 comments.

​​And the interesting thing is hiding down in one of those comments. It’s a table that somebody put together of the 24 other times this exact same video was posted before.

Those other posts of the same video range from having 29 points and 1 comment…

To having 81.5K points and 938 comments.

Maybe these fake Internet points don’t mean much to you.

So let’s multiply by 10 and change it into cold hard greenbacks. By that math…

The least successful husky post would have earned you $290, enough to buy a Kindle Oasis, Amazon’s “most advanced Kindle ever with a 7” screen and sleek ergonomic design.”

Not bad. On the other hand…

The most successful husky post would have earned you $815,000, almost enough to buy yourself a McLaren Senna, an “extremely track-focused hypercar” and “McLaren’s most calculated masterpiece.”

Keep in mind, the video was the same in both cases.

The substance was identical.

The only difference came down to title (“”WTF, that’s not yours” vs. “GIMME GIMME DARN :(“) and the time of the posting.

In other words, a bit of copywriting…

And a lot of luck.

So what’s the point of all this?

Well, I actually intend it to be inspirational.

Because if you’ve got decent copywriting (can you guess which of the two titles was the winner and which the loser?) and if you simply keep plugging away until you get lucky, then you too might get a husky post that gets tens of thousands of fake internet points.

Or if that’s not your game, maybe you will come up with a for-real offer that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars overnight. If you need help figuring out how to write decent copy to promote that offer of yours, you might like the following:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

Justin Goff and Stefan Georgi critique my advertorial copy

by

Do you know the old chestnut about the drunk copywriter?

He was standing under a flashing neon sign that said ADVERTORIAL.

A passing policeman noticed this strange scene.

“What’s going on here?”

“I lost my keys,” said the copywriter.

“Right here, under this flashing ADVERTORIAL sign?” barked the cop.

“No,” the copywriter said softly. “Somewhere out there.” And he waved his arm into the darkness of the night.

Today, I got a copy critique from Justin Goff and Stefan Georgi.

​​Both Justin and Stefan are multi-million dollar marketers and copywriters. And today, they actually critiqued a bunch of different pieces of copy, mine being one of them. They had lots of insightful and valuable things to say.

So for example, I submitted an advertorial I’d written earlier this summer. According to the client I wrote this for, this offer is “profitable at the moment, although not doing crazy numbers.”

Justin was the one who did most of the critiquing for my copy.

“The advertorial copy is pretty good,” he said. “You could tweak it but it won’t bring in a massive win.”

And then he pointed out some opportunities, specifically in the upsell pages and the actual order page. These were things that would take a small amount of work to do, but could yield a 2- to 5-fold increase in profits. At least that’s what the two experts thoughts.

I won’t spell out these proposed changes here.

I just want to point out that if you’re doing a decent job with copy, then that’s probably not where your lost keys are hiding.

I mean, that’s not where your biggest improvements lie.

And that’s why it doesn’t make sense to keep looking for them under the flashing ADVERTORIAL sign, even though the light is best there.

Instead, you might have to wander out into the darkness that is the rest of your sales funnel. ​​In case you want some help with that, and you want to know the advice that Justin and Stefan gave me, you might like my upcoming guide on writing advertorials. To get notified when it’s out, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

Copy is never too boring, only too irrelevant

by

“Long novels often become best sellers, but even short books of logic rarely do.”
Victor Schwab, How to Write a Good Advertisement

True story I heard today:

Million Dollar Mike Morgan, an A-list copywriter I mentioned a couple of days ago, once wrote a 64-page sales letter.

Mike looked at his creation in horror and thought, “This really is too much. Who the hell would read 64 pages of promotion?”

Back then, Million Dollar Mike worked with copywriting coach David Garfinkel.

David read over the copy, and told Mike to run with it.

Which Mike did. The copy made sales. And afterwards, at an event where he was speaking, Mike actually got to talk to some people who bought the $1k product his sales letter promoted.

“Let me ask you something,” he asked all the folks who had bought. “Did you actually read that whole sales letter?”

All of the buyers did. The whole thing. One even read it twice.

It’s often said that a sales letter is never too long, only too boring. But here’s the problem with that:

If you’re writing to the wrong person, then no matter how long or short your sales letter, how entertaining or deadly dull, you won’t make the sale.

And if you’re not an actual prospect for what you’re selling, you can’t tell whether they will be bored or not.

So what do you do?

Well, you rely on the fundamental basics of direct response copywriting, which have been more or less proven over the last 100 years. And you apply them to your sales copy, blind if you have to.

If you need a primer on these fundamental basics of copywriting, specifically as applied to sales advertorials, then check out the following:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/