Copywriting

The “fresh fish” sales argument

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Here’s a true story about hypocrisy:

It has to do with DVDs.

About 10 years ago, if you bought a DVD to play at home, you would first have to sit through a little educational video. The short video had a driving, Prodigy-like soundtrack, and it said:

“You wouldn’t steal a car…”

“You wouldn’t steal a television…”

“Downloading pirated films is stealing.”

“Piracy. It’s a crime”

Tell me more, Mr. DVD.

You see, it turns out that driving Prodigy-like music in the background, which was used in the original video and was distributed to millions of DVDs, was actually pirated.

A Dutch musician by the name of Melchior Reitveldt wrote the music for the Dutch royalty organization, under the agreement that it was to be used one time at a local music festival.

Once Reitveldt realized his music was being used across the world without his permission, it took him quite a bit of time and effort to actually collect his royalties from that same Dutch royalty organization, which had cheated him earlier and which was crying about piracy.

Anyhow, I’m not here to talk about copyright.

But copywriting, on the other hand, we can discuss.

You see, today I was writing an advertorial for a dog seat belt. I didn’t even know these existed until a few days ago, but it makes perfect sense.

Your dog goes in the car.

If he’s not restrained, he can jump in your lap while you’re driving, jump out the window when he sees a biker, or get catapulted when you hit the brakes.

It seems that woke dog owners are fully aware of this fact.

And one statement many dog owners repeatedly made was an echo of the piracy ad:

“You wouldn’t let your toddler walk up and down the back seat… So why would you let your dog do it?”

There’s something here.

In fact, the great Gary Bencivenga used this argument as well, when selling premium, fresh-pressed, mail-order olive oil:

“You and I insist on fresh milk, fresh eggs, fresh fish, fresh meat, and fresh produce. Don’t we deserve fresh olive oil???”

So in short, this “You wouldn’t… So why would you…” formula can often (not always, see the piracy ad above) be an effective sales argument to throw in.

And since I first noticed this argument in that Gary B. sales letter, I will from now on call it the “fresh fish” argument to help me remember it for the future.

On an entirely other note:

If you need fresh advice on how to get started as a copywriter, specifically on the online platform Upwork, you might be interested in my upcoming book on the topic.

To get notified when I finish it up and make it available, sign up below:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/

4 lessons from the ongoing Parris bonanza

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Earlier today, I contributed $297 to help a guy named Taki beat cancer.

I’ve never met Taki. I have no special connection to him. I’m also not naturally the type to contribute to charitable causes. So what gives?

Well, as the GoFundMe page says,

“If you donate $297 or more, Parris Lampropoulos will send you a thank-you gift. Just email him your donation receipt.”

Let me explain what this is all about.

1. Name recognition

I’d first heard of Parris Lampropoulos through an interview on Clayton Makepeace’s site.

Clayton is (or was?) a super successful copywriter.

And he regularly interviewed other super successful copywriters, including Parris.

After reading the interview, I was curious to see whether Parris had a blog, or a newsletter, or a book, or a copywriting course…

And he didn’t. He seemed to be a secretive, off-line kind of guy. A shame, I thought, and I filed the name Parris Lampropoulus away for later.

That’s an important point — I knew the name. Because then…

2. Touch-point barrage

About a week ago, it started to trickle in.

First, I read an email from Ben Settle.

Parris Lampropoulus is finally making available his copywriting wisdom! And for ridiculously cheap! And all in an effort to help his cousin Taki beat cancer!

Ben was the first, but certainly not the last, to make this announcement.

Over the next few days, I saw David Garfinkel, Brian Kurtz, Abbey Woodcock, David Deutsch, and probably somebody else I’m forgetting also promoting Parris’s offer. Here’s why this barrage mattered:

3. Sell to buyers

After I first heard of the Parris offer, I got excited. I then told myself to cool off.

“You’ve got enough copywriting books and courses to last you the next five years,” I said to myself. “Why buy more?”

But the thing is, over the past year or two, I’ve started freely spending money on good information. And I’ve found I never regret it.

In other words, I always get more out of the info I bought than what I paid for it. Maybe through winning new client work, or through being able to charge more, or through some mysterious opportunities opening up.

So in many ways, I was an ideal prospect for this offer. And when I got a second reminder about Parris’s offer — and a third, and a fourth, all from independent quarters — my initial resistance wore down quickly.

And there was one last thing that helped.

4. The charitable opportunity

Some people probably took up Parris on his offer specifically because they wanted to help Taki. But like I said, I’m not the type to contribute to charitable causes (yet — maybe this first experience will be a crack in the floodgates).

Still, the charitable offer did help to convince me to pony up $297. I realized this when I considered the alternative.

If this had simply been a new course launch, I probably would have held off.

A part of why is urgency — Parris will take this offer down once the funding goal is reached, and that probably wouldn’t have been true with a regular course.

But another part of it is the fire sale element of all this.

People rush to a fire sale because they feel they must be getting a steal. Because they think they are taking advantage of somebody else’s time of need.

I’m not proud of it, but I realize that, somewhere not very deep down, there was an element of this in my motivation to seize this opportunity.

So there you have it.

My analysis of an easy, enjoyable $297 sale, or rather purchase.

I think Gary Halbert once wrote that, if you want to do direct mail, you should buy stuff through mail, and allow yourself to enjoy the process. That way, you can understand what the process is like for one of your customers — to have doubts, to make the decision, to be excited about the purchase.

That’s what I did today. Besides, of course, helping a guy named Taki and getting a valuable and rare item for my copywriting library.

Anyways, if you’re selling something online, I believe you should be able to use any of the four points above to sell a little more of whatever it is you’re selling.

And if you’re interested in taking Parris up on his offer, before the fundraising target is met, here’s the link to the page that describes everything you get:

http://o.copychief.com/parris-lampropoulos

A swiped skeleton for solutions to chronic problems

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A while ago, I listened to an interview with Harlan Kilstein, a big copywriter in the health space.

One thing Harlan talked about how he swipes ideas from other marketers.

“The key,” Harlan said, “is to swipe across industries.”

In other words, don’t copy weight loss promotions if you’re selling weight loss. But do look to weight loss promotions if you’re selling, say, a kidney disease book. Which is exactly what I did a couple of years ago.

I was supposed to write a new version of the VSL for The Kidney Disease Solution. At the time, this was a top-50 Clickbank product.

Look, I thought to myself, kidney disease is a chronic condition.

So is weight loss.

Why don’t I look at what the best weight loss promotions are doing?

And so I took the skeleton of possibly the biggest weight loss VSL of all time, Mike Geary’s Truth about Abs. It was written by Jon Benson, I believe. And it goes roughly as follows:

1. Opening story — feeling LOUSY
2. Statement of the problem
3. Success story — feeling GREAT
4. Debunking myths and disqualifying the competition
5. Introducing the product, etc.

Like I said, I applied this Truth about Abs skeleton to The Kidney Disease Solution VSL.

And the result was a 30% boost in conversion.

But that’s not all.

I believe this simple formula — basically a before-and-after story lead — works more broadly for chronic conditions.

I’ve just used it to write about an upper back brace used to improve poor posture. I could also imagine it being used for selling dating products, memory supplements, probiotics — in short, any solution to an ongoing, throbbing pain, rather than a sharp, momentary pain.

Of course, the devil is in the details.

How do you choose the right stories for the before and after?

Which myths do you debunk so that you simultaneously build up your own offer?

Well, that’s simply a matter of jog-trotty legwork.

In other words, trying out different ideas, and seeing what seems to sparkle, based on your research and your knowledge of the market you’re writing for.

Anyways, on to a completely different topic:

The chronic problem of not having enough copywriting clients.

And my solution to it.

That is, my Upwork book. It won’t teach you about the craft of copy, or even the boring legwork that’s sometimes required to come up with a thunderbolt of a VSL. Instead, it will only cover the business of copywriting. Specifically, how to get good clients through the online platform Upwork.

If this is something that interests you, then sign up below, and I’ll send you an email when I finish this book and put it up for sale:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/

Cogsworth wisdom for long-term Upwork success

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“This is yet another example of the late neoclassic Baroque period. And, as I always say, ‘If it’s not Baroque, don’t fix it!'”
— Cogsworth, Beauty and the Beast

A few weeks back, I was interviewed about freelancing on Upwork.

Nick Tubis, the guy who interviewed me, said something along the lines of, “Most successful freelancers get invited to jobs. What would you do if you’re not getting invited?”

To which I told him the truth:

Yes, I regularly get invited to Upwork jobs.

And I also regularly scroll through listed jobs, and apply to any for which I might be a good match. It worked for me at the start of my time on Upwork, and it’s working for me still. In the words of Cogsworth: If it’s not Baroque, don’t fix it!

Let me give you an example:

Earlier this year, I landed a daily email writing gig this way.

It paid $150/hr.

I didn’t get invited to this job. I found it and applied.

If I hadn’t searched for jobs that day, and I hadn’t applied, I wouldn’t have gotten this contract, which netted me about $6k before the client decided to take the work in-house.

The fact is, many potential clients who might be a perfect match for you will never find your profile.

They won’t invite you to their job.

They will pass like a ship in the night.

So my strategy now is the same as my strategy when I started on Upwork.

Each day, I take a bit of time, and go through the newest job listings.

And then, if I find something good, I send in a very brief and yet very effective job application.

It usually takes me about 2 minutes to write.

And yet, it routinely wins me 4-figure contracts, just like that daily email writing job.

I’ll lay out how I write this typical job application in my upcoming book about freelance copywriting on Upwork.

This book won’t teach you how to write copy.

Just how to win jobs, deal with clients, and get paid better and better rates on Upwork.

If that’s something you’re interested in, and you want to get notified when I finish up this book, you can sign up here:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/

Why you should disqualify your best prospects

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A true marketing tale:

Yesterday morning I got an email from a well-known copywriter.

It was a long content piece, talking about where the world of copywriting and direct response was going.

It was interesting, even inspiring.

At the end, the guy introduced his offer: mentoring for copywriters who want to take advantage of all these coming changes to become the top 1%. He wasn’t selling anything directly — rather just trying to get people to set up a kind of strategy call.

A good sales pitch.

And I was ready.

But I couldn’t really tell if it was right for me.

I still had questions, and even the free call seemed like too much commitment to make.

Now this email was probably over a thousand words long. But these doubts I had at the end could have been resolved with a few lines at most. Something like: “This offer isn’t right for you if x, y, or z.”

Would it have turned me off if I didn’t match these criteria?

Sure.

But I didn’t act anyhow.

There was still some hesitation and resistance, even though this expert copywriter did everything else right.

This hesitation can be overcome, by all things, when you state who your offer is not right for.

Don’t try to massage it either.

Be blunt and honest.

After all, why would you want people who are not qualified leads taking you up on your offer?

Just my attitude.

And it’s the same attitude I take when I talk to prospective copywriting clients.

It’s served me well so far. I’m not as far along as the A-list copywriter I’ve been writing about. But I am well-paid, and on Upwork, where I still get most of my clients, I’ve got a 100% rating.

Only taking on jobs where I know I can deliver is a big part of this. It’s another thing that disqualifying prospects helps with.

Anyways, if you want to know more of my Upwork strategy, and how I’ve managed to get to a $150/hr rate on the site that clients are happy to pay, then you’ll want to read my upcoming book on freelance copywriting on Upwork.

This book isn’t for you in case you’re looking to learn the craft of copywriting. It will only cover the business side, and only on Upwork.

If that’s something you want more info about, then sign up below, and I’ll notify you when the book is out:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/

Dog takes bus, Upwork success ensues

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A dog named Eclipse rides the bus by herself several times each week.

She even has her own bus pass.

Her owner is waiting for her at the dog park, and Eclipse takes the bus to meet him. It all happened by accident the first time — she got on first, the guy stayed behind — but now they’ve made a habit out of it.

The other passengers don’t seem to mind.

I guess it helps all this is happening in Seattle.

The liberal home of Amazon.

The platform on which I am planning on publishing my upcoming book on Upwork freelancing.

The book is titled:

“How to become a $150/hr, top-rated sales copywriter on Upwork”

And it’s going to share my experiences with the business (rather than the craft) of sales copywriting for clients on Upwork.

If you want to get notified when this book comes out, you can sign up at the link below.

And when I finish up the book, I’ll write an email, put it on the bus with its own bus pass, and send it your way. To sign up:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/

How to spoil an almost-closed sale

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“When the locomotive starts to chug from a standing start, it really works hard. The amount of commitment and energy that the train must exert is monumental. But once the train starts to move, the next few feet become easier and the next few even easier. So it is with copy.”
Joe Sugarman, The Adweek Copywriting Handbook

I’ve been writing a lot of advertorials lately.

This is for a client based out of Bangkok, who sells physical products online.

Their funnel works as follows:

Prospects first see a video ad on Facebook which demonstrates the product.

They then click through, and are taken to an advertorial (that’s where I come in).

If they like what they read, they click through once more to the sales page, where they get a chance to buy.

And here’s one recent lesson from this project:

It has to do with a first-person, story-based, blog-style advertorial I wrote for a neck brace.

The first version of the advertorial was profitable, though barely so. The client asked me to come up with another version, to see whether we could increase conversions. I told him to simply test out two small changes:

1. Swap out the current headline for a Gary Halbert-style classic along the lines of “The Amazing Direct Mail Secret Of A Desperate Nerd From Ohio”

2. Insert a new lead that immediately offers a discount, with a link to the sales page (only then followed by the current story lead)

My client tested these two things out.

The new headline seems to have made quite an improvement, and is beating the old control by about 30%.

The new lead however, is underperforming the old control.

It seems that, even though prospects already know what the product is all about (thanks to the long video ad on Facebook) and are largely sold on it, they still need to read copy, and a lot of it, to get fully convinced to buy.

It was worth testing.

Now that the results are in, however, it’s really a reiteration of some old-school copywriting principles.

Very much along the lines of what Joe Sugarman, who ran a direct marketing empire that included such classics as BluBlockers, talks about in the quote up top.

You’ve got to get people reading.

You’ve got to get the train moving.

And only once it’s full steam ahead can you break through the last bit of buying resistance that’s holding prospects back.

Anyways, enough about advertorials.

Onwards and upwards to sales emails.

If you haven’t yet signed up to get a free copy of my upcoming book on email marketing, perhaps this post has stoked the old steam engine enough to get you interested.

If that’s the case, here’s where you can sign up:

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

A non-plastic straw to stir up creativity

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Somewhere in the jungles and rain forests of Bali, a woman named Elora Hardy has built a house.

It’s not any usual house mind you, but something pretty spectacular and otherworldly:

No plastic

The thing is, this crazy design didn’t just arise from Hardy’s brain, or from the brain of the other designers at Ibuku, her architecture company.

Instead, it was largely a response to the demands of bamboo, the building material they chose to use. In Hardy’s own words:

“The construction industry, the design world, just relies on materials that will bend to your will. Like plastic. People love plastic because you can just make whatever shape you want out of it. You can mould it, you can color it, it’s like the ultimate vanity. […] The team and I could never have come up with this on our own. It was totally driven by the form and the shape of the material we chose to use.”

And yes, this design stuff also applies to copywriting.

Namely:

If you are having trouble coming up with a good idea, odds are you are allowing yourself way too many options.

Enforce some quick barriers, and watch the ideas pour in.

Here are a few such barriers I’ve set up for myself on earlier posts in this blog:

1. Tie in the latest movie I’ve seen
2. Demonstrate the marketing principle I’m talking about
3. Work in 2 or 3 randomly chosen and unusual phrases
4. End with a call to action
5. Tease the main idea without giving it away
6. Tell a story

You get the idea.

There are a lot more of these creative barriers or requirements.

And setting them up for yourself is not just a cute game — not by a long chalk.

It’s serious business.

Because the resulting copy that you write will be much more interesting, much more lively and unique, and will therefore sell much better.

In other words, thunderbolt city.

This is is why I’m putting together a list of such effective self-imposed barriers — including the ones above, but also many more.

And I’ll put it in my upcoming book on profitable email marketing for the health space.

For a free copy when it comes out, head on over here:

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

The secret online fountain of the truth

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“You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about in parties, you WANT me to be overweight, you NEED me to be overweight.”

Sometimes you gotta probe a little.

For example, I heard Ben Settle mention on his podcast, and maybe in a recent Email Players issue, how you get to the bottom of your market’s worst fears.

You first ask them (for example), “Why would you want to lose weight?”

“Because I don’t like the way I look and it’s unhealthy.”

“I see. Any other reasons?”

And then they think. And think. And if you’re lucky, the real story comes out:

“To tell you the truth, I was in a store yesterday and as soon as I came in, this snotty-looking sales girl intercepted me at the door and she said, ‘We don’t have anything in your size.’ I just got so humiliated and furious I decided something had to change.” (True story, by the way.)

You see, it’s that second, follow-up question which really gets the deep, dark, painful reasons why people do what they do.

It’s like the climax in A Few Good Men.

Tom Cruise’s character keeps probing and probing, asking just one more question…

Until he gets Colonel Jessup, played by Jack Nicholson, to expose himself and yell out the famous line:

“YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!”

Well, as a copywriter and a marketer, the issue is not that I can’t handle the truth.

Rather, the trouble is that I often can’t get at it.

After all, I rarely have my prospects before me.

I don’t have Colonel Jessup sitting in a courtroom either, waiting for my interrogation.

Instead, I have to go online and do some sleuthing to try to uncover THE TRUTH rather than those surface-level answers everybody is programmed to give.

The trouble is, all the typical places that you will hear recommended — Facebook, Instagram, personal blogs — are full of social posturing, and they don’t actually show people’s dark and scaly underbellies.

However, I do have a reliable way of getting that information.

In fact, just as an exercise, I tried to come up with THE TRUTH for a typical person interested in essential oils.

Within a few minutes, I had an avatar.

Yes, I found out what this person looks like, what her hobbies are, what her favorite TV show is…

But I also found out what rare disease she has, her personality type, and her insecurities around her friends .

This is NOT stuff that you will ever find on Facebook.

But it is out there, right on on the Internet savannah — if you know where to look. And though it might seem creepy, it’s a necessary part of the research you have to do if you are going to target an audience effectively.

Anyways, if you want to know what this deep fountain of personal information is, you’re in luck.

I’ll talk about it in more detail in my upcoming book.

Sign up below and I’ll send you a free copy when I’m finished with it:

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

Gattefossé’s un-accidental discovery

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The legend goes like this:

The year was 1910. And a French perfumery chemist, named René-Maurice Gattefossé, was working in his laboratory as per uzh.

Except this day, the lab experiment went bad. There was an explosion, and Gattefossé’s hand got badly burned.

In a moment of fright and shock, Gattefossé dipped his burned hand into the nearest vat of liquid, which just happened to be…

Lavender essential oil. (He was a perfumery chemist, remember?)

Over the coming days, Gattefossé observed the disgusting pulp of his hand. It was healing well. Scarring was minimal. He recovered wonderfully.

Impressed by these results, he went on to dedicate his life to studying the health benefits of essential oils. And, the legend concludes, that’s how the modern field of aromatherapy was born.

The end. Only one problem:

This is not exactly how it happened.

Gattefossé tells the actual story himself in his book Aromatherapie.

Yes, his hand got burned (in fact, both his hands), and yes, he used lavender oil to help the healing. But the most dramatic element of the story — the accidental dipping into the vat of lavender oil — seems to be made up. Instead, Gattefossé already knew of the healing benefits of lavender oil, and he used lavender oil in a methodical process to treat his hand once the fire was already out.

Somehow though, the true story doesn’t sell.

Which brings up an important point if you ever want to persuade people. Just because a story is true, doesn’t automatically make it good sales copy fodder.

For example, the “accidental discovery” plot will almost always beat out the “slow and methodical progress” plot.

My gut feeling is that this comes down to that old Jim Camp favorite, vision.

It’s easy and dramatic to imagine Gattefossé screaming out in pain and dunking his hand into the nearest vat of liquid. It’s not so easy to imagine him, at some uncertain time later on, using lavender oil to perform a precise and tedious intervention on his burn.

Of course, this applies to emails as well.

And no, you don’t have to make anything up to have successful sales emails. But you do have to choose your stories well.

If you want to see some of the stories I’ve successfully used to promote health products (supplements, info courses), then take a look inside my upcoming book on email marketing for the health space. You can get a free copy when it comes out by signing up below:

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