Clayton Makepeace

This bit of advice made an A-lister’s career

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During a recent interview, A-list copywriter Parris Lampropolous shared a story from early in his career.

Back then, Parris was writing his first magalog.

A magalog, as you might know, is a format for sales copy that mimics a magazine. It was a popular way to sell newsletter subscriptions back in the 90s and 2000s, before the Internet started to have its finest hour.

A typical magalog had a main “message from the editor” that ran the length of the “magazine.” It also had a dozen sidebar articles on individual topics.

How to write all this shit? It seems like a huge amount of work, and it’s hard to know where to even start. And that’s how it seemed to Parris back when he had to write his first magalog.

So Parris asked his mentor, Clayton Makepeace, for advice. And Clayton told Parris writing a magalog was simple:

You start by writing a bunch of fascinations, aka bullets, based on the content you are selling.

Some of these fascinations will have weak payoffs. In other words, there’s a good chance the reader will be disappointed when he finds out the “secret.”

So those weak fascinations stay “blind” fascinations, and just go into the sales pitch that is the message from the editor.

But some fascinations will have great payoffs, real forehead-slapping stuff. Those fascinations become sidebar articles, and reveal the secret.

And Clayton also told Parris the following:

The first few pages of the magalog are all good content… then it shifts to being 50/50 sales and content… and by the end it’s all sales pitch.

That’s all it takes to write a magalog.

So that’s what Parris started to do, with great success. He went on to have magalog controls at major publishers like Boardroom… and some of those magalogs earned him $1M+ in royalties. In the interview, Parris said this bit of advice on how to write a magalog made his career.

“Great for Parris,” you might say. “But how am I supposed to use this info with today’s copy formats?”

I’m glad you ask. Because it seems to me the magalog advice maps neatly to writing emails to promote an information product.

​​Start with fascinations… write an email for each fascination… reveal the rare good payoff… keep the fascination with a weak payoff blind.

And if you run a campaign that’s got a deadline (and why wouldn’t you), you can even follow the magalog structure of keeping the first part of the sequence all good content… then 50/50 content and selling… and finally all teasing and pitch.

But that’s not all. You might be able to use this magalog advice for other copy formats too.

For example, tomorrow I’ll share how you can use it in a sales medium you’ve probably never heard about… the rare and elusive kindlealog.

If you’d like to read that article, you might like to sign up for my email list. It’s where my articles appear first, and with no fascinations kept blind, even the most underwhelming stuff. Click here if you’d like to sign up.

The breakthrough from the first time Parris Lampropoulos met Clayton Makepeace

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Parris Lampropoulos once told a story about the first time he got to hang out with one of his mentors, Clayton Makepeace.

At this time, Clayton was one of the most successful freelance copywriters in the world. He had a list of controls longer than a giraffe’s tail. And he was pulling in over $1M a year, back when that was Hollywood money.

In part, Clayton did it by having a stable of talented junior copywriters, including Parris, working under him.

So at one point, Clayton invited the copywriters working for him out to Lake Tahoe. And it was a sight to see.

Clayton was staying there at the presidential suite at a ritzy hotel… getting pampered with massages and facials… eating out at the fanciest restaurants… and picking up the tab for his guests.

Generous.

And for Parris, a breakthrough.

Because at that time, Parris had already been a freelance copywriter for several years. He said he knew intellectually that a freelance copywriter could make Clayton-levels of money… but he still didn’t feel it deep inside.

He needed to see it with his own eyes, in order to make it a reality in his own life. Which is exactly what happened — in the months and years following that first in-person meeting with Clayton in Tahoe.

I bring this up because:

1) It might be useful to you if you are also hoping to reach Hollywood levels of success, and because

2) On a psychological level, your prospect is the same as Parris was back then.

Your prospect might know intellectually what you’re trying to convince him of… but odds are, he still doesn’t feel it deep down.

That’s why the most common writing advice is to show and not tell. And that’s why the most common copywriting advice is to use stories and demonstration. Because these are the most powerful tools you have to drive home a point — even one your prospect has heard a million times — and finally make it real.

And then, you can make your pitch. For example:

I have an email un-newsletter, where I talk about not new, but still valuable, fundamentals of persuasion and marketing. If you’d like to subscribe, here’s where to go.

Enemies, enemies, enemies

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Famed A-list copywriter Gary Bencivenga once wrote a promotion called Lies, Lies, Lies. It was about all the scheming swindlers — the lawyers, the politicians, the IRS — working to rip off small investors.

Speaking about this promo in an interview with Clayton Makepeace, Gary said the following:

“Instead of the usual “I’m trying to sell you something,” which sort of sets up immediately in the reader’s mind a you-versus-me mentality, I found a way to shift gears by saying, “it’s you and me against these other guys.” And if you can create an enemy in your copy, that’s what happens. You set up a three-point discussion and you come around from your side of the desk to be on the reader’s side of the desk and then it’s you and the reader against the enemy that you’re railing against.”

Then and now, creating an enemy = power.

But what if you’re a peace-loving hobbit who only has good will, even towards orcs and trolls? Well, in that case, young Frodo, you have to start thinking outside the box.

To help you out, here are 10 categories you can look to for potential enemies, along with a couple of examples I just made up from the copywriting and marketing space.

By the way, I’m not telling you to go out and make war against these specific enemies. Nor am I saying these are enemies of mine. Just use these examples to get your ideas jogging around your head.

Anyways, here are 10 rocks under which you can find gruesome and evergreen enemies, enemies, enemies:

1. Industry insiders. Examples: Successful copywriters boasting about their fees and selling their “secrets.” Copywriting coaches who haven’t written a word of copy in years.

2. Snake oil salesmen. Examples: No-name marketers who have only sold copywriting courses by tricking those less experienced than themselves. Newbies who regurgitate what they’ve read but never tried writing copy themselves.

3. Government institutions. Examples: The FTC, which makes regulations to keep the little marketer down but allows big corporations to get away with murder. The FDA, which will suppress promising products, because it is in the pay of secret interests.

4. Big corporations. Examples: Facebook and Google, who will gladly take your money and sell you fake clicks. Amazon, which will take your successful product and make a clone of it.

5. Price points: Examples: Ridiculously high prices (eg. $10k) for a couple of videos. Ridiculously low prices (a free guide on how to achieve a 7-figure income).

6. Customers and prospects. Examples: Freebie seekers. Serial refunders.

7. Ways of doing business. Examples: Copy hype backed up by low-quality products. Maximizing one-time sales at the cost of long-term business.

8. Ways of leveling up. Examples: Hand-copying old ads. Writing ads for nonexistent products.

9. Ways of working. Examples: Working for an hourly wage. Not working for an hourly wage and getting paid peanuts.

10. Received wisdom. Examples: Making big promises in your headlines. Writing your body copy in choppy sentences…

… with each sentence fragment on its own line.

Still not enough enemies? Come and join my daily email newsletter. I sometimes rail against my enemies there, but these rants are reserved for my subscribers.

Marketing heresy from the world’s greatest living copywriter

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A while back, I was writing a sales letter for a probiotic and I was stuck for a headline.

The unique thing about this probiotic was that the strains it contained were proven effective in clinical studies (unlike just about every other supplement out there).

But that’s a really ugly, non-benefit-oriented feature to highlight in a headline.

So I borrowed a technique that I’d heard of in copywriting legend Gary Bencivenga’s farewell seminar. The resulting headline went something like this:

“Announcing a doctor-formulated probiotic that’s been clinically proven in controlled human studies to…”

And then it went on to list the 7 or 8 separate proven benefits that this probiotic was actually proven to deliver.

When I first heard of this headline technique, it seemed weak to me. After all, isn’t all good copywriting focused on a single, overriding idea? It certainly seems to be the conventional wisdom, and even I’ve done my part in propagating this.

And yet, here we have Gary Bencivenga, widely acknowledged as the greatest living copywriter, somebody who’s won control after control, and who’s been privy to the results of tens of millions of dollars worth of advertising tests, saying that you can have a headline that’s effectively trumpeting a half dozen separate benefits.

“Our *three* benefits are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency”

And Gary doesn’t stop there. I was just re-reading an interview he’s done with another famous copywriter, Clayton Makepeace, and I came across the following:

“I know this sounds like heresy, but I’d much rather have in a good direct mail package three or four or 10 good reasons to buy, than to have to sacrifice nine of them in favor of the one USP. The USP really can be misapplied to direct marketing where you have the luxury of closing the sale on the spot and can give one dominant reason to buy but also seven or eight other reasons. You don’t have to abide so religiously to a single Unique Selling Proposition.”

So what to make of all of this?

Maybe Gary understands copywriting at such a deep level that he can afford to break rules that apply to the rest of us.

Maybe he’s just stating in a slightly stronger form what many copywriters already do (“give one dominant reason to buy but also seven or eight other reasons”).

But maybe, just maybe, the current emphasis on “The One Big Idea” is a bit of a fad, and maybe there are other effective ways to create a successful direct marketing promotion.