Like Hollywood celebs, A-list copywriters come and go.
Gene Schwartz… Gary Bencivenga, Parris Lampropoulos…
That’s only natural. People age and the market demands new stars.
But what’s not natural is to have a modern-day A-list copywriter introduce a new insight about copywriting.
After all, pretty much all wisdom we have about copywriting was written down around the time that Marlon Brando was screaming “Stella” and redefining what it means to be an actor.
And yet, these new breakthroughs sometimes happen. Case in point:
Dan Ferrari and his “occasions.”
I’ve written about Dan aplenty in these emails. But the short version of his bio is that he was a top copywriter at the Motley Fool, starting around 2013…
Before going out on his own and becoming an even more successful freelance copywriter.
So let me tell you about one new bit of copywriting wisdom I heard from Dan Ferrari. This happened on a call he did with Kevin Rogers of Copy Chief.
Dan was breaking down his “Genesis” promo. This sales letter beat the previous control by over 300%.
(And if you read my email from yesterday about the fickleness of “beating a control,” let me add that the client in this case was Green Valley Natural Products, which hires the best copywriters and is actually owned by an A-list copywriter, Lee Euler. In other words, that previous copy must have been at least decent.)
Anyways, while talking about this promo, Dan made a small comment, something along the lines of:
“I always look for an occasion or an event to tie my copy into.”
This was something I’ve never heard anyone else talk about. It was entirely new, at least to me. And it took me a while to find out what Dan meant by this.
I guess this occasion stuff came natural to him because of his background in writing financial copy.
All financial promos are sensitive to news and current events, because markets are sensitive to news and current events.
But Dan’s insight was that other markets are the same too.
Your prospects also want to know what the occasion is of your writing.
Are you selling a completely new invention that nobody’s heard of until now? And if not, why are they only hearing from you now, and not five years ago?
This is a question you have to answer for your readers. You have to create an “occasion” for your sales letter.
It might seem like a trivial thing to focus on, but it can make the difference between A-list copywriting and everything else.
For more info on A-lister copywriting tactics, you might like my daily email newsletter.