Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more
Today we take a deep dive into the part of copywriting that people talk about all the time. And even though people talk about this all the time, most of them don’t really understand it. That is, psychology. Not the kind of psychology you experience in a therapist’s office—although there’s a little bit of overlap. Not what you’ll find in brightly colored grid of buyer personas. Not mindset. No, we’re talking about the psychology that has to do with how people really behave. What actually makes th...
Sometimes copy fails because it’s just not executed well enough. And also, copy that simply misses the mark — doesn’t align with the target prospects and what’s on their minds — won’t do well either. But you can have all the fundamentals in place and done well, and sales can still fail to happen. Why? That would be because the strategy behind the copy was weak or even non-existent. Today, we’re talking about a blind spot that kills a lot of otherwise good copy—and how our special guest today, Ja...
Three weeks ago, we had a very special Old Masters Series show: The Art of War, Copywriting Edition. But we only covered half the book, so that made the previous episode Part 1. Today we cover the rest of the book, Chapters 7 through 13. And that makes today Part 2. Here’s what you need to know: The Art of War was written by Sun Tzu (SOOON-tzeh) about 2500 years ago, as a treatise on military strategy. The Art of War reaches far beyond military warfare, however. Business overachievers like Elon ...
In the 1980s, before Internet marketing had even really begun, our very special guest today and returning champion was working as a tech writer in the foreign exchange trading department of Bankers Trust in New York. In his new book “How The Web Won,The Inside Story of How a Motley Crew of Outsiders Hijacked the Information Superhighway and Struck a Blow for Human Freedom,” Ken McCarthy writes: “Working with foreign exchange traders taught me an important lesson about the need for speed in busin...
$6.7 million. That’s how much mega financial publisher Marketwise paid out to copywriters in royalties in 2024. And now they’re making an offer so good we had to rush today’s special guest, top copywriter and best-selling author Glenn Fisher, on the show to tell you about it. The offer is simple, yet overwhelming: FREE training from Marketwise to 12 lucky copywriters… and one of them will be offered a chance to write copy for this publishing giant. Glenn will tell you all about the training in j...
Most copywriters know the classics of our field—but today we’re drawing from a master whose work predates modern advertising by more than two millennia. In this episode of Copywriters Podcast, we’re unpacking Sun Tzu’s The Art of War—a book written over 2,500 years ago, yet still shaping strategy for business titans like Elon Musk and Marc Benioff. While it was originally written as a guide to military conquest, The Art of War has long been praised for its universal principles of strategy and pe...
It may have been the furthest thing from what he was thinking when our special guest today, John Caprani, ventured into copywriting. But he’s come up with a fascinating specialty that’s worth paying attention to, and that’s Local Celebrity Advertising. See, we all know what so-called “omnipresence” is online. That’s when your prospects see you everywhere, and so they become familiar with you, in the same way they become familiar with a celebrity. John was working as a construction project manage...
One way that AI can save you from expending massive amounts of blood, sweat and tears is a way that a lot of people aren’t using. And that involves its incredible ability to analyze, find trends, and organize information. On the face of it, all that sounds pretty boring and hardly applicable to copywriters and business owners. But today’s returning champion, Cath Reohorn, has used her impressive imagination to come up with some incredibly simple, smart and powerful ways to use AI that are VERY i...
Can you picture yourself having the guts and imagination to bring 14 of the top copywriters in the business together to share their best action steps using AI to make money and/or save time? I certainly couldn’t, but our guest today is an adventurous man and a successful copywriter-wrangler. Because he did it. Please welcome John McIntyre, who recently invited me and a host of others. This wasn’t a theoretical roundtable. Each of us had to give ONE workflow, technique, or method we were using AI...
Yesterday, Facebook wiped out a bunch of groups without warning. And just like that, some creators lost their entire audience. That’s why today, we’re talking about the one platform you actually own — your email list. Apparently some of the groups were deleted by accident and reinstated. But others were deleted permanently. No one outside of Facebook’s Menlo Park, California headquarters really knows why this happened, but it does point to something our guest a couple of shows ago, Evelina Kagan...
With the rapid spread of AI, will there even be a future for copywriters? Both new and experienced copywriters are plagued by that same question. And it’s a good question. Because there are plenty of solid arguments that go like this: With the rapid growth of AI, soon there won’t be any need for human copywriters. And in some cases, that’s 100% true. The good news is, there are also some powerful counter-arguments that say there will definitely be a need for copywriters, and still some great opp...
When you turn a prospect into a customer, are you delivering and getting the most value you can? A lot of people have lame, generic welcome sequences because they know they have to say something… but they really don’t know what to say or how to say it. Our very special guest today aims to change all that. She’s Evelina Kagonovitch, and she has gotten big numbers that should make you sit up and pay attention: a 64% average open rate on win-back email campaign for marketing agency A 7.6% increase ...
Our returning champion is Sam Woods, who’s been using AI for business in very big ways since 2016. That’s a lot longer than most people, including me. And Nathan. And we’re both big fans of AI for copywriting! But more important for today’s show, we’re big fans of Sam Woods! And last time he was here, Sam gave us some highly valuable insights and hands-on tips for using AI with copywriting. But over the past 10 years, Sam has also developed his own methodologies, training, and frameworks for bui...
In 1911, psychology pioneer Alfred Adler resigned from the presidency of a prestigious society in Vienna—and Sigmund Freud took it personally and deemed Adler an enemy. It didn’t stop there. Freud continued to rail against Adler until Freud’s death in 1939. The details of the dispute are kind of technical and petty, and we won’t get into them today. The effects, however, were massive: Because of Freud’s opposition, Adler’s work was suppressed for decades. And this is important. See, Adler had so...
Nick Lowe had a big hit on the top 40 back in the day called “Cruel to be Kind.” Interesting idea, but how about this one? “Kind to be Kind.” Now there’s a novel idea. And it’s the guiding principle of copywriter and agency owner Cath Reohorn, who has taken this philosophy to £1 million/month in revenues for her clients. So you don’t have to do the math, that’s about $1.3 million per month. Now, how does she do it? Today, on Copywriters Podcast, you’ll find out exactly how. Now, back to the idea...
What do you do if you’ve tried and tried, six times, and what you’re trying to make happen… never happens? That was the dilemma facing our special guest today, James Allen. “I built 6 different funnels and courses that didn't make me a penny until I changed my strategy,” he says. “Finally, I built one that sold for me in my sleep—on repeat.” In my mind, that’s an evergreen money machine. James got so good at this that he helps coaches and content creators enjoy the same benefits of automated and...
You can’t fake it. It seems like you can’t force it. But when creativity shows up at the right moment — your copy comes alive. Sometimes it’s the difference between a flat headline and a breakthrough idea. Between a click and a sale. Between a promotion that falls flat and a control that blows the doors off. On the other hand, when it doesn’t show up — that’s when things get rough. Here’s the thing, though. Creativity isn’t magic. Oh, I know it seems like magic–especially when great new ideas sp...
For many people, actually doing a podcast is a lot harder than it seems. A few months ago, Riverside.fm, a major podcast platform, published an article that said, "90% of podcasts don't get past episode 3," and "of the few that continue, another 90% will quit after 20 episodes." Here at Copywriters Podcast, we understand this, but to be honest, we just haven’t done a lot ourselves to solve this particular problem. Not our jam. Our special guest today, Dumi Mabhena, has done a LOT to help podcast...
So a man says into his phone, “Siri, play Pizzetti’s Rondò Veneziano.” Siri says, “Calling Roundtable Pizza.” Pretty frustrating, right? Well, that was what AI seemed like to me just one year ago. Especially when it came to writing copy. Completely out of the question. But that has changed, in a VERY big way. So for today, I’ve put together a special report on how AI is changing copywriting. This is a report from the field. What pro copywriters and business owners are actually doing with AI. And...
One name comes up more than any other when I talk to people about copywriting and AI. That name is Sam Woods, and he’s our very special guest today. Sam has been in the game for nine years, while most of us haven’t been there half as long. And I don’t know of anyone who’s been in it longer than Sam has. He got started with machine learning in 2016 and generative AI in 2019. He was a pioneer in prompt engineering for AI copywriting, and marketing. Sam has advised Fortune 1,000 companies and teams...
What’s the opposite of a confident salesperson who makes it easy for you to buy? A nervous salesperson who jumps the gun and makes you want to run away! Today’s returning champion, Brenna McGowan, understands this difference all too well. She has mastered the arts of the pre-launch and the launch, and she knows all the big and little differences. Because besides the successful implementers, Brenna’s she’s also seen nervous copywriters and offer owners jump the gun all too often. And ruin their c...
Wouldn’t you love to have a confidential chat with a copywriter working at the highest levels of our business? Well, we can’t provide the confidential part. This IS a podcast, after all, not a Signal chat. But today’s guest, Cain Smith is on the front lines of some of the biggest businesses using direct response. So we can provide the copywriter working on the highest levels of our business part. Cain’s client list includes real estate giant Grant Cardone, financial publishing giant Agora Financ...
This episode explores how different types of writing training—school, journalism, technical, corporate, and advertising—can negatively impact copywriting. It emphasizes the importance of direct response principles: motivating action and telling the reader what to do next. It contrasts these styles with direct response copywriting, which prioritizes immediate action and sales, offering practical tips for copywriters to avoid common pitfalls and improve their copy.
Our special guest today, John Jantsch, is going to tell you about what could be the single most valuable sentence you have in your business for getting clients and customers. John’s the author of the Wall Street Journal best-seller Duct Tape Marketing, as well as three other books. Now when John talks about “core,” I’m pretty sure he’s not talking about your abs, lower back, and hip flexors. No, the single most valuable sentence John’s referring to is your core message. That’s something he also ...
You could have written the greatest copy in the world. Perfectly targeted with a killer offer. Great price. Unique and highly desirable. But I can tell you one way it is guaranteed NOT to work. And that’s if nobody reads it. Don’t laugh; it happens. There are a couple more than a dozen crucial things you must know and consistently DO to make your copy as easy to read as possible. Most people know some of these things. Very few people seem to know all of them… or at least USE all of them consiste...
Ever get frustrated with what happens when you try to get an AI to write something? According to Google Workspace Labs, the average prompt people give an AI is nine words or less. Nine words! The AI needs a lot more information than that to do a decent job for you. But the question is–what information? Today, we’re going to take a look at how AI goes so very wrong for so many people—and give you some proven ideas on what to do about it. -- Here’s a great general model for prompts, which has been...
Do storytelling skills REALLY make a difference for you? Just ask our special guest today, Parker Worth. Parker decided he had enough of high school at 16. His first job was cleaning toilets. From there, he went to electrician school and, after a few years, got a job traveling around the world as an electrician. But his own story really starts to take off when he discovers social media. That led to this advice for him: “Just hop on Twitter.” At first, not much happened. But one day he got a powe...
Today we’re talking about three new ways to use ChatGPT for copywriters and business owners, and another development from another company which is a lot lower priced than ChatGPT’s a month for its premium service. We’ll also talk a little about some other specific ways to use OTHER AIs, but a lot of our focus is on ChatGPT. Now, to be clear, I wasn’t all that hot on ChatGPT 18 months ago. But in the AI world, 18 months is more like a couple of decades. Things have changed and definitely gotten b...
One meeting of the minds reigns supreme above all others in copywriting–and that’s when the copywriter understands and addresses the same thoughts that are most pressing in the minds of their best prospect. Our returning champion today is the incredible Caleb O’Dowd. He was here a few weeks ago when he told us some closely guarded secrets from his book “Monetization: How To Optimize Sales Funnels and Skyrocket Back Ends.” Caleb has worked in some of the toughest and most competitive industries i...
One of the greatest insiders in direct response today is not primarily a copywriter, but a graphic designer. Actually, our returning champion Lori Haller is a designer… and so much more. She works side by side with many of the greatest copywriters of our time to help create control-beating packages, for clients like Boardroom, Healthy Directions, Dr. Al Sears, Nutri-Health, KCI Communications, and Agora. She has coached clients around the world, and she is an in-demand speaker and trainer. I’ve ...
