Today we’re starting a new special feature of the Copywriters Podcast. It’s called Reports from the Field. These are interviews with people who are not merely EXPERTS – they are also practitioners. Right now they are implementing what they are talking about. We can all learn so much from people who are in the field and taking action successfully. Our first guest on the Copywriters Podcast Reports from the Field is Victor Urbina. I know Richard well because he is in my business owner’s mentoring ...
Mar 26, 2018
This week's episode is a little bit different. David and Nathan do a bit of a freestyle rant on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, as it pertains to writing your sales copy. For those of you who might be unfamiliar with the topic, here's what we'll be covering. Physiological needs * consumer goods * food * clothing * shelter Safety needs * personal security * financial security * health and well being Social belonging * Fitting in * Trends * Identity brands Esteem * Status symbols * Luxury items Self-...
Mar 19, 2018
As a journalist, I was trained to do “news stories” and “feature stories.” A news story started with a quick, curiosity-provoking sentence hinting or outright telling what the story was about. A feature story would start with an anecdote, or a startling fact, or something other than the direct subject of the story. Same as direct / indirect leads. What we’ll talk about today. Because which one you use can have a dramatic impact, positive or negative, on your sales. You need to know which one to ...
Mar 12, 2018
Story about recent critique client: a couple good ideas; 20. Mandy’s question about my creativity, from her podcast interview: Question 2: One other thing I noticed about reading your testimonials… your clients are impressed with how fast you come up with great ideas. He also has this ridiculous talent for coming up with copy, like, effortlessly. It would take me at least 30 minutes to come up with what he comes up with in 30 seconds. —Fran Rengel, CEO, Enrich Marketing, Inc., Austin, TX After W...
Mar 04, 2018
Native Instruments purchase - $1200 for a hard drive filled with music software and virtual instruments. This cost me more than a lot of my guitars! I called my sales engineer at Sweetwater, Brian. What he explained to me. What I’d be able to do… what I would not have to spend… or take time learning. Suddenly, it didn’t seem that expensive. Think about what it would have cost to do that in real life. Rent Davies Symphony Hall. $2500 minimum – already more than twice what I paid for the software....
Feb 25, 2018
I got this small rubber ball to squeeze to strengthen the muscles in my left hand, when I started playing guitar again a couple years ago after a 40-year “break.” You want your copy to be as strong as possible, too. Remember that good copy has a job to do… to move qualified prospects to take action. That takes muscle! Today’s episode tells you how to make your copy more muscular. Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is...
Feb 18, 2018
On June 23, 1965, a group out of Detroit called The Contours released a record which became a big hit. The tune was written by written by Smokey Robinson and Bobby Rogers, and it was called “First, I Look At The Purse.” Many other groups covered this song afterwards, including the Jay Geils Band. It’s a very interesting song… but, when it comes to critiquing copy, I have my own version. Actually, I don’t have a whole song, just a title at this point. Maybe someday I’ll write the song and then re...
Feb 12, 2018
Copywriting is a lot like magic. With good sales copy, you can hold a reader captive. You can take them on a journey and open them up a world of opportunities. You can spell out some words and cast a spell on your readers. David Allan is both a copywriter and a magician. He joins the podcast this week to share some of his knowledge with our listeners. We talk about the overlap between his two worlds, including the skills he's been able to bring over from one to the other. David reveals some of t...
Feb 05, 2018
How does copywriting apply to a sales funnel? David Allan joins us to break it down. We start with the 5,000-foot view by exploring what funnels are and how they work. Then, David goes over some simple rules to follow when building your sales funnels. We cover some of the most common mistakes people make when crafting their sales funnels. And David shares some of his favorite resources for people to learn more. If you're trying to build out a full-fledged marketing machine for your business, thi...
Jan 28, 2018
When I first started copywriting, I had a real disadvantage. I had been a journalist, and the underlying belief -- at the time -- was that people are rational: You simply give them the facts, for and against, and they will make a reasoned decision. So when I started to see promotions that were working based on emotional appeals that seemed foreign and bizarre to me, I didn't understand. It took a while. But eventually, I came to realize what every successful copywriter realizes: that people are ...
Jan 22, 2018
1 Bob story "Like my family's kitchen." My experience was a little different - Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford. I knew how to ask questions - but still hadn't learned how to ask engaging questions that helped people to open up. That's what I've spent the last 40 years learning, and I'll share what I can today with you. 0.1 Warning Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims… and/or if...
Jan 15, 2018
I remember when I was a kid, I asked my dad about the cigarettes he was smoking. Very sarcastically, he repeated words from a commercial: "For the best combination of filter and good taste, Kent satisfies best!" I smiled, but he could tell I didn't get his little joke. Then he said, "Seriously, David - it's because Kent has this Micronite filter. It filters out the harsher parts of the smoke." Dad, being a nuclear physicist, really bought into Kent's so-called "logical" Unique Selling Propositio...
Jan 07, 2018
Have you ever see a musician who's like this unimpressive guy, sort of could fade into the background at the drop of a pin. Then he picks up an instrument, and he's like in a different universe. What happened? He'd tell you, "I got in the pocket" or "I slipped into the groove." Another way to say that is, "I got into flow." What's what we'll talk about today. Advisory Copy is powerful. You're responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you nee...
Jan 01, 2018
I was at a marketing conference and ended up sitting next to a woman named Maya who had the most unusual briefcase I'd ever seen. I asked her about it and she said, I got it at the Coach store. I was planning to spend no more than $300 but the Fashion Advisor asked me some questions, and she recommended this one, based on my answers. I nodded. Then she said, I ended up spending $700. And I really hate the salespeople at the OTHER stores. But Connie wasn't a salesperson at all. She just found out...
Dec 23, 2017
They say that laughter is the best medicine. It can uplift the soul. It can make people fall in love with you. But it's one of the hardest things to accomplish in writing. And that's doubly so when it comes to copywriting. Kevin Rogers is back to join us this week. Kevin has a long history of both copywriting, and stand-up comedy. He knows what works and what doesn't when it comes to injecting comedy into your sales copy, and he's spilling the beans for you to gobble up. There's a lot of overlap...
Dec 17, 2017
Getting started is often the hardest thing for a new copywriter to do. That's why we invited Kevin Rogers on the podcast to shed some light on the topic. Kevin is the head of the Copy Chief community, an online resource for copywriters of all experience levels. And he brings a wealth of knowledge for newbie copywriters to the table in this interview. We cover: How to get clients when you're first starting out Classic mistakes new copywriters tend to make How to join the Copy Chief community and ...
Dec 11, 2017
My friend Michael owns a sushi restaurant in my neighborhood in San Francisco. His place is one of a dozen, maybe dozens, in the neighborhood - I've never taken time to count all of them. Even though the restaurant has much more seating than your typical sushi bar, it's always nearly full at dinnertime. One day I pulled Michael aside and asked him how he got so many customers. "David, it's not all that many customers," he said. "It's that the customers I have, keep coming back." Does a sushi res...
Dec 03, 2017
I started teaching writing 30 years ago, and one of the biggest challenges my students always seemed to face was the amount of time it took to write. This of course was especially true for people who had to do writing as one of a few or many tasks in their businesses or their lives. Over the years, I've developed systems and techniques that help people write faster. But I've never before shared the system for writing copy faster than I'm going to share today. This one is based on some of the sam...
Nov 26, 2017
Copywriters are solitary creatures who spend large amounts of time alone. Yet the good ones understand quite a bit more about human motivations and behaviors than almost anyone else, including most professional psychologists. Why is that? A lot of it comes from observation and thinking about what they have observed. But more to the point, they have to… or, their copy just won't work. Last week we talked about a "core curriculum" of books people copywriters need to read. This week, we're going to...
Nov 20, 2017
When I first got into writing copy, I was having a hard time finding any good information about how to do it. So I took every seminar I could and read every book I could find. It was exhausting, and frankly, maybe not the best use of my time. Originally I put this episode together with the plan to come up with a handful of books every copywriter should read – what I wish I had known when I started. But my list got so long that I realized we were going to need two episodes to cover things fully. ...
Nov 13, 2017
The other day I was watching a TV interview with a Hollywood actor in his 80s. The interviewer asked him, "What do you think of all the new movies with special effects and robot characters?" The actor clearly didn't want to answer the question directly. Instead, he said: "What I look for in a script is three things: 1) What's the story? 2) Who are the characters that embody the story? 3) What's the emotion?" It was a good answer, and I think the third thing the old actor mentioned is also import...
Nov 05, 2017
I remember a few years ago I had had it up to here with all the bulky, complicated audio equipment cluttering up my house. I needed something simpler, faster, better. I called BH Photo Video in New York and got a salesman, Aaron, on the line who listened very carefully to me. At one point I said to him, "Listen, I am not a technical wizard. I don't want to spend 15 minutes adjusting knobs and faders just to be able to record something." "Of course not," he said. "You want to stay in a state of f...
Oct 29, 2017
I saw a story on quora.com about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Before he became California's governor and while he was still a bodybuilder, he was walking down Venice Beach in southern California. Two young women saw his huge muscles, and I do mean huge!, and one of them supposedly said, "Ewww… I would never want to look like that!" He replied, "And you never willllll." The point being, he didn't really care what other people thought about the way he looked – he was pretty confident in who he was. Now,...
Oct 23, 2017
With a few years of success under my belt as a copywriter, I started to notice there were two types of clients who were approaching me. The first kind of client was way better at what they did than their marketing indicated. The second kind of client had really exciting marketing that made big, big promises – but their level of quality didn't come close to measuring up. Once I realized this, I made a decision: I would only work with the first kind of client. I could help them because once their ...
Oct 15, 2017
Whenever you look at a bestselling book by a celebrity or a politician, the chances are better than good the so-called "author" didn't actually write it. A ghostwriter did. Good ghostwriters command fees comparable to, and sometimes exceeding, the fees of the best copywriters. One of the main reasons they get paid so well is they have the ultimate "chameleon" skill for a writer – they can write convincingly in someone else's voice. As copywriters, we are often ghostwriters for our clients. How i...
Oct 08, 2017
People always ask me, what's the difference between "copy" and "branding." My answer is: There's no difference between copy and good branding. It's copy and bad branding that are so different. Here is why: Good copy is not about you, or your product. Really. It's about the customer. What their life is like right now, and what their life experience will be like once they have your product, or use your service? That's what good copy is about. And good branding is really a condensed description of ...
Oct 01, 2017
Mike Shreeve joins us again to discuss what works (and what doesn't) when it comes to Facebook advertising. Topics covered include: - Could you take a few minutes to describe the Facebook ad landscape, the way most people see it? - What are misconceptions most people have about using Facebook ads? - What are the hard realities about Facebook rules regarding ads that frustrate most advertisers? - You’ve found ways to make Facebook ads work that most people would have considered difficult or impos...
Sep 25, 2017
Mike Shreeve is the man behind the curtain for a lot of successful people. He joins us this week to discuss how to stop chasing clients, and instead, get them chasing you. Here are just a few of the topics covered in this week's episode. - Could you talk about your own experience getting clients: What you’ve done, what you’ve learned, what you’re doing differently today than you used to? - What are the biggest mistakes copywriters typically make when they try to get clients? - What keeps copywri...
Sep 17, 2017
When I first started writing copy, it looked so easy. I had been an award-winning journalist and had nabbed the San Francisco Bureau Chief job for a large news organization. I thought it would be breeze… but that wasn't how it happened. Not at first. Copy looked very simple and straightforward to me, and, on the surface, a lot like news stories. And I was good at writing those fast! Now, the more I got into writing copy, the more I found differences that weren't obvious to me when I first starte...
Sep 11, 2017
You can improve the persuasiveness of your copy by using hypnotic language. This episode shows you how. About 10 years ago, I took a series of seminars on how to sell from the platform when you're giving a speech. The teacher was good… really good. I decided to try to figure out why he was so good. I asked him, "It sounds to me like you're taking a sales letter and making it horizontal – that is, turning the script of a sales letter into a speech."He agreed with me. But something was bugging me…...
Sep 03, 2017
