We’re back with our Old Masters Series, and this is the last part of a four-part series -- What Your Prospects Most Want To Know. I would add, what is it that they want to know right away, and whether or not you tell them might decide whether or not they keep on reading? The answer is still: What will your product, or service, do for me? But this time, we’re going to take it from a different angle. Up to now, we’ve talked about what your product can help them do, gain, and save. But this time, i...
Nov 01, 2021
The market research company Ipsos recently did a poll that found 46% of Americans believe in ghosts. I found that annoying because they didn’t ask Americans how many of them believed in monsters. It’s so important which words you use when you’re taking a survey. Ipsos also found that 7% of Americans believe in vampires, and 6% believe in zombies. With Halloween coming up, I thought this would be a good time to do a show about monsters. Specifically, the Five Monsters of Copywriting. Especially f...
Oct 25, 2021
We’re back with a special Gold Edition of Copywriters Podcast. The reason it’s a Gold Edition is because we are taking a deep dive into the gold mines of copywriting history. The two men who invented copywriting as we know it are Claude Hopkins and John E. Kennedy. And the man who hired them was Albert Lasker. I came across this book, The Man Who Sold America, which has information I’d never seen anywhere else before. That was probably because one of the authors, Arthur Schultz, is the former CE...
Oct 18, 2021
We’re back with Mike Pavlish for part two of $10-million-plus sales letters, especially in the supplement industry. As we mentioned last week, Mike is a superstar copywriter. He has written promotions for health supplements for some of the most successful supplement companies in the world, including Agora, Dr. Al Sears, Healthy Directions and many others. Mike has also written for smaller entrepreneurs who sell supplements online. All told, Mike’s sales letters and VSLs have sold more than half ...
Oct 11, 2021
Get ready for a master class in creating eight-figure sales letters, from a copywriter who has done it… over and over and over again. I’m really excited that today, we have Mike Pavlish on the show. He has written promotions for health supplements that have in many cases brought in more than $10 million apiece. And he’s done this for some of the most successful supplement companies in the world, including Agora, Dr. Al Sears, Healthy Directions and many others. Mike has also written for smaller ...
Oct 04, 2021
We’re back with our Old Masters Series, and this is part 3 of a four-part series -- What Your Prospects Most Want To Know. I would add, what is it that they want to know right away, and whether or not your tell them might decide whether or not they keep on reading? The answer is the still: What will your product, or service, do for me? But this time, we’re going to take it from a different angle. Up to now, we’ve talked about what your product can help them do and help them gain. But this time, ...
Sep 27, 2021
I’m thrilled that our guest today is Daniel Throssell, a very unconventional and highly successful copywriter from Perth, Australia. He’s the driving marketing force behind the blockbuster bestselling book The Barefoot Investor. Daniel has a slew of very impressive testimonials on his site, to give you and idea of what other top people in copywriting are saying about him: Our friend Ben Settle calls Daniel, “One of Australia’s top copywriters.” Andrew Campbell, Harmon Brothers Ad Agency, writes,...
Sep 20, 2021
We’re back with our Old Masters Series, and this is part 2 of a four-part series -- What Your Prospects Most Want To Know. I would add, what is it that they want to know right away, and whether or not your tell them might decide whether or not they keep on reading? The answer is the same as last time: What will your product, or service, do for me? But this time, we’re going into entirely new territory than we did last time. First let me say that this show is the Old Masters Series because it com...
Sep 13, 2021
We’re back with Craig Dave Carbol and today we’re going to really dig into his secrets about writing exceptional copy for eCommerce landing pages. Craig was with us last week. He has written for such well-known clients as Jon Benson and Mind Valley. But what really sets him apart are his accomplishments in eCommerce, where he has written for big brands in consumer markets like apparel, athletic gear and outdoor living. His copy has raked in more than $33 million in sales in the last year and a h...
Sep 06, 2021
As some viewers have noticed, I wear a Pinky and the Brain hat. In the excellent cartoon where this comes from, when the Brain bonks Pinky on the head with a big hammer, it’s just another event in the day. No harm, no foul. The action continues like nothing happened. We’ll get to why I bring this up very soon. But I think you are in for a jolt of a very different sort with our guest today, power copywriter Craig Dave Cobol. He specializes in copy for eCommerce sites and his copy has racked up an...
Aug 30, 2021
So, you’ve probably heard the old but very true saying that goes like this: “Writing is rewriting.” And you must know by now that it means, you rarely get it 100% right on the first draft. All well and good. But the question is, how do you know what to rewrite? How do you even know what to look for? That’s what we covered in last week’s show, but we only got through half the list. Today, we’ll get through the other half. You see, I realized, every time I critique copy, I look for the same things...
Aug 23, 2021
One of the things people ask me for the most is copy critiques. Whether it’s an A-Lister with multiple controls for a big publisher… a B-Lister gunning to become an A-Lister… or a business owner who wrote their own copy, I look at the same things. It’s interesting, because the better the copywriter, the harder I have to look. The guys who are really good make everything appear to be smooth and perfect. There’s usually a handful of tiny, almost hidden flaws. Once those flaws are fixed, the copy g...
Aug 16, 2021
We’re back with our Old Masters Series, and this topic is so big and so important that we’re going to take four shows to do it. The question is: When your prospect starts to read your copy, what is the one thing your prospect wants to know, more than anything else? I won’t keep you waiting. The answer is simple. What your prospect wants to know is: What will your product, or service, do for me? It sounds like a simple question. Maybe even a stupid question. But it is neither stupid nor simple. B...
Aug 09, 2021
We’ve got a very good show today, because our special guest is Thomas Dean Donnelly, an experienced Hollywood screenwriter. He’s also a teacher of writing all across the country, ranging from back east at Long Island University to here out west at the University of Southern California. The Hollywood Reporter ranks USC as the top university in the world for studying film. But Tom’s screenwriting credits are even more mind-boggling. He’s been at it for over 25 years, and projects he’s written for ...
Aug 02, 2021
Elmer Wheeler may have been the best-paid copywriter of all time, on a dollars-per-word basis. In the 1930s, Texaco paid him $5000 to come up with the question “Is your oil at the proper level today, sir?” In 2021 money, that was the equivalent of about $95,000 — for nine words. Or, more than $10,000 for each of those nine words. But those nine words had some other dollars attached to them as well. Texaco estimated gas station attendants who asked customers that question ended up opening one-qua...
Jul 26, 2021
We’ve had really good responses for our Old Masters Series shows, where we look at one important copywriter from the past, and people were literally falling all over themselves when we brought on Sean Vosler a few weeks ago to talk about the founding fathers of copywriting. We had to send out the special writers unit of the Copy Patrol to pick those people up off the floor. But my friend and client Jason Parker made a suggestion that kicks things up a notch even higher. The idea involves finding...
Jul 19, 2021
We’re really lucky today to have Marissa Morgan as our special guest today, and you’ll see why in just a minute or two. I met Marissa as a guest on her show earlier this year, and you’ll hear more about that in a few minutes. But that show is only the latest chapter in Marissa’s very impressive resume. Before we get to the highlights, let me share the one reason you should pay very close attention to everything she says and does today. It’s that that Marissa excels at two of the most important s...
Jul 12, 2021
One thing that’s new to you when you become a copywriter, unless you’ve owned a business, grown up in an entrepreneurial family, or been in a business-like music or acting, or professional sports -- That one new thing is risk. It’s not that risk doesn’t exist anywhere else; of course it does. It’s that there are unique kinds of risk in copywriter that will be new to you. I haven’t heard anyone else talk about this before, so I wanted to give you something you could really dig your teeth into. An...
Jul 05, 2021
Today we’re going to take a deep dive into neuroscience, which is basically the study of how the brain works. Now, deep breath. This is not a med school class. In fact, to the great disappointment of my mother, I never went to med school, and I never will. Sorry, Mom. No, this is about how the brain works when you’re reading the written word. It’s very specific and it applies to how people take in, and accept or reject, what you’ve written. So it’s narrowly focused, and great for copywriters. It...
Jun 28, 2021
For many copywriters, there comes a point where you know you have the basics covered. It’s always good to review them regularly, but what you’re looking for really is an edge here and an edge there. Stuff that gives you an advantage when you use it. These aren’t always big things. Sometimes a strategic word or phrase can give you a bump in conversion or average order value, all by itself. I’m not recommending you depend on these little things to make a big difference for you, without also coveri...
Jun 21, 2021
Our guest today is a copywriting historian and eight-figure practitioner of direct response copy. His name is Sean Vosler and I’ve wanted to have him on the show ever since I saw some of his detailed, comprehensive mindmaps connecting the early pioneers of advertising to the world of today. He’s also the founder of Increase.Academy and author of the best-selling guide “7 Figure Marketing Copy.” He specializes in helping business scale to seven and even eight figures. We’re going to talk about a ...
Jun 14, 2021
Every marketer has their favorite books and experts. One of mine is Dr. Robert Cialdini, who wrote “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.” It’s a classic and I’m sure many of you have read it and found it incredibly useful. That’s not his only book, though. Dr. Cialdini got together with a couple of friends… a prof and consultant from the UK, Steve Martin -- no, not THAT Steve Martin -- and a prof from the UCLA biz school, Dr. Noah Goldstein. They put together a neat book called “The Small Bi...
Jun 07, 2021
Today we return to our Old Masters series, but this one is really different. We’re going to look at some of the best specific advice from two people who weren’t copywriters. One was a teacher of writing who really had a big influence on playwrights and screenwriters. The other one didn’t even teach writing at all. At least not writing as we know it. We’ll get to these people in a minute. What they had in common was, they had mastered how to create works that really reached people emotionally in ...
May 31, 2021
Our guest today has taken copywriting knowledge over the paid-content platform Patreon, and he’s the first person I’ve heard to do this. Eddie Shleyner started out writing copy for some large business websites. Meanwhile, he kept some notes to himself as he was figuring out copywriting in a hectic corporate environment. One thing led to another, and there have been some pretty interesting developments, which you’ll hear about today. Here are the questions Eddie answered: 1. You’ve taken a differ...
May 24, 2021
Among those of us who watch cable television, everyone’s favorite copywriter bad boy is Don Draper of the show ‘Mad Men.’ Along with his secretary who became a copywriter, Peggy Olson, Don Draper is the reason this is the first edition of the Fictional Old Masters Series. Yes, they are fictional characters. But a lot of factual research went into creating these characters, And I was able to pluck out a few gems from the hours and hours of dialogue they spoke on the show. My goal today is to make...
May 17, 2021
I am thrilled to announce our returning champion, Ted Prodromou. Ted’s known as America’s Leading LinkedIn Coach. He’s the best-selling author of The Ultimate Guide to LinkedIn for Business, and the Ultimate Guide to Twitter for Business. We had Ted on the show not too long ago, and with all the changes going on over at LinkedIn, it was time to bring him back. He’s founder of Search Marketing Simplified, a social media marketing firm. Besides Copywriters Podcast, Ted has also been featured on En...
May 10, 2021
I’ve been reading a book called “Hackers and Painters” by Silicon Valley philosopher Paul Graham, who’s also a painter. He has a PhD from Harvard in computer science, and co-founded a startup that sold to Yahoo for about $50 million. Plus, plenty more accomplishments. Smmmmart guy. In the book, he makes a comment that really sounds simple-minded when you first hear it. But when you think about it for a little while, you realize it’s profound: “Nearly all great paintings are of people, because pe...
May 03, 2021
So, for today’s show, I’d like you to imagine you could get on the Copywriters Podcast Time Machine and travel back 31 years to 1990. Location: Key West, Florida. One of Gary Halbert’s legendary week-long seminars. Let’s take this one step further. After you get off the time machine and onto the ground, you find out you have been selected to write copy, on the spot, under Gary’s watchful eye, for people who attended the seminar. What an opportunity! Well, since all that is all imaginary, you’ll ...
Apr 26, 2021
Today we’re going to look at copywriting from an unusual angle. Not so much how to do it or what are the new developments, but what specifically does advertising do that makes it increase sales. This is part of our Old Masters Series. We’re taking from a book by the great copywriter James Webb Young, who also wrote the classic “A technique for Producing ideas,” which we’ve talked about on other shows. The book we’re talking about today is called “How to Become an Advertising Man,” originally pub...
Apr 19, 2021
We’re back with the Sherlock Holmes of marketing, Meron Bareket. He’s put the recent and planned future actions of Apple through a “Marketing MRI” and all I can say at this point is, fasten your seat belts. Big curves in the road ahead! I’ve known Meron for a few years, since he became my mentoring client. His powers of observation and analysis have always impressed me, and there have been times where I’ve had to really concentrate and think deeply just to keep up with what he’s saying… as I hav...
Apr 12, 2021
