Today we’re back with Peter Visser, who has developed an impressive business with partners. It’s an online education business that teaches people how to trade in the stock and Forex markets. What I found so interesting, and I think you will find it interesting too, is his marketing approach. While it seems typical at first glance, as you start to look into it a little further, it’s not typical at all. In last week’s show, we talked about how he sells to a webinar with ads he says are “‘zero-clai...
Jan 01, 2023
Today our guest is Peter Visser, who has developed an impressive business with partners. It’s an online education business that teaches people how to trade in the stock and Forex markets. What I found so interesting, and I think you will find it interesting too, is his marketing approach. While it seems typical at first glance, as you start to look into it a little further, it’s not typical at all. He sells to a webinar with ads he says are “‘zero-claim,’ so they always pass compliance.” The ads...
Dec 26, 2022
We’re back with top copywriter Mike Pavlish for part two of his in-depth information on video sales letters that sell like crazy. And Mike should know. He’s written dozens of VSLs that have brought in 10 million dollars or more. In fact, over the last 30 years, Mike’s copy has brought in three-quarters of a billion dollars in sales. And his work is still bringing in the big bucks today. I want to share with you something from last week, because it’s well worth repeating. High-powered entrepreneu...
Dec 19, 2022
Our returning champion is superstar copywriter Mike Pavlish, and even though this is Copywriters Podcast, I’m not exaggerating when I say “superstar.” Mike’s been at it for over 30 years, and his copy has sold three-quarters of a billion dollars in products and services. Because Mike is going to give us some closely-held secrets about VSLs that sell like crazy, you ought to hear what one of his clients says about Mike. I happen to know this client, because he flew over from Singapore nearly 10 y...
Dec 12, 2022
For a lot of us, the hardest part of writing copy is getting started. Today we’re going to dive into some very handy tips from Old Master John Caples. He is, of course, famous for his ad which has the headline, “They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano… but When I Began To Play… ” Caples was what we would call today a data-driven marketer. He made his choices based on test results as much as anything else. He was highly successful and author of some of the best books every written on direct res...
Dec 05, 2022
How would you like to DOUBLE your conversions after prospect opt-in for a lead magnet? I mean… who wouldn’t like that, right? Now one thing that keeps us, as direct marketers, from reaching new heights, is our ingrown conservatism. Which is normally a good thing. When something works, we stick to it. Other people in marketing and advertising often seem to compete to see how much money they can waste by being “creative” and trying out whatever comes to mind in the moment. Meanwhile, direct market...
Nov 28, 2022
Most everyone accepts that stories are THE best way to grab and hold someone’s attention. But does that mean ANY story you use in your copy will help you with your sales? A lot of people seem to have never asked or considered that question. Today we dig into it. You see, Joseph Campbell’s 1949 book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” eventually launched a revolution in storytelling. Especially among professional storytellers. Campbell’s idea of The Hero’s Journey has become accepted truth as THE wa...
Nov 21, 2022
Our guest today is a true A-List Copywriter. Doug D’Anna has written for just about about any major direct mail publisher you can think of. His client list includes Agora, Boardroom, Forbes, Prevention Health Books, Personal Finance, and dozens of other big-ticket clients. Like just about every other copywriters starting out, Doug was severely underpaid for his work at first. He turned that around on a project that earned him one-quarter million dollars in royalties about 30 years ago. He kept o...
Nov 14, 2022
Our guest today is Joshua Lee Henry, a high-powered copywriter with a very interesting career before he started writing copy. That began 12 years ago, when Joshua wrote fundraising letters for victims of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. At the time, he was also a pastor for a megachurch with more than 5,000 members. Fast forward to 2018, when Joshua started freelancing and wrote for big names including Jay Abraham, Brian Tracy and the Zig Ziglar corporation. Like a number of high-performing copywri...
Nov 07, 2022
Today’s show is our attempt to answer this question: How do you add more impact to every single sentence? It started last week when I read this article from The Economist. It’s a British magazine, and it used to be my favorite. I hardly read it at all anymore. But… I was scrolling through Twitter and the AKA, also called the All-Knowing Algorithm, served up an ad for an article in The Economist with the headline, “What to Read To Become a Better Writer.” So, I clicked. You know, many people say ...
Oct 31, 2022
If you’ve been a copywriter, a media buyer, or a business owner for a while, you have probably realized there are things that happen in this business that people don’t talk about a lot. At least publicly. I’m talking about stuff that you kinda wished you knew about ahead of time, so you wouldn’t be so floored when it happened to you. Copywriting and direct marketing make up a great business, and I’ve found most people, most of the time, are pretty decent. But not everybody all the time. And I kn...
Oct 24, 2022
This is a unique edition of our Old Masters Series, because I knew this copywriter personally. It’s Joe Sugarman, and Joe passed away in March of this year. I was sad to see him go, as were thousands of others. Outside of the direct marketing world, Joe is known for his BluBlockers sunglasses, which he took to great success using infomercials. Joe also came up with the Batman credit card. He printed up a huge number, only to find DC comics wasn’t interested in selling them. So he gave them away ...
Oct 17, 2022
Our guest today, Jason Strachan, went through a powerful turnaround over 10 years ago. He was deeply in debt, not doing especially well as a copywriter. He heard about Gary Bencivenga’s famous “Bencivenga 100” seminar in New York, but there was no way he could pull the money together to attend. However, when Gary offered the seminar on DVD, Jason moved heaven and earth, and might have missed a couple meals, to come up with the money to buy the recordings. And what he learned changed his life. Ja...
Oct 10, 2022
Our guest today has a unique vantage point in copywriting. As an executive at Boardroom for 34 years, Brian Kurtz worked with many of the most successful and famous copywriters of our time, including Gene Schwartz, Gary Bencivenga, and many others. As the guy in charge, Brian was responsible for selling well over one billion dollars’ worth of products, “$39 at a time,” to millions of people. Seven years ago, Brian started a second career writing books and running mastermind groups. As well as re...
Oct 03, 2022
He’s back -- and I’m talking about Copywriters Podcast’s very own, Nathan Fraser. Nathan’s out with a new book, Sales Funnel Cheat Codes. This is my favorite book of his so far, because it’s so right-on target and full of useful strategies and tactics for putting together a sales funnel that works. The book is chock-full of systems, funnel diagrams, strategy, and simple rules to save you from a lot of mistakes and help you make a lot more money. We had a lot to cover on today’s show. Here’s what...
Sep 26, 2022
OK, we’re back with part 2 of deep headline wisdom from Old Master John Caples and his book “Tested Advertising Methods,” originally published in 1932. Last week we covered the first half of his chapter called “Twenty-nine formulas for writing headlines,” and like I said last week, this chapter is pure gold and no fat. This week we cover the second half. There was simply too much in one chapter to cover it all in one show. Now these formulas are simple, and in most cases you have to do the heavy...
Sep 19, 2022
Today we go deep into the headline wisdom of Old Master John Caples and his book “Tested Advertising Methods,” originally published in 1932. What’s so important about this book for today’s show is, it contains a chapter called “Twenty-Nine Formulas For Writing Headlines,” and this chapter is pure gold, no fat. It’s hard to appreciate the immense value of what he says in this chapter. I had to go through it several times to make it into podcast material. It’s clear and simple, but it’s dense. In ...
Sep 12, 2022
Our Old Master today begins a chapter of one of his books with this question: How do you cope when readers do not believe what you have written? And, he answers it: You plug the gaps where belief leaks out. Sounds like a great plan, but it leads to two more questions: 1. What are those gaps? and 2. How do you plug them? Now what’s especially interesting about this Old Master is that he’s not a copywriter. But he is a very successful writer and, for my money, the best teacher of how to write fict...
Sep 05, 2022
Our guest today, Kyle Jordan, has a website where he breaks down online ad sequences. The series of breakdowns is called “Full Funnel Nudity.” We’ll get to that soon enough, but first, about Kyle: His first client five years ago was a technical marketing course company called Data Driven Marketing. As a copywriter and marketing strategist, Kyle increased the traffic to their website by about 400%; doubled the size of their email list in one year; and helped them come up with six new products. Bu...
Aug 29, 2022
A lot of copywriters would like to know how to get into financial copywriting, and our special guest today, Rob Braddock, is just the copywriter to tell you. He started his financial copywriting career about five years ago at Agora Financial, where he did well. Rob left Agora to work at WealthPress. Working with a high-powered team, he wrote copy that resulted in millions of dollars of additional sales. All told, Rob counts about $60 million in sales in his career so far. Not too shabby. He’s go...
Aug 22, 2022
Our guest today is Million-Dollar Mike Morgan, who has broken sales record after sales record with his sales letters and VSLs. Mike is now copy chief for Money Map Press, a major direct mail publisher. He’s also a still-very-active copywriter. He doesn’t have time for many podcast interviews, so we’re especially grateful that he could join us today. Here’s why he’s here: Let’s say you’ve just written a great sales letter for a product launch. Well, guess what? Your work is NOT done yet. You stil...
Aug 15, 2022
If you run ads for your business, here’s a tantalizing question for you: How would you like to increase your response by 30%, without writing any new copy? How about 300%? Impossible, you say? Don’t say that to our special guest today, Katie Switzer. Because once she explains a few things, she is going to give you real-world examples where these kind of increases have actually occurred. Katie started out as a mechanical engineer. She learned marketing when she started her own online business for...
Aug 08, 2022
The ‘R’ word is popping up a lot these days. That word is “recession,” and there’s a good reason everyone’s talking about it. Prices are going crazy. It seems like everything’s doubled in the last few months. If unemployment weren’t so low, it would be a slam-dunk and everyone would say we’re in a recession. This is important for copywriters and entrepreneurs, because there are specific strategies you can use to stay afloat and even grow your business in a recession. We’ll talk about them today....
Aug 01, 2022
After a long pause, we are back with our popular Old Masters Series. Today, a deep dive into an important part of the work of Clyde Bedell. He’s not all that well known these days, but decades ago he was one of the top guys you would turn to if you want to learn how to write copy that works. Besides being a highly successful advertiser, he was a prominent teacher. For example, he built a national sales training program for Ford Motor Company in the 1930s. When he was teaching copywriting at Nort...
Jul 25, 2022
A big question, maybe THE big question, copywriters ask themselves when they sit down to write, is this: “Where do I start?” Of course you’ve got to already know... your product and its benefits. You’ll need to put together the best offer possible. You may need an origin story for the product. Knowing the price and guarantee are important. But this is all for naught if you don’t have a deep and thorough understanding of your PROSPECT. Because if you’re selling to the wrong person -- or to nobody...
Jul 18, 2022
Our returning champion is Dr. Harlan Kilstein, who has a brilliant innovation in copywriting he’s agreed to share with us. Harlan was a guest here two years ago when he gave us some much-needed information about Facebook compliance. But don’t make the mistake of assuming Facebook is the only thing he knows anything about, because Harlan is a super-successful copywriter and entrepreneur who knows a LOT about a LOT of things. He’s written super-profitable copy for many big names in the direct-resp...
Jul 11, 2022
If you wanted to find out how to make your Facebook ads start working again, who would you turn to? Well, we’ve found someone I think you’ll like. His name is Depesh Mandalia. Besides being a successful online agency owner, with over $100 million in sales for clients to his credit, he is also a gifted speaker, coach and teacher. Depesh left the corporate world when his job kind of evaporated during the 2009 financial meltdown. But he landed on his feet and within 36 months he had his first seven...
Jul 04, 2022
I’ve been aware that there’s something out there called “TikTok,” but I didn’t pay much attention to it, other than the occasional TikTok video reposed somewhere else. The reason I didn’t pay much attention was I thought it didn’t have much to do with business, and it didn’t have anything to do with advertising. Ummm… I was wrong. TikTok had almost $5 billion in revenue last year, and it had over a billion users. Not only that. 11% of them were over 50 years of age -- old folks, like me. Then I ...
Jun 27, 2022
One of my Facebook friends asked a question in a copywriting group about whether there are more kinds of proof than what most people think of – namely, logic and testimonials. This got me to thinking. I realized there are other kinds. These other kinds of proof are just not that obvious to everyone. In fact, the less obvious they are, the more they fly under the radar, and... the more powerful they are likely to be. Proof is one of the most under-used parts of copy, but it’s one of the most impo...
Jun 20, 2022
When you’re all but done with your copy -- especially long-form copy, like a sales letter or a VSL script -- you’ve got to take one final pass to make sure everything is right. Of course you’re looking for the numbers to add up and the words to be spelled right -- you know, if you’re into “spelling,” that is. But there are bigger-picture copy edits to do. I haven’t heard much about them from other people, but our guest today, the Copywriters Podcast’s own Nathan Fraser, has a list that is going ...
Jun 13, 2022
