Copywriters Podcast

Today’s show is important for everyone involved in copy. It’s especially important for the big thinkers, the visionaries, the big-picture people. We’re going to talk about a subject that makes some people quake in their boots. And that subject is details. They are not as easy to deal with for some people as they are for others. Details do not seem as important as The Big Idea to a lot of marketers...

Let’s talk story. Experienced copywriters know that a story is the best way to introduce a product, bring a benefit to life, answer objections, and do a whole lot more. Why? Because stories galvanize the attention of your prospect. A story reaches deeper into the mind of someone, deeper than any other form of communication. But somewhere along the way, Hollywood got in the way, as it has a habit o...

When you are a copywriter, do you look at the world differently? Old Master Clyde Bedell emphatically says yes. Clyde Bedell is not all that well known these days. We featured his work last year in an episode where we talked about his seven keys to believability. Though he’s not all that well known today, decades ago Bedell was one of the top guys you would turn to if you want to learn how to writ...

The quote you are about to read is from a letter not written by today’s special guest and returning champion A-List copywriter, Mike Pavlish. This from a very controversial Old Master, the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. In a letter to author Marie Bonaparte, grand-niece of Napoleon Bonaparte, Freud wrote, “Despite my 30 years of research into the feminine soul I have never been able to...

In an earlier part of this century, I produced an audiobook with my late friend and mentor Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the bestselling Guerrilla Marketing series. It was called “Guerrilla Copywriting.” I’m sad to say Jay’s no longer with us, and neither is the audiobook. It’s out of print. So I’m free to share my half of the material. This is the fourth and final installment of the tips. I’ve e...

If you’d like to find out about one of the largest and most lucrative niches in copywriting, today’s show is just for you. Supplement copy is that niche, and our guest today is an expert on writing copy and building offers for health supplements. Steve Erl has written copy for some of the best-known names in the business. His clients include Newmarket Health, Dr. Al Sears, Pure Health Research, Bi...

Our returning champion is Joshua Lee Henry, the high-powered copywriter and copy chief. He should be a familiar name and face to you by now, with his four great previous appearances on the show. He’s talked about writing leads and offers. And he even did the first and only guest Old Masters Series on this show, about John Caples. Joshua has a very impressive copywriting background and is currently...

Long before there was even TikTok, there was a company called Sherwin-Williams. Their famous logo showed a planet-sized can of paint pouring onto a globe, with the tagline “Cover The Earth.” They still use that logo today. But I think in spirt, if not in reality, they need to share their slogan with AI. Because AI is drenching its way into everything. We have a guest today, and he’s our returning...

On December 1, 1975, a giant in direct mail died. That was Ed Mayer, who had written a definitive book on the subject 25 years earlier, called “How To Make More Money With Your Direct Mail.” Mayer was a man of many hats—a practitioner, an industry executive, and a teacher. In his obituary, the New York Times reported that Mayer had taught more than 20,000 college students and business executives t...

When you’re being bold and aggressive with your copy, there’s a three-word question you really need to ask: “Is it legal?” That’s because, very simply, you’re putting your business at risk if it’s not. Today we have an expert who lives with this question all the time, and helps his clients get the best answers. Robert Freund is an experienced advertising attorney who focuses his practice on social...

One of the most powerful forms of stories for copywriters is the case study, and I think it’s fair to say most of us don’t use as many of them as we should. Today we’re going to talk to an expert who has vast and successful experience in this kind of marketing. Our guest today, Joel Klettke, is the founder of Case Study Buddy, a business that helps companies like HubSpot and Loom to scale up their...

We’ve been talking about AI on this show for a while, and today we’re going to roll up our sleeves. Well, Nathan is, anyway. I may ask a few questions or make some comments, but Nathan is center-stage today. That’s because he has figured out how to use ChatGPT to assist him with writing his emails. They key word is “assist.” It does require work and thought on the human’s part. But, the good news...

The question is: How do you bring your prospect right there when they are reading words you have written, maybe thousands of miles away? The answer was revealed 99 years ago, but it’s not widely talked about in copywriting. Until today. In this special episode of our Old Masters Series, we look at a book by George Hotchkiss published in 1924. He has some ideas about using techniques novelists and...

In the great financial meltdown of 2009, Colin Chung lost his job with eBay. Despite having no experience in copywriting, he decided that was the next part of his career path. In 18 months, he doubled his eBay income and was earning six figures for the first time in his life. As a freelance copywriter. In one year, he doubled it. Before long after that, Colin was making really big bucks. Not only...

About a month ago we did a selection from my half of the no-longer-available Guerrilla Copywriting audiobook. It was so popular, we thought we’d do it again. Here’s some background: Sixteen years ago, in 2007, I produced an audiobook with my friend and mentor Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the bestselling Guerrilla Marketing series. Jay and I originally thought about doing a book together, but tha...

You can’t go a day in copywriting without someone bringing up AI. It may not have taken over copywriting yet, but it has definitely taken over the conversation. In case you haven’t gotten your feet wet yet with GPT 4, Jasper, Copy AI or any other one of the handful of AIs people are currently using, I can tell you, people ARE using it, in predictable and unpredictable ways. Today Nathan and I disc...

Today we look at bullet points in an exciting new way. Now, in copy, bullet points in copy are specialized and different from bullet points everywhere else. Because in most forms of writing, bullet points condense facts and offer a summary. Not in copy, though. See, in copy, bullet points are condensed, emotionally driven, focused statements or promises that are sometimes powerful enough, by thems...

Today we return to Old Masters Series with a guy I’m going to call The Godfather of Creativity, Alex Osborn. He’s best known for inventing brainstorming, which was first used at his advertising agency BBDO (the O was for Osborn). But he has done a lot more than that. For example, in 1954 he co-founded the Creative Education Foundation. And he’s written a number of books. The best-known one was the...

Three weeks ago we did a selection from my half of the no-longer-available Guerrilla Copywriting audiobook. It was so popular, we thought we’d do it again. Here’s some background: Sixteen years ago, in 2007, I produced an audiobook with my friend and mentor Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the bestselling Guerrilla Marketing series. Jay and I originally thought about doing a book together, but that...

People outside of marketing and copywriting might think “swiping” is something you do on your phone with a dating app, or maybe that it’s slang for shoplifting. Not wrong, but today we’re talking about what copywriters and marketing strategists mean when they say “swiping.” And that is, taking a proven form (whether that’s actual words or something a little more conceptual) and finding a way to us...

We’ve got a very special episode today in our Old Masters series—featuring some wisdom from David Ogilvy. He was legendary in advertising during the Mad Men days. Kenneth Roman wrote a book about Ogilvy called “The King of Madison Avenue.” I believe his book “Ogilvy on Advertising” was the only book on the subject to reach widespread bestseller status, far outside the reaches of the industry. Over...

Sixteen years ago I produced an audiobook with my friend and mentor Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the bestselling Guerrilla Marketing series. Jay and I originally thought about doing a book together, but that never happened. The audiobook was called Guerrilla Copywriting. Unlike a lot of things he did and I lot of things I’ve done, it didn’t sell that well. I don’t think either of us had the band...

Today we took a new look at an old question: What does it take to become a really, really good copywriter? I wanted to answer this question by zeroing-in on the path of mastery. I’ve been learning about the path of mastery for a long time. What I found out goes against what I learned in school and what I see on TV and in the movies. Our culture celebrates achievers but it does NOT respect the path...

Today we returned to the Old Masters Series, but with a twist. We used some secrets from one Old Master to look at the famous work of another. This all came about last week, when I was going over the chapter on Intensification in Breakthrough Advertising with a client. Breakthrough Advertising, of course, is Gene Schwartz’s masterwork on copywriting. Part 2 of the book is seven chapters on “the ba...

Today’s podcast is about a topic that is so important, we quote from three Old Masters, even though this is not an Old Masters Series show. The topic is: making your copy believable. Two of the Old Masters, right now. In his book “Ogilvy on Advertising,” David Ogilvy writes these words: “Says James Webb Young, one of the best copywriters in history: ‘every type of advertiser has the same problem:...