Copywriters Podcast

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 worl...

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...

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...

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 thi...

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...

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 resp...

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...

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 com...

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...

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...

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 th...

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...

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...

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 th...

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 fade...

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...

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 mad...

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 co...

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 y...

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? - Y...

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 ar...

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...

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,...

What if you have some copy and you'd like it to convert better? In this episode, David shares some closely-guarded secrets on how the pro's do that. Let's say I could show you a very special slot machine. This one only takes quarters. Every time you put four quarters in, you get five quarters back. Pretty soon, those extra quarters start to add up. Wouldn't you want to play a machine like that all...

Sometimes you'll make more sales when copy is only PART of the picture. This episode is how copy "plays well with others." If you've ever bought a direct mail list, you can get a typical compiled list for as little as 10 cents to 25 cents a name. Sometimes for even less than that. A compiled direct mail list is usually put together from publicly available records. It doesn't tell you anything abou...