Copywriters Podcast

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-response business. He’s created several very successful businesses of his own. And recently he’s come up with a “new” system to sell called Interactive Sales Letters. I put “new” in quotes because it’s not really new at all. In one way. The concept behind it has been around, and proven, for decades. But the way Harlan is using the concept is brand-new… it’s working… and that’s what he’s going to tell us about. 1. To get us started, what is an interactive sales letter and what about the results you’ve gotten so far sh

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-figure year, at first as an affiliate marketer. He began training entrepreneurs and other marketers in 2018, with something he calls the BPM method. Today he’s going to tell you about it and why it’s very profitable with Facebook in the current environment, even after Apple has clamped down on the data available to marketers. The title of this episode is “Why Nobody Can Make Facebook Ads Work Anymore.” Obviously our guest and his students still can, and what Depesh had to tell us was great. I started out by dra

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 learned about today’s guest, Emmanuelle Daigle. Emmanuelle is a marketing agency owner and the founder of TokTrend, a community that keeps business owners up to date on TikTok and Instagram reels trends. As an early user of the TikTok platform, Emmanuelle has a deep understanding of its users preferences and how to create ads that convert (because spoiler alert, your Facebook ads won't cut it there). Emmanuelle told us about TikTok from way back when, and how she has seen it evolve from its early days. She explai

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 important. Why? Because it’s going to be really hard to get people to believe you without enough convincing proof elements. And no belief = no sales. So you definitely need all the proof you can get. I’ve identified four kinds of proof the best copywriters are already using all the time, but most people don’t fully understand or even know about at all. At least some of them. And we’ll go over all four today. So we’re took a deep look at four kinds of proof. Believe me, there was some overlap between the categories. Still

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 to knock your socks off. I mean it. This is good stuff. Top pro’s know this and use this, but Nathan’s the first person to write it down and organize it, all in one place. Best of all, it’s an addition to his already very useful and extremely reasonable book, “Sales Page Cheat Codes.” Nathan told us about three simple copy-editing cheat codes that can boost the conversion power of your copy in a big way. The first one is a form of big-picture editing: Looking at two goals (your own, and your reader’s) and pretty much

As copywriters, we draw inspiration and know-how from all kinds of sources: professional salespeople… music… the sports world… fiction… even, the movies! But I have to admit, our guest today is the first copywriter I’ve ever heard of who draws her approach from The Simpsons! Yes, those Simpsons. Marge, Lisa, Bart and of course, the most unforgettable one, Homer. Copywriter Sage Polaris has come up with an ingenious system for seeing the Simpsons as personality archetypes — and using that viewpoint to reach more buyers in every promotion. Apparently it really works, too. Today she’ll tell us how she used this system to write copy for a $1.25 million launch. Overall, Sage has written copy for more than 400 clients, with millions more in sales results. Now, getting your copy to that level of performance is rare enough in and of itself. But bringing it into the frame of everyone’s favorite cartoon dysfunctional family is unique, it seems to me. Here’s what Sage told us about on the show: • The four perso

About 30 years ago, I saw my first Gary Halbert newsletter. It was printed, on paper. I was blown away. I didn’t know what I was reading. But I couldn’t stop reading it. In fact, I must have read it 20 times. I had been writing professionally myself for almost 20 years. But I knew I didn’t know how to write like Gary was writing. And for a good long while, I couldn’t figure out what he was doing. Now, I know. What Gary did, the way he wrote, was unique and is still beyond my powers of description today. I wouldn’t ever pretend that I could write the way he could – I can’t. Who can? But I did figure out a couple of key things, that launched my copywriting career and led to millions of dollars in sales. The first thing was that he knew how to sell with the written word. Which is something we’ve talked about a lot on this podcast. The second thing was that he wrote in a totally conversational way, at the same time he was selling. And that’s something we’ve never really dug into before today on this podcast. Bu

We’re back with Bill Schley, the New York Times Bestselling Author and award-winning Brand Specialist. I’ve gotten to know Bill well over the past few months, working with him on the launch of his new online program, The Brand Titans MasterCourse. I invited Bill to come back because I’ve gotten really intrigued by his approach to branding. Anyone else in direct marketing will find it intriguing, too, because there’s a seamless connection between what we do and what he does. I have to say he’s the first branding expert I’ve run across who not only states the purpose of branding is to set a company apart to maximize sales… … but also who has a proven system to show anyone in any business the exact steps to take to do just that. Bill’s been at it for more than 30 years, after getting his foundation at the legendary New York agency Ted Bates and Company, headed earlier by the great Rosser Reeves. And companies are counting on Bill even today to help them stake their claim in the competitive marketplace. Thi

If today’s guest looks familiar to you, that might be because you’ve previously seen Rabbi Evan Moffic on Fox News or CNN, where he is frequently called in for commentary and analysis on events in the news. But here’s something you probably didn’t know: Rabbi Moffic is also a copywriter! He’s a former mentoring client of mine. I’m proud of the work we did together and where he’s taken it, and I’ve gotta tell you: He has found uses for what he learned in copywriting in places I’ve never heard of copywriting being useful, or even thought of before! Evan is the senior rabbi at Makom Solel Lakeside, a 600-family synagogue in the Chicago suburbs. A Stanford graduate, he’s also an popular speaker at churches, where his goal is to bring the value of Jewish learnings to as many people as possible. Evan has written several books, including ‘What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Jewishness of Jesus’ and ‘What Every Christian Needs to Know About Passover.’ His latest book is about anti-semitism. But today, E

Let’s welcome back for his third time on Copywriters Podcast, Kevin Rogers. No matter what we do, we can’t seem to scare him away. No, actually, we’re really grateful to have him back. Kevin has been on before to talk about humor, and we greatly appreciated that. But today he’s here to talk about something different -- ten rapid-fire steps to get a first draft of your sales paper down on paper or screen. Besides being a successful and experienced stand-up comedian, Kevin is an A-List copywriter and author of “The 60-Second Sales Hook.” He’s also the founder of Copy Chief, a powerful online community for copywriters. But let’s get to his 10-step speed process. Now Kevin wants to be clear: “If you’re out to beat a control, this isn’t the process for you. When you’re writing a magalog to beat another magalog, there’s a much longer process of review, with the team, and things like that. Instead, he says, “This is for a copywriter who knows the product very well. Whether it’s your product or a client’s product.

I’m going to tell you three words that can help you charge higher prices than you’re charging now — even higher prices than your competitors. Those words are “emotional risk displacement.” To be honest, I have NO idea of what they mean… but… our guest today does. He’s back! I’m talking about our returning champion, John Williamson. Today, he’s going to talk about Unique Selling Propositions and charging higher prices. And, if we’re lucky, he’ll tell us what “emotional risk displacement” means — since those three words CAN put more money in our respective pockets. John is coming to us from an undisclosed location on the side of a mountain in Scotland. Over the last 30 years, he has generated millions of dollars in sales for himself and his clients with his own special brand of unique selling propositions. He says, “A great Unique Selling Proposition will enable you to steal the attention and win the sales. “Including ‘financial risk reversal’ in your USP will win you even more sales. “But, you can take the

By popular demand, we’re back with the always surprising John Williamson today. He’s going to talk about a serious problem every business faces, and some ready-made solutions to this problem. John is coming to us from an undisclosed location on the side of a mountain in Scotland. Over the last 30 years he has generated millions of dollars in sales for himself and his clients with his own special brand of unique selling propositions. The problem, of course, is getting and keeping the attention of customers. In a way that leads to sales, and repeat sales after that. John says, “Right at the heart of your attention getting should be your brand.” A lot of us direct marketers don’t pay a whole lot of attention to branding these days, but John argues that we should. All the time. But not just any kind of brand. One that pulls its weight in getting attention and adding new customers. How do you do that, and how to you make it pay off if you don’t have a huge budget to establish this brand in the way a big corpora

People start out writing copy all kinds of different ways. But how many times have you heard, “It all started with beer?” I’m not talking about drinking a beer. I’m talking about brewing your own beer! That’s how our guest today, Billy Broas, got started in online marketing: He launched a website for his fellow home beer brewers. That was in 2010. His online course sales from the site got to the point where Billy was able to leave his job and become an entrepreneur. He hired me as a copywriting mentor in 2015, and his since gone on to do great things helping people launch online courses. Especially the new wave of instruction called cohort-based courses. Now, course creators are very often not copywriters, which makes sense. But Billy is, and, as a teacher, he needed to find ways to get some important copywriting concepts across to them quickly and meaningfully. On today’s show, we talked about what I consider a brilliant construct to do just that, called The 5 Lightbulbs, today. Billy told us how he ca

Just like Tom Hanks knows how to make movies, Kevin Rogers knows how to navigate comedy. Really. He spent years as a professional stand-up comedian, sharing the stage with other great comics like Chris Rock, Billy Gardell, and many others. You may be more familiar with Kevin as a superstar copywriter and copywriting educator, which is how he spends most of his working time now. He has created Copy Chief, a community-based forum and training center for copywriters. This was after he had reached the top echelon of pro copywriters himself. Kevin’s also the Amazon best-selling author of The 60-Second Sales Hook, where he shows how to use a proven joke formula to create a powerful marketing hook. Kevin has many, many more credits to his name. But as you can see by now, Kevin is the perfect person to come on the show to talk about an increasingly high-wire act for copywriters, and really anyone in business who has a sense of humor: What you can get away with, and what should you avoid at all costs, when it c

These days, more and more people from more and more backgrounds are thinking about writing sales copy, or actually doing it. The main reason is the number of online business has exploded. This is due in part to all the people who spent so much time at home during the pandemic. But there are other reasons as well. One important one is, a lot of people who didn’t like to buy online in the past will only buy online now, if they possibly can. So, a much bigger market. Anyone who didn’t start out their career as a copywriter knows that it takes some adjustments. Writing copy is hardly like writing term papers at school or even writing weak-kneed prose at advertising agencies. Copy is muscular, and it has a job to do — it has to sell something. Today I thought we could take a look at what people from six specific backgrounds need to know and, just as important, need to change about their thinking in order to write copy that works. I asked myself the question, what are the most common categories of people I’

We are back with the unconventional and immensely creative marketer, John Williamson. Last week he went in-depth on his powerful technique called Emotional Lockpicking™, and we asked him to join us again, which he agreed to do. John lives in an undisclosed location on the side of a mountain in Scotland. Over the last 30 years he has generated millions of dollars in sales for himself and his clients with his own special brand of unique selling propositions. He’s also come up with some very interesting ideas about elevator pitches, unique selling propositions, and even how to close a deal with a stuffed tortoise. I find his ideas fascinating and he’ll share some more of them with us today. One of John’s favorite quotes is: “All things being equal, people buy on price. Which is why your number-one job as an entrepreneur is to ensure that ‘things’ aren’t equal.” Probably related to that idea is a speech he has given over 250 times called “How to Charge Higher Prices Than Your Competitors… and STILL Win the Bus

Here at Copywriters Podcast, we pride ourselves on having unconventional guests with unique marketing ideas, but our guest today, John Williamson, really takes “unconventional” to a whole new level. John lives in an undisclosed location on the side of a mountain in Scotland. Over the last 30 years he has generated millions of dollars in sales for himself and his clients with his own special brand of unique selling propositions. He’s also come up with an innovative copywriting concept he calls “Emotional Lockpicking.” I find it fascinating and he’ll share it with us today. Plus, he has loads of other money-making ideas I promise you haven’t heard anywhere else before. One of John’s favorite quotes is: “All things being equal, people buy on price. Which is why your number-one job as an entrepreneur is to ensure that ‘things’ aren’t equal.” Probably related to that idea is a speech he has given over 250 times called “How to Charge Higher Prices Than Your Competitors… and STILL Win the Business.” On the show,

Our guest today is famous in digital marketing circles as an online advertising expert. His name is Justin Brooke and I’m so happy he can join us. Justin is the founder of Adskills, a great training company for online advertising. He’s also a super-experienced media buyer, having spent more than $10 million for lead generation as well as eCommerce campaigns. While Justin could give us super-valuable information on a lot of things, there’s one topic he knows a lot about where I’ve found it’s really hard to find any other expert who is also a good teacher. Justin is both – that is, an expert, and a really good teacher, and that topic is advertorials. It’s great that we get to talk to him about that today. Here’s what we ask him in today’s show: 1. For people who don't know -- What are advertorials, and how are they useful in marketing? 2. How did you get into writing, and teaching about, advertorials? 3. What are the key differences between an advertorial and... - content/articles - sales letters/ads? 4. Coul

In just about every copywriter’s life, there comes a time when you ask yourself, “Why on God’s green Earth are all my clients making money hand over fist, day after day, month after month — and I just get paid just once?” It’s a fair question because, more often than not, as copywriters, we end up essentially inventing our clients’ businesses. With our copy. With our ideas. With our expert guidance. To create a money machine. Our guest today has a solution to this problem copywriters have. His name is Jason Moffatt, and his nickname is “profit Moffatt” for a reason. He’s figured out how to do profitable deals, both for his clients and for himself. He started his copywriting career reading books and courses while waiting in his spy van during private investigation stakeouts. After 17 years in Internet Marketing, Jason teaches digital marketers and copywriters how to get their slice of the pie by acquiring significant equity chunks on any project they work on. He spends most of his time on Hawaii’s f

One reason it's hard to write copy is when you start out, you've got so much in front of you, it can seem overwhelming. Not only that, but just one you get in the groove for writing copy for one part of the letter or VSL, you have to shift gears. That's because different sections of what you're writing have different rhythms. Each one has a different feel. For example, a story needs to have good momentum to it. But it's not nearly as fast-paced as good closing copy is. Today we're going to talk about some ways you can overcome this problem, and it has to do with warming up to write each section. Just like if you were going to warm up to work out or go for a run, you can warm up to write each section of your copy differently. This will help you a lot, especially if you've got a big project and you feel like you're facing a brick wall. We talked about Gene Schwartz’s big concept of copywriting: That it’s not “writing,” but in fact is really “assembling.” He mentioned this at a talk he gave to people at Rodale