Copywriters Podcast

Since we’re getting near the end of the year from HELL, I wanted to have a feel-good show to cheer everyone up. It’s a long answer to the question: What are the greatest things about being a copywriter? I think sometimes we get so caught up in the what’s and the how’s and the why’s of copywriting that we don’t take enough time to appreciate all the unique aspects of being a copywriter that can make it so much fun… and so rewarding. Listen, I’m not going to skip over the money part. That’s important. But there’s so much more than that. So what I’d like to do today is talk about the things you can appreciate if they’re already true for you… and things you can look forward to if you haven’t enjoyed them yet. I put this podcast together this a little while before Thanksgiving, so I was in a grateful frame of mind. I realized a lot of us in this line of work get used to it after a while, and start to take some of the unique aspects of copywriting for granted. I thought, why not celebrate the good stuff. If nothi

There’s one word keeps popping up this year when I’m talking to copywriters, and that word is “compliance.” If you don’t get the gist of what this means and what to do about it, you can get your ads shut down in a heartbeat. In fact, your whole ad account. This happens more often than you think. But if you navigate the compliance maze successfully, you have a real advantage. In some cases, you will be able to sell where you competitors can’t. And of course there’s a lot of money to be made when you do paid advertising right. I wanted to take one show to talk about this. I’m not the world’s expert on compliance myself but I’ve helped others make their copy compliant nonetheless. We talk about that and how you can take steps to avoid problems in this area. What I am and what I am not, as far as copy compliance goes: First, I’m not a walking encyclopedia on copy compliance rules and regulations. That might be one reason I suggest everyone with a big promotion get a legal review before they launch. I have a wor

Today we are back in the Old Masters series, with some helpful hints from a little-known but highly successful copywriter from the early 20th Century. He’s simply known by three initials: J.K.F. This was a guy who literally started out writing copy for food. He was quoted as saying, “No one wanted an advertising man like me. Had to eat so made a deal with the mate and cook of a ship who had opened up a restaurant on 23rd Street. Every week I put a poster in the window inviting people to come in and eat. In payment, whenever I felt hungry I went in and ate on the house.” He started out like that, but he ended up as a rich and successful CEO of New York ad agency. J.K.F. wrote a chapter in the book “Masters of Advertising Copy” called “Copy Don’ts.” We’re going to talk about some of them today. It turns out there were 38 “don’ts” in his chapter, and we wouldn’t possibly have time to cover them all adequately in a 30-minute podcast. So we selected eight of the best and fit them into five categories: 1. Facts a

Our guest today is Kira Hug. You may know of her from The Copywriter Club or The Copywriter Underground, where she is Co-Founder. She also heads a micro-agency, as she calls it, where she leads a team of copywriters on projects for course, membership and product launches. In fact, her specialty is personality-driven launch copy and brand strategy. I’ve known Kira a while, and was really intrigued when I learned she knows a lot about working with junior copywriters. It’s a topic both beginners and veteran copywriters can benefit by learning more about it, and that’s what she’s going to talk about today. Here are the questions we covered on today’s show: What is a junior copywriter, and what has been your experience either working as one or working with them? What are the different ways you can work with junior copywriters on a project? What can a junior copywriter do to land a copy gig with a pro copywriter? What are the pros and cons of adding a junior copywriter to your team? How do you decide to pay a jun

I see a lot of questions from beginning copywriters, working pro’s, and business owners that all boil down to this: “What can I do to get good at copywriting and stay good?” Of course, the answer that first comes to mind for me is, “Hire me as your copywriting mentor.” But that’s not always practical for a number of reasons. I can only work with a few people at any time. A lot of people are too early in their skills for mentoring from me. Some people don’t want to make the investment, and some people don’t have enough time for it. All of those things make sense to me. But I want no copywriter left behind. No business owner, either. And most of all, no, I’m not running for president. But I am doing a podcast. So, I put together a carefully selected list of hacks and reps to help you get good and stay good. Four of these groups of activities, you can do by yourself. The fifth one does involve other people, and I’ll offer you a variety of training and coaching options I can personally recommend. 1. Read copy e

Today I’m so pleased to have an old friend on the show who has branched out beyond direct-response copywriting. In the early 2000s, Michel Fortin was a living legend who wrote the first online sales letter that brought in $1 million in sales in one day. I am forever grateful to Michel for being my presentation partner in my famous 2005 Las Vegas Breakthrough Copywriting seminar. We also took the stage together a few years later at Harv Eker’s Marketing Event, and we sold somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000 worth of products during our presentation. A number of things happened later, and not all of them good for Michel. But he took his career in a different direction, and today he’s an expert in SEO copywriting, which means optimizing your copy for the search engines. You have to understand that everything Michel has to tell you today can make you a lot of money, if you listen and act on what he says. 1. Michel, 15-20 years ago, you were a renowned direct-response copywriter, and a highly revered partn

Our guest today, Mike Giannulis, is a serial entrepreneur who understands, and has depended upon, the value of copy to really grow the business. When I met Mike and we started working together, his main focus was copywriting. But he has built several seven- and eight-figure businesses from scratch. And his the business he runs now, he told me, is currently on track to generate eight figures of revenue per year. It’s called Sanetris, with its products and programs focused on health and wellness. He has about 30 people on staff. Mike also has a personal story you may have heard about. And one time, he weighed 540 pounds, but he has lost and kept off more than 300 pounds. Today, we’re going to talk about something Mike has a lot of successful experience with: taking what you know, and turning it into a product that sells. 1. Mike, this is an appealing idea! To start, could you give us your definition of “productizing your knowledge?” 2. What would you say is the kind of knowledge that is good to productize, an

Our guest today, Mike Giannulis, is a serial entrepreneur who understands, and has depended upon, the value of copy to really grow the business. When I met Mike and we started working together, his main focus was copywriting. But he has built several seven- and eight-figure businesses from scratch. And his the business he runs now, he told me, is currently on track to generate eight figures of revenue. It’s called Sanetris, with its products and programs focused on health and wellness. He has about 30 people on staff. Mike also has a personal story you may have heard about. And one time, he weighed 540 pounds, but he has lost and kept off more than 300 pounds. Today, we’re going to talk about a different transformation in his life, though. The journey from copywriter to CEO. Here’s what we asked him: 1. Mike, we were working together when you made the transition from copywriter to CEO. I continued to work with you on copy topics, but as I recall, you hired a different coach for your new role as CEO, which o

Today we’re back with our Old Masters series, with a topic that has been begging to be on Copywriters Podcast for a long time: Reason-Why Copywriting. First, a little about our Old Master, and he really deserves the title, even though he is not particularly well known these days. It’s George Burton Hotchkiss. We’ll be drawing from a couple chapters in his book Advertising Copy, published in 1924. Almost 100 years ago. Hotchkiss worked as a reporter for the old New York Sun newspaper, and after that, became a copywriter for the ad agency which later became the famous firm known today as BBDO. Later he went on to found the Department of Advertising and Marketing at New York University, where he was chairman and where he worked for 48 years. What he says about reason-why advertising in his book is really not that different than what’s true and what works today. We’ll dive into it and pull out a few of the most important pieces. Now, reason-why copywriting. It’s alive and well today, but people don’t talk a

Our returning champion is Dr. Doug Pew. As you may remember, Doug is an award-winning musician and composer, and a former university professor of music. His compositions have been performed at the Kennedy Center and even Carnegie Hall. You heard that right! A true over-achiever! Through a perfect storm of bad circumstances, though, Doug got fired from the university and found his way to copywriting, where he has flourished and inspired many others. He’s done work for Ray Edwards and many private clients. And just yesterday Doug was named Copy Chief at Mike Shreeve’s notorious No Pants Project. In case you didn’t know, this is a big deal! Doug’s list of credentials is much longer than we have time for here, but recently I heard Doug on Nathan’s podcast talking about something he does that is totally unique, as far as I know. And would be incredibly valuable for you to know about. It’s using a composer’s secret to generate a lot of high-quality emails fast. I mean, who wouldn’t want to know how to generate a

Emotions make the world go round. One particular emotion, and that’s love -- according to the late singer-songwriter from the 60s, Deon Jackson, love is the emotion that makes the world go round most of all. But there are 11 other emotions that make the world go get their credit cards and push the order button. It’s conventional wisdom among a lot of copywriters and marketers that there are only two emotions that do that: greed, and fear. But today we’re going to show you others, that you can use in your copy. We think you’ll be surprised, and by the end of today’s show, you’ll agree with us. You’ll see that each of these emotions, when presented in the right way to your prospect, demands action. And action is what it’s all about. We only had time for half the list last week, so we’ll do a part 2 today and get the other half. Now, embedded in the word “emotion” is the word “motion,” and that’s not just a bunch of lame wordplay. It’s important, because people rarely take action -- that is, they rarely go in

Emotions make the world go round. One particular emotion, and that’s love -- according to the late singer-songwriter from the 60s, Deon Jackson, love is the emotion that makes the world go round most of all. But there are 11 other emotions that make the world go get their credit cards and push the order button. It’s conventional wisdom among a lot of copywriters and marketers that there are only two emotions that do that: greed, and fear. But today we’re going to show you others, that you can use in your copy. We think you’ll be surprised, and by the end of today’s show, you’ll agree with us. You’ll see that each of these emotions, when presented in the right way to your prospect, demands action. And action is what it’s all about. We’ve only got time for half the list today, so we’ll do a part 2 next week and get the other half. Now, embedded in the word “emotion” is the word “motion,” and that’s not just a bunch of lame wordplay. It’s important, because people rarely take action -- that is, they rarely go

We’re back Carline Anglade-Cole, is a top copywriter with a track record and a level of creativity anyone else would be jealous of. Her latest book is called, “My Life as a 50+ White Male.” That’s because, as a biracial woman, Carline has successfully found a way to get into the mindset of her prospect. Which, as you can imagine, is quite different than she is! Last week, Carline traced back the lessons of her career as an in-house copywriter for Phillips Publishing, and especially her mentorship with the late Clayton Makepeace. She’s back today because she has agreed to share some of her highly valuable freelancer secrets, which everybody needs to hear -- even if you’re not a freelancer! She generously agreed, and that’s what we’ll talk about today. Here is what I asked her: 1. In your new book, you write: “You’ve got to remember, when you’re a freelancer, your first client is YOU!” Sage advice, and I’ve never heard it put quite that way before. How about a couple tips for freelance copywriters on

Our guest today, Carline Anglade-Cole, is a top copywriter with a track record and a level of creativity anyone else would be jealous of. Her latest book is called, “My Life as a 50+ White Male.” That’s because, as a biracial woman, Carline has successfully found a way to get into the mindset of her prospect. Which, as you can imagine, is quite different than she is! I asked Carline if she would trace back the lessons of her career as an in-house copywriter for Phillips Publishing, and especially her mentorship with the late Clayton Makepeace. She generously agreed, and that’s what we talked about. Here are the questions I asked her: 1. I’m going to guess most people outside direct marketing have no idea what a big publisher like Phillips even is (or was, since Phillips now has a different name). But I also imagine a lot of people in direct marketing who’ve never worked on staff for one of these big publishers think the organizations are different than they really are. When people ask you about working on s

Last week we talked about the Big Four questions you need to answer when you’re designing a new product you’d like to sell a lot of. You can also use these questions to fix a product that’s not selling very well. As I said last week, I really got a lot out of interviewing my friend and former mentoring client Chris Haddad over the last two shows. One of the things that struck me about what he said was: That he creates products exactly, or almost exactly, the way he writes sales letters and VSLs. I’ve been doing that for so long myself that I had forgotten most people don’t know about this trick. And if they know about it, they don’t do it. Then, a couple weeks ago, I did a consult for a client who wanted help planning a new product. I realized this would be the perfect opportunity to reverse-engineer what I did and share it with everyone who listens to the podcast. This is information I’ve been using for years, but frankly it’s never occurred to me to share it before. This week we’re going to drill down wi

I really got a lot out of interviewing my friend and former mentoring client Chris Haddad over the last two shows. One of the things that struck me about what he said was: That he creates products exactly, or almost exactly, the way he writes sales letters and VSLs. I’ve been doing that for so long myself that I had forgotten most people don’t know about this trick. And if they know about it, they don’t do it. Then, last week, I did a consult for a client who wanted help planning a new product. I realized this would be the perfect opportunity to reverse-engineer what I did and share it with everyone who listens to the podcast. This is information I’ve been using for years, but frankly it’s never occurred to me to share it before. However, it just did occur to me, so let’s do it. If you are planning to create a new product, or fix one that isn’t very popular… then this will be valuable to you. Now, a lot of people still try to create products using the “Field of Dreams” approach. I’m referring to the Hollyw

We’re back for another show with legendary copywriter and info-products publisher Chris Haddad. As a freelancer, he was so good that one of his clients referred to him as “moneyfingers!” We happened to be working together at the time, and I told him he should take the word and run with it. Which he has — Mr. Moneyfingers. As a marketer of his own products, Chris went way outside of the niche and managed to get himself on a national TV show with Rachel Ray. This was for his product “Text the Romance Back.” Though he really is legendary today, he was once just an under-the-radar copywriter. That was a long time ago, for sure. I bring that up only to point out he’s worked his way to where he is. Today’s show is called “My Life In Copywriting,” and Chris has agreed to take us on a VIP tour of how he got to where he is today. Here are the questions we asked him: 1. What was your first big win as a copywriter? 2. When you started writing for people like Joe Barton and Jeff Walker, what do you think you did that g

We’ve got legendary copywriter and info-products publisher Chris Haddad on the show today, and for that I am grateful. As a freelancer, he was so good that one of his clients referred to him as “moneyfingers!” We happened to be working together at the time, and I told him he should take the word and run with it. Which he has — Mr. Moneyfingers. As a marketer of his own products, Chris went way outside of the niche and managed to get himself on a national TV show with Rachel Ray. This was for his product “Text the Romance Back.” Though he really is legendary today, he was once just an under-the-radar copywriter. That was a long time ago, for sure. I bring that up only to point out he’s worked his way to where he is, and I’m hoping he can share some stories and secrets you’ll find inspiring as well as useful for wherever you are on your own path. Here are the questions we asked: 1. Chris, welcome and thanks for joining us! I’ve found people at very high levels in this business speak about your work in hushed

Have you ever noticed that some copy you read is immediately believable, while other copy leaves you wondering whether it’s the real deal or not? One of the most important reasons copy is believable is whether the copywriter used one or hopefully more of a few little hacks. Today, continuing our Old Masters series, I found an extremely valuable chapter in an old book that spells out what these hacks are. I’ll leave it to you to decide how valuable they really are, and whether you are already using them, or should use them even more than you do now. So, again -- I’ve noticed a lot of copywriters miss out on these things. It hurts the believability of your copy when you don’t use use things. I’ve picked five of them from A.O. Owen’s chapter in Masters of Advertising Copy. But to make them a little clearer and more obvious, I’ve included examples from three winning pieces of copy, so you can see and hear exactly what they look like. The first place I went looking for examples was from a famous newspaper ad fr

Lori Haller is known as the Lion Tamer of Copywriting, because she has successfully collaborated with some of the most headstrong personalities in the industry… and afterwards, everyone left as friends! Lori is a creative strategist, speaker, author and trainer. Her company, Designing Response LLC, has been creating award-winning, sales-generating direct mail, online promotions, space advertising and design for more than 20 years. She’s worked with every big name in direct response you can think of. She’s the author of AWAI’s Ultimate Guide to Building a Highly Profitable Graphic Design Business, and she works with clients around the world. On the show, she talks about little tweaks in the way your promotion looks that can lead to big gains in response. Lion Tamer Lori says her quest is “to annihilate the great, grey wall of type.” Meaning, she wants to page to be as interesting to look at as it is to read. To most copywriters, that might seem like no big deal. A typical copywriter would say, “Copy is king!