Copywriters Podcast

Today we have one of the world’s great teachers and practitioners of direct-response copywriting on the show — Don Hauptman. You’ll see what I mean about teaching in a moment, when Don shares the most successful copywriting techniques he’s learned in 45 years — techniques you may not be using, or not using as well as you could, yourself. As a copywriter, Don’s accomplishments are legendary. He’s a ten-time winner of the Newsletter on Newsletters promotion award for subscription acquisition packages. Don’s the copywriter who created the ads with the classic headline “Speak Spanish Like A Diplomat.” Those ads (and variations of it, such as “Speak French Like A Diplomat,”) sold tens of millions of dollars worth of language course in many languages for Audio-Forum. His work has been featured in college advertising textbooks and collections including “Million Dollar Mailings” and “The World’s Greatest Direct Mail Sales Letters.” These days, Don’s officially retired. But he still does pro bono marketing, consulti

We’re back with another show in the Old Masters series today. First I need to tell you about something you probably never knew about before: The RCA principle. I end up telling even some of my advanced mentoring clients about the RCA principle, which I learned about from Joe Karbo in his book “The Lazy Man’s Way To Riches.” The RCA principle is a copywriting concept that goes like this: “Build the best radio you can, and take as many parts out of it as you can until it stops working.” In copywriting terms, that means: Write the best (whatever) you can, and then whittle it down to the smallest number of words, possible. So that’s the RCA principle. Sounds simple enough, right? All you have to do is write big and then edit it down to as tight as possible. The problem is, most people I talk to about this have NO IDEA how to do this. Fair enough. I didn’t learn this in school myself. Even on the college newspaper. Even in my private tutorial with the department chairman who used to write for Time magazine. So,

Our guest today was featured on the National Geographic channel last week for something no one would want to be seen for: The show “Locked Up Abroad.” The episode is about the time Jesse spent in prison in Thailand, and how copywriting helped him cut, oh, 20 years off his sentence. And he turned his life around after he came back to the USA. Actually, that’s not the most important thing about copywriting Jesse’s going to share today. He made a discovery at an AWAI meeting that I’ve never heard anyone else talk about the way he does. And for every beginning copywriter who wants to get more clients, Jesse has some unique ways to do it. Best of all, they don’t require serving time in Thailand or anywhere else. Besides writing copy and appearing on TV, Jesse speaks a lot at direct marketing events like Dan Kennedy’s Renegade millionaire, where he shared some of what you’re going to hear in full today. This show is a wild ride. Here are the questions I asked him: 1. First, tell us about how you escaped a life s

We’ve got another episode today in our Old Masters series. New York City, 1892: An advertising man named George P. Rowell starts a weekly advertising journal called Printer’s Ink. Decades later, another man, George Laflin Miller, started writing a column for Printer’s Inc., under the pen name “Aesop Glim.” In the 1940s and 1950s, Aesop Glim’s column was the Copywriters Podcast of the time, as best I can tell. I couldn’t find out much more than that about Mr. Glim, also known as Mr. Miller. But I did find in my bookcase the book “How Advertising Is Written — and Why.” This book has some terrific, unique ideas and techniques, and we’re going over them today. The book is concise, only 150 pages. But it’s powerful. Eight chapters, with three to nine meaty sections in each chapter. I’ve cherry-picked four key ideas that I haven’t seen presented this way elsewhere. We’re covering the bare bones of Aesop Glim’s ideas and filling in the blanks with our own examples and comments. 1) The substitute for inspiration —

Our special guest today, Doberman Dan, has been a direct-response copywriter and serial entrepreneur for 33 years. He’s started four of his own nutritional supplement business, and sold three of them. As a copywriter, he specializes in the health, fitness and bodybuilding markets. But he’s written in many other markets as well. Our special guest today, Doberman Dan, has been a direct-response copywriter and serial entrepreneur for 33 years. He’s started four of his own nutritional supplement business, and sold three of them. As a copywriter, he specializes in the health, fitness and bodybuilding markets. But he’s written in many other markets as well. Dan’s work has appeared in Entrepreneur Magazine, Penthouse, Investors Business Daily, The National Enquirer, and many other newspapers and magazines. He’s been publishing The Doberman Dan Letter for the past nine years, and it counts many of the world’s most successful marketers among its subscribers, including me. We’re going to a wild ride through Dan’s l

One of my best-performing sales letters took three months to write. A big part of the time it took to write it had little to do with the headline or the rest of the copy. The letter crushed it. Literally. We broke the server the first day. This was for a small company and total sales were over $1 million on their mentoring program I had written the sales letter for. To prepare for that letter, I sought out stories from people in the marketplace who would end up being prospects and customers for the mentoring program. When I did the interviews, talking to people who were very different from me, I learned things about their motivations and their preferences that never would have occurred to me on my own. I don’t think the letter would have broken $1 million in sales or sold out in three days if I hadn’t done the work to get those stories out of prospective customers. Today, we talk about getting stories before you start writing your copy. In this fast-paced show, we cover: >Why it’s important to get storie

In the offices of the most successful direct marketers in the world, when a promo isn’t making the money it should, you’ll hear most people speak these three words: “Call David Deutsch.” Because he’s the guy who can fix it. And, he’s our guest today. David’s promo’s have come close to pulling in $1 billion in sales. He’s written for Agora and the company formerly known as Boardroom (it’s now called Bottom Line Publications). David works with copy teams in the U.S. and around the world. He’s the author of Million Dollar Marketing Secrets and Think Inside The Box, two books I’m proud to say I have in my most important bookshelf (the one closest to my computer). I’m also proud that David’s a friend as well as a colleague. Today he’s going to talk about something you might have never thought had anything to do with copywriting. My goal, by the end of today’s show, is for you to see how it has EVERYTHING to do with copywriting. That topic is pitchmen. From Billy Mays and Ron Popeil to the carnival barker at the

John Caples is best known as a pioneer and master practitioner of testing copy, but he was also a brilliant copywriter. His first year writing copy, he wrote an ad with the headline “They Laughed When I Sat Down At The Piano… But When I Began To Play…” which is famous to this day. He taught copywriting at Columbia Business School in New York. Caples is truly an old master, and that’s why we’re including him in our Old Masters Series. His book “Tested Advertising Methods” has so much value for copywriters we could barely cover a few parts of a few chapters. But it’s easily available on Amazon, and I’ve included a link at the bottom of the show notes on copwriterspodcast.com Here are the key points. Much more detail in the recorded podcast itself. 1. The kind of headlines that attract the most readers Based on tests, usually headlines with a combination of self-interest and curiosity, work best. Sometimes, adding or implying “quick and easy” will boost response even further. 2. How to put enthusiasm into your

When I first started learning how to write copy, everybody told me “read Scientific Advertising.” It’s a book written at the beginning of the 20th century, over 100 years ago, by Claude Hopkins, who many consider the father of direct-response copywriting. I did read the book. I read it again. In fact, I read it 15 times. For today’s show, I reviewed it. This is part of our Old Masters series. I pulled out five powerful takeaways and we’re going to talk about them and how they apply to copywriting today. In the show notes on copywriterspodcast.com, you’ll find a link to get the book on Amazon. All I can say is, it’s well worth it. One of the most valuable books I’ve ever read. Here are the key takeaways. Much more detail on the podcast itself: 1. The only purpose of advertising is to make sales “Advertising is multiplied salesmanship.” Ask this question about your sales copy: “Would it help me sell them if I met them in person?” 2. The right headline can increase sales by 5 to 10 times. You can use your head

Today we return to our new series called “Old Masters,” and we’re going to look at another list from Maxwell Sackheim’s book, “My First 65 Years In Advertising.” Sackheim started in direct mail in 1906. In 1927 he was a co-founder of a highly successful direct-mail business, The Book-of-the-Month Club. He wrote a very famous ad with the headline, “Do You Make These Mistakes In English?”, which ran for 40 years and was always profitable. The list we’re going over today is called “Seven Deadly Direct Mail Mistakes.” But don’t worry if you don’t do direct mail yourself. It’s based on hard-won wisdom and it applies just as well today with Facebook ads and funnels as it does to actual direct mail. (Seven deadly Direct Mail mistakes) 1. Failing to Give The Reader a Good Reason to Open Your Envelope This applies to ALL forms of direct marketing. Almost all forms involve more than one step — whether the first step is opening the envelope, responding to a print ad, or clicking on a Facebook ad. Be sure that you’re

Today we’re starting a new series called “Old Masters,” where we find wisdom from some of the Founding Fathers of copywriting and see how we can apply them today. On this show, we’re going to look at a list from Maxwell Sackheim’s book, “My First 65 Years In Advertising.” Sackheim started in direct mail in 1906. In 1927 he was a co-founder of a highly successful direct-mail business, The Book-of-the-Month Club. He wrote a very famous ad with the headline, “Do You Make These Mistakes In English?”, which ran for 40 years and was always profitable. Today the list we’ll go over is called “Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes.” There’s nothing obsolete about anything on this list. And I’ve added a lot of information for each item on the list so you can put the information to work right away. 1. Failing to Give The Reader a Reason to Read Your Ad You need to make a promise that your reader will find worth reading the rest of your ad. Cheat Sheet Question #1: Did I give my reader a good enough reason to read the ad?

Sara’s dad was a lawyer. After she finished college, she wanted to go law school, but her Legal SAT scores weren’t good enough. So she tried stand-up comedy, but that didn’t catch fire. So, she became a billionaire instead. The youngest woman billionaire ever, according to Forbes magazine in 2009. A few weeks ago, I saw that Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx, had a class on entrepreneurship up on MasterClass.com. I was curious and so I watched a few sessions. Not only was it the best program on business I’ve seen on MasterClass, but it’s also the best program for copywriters and entrepreneurs I’ve ever seen by a “big name” in business. Sara Blakely is a gifted teacher as well as a standout entrepreneur. I picked three lessons from the treasure trove of suggestions and ideas that make up the class. The reason I picked each one is that it would help copywriters as well business owners, and two of the three are things we haven’t talked about nearly enough on this podcast. But everything she had to say was unique,

Our guest today really gets around. Richard Miller is founder of Mission Control Studios in Phoenix. Have you ever heard of David DeAngelo and a product called Double Your Dating? David’s real name is Eben Pagan, and Richard helped him with every seminar and info-product. In the copywriting space, Richard’s worked with me and helped John Carlton with all the video in version 2.0 of the Simple Writing System. Richard has a vast array of experience in the world of seminars, video, and info-products. He even has a project he’s working on that got 1 million views the first day it was on YouTube… and this project gives new meaning to the term “killer content!” Here are the questions he answered: 1. What is the most important thing people need to know when it comes to creating video content/infoproducts? 2. Why should you listen to your producer, especially if you know more about your content than they do? 3. What did you learn from Dean Graziosi about creating best-selling info products? 4. You have an unusual i

In the opening of the movie “Echo In the Canyon,” the late Tom Petty is showing Bob Dylan’s son, Jakob, a Rickenbacker 12-string electric guitar. He plays about six chords, stops, and says, “You can’t afford the rest.” And laughs. What’s underneath the joke is: They’re making a movie, and if he went much further, under music industry rules, the movie-makers would have to pay a large royalty for whatever song Petty was playing if it went on long enough. It’s definitely a joke because there are many full songs throughout the movie, which I thought was excellent, by the way. But it brings to mind an important question: What’s the story about royalties, or percentage-of-sales payments, for copywriters? We hear about them all the time but for most people, they’re a huge mystery. I have some experience with percentage deals myself, and I have a lot of clients who do as well. So I thought we could take a deep dive into this topic today. • What they are and how they work — or how they’re supposed to work (big pic

Our guest today comes to us through the magic of the Internet from Galicia, Spain — and he knows a lot about mastermind groups. Whether you know what a mastermind group is or not, you’ll know more about that today. And I think you’ll quickly see why they’re important for direct response copywriters and direct response business owners. Stan is the organizer and co-host of the Platinum Mastermind Group with John Carlton, the legendary copywriter who was on this show a couple of months ago. But Stan’s done a lot of other things, out in the business world, too. In a past life, he designed and helped bring to life cutting-edge information systems for the likes of like Wells Fargo, Exxon, Starbucks, and even the US Air Force and NATO. Over the last 10 years, working with Carlton, Stan launched the Simple Writing System copywriting training program, and a bunch of other things including the Platinum Mastermind. These days, Stan’s major focus in business is helping clients build and activate funnels that actually w

On the podcast Masters of Scale, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman interviewed Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb. Chesky tells of advice he got 10 years ago, when the company barely had any customers at all. He got the advice from one of the wisest men in Silicon Valley, Paul Graham of Y Combinator. The advice was simple, but powerful: “Get to know your customers by one.” Brian Chesky and his Airbnb co-founders followed the advice. He remembers, “I’d just spend time with them, and I’m like, What if I did this, what if I did this — and from those questions, a handcrafted experience is born.” He also said, “You literally start designing touchpoint by touchpoint, the creation of a peer review system, customer support, all those things came from us. We didn’t just meet our users, we lived with them. I used to joke that when you bought an iPhone, Steve Jobs didn’t come sit on your couch.” Well, good joke, but, Steve Jobs used to walk around the Apple Store on University Avenue in Palo Alto and ask people who were

Our guest today Adam Bensman is both state-of-the-art and very old-school. Let’s start with the old-school part: Adam started out as a door-to-door salesman. I call that “old school” because, well, first, I did that once. So did Gary Halbert. And nearly every experienced, successful copywriter I know says that the best possible training you can get for direct-response copywriting is face-to-face sales. Adam has risen to the heights of the business world. He’s been COO of a multi-million dollar company. He’s written copy for high-end coaches, consultants, Software-as-a-Service companies and financial experts. He counts more than 10 million deliveries of emails he’s written, and says he has personally or contributed to nearly $100 million in sales in the last six years. Whew. Now, here’s the state-of-the-art part. Remember I said old-school and state-of-the-art? Adam has group and personal mentoring to help copywriters start earning from $10 to $25K per month in as little as 30 days. I know you’ll want to he

The famous investor Warren Buffett is famous for saying that when it comes to investing, he has two rules: 1) Never lose money. 2) See rule #1 To be sure, Warren Buffett hasn’t ALWAYS been able to follow these rules. Because, of course, he is an investor and some things are beyond his control. His insurance company General Re lost $2.4 billion after the attacks on 9-11. Even so, his overall company reported a profit for 2001, though much smaller than the profit from the year before. Now copywriting has rules, too. We’re going to focus on three of them. They’re not quite as clear-cut as Warren Buffett’s rules, but they’re just as important. And unlike Warren Buffett’s rules for investing, the three copywriting rules are all tempting to break. Everyone should know what these rules are and how to avoid temptation. Even more important than the rules themselves are the sneaky ways temptation tries to get you to break them. In your mind, each one seems perfectly reasonable and logical. On today’s show, we spend

Direct response copywriter Matt Rizvi has worked with famous people known for being strong independent thinkers who focus on the power of the individual. People like Dr. Ron Paul, the congressman from Texas; best-selling author and financial guru Pamela Yellen; and investment analyst Porter Stansberry. Matt’s sold millions with his copy. He’s the founder of DailyCopywriter.com and the DailyCopywriter podcast. Where I was a guest myself. While I was getting ready to be his show, I noticed on his website he mentioned he uses “a unique type of ethical copywriting.” That really intrigued me, because I’ve always believed in ethical copywriting but I think we don’t spend nearly enough time talking about it, whether it’s on this podcast or in the copywriting world at large. So I invited Matt to come on the Copywriters Podcast to talk about it, and here he is. It seemed like such a natural fit to me. We covered these questions: 1. Matt, what is your definition of ethical copywriting, and why is it important? 2. Wha

Legendary copywriter and teacher John Carlton returns from last week. Thousands of copywriters and entrepreneurs have learned from Carlton. He still gets royalty checks every month for ads he wrote decades ago. And if you pull him away from writing copy, he plays a mean electric guitar. Carlton agreed to come back because he had more to tell us than we could fit into one show. I’m proud to call him my friend and to have partnered with him on more things than we have time to mention in these show notes. But let’s summarize what you’ll get from listening to John Carlton on this show: He shares some key but little-understood insights from advertising greats of the past, Claude Hopkins and Rosser Reeves. Insights that, once understood, will help you dominate your market, even if your products are 99% the same as most of their competitors. Also, one of Carlton’s most valuable concepts — being a "sales detective" — gets elucidation and clarity I’ve never heard before, and I’ve spent a lot of time talking with and