Copywriters Podcast

When you start a launch, do ripples of fear tie your

stomach up in knots, because you feel like you’re

starting from zero and you feel you’ve got way too far

to go, and not enough time to get there?

It’s a common problem, and one today’s guest set out to solve. Brenna McGowan is a launch strategist, copywriter and the creator of what she calls “Anticipation Marketing.”

She’s developed a system so the water is warm even before you jump in to start your launch. She has a complete pre-launch strategy that comes before the launch, and her clients have tripled and even quadrupled sales as a result of using the pre-launch approach Brenna recommends.

I was introduced to Brenna by Joshua Lee Henry, who you’ll remember from many shows he’s been on here. Joshua Lee told me that Brenna read my book The Persuasion Story Code and told Joshua Lee that many of story types mentioned in the book were central to her pre-launch strategy, which she’s going to tell us about today.

To get Brenna’s pre-launch cheat sheet, go here:

https://brennamcgowan.co/cheatsheet/

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When you sit down to write an email, you are presented with a barrage of questions and problems. Not only how to get it opened, but how to get click-throughs. An even bigger problem which most people don’t deal with is, how does your subject line affect the number of sales you ultimately make?

Our guest today, returning champion Donnie Bryant, has spent a lot of time thinking about these questions—and a lot of time rigorously testing different approaches to come up with some definitive answers. Donnie has written a great new book, “Subject Line Science,” which we’ll talk about today.

To refresh your memory, since it’s been three years since Donnie was on the show, Donnie has generated over $130 million for his clients, which include Agora Financial, Dan Kennedy's GKIC and Early to Rise. He's shared the stage with copy legends like Parris Lampropoulos, Clayton Makepeace and the other David, David Deutsch.

Today Donnie is going to zero-in on his current focus, which is email subject lines. I’ve read his book and you should too—I’ve learned a lot. But even before you see his book, you’re going to learn plenty on the show today.

Get Donnie’s book here: https://subjectlinescience.com/

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What do you do when copy is coming in fits and starts… or, worse than that, you are staring at a blank page, which is staring back at you?

Our returning champion today, Dr. Doug Pew, has some answers for you. What he has to say is information and specific steps you’ve probably heard nowhere else before.

And Doug should know. He’s written music performed at Carnegie Hall and an opera that was featured at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. He’s also written a lot of other sophisticated music. And plenty of six- and seven-figure copy, too.

Doug has developed a can’t miss method for getting out of “stall” and into flow. I’m really grateful and amazed that he’s agreed to share it with us today.

You can contact Doug by email: [email protected]

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When you’re writing a long-form sales letter, you’ve got to cover a lot of info,

and some of it is quite detailed.

The problem is, how do you keep your reader engaged and keep the excitement building all the way through?

And suppose you know you need to use stories but you are so tired of worn-out hero’s journey stories?

Our returning champion today, Joshua Lee Henry, recently solved those problems and wrote a home-run promo featuring a very exciting expert, a veteran of high-level military intelligence.

He ended up using a number of persuasion stories and he’s agreed to come on the show today. To tell us what he did, why he did it, and how he did it.

RESOURCE:

My book, The Persuasion Story Code

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFD2KXNQ

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Have you ever written a really good sales page or video sales letter script,

and you’re sure you’ve done everything right, but it’s still not converting the way you know it should?

Sometimes it all boils down to that final push. More than a call to action, the final push is a collection of simple but crucial elements to help your prospect get across the finish line.

These tips were discovered from rigorous testing and study by an old Master, Clyde Bedell. We’re going to share some of his best ones on today’s show.

So, we’ve done a couple of different Old Masters series episodes before on Clyde Bedell.

To refresh your memory, besides being a highly successful advertiser, he was a prominent teacher.

For example, he built a national sales training program for Ford Motor Company in the 1930s. When he was teaching copywriting at Northwestern University, he couldn’t find a suitable textbook, so he wrote one.

That turned into “How To Write Advertising That Sells.” It was first published in 1940—13 years before I was born. The book is 8-1/2 by 11 and a massive 539 pages. It’s pretty hard to find a copy these days, but I found one copy on Amazon for $736. Lucky for me, I got my copy years ago when it was easier to get and not quite as expensive.

Today we look at Chapter 8, which he simply called “Try For Action.” It’s chock-full of tips on how to get your prospect across the finish line to click the buy button.

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Have you ever been working for a client on a project where

you know exactly what hook and offer will convert in the

market, but your client has a different opinion and is strongly

opposed to what you want to do?

By the same token, have you ever had a client urging you to promote

their product a certain way, when you have strong evidence or knowledge

that it’s not what the market wants?

Every experienced copywriter has faced one of these problems, or both of them at the same time. It’s very frustrating when you can’t do the job you were hired to do, if that job is to get sales for your client.

Today we’ll break this down and look at how to get past these problems and to a solution that works for everyone.

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If you’re haunted by low open rates, dismal click-through rates, miserable engagement and pathetic conversions, there’s almost certainly something you’re not doing enough of—or maybe not doing at all—that could increase your numbers dramatically at every turn.

And that’s writing in a much more visual way. Picture copywriting, we call it.

Which is not as hard to do as you might think it is. The best visual storytellers in the world are comic book artists and filmmakers, and today we’re going to take a few of their most powerful techniques and show you how to easily include them in everything you write to get better results all-around.

RESOURCES:

Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud

https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-McCloud/dp/006097625X

Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, by Sean Howe

https://www.amazon.com/Marvel-Comics-Untold-Sean-Howe/dp/0061992119

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The confused mind buys nothing. So if you are confusing the reader, they’re not going to buy.

How does this play out?

When you are selling a course, a technology, or a health supplement, you often run into a familiar brick wall: This thing is so complicated. I know it works, but how do I explain it so the average consumer can quickly grasp it?

Today we kick around some little-known (yet completely common-sense) techniques to go from “incompressible” to “I want it!”

Resource:

My new book, The Persuasion Story Code https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFD2KXNQ

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Whenever you’re about to roll out a huge campaign on Facebook or Youtube, you’re facing a huge risk. How do you know your ad is optimized in the four most important ways to get you the biggest bang for your buck?

For most people, it’s a roll of the dice. Or time to call in an expert in statistics. Because optimizing is so complicated that most people don’t know how to do it—or get it right without taking weeks and weeks and spending hundreds of dollars in ad spend, just to test and get it right.

The four things you need to optimize are 1) your hook, 2) your headline, 3) your pain point, and 4) your call to action.

Lucky for you, Nathan has gone through weeks of testing and tweaking to come up with a method to do it fast, do it cheap, and do it right. What do I mean by that?

What Nathan figured out allows him to figure out what’s going to work in his main copy before he writes a word, for about $8-$15 a day. In three or four days.

He calls it Sprint Testing, and he’s going to lay it all out for you today.

Reach out to Nathan: https://advertisingalchemist.com

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We’ve talked about the path of mastery in copywriting before, and a key part of moving ahead in your skills as a copywriter is regular practice. But how do you practice your skills if you don’t already have lots of work to keep you busy?

Today’s guest, Wendy Ann Jones, confronted that important question herself when she first started writing copy. She couldn’t find a good answer in anything available, so, created the solution herself.

It’s a terrific book called The Copywriter’s Workout and Wendy really thought through what copywriters need to work on. Using this book you can even create a portfolio to show off your practice work to prospects, so they can at least get an idea of what your writing’s like.

But most important to me is that this book can serve as a lifetime desktop companion for a copywriter who wants to stay in shape. Wendy has agreed to join us today and tell us all about it.

On the show, Wendy explains what went into creating the book, and how other copywriters have used it to their advantage.

Wendy’s website:

https://www.wendyannjones.com/

The Copywriter’s Workout (book):

https://www.amazon.com/Copywriters-Workout-Copywriting-Kick-Ass-Portfolio/dp/195955591X

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