Copywriters Podcast

We’re back with the legendary Bond Halbert, who I am proud to call my friend.

On the last show, Bond talked about better ways to get started in copywriting. On today’s show, Bond will share with us some crucial insights about what working copywriters are doing wrong, and how to fix those problems.

Bond’s father, of course, was the famous copywriter Gary Halbert, and Bond is among Gary’s first very successful students. In fact, Bond was closest to his dad in both a personal and professional relationship. More recently, after copy chiefing some of the largest financial promotions of our time, Bond pioneered many tactics for getting the highest email open rates in any industry.

After Gary passed away, Bond and his brother Kevin took over TheGaryHalbertLetter.com and the brothers have put out great copywriting products, including the Halbert All-Star Audio Series, which I am proud to say I was invited to participate in.

Bond and Kevin also have started the Gary Halbert Copy Club Facebook group, which has an astounding membership of more than 21,000, as of the day of our recording. That is HUGE for a copywriting group on Facebook!

Bond mentors copywriters and we’ll give you contact info for him at the end of the show.

Today, Bond talks about the biggest mistakes copywriters are making, starting with how to know if you’re talking to the wrong audience. This happens a lot more than most copywriters realize, and Bond has some quick and accurate ways to find out if there’s a problem, and if there is, how to fix it.

Besides that, clients make fundamental marketing mistakes all the time. Bond provides time-tested ways to correct their mistakes so your clients can get better returns on their advertising.

More than that, Bond shares some insider tips on easy ways to make light bulbs go off in your client’s head, so they start to see your as more valuable… and, of course, pay you more.

Timing issues: Bond shares the hilarious but vitally important “porcupine in heat” theory, as well as how to know when you’re mailing too much and when you’re not mailing often enough (it’s not the same for every type of business).

Also, some ninja research tips to help you multiply client profits, and get paid higher royalties from clients as a result!

This is a great show for copywriters at all levels.

Here’s how to get in touch with Bond, and a couple of resources:

important blog post: https://bondhalbert.com/bond-halbert/something-most-marketers-get-wrong/

Gary Halbert Copy Club on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/groups/garyhalbertcopyclub

Download.

We’re so lucky to have Bond Halbert on the show today. Bond is my friend and has been a great supporter, professionally, for years.

Bond’s father, of course, was the famous copywriter Gary Halbert, and Bond is among Gary’s first very successful students. In fact, Bond was closest to his dad in both a personal and professional relationship. More recently, after copy chiefing some of the largest financial promotions of our time, Bond pioneered many tactics for getting the highest email open rates in any industry.

After Gary passed away, Bond and his brother Kevin took over TheGaryHalbertLetter.com and the brothers have put out great copywriting products, including the Halbert All-Star Audio Series, which I am proud to say I was invited to participate in.

Bond and Kevin also have started the Gary Halbert Copy Club Facebook group, which has an astounding membership of more than 21,000, as of the day of our recording. That is HUGE for a copywriting group on Facebook!

Bond mentors copywriters and we’ll give you contact info for him at the end of the show. What we talk about during the podcast is something we get a lot of questions about all the time, and that is, how do you get started as a copywriter?

Bond began with a brilliant and intriguing idea for every copywriter — but particularly for those of us just at the beginning: How to earn as you learn. And there’s more to this than making money. When you follow these tips, you’ll be able to prove — quickly — that you’re a professional copywriter, and work your way up the pay scale much faster than most people do.

Now, this may sound silly until you face this problem head-on. And believe me, it’s already happening. What to say when a prospective client wonders why you’d be a better choice than using AI to write copy instead. It’s a compelling argument, and it will help you save jobs you otherwise would have lost out on.

Bond also talked about the number-one thing that keeps copywriters from moving up to the A-level. No matter how good your copy gets, unless you follow this advice, you may be stuck at a lower level for much longer than you’d like.

One more thing you’ll love: How to dramatically increase your value to any client by only writing a few words. It’s a brilliant idea… I know it will work… and, I’m a little embarrassed to say, I’ve never thought of it or heard it anywhere else before.

Plus a lot more! This is one show you’ll really want to give your full attention to.

To get in touch with Bond, here is his email and a couple of weblinks:

important blog post:https://bondhalbert.com/bond-halbert/something-most-marketers-get-wrong/

Gary Halbert Copy Club on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/groups/garyhalbertcopyclub

Download.

Every year, between 20 and 30 lucky people get a phone call that goes something like this:

"Congratulations! The MacArthur Foundation has determined that you are a GENIUS, and we'd like to send you some Mo-NAY!

Unlike my parody of the actual phone call, the money is serious — these days, $625,000, paid over five years. To use however they want.

Now that's great for them, but so what? How does this have anything to do with copywriting?

It's simple. These people get the award because the foundation gives it to them explicitly because of their creativity and originality.

Something every good copywriter wants to get better at, too.

Now… stay with me here… What if you could travel around the country interviewing these people and coaxing from them their creativity secrets?

Well, maybe you could.

But someone already did. And she wrote a great book about it.

Denise Shekerjian interviewed 40 MacArthur fellows, as they are officially called. The book she wrote is titled "Uncommon Genius: How Great Ideas Are Born."

I cherry-picked some of the best revelations. Especially those thought would help us copywriters increase our own personal creativity.

So, here's what we're gonna do. I selected three categories that all of us can relate to: intuition vs. judgment… luck… and staying power. The last one being, what motivates you to stick with a problem or a project that is giving you a hard time?

And for each of the three categories, I shared insights from three MacArthur geniuses. Nine in all.

There's no one answer that the author got from every genius on every topic. Which makes sense, since these people are unusual individuals. They range from movie directors to composers to anthropologists to professors. And who knew that professors could be so creative? But some of them really are.

We'll take a tip from each genius and then look at how some of their ideas could prove to be a boon for a copywriter or other creative entrepreneur.

link to the book:

Uncommon Genius: How Great Ideas Are Born, by Denise Shekerjian

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0140109862

Download.

We don’t usually give out formulas on this show, but today I’m going to start with one:

Empathy = $80 million.

I got that -- actually, I created it -- from looking at the work of our guest today, Emily McGuire. She’s a big-time specialist in email marketing. And her email campaigns have earned clients over $80 million in revenue.

The reason I put empathy in the formula is that Emily says her guiding principle is “Leading with empathy… figuring out where your prospects and repeat customers are in their buying cycle, or customer journey… and re-engaging them when they start to cool off.”

In her business, Flourish and Grit, Emily has worked with consumer brands, health and wellness businesses, and Software-as-a-Service companies in the tech space.

Her most famous client is probably Adam & Eve, the adult toy store. She used the empathy approach to increase their profits by 36%.

Here’s what I asked her:

1. Emily, I’m just betting you polarize audiences when you tell them that if they want to sell more with their emails, they should stop pitching a product or including a “buy” like so often. First, do I have that right? And secondly, if I do, why do you say that?

2. Could you walk us through some examples of how you have helped companies improve sales and strengthen their communities, using your approach?

3. Let’s delve into the kind of copy you write and the framework it fits into. Could you share a few paragraphs from a couple different emails, and tell us about the overall email it fits into?

4. This has been great, Emily. How about some tips for writing the kind of emails you’ve been talking about?

To get Emily’s report on Action Guide on increasing email open rates and join her email list:

https://www.flourishgrit.com/open


Download.

Today’s show is part of our popular Old Masters series, and we’ve got some unusual info and ideas from a copywriter of old, John Starr Hewitt. This comes from a book we’re pulled from before, from 1925, called “Masters of Advertising Copy.”

From everything I’ve seen in this book, Hewitt is the only contributor who gets down to cases when it comes to what it takes to become a master in copywriting. His ideas are decidedly different, even for today. He talks about the subtle skills a copywriter needs to develop, and the subtle changes that occur as you get better and better.

I agreed with most of what he said. I didn’t have an issue with any of it. Some of it was a little hard to understand and apply for copywriting today, but most of it translates very easily. And all of is interesting.

More than how to structure an ad or how to do your research, this chapter by Hewitt focuses on awareness. What you need to pay attention to both with your product and regarding the world at large. Since this is new information, the way he presents it, I think you’ll find it useful and maybe give you some new ideas.

So let’s talk about John Starr Hewitt and his chapter. I couldn’t find out much about him personally or career-wise, except it looks like he was from New Jersey.

His main idea is: What you see and what you feel is a major set of factors in your success as a copywriter. It's interesting that this was from 100 years ago, when only recently have authenticity and deep empathy become so important, maybe again or maybe for the first time, for copywriters.

Because he was writing almost 100 years ago, every copywriter Hewitt refers to is a “he.” I hope you can look past that and understand that for the sake of accuracy and not adding awkward extra language to the quotes, you can assume “he” means both “he” or “she” for today’s show.

OK, let’s get started. Hewitt begins by saying:

“The more one sees of the difficulties of copywriting, the deeper grows the conviction that really great copy depends even more on seeing and feeling than it does on writing.

“The man who sees and feels can hardly help writing sincerely. …

“To express fully a fine, deep feeling calls for a writing skill possessed in the highest degree by only a few in each generation.”

I agree. There will only be a few who are truly at the top of their game. But that doesn't mean it's game-over for everyone else.

Because in copywriting, you can make a really great living, even make millions, without being one of the few very, very best.

However, you still have to really home in on some key skills and get as good as you can at them.

And Hewitt sounds more than a little like John Carlton when he says:

"So it behooves the copywriters to grow up, get his work-bench in order, and learn to practice his art as a mature and conscious craftsman.”

Link to free download on GoogleBooks, Masters of Advertising Copy:

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Masters_of_Advertising_Copy/ufQiAQAAMAAJ


Download.

So, with the year 2021 just days behind us, I thought it would be fun to reminisce about my early days as a copywriter. It was definitely a second career for me. I had started out as a business journalist.

Of course, not knowing anything about copywriting when I first started, I assumed writing copy couldn’t be all that different from writing news and feature stories, right?

I was about as wrong as I could be.

And, of course, I found out. I learned the hard way. I seem to have developed a knack for learning that way.

I don’t know if I can save any new copywriters from the painful lessons I had to learn the hard way, but hope springs eternal. And who knows, even experienced copywriters might remember something they had forgotten, or, get some new ideas from hearing the old truths.

Each of these things I talk about on today’s show are now like iron laws that I remember, observe and respect every time I sit down to write copy myself, or critique copy for my clients.

Resource:

Copywriters Podcast Episode 174: Believability in Copywriting

https://copywriterspodcast.com/index.php?podcast=1110

youtube: https://youtu.be/FQS3JViJqn4

Download.

Our guest today, Chris Haddad, sent shock waves through the copywriting world a couple weeks ago, with the launch of his much-awaited online training program called “The P.I.G. Method.”

“P.I.G.” stands for “Punch in the gut” and I would say that’s a fairly universal description of how Chris’s copy in his video sales letters affects viewers. When you watch one of Chris’s promotions, or read his copy, you go on an emotional roller coaster ride that’s right up there with what you experience with a blockbuster Hollywood thriller.

Chris does have a background in theatre and film. But his greatest accomplishments, I would argue, have come in the digital marketing space. Chris has created products and promotions for them which have brought in millions of dollars and caused quite a stir in the marketplace.

However, The P.I.G. Method is the first time, as far as I can tell, that Chris has revealed his secrets of how he puts the promotions together. Which is something a lot of people have wanted to know for quite a while.

On today’s show, we covered Chris’s experience with actually writing the copy for his promotion of The P.I.G. Method. That might seem ho-hum to you, but not to me. I’ve written copy for my own products, and I’ve always found it to be a challenge, since I’m the client as well as the copywriter.

It’s not impossible, but there are just some roadblocks to get out of the way.

Chris, however, didn’t have the same problem so many other copywriters have had. It was especially interesting to hear him describe his own writing process, and you might be able to pick up some valuable tips for yourself, writing any copy -- for your own products, or otherwise.

Chris also gave us some new sneak peeks at a few of the gems inside his P.I.G. method.


Download.

Our guest today, Chris Haddad, sent shock waves through the copywriting world 10 days ago with the launch of his much-awaited online training program called “The P.I.G. Method.”

“P.I.G.” stands for “Punch in the gut” and I would say that’s a fairly universal description of how Chris’s copy in his video sales letters affects viewers. When you watch one of Chris’s promotions, or read his copy, you go on an emotional roller coaster ride that’s right up there with what you experience with a blockbuster Hollywood thriller.

Chris does have a background in theatre and film. But his greatest accomplishments, I would argue, have come in the digital marketing space. Chris has created products and promotions for them which have brought in millions of dollars and caused quite a stir in the marketplace.

However, The P.I.G. Method is the first time, as far as I can tell, that Chris has revealed his secrets of how he puts the promotions together. Which is something a lot of people have wanted to know for quite a while.

On today’s show, we covered the product creation process, which is especially tricky for a copywriter or anyone else who has to reverse-engineer their own method and techniques. Not quite like doing brain surgery on yourself, but, it is a challenge because for most people, especially high performers, actually figuring out your own process and spelling it out for others is difficult.

That’s because so much of the information is intuitive, or what is frequently known as “unconscious competence.”

Chris also gave us a sneak peak at a few of the gems inside his P.I.G. method.


Download.

Today's podcast comes from a handful of idea generators I found in "The Copy Book —How Some of the Best Advertisers in the World Write Their Advertising."

I found out about this book from our friend Sean Vosler, who's been on the show before.

It's over 500 pages long, and while it's interesting, most of it does not really apply to direct response copywriting, which, after all, is what this show is about.

Nevertheless, there were a few gems I found that are great idea generators for all copywriters. So that's what we're going to focus on today.

We've got seven idea-generators, coming from four different copywriters. I'll mention their names as we get to each one. Obviously these are people who know their way around writing advertising. And, like I said, I carefully selected each idea generator because I can see how you can apply this to what you're doing when you're writing copy yourself.

The Copy Book

https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/graphic_design/all/43914/facts.dad_the_copy_book.htm

Download.

We have an extra-special guest today, and I will tell you about him after I tell you about his book. Nine years ago, someone -- and I’m sorry I can’t remember who it was -- told me about this amazing book called “The Micro-Script Rules.” I went crazy when I got it and have been recommending it to people ever since.

Fast forward to earlier this fall. My client Billy Broas emailed me, having recently spoken with the author of that book, Bill Schley. He wanted to introduce the two of us.

Long story short, Bill is what I would call an expert in branding that sells. In fact, he’s the only person I know who has a pretty foolproof system for creating branding that rockets companies to the top of their niche. He’s been doing that for about 30 years -- companies of all kinds.

I was able to get him to come on the podcast and talk about that. Normally we direct marketers are a little hesitant to listen when anyone talks about branding, but I promise this. You’ll want to hear what Bill has to say.

That’s because he’s worked in New York City at Ted Bates and Company, where legendary branders came up with household names that are still around today, decades later. Bill was a part of that process, but like a lot of young people in New York at the time, he never got a clear explanation on how to do this.

He was just supposed to watch and “get it.” Lucky for him, he did, and that led to him doing it successfully over and over until he was able to figure out consciously what he was doing intuitively.

It all starts with the Big Idea, and Bill has some insights and how-to’s about that which are clearer and better than anything I’ve ever heard before.

When he worked at the agency in New York, he was just supposed to watch and “get it.” Lucky for him, he did, and that led to him doing it successfully over and over until he was able to figure out consciously what he was doing intuitively.

And that’s the first thing we talk about on the show, where Bill gives us some revolutionary perspective about branding and the Big Idea.

Then, we go on to talk about The Micro-Script Rules, one of my favorite marketing and copywriting books of all time. For everyone besides Bill, here’s a hint as to why I like it so much, and it’s the little quote above the title: “It’s not what people hear, it’s what they repeat.” And the subtitle is, “How to tell your story (and differentiate your brand) in a sentence… or less.”

Pretty powerful ideas.

Finally, the special surprise. Bill tells us about something coming in a few months that everyone should be interested in.

Link to Bill’s book, The Micro-Script Rules

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JMWD9GZ

Download.