In this episode, we dive into the concept of transformation in marketing, revealing why it's the secret ingredient behind successful campaigns.

We'll uncover the types of transformations—physical, emotional, and social—that resonate most with audiences. Learn how to identify the most compelling transformation your product offers and how to overcome the natural resistance people have to change by highlighting the significant benefits.

Discover the art of simplifying your transformation story, making it easy to grasp and irresistible to your prospects. We'll provide vivid examples to illustrate the power of clear, concise storytelling, and share practical tips to help you create copy that paints a vivid picture of the life-changing impact your product can have.

Join us as we dissect iconic marketing campaigns like Nike’s “Just Do It” and Apple’s “Think Different” to understand how these brands used transformation to captivate their audiences. We'll also look at how the "Got Milk?" campaign subtly but powerfully shifted perceptions, transforming milk from a boring beverage to a cool, essential part of daily life.

By the end of this episode, you'll have the tools to harness the power of transformation in your copywriting, making your marketing messages more powerful and effective. Don't just sell a product; sell a better future. Tune in and start creating compelling narratives that resonate with your audience and inspire action.

And get your copy of David's new book, The Persuasion Story Code, at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFD2KXNQ
Download.

In theory, AI should be able to do anything you tell it, including write good copy for you.

In practice, AI does what you give it instructions to do.

And finding the instructions to give it that will make it write in compelling, simple conversational English… looking for those instructions has been like the search for the Holy Grail.

At least for me.

Until now. Three weeks ago we had our returning champion on for the first time, Jason Parker.

Nathan and I got so excited that we both signed up for his AI copywriting class.

Not cheap, but worth every penny.

I’ve been cranking out so much good writing since then, it makes my head spin.

And I’m still getting my bearings.

What Jason has done, that I haven’t found anyone else can do to nearly the same degree of proficiency, is give the AI prompts that precisely instruct the AI to write copy that sounds like a human talking.

Nathan and I desperately wanted to have Jason back to talk about this, and Jason agreed to share his five favorite prompts today.

Well, not exactly prompts. A tad wee bit more than that. What he calls “prompt chunks.”

We’ll be sharing these with you later, no strings.

And we’ve got a lot to talk about today.

Contact Jason: Jason (at) ParkerKirkland.com

Cheat sheet with five prompt chunks:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1saLVuzeRK6ZRjNCtDeFIknoioZhOedWWDHnz1NI2XHc/edit?usp=sharing

Download.

It is rare that we quote baseball players on Copywriters Podcast, but today we are going to quote a great one, Yogi Berra. He said,

“It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.”

But as intrepid copywriters, we do the difficult.

Actually, stories about the future are very useful and effective in copy.

They’re probably not exactly what you think, though.

You may be using some of the stories we talk about today, but some of them will probably be new to you.

Here’s the most important thing to remember:

When you can get your prospect to imagine a future where they already own or have bought what you are selling, and they attach a positive feeling to it, closing the sale becomes so much easier.

You can get better at all your stories with my new book The Persuasion Story Code. It’s available exclusively on Amazon—Kindle, paperback, and audible.

Here’s the link:

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

If your tank is empty and you’re looking for inspiration, you could do worse than to watch a little WWE wrestling.

¬

Our special guest today, Todd Jones, is quite a fan and an expert. He’s written a terrific article called “5 Lessons I Learned About Storytelling From Pro Wrestling.”

Yesterday I read it. Because it’s online, it has videos to illustrate his excellent points, and I watched about half an hour of high points in the sport, dating back all the way to 1981.

Most of the clips are much more recent, though.

Todd is known as “the about page guy” and specializes in working with small and medium businesses with their content and copywriting. He’s a prolific writer with a unique point of view and lots of talents and skills he uses to help his clients.

Todd has experience in a wide variety of things, from retail, grocery, vending, tech journalism and ministry. He’s great at building online communities.

So we’re going to talk about all that and more today.

Todd’s coaching: https://www.copyflight.com/coaching/

Todd’s article on the WWE and storytelling: https://www.copyflight.com/5-lessons-storytelling-professional-wrestling/
Download.

I really didn’t believe it was possible—that AI could crank out compelling copy in a conversational, persuasive voice.

But I reconnected with my old mentoring client Jason Parker last week. By “old,” I mean it’s been over a decade since we worked together. He’s not all that old himself. Me, that’s another story.

When he showed me what he’s come up with, I didn’t believe my eyes at first. But then he showed me how he was doing it. And, with no background material other than the book title, he had AI write a pretty decent sales letter for my book The Persuasion Story code in about two minutes.

I found my way to Jason because the only other person in his agency, Brian Halpin, was online talking about a webinar 80% written by AI that generated just shy of $900,000 for a client.

Talking further with Jason, I found out that his agency was scoring win after win. Over $4 million a month for Launch Medical. Half a million a month for A Caccia di Trader, an Italian financial publishing business. And other improbable but documented big, impressive successes.

I asked Jason if I could dig into what he was doing and how he was doing it, and he shared a lot with me. Meanwhile, he emphasized that we were only scratching the surface. But the most important thing I’ve seen is he’s found a way to get AI to stop writing like what we’re used to seeing from Chat GPT.

And he’s also found a way to pour a lot of proven copywriting knowledge and techniques into custom bots.

I asked him to come on the show and share some of it with us. He very generously agreed to do so.

Jason’s agency is Parker & Kirkland

Download.

When you talk about your product and you get that deer-in-the-headlights look, what gives?

In the best of all worlds, it’s simply that the prospect doesn’t understand what you’re saying.

And that very much could be because you’re the man or woman who knows too much.

I’m talking about the curse of knowledge—when you’ve gotten all this expertise, which you needed, but you forgot to take the next step of simplifying it and putting it into appealing marketing language so your prospect can instantly understand and appreciate the value of what you’re offering.

The curse of knowledge is real.

But it’s curable.

We’ll look at what it is and how to cure it on today’s show.

There’s lots to learn, but I recommend my book, The Persuasion Story Code, as a way to use stories to break the curse of knowledge. Here’s the link:

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

First weekend in May, the #1 show on Netflix was an origin story. Not a real origin story, but a total fabrication for comedy purposes. It was a movie called Unfrosted.

It’s important for copywriters for a couple of reasons.

The first is the power of a product name.

The movie was a totally fictional story about how Kellogg's popular toaster pastries became a hit in grocery stores.

It's hardly a spoiler to tell you the name they settled on that led to the big bucks: Pop-Tarts.

How they got there is a big part of the totally made-up plot.

Also, there's a great cameo by actors Jon Hamm and John Slattery, who play two leading characters in the series Mad Men.

In the new Netflix movie, they play out-of-touch New York admen who come up with totally wrong product names.

Later in the movie, when they hear the name Pop-Tarts, one of ’em grumbles an admission of defeat:

"That'll sell."

So that’s the first important lesson for copywriters:

Gotta get the name right!

But there’s a second lesson that’s maybe even more important, since copywriters often don’t have control over the product name anyway.

And that lesson is this:

People love origin stories.

Yet I’ve found a lot of the time, copywriters don’t know how to put an effective one together, and how to use it once they do.

We’ll cover that today on the show.

My book, The Persuasion Story Code:

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

Download.

Every day it gets worse–the struggle to get people’s attention.

It’s always been hard, but never like this before.

Too many things and people are competing for our attention at any given moment.

This may seem like a particular problem for copywriters, since we’ve been trained to start every message with a headline or a subject line.

Nothing wrong with that, but there is a way of using words that is scientifically proven to get and hold attention better than anything else.

And that’s a story.

We’re hard-wired at birth to blot everything else out, except a life-threatening emergency, when a good story is being told.

So, how do you tell a story in a headline? Or in your lead? Or in your opening paragraph?

Without, you know, launching into an old, tired, never-ending hero’s journey story or a nightmare story?

Well there is a way, and it’s much easier than you think.

Since you’ve already been exposed to it for years without realizing people were using stories that way.

The Persuasion Story Code:

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

Download.

Time to talk about a taboo subject that needs to be discussed: The truly awful clients copywriters inevitably get, and how to set things right with them (or make a Quick Draw McGraw exit)!

We’ve all had them. That can’t be changed or avoided.

But what to DO about them?

That can be learned, from an expert who’s been there, done that, and figured it out!

Our special guest today is A-List Copywriter Kim Krause Schwalm, author of the great new book Client Badassery Secrets: How Copywriters Can Earn MORE, Run A Thriving Freelance Business, And Cut Out The Client Bullshit

I’ve read it and it’s really good.

Kim’s just the right person to write this book, too. She’s worked as an executive with big direct-response publishers where she hired copywriters, and also someone who has written copy for some of the best-known publishers and supplement companies in the world. And plenty of other clients, along the way.

Today she’s going to tell us about the seven kinds of clients you meet on the way to copywriting “hell,” and how to avoid their tricks and traps and come out ahead.

Kim’s book, Client Badassery Secrets:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CGV7MZ8P

Kim’s website:

https://kimschwalm.com/

Download.

After you’ve finished your copy, how do you know that you

got everything right and haven’t left anything out?

There are several good ways to double-check, but I don’t

think there’s one more fun than Jack Turk’s Killer Copy

Checklist.

It’s an 8-page PDF, written and presented like a comic book.

But it’s serious stuff, in an easy-to-take form.

Today Jack’s going to tell us about the checklist and make it available to you free… free… free of charge.

To understand why this is such a good checklist, you need to know a little bit about Jack.

He’s our returning champion, and we’re really happy to have him back today!

Jack has decades of experience writing for corporations like Microsoft and Kodak, as well as a number of small businesses including dentists, attorneys, even magicians.

As the voice of Dan Kennedy at GKIC and many other high-profile thought leaders, his sales copy has generated millions of dollars in sales and he’s now known as the world’s FASTEST Copywriter.

Jack was also host of the highly successful Copywriting Summit, and was kind enough to invite me on to talk about headlines and hooks.

Today he’s going to walk us through his Killer Copy Checklist. It’s as good as anything I’ve ever seen, and a whole lot more fun!

Get yourself a free copy of Jack’s Killer Copy Checklist here: www.writekillercopyfast.com/checklist

Download.