Kevin Rogers

Hidden desires of would-be copywriters

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Last night, a friend sent me an interesting article that Kevin Rogers of Copy Chief had written. The article is about MMA fighter Conor McGregor and features 14 points — a lot. The one that stood out to me was this:

#2 – Know what your audience REALLY wants.

Do you really know what your audience wants? Most people think they do, but there are often subtle differences in what they want… and what they REALLY want.

In the UFC winning is not enough. Sure, Conor is a professional fighter, and fans like to see wins.

But what the audience and organization REALLY want is a “finish”. They want to see one competitor knocked out cold on the canvas.

Hidden desires. Hidden from the world. Hidden from ourselves.

Maybe you think that the desire to see somebody knocked out isn’t so hidden. Fine.

So here are a few more tricky and subtle examples of what some markets REALLY want. They come from copywriter Chris Haddad:

1. Numerology. Not really about divining the future or understanding the universe. People in this market really just want to feel special.

2. Bizopp. Not really about the millions or even the lambo. People who go for these offers really just want to feel competent… and wipe the smug, dismissive look off their brother-in-law’s face.

Which begs the question… what do people in the “become a copywriter” niche really want?

For many of them, it’s not about making money… or writing as a new career… or the independence that comes with this job.

I know this for a fact. Because there are proven and well-trodden paths to success as a copywriter. But in spite of knowing the path, these people never take the first step. And if they take the first step, they never take the second.

I’ll be honest with you:

I don’t know what these people are really craving. Not on a primal level. Maybe you have some ideas and you can tell me.

Or better yet, maybe you don’t know either… because you yourself really are after the money, the new career, or the flexibility and freedom.

If that’s the case, I can point you down a well-trodden path to success. The path that I’ve personally taken. I’ve written up all the directions inside a little guidebook I’ve titled:

“How To Become A $150/hr, Top-Rated Sales Copywriter On Upwork: A Personal Success Story That Almost Anyone Can Replicate”

This book has my best advice for the early years of being a copywriter, whether you’re on Upwork or not. The how-to info inside is underpriced by a couple of factors of magnitude.

And as I wrote last night, I will be retiring this book permanently in a couple of hours. Depending on when you’re reading this email, the book might already be gone.

One final point about this $5 investment:

The information in this book won’t transform you into a copywriting success. You gotta take those steps yourself.

But if you are willing and able to put one foot in front of the other… then this book will point the way. Plus it will give you valuable tips and shortcuts it took me several years to discover.

​​So if you’ve got $5, and you want this before it disappears, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork ​​

The trend for the best modern copywriters

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Hidden Nazi treasure — that’s the gist of a video that’s been circulating around the Internet for the past few months.

​​The video starts off with footage of WWII personalities and tells you about a German-Jewish scientist and doctor, whose research was so valuable that he got a personal hall pass, signed by Adolf Hitler himself, to keep working in Nazi Germany.

If you take a look at this video and you squint just right, you can convince yourself you are watching the History Channel or perhaps a roided up version of a BBC documentary. Of course, that’s not what this video is. Instead, it’s a VSL for an Agora health newsletter.

Here’s a second example to illustrate the point I want to make. It also comes from an Agora imprint, Banyan Hill. It’s a short 3-minute video, and it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before.

Well, unless you’ve ever seen that viral Purple Mattress video. Or the viral video for Squatty Potty. Or the viral video for Poo-Pouri.

In other words, this Agora imprint hired the Harmon Brothers ad agency (which did all the videos I just mentioned). And the result is an ironic, self-referential, Will Ferrell-inspired ad for a stock picking service.

Will it work to get new customers for Agora?

I don’t know. But the trend is clear in both the Nazi treasure video and the Harmon Bros video. And the trend is that, even for hardcore direct response businesses who sell to cold traffic, entertaining is becoming more important than big promises. In the words of Kevin Rogers of Copy Chief:

“‘Aggressive persuasion’ is dying with the Boomers, but Big Tech will kill you for it first. The best modern copywriters spend more time studying Quentin Tarantino than they do Claude Hopkins.”

Here’s some un-aggressive persuasion:

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What boomers and Tik Tokers crave the most

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A while back, I was listening to a coaching call by top-level copywriter Dan Ferrari. And one of the guys on the call — it might have been copywriter Mike Abramov, I’m not sure — was writing a sales promo for some Agora health affiliate.

You might know how these Agora health promos look: a miracle discovery in the jungles of a remote Pacific island… an FDA conspiracy to suppress a powerful natural cure… long-lost scientific gold uncovered again by accident.

Anyways, the Agora copywriter in question said the following insightful thing:

“People are just really bored, and the one email each day with the curiosity-teasing clickbait is the highlight of their day.”

This ties into something Kevin Rogers of Copy Chief wrote in an email several months. Kevin was talking about the shift from selling to entertaining, and how this is indispensable today as direct response markets shift from the boomer generation to whatever generation comes after the boomers (gen X?).

Kevin says, it’s just as important for a copywriter today to study Quentin Tarantino as to study Claude Hopkins.

I agree. And more people becoming aware of it. But as the Agora copywriter above commented, this is not just if you’re selling to millennials or gen X or whatever Tik Tok-enabled crowd today.

In today’s market, whatever and whoever you sell to, odds are, your prospects are bored. And the sales copy you send them — emails, FB ads, advertorials, long-form sales letters — should be the entertaining highlight of their dreary days. Entertain first, and you might have a chance to sell, too.

And if you yourself need an occasional cure from being bored, I write a daily email newsletter than can help with that. Or it might not. But if you want to give it a try, and see if amuses you to read, you can sign up for a test here.

The occasion of A-list copywriting

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Like Hollywood celebs, A-list copywriters come and go.

Gene Schwartz… Gary Bencivenga, Parris Lampropoulos…

That’s only natural. People age and the market demands new stars.

But what’s not natural is to have a modern-day A-list copywriter introduce a new insight about copywriting.

After all, pretty much all wisdom we have about copywriting was written down around the time that Marlon Brando was screaming “Stella” and redefining what it means to be an actor.

And yet, these new breakthroughs sometimes happen. Case in point:

Dan Ferrari and his “occasions.”

I’ve written about Dan aplenty in these emails. But the short version of his bio is that he was a top copywriter at the Motley Fool, starting around 2013…

Before going out on his own and becoming an even more successful freelance copywriter.

So let me tell you about one new bit of copywriting wisdom I heard from Dan Ferrari. This happened on a call he did with Kevin Rogers of Copy Chief.

Dan was breaking down his “Genesis” promo. This sales letter beat the previous control by over 300%.

(And if you read my email from yesterday about the fickleness of “beating a control,” let me add that the client in this case was Green Valley Natural Products, which hires the best copywriters and is actually owned by an A-list copywriter, Lee Euler. In other words, that previous copy must have been at least decent.)

Anyways, while talking about this promo, Dan made a small comment, something along the lines of:

“I always look for an occasion or an event to tie my copy into.”

This was something I’ve never heard anyone else talk about. It was entirely new, at least to me. And it took me a while to find out what Dan meant by this.

I guess this occasion stuff came natural to him because of his background in writing financial copy.

All financial promos are sensitive to news and current events, because markets are sensitive to news and current events.

But Dan’s insight was that other markets are the same too.

Your prospects also want to know what the occasion is of your writing.

Are you selling a completely new invention that nobody’s heard of until now? And if not, why are they only hearing from you now, and not five years ago?

This is a question you have to answer for your readers. You have to create an “occasion” for your sales letter.

It might seem like a trivial thing to focus on, but it can make the difference between A-list copywriting and everything else.

For more info on A-lister copywriting tactics, you might like my daily email newsletter.

Social proof concentration and when not to use it

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It all happened within three or four days. Ben Settle, Brian Kurtz, Abbey Woodcock, Kevin Rogers, and David Deutsch all emailed about the same topic:

Reclusive A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos was finally offering a training. He would reveal his best-kept, most profitable secrets to raise funds for his cousin’s cancer treatment.

The first email I got on the topic, I thought, this is interesting — but I’ve already got plenty of copywriting trainings as is. Second email, I thought, another email about that same thing. Third email, maybe I should get this. Fourth email, I better get this now while I still can.

This experience was an illustration of a persuasion principle I read about in a book called The Catalyst. The principle is called concentration.

In a nutshell, all instances of social proof are not the same. If you can get a bunch of people to independently recommend your thing, and they do it in real quick succession, it’s much more powerful than having it all spread out. If it’s spread out, then your prospect can forget about each individual piece of social proof, or rationalize it away. If it’s concentrated, he cannot.

This idea might might or might not be useful if you’re writing a piece of direct response copy. (You’ll have to think about it and make up your own mind.)

But if you’re interested in persuasion more broadly, then the principle of concentration definitely has immediate application. If you’re marshaling an army of lieutenants who will all fight for your cause, it makes sense to focus their attack on one specific point, at one specific time.

But here’s a question to leave you thinking:

Concentration clearly worked on me and got me to pay Parris some $300 for his very valuable training.

But are there situations where concentrating your message might be a less efficient use of your resources?

​​I personally think so. If you agree with me, and you can name some specific situations, I’d love to hear from you. Write in and let me know.

Making more money without adding a single thing

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A couple days ago, an on-and-off client contacted me with a possible new job.

He’d hired another copywriter first (big mistake). No surprise, he wasn’t happy with the outcome. So he wanted me to rewrite the worst parts of the other guy’s work. How much would it cost?

It would cost a lot. But let’s take a moment and imagine a hypothetical scenario:

You go to a friend’s house. He offers you some ice cream and he says, “I forgot it out in the sun last week. It melted to shit. But after a few hours, I remembered it and put it back in the freezer. It’s all yours if you want it!”

I don’t know about you, but I’d find a way to politely refuse. Eating refrozen ice cream doesn’t sound appealing. And it could cause serious digestive regrets.

That’s how I felt about the rewrite offer. But there was something else clanging around my brain-pan, too:

“You can make a lot more money if you stop doing the things you’re doing now, without adding a single thing.”

I heard a guy named James Schramko say this in a presentation a few months back. James’s advice was to look at your current clients and get rid of the least profitable ones. Somehow, James promised, you’d make more money this way.

This might sound like “law of attraction” fluff. It’s not. It’s specific business advice.

James laid out much of his system in the presentation I listened to. This is stuff that allows James to surf most of the day while making several million dollars a year. It’s also worked for his coaching clients — guys like Ryan Levesque and Kevin Rogers.

In short, this presentation was real valuable. If you’re a copywriter and you want to work less but somehow make more money, it’s worth your time. Here’s the link:

https://copychief.com/ep-164-james-schramko/

A non-tactic for making friends at marketing conferences

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One of my todos for 2020, along with losing 80 pounds, developing a magnetic personality, and writing my first novel…

Is to go to a marketing conference.

All the big names say you gotta do it. It’s where relationships are made… it’s how you meet the top clients… and if you’re serious about copywriting, it’s supposed to pay for itself.

So I’m putting together a list of such events, and I’m steeling myself to go. I say steeling, because my image of how conferences work isn’t pretty:

A bunch of hungry, pushy, teething pups, all pressing forward to grab a nipple on the tired bitch’s teat.

If that’s how you imagine marketing conferences as well, then I wanna tell you a story.

I heard it today while listening to a podcast episode where Kevin Rogers (of copychief.com) interviewed Dan Ferrari (a top copywriter).

At the time of this interview, Dan had only been copywriting for 3 years. And yet, he already had a string of controls for the Motley Fool, and he had made connections with some of the biggest names in the industry.

Such as for example, at Brian Kurtz’s Titans of Direct Response in 2014. This event featured a bunch of copywriting and marketing legends, including Gary Bencivenga, Dan Kennedy, Jay Abraham… the list goes on.

On the first day, Dan (Ferrari) found himself seated all the way in the back of the room, one table away from all the speakers.

When the break came, the whole room erupted as everybody pushed to the back to try and get a word in with one of the celebrities.

As the smoke cleared, Dan spotted a woman sitting meekly by herself. And rather than trying to join the feeding frenzy, he started talking to her.

She wasn’t a marketer.

She wasn’t a copywriter.

In fact, she was only there because her husband had to come.

So Dan and she had a nice conversation. At the end of it, her husband came over. She introduced him to Dan.

And that’s how Dan met and started a friendship with Gary Bencivenga.

Now, I’m definitely not telling you this as a manipulative tactic for worming your way into the inner circle of big players you cannot reach otherwise.

I just want to suggest (to you as well as to myself) that going to a conference and having normal, human-sized conversations, can be productive and useful, even in such a seemingly competitive environment.

By the way, if you too are thinking of going to a marketing or copywriting (or other) conference in 2020, let me know. Maybe we’ll be at one together, and I’d love to meet you in person.

What I’ve learned from weeks of heavy promiscuity

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Over the past several weeks, I’ve been highly promiscuous.

Not sexually, thank God.

But with my email address. I’ve been giving it out left and right, up and down, to people who want it and to those who don’t.

Predictably, my inbox is blowing up. And it’s been a mildly enlightening experience.

Because whenever I check now, I have between 5 and 10 new emails, all of which fall into one of two predictable categories. In fact, it’s just how I imagine it is to be a hot girl on Tinder. Desperate or creepy guys are constantly writing you, and they have one of two things to say:

1) “Yo I’ll cook you some romantic shrimp pasta and then we can play jenga and then have the freakiest sex you ever had in a room with a great view.”

That’s in the early stages of the courtship.

When (if?) this heavy-handed benefits play doesn’t work out, it’s time for stage 2:

2) “Yo why you don’t respond to my messages? I thought you said you like shrimp pasta. I’m still free this Friday. I can come pick you up.”

Like I said, this is basically what ALL of the emails I’ve been getting look like.

They either scream heavy-handed benefits (Real subject line: “8 second trick to get the benefits of 4 hours of meditation TONIGHT”)…

Or they are pitching a sale, and are bummed when you don’t respond (Real subject line: “It’s not too late…”).

It’s like all these desperate or creepy email marketers don’t realize I’m a hot girl with lots of options (metaphorically speaking).

Here’s a better approach.

It’s something I read from Kevin Rogers of Copy Chief yesterday. Says Kevin (I’m paraphrasing), let’s face the fact that email marketers and their readers are in an open relationship.

You probably get emails from lots of different people besides me.

I’m not judging, though.

Because to be honest with you, I’ve just sent this exact same email (all right, now it’s a blog post) to several other people besides yourself.

No neediness. No drama. No recrimination.

Open relationship. Keep this in mind and you’re likely to write much better and more effective emails.

Anyways, before I sign off, let me get back to Kevin Rogers.

I don’t have any particular relationship with the guy.

But I thought you might like to know he’s putting on an event called Copy Chief Live.

Basically, it’s a conference that brings together copywriters and big direct response clients (Agora Financial, etc.) who want to hire copywriters.

So if you wanna feel like the hot girl on Tinder, but in real life, then this event might be worth a look. I’d love to go myself, but unfortunately it’s the only time I can’t make it.

In case you want more info before the price goes up later this week, here’s the link:

https://copychief.live