Copywriters Podcast

Our returning champion Mike Pavlish has written dozens of VSLs that have brought in $10 million or more. In fact, over the last 30 years, Mike’s copy has brought in over $810 million in sales.

And his work is still bringing in the big bucks today.

How good is Mike? On his website he’s got testimonials from legends like Gary Bencivenga and Bob Bly. But this one from an eye doctor named David Tavel, who has 24 clinics across Indiana, ...

We’re going through massive and disruptive upheavals all over the place, and of course copywriting is no exception.

I’m seeing the need for a complete mindset shift to survive, thrive and even dominate in copywriting.

It’s curious to me that the mindset shift is a return to the garden. I know that phrase means a lot of things, depending upon your background.

What I mean by a return to the garden is, going back to basics. From the firs...

As we return to our hit Old Masters Series segment, Copywriting 101, I’d like to let you know that the first edition of John Caples’s book Tested Advertising Methods was published in 1932–that’s 94 years ago!

Caples updated the book more than once over the decades–the last edition was published in 1998.

But the interesting thing is, over that 60 plus year span, the fundamentals remained the same. And they haven’t changed in the last ...

The future for copywriters and AI is pretty clear:

AI will not replace copywriters.

But… copywriters who know how to use AI will replace those who don’t.

Sounds simple enough.

However, once you get into it, you realize using AI to create copy that converts sounds easier than it is.

And the question boils down to: How do you do it?

I’ve been wrestling with that question for a couple years now, and I’ve found the answer.

If you already know...

Once again we’re back to our Copywriting 101 segments in the Old Masters Series, picking up where we left off a couple weeks ago.

This is about copywriting fundamentals. It never hurts to review them, and if you weren’t grounded in fundamentals to begin with, it’s never too late to learn what they are.

One of the best sources of an expert list of the fundamentals is John Caples, in his book Tested Advertising Methods. There was nothi...

Let’s talk about something small.

Very small.

Small enough that most copywriters are forced tooverlook it, most of the time.

Because we’ve all been trained to think in termsof big persuasive assets.

The sales letter… the long-form VSL… the casestudy… the big story that carries the whole argument.

And those still matter.

But that’s not what most of us are writing mostof the time.

Most of the time, we’re writing in tight spaces.

Openings… tr...

The big secret of success, whether it’s in investing… in professional sports… or in copywriting, is one in the same: A focus on, and a mastery of, the fundamentals.

The legendary basketball player Michael Jordan put it this way: “Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise.”

We’ve never done a show that just focused on copywriting fundamentals, so what better time than now?

And one of the best sources of an ...

Our returning champion is Clive Cable, who was here a few weeks agotalking about his new book Neurocopy.

As Nathan and I got to know Clive a little better, we found out he hasbeen doing a LOT with AI and copywriting that frankly we haven’t seen anyoneelse do.

For example, he has a story-lede generator that comes up with a big idea for asales letter or VSL, and then writes a unique story lede to start the piece.

Clive’s created a bot t...

Dante Aligheri was a copywriter kind of guy. Rather than write in the stuffy, formal Latin which is what everyone else was writing in the 14th century, he wrote in the home boy people’s language of Tuscan.
Dante’s masterwork was The Divine Comedy, and his last line was
“L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle”
Translated into English, he’s talking about Love–the kind of love that moves the sun and the other stars....

It’s a full-blown crisis. As if writing copy wasn’t hard enough, there’s a new demand falling on the plates of copywriters more and more.
And while maybe it’s not fair, it IS real. And it’s important that you know about it, and know what to do about it.
Good news. We’ve got just the person to explain what it is and how to come out ahead, looking like a million bucks and being a hero, whether you wear a cape or not.
The cri...

These days people talk about neurochemicals a lot. Chemicals like dopamine, and cortisol, and the love chemical, oxytocin.
I’ve always wondered how these chemicals are affected by copy, and how much it matters.
So imagine my surprise when I discovered what our very special guest was doing! His name is Clive Cable, and he’s not only written a book about this, he has a complete system to evaluate copy based on the neurochemistr...

We’re really at a crisis point for a lot of marketers.
It’s not just that ads keep getting more expensive.
It’s that it just gets harder and harder to get and keep prospects’ attention.
And with everything being engineered and optimized by AI and CRO, stuff ends up looking more and more the same. And that only works against you.
You know you need to stand out–but how?
Well, the best way to get and keep attention is, ...

Today’s show is for every talented copywriter stuck in the feast-or-famine cycle of business and would much rather get paid well, to reflect the enormous value their copy is bringing to their clients.
We have a very special returning champion on the show today, Dr. Harlan Kilstein. He has just released a book called Value-Based Copywriting. Originally presented in a $997 seminar, this material has changed the lives and of course...