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Episode 061 - Accessing Emotion Part 1

Direct marketers usually hate TV commercials, because they give a bad name to advertising as we see it. That is, they don’t truly sell. But sometimes I like them – not as advertising, really, but as works of art. There’s a very intriguing commercial running right now for Alfa Romeo, the luxury Italian sports car. What intrigues me the most is their tagline. In Italian, it’s La Meccanica De...

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Episode 060 - Copywriting Your Resume with Donald Burns

Donald Burns once helped the world's most hated man find a job. How'd he do it? By using copywriting methods while writing his resume. After all, what is a resume, if not a sales pitch for yourself? Donald gets into what works and what doesn't when it comes to resumes. He's written them for some of the most successful people out there. He even has some tips for copywriters on how they can better p...

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Episode 059 - Copywriting and Content with Daisy Luther

Despite what the rock group the Buggles told us, video did NOT kill the radio star. Our guest in today's special Report from the Field, Daisy Luther, appears regularly on 830 stations through the Genesis Radio Network. But to many people, Daisy is even better known as The Organic Prepper. She runs a very popular and profitable website. I met Daisy personally in late April, at a private dinner in B...

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Episode 058 - The Amazing Power of Surprise In Copy

Surprise is the “magic excitement dust” of entertainment - Music “High Time,” Grateful Dead. Circa 1970. Very touching country-rock kind of song about a misunderstanding that ended a relationship, and all the self-doubt that followed. Melancholy. Goes where you wouldn’t expect: surprise. Vs. my rewrite (Corny AF) “You said goodbye and held me tight You know I found it heartwarming Yeah...

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Episode 057 -The Secret of Instant Understanding

My girlfriend has a dog named Sheila, and Sheila’s an Australian Shepherd. Now, Australian Shepherds are working dogs and they always seem to need to have a job to do. Last Tuesday, Deb was sitting down to write some copy on her computer and she told me that Sheila was guarding the door for her. I thought that was interesting. Sheila didn’t know what to do, but she figured out Deb didn’t wan...

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Episode 056 - Growing a 9-Figure Business

Today we’ve got another Report from the Field, and our special guest, our returning champion, is Joe Schriefer from Agora Financial. Joe, thanks for coming back! So here’s what we’re going to talk about today: Few people will ever get the chance to grow an eight-figure company into a nine-figure company. And far fewer still will ever do this with a company that’s 100% driven by direct resp...

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Episode 055 - The Big Idea, the Agora Financial Way

Featuring Joe Schriefer We’ve talked about the Big Idea on the show before, but we have a report from the field today with the best expert I know or know of on this topic, Joe Schriefer. Just on the slight chance you’ve never heard of him, Joe heads up Agora Financial in Baltimore, which consists of five publishing companies, or “imprints,” as they prefer to call them. When you put them al...

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Episode 054 - Reports from the Field with Nathan Faser

There’s an old concept in direct response called “dry testing.” Basically, it means you sell the product before you have it. I’ve heard questions about whether it’s legal to do this with physical products, but it seems to me it’s perfectly OK to do that with a course you’re planning to do. People pay now and take the course later. After all, that’s what every single university does...

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Episode 053 - Fear and Greed

Meeting with editor from large subscription newsletter publisher in 2006, at conference. Editor didn’t understand copy all that well – joked that “In our copywriting department, we have two divisions: The division of fear, and the division of greed.” This is a commonly accepted assumption among many copywriters AND among many copywriting gurus… fear and greed are IT. True? We’ll look a...

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Episode 052 - The Giant Trust-Builder

A friend with a dog problem – biting. Found a training way to completely eliminate the problem. Product. Lead-genAd was very powerful: Biting dog? First thing they do is try to put your pooch down. Get a much happier solution! He was getting a lot of clicks on the ad. But very few conversions. Turned out the reason was his copy struck a very different tone. While the ad was scary and energetic (...