Copywriters Podcast

For as long as I remember, new people coming into direct response marketing believe that the old rules no longer apply, and they are in an entirely new game.
It’s just human nature.
As bestselling author Robert Heinlein told the Washington Post in a 1984 interview, “every younger generation that has ever come along thinks they invented sex.”
This comes to mind because of a comment I saw the other day on social media, where a successful young copywriter was asking with some annoyance where he could find some up-to-date social feeds on present-day copywriting info, and not on stuff on what worked 40 years ago.
That got me thinking, because a lot of what we do here on Copywriters Podcast is go over Old Masters material which is even MORE than 40 years old.
Now, to be sure, 40 years ago they didn’t have video sales letters online, or Facebook ads, or lead magnets… or really, any kind of Internet marketing. That didn’t start until the late 1990s.
There are certainly new technologies and techniques that we all want to keep up to date on. And sometimes we cover those here.
But as I was thinking about all of this, my question was more fundamental:
“Are there eternal truths of advertising copywriting that are as true today as they were 40, 50, even 100 years ago?”
It turns out, there are. Today I’ve got seven of them for you, with easy to understand examples from the past as well as from this decade–often, this year.
You’ll be impressed with how little has changed in terms of human nature and what we respond to.

RESOURCE: The Persuasion Story Code
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFD2KXNQ

It’s kind of unusual when someone you work with bursts into your office with an urgent problem, and then you proceed to develop a solution to that problem and simplify it over the next 10 years, and then your solution ends up becoming one of the most important books in business history.
But that’s what happened with our Old Masters Series selection today. Its origin story, nearly 100 years ago, begins when James Webb Young is working at ad agency J. Walter Thompson in Chicago.
A frantic ad sales manager for a magazine shows up out of nowhere and asks Young the following question:
“You have produced a lot of advertising ideas. Just how do you get them?”
No one had asked Young that question before, and he didn’t know the answer himself. At first. At least, at a conscious level where he could explain it.
He had to think about the question for years, but by 1940 he had the answer and he published it in a book. It’s the shortest book ever in our Old Masters Series, and really, considering how important and valuable it is, one of the least well known.
How short is it? Just over 5300 words. About 15-20 pages in regular-sized books, but around 50 pages in the smaller printed books it’s sold in today. You can easily read it in less than an hour.
Most people want to read it more than once. I’ve lost count myself but it’s at least a dozen times I’ve read it. Because it’s so precise and so powerful.
It’s easy enough to read. And the book will only cost you a few dollars.
But what James Web Young came up with over the decade while he was pondering the question, is, well, priceless.
And that’s what we’ll cover today.

Resources
A Technique For Producing Ideas, by James Webb Young
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D4XRLVPJ/

The Persuasion Story Code
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFD2KXNQ

It turns out in the larger world of culture and fashion, we’ve reached a breaking point. This is important for copywriting because of something we’ve always known and practiced, and today we’re going to take a wide-ranging look at the opposing forces of perfection, which is not real, and authenticity, which is not perfect.
Both perfection and authenticity have been used to sell stuff.
And we’ve seen a lot of people, especially in social media, stretching notions of perfection about as far as it can go.
So the perfection trend seems to have reached the breaking point I was just talking about.
I saw this in an interesting article exploring the trend in Bloomberg Businessweek:
“We’ve been looking at perfect faces and vacations and homes on Instagram for more than 15 years, and on TikTok for most of a decade, during which time creators have pursued new audiences by pushing what already works further toward a logical extreme—the uncanny perfection of everything.
“At this point so little is left to upgrade, they’re now positing ways to improve the color of one’s armpit skin.”
The article is titled “The Optimization Backlash Has Begun,” and it’s all about how people are really getting tired of having images and standards of false perfectionism rammed down their throats.
Writer Amanda Mull took a good look at the new trend: Showing your flaws as part of marketing, movies and social media.
We’ll go much further than the recent past to set the stage, and then burrow into some great ways you can take advantage of this trend in your copy and video marketing.

RESOURCE:
The Persuasion Story Code
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFD2KXNQ

He is known for one of the most famous sayings in copywriting: “Enter the conversation already going on in the prospect’s mind.”
Yet most copywriters don’t know much about him, or even who he is.
That would be Robert Collier, who introduced the concept to copywriting 90 years ago, when he published The Robert Collier Letter Book.
I first learned about the book from Gary Halbert, more than 30 years ago. Halbert said it was one of a handful of books every copywriter needs to read.
Robert Collier himself used direct mail to sell all kinds of stuff. He sold raincoats for $14.65 by mail. Made-to-measure suits for $37.50. Sets of books. Magazine subscriptions. 
And Collier tested everything. When a letter worked, he wanted to know why. When it flopped, he wanted to know that, too.
The Robert Collier Letter Book is where he showcased his work. You get a chance to look at what he wrote, and read about the reasoning behind his decisions.
We went through the book and pulled out seven lessons. Each one starts with Collier's own words and then we'll talk about what each lesson means for you, today, whether you’re writing Facebook ads, youtube scripts, or full-fledged sales letters.

RESOURCES:
The Robert Collier Letter Book
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GKQPG89G
 
The Persuasion Story Code
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFD2KXNQ

Somewhere near you, right now, there's a store with a whole aisle of spiral notebooks marked down to 79 cents.
The gargantuan engines of the big yellow buses are getting tuned up or are already tuned up and ready to roll. 
Pencils are getting sharpened. 
And millions of kids are about to get something most adults never get anymore:
A fresh start. A new year of learning.
Think about that. Students get new supplies, new subjects, new teachers.
All kinds of fun, and discovery, and spitballs from the back of the class.
Meanwhile, what do we get? Nothing. As copywriters and business owners, we just keep working. Sadly, for us, there's no first day where everything smells like fresh pencil shavings and great possibilities.
Unless, of course, we build that first day ourselves.
So today, we're going back to school, but in a WAY different way than you did when you were a kid.
Everything on the agenda is designed to do one of two things: either sharpen a skill you use to make money, or refresh your imagination that is so vital to the work we do.
SUMMARY
1. Recess
- Buy something fun from an ecommerce site and take notes on every piece of messaging.
- Buy something else and enjoy it without taking a single note.
- Take a real walk with no phone, no podcast, no earbuds. If you are a fan of situational awareness, you would be in condition yellow.
2. School Supplies
- Pay for at least one AI subscription and actually use it.
- Start a swipe file, or clean out the one you already have.
- Get a real notebook and a pen you actually like to use.
3. Books
- Read Obvious Adams, by Robert Updegraff.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00T14VCJE
- Read a bestseller — something easy and fun.
- Read one of my books:
Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich,
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00513MQ2G/
Breakthrough Copywriting
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1548706957
The Persuasion Story Code
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFD2KXNQ

4. Extra Curricular Activities
- Go out to a movie and pay attention to the people, the film, and the marketing.
- Hand-copy some pages of fiction and some great copy, to get a sense of the rhythm and feel.
- Interview one real customer and write down their exact words.
5. Free Time
- Learn to turn your brain off from work.
- Binge-watch something on Netflix.
- Listen to a new kind of music just to rattle or soothe your brain.