Copywriters Podcast

The world of copywriting and ecommerce almost changed forever last September 29, when Open AI launched something called Instant Checkout.
This new service was designed to let you seamlessly buy something right from Chat GPT.
Instant Checkout crashed and burned over the next six months for a number of reasons.
One, the infrastructure wasn’t there to let it happen. It was launched before there were enough figurative runways, air traffic control towers, connections between Chat GPT and merchants, and other things like that.
Two, the cost to merchants was really out of line:7% per transaction, more than double what they were paying when customers came directly to their site.
They shut it down in March. Not forever; just, for now.
So Instant Checkout was an early attempt at what’s called Agentic Shopping, where you order right from the AI and an AI agent does a lot of the heavy lifting for you.
We’re most likely 3-5 years out from Agentic Shopping becoming a widespread reality.
But when it does, our world as copywriters will change. In a big way.
We’re going to look at how, and what you can do to prepare for this inevitable future, today.

Today we’re continuing with our Old Masters Series focus on the contributions of Albert Lasker. This is Part 2.
Lasker is the one person in history who, more than anyone else, created the foundation for what advertising is today—at least direct response advertising.
On today’s show, we’re going to review some more of the most important lessons we have learned resulting from his innovations more than 100 years ago.
Here’s the short version of his history:
At age 18, Albert Lasker arrived in Chicago to take a job at the Chicago ad agency Lord and Thomas. The year was 1898.
And the location was in the Trude Building, at the corner of North Wabash Avenue and East Randolph Street. A little less than a mile south of where I worked for McGraw-Hill, on Michigan and Erie, when I lived in Chicago in the early 1980s.
But back to 1898. What Lasker and the copywriters he hired would do over the next 10 years would change the course of advertising. Today we cover eight more lessons from Lasker.

Resources:
The Man Who Sold America, by Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and Arthur W Schultz 
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Sold-America-Advertising-ebook/dp/B003SNJYTY

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

Albert Lasker didn't just become one of advertising's biggest names—he helped invent the way modern direct response marketing works.
In this episode of the Old Masters Series, we explore the principles that transformed advertising from clever announcements into measurable sales systems.
You'll hear the stories behind the ideas that influenced generations of copywriters, from Claude Hopkins to David Ogilvy, and why many of those lessons still outperform today's marketing trends.
If you've ever wondered why some ads persuade while others are forgotten, this episode traces the origins of the answer.
The tools may have changed. Human psychology hasn't.

Resources:
The Man Who Sold America, by Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and Arthur W Schultz 
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Sold-America-Advertising-ebook/dp/B003SNJYTY

Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich,
https://www.amazon.com/Advertising-Headlines-That-Make-Rich-ebook/dp/B00513MQ2G

Our special guest today didn’t start out planning to be a copywriter, but found his way into it after posting online reviews of his favorite martial arts movies in college, and getting his writing compared to that of Dan Kennedy.
He looked up Dan and found what he had to say interesting. But he didn’t become a copywriter or a marketer at the time. Instead, he finished his degree and went from job to job for a few years until he landed in sales, where he ended up doing really well. 
12 years after his first internet posting came the crash of 2009. Andrew Gould was the top salesman at his company at the time. But the company itself went under, and Andrew was out of a job. 
It was then he remembered Dan, and found his way into copywriting.
That was 17 years ago.
Since then, Andrew has racked up about $150 million in sales for his clients. He’s always been a freelancer and he’s written copy for companies in niches ranging from self-defense to joint mobility to power generators.
He’s also taken several hobby businesses from a few thousand dollars a month to $50K and even $100K a month.
Copywriters Andrew has coached have had multiple six-figure launches across a wide variety of niches.
Andrew says he’s not a great writer himself, but what has helped him do so well is his research.
And I quote:
“I focus on becoming the audience I’m writing for. For example, I’ve taken hot yoga classes this year for an offer I’m writing.”
Andrew told me he loves to focus on the fundamentals, which is something we both have in common. Andrew has a very systematic and easy approach to the fundamentals of understanding people, which ties right into his extraordinary accomplishments in research and the resulting sales.
I think this is incredibly valuable information that is not talked about very much, but should be.
Andrew agreed to share this approach with us today, and I was really excited to hear what he had to say.
You can contact Andrew on X online, at https://x.com/AndrewWriteCopy

Last week, we did a show on how content marketing is failing direct marketers when you do it the way everyone else does it.
Basically, social media encourages you to crave attention and approval, instead of get results.
Nathan asked me if we could a completely different version of the show, where we focus on including direct response elements in our content marketing.
I thought that was a great idea! So, we’ll do that, and cover the use of direct response thinking and techniques in social media, articles, videos and emails.

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

Breakthrough Copywriting
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1548706957

Mentoring:
https://garfinkelcoaching.com