Copywriters Podcast

I was rummaging around on youtube when I came across this video with an outrageous claim:
“This book literally teaches you to think like a Harvard lawyer.”
My skepticism shot into high gear, but when I watched the video, from a youtube educator named Stephan L. Petro, I saw he was on the level.
I’ll tell you about the book in a minute. It’s really valuable for any copywriter, because it will help you sharpen up your sales argument quite a bit.
But more important, it has one idea called “the bridge” which most experienced copywriters do automatically but most beginners miss out on–and this idea can make all the difference between whether your copy works.
Now, we’re not lawyers, but in some ways we do the same thing, so it will be worthwhile to find out more about this book and what it means to us as copywriters.

Resources
The Uses of Argument, by Stephen E. Toulmin
https://www.amazon.com/Uses-Argument-Stephen-Toulmin/dp/0521534836

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

This week I had a great conversation with a Hollywood screenwriting coach and screenwriter himself, and it reminded me about how much people in Hollywood know that copywriters can learn and use.
One of his most important points was there are structures that make stories work. Not rigid formulas or two-dimensional templates, but guidelines with benchmarks that have proven time and time again to act as a container for great stories.
I was reminded that we’re not always talking hero’s journey when we look at stories. I went back into some of my own research and found some more micro-story structures that we as copywriters can adapt to make our own copy that much more compelling.
We did this a couple months ago when we talked about The Dark Knight, Inception and Rocky.
Today I’ve got three new story types that will add a little Hollywood intrigue to our sales letters, sales funnels, websites and VSLs. 
Really, to any type of copy.

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

Today we’re continuing with Part 3 of our Old Masters Series, focusing on the contributions of Albert Lasker. 
That’s because in 1898, Albert Lasker arrived in Chicago to work at Lord and Thomas, which he took over in only a few years.
And what Lasker and the copywriters he hired would do over the next 10 years would change the course of advertising.
We’ve covered lessons in Parts 1 and 2 of this Old Masters Series. Particularly, lessons for direct-response marketers.
Today we’re going to cover the last four lessons and then broaden our lens, because Lasker in fact had major and lasting impacts on our CULTURE, and he hasn’t gotten all that much credit for it as far as I’ve been able to tell.
So now’s the perfect time, since I think you’ll find some of the most important changes he caused to be interesting and possibly very useful in your own world.

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

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