Thanks for the e-mail they’ll be very interesting to test out.
How important do you think relevancy is to conversions and how do you segment your customers and prospects so you’re getting the most relevant offers in front of the right people?
It was 1965, I graduated HS, Ken Kesey drove Further across the US, and I was totally missing the bus. Now it’s 2009, TELLMAN is barefoot on a highway across my desk and our keyboards are the bus. Awesome!
Thanks for the information you delivered on the video regarding the copyright of Tellsman Email Newsletter and i will like to know more about this for my email marketing because i have spent $1,800 on different programm concerning how to make money online but i have not make any sales yet therefore i want to know how to apply this copy of Tellsman Newsletter to start making money vey fast .I will be hoping to hear from you .Thanks
My site is brand new and here’s my question: If my target market is realtors/real estate agents….but more specifically…’struggling agents’ (and there are hundreds and thousands of them out there) then how do I say that? If you research the term ’struggling realtors’ or ’struggling real estate agents’ you get no results. i.e. How do I get the attention of realtors or real estate agents who are sucking wind? Thanks for your help! Connie
I know this might be a silly question, but how can you incorporate copyrighting into a blog or website promoting an affiliate product? Does this only work for email marketing?
Josh, I’m an okay writer but to get good copy it seems to take forever. I have a hard time believing that you can make me a good copy writer that can churn copy out quickly – can you?
That is the problem,you can get everything set up”Yes Finally”!But now what? How do you know what to write? I am not a writer,I just speak from my heart and what comes to mind.I guess we need to learn way more then meets the eye on this stuff.The real thing is, I need to make money.Thanks For All The Help Josh…More Pieces To This Puzzle..Lorraine C….Powerpink
Hey David, Josh here – and those are 2 really great questions, which I’ll try to answer for you:
1) How important is relevancy? – Relevancy is hugely important in terms of HOW you build your list (targeting) and WHAT you send to your list (market match) – however, the key hurdle once you have a targeted list, and a well matched product is getting it in front of people. The real question (I think) Is: “Do these emails, which say almost nothing, put the reader in the right state of mind to buy?” and the answer is, no. BUT… that’s Okay. It’s okay IF (and only if) what you drive them TO is relevant to their interests, and sufficiently attention grabbing. Driving a lot of clicks from an email is only really profitable if the offer they find on the next page is in line with their wants, needs, and desires. A thousand clicks from a poorly targeted list to a poorly crafted offer is as good as no traffic at all.
2) “how do you segment your customers and prospects so you’re getting the most relevant offers in front of the right people?” – We have a lot of different lists that are segmented based on a bunch of factors, because we have a lot of different experimental markets and projects running. I’m not at liberty to reveal all of those markets, but I’ll use an example of one of our segments that should illustrate the point:
Our list for Run Tellman Run is made up of people who found Tellman either through his list, or through organic search engine traffic, or through a call to action in a PR piece. The unifying thread is Tellman’s Run, so we use some advanced suppression lists and filtering rules to determine who on the Run Tellman Run lists get what emails. For instance, because I’m signed up to Tellman’s marketing lists as well as the Run Tellman Run list, I get marketing emails, and updates about the run. However if I came from a newspaper article, and was NOT on Tellmans list before, I’d sign up at RunTellmanRun.com and only get update emails and fund-raising emails. We wouldn’t send an email selling a product about ListBuilding to someone who has only expressed interest in Tellman and his Run, because it’s a terrible match.
Another example is with niche markets – if we had a niche list in a made up market, lets say “Pony Hair Styling” we wouldn’t send ListBuilding or fund-raising emails to that list because it wouldn’t make sense.
So with that out of the way, here’s a couple segmenting ideas that we use that you can probably find some instant value in:
1) Separate prospects and customers. you know that your customers are more valuable, so if you’re testing an offer out, why send it to your customers if you’re not fairly sure it will work? Instead, test it out on people who haven’t bought anything yet. You’ll have to market to a prospects only list for a little while to establish a baseline response, but once you know what to expect from that list, you can tell if an offer is hot, or fizzling, without having to risk sending your customers to a weak offer.
2) Create a “test segment” of your list – you can use it in a few ways -you can send a split test with different subject lines to it to see which is better, you can use it to see if an offer converts (before risking a full scale mailing) or you can use it to split test entirely different emails and offers. Having a test segment is useful because it will give you the ability to see some results before you send out to everyone.
There are TONS of ways to further segment your list if you have the data required – for instance you could create a list of dog owners who like pistachio ice cream…But I’d stick to some simple segmentation for testing and making sure that the offer you want to roll out to your whole list is really working.
My copyright question is: “Do you have a checklist of major points that you try to include in every copyright?”
DRFitness
drfitnessnow.com
Hey Jeff!
As far as a checklist of major points, I often fall back on a famous quote from Leo Burnett:
“Advertising says: Here’s what I’ve got, here’s what it does for you, and here’s how to get it.”
I’ll be sharing more about how I write copy in the coming videos, but if you can nail those three points, you’ll have the necessary skeleton upon which to build incredible copy. In my mind, the most important of those steps is “here’s what it does for you” – this really has to do with benefits. If your prospect has a very clear idea of how your product or service will impact them on an emotional level, they won’t really CARE what “it” is…. and they’ll go to incredible lengths to figure out how to get it.
Of course, you should always make it as easy as possible for people to give you money, so don’t skip the last step – Tell them how to get it, and make it easy for them to do so.
Josh
Great stuff – short and sweet but so tantalising that you have to take action.
And good luck Tellman with your run. Looks like you have lost some weight too. Maybe need a few more carbs?
Hey Tony!
Thanks for the feedback! I figured these emails would make a few people really happy – it was a shock for me to realize that short little emails like this even work in the first place, but I was happy to adopt it as a email tactic after making that discovery, since it’s so darned easy to do I guess it just goes to show that how HARD it is for you to write the copy doesn’t directly effect how effective the copy is.
And as far as Tellman’s carb intake goes, trust me, that guy plows through the nachos with the best of ‘em – the whole “runner’s metabolism” thing is enviable
It was 1965, I graduated HS, Ken Kesey drove Further across the US, and I was totally missing the bus. Now it’s 2009, TELLMAN is barefoot on a highway across my desk and our keyboards are the bus. Awesome!
Hey Richard!
It’s an exciting time to have a keyboard my friend. I’m with you
Thanks for the information you delivered on the video regarding the copyright of Tellsman Email Newsletter and i will like to know more about this for my email marketing because i have spent $1,800 on different programm concerning how to make money online but i have not make any sales yet therefore i want to know how to apply this copy of Tellsman Newsletter to start making money vey fast .I will be hoping to hear from you .Thanks
I’m afraid this isn’t really a question about copywriting. but I’ll give you some words of advice nonetheless, if they’ll help:
It’s not how much you spend that determines your success. It’s how much time, energy, sweat, and love you put into a project you’re passionate about, while following a proven business model to a “T”.
From the sounds of it, you’re probably not quite ready for what I’ll be teaching in Rogue Persuasion, and that’s OK. If you havent built a list yet, then I’d advise heading over to http://www.ListBuilding.com/LBC and getting started (it’ll only cost you $4.95 for a month). Once you’ve gotten started building your list, you’ll be able to use Rogue Persuasion to improve your results.
That said, if you HAVE started building your list, then I’m confident that you can learn some simple tactics, tricks, and techniques that will make it much easier to write compelling copy that makes sales.
My site is brand new and here’s my question: If my target market is realtors/real estate agents….but more specifically…’struggling agents’ (and there are hundreds and thousands of them out there) then how do I say that? If you research the term ’struggling realtors’ or ’struggling real estate agents’ you get no results. i.e. How do I get the attention of realtors or real estate agents who are sucking wind? Thanks for your help! Connie
I love questions like this, because they help me illustrate some pretty heady concepts easily, so anyone in any niche can get something out of the answer:
Your problem is you’re searching for what YOU want to find, which is your market “Struggling Real Estate Agents”. Right? Well, I’m going to make this really easy. Your market is NOT searching for themselves, they are searching for the solution to their problems. Try getting inside the head of a crumby agent, and discover what THEY look up on google in the wee hours of the morning… I bet they’re up, looking for exactly what you have to offer, and I bet they’re searching for things like “close more deals” “Sell more houses” “Sell houses in a depressed market” “make more money with real estate” or even something like: “How can I sell more real estate?”
Connie, this answer isn’t just for you – anyone reading this can benefit: to make it very simple, don’t search for your target, search for what your target is searching for.
My question is: how do you figure out what headline /email subject will move a particular niche of folks?
Thanks.
Andy
Three words: Trial and Error.
What I do is keep a file running on my computer of subject line ideas and another file of headline ideas. whenever I hear something in conversation and think “that would be a great subject line” or “I could turn that into a killer headline” I write it down, and enter it into the file as soon as I can. The fun part is testing them out. Try CRAZY stuff, try stuff you think will work, stuff you think MIGHT work, and stuff you just WANT to work. Then, look at your results, and try to figure out what DID work, and WHY. Depending on your market, you may find that song titles are incredibly powerful as subject lines, or that very short headlines beat very long ones…the list goes on and on.
The next step is really fun – now that you have a theory as to what you THINK is the “magic formula” for subject lines or headlines for your market, you get to test that theory out by trying to re-create the same results with new educated guesses.
The longer you experiment, track your results, and think about why the winning copy is winning, the better you’ll get at coming up with copy off the top of your head and seeing good results.
I know this might be a silly question, but how can you incorporate copyrighting into a blog or website promoting an affiliate product? Does this only work for email marketing?
Thanks
Jerry
The sort answer is YES.
Copywriting is just a name we give to the art of getting people to buy stuff by communicating with them. It’s usually used in terms of the written word, but when youve mastered the art of writing good copy, you can write scripts for commercials or infomercials, you can write Radio ads, you can write telemarketing scripts, blog posts, articles, tweets, and facebook status updates, you can write special reports and so much more…
As for using good copy to sell an affiliate product on a blog or website, some important things to keep in mind are:
1) Remember to tell the reader about the benefits of the product – people want things that make their lives better.
2) Stories are incredibly powerful – and they don’t have to be too wild or made up – in fact, the most interesting stories I have in my arsenal are all 100% true – life is great at giving you lots of stuff to talk about…you just have to learn to recognize a good story when you live one…and discover how to “tie it in” to the product.
3) Creating curiosity is incredibly powerful, and it’s one of the tactics I use in almost all my copy – to do this, don’t “give it all away” in the blog post or article – leave a “brain vacuum” in the minds of your readers by giving them a reason to click through to the next page – you could say something like:
“about halfway down the next page there’s a picture of the cat after he got spooked off the desk, it almost made me die laughing”
and that would probably WORK to get people to click through, but once they see the funny picture of the spooked cat, they might feel like they can leave… so try something like this:
“When I read the part about how he discovered the secret to keeping cas off furniture, my jaw dropped to the floor…you’ll see what I mean, read the whole story here:”
There are LOTS of ways to use good copy to make affiliate sales, so stay tuned for the official launch of Rogue Persuasion, because I’ll be giving you a ton of simple tactics for writing compelling copy that you can use to sell almost anything to almost anyone…
Josh, I’m an okay writer but to get good copy it seems to take forever. I have a hard time believing that you can make me a good copy writer that can churn copy out quickly – can you?
Honest answer: I have no idea.
I’ve learned a lot, and in the past year I’ve discovered a TON about writing good copy that I can share with you – but I don’t know if I can help you make the shift from “writer” to “copywriter”. I think I can. But I honestly don’t know.
What I do know is that I can show you what I do, I can share the simple lessons I’ve learned that have helped me grow as a copywriter, and I can expose you to the exact same training I went through when I started writing for Tellman. I personally think that anyone could write good copy with what you’ll discover in Rogue Persuasion”
BUT, you’re a writer.
You know as well as I do that writing is an art. And art requires passion. I took a bunch of painting classes in high school but you won’t see me painting right now. Why? Because I don’t care about painting. It’s not fun to me. I have no passion for it.
If you have a passion to learn how to write compelling, persuasive, powerful copy, then you’ve got something in common with me. The fact is that if you’re not excited about learning copy, you probably WON’T ever write anything that really sells. But if you are exited, and if you practice, and test things out, if you get hungry for more copy knowledge, I think I can help you.
Greetings Josh;
Love and appreciation to everyones grandmother ! Truly to yours for making it possible to sustain financial equalibrium in such trying times . Prop’s to Ms Burns for her foresight in giving you the inspiration to sieze the copywritting opportunity with Tellman and Jodi’s “OverComeEverything.com”. Agreed real life stories are 2x as spell binding as fiction . I really need to learn all you care to share of your copywritting expertise . Starting with your resume’ secrets , the skills and expertise Tellman and Jodi shared with you during you during your quest for prosperity and success . Run Tellman Run , Thanks For Sharing !
Hey Josh,
I am a long-term fan of Tellman, and I want to learn how to write copy too. I have a passion for it. I really like what you have said so far, and I believe what you are teaching is true. I have been a member of LBC for about three months, and I am writing an ebook called
“How To Twist Balloon Cartoons And Make At Least $100.00 A Day”
I have been a street performer for at least a decade and when I read that you were trained in the “Circus Arts” I was instantly impressed. I can make any cartoon character out of balloons. I want to write copy that will entice people to buy my program so that they can learn to make advanced balloon cartoon characters themselves and work as entertainers working for pay or for tips. Twisting balloons is a great way to earn a living while developing your online business. I average somewhere between $20 and $30 and hour when I twist balloons. My question is, “How do I target my audience so that I am speaking directly to my niche market?”
I really want a targeted audience, which in this case is other people that want to supplement their income by twisting balloons. Could you suggest some different ways that I could build this type of list and then suggest the type of copy I should write to appeal to the type of people that ultimately want to learn how to twist balloons?
I do various marketing ventures and focus on prepaid legal & identity theft. How best to mass market ? I find that if people suspect you are selling; they shut down.
Great stuff! Thanks Josh and I look forward to your next video.
I want to know if you are continuously creative or does it come at times for you?
I have a new product coming out and want to increase my sales with good copy so I will be listening close..
Have fun!
Hi Josh – I’m a wellness coach and passionate about helping people to become healthy and particularly to get their weight under control. I run a 12 week community weightloss challenge here in the UK (no shortage of candidates then!!) but how do I target my audience to differentiate me from other Weightloss Companies such as Weight Watchers, Rosemary Connelly, Lighterlife etc?
well I would love to work as a copy writer and have tried other courses only to end up having them keep adding more stuff to the course and charging more each time and the thing is i still havent gotten and work HELP!!!!!! please
I think that the key here is KISS and engage the recipient’s mind. Simplicity is the key! (This might be my biggest problem – I NEVER know when to shut up…)
Josh,
I am a writer. I did newspapers for a while, which I think would help in copywriting…..short, sweet, and to the point while covering all the w’s and h (who, what, where, when, how). A lot of the stuff I read online would be easy to reproduce and I can tell ‘good’ copy from ‘bad’. What’s going to sell me quickly and definitely, and what’s not. So, I think I’d be good at it.
My problem right now is money. I can’t afford the course. At first I only did the free stuff online but then I began buying some of the better information. Seems most people go through about a year of doing this and trying to learn all they can this way. I finally found Tellman’s LBC and that is helping a lot. (Besides, you guys are from VT and we have a family house down the road a bit, in Wilmington, which we love to go to.) So, ah well, I’ll have to wait to take your course.
I do have some advice for your readers however. Use spell check! Do not send out emails or sales copy with mis-spelled words. It sure makes me question who is writing this and how smart they are. It definitely will not sell me on anything.
Kudos to you and Tellman and Jodi for doing such a great job with your businesses. I am totally impressed.
Hey Joyce – a quick note on the spelling thing…. I’m not immune to my spell checker… In fact, I see the same little red dotted underlines as everyone when I misspell a word…
But the reasons I publish things with mistakes are threefold:
1) I’m moving at the speed of the Internet. I worry about the message first, and cosmetics last.
2) I’m writing as Tellman, and he misspells things in his copy all the time. It helps keep it consistently “Tellmanish” if I follow suit.
3) I’m following the example of other copywriters….(This reason is a cop out, I know, but at least I’m being honest)… You’ll notice a lot of great copywriters actually DELIBERATLEY (sic) misspell words. Now, whether this is to make the copy seem more human and less mass produced, or if it’s a psychological tactic to get people to notice it more, and even get angry…or if it’s just sloppiness, I can’t tell you.
It’s something I’m curious about, and it’s something that few people notice (although the ones who do are quite vocal … So I’m going to be running some tests in the near future to determine whether misspellings in copy convert better or worse than perfect spelling…. should be interesting to see the results…
Great video, being a newbie in the internet marketing jungle. I become interesting in your course. What is nr 1 thing to have in mind when writing anything.
How do you get people to open emails – I don’t open 90% of emails that arrive in my inbox and I’m sure many others are the same.
Cheers,
Dave
Good question – it’s off topic, but that’s fine. I tend to get good opens by thinking about what the emails I open say in the subject line…as in, the emails my friends send me.
I’ve been on a bunch of lists for years now, some of which I just never open emails from, because they always look boring to me. I guess I try to be personable really.
Another good tactic for getting opens is by using curiosity based subject lines… here’s an excersize to try – any time you hear a word or phrase that grabs your attention, write it down.
If you’re at a party and you hear someone say “so I lit him on fire” and you REALLY want to ask them to start the story over so you can know what happened…that’s something you should write down.
You’ll start to hear good subject lines everywhere. But the real key is, you’ve got to test them. the more subject lines you test, the more you’ll know your audience. Then you’ll get a sort of sixth sense for what they respond to.
You’ve got the “Tellman” seal of approval. I think that puts you in an elite
group to be his copywriter. Good copywriting is an important skill and
you possess it. Keep up the good work! And thanks for the rundown
on how you got into this profession.
How do I WE get these 3-5 ? free e-mails. It appears I’m caught in a loop here. I keep hearing the intro. from Tellman, abt. Josh. FINE and then Josh’s confession intro., Blog, whatever, then it comes, again, starts over & goes thru it all again ! ? And I’m sorta tired of that by now. SO, WHERE’S THE BEEF !, Im sure it might be worth my time, but it looks like, ” I’m going to walk away with nothing.
Well, I’m goimg to the end again, & look for the PDF.
Hey R.J. – actually the 5 free emails are linked to below the video on the blog…
I’ll make a button or arrow or something for them so they are more noticeable. Thanks for poking that hole in the blog, I didn’t realize how poorly I had them placed. You can also Right Click Here and choose “Save Target as” or “Save File As” to download the report right now.
I think it is ethical just so long as it is kept non-specific. The other type really annoy me and I am always very conscious of them and aware that the scriptwriter is trying to manipulate me.
{ 40 comments… read them below or add one }
Josh (and Tellman),
Thanks for the e-mail they’ll be very interesting to test out.
How important do you think relevancy is to conversions and how do you segment your customers and prospects so you’re getting the most relevant offers in front of the right people?
David
Hi Josh,
My copyright question is: “Do you have a checklist of major points that you try to include in every copyright?”
DRFitness
drfitnessnow.com
Josh
Great stuff – short and sweet but so tantalising that you have to take action.
And good luck Tellman with your run. Looks like you have lost some weight too. Maybe need a few more carbs?
It was 1965, I graduated HS, Ken Kesey drove Further across the US, and I was totally missing the bus. Now it’s 2009, TELLMAN is barefoot on a highway across my desk and our keyboards are the bus. Awesome!
Thanks for the information you delivered on the video regarding the copyright of Tellsman Email Newsletter and i will like to know more about this for my email marketing because i have spent $1,800 on different programm concerning how to make money online but i have not make any sales yet therefore i want to know how to apply this copy of Tellsman Newsletter to start making money vey fast .I will be hoping to hear from you .Thanks
Hi Josh,
My site is brand new and here’s my question: If my target market is realtors/real estate agents….but more specifically…’struggling agents’ (and there are hundreds and thousands of them out there) then how do I say that? If you research the term ’struggling realtors’ or ’struggling real estate agents’ you get no results. i.e. How do I get the attention of realtors or real estate agents who are sucking wind? Thanks for your help! Connie
Hi Josh,
My question is: how do you figure out what headline /email subject will move a particular niche of folks?
Thanks.
Andy
Hi Josh,
I know this might be a silly question, but how can you incorporate copyrighting into a blog or website promoting an affiliate product? Does this only work for email marketing?
Thanks
Jerry
Josh, I’m an okay writer but to get good copy it seems to take forever. I have a hard time believing that you can make me a good copy writer that can churn copy out quickly – can you?
What in the world is copywriting for the internet?
How do I know that I can do it?
Is there anything I can do to find out if this is for me without investing a good deal of money?
Is there a guarentee?
That is the problem,you can get everything set up”Yes Finally”!But now what? How do you know what to write? I am not a writer,I just speak from my heart and what comes to mind.I guess we need to learn way more then meets the eye on this stuff.The real thing is, I need to make money.Thanks For All The Help Josh…More Pieces To This Puzzle..Lorraine C….Powerpink
Hey David, Josh here – and those are 2 really great questions, which I’ll try to answer for you:
1) How important is relevancy? – Relevancy is hugely important in terms of HOW you build your list (targeting) and WHAT you send to your list (market match) – however, the key hurdle once you have a targeted list, and a well matched product is getting it in front of people. The real question (I think) Is: “Do these emails, which say almost nothing, put the reader in the right state of mind to buy?” and the answer is, no. BUT… that’s Okay. It’s okay IF (and only if) what you drive them TO is relevant to their interests, and sufficiently attention grabbing. Driving a lot of clicks from an email is only really profitable if the offer they find on the next page is in line with their wants, needs, and desires. A thousand clicks from a poorly targeted list to a poorly crafted offer is as good as no traffic at all.
2) “how do you segment your customers and prospects so you’re getting the most relevant offers in front of the right people?” – We have a lot of different lists that are segmented based on a bunch of factors, because we have a lot of different experimental markets and projects running. I’m not at liberty to reveal all of those markets, but I’ll use an example of one of our segments that should illustrate the point:
Our list for Run Tellman Run is made up of people who found Tellman either through his list, or through organic search engine traffic, or through a call to action in a PR piece. The unifying thread is Tellman’s Run, so we use some advanced suppression lists and filtering rules to determine who on the Run Tellman Run lists get what emails. For instance, because I’m signed up to Tellman’s marketing lists as well as the Run Tellman Run list, I get marketing emails, and updates about the run. However if I came from a newspaper article, and was NOT on Tellmans list before, I’d sign up at RunTellmanRun.com and only get update emails and fund-raising emails. We wouldn’t send an email selling a product about ListBuilding to someone who has only expressed interest in Tellman and his Run, because it’s a terrible match.
Another example is with niche markets – if we had a niche list in a made up market, lets say “Pony Hair Styling” we wouldn’t send ListBuilding or fund-raising emails to that list because it wouldn’t make sense.
So with that out of the way, here’s a couple segmenting ideas that we use that you can probably find some instant value in:
1) Separate prospects and customers. you know that your customers are more valuable, so if you’re testing an offer out, why send it to your customers if you’re not fairly sure it will work? Instead, test it out on people who haven’t bought anything yet. You’ll have to market to a prospects only list for a little while to establish a baseline response, but once you know what to expect from that list, you can tell if an offer is hot, or fizzling, without having to risk sending your customers to a weak offer.
2) Create a “test segment” of your list – you can use it in a few ways -you can send a split test with different subject lines to it to see which is better, you can use it to see if an offer converts (before risking a full scale mailing) or you can use it to split test entirely different emails and offers. Having a test segment is useful because it will give you the ability to see some results before you send out to everyone.
There are TONS of ways to further segment your list if you have the data required – for instance you could create a list of dog owners who like pistachio ice cream…But I’d stick to some simple segmentation for testing and making sure that the offer you want to roll out to your whole list is really working.
I hope that answers (and raises) some questions
–Josh Burns
Hey Jeff!
As far as a checklist of major points, I often fall back on a famous quote from Leo Burnett:
“Advertising says: Here’s what I’ve got, here’s what it does for you, and here’s how to get it.”
I’ll be sharing more about how I write copy in the coming videos, but if you can nail those three points, you’ll have the necessary skeleton upon which to build incredible copy. In my mind, the most important of those steps is “here’s what it does for you” – this really has to do with benefits. If your prospect has a very clear idea of how your product or service will impact them on an emotional level, they won’t really CARE what “it” is…. and they’ll go to incredible lengths to figure out how to get it.
Of course, you should always make it as easy as possible for people to give you money, so don’t skip the last step – Tell them how to get it, and make it easy for them to do so.
Hey Tony!
Thanks for the feedback! I figured these emails would make a few people really happy – it was a shock for me to realize that short little emails like this even work in the first place, but I was happy to adopt it as a email tactic after making that discovery, since it’s so darned easy to do
I guess it just goes to show that how HARD it is for you to write the copy doesn’t directly effect how effective the copy is.
And as far as Tellman’s carb intake goes, trust me, that guy plows through the nachos with the best of ‘em – the whole “runner’s metabolism” thing is enviable
–Josh
Hey Richard!
It’s an exciting time to have a keyboard my friend. I’m with you
–Josh
I’m afraid this isn’t really a question about copywriting. but I’ll give you some words of advice nonetheless, if they’ll help:
It’s not how much you spend that determines your success. It’s how much time, energy, sweat, and love you put into a project you’re passionate about, while following a proven business model to a “T”.
From the sounds of it, you’re probably not quite ready for what I’ll be teaching in Rogue Persuasion, and that’s OK. If you havent built a list yet, then I’d advise heading over to http://www.ListBuilding.com/LBC and getting started (it’ll only cost you $4.95 for a month). Once you’ve gotten started building your list, you’ll be able to use Rogue Persuasion to improve your results.
That said, if you HAVE started building your list, then I’m confident that you can learn some simple tactics, tricks, and techniques that will make it much easier to write compelling copy that makes sales.
All the best,
-Josh
I love questions like this, because they help me illustrate some pretty heady concepts easily, so anyone in any niche can get something out of the answer:
Your problem is you’re searching for what YOU want to find, which is your market “Struggling Real Estate Agents”. Right? Well, I’m going to make this really easy. Your market is NOT searching for themselves, they are searching for the solution to their problems. Try getting inside the head of a crumby agent, and discover what THEY look up on google in the wee hours of the morning… I bet they’re up, looking for exactly what you have to offer, and I bet they’re searching for things like “close more deals” “Sell more houses” “Sell houses in a depressed market” “make more money with real estate” or even something like: “How can I sell more real estate?”
Connie, this answer isn’t just for you – anyone reading this can benefit: to make it very simple, don’t search for your target, search for what your target is searching for.
–Josh
Three words: Trial and Error.
What I do is keep a file running on my computer of subject line ideas and another file of headline ideas. whenever I hear something in conversation and think “that would be a great subject line” or “I could turn that into a killer headline” I write it down, and enter it into the file as soon as I can. The fun part is testing them out. Try CRAZY stuff, try stuff you think will work, stuff you think MIGHT work, and stuff you just WANT to work. Then, look at your results, and try to figure out what DID work, and WHY. Depending on your market, you may find that song titles are incredibly powerful as subject lines, or that very short headlines beat very long ones…the list goes on and on.
The next step is really fun – now that you have a theory as to what you THINK is the “magic formula” for subject lines or headlines for your market, you get to test that theory out by trying to re-create the same results with new educated guesses.
The longer you experiment, track your results, and think about why the winning copy is winning, the better you’ll get at coming up with copy off the top of your head and seeing good results.
–Josh
The sort answer is YES.
Copywriting is just a name we give to the art of getting people to buy stuff by communicating with them. It’s usually used in terms of the written word, but when youve mastered the art of writing good copy, you can write scripts for commercials or infomercials, you can write Radio ads, you can write telemarketing scripts, blog posts, articles, tweets, and facebook status updates, you can write special reports and so much more…
As for using good copy to sell an affiliate product on a blog or website, some important things to keep in mind are:
1) Remember to tell the reader about the benefits of the product – people want things that make their lives better.
2) Stories are incredibly powerful – and they don’t have to be too wild or made up – in fact, the most interesting stories I have in my arsenal are all 100% true – life is great at giving you lots of stuff to talk about…you just have to learn to recognize a good story when you live one…and discover how to “tie it in” to the product.
3) Creating curiosity is incredibly powerful, and it’s one of the tactics I use in almost all my copy – to do this, don’t “give it all away” in the blog post or article – leave a “brain vacuum” in the minds of your readers by giving them a reason to click through to the next page – you could say something like:
“about halfway down the next page there’s a picture of the cat after he got spooked off the desk, it almost made me die laughing”
and that would probably WORK to get people to click through, but once they see the funny picture of the spooked cat, they might feel like they can leave… so try something like this:
“When I read the part about how he discovered the secret to keeping cas off furniture, my jaw dropped to the floor…you’ll see what I mean, read the whole story here:”
There are LOTS of ways to use good copy to make affiliate sales, so stay tuned for the official launch of Rogue Persuasion, because I’ll be giving you a ton of simple tactics for writing compelling copy that you can use to sell almost anything to almost anyone…
–Josh
Honest answer: I have no idea.
I’ve learned a lot, and in the past year I’ve discovered a TON about writing good copy that I can share with you – but I don’t know if I can help you make the shift from “writer” to “copywriter”. I think I can. But I honestly don’t know.
What I do know is that I can show you what I do, I can share the simple lessons I’ve learned that have helped me grow as a copywriter, and I can expose you to the exact same training I went through when I started writing for Tellman. I personally think that anyone could write good copy with what you’ll discover in Rogue Persuasion”
BUT, you’re a writer.
You know as well as I do that writing is an art. And art requires passion. I took a bunch of painting classes in high school but you won’t see me painting right now. Why? Because I don’t care about painting. It’s not fun to me. I have no passion for it.
If you have a passion to learn how to write compelling, persuasive, powerful copy, then you’ve got something in common with me. The fact is that if you’re not excited about learning copy, you probably WON’T ever write anything that really sells. But if you are exited, and if you practice, and test things out, if you get hungry for more copy knowledge, I think I can help you.
But I don’t KNOW.
That’s the truth.
–Josh
Greetings Josh;
Love and appreciation to everyones grandmother ! Truly to yours for making it possible to sustain financial equalibrium in such trying times . Prop’s to Ms Burns for her foresight in giving you the inspiration to sieze the copywritting opportunity with Tellman and Jodi’s “OverComeEverything.com”. Agreed real life stories are 2x as spell binding as fiction . I really need to learn all you care to share of your copywritting expertise . Starting with your resume’ secrets , the skills and expertise Tellman and Jodi shared with you during you during your quest for prosperity and success . Run Tellman Run , Thanks For Sharing !
Shambambo!;
Alphonso
Hey Josh,
I am a long-term fan of Tellman, and I want to learn how to write copy too. I have a passion for it. I really like what you have said so far, and I believe what you are teaching is true. I have been a member of LBC for about three months, and I am writing an ebook called
“How To Twist Balloon Cartoons And Make At Least $100.00 A Day”
I have been a street performer for at least a decade and when I read that you were trained in the “Circus Arts” I was instantly impressed. I can make any cartoon character out of balloons. I want to write copy that will entice people to buy my program so that they can learn to make advanced balloon cartoon characters themselves and work as entertainers working for pay or for tips. Twisting balloons is a great way to earn a living while developing your online business. I average somewhere between $20 and $30 and hour when I twist balloons. My question is, “How do I target my audience so that I am speaking directly to my niche market?”
I really want a targeted audience, which in this case is other people that want to supplement their income by twisting balloons. Could you suggest some different ways that I could build this type of list and then suggest the type of copy I should write to appeal to the type of people that ultimately want to learn how to twist balloons?
=RICK=
I do various marketing ventures and focus on prepaid legal & identity theft. How best to mass market ? I find that if people suspect you are selling; they shut down.
Great stuff! Thanks Josh and I look forward to your next video.
I want to know if you are continuously creative or does it come at times for you?
I have a new product coming out and want to increase my sales with good copy so I will be listening close..
Have fun!
Very interesting……..waiting for more. Thank you. I believe I can learn from you……. I am pretty short on words – you probably can tell……….ha, ha!…
Hi Josh – I’m a wellness coach and passionate about helping people to become healthy and particularly to get their weight under control. I run a 12 week community weightloss challenge here in the UK (no shortage of candidates then!!) but how do I target my audience to differentiate me from other Weightloss Companies such as Weight Watchers, Rosemary Connelly, Lighterlife etc?
Hi Josh,
I wanted to know can you tell me which copywriters you have studied and what courses from those copywriters had the most impact on you.
Thank you,
Ryan Bessling
well I would love to work as a copy writer and have tried other courses only to end up having them keep adding more stuff to the course and charging more each time and the thing is i still havent gotten and work HELP!!!!!! please
I just downloaded the 5 emails.
I think that the key here is KISS and engage the recipient’s mind. Simplicity is the key! (This might be my biggest problem – I NEVER know when to shut up…)
Josh,
Much appreciated. Do you look at the product and then decide upon which emotive play to use, fear, humour, Disgust, informative, shock etc
Cheers,
Marcus
Josh,
I am a writer. I did newspapers for a while, which I think would help in copywriting…..short, sweet, and to the point while covering all the w’s and h (who, what, where, when, how). A lot of the stuff I read online would be easy to reproduce and I can tell ‘good’ copy from ‘bad’. What’s going to sell me quickly and definitely, and what’s not. So, I think I’d be good at it.
My problem right now is money. I can’t afford the course. At first I only did the free stuff online but then I began buying some of the better information. Seems most people go through about a year of doing this and trying to learn all they can this way. I finally found Tellman’s LBC and that is helping a lot. (Besides, you guys are from VT and we have a family house down the road a bit, in Wilmington, which we love to go to.) So, ah well, I’ll have to wait to take your course.
I do have some advice for your readers however. Use spell check! Do not send out emails or sales copy with mis-spelled words. It sure makes me question who is writing this and how smart they are. It definitely will not sell me on anything.
Kudos to you and Tellman and Jodi for doing such a great job with your businesses. I am totally impressed.
Hi Josh!
Great video, being a newbie in the internet marketing jungle. I become interesting in your course. What is nr 1 thing to have in mind when writing anything.
How do you get people to open emails – I don’t open 90% of emails that arrive in my inbox and I’m sure many others are the same.
Cheers,
Dave
Hi Josh,
You’ve got the “Tellman” seal of approval. I think that puts you in an elite
group to be his copywriter. Good copywriting is an important skill and
you possess it. Keep up the good work! And thanks for the rundown
on how you got into this profession.
Listbuilding. Tell me more!
You guys rock. Great stuff.
Give me the 5 letters and a money blowing website
Allright already.!
How do I WE get these 3-5 ? free e-mails. It appears I’m caught in a loop here. I keep hearing the intro. from Tellman, abt. Josh. FINE and then Josh’s confession intro., Blog, whatever, then it comes, again, starts over & goes thru it all again ! ? And I’m sorta tired of that by now. SO, WHERE’S THE BEEF !, Im sure it might be worth my time, but it looks like, ” I’m going to walk away with nothing.
Well, I’m goimg to the end again, & look for the PDF.
Thank You for Your expertise
I think it is ethical just so long as it is kept non-specific. The other type really annoy me and I am always very conscious of them and aware that the scriptwriter is trying to manipulate me.
I need all the writing help I can get.