Sam

At the end of the day…

We’re all just wounded children. Still trying to get over the crippling insecurities seared into our souls back when we were 5-year-old kids running around on the playground. When the other kids called you “fat.” When you watched Dad beat Mom in one of his drunken fits. When you wanted – no, needed – somebody to hold you… but nobody did.

When you truly grasp this…

That deep down inside, we’re all just wounded children…

…and that THIS is why people do violent things, terrible things, desperate things, so many things…

…it can unlock a new fount of compassion in your heart, for the world.

And also…

Understanding this truth is *key* if you want to speak to people’s hearts. Because speaking to people’s hearts is simply a matter of speaking to the wounded kids inside of them.

So go meditate on this one.

Journal about it.

Grasp it.

See it.

And when you do start seeing it…

Start talking to the wounded kids inside of people. It’ll unlock new possibilities for emotional connection, mutual understanding, and trust. All things you should seek as a marketer.

Well, and as a human being.

Most marketers care WAY too much about shiny little tips & tricks that will “boost your conversion”… and “double your click-throughs”… and all that.

And they care not NEARLY enough about the deep, underyling principle stuff.

Here’s a good rule of thumb:

If a piece of advice was NOT 100% relevant a hundred years ago… and will NOT be relevant a hundred years from now… it’s probably not that important.

The most important stuff is timeless.

It never expires.

It was always true.

And it *will* always be true.

These truths… these “deep principles”… when you grasp them, and really inject their truth into your fingers, and your entire body, and your habit structures… they’re what matter. They’re the things that make a world-class copywriter. Or salesman. Or investor. Or musician. Or novelist. Or chef.

Not tactics.

Not font colors, spacing, emojis, placement of commas, etc.

Timeless principles. These are what really matter.

Please don’t ever do this.

When you do this…

Your business will bleed customer trust like a dude with a busted artery.

It’s easy – and it can even be profitable in the short term – and that’s why people do it – but it hurts your long-term livelihood. By a lot.

And yet…

People do this all the time.

Ugh.

Cheap marketing tricks—used by shortsighted people.

So what am I talking about?

Not paying off your subject lines.

By which I mean any attempt to make a super interesting/curiosity-inducing subject line… that gets people to open your email… but which you never actually connect to, relate to, or “pay off” in your email body.

An extreme example…

Say I had an email that was selling hand-crafted bicycles.

And I used the subject line, “OMG. Trump just DIED. Story enclosed…”

…and then in your email body, you mentioned nothing about Trump. Or death. But instead you did your normal bicycle spiel. And tried to sell cool bikes.

EVERYONE would open that email.

NO ONE would buy.

And EVERYONE would feel cheated.

So NO ONE would open your emails again.

And yes, that’s an exaggeration. Some people might buy. Some people might not feel cheated, because—coincidentally—they were looking for a good deal on a hand-crafted bike. And they got that. And some people would still open your emails—even if they felt cheated after opening your Trump one.

But you WOULD lose a whole buncha trust. By not “paying off” your subject line.

And in email marketing…

Trust…

Reader joy…

Feelings of relief & gratitude that they opened your email…

These are the metrics you should be aiming to ‘max out.’ Not opens. Not click-throughs.

So NEVER cheat your reader. Not even a tiny bit. Always reward them when they open your emails. Go above and beyond. Make the email MORE interesting than they were expecting.

And your list—and your emails—and your profits—will do well.

Always shoot for short. Simple words. Nothing too confusing. Fewer words per sentence.

This will improve your copy’s readability.

Which will increase your readership.

Which will increase your conversion.

This has been proven time and time again – that there is a direct correlation between the simplicity of your copy and its conversion.

And if you want an objective tool that will tell you exactly how simple/complicated your copy is…

Go here:

Flesch Kincaid Grade Level Readability Test for Copywriters

…and enter your writing in the text box.

Then click “check text readability.”

It will grade the reading level of your copy.

If you score higher than grade 8, try again.

For most markets, you should be shooting to score grade 4-6.

In my experience…

Beginners are bad at writing headlines because they start at the wrong place.

Let me explain.

For every product you write copy for… for every campaign, every event, every service, every business…

There’s a big “pile”… or web…  of interesting facts associated with that product.

This pile might contain unique features of your product.

Or celebrity endorsements.

Or weird applications.

Or related stories.

And the way to write a great headline(or subject line or opening line)… is to sort through that pile of interesting facts, choose the most interesting one, and put it into words.

This – choosing the most interesting fact associated with your product – is something beginner copywriters are very bad at.

Good copywriters are better at it.

Pro copywriters are masters at it.

In my experience…

Beginner copywriters start with the question, “what would make a good headline here?” …and then just start word-vomitting. And making attempts at writing interesting headlines based off of general principles… and vague notions they have about “what makes a good headline.”

And though this can lead to ‘okay’ headlines…

It’s a mistaken approach.

Because it starts at the wrong place.

START by determining what the most interesting fact related to your product is. THEN start putting that to words. Play around with it. Find a compelling way to frame that interesting fact. Then try again. Shave off some words. Add some. Your goal: put this interesting fact into words… in a way that grabs your reader’s attention and gets them to keep on reading.

While finding the right words *is* important…

What’s even more important is finding the right interesting fact.

And the better you get at copywriting, the clearer it will become what the “right” interesting fact for your hook/headline will be. Right off the bat.

If you’re just starting out, you may need to play around with 2-3… and see which one sounds most compelling.

One of the best ways to get people to read your stuff is to fill your sales copy with valuable information.

In other words…

Don’t just promise value in your copy.

Provide value in your copy!

Why?

Because people do stuff that benefits them. And so when they find that reading your sales copy actually benefits them… because it has valuable information in it… they’ll read it.

Not too complicated.

And yet not many copywriters do this.

They fill their copy with promises.

With words that point forward to value… but contain no value in themselves.

This is a mistake.

Fill your copy with value. And people will read it.

I recently did a training webinar where someone asked,

“How much white space should be in my copy?”

i.e…

When should you hit ‘enter’ and start a new line?

Are long paragraphs EVER appropriate?

My thoughts:

There are 2 things you should *avoid* here: (1) avoid just writing in huge, chunky paragraphs… and also (2) avoid having copy where you start a new line after every sentence… and where every sentence is roughly the same length.

(1) should just be common sense. Big paragraphs are tiring. They’re scary to look at. They can scare people off. But they can serve a helpful purpose (which I’ll explain in a sec).

(2) is a little less intuitive. Why avoid starting a new line after every sentence? …because when you do this, your copy starts to look like a big, long, double-spaced paragraph. And I’ve always found this copy harder to read. So instead of doing that…

I like doing this.

Having short runs.

Of short sentences.

Breaking them all up with a new line.

Because…

This is easy to read.

And once you’ve read a couple of these…

You build momentum in your reading, and you start to think to yourself, “alright, I’ve already started this thing… so I might as well finish it. And yes, I’m now reading a much longer paragraph… but since I had momentum going into it, it feels easier. And so here I go.” And you can keep on adding stuff to these paragraphs. And pack a lot of good material & good selling… or a good story… into these ‘biggies.’ And then…

…return to small sentences.

Short.

Punchy.

Build some more momentum.

Now what I’ve been doing over the past couple lines has been a bit exaggerated – often times my “short, punchy” sentences are longer than 2-4 words. And often times my longer paragraphs are shorter than 80 words.

But you get the point.

Don’t scare people off by only writing in huge paragraphs.

But also don’t tire people out by making your copy look like it’s just a single, whoppin’ double-spaced paragraph.

One of the best ways to get someone’s attention is to tell them about something NEW.

This works well for a couple reasons:

(1) Newness makes people curious. If you tell me that you have a “new” product, I immediately start wondering, “well, what’s new about it?” Then I’ll wonder other things, like, “what led you to make a new product?” “how is this new product different from similar ones?” etc. Newness piques curiosity. It pulls bystanders in… and pushes them on to find out more about this “new” thing.

(2) People naturally associate “new” with “good.” For better or for worse… people automatically assign value to ‘newness.’ And so when you tell them about a “new” product, or service, or offer… they hear “better product,” “improved offer,” etc.

(3) People like being in the know. And so if something new is happening… especially if it’s important, or relates to them personally… they want to know about it. So they can come off to other people as being informed, or “in the know.” And they also want to know about it because they suspect it might personally benefit them.

There are more reasons why ‘newness’ grabs attention.

But setting those aside…

Here’s what you should do now:

Always be on the look out for real news you can use in your sales copy. Always be searching for novelty in your product or offer. And if you find new-ness in your product… proclaim it from the roof tops.

Because people love new stuff.

Titles describe what follows them.

Headlines make you want to read what follows them.

Titles aim at accuracy.

Headlines aim at effectiveness.

Titles are crafted with the book, or article, or email in mind.

Headlines are crafted with the reader in mind.

Titles are often boring.

Headlines are never boring.

Titles often push away.

Headlines always invite in.

Titles are self-centered.

Headlines point beyond themselves.

Titles try to name something.

Headlines instill desire for something.

Don’t write titles.

Write headlines.

There’s a wonderful book by G.K. Chesterton about a fat & magical man with a hat… who gets carried over a garden wall by the wind, into the backyard of an unsuspecting family. But instead of apologizing and immediately leaving, he sticks around. And interacts with the people in that household—who were all previously bored with life, depressed, and mostly living with “eyes glazed over.”

…and this magical man, named “Innocent Smith,” immediately starts playing games. And questioning the people in this household. And inviting them into his mini-adventures.

And eventually…

The members of that household catch a severe case of Innocent Smith’s enthusiasm. Eventually they’re won over, and start loving life—just like Innocent.

What does this story have to do with copywriting?

So, so much.

The reason why Innocent is so enthusiastic about life & the world… is because he has a view of the world where everything is wonderful. Trees, hats, cardboard boxes, attics, empty bottles, “boring” people… all of these things are almost too good for words in Innocent’s view. This is why he’s so contagiously enthusiastic.

But the funny thing is…

Innocent’s view of the world is NOT portrayed as the “unrealistic” person in the story. On the contrary, Chesterton makes it very clear that Smith the most realistic character. And everyone else, when they had a dull perspective of the world… THEY were the unrealistic ones.

And there’s a great copywriting lesson here.

Because Chesterton is absolutely right:

The world IS wonderful.

Small things—mundane things—ARE almost too good for words, when you view them as they really are.

The reason why people live with eyes glazed over is because they DON’T see the world as it really is. They view things as far grayer, far worse than they actually are.

So your job as a copywriter is to be Innocent Smith.

Your job is to see the world as it actually is… as a wonderful place full of wonderful things.

This view of the world will make you enthusiastic.

And the more enthusiastic you become, the more your readers will start to “catch” your enthusiasm while reading your copy. So that THEY become enthusiastic about the same products, ideas & activities that you are. 

And again…

None of this happens because you’re being UNrealistic. Or “hypey.” Or disingenuous.

…but rather, it happens precisely because you are being realistic about the world. Accurate. And genuine.

Because the world is wonderful.

The only question is…

Do you have eyes to see it?

 
P.S. I highly recommend you read Chesterton’s book. It’s called “Manalive.” Here’s the book on Amazon. It’s a wonderful & worthwhile read in it’s own right. But especially if you’re in sales & marketing.