(Swipe, Thought, Uplifting, Picture, Interesting, Drawing)

This is a fun email for Friday May 6th, 2022. Hope you like it 🙂

🎤 Listen to this email here:

Swipe:

This was an ad from 1969 when Pop-Tarts were first introduced. In one image and a little text, the ad shows:

• What they look like
• What’s inside of them
• How they are packaged
• That they go in the toaster
• The different flavors of Pop-Tarts
• Dimensions of the Pop Tarts (hand for scale)

This ad makes me want a Pop-Tart!!

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Want more clients? Looking to write better, converting emails? In search of strategies to create standout content (that gets shared around the internet)?

No matter what copy skill you’re looking to build this year, This Copywriting Summit has got you covered!

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…It’s the biggest and best copy gathering of the year. Tickets are on sale now. Plus, for anyone who signs up from the Copywriting Course newsletter, you get 3 bonus gifts, at no additional cost:

• An ebook on 6 Secrets of Writing 6 Figure Emails
• A guide on 34 Headline Writing Secrets
• And a MASSIVE 461-page document full of booming DTC trends, email & copywriting tips, 100+ client ideas, and more

Normally, these books sell for between $19 and $399 each.

But right now, they’re sending them to anyone who gets a ticket today through this link for FREE. See you May 16!

Thought:

Sometimes it's easier to just "Show" a product rather than describe it.

This ad from Miro just "shows" a team building out a communication workflow with a simple gif, and it helps explain the product much better than tons of text!

Taking this concept even further, did you know on Amazon's phone app you can see an augmented reality view of what a product will look like in your home?

Here I typed in "Shelf", found a product, clicked "View In Your Room" and through the camera I can see exactly what it would look like in real life.

Instead of describing what this shelf is like, Amazon took it a step further and lets you SEE THE THING IN YOUR OWN HOME!

Uplifting:

I pay $600/month to have a guy from MyBodyTutor call me everyday at 10:15am and ask:

• What I ate (which I log throughout day).
• When I’m going to workout.
• What I'm going to do during that workout.
• What I’m going to eat today.

It’s been incredibly transformative on my eating habits.

For 2 years I was trying to hit a certain fitness goal and just "keeeppptt" missing it. The daily accountability this provides (also the fact I'm shelling out a good bit of money) keeps me on track.

I've never had a problem consistently working out....but pigging out on junk has always been a problem.

I've started cooking myself a lot more, and it's been super interesting to see how healthy you can make a meal (and learning what's in it vs never knowing with purchased meals).

Here's examples of meals I make now:

Beets, Avocado, Green Beans

Steak, Tomato, Spinach, Goat Cheese

Beets, Tomato, Spinach, Goat Cheese

Chicken Legs, Green Beans, Whiskey Cocktail

Chicken, Spinach, Tomato

Chicken, Goat Cheese, Tomato, Beets, Spinach

Making healthier meals like this has actually been pretty simple (having a grill outside is a game changer), and the food is super delicious still!

Picture:

In my experience Twitter is the fastest “Online —> IRL” friend making platform out there.

This is me and @RohunJauhar from DM to hanging out in 48 hours:

I've met a ton of friends through Twitter in the last year....and it kind of reminds me of the early days of blogging when you'd read people's blogs, somehow communicate, then meetup when traveling to their city or at a conference.

Interesting:

Speaking of Twitter....there's so many social networks, which one do you focus on??

In this recent post I reported on the 3 questions to ask which help you decide where to focus your energy:

#1.) What channels do I have a natural advantage?
#2.) Will I enjoy spending 1-3 years of time on this platform?
#3.) What main channel helps me create "cascading content"?

Ultimately it's best when you create one type of content that "cascades" into many types of content.

For me, it's like this:
Blog Post ⇨ YouTube Script ⇨ Social Media Posts (Twitter and LinkedIn)

This means if I write one blog posts, it creates a nice SEO asset that then allows me to easily make other content:

Drawing:

I love the shortening of information. You get to pick-and-chose your desired level of depth and mastery.

For example if you want to learn to cook an egg, you can choose your desired "depth" of knowledge:
• 30 seconds: TikTok
• 15 minutes: YouTube
• 1 hour: YouTube
• 2 hours: Book
• 6 hours: Course
• 100 hours: School

However this illustration by Janis Ozolins shows it's actually KIND OF HARD to make short content!

I always thought making catching Instagram Reels or TikTok videos was easy, but often they have as much editing as a long video.

Hope you enjoyed these little tidbits, have a happy Friday!
Sincerely,
Neville Medhora - CopywritingCourse.com | @NevMed

In copywriting it’s super helpful to first find the tone of your voice.

Why?

• If you do it right, people will WANT to read your stuff.
• Everyone who interacts with your writing will react to it’s style. (or worse…NOT react).
• You have to write like this all day, so it’s best to at least enjoy doing it!

The good part is, you don’t have to stick with one tone of voice forever.

There are MANY different tone’s of voice you can use in your writing.

I don’t care if you run a small blog…..
I don’t care if you own a dental practice…..
I don’t care if you are a Fortune 500 Company salesperson…..

The tone you use in your writing is interchangeable for different situations.  

Take my hand ::eww don’t really touch my hand:: and let’s look at some tone of voice examples together:

Omg…..if you’re a SaaS company (Software As A Service), you often have the easiest job of all. Because all you have to do is SHOW YOUR PRODUCT WORKING!!!

Member Mouse does a fantastic job on their landing page just SHOWING with video the product works:

Why bother with tons of text when you can just SHOW something in a quick screen-capture video?

Another thing they do well is list a bunch of features:

Most of the people coming to Member Mouse ALREADY KNOW they are shopping for a membership website plugin…..so they don’t need to extensively explain each feature.

And they actually have videos in the support section showing the features in action, so there’s not much need to use tons of text here.

As you’ll notice, they had to have very little “Tone” because people aren’t coming to this site for the “TONE”…..they’re coming for a working piece of SOFTWARE.

Just show the damn thing in action!

Also what works well……GIF’s.

Here’s an example from Gif Cam that shows how easy it is to add text on their software:

Why bother WRITING about how great it is….when you can just SHOW it?

The “Super Vulnerable” Tone is best deployed for a story that actually feels difficult or “vulnerable” to share.

For example, in this Prey Project copy from AppSumo I wrote years ago…..

It was the first time we’d used “vulnerable” copy on AppSumo and it worked spectacularly.

I had actually been robbed a few months before…..and the feeling was extremely violating.  I would literally fantasize about what I would do to the bastards that robbed me if I found them.

…..now that’s kind of messed up thinking right?

Well I knew I couldn’t be the only one that felt like this.  And to my surprise, I got a bomb-explosion of emails in my inbox that day about that email.  Even from people who are already great copywriters:

Like I said in the beginning of this article, you can use all these different styles at different times.

For that particular deal, telling a hard-hitting-emotional story was the best way I could get people to use Prey.

(Swipe, Thought, Uplifting, Picture, Interesting, Drawing)

This is a fun email for Friday April 29th, 2022. Hope you like it 🙂

🎤 Listen to this email here:

Swipe:

I saw this image from AirSign used in an Instagram advertisement, and it immediately felt familiar:

It felt very much like this 1978 Susan Wood photo from New York Magazine I had posted about a few months ago:

Don't they look kinda similar??

I reached out to the company to see if this was indeed their inspiration for the ad:

This was their reply:

So this ad wasn't the direct inspiration but it's neat to see a similar style being revitalized 🙂

Thought:

Does anyone else feel like a philanthropist whenever you click the organic result on Google instead of making the company pay for your click 😂

Slightly scrolling down to click the organic result could save a company $2 to $40 per click 😬

Companies are often FORCED to bid on their own brand keywords because Google kiiinnnd of extorts companies into doing this.

For example if I Google "Ahrefs" you'll notice their competitor "SemRush" comes up as an ad before Ahref's own organic result:

Because of this companies have to bid higher and higher for their own top spot.

Uplifting:

The Lord has answered my prayers after 10 years:

Google Docs "Pageless" format for a continuous document with no page breaks 🙏

On your Google Doc: File → Page Setup → Click "Pageless"

Thank you Jesus, Allah, Buddah, Zarathustra, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster for finally answering this prayer!

I've been waiting so long.

Documents with tables would always get messed up like this, with that little line caused by a page break:

Picture:

I get more done in 2 hours of co-working than 8 hours of working alone.

For example had some buddies over co-working the other day:

In fact as I'm writing this I have someone else working at my place.

Since I get so much more done when co-working, I've decided to formalize this process a bit more.

Instead of "randomly calling whoever at the moment" I've started a list of people to co-work sorted by proximity to me:

This should make it easier to schedule!

Interesting:

Did you know Google has free games and tools you can use right from the search results?

Google this: "Play Snake"
You can instantly play a game of snake, and even select other games like Tic Tac Toe and Minesweeper.

There's also some useful tools...

Google this: "Flip A Coin"
You'll be able to do quick coin flips to help you make a decision.

Or Google "Google Tuner" and right from the search results you can tune your guitar!!

Drawing:

Writing Tip: Avoid "Rambling Old Man Syndrome" when you write.

This is where you start writing, but end up rambling about semi-related stuff.

For example this shows a story zig-zagging all over the place and confusing the reader:

The way you solve "Rambling Old Man Syndrome" is by answering this question before writing:

"The point of this article is..."

For example:

The point of this article is...to show people how to write a cold email.

The point of this email is...to get them to call my phone number.

The point of this Tweet is...to show that you should avoid "Rambling Old Man Syndrome."

By knowing what your content is about FIRST, you can keep your story structure easy to read, like this:

Hope you enjoyed these little tidbits, have a happy Friday!
Sincerely,
Neville Medhora - CopywritingCourse.com | @NevMed

A lot of writing is bad because of "Rambling Old Man Syndrome."

Watch the video here:

Listen here:

A lot of writing is bad because of "Rambling Old Man Syndrome."

That's when it feels like you're listening to a rambling old man who never finishes a specific story:

It looks like this:

These kinds of posts are built on bad outlines that look like this:

If you’re a regular poster on LinkedIn, you can get a lot of people looking at your profile. 

Having a big audience is great - but the real goal is to get those people to do something like:

• Subscribe to your emails.
• Buy a product from you.
• Hire you.

…and that means visiting your website. 

Most people add a link to their site in the About section of their LinkedIn profile.

That might work, but it’s easy to get lost on the profile page. 

Instead, there’s a really easy way to add a CTA that you can’t miss. 

Here’s how to turn your profile visits into website visits.

Step 1: Add a profile section.

Step 2: Click “Add featured”.

Step 3: Click the plus icon.

Step 4: Add your CTA link.

Then, you should end up with a big section on your profile linking back to your site. 

This should help you turn more of your profile viewers into website visitors! 

(Prefer a video version? Here's a walkthrough I recorded for a member who posted a LinkedIn question in the forum)

(Swipe, Thought, Uplifting, Picture, Interesting, Drawing)

This is a fun email for Friday April 22nd, 2022. Hope you like it 🙂

 🎤 Listen to this email here:

Swipe:

This seems so stupidly old school, but the whole world used to run on these things called "pagers" or "beepers."

Circa 1997 it was common for people to carry around these big fat chunky plastic devices that would display a phone number on it:

You would then find a landline phone to call back that number.

However people got clever and started making codes they could send using roughly 12 characters or less.

Checkout this LA Times article from 1997 showing how teenagers would use these codes to communicate:

It's funny to think how "high tech" this was ~20 years ago. Compare this simple one-way communication device showing 12 characters compared to a regular modern day iPhone!

Thought:

My favorite things to re-vamp in our members area is software products. The reason is you can:

Show, Don't Tell

Basically this means you can show an image or video of the software in action and people understand it right away. No need to explain with tons of text.

Here's an example of Show, Don't Tell for a workout app:

Here's an example of Show, Don't Tell for a podcast editing feature on Descript:

Here's an example of Show, Don't Tell for a "social landing page" app:

Each of these examples conveys what the product does with very little text, as just "showing it" does most of the work.

Uplifting:

This is a cool feature of Apple TV I rarely seen talked about:

Try watching your Apple TV using AirPods and they do this thing called "Spatial Audio."

It means even if your head turns away from the screen, it will still sound in your head like the audio is coming directly out the TV...as if you were watching with speakers.

It works amazingly well on Hulu and NetFlix (not really YouTube).

This sounds so realistic I had to triple-check my speakers were off!

To test the different settings, try watching YouTube or turning off the Spatial Audio, and you'll see how different "normal" mode sounds.

This is a cool feature if you don't want to disturb other people in the house, but still want to crank a movie loud, or if you don't have great speakers on your TV.

Try it!

Picture:

This is a funny sign, but super accurate and to the point! You can't help but run this horrible scenario in your head when you look at the machinery.

This is as direct as copywriting can be!

Interesting:

This whimsically bad homepage is still the homepage of CopywritingCourse.com:

The reason it stays like this:
I've NEVER been able to beat the conversion rate of it....specifically this version with the stick figure guy.

This month a 1,000+ conversion test showed this page did:
• Unique Visitors 7,619
• Conversions 1,200 (people who entered their name and email)
• Conversion Rate 15.75%

Nearly a 16% conversion rate!

That means of every 100 people that see that page, 16 of them signup to receive my emails. That's pretty good for an old stick figure!

Drawing:

10 years ago I acquired most of my knowledge through books.... Now I acquire it mostly through podcasts and YouTube and Social Media:

It's been fun to watch this shift happen as better forms of consumption become digital, easier and cheaper.

Next stop: VR and AR experiences! 😎

In 20 years we'll look back on the era of big fat chunky facemasks for VR like we look back at the comical technology of pagers 

Hope you enjoyed these little tidbits, have a happy Friday!
Sincerely,
Neville Medhora - CopywritingCourse.com | @NevMed

When you have so many choices, which platforms do you choose?
Blogs • Email • Twitter • Tik Tok • Images  • YouTube • Podcasts • Facebook • Medium • Quora • Instagram •  Long Form Video  • Short Form Video • Media Companies • Sooooooo many more...
😳

Watch the video here:

Listen here:

Group Question: What content do you think YOU should focus on?

Mine is Blog Posts. If I write a blog post → It turns into a YouTube Video Script → It turns into social media content. What’s yours? Respond with your answer 🙂

Here's what the AIDA Formula is in a nutshell:

Attention: Get their attention with something catchy and relevant.
Interest: Tell them interesting facts or uses.
Desire: Make them desire the product/service.
Action: Get them to take an action.

Let's break that down into sections to understand it better:

Why Is The AIDA Formula Important?

The AIDA Formula is designed to lead people through a logical process that hooks them, gets them interested logically, gets them interested emotionally, then close the deal:

Going through these steps in order is one of the best ways to convince someone to:

• Buy a product.
• Buy a service.
• Convince someone of an idea.
• Take any action.

The AIDA Formula In Action (w/ Example):

Neville from Copywriting Course and Ross from Siege Media discuss how to use the AIDA Formula:

Here's a little demo and reminder of how to use the AIDA formula on your own:

Example of AIDA Formula (Let's Sell A Helicopter)!

Using the AIDA Formula as a base, let's see if we can convince someone to buy this helicopter:

It's hard to start off with a blank page, but with the AIDA Formula we just have to fill in the Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action sections!

Let's give it a try:

See how much easier that was to pitch since we just had to follow the simple AIDA Formula!?

I sincerely hope this useful formula helps you write content, emails, and everything else much easier!

Sincerely,
Neville N. Medhora

You've just discovered copywriting and want to get better.  GOOD.  Well here's my top advice and books for getting better at copywriting. These copywriting books are ranked in the order you should get them:

Let's go through each of them and discuss:
• What I love about the book
• What skills you'll learn from the book
• Who it's for (beginner or experienced writers)

2.) Advertising Secrets of the Written Word - by Joseph Sugarman:(re-named "Adweek Copywriting Handbook")

Price: $16 on Amazon

What I love about it: He goes through 30 different "triggers" that cause someone's brain to switch into "buying" mode. These are super helpful, and a great resource to re-read when you're feeling unmotivated!

What skills you'll learn: Writing. Style choices. The 30 Triggers and how to use them.

Tone of voice: Casual and easy. I like Joe Sugarman's style because he isn't "hypey" at all. He's very genuine and not scammy like some other classic copywriters.

Reading Level: Total Beginner.

Other Joseph Sugarman Resources:

• 30 Triggers Book
• List of Joe Sugarman's 30 Triggers

3.) Ogilvy on Advertising - by David Ogilvy:

Price: $19 on Amazon

What I love about it: Written directly by the guy who started the famed Ogilvy and Mather advertising firm in New York (which "Mad Men" is based off of).

What skills you'll learn: Large-scale advertising.  Brand advertising.  How to layout ads like a billion dollar brand. Tone of voice: Informative and pretty funny.  Less talk and lots of examples.

Reading Level: Beginner.

Other Free David Ogilvy Resources:

• How To Create Advertising That Sells
• David Ogilvy Advertisements
• Video of David Ogilvy talking about direct mail vs creative advertising

5.) This Book Will Teach You How To Write Better - by Neville Medhora:

Price: $5 on Amazon

What I love about it: This could be a 300 page book, but it was distilled down to 54 pages for super-quick reading.  This was meant to be a reference guide you can keep on your desk for when writing a piece of copy. What skills you'll learn: Mentality of a copywriter.  The styling to use while writing.  Formulas for copywriting. Tone of voice: Funny and informative. Reading Level: Beginner Other Free Neville Medhora Resources:

• Entrepreneur.com: How To Write Awesome Copy with Neville Medhora
• Copywriting Videos by Neville Medhora
• What Is Copywriting? (A Visual Guide)

 Here's a helpful list of all the books and courses mentioned:

Copywriting Book Recommendations Video:

(Swipe, Thought, Uplifting, Picture, Interesting, Drawing)

This is a fun email for Friday April 15th, 2022. Hope you like it 🙂

🎤 Listen to this email here:

Swipe:

Can you spot the "Social Proof" in this Canada Dry Water ad?

They use "number proof" to show off how popular their product is by saying "Over 900,000,000 highballs were made with Canada Dry Water last year."

Social Proof takes many forms, and using big numbers like this one is always a classic!

Thought:

If I write one blog post, it often "cascades" down into many pieces of content. Almost every time it goes like this:

For example:

I wrote a blog post on building a weekly newsletter:

Which turned into a YouTube video script:

Which turned into social media posts:

I call this "Cascading Content."

For me my "Cascading Content" is a strong blog post, and from there I can make multiple pieces from it.

Uplifting:

In the TV show Seinfeld, there's an episode called "The Opposite" where George Costanza is at a low point in his life, and decides to do everything "The Opposite."

It ends up working out amazing for him....

When George decides to do the opposite, Jerry says a sentence that's designed to mock George, but is rather profound:

"If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right." - @JerrySeinfeld

George's first "opposite" moment is when a beautiful woman is looking his way, and as usual...he does nothing.

He decides to do the opposite so he doesn't regret this moment.

He goes right up to her and says, "My name is George. I'm unemployed and I live with my parents." 😂

In this sentence he immediately revealed his deepest insecurities right up front, with zero lying or embellishing of the truth.

Much to George's surprise the woman responds very positively.

George's next "opposite moment" comes when two men sitting behind him are disturbing a whole movie theater.

Normally George would cower away and just accept this fate, but he does the opposite and scolds the men for being loud, to which he receives a round of applause!

George's final "opposite moment" is when he lands an interview with the New York Yankee's baseball team.

Instead of being polite to his future boss, he passionately lashes out against him and saying he's reduced the Yankee's to a laughing stock.

George instantly gets hired!

While Season 5 Episode 21 of Seinfeld is fictional, the lesson of "doing the opposite" is real.

If something isn't working, can you try the opposite?

Doing the opposite often feels foolish, takes courage, and maybe even involves some stupidity.

But the reward can be great.

Try the opposite.

You can watch "The Opposite" episode on NetFlix.

Picture:

Before Facebook allowed you to post pictures on the wall, people would post "ASCII Art" which was pictures made out of text, like this:

I still use a form of Ascii Art in my writing in the form of bullet points sorted by length, like this:

See how organizing that bullet point list makes it slightly more interesting?

Interesting:

Did you know you can edit any website with this little Javascript trick:

Create a bookmark in your browser with this code as the URL:

javascript:document.body.contentEditable = 'true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0

Just click that bookmark and you can edit text on any page!

Here's an example of me going to the Tesla website and editing the headline to my liking:

Let's make some fake news on The New York Times using this little Javascript trick!

I can "mockup" Twitter profiles using this trick also. Here I improve upon my friend Noah Kagan's profile!

You can see this trick in action in this quick little video I made:

I personally use this Javascript for:
• Showing clients what copy would look like.
• Seeing what minor webpage edits would look like.
• Removing images or elements from a page quickly.
• While reviewing someone’s website, just start changing the page up live so they can see it.

Copy and Paste the Javascript code into your own browser right from this post: https://copywritingcourse.com/blogs/34-edit-any-website-free-tool/

Drawing:

There's so many ways to spread your message at scale these days, it's almost confusing which social network to focus on:

Here's 3 questions to ask that'll help you decide which to focus on:

#1.) What channels do I have a natural advantage?
#2.) Will I enjoy spending 1-3 years of time on this platform?
#3.) What main channel helps me create "cascading content"?

I'm currently writing a blog post about this, and will share it here shortly 🙂

Hope you enjoyed these little tidbits, have a happy Friday!
Sincerely,
Neville Medhora - CopywritingCourse.com | @NevMed