Client: “It’s hard to get attention for a roofing company.” 

Copywriter: “Hold my beer.”

Around college I would crash parties to network with rich people.

Here was my toolkit to get into ANY of these parties: 
✔️ Flask with wine 
✔️ Cheap Wal-Mart wine glass 
✔️ Cocktail napkin 
✔️ Tux or suit 
✔️ Random lanyards and wristbands
 

To walk into a party right past security, the goal was to look like YOU WERE JUST INSIDE ALREADY! 

So I'd fill the wine glass, wrap the cocktail napkin around the stem, wear a lanyard under tux (hopefully sort of matching what they give at the event), then walk into the party while on the phone.

If you're a security guard and you see a tuxedo-clad person holding a drink they just ordered at the bar....you'd 95% likely just let them back in 😏
 

This is an interesting "industry size" comparison by keyword in terms of size:

Copywriting → Content Marketing → Digital Marketing → Make Money → Sales

"Sales" is what allllllll the industries actually do, so it makes sense "Sales" would be the largest parent keyword.

As an experiment a few years ago I bought a billboard for Copywriting Course. It was on a decently busy street and it cost $904 total (printing + posting):

The funny thing is: If no one buys the billboard space at the end of the month, they don’t spend money to tear yours down...

 

...so this billboard stayed up for 4 months for just $904!

One of the first reasons I moved Copywriting Course to a community model was so people could share their hand-copied advertising. 

It's something so simple yet so impactful. Yet only 2% of people will do it.

For example, here's 3 exercises we had members do:
#1.) Gary Halbert Family Crest Ad
#2.) Volkswagen "Lemon" Ad
#3.) The Man In The Hathaway Shirt Ad

Simply writing out by hand well-written ads is called "CopyWork" and it teaches you to "think" like the person writing it.

Buy a 10 minute review of your copy/marketing from me, or a discounted consult if you go through UpWork:

In our members area I'm currently doing an "UpWork Experiment" where I'm trying to:
✔️ Get 100 clients. 
✔️ Get 100 reviews
✔️ Make $100,000 in freelance revenue.

The goal is to become an "UpWork Rising Star" and I need your help. If you've got a lot of value out of my content or newsletter over the year, but never purchased a Copywriting Course subscription, maybe this is a way you can give back: By purchase a review or consult hour.

During the experiment I found on UpWork you can offer "tiered products", and I just made one today - Check it out here: 

If I were a newbie copywriter, I'd make a product setup like this people could choose from:

• Starter: $100 for a 10 minute video review.
• Standard: 1 hour consult
• Advanced: 2 hour consult

The goal of this is to get the holy grail of any marketplace: 

REVIEWS!

I provide a good service for people, they like it, they leave a good review.

Go buy one right now for this discounted price!

**Let me know if you have any issues or improvement suggestions on the profile.
 

This is like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Luxury Bags. It’s broken down by: 
- The Supremes 
- The Legacies 
- The Classics 
- The Contemporaries 
- The Accessible

A cool marketing experiment for a brand would be to make images and “research” like this and put your brand at the top so people go “whooa who’s that” and Google you 😏

A few SWIPES emails ago I accidentally found a way to improve the email reply rate:

By misspelling "snacks" as "snakes" 

I immediately got a flood of email replies from ya'll going:
"They had SNAKES in the green room!?!? 😂"
 

 

This is a cool chart showing the 9 different types of humor. I’ve never seen them listed out like this, super cool!

This is Mochi and he’s my work buddy whilst writing this email 🙂

I am dogsitting Mochi for a week, and have about 400+ photos of him on my phone already 😂

Here he is working out:

I took him to Whole Foods:

Here he is playing with Sid:

Here he is recording a podcast:

Here he is getting Lion King'd 😂

I'll spare you 400+ more photos and end there 🙂

Inside our members area we've been talking a lot about audiences and communities, and the difference in them. 

My buddy Sam said recently:

The CEO of NetFlix Marc Randolph recently shared how they picked the name “NetFlix” from a list of names based on if the domain was available.

They actually didn’t like the name at first! He said:

“We didn’t really like the name Netflix. It sounds like we were doing X-rated films. But it was the best we could do.”

This is the message Apple would send to all of it’s new employees to encourage them to be a little crazy and obsessive over the products they create:

"The 4% Rule" roughly states you can withdraw 4% of your savings per year for retirement.

 

There's an easy formula to calculate this:

So if you want to withdraw $100,000/yr, you would need $2.5m in savings:

$100,000 / 0.04 = $2,500,000

Cool huh!

People pay money for things that: 
- Saves them time. 
- Supports a cause. 
- Improves their status. 
- Teaches them new info. 
- Gets them access to info. 
- Satisfies a need or desire. 
- Solves a specific problem.

Can your biz answer these questions??

There’s something so brilliantly easy to understand about this ad. By showing a “long pencil” it demonstrates how this mechanical feed pencil can last much longer than a regular pencil.

I LOVED mechanical pencils in middle school, so this one hit me!

I was listening to the Danny Miranda Podcast and the guest @justinkan listed out 6 "relationship filters" for finding a partner I've never heard in this particular order:

Filter 1: Is this person attractive?
Filter 2: Do I want to spend time with this person?
Filter 3: Does this person fit in with my friends, social group, family.
Filter 4: Do we have compatible life goals and lives.
Filter 5: Is this person gonna be a good partner to build a family.
Filter 6: If we grow in our lives, will we still be compatible in many years.

Thought this was cool! Taken from my Apple Notes doc so many not be verbatim.

LEARN FROM COPYWRITING COURSE!

Stick all of this knowledge inside your head, so you know how to market super well for Q4:

All the biggest "spending events" of the year happen in Q4:
🗓 Halloween: Tuesday, October 31, 2023
🗓 Thanksgiving: Thursday, November 23, 2023
🗓 Black Friday: Friday, November 24, 2023
🗓 Cyber Monday: Monday, November 27, 2023
🗓 Christmas: Monday, December 25, 2023
🗓 New Year’s: Sunday, December 31, 2023

Oh yeah...we even help you implement this knowledge in our forum and Office Hours:

Going through everyone's questions and optimizing sales processes, copy, pages and more.

Some results:

Join this instant and use code LEVELUPYEAR at checkout for 30% off Copywriting Course!

37Signals posted this awesome copy on once.com (awesome domain name), and it explains how they’re charging only ONCE for their software and not the standard subscription-style that’s become so common:

I love the honest and simple way they wrote this!

This one might sting a little for some (including me)....but this chart shows the college majors people most regret getting, usually due to a lack of opportunity the major gets vs the amount of effort/cost to acquire it. 

Do you regret any of these??

“How do I make money?”  This graph has answers! 

Just glancing at it you’ll discover a ton of different services you probably didn’t even know about for making some side money:

The eye tracking chart:

1 year ago to this day: 
"Let's go paint balling and dress up like we came from the office." 

....only one person did 😂

Nothing can get more complex than explaining economic ideas, but having a slick image can do it in 1 second. Here’s some examples:

This graph shows allllll the different excuses to sell over the last 15 years.

It explains a simple-yet-complex concept to hold very long term, and ignore short term fluctuations. This is what Warren Buffett has been preaching for 50+ years!

Here’s a graph explaining inflation, and how “$1” is worth far less over time.

This one is super cool, instantly showcasing the concept that it took Google a whole slew of successful products to get where they are today:

This graph shows that “timing the marketing” can be very profitable…or a total loss 😳

This graph gives a range of income to be considered “Middle” Class” in different areas:

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

Question for you:

What have YOU learned the most from me in the past years?
A.) Copywriting
B.) Digital Marketing
C.) Making money
D.) Sales

Reply with your answer! I read all of them!

Did you know there's a whole industry dedicated to re-doing restaurant menu's to sell more?

Especially if you go to a large chain restaurant, 100's of hours have been put into subliminally directing you which food & drinks to buy:

Here's a very plain menu:

...and here's one that's been optimized like crazy:

The photos actually direct people to the menu items they want you to choose.

Having done this many times across many email lists, I can tell you it's healthy for the email list in the long run, but a massive hit to the ego in the short run!!

On one email list I removed 70,000 people.....it's a big blow to the ego for sure. 

On a clients company we removed a whopping 350,000 emails in ONE GO 😳
Quality of Audience > Quantity of Audience.

Today this simple desk setup could be made for $100, and the video and audio you make at it could be distributed for free to the entire world.

In 1970’s that type of power and distribution was reserved for only a few dozen people on the whole planet: 

 

Me and a few friends took a quick trip to Boston this last week to go to Inbound 2023 hosted by HubSpot. Here's the story!

We headed to Boston earrrrlly in the morning. Here's @thesamparr passed the f out across the isle from me with some crazy eye mask 😂

We couldn't checkin to the hotel so we changed in the back of a van taxi and got to the convention center (yes Sam is tall):

The Inbound conf took up the entire Boston Convention Center. About 12,000 people. It was pretty huge.

This was a quick trip, so we tried to meetup with everyone we could. Bumped into all sorts of people we hadn't met in person before @jayclouse and @KAL79.

Soon after we arrived Sam hosted this Shark Tank style pitch competition where a million bucks (I think) was being awarded:

The two winners of the pitch competition were: @ArjunMahadevan for @doolaHQ and @qfav95 for Tavus ....also there was a unicorn presenting the award 😂

We wandered around the conference for a while. We tried to steal this cart to get around but were unsuccessful (probably for the best) 🤔@nickgraynews

Then we went to see @hubermanlab speak. I took this video to show the sheer scale of this room. It had ~10,000 seats 🤯

Walking from the back row to the front row took minutes.

The room was like an optical illusion with how big it was!

Walking from the back row to the front row took minutes. The room was like an optical illusion with how big it was.

The last talk wasn't a talk....but a comedy set from John Mulaney! I listen to a lot of comedy podcasts, and they usually say corporate gigs suck.....but John KILLED IT!! He did crowd work, roasted the conference, roasted the CEO's....it was awesome. 

Then afterwards me + Sam + Nick had dinner with the HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh.

What a cool guy, and such a special way to end the first day!

The next morning was a talk with Sam about community and Hampton. I was moderator. 

We went backstage and saw the crazy setup they had back there:

They had a fulllllll on professional production going on backstage. 

They even did hair/makeup for us 😂

The whole production was so well run, and it's really neat to see behind the scenes. They had 5 green rooms with snakes and drinks. Me and Sam were going over some last minute prep. Also it was super helpful to have Nick there for this (First because he's our buddy and we love hanging, Second because he took some fun pics, and Third because he's so on top of his stuff)! 

It was fun looking at the technical stuff behind the scenes, I love that stuff. There were so many video streams and switching equipment and A/V stations. It looked really neat.

Up on stage:

Up on stage with @thesamparr:

Then right before leaving Boston @nickgraynews managed to squeeze in a sweet JFK Museum tour for us!

That's a wrap on our quick fun trip to Boston!

 

 

“Constraints Create Creativity.” 

If you add a constraint to a task, you’ll likely think of a way to finish it by then. 

One of my favorite questions to ask for a task is:

I had a to-do list the other day that needed completing....I didn't do most of it.

Then I had an event to attend so I only had 30 minutes left. I FINISHED ALL THE WORK IN 30 MINUTES 🤔

This is because there was a constraint.

So if you give yourself a constraint you can often finish stuff way faster!

Here's a cool chart from Lenny on how long it took each of these companies to:
▲ Launch a live product
◼ Get their first customer
⚫️ Get Product Market Fit
I’m not the biggest fan of the symbols they used (a little confusing IMO) but still cool!

I thought this was a cool ad for cufflinks that not only looks great, but also shows off their entire collection + pricing:

You can see in the eye trace how people's eyes scan through each one!

There's a great phrase:

Quote

"Writing is thinking."

The act of "writing" is usually hard because it involves a lot of thinking and brain power. 

But writing things down can help:

• Clarify your thoughts.
• Remember material better.
• Help with decision making. 

I use this thing called a "Boogie Board" to write stuff down on all the time...you press a button and it permanently erases everything. 

It's such a cool tool to brainstorm with:

Whoa…this pie chart shows how 3 companies own 93% of the entire soft drink industry 🤯

This past weekend I escaped the Texas summer heat and went to Malibu. 

We stayed at an awesome resort called Calamigos and it was amazing:
 

I enjoyed the nice weather outside:

Took an outside dunk 😬

Hung out by the pool:

And saw a lot of beautiful landscape around Malibu:

In lieu of an essay today, can I ask you a question? 

Why (or why not) did you join Copywriting Course? 

Example responses:
- I wanted help on some marketing.
- I wanted to learn about a specific subject.
- I wanted to get help in the Office Hours sessions.

Or would you want to hear...
- More about starting a freelancing businesses (not just copywriting).
- Digital Marketing in general.
- Agency work.

I would love if you respond, even if it's short, and I will keep the responses private. Thank you 🙏🏼
 

Wow…this graphic shows a surprising conclusion:

When Nike sells a $100 shoe, they make only $5 in profit!?!

This is a cool “social proof” ad for Good Year Tires that shows alllllllll the cars for 57 years that used Good Year Tires as their stock tire. It’s like showcasing all the companies that use your product.

Not only is this a good use of social proof, but also just a beautiful frame-worthy ad!

The eye tracking charts show it goes for the tire first then people glimpse at the individual cars:

We can all relate to this….you plan all this stuff for the morning, and you end up working on a “little of everything” and end up getting nothing done 😬

This is called a “Productivity Trap” where you start your day, but get caught up in a whirlwind of tasks that seem productive but are all over the place 😵‍💫

This is an awesome example of “Testimonial Judo” (using a bad review to show why the product is actually awesome).

Checkout the "bad review" of this ski mountain:

The person is complaining it's "too advanced" which actually makes it desirable to advanced skiers:

I've got "birds nest" balcony on my house and sometimes I just hang out here in the morning or evening and watch the sun rising or setting:

Best is when drinking coffee and feeling the caffeine buzz come on while up there ☕️

This is a super cool word-of-mouth flyer I saw at a friends event that had all the right elements for a referral:
→ A polite request for recommendations. 
→ Explains what the company does. 
→ Shows social proof. 
→ CTA to text the founders.

FRONT OF FLYER:

BACK OF FLYER:

This is my PSA to the world:

When trying to schedule a hangout with someone, a 45 second call is way better than 15 back-n-forth interspersed text messages!

Few understand this:

Yes texting is awesome in many cases....but if there's conflicting schedules or complex plans, a quick call is far better to hash it out quickly!!

The Tesla showrooms show that after a $7,500 federal credit a Tesla Model 3 is technically cheaper per mile than a Toyota Corolla, Toyota Camry, or BMW 3-Series.

Comparing your pricing to something else is a popular tactic (i.e. “This software is cheaper than buying a coffee everyday.”

[YOUR SERVICE] → Compared to something relatable:

1. "Our monthly subscription costs less than a gym membership."
2. "You can get our product for the price of a movie ticket."
3. "Our service costs less than a daily newspaper subscription."
4. "For the price of a Happy Meal, you can get access."
5. "Our pricing is comparable to a cup of coffee."
6. "You can get our product for the price of a couple of cups of tea."
7. "Our annual subscription is cheaper than a night out at the movies."
8. "For the cost of a pizza delivery, you can have our product for a whole month."
9. "Our pricing is equivalent to a single ride on public transportation."
10. "You can get our service for the price of a magazine subscription."

Who is REALLY your target audience? Find them and sales become easier...sometimes it's not who you think:

Many people sell to the wrong audience for years (I did). Here’s a way to figure out who is REALLY your target audience, and to find out where they hang out so you can grab em.

AI thinks I’m the 8th best copywriter. I’ll take it 😂

 

Nadeera ChatGPT'd about copywriters and saw this!

It's kind of interesting: Maybe the new form of "SEO" is being mentioned in generative AI results.

Ironically the way to do that is by being ranked high in the search results (which AI learns from).

Around 1999 British Airways was the main sponsor of the London Eye, and they had problems “erecting it” on time. Richard Branson…ever the provocateur…took advantage of this and got a blimp to say “BA CAN’T GET IT UP!!” resulting in a ton of attention for Virgin Airways 😂

I started consulting years ago when UpWork was a small platform for small freelancers. 

But now it's a top 1,000 site on the planet with ~50m visits/mo:

I was thinking: 

If start consulting again today, I would start on UpWork FIRST. 

There seems to be major benefits to doing consulting on a platform such as:

It brings new customers to you:
People searching UpWork for copywriting or digital marketing would find me, and many times wouldn't have found me any other way.

If people don't buy consulting, they may buy other products.
There's been a few times I've searched on UpWork, and while I didn't hire the person I found the portfolio or website interesting and started following them.

**Reviews** This is a major one...perhaps THE reason to do it:
I've done consulting for hundreds of companies big & small, and it doesn't get published (or proved) anywhere. That would change if it were all logged and rated on a platform. 

For example here's just a fraction of the companies I've worked with:

...but you'd never know it.

Imagine if I'd been logging all these consults (with reviews included) for the last 10 years.

If I did an UpWork Experiment, would you be interested in buying a 1-on-1 consult for a greatly reduced price?

Reply to this email with your:
- Name
- Phone number
- (Optional): What you'd like to talk about.

I would pack the schedule with consults in exchange for reviews. Also these calls are awesome, we can talk strategy, or just do work on the spot (my favorite)!

 

I’m assuming there was a marketing meeting where they showed a chart of the best sellers in a gas station, then slapped this product together 😂

I was at a gas station when I took this pic....and something about the "SNICKERS" logo just instantly grabbed (maybe bc I used to eat them all the time 😬), so I ran it through an eye tracker and confirmed that's generally the first thing people see!