Cough syrup in the 1920’s was LIT!! 🔥

A fun thing about browsing so many old ads is you see the INSANE ingredients that were in some old-timey medications. 

This "Cough Syrup" contained alcohol, weed, chloroform, and morphine...I bet this worked WAY TOO WELL 😂

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

If you sell a product, ask yourself which of these things your product solves!

Some people specialize, some people generalize. This guy (who is an electrician) decided to list evvvveerrryything he can do plus some funny stuff for novelty 😂

I would say this business card falls under the "novelty" category and entertains the reader enough so they might keep the card. 

This card reminds me of this soap I use called Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap. The packaging has these looonnggg rambbbllinng paragraphs of ultra small text all over the bottle: 

I use the soap because it's a quick way to rinse off (the soap "comes off" your body very fast compared to other stuff), but I'm always tickled and entertained by it's insane packaging 😂

My friend just posted a book I recommended The Male Mid-Life Crisis by Nancy Mayer:

I first read this when I was 17 in high school, and it fundamentally shifted the way I viewed life/relationships/death.

It was cool to see from a young age what causes (men in particular) to blow up their lives in middle age, and I took away many methods of avoiding it.

The book shows how males can approach a “mid life crisis” when all these stressors hit at the same time:

• They look at their children and realize “THEY are young, I am old.”
• Their parents are starting to fade or die, and they see they're next.
• Financial demands from children, spouse, life, parents.
• Time demands from children, spouse, friends, work, parents.
• Some men got pressured into marriage way too young and never got to explore the world outside their relationship and they realize "this is it."

According to the book a combination of these things happening at the same time can make a man snap.

I talk about it in this one minute clip:

Anyways, checkout the book if you're interested in the subject. I found her writing style to be incredibly raw and honest which is what I liked about the book.

Sometimes I’m jealous of people who are like: “I was broke as shit 2 years ago but now I’m hella rich and I’m gonna teach you how!!” 

My story is way lamer: “I haven’t been broke since I was 17, and have always had several years of savings ready!!”

😬 HOWEVER THERE'S A PLOT TWIST 😬

This current economy seems like a repeat of 2008: 

A bank fails, then another, then another...then a BUNCH.

During an obvious recession like this the climate shifts from get-rich-quick schemes to preservation of money. 

All of a sudden the get-rich-quick guy goes out of favor, and a boring-advice guy like Warren Buffet (who has been consistently rich for 60+ years) becomes more trusted. 

The next few years will be super interesting to watch as non-useful products fall by the wayside, and the useful products rise to prominence.
 

So many people obsess about the "Subject Line" of their email, but this is short term thinking.

Your sender reputation is far more valuable than your subject line!

Imagine your mom sends you an email but it has a crappy subject line.

You’d probably still read it! 

If your emails are:
✔️ So good readers forward them.
✔️ So good readers learn from them.
✔️ So good readers respond to them.
✔️ So good readers screenshot them.
✔️ So good readers look forward to them.
...they will likely consistently get high open rates.

This simple chart makes it visually easy to see prices of different medical procedures in the USA, Korea, Singapore, and India.

Fun personal story about Indian medical costs: 
In 2013 I got bit by a homeless guys pit bull and had to go to the hospital and get a full set of rabies shots. 

Insurance paid $7,500 for the first set of shots, and $350/each for the 4 follow-up shots. 

I was going to India THREE DAYS AFTER I GOT BIT, and the same shots cost: $50 for the first set of shots, and $7/each for the 4 follow-up shots.

The Indian healthcare system is far less regulated than the USA, so the quality of care was....questionable at times...but the difference in cost was staggering! 

$9,000 vs $78 😳 

Know who your actual customer is. 

For example: If someone is buying Crayons...it's the PARENT not the child spending the money. 

This 1979 Crayola ad appeals specifically to parents who want their kids to be creative, inventive, and explore their artistic ability....

SECRET TRANSLATION: 
"Get your kids to sit down and be quiet for a few minutes so they leave mom alone!!" 

They know their customer 😏

What's very easy to see here (thanks to a this simple data chart) is how NetFlix and YouTube combined account for ~25% of all internet traffic!

Fun thing yesterday happened yesterday: My friend Noah Kagan threw a SXSW party and panel to talk about content creation in 2023:

It was me, @noahkagan, @thesamparr, @jwmares, and moderated by the awesome @nickgraynews:

It was a fun turnout on East Sixth St here in Austin, TX during the SXSW Festival:

My friends @cathrynlavery, @thesamparr, and @ramonvanmeer chatting:

Some guy was wearing this funny shirt with Kim Jong Un on the back 😂

The "Cloud of Influence" is the cloud of exposure you get from posting on multiple platforms:

→ People directly subscribed (high engagement)
→ Mentions & conversations (medium engagement)
→ Exposure through feeds (low engagement)

10+ years ago it used to be simple to see where a follower came from:

They Googled "copywriting"
⬇
Found a post.
⬇
Subscribed to email.
⬇
Bought a product.

Now with so many social platforms/feeds, a customer journey can be loooong and winnnndddding.

So putting out a large "Cloud of Influence" helps!

I personally do this through posting every platform including Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter.

Have you ever wondered how I blast out 50,000+ emails a week to this newsletter?

I use a service called ConvertKit.

It's my top pick for sending out an email newsletter because:

Most email senders are complex, CK is not.

The editor is the simplest I've ever used.

It does autoresponders, broadcasts, and email signups.

It's what I've been running 100% of my emails through for years.

In addition to this newsletter, I send out email sequences to people who have just signed up, ConvertKit also handles that:

This is a frequent question I get: "Which email service should I use??"

I have extensively used other platforms like Aweber, Klaviyo, MailChimp, and InfusionSoft....but ConvertKit has been my go-to for years. I wrote more in detail about it here!

The McDonald's swag game in 1984 was hard 😂

If they still had this promotion I'd totally buy a Big Mac just to get it 😂

Most of these hats are going for $100+ on eBay!

This cool illustration shows how much you learn from theory, from practice, and from mistakes:

This is an AWESOME way to display lots of data in a small image:

...at the same time it's disheartening to see the decline of a great show visualized like this.

There's many cool YouTube videos talking about how The Simpsons fell into an un-watchable show (which you can see reflected in its modern IMDB ratings):

tl;dr: 
- All of original writers left.
- Instead of mocking pop culture they became it, and had tons of weird celebrity cameos they "forced in."
- Storylines and jokes used to be layered and complex, then they became lazy and unfunny. 

Who else is like this? 😂

Also it's SXSW time in Austin and there's so many meetup/event thingies going on. Went to one yesterday thrown by my friends Nick and Cody:

The party was bigger than normal, so it was split up into different rooms in a big house:

Saw some of my friends there:

We had a similar meetup a few weeks ago at my house:

Fun Fact: Here's what ~30 people drank over a 2.5 hour period on a Wednesday at my party a few weeks ago: 

• 32 cans of seltzer water
• 8 normal water bottles
• 8 Topo Chico's
• 2 alcoholic seltzers
• 1 beer 

Very little alcohol consumed!

Sometimes using a "pattern interrupt" is great way to grab attention. A "pattern interrupt" can be something something that's a little different than normal, and gets attention in an otherwise mundane task. 

For example: This was a fun unsubscribe email from Drizly with a funny pattern interrupt! You get this funny copy and dog that tries to make you 2nd guess your decision of unsubscribing.

The "OMG look at his little glasses" part got me 😂

When un-subscribing to an email there's normally a boring thing like this:

But that fun copy and glasses-dog potentially make you re-consider 🙂

Another example is this extremely goofy gif on the homepage of Copywriting Course:

I've always wanted to make that area more professional, but the reason I keep it like that: That silly gif gets a 10% to 12% conversion rate.

That means out of 100 people that land at that page, 10 or 12 enter their name and email (which is pretty good). 

I've never been able to out-perform that number with other tests so far!

My "Splurge" recommendation today costs a grand total of $13. 

It's an AMAZING book called Project Hail Mary, and it's been my most recommended book in the last few years (and the one I've let the most amount of people borrow)!

You may recognize the author Andy Weir, he wrote "The Martian."

This is his third book and in my opinion the best (even better than The Martian which is an already amazing book).

Book 1.) The Martian: Great book! 
Book 2.) Artemis: Meh. 
Book 3.) Project Hail Mary: Amazzzzing book!

I like this book because it's "hard science fiction" which means the story is not real, but the physics in the book are real. 

I don't even want to tell you about the book, because it has some great reveals and stuff you'd never expect, so I don't want to rob you of that. 

My favorite thing to do is recommend this book, people start reading, then every few days they call and are like, "OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE ______!!!!!"

This headline created a "surprised" emotion with the giant headline “Oops! We goofed”

I didn’t WANT to read the smaller print of this 1964 ad, but HAD to with this headline!

Since it got me with the headline, it runs me down the "Slippery Slope" to the small copy which examples they’re out of stock of Pop-Tarts because they’re so popular.

This 1979 Crayola ad uses a descriptive headline to appeal to parents who want their kids to sit and be creative (AND QUIET!!) for a few minutes.

Whoever wrote this ad knew what they were doing 😏

This headline clearly appeals to parents who would **just-for-a-bit** play with a toy that keeps them quiet.

This ad pulls a few heartstrings saying “I didn’t get the job” from a man who hasn’t shaved.

You can clearly feel the disappointment on the man and his partner through the combination of this headline and image.

This ad uses some reverse psychology to get your to read it by saying why NOT to buy the car 🤔

Since this headline grabbed us to read it the rest of the copy, you realize these are all ACTUALLY great reasons to buy the car!

This was a great headline in 1978 that causes some intrigue in your brain, since “Playing the TV” was a totally new and novel concept at the time!

I love the simplicity and grabbiness of this ad, and how it focuses on one major feature of this stereo: A handle.

It shows that by buying this stereo “boom box” you can take your music anywhere.

This is a tasty looking Big Mac ad from 1979 that has a very funny headline.

Both the image AND headline are quite grabbing!

The inside joke on this one was from a McDonald's in the 1970's where people say this sentence very quickly:

"Two-all-beef-patties-special-sauce-lettuce-cheese-pickles-onions-on-a-sesame-seed-bun"