Copywriters Podcast

The world of copywriting and ecommerce almost changed forever last September 29, when Open AI launched something called Instant Checkout.

This new service was designed to let you seamlessly buy something right from Chat GPT.

Instant Checkout crashed and burned over the next six months for a number of reasons.

One, the infrastructure wasn’t there to let it happen. It was launched before there were enough figurative runways, air traffic control towers, connections between Chat GPT and merchants, and other things like that.

Two, the cost to merchants was really out of...

Today we’re continuing with our Old Masters Series focus on the contributions of Albert Lasker. This is Part 2.

Lasker is the one person in history who, more than anyone else, created the foundation for what advertising is today—at least direct response advertising.

On today’s show, we’re going to review some more of the most important lessons we have learned resulting from his innovations more than 100 years ago.

Here’s the short version of his history:

At age 18, Albert Lasker arrived in Chicago to take a job at the Chicag...

Albert Lasker didn't just become one of advertising's biggest names—he helped invent the way modern direct response marketing works.

In this episode of the Old Masters Series, we explore the principles that transformed advertising from clever announcements into measurable sales systems.

You'll hear the stories behind the ideas that influenced generations of copywriters, from Claude Hopkins to David Ogilvy, and why many of those lessons still outperform today's marketing trends.

If you've ever wondered why some ads persuade while others are forgotten, this episode traces the origins of the answer.

Th...

Our special guest today didn’t start out planning to be a copywriter, but found his way into it after posting online reviews of his favorite martial arts movies in college, and getting his writing compared to that of Dan Kennedy.

He looked up Dan and found what he had to say interesting. But he didn’t become a copywriter or a marketer at the time. Instead, he finished his degree and went from job to job for a few years until he landed in sales, where he ended up doing really well. 

12 years after his f...

Last week, we did a show on how content marketing is failing direct marketers when you do it the way everyone else does it.

Basically, social media encourages you to crave attention and approval, instead of get results.

Nathan asked me if we could a completely different version of the show, where we focus on including direct response elements in our content marketing.

I thought that was a great idea! So, we’ll do that, and cover the use of direct response thinking and techniques in social media, articles, videos and emails.

...

Our returning champion today is Kim Krause Schwalm, and she is going to share some amazing and unique information with you.

The late Clayton Makepiece, a legend himself in copywriting, said, and I quote: “Kim Krause Schwalm is one of the hottest copywriters alive.”

Here’s a little background:

Kim was always a marketer who could write copy. Before she launched her freelance career in 1998, she spent years in corporate marketing — from Brand Manager to Publisher — including building the Healthy Directions supplement business to the equivalent of nearly $40 million in sales within its first thre...

If you’ve always wondered about content marketing, you’re not alone. It’s a confusing term and there’s no standard definition to describe what it means.

It really depends on your point of view.

Well, we have a point of view on this podcast, and it is the point of view of direct-response copywriting.

Now, to be sure, not EVERY word you write is part of a sales letter, even from our point of view.

But every word should lead in some way to a sales process at best or build...

Social media can be a HUGE waste of time, but sometimes when you’re scrolling you come upon a gem.

I did last week, and it led to all kinds of crazy thoughts.

I was on Twitter/X, and I discovered this post by lesser known but A-plus screenwriting expert Tom Vaughan, who has written eight films.

On Twitter/X, he wrote:

I have noticed many younger writers prefer to forgo a romance in their screenplay. This is fine. You don't NEED a romance in a story that's not about the ro...

If you’re noticing the advertising landscape changing a lot and changing fast, it’s not your imagination playing tricks on you.

Things really are changing.

Our special guest a few weeks ago, Mike Pavlish, pointed this out. He noted that “ugly” ads were outperforming “pretty” ones–that is, user-generated content, UGC, homemade ads of a sort, were vastly outperforming slick, polished, high-production-value ones.

He’s right, of course.

UGC puts a person just like you in the ad. Or at least that’s the intention. Real people, not models and spokespeople. Talk...

People always talk about opening your copy with a story, but most of the time, when you say what kind of story, they’ll look at you like you’re an idiot and say, “Hero’s journey, of course,” like there were no other viable options.

Well, the problem with that is, the way the great purveyors of hero’s journey stories, Hollywood Screenwriters, use them is as a macro story. The whole two hour movie is one long hero’s journey.

Within that framework are a lot of micro stories. And today we’re going to look at...

Think about these two things:

First, learning to write copy, and

Second, then actually writing it.

Wouldn’t it be nice if those two things, learning to write copy and then doing it, were free of confusion, anxiety, and terror?

That was the burning question that started me on the path of mentoring copywriters. I wanted to make it happen. Because early on, I had such a rough time learning myself.

Learning copywriting was so different from anything I had ever done that it seemed it didn’t matter what...

Today we have the fourth and final installment of our hit Old Masters Series segment, Copywriting 101. 

We’ll be talking about the last seven fundamentals.

And if that little voice in your head is asking, “What the heck are we doing reviewing fundamentals?!”, let me remind you of what basketball legend Michael Jordan said: “Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise.”

It’s so easy to get caught up in the latest new new thing. But a dedication to fundamentals is what helps you get what you really want.<...

Our returning champion Mike Pavlish has written dozens of VSLs that have brought in $10 million or more. In fact, over the last 30 years, Mike’s copy has brought in over $810 million in sales.

And his work is still bringing in the big bucks today.

How good is Mike? On his website he’s got testimonials from legends like Gary Bencivenga and Bob Bly. But this one from an eye doctor named David Tavel, who has 24 clinics across Indiana, really stood out to me:

“Your copywriting pulled two to one compared to a big New Yo...

We’re going through massive and disruptive upheavals all over the place, and of course copywriting is no exception.

I’m seeing the need for a complete mindset shift to survive, thrive and even dominate in copywriting.

It’s curious to me that the mindset shift is a return to the garden. I know that phrase means a lot of things, depending upon your background.

What I mean by a return to the garden is, going back to basics. From the first glimmers of online marketing to the original Facebook analytics and now the un...

As we return to our hit Old Masters Series segment, Copywriting 101, I’d like to let you know that the first edition of John Caples’s book Tested Advertising Methods was published in 1932–that’s 94 years ago!

Caples updated the book more than once over the decades–the last edition was published in 1998.

But the interesting thing is, over that 60 plus year span, the fundamentals remained the same. And they haven’t changed in the last 30 years, either.

Just in the same way that storytellers still refer to Aristotle and scientists and engineers still depend...

The future for copywriters and AI is pretty clear:

AI will not replace copywriters.

But… copywriters who know how to use AI will replace those who don’t.

Sounds simple enough.

However, once you get into it, you realize using AI to create copy that converts sounds easier than it is.

And the question boils down to: How do you do it?

I’ve been wrestling with that question for a couple years now, and I’ve found the answer.

If you already know how to write...

Once again we’re back to our Copywriting 101 segments in the Old Masters Series, picking up where we left off a couple weeks ago.

This is about copywriting fundamentals. It never hurts to review them, and if you weren’t grounded in fundamentals to begin with, it’s never too late to learn what they are.

One of the best sources of an expert list of the fundamentals is John Caples, in his book Tested Advertising Methods. There was nothing fancy or intellectual about what Caples said or did, and yet he was one of the gr...

Let’s talk about something small.

Very small.

Small enough that most copywriters are forced tooverlook it, most of the time.

Because we’ve all been trained to think in termsof big persuasive assets.

The sales letter… the long-form VSL… the casestudy… the big story that carries the whole argument.

And those still matter.

But that’s not what most of us are writing mostof the time.

Most of the time, we’re writing in tight spaces.

Openings… transitions… subject lines… leads….things like that.

Now...

The big secret of success, whether it’s in investing… in professional sports… or in copywriting, is one in the same: A focus on, and a mastery of, the fundamentals.

The legendary basketball player Michael Jordan put it this way: “Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise.”

We’ve never done a show that just focused on copywriting fundamentals, so what better time than now?

And one of the best sources of an expert list of the fundamentals is John Caples, in his book Tested Advertising Methods. There was no...

Our returning champion is Clive Cable, who was here a few weeks agotalking about his new book Neurocopy.

As Nathan and I got to know Clive a little better, we found out he hasbeen doing a LOT with AI and copywriting that frankly we haven’t seen anyoneelse do.

For example, he has a story-lede generator that comes up with a big idea for asales letter or VSL, and then writes a unique story lede to start the piece.

Clive’s created a bot that writes like Gene Schwartz–but he only uses itto w...

Dante Aligheri was a copywriter kind of guy. Rather than write in the stuffy, formal Latin which is what everyone else was writing in the 14th century, he wrote in the home boy people’s language of Tuscan.
Dante’s masterwork was The Divine Comedy, and his last line was
“L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle”
Translated into English, he’s talking about Love–the kind of love that moves the sun and the other stars.
Thus proving that even in medieval Italy, LOVE was recognized as the most powerful motivating force in the Universe...

It’s a full-blown crisis. As if writing copy wasn’t hard enough, there’s a new demand falling on the plates of copywriters more and more.
And while maybe it’s not fair, it IS real. And it’s important that you know about it, and know what to do about it.
Good news. We’ve got just the person to explain what it is and how to come out ahead, looking like a million bucks and being a hero, whether you wear a cape or not.
The crisis is one of Design. These days, just as more...

These days people talk about neurochemicals a lot. Chemicals like dopamine, and cortisol, and the love chemical, oxytocin.
I’ve always wondered how these chemicals are affected by copy, and how much it matters.
So imagine my surprise when I discovered what our very special guest was doing! His name is Clive Cable, and he’s not only written a book about this, he has a complete system to evaluate copy based on the neurochemistry the copy will cause, and the buying behavior that chemistry will lead to.
The book is called Neurocopy, and it’s the fi...

We’re really at a crisis point for a lot of marketers.
It’s not just that ads keep getting more expensive.
It’s that it just gets harder and harder to get and keep prospects’ attention.
And with everything being engineered and optimized by AI and CRO, stuff ends up looking more and more the same. And that only works against you.
You know you need to stand out–but how?
Well, the best way to get and keep attention is, and always has been, a story.
But how long is a story?
...

Today’s show is for every talented copywriter stuck in the feast-or-famine cycle of business and would much rather get paid well, to reflect the enormous value their copy is bringing to their clients.
We have a very special returning champion on the show today, Dr. Harlan Kilstein. He has just released a book called Value-Based Copywriting. Originally presented in a $997 seminar, this material has changed the lives and of course careers of some very fortunate copywriters.
This book solves the problem faced by thousands of copywriters–not getting paid for what their work is worth.
Harl...

Dante Aligheri was a copywriter kind of guy. Rather than write in the stuffy, formal Latin which is what everyone else was writing in the 14th century, he wrote in the home boy people’s language of Tuscan. Dante’s masterwork was The Divine Comedy, and his last line was “L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle” Translated into English, he’s talking about Love–the kind of love that moves the sun and the other stars. Thus proving that even in medieval Italy, LOVE was recognized as the most powerful motivating force in the Universe. Yet, how do we tap in...

It’s a full-blown crisis. As if writing copy wasn’t hard enough, there’s a new demand falling on the plates of copywriters more and more. And while maybe it’s not fair, it IS real. And it’s important that you know about it, and know what to do about it. Good news. We’ve got just the person to explain what it is and how to come out ahead, looking like a million bucks and being a hero, whether you wear a cape or not. The crisis is one of Design. These days, just as more and more is...

These days people talk about neurochemicals a lot. Chemicals like dopamine, and cortisol, and the love chemical, oxytocin. I’ve always wondered how these chemicals are affected by copy, and how much it matters. So imagine my surprise when I discovered what our very special guest was doing! His name is Clive Cable, and he’s not only written a book about this, he has a complete system to evaluate copy based on the neurochemistry the copy will cause, and the buying behavior that chemistry will lead to. The book is called Neurocopy, and it’s the first systematic work I...

We’re really at a crisis point for a lot of marketers. It’s not just that ads keep getting more expensive. It’s that it just gets harder and harder to get and keep prospects’ attention. And with everything being engineered and optimized by AI and CRO, stuff ends up looking more and more the same. And that only works against you. You know you need to stand out–but how? Well, the best way to get and keep attention is, and always has been, a story. But how long is a story? I mean, a Hero’s Journey stor...

Today’s show is for every talented copywriter stuck in the feast-or-famine cycle of business and would much rather get paid well, to reflect the enormous value their copy is bringing to their clients. We have a very special returning champion on the show today, Dr. Harlan Kilstein. He has just released a book called Value-Based Copywriting. Originally presented in a $997 seminar, this material has changed the lives and of course careers of some very fortunate copywriters. This book solves the problem faced by thousands of copywriters–not getting paid for what their work is worth. Harlan is a reno...

Life must have been at least a little frustrating for our Old Master on today’s show. His name was Walter Weir. He was a very active and successful copywriter and advertising professor, but he must have constantly run into resistance along the way, since so many of his ideas were ahead of their time. Walter Weir was born in 1909 and he died in 1996. He published a couple of books which are nearly impossible to find today. Maybe the publisher, my old employer McGraw-Hill, took them out of print quickly because the ideas were so far ahead of their ti...

If you’re involved in copywriting in any way, you know right now we’re at an inflection point. Things have been changing fast over the last two years, and show no signs of slowing down. People who hire copywriters tell me it’s harder than ever to find a good one… yet people who write copy for a living, many of them, tell me it’s really hard to find good-paying work. There’s clearly a disconnect. AI has a lot to do with it. The very definition of what a copywriter is, and what a copywriter does, seems very m...

It takes a lot of courage and a lot of confidence to do what our special guest today has done… and that’s fire all his clients and start an email-based business. But Alin Dragu did just that, and he’s here to tell us about it. He’s the best-selling author of the book Meaningful Marketing, he spent 5 years as direct of marketing at one of the fastest growing churches in the US, and 3 years as the VP of growth at a Christian marketing agency. Alin is definitely a copywriter’s copywriter. He’s obsessed with reading novels and old fict...

Last fall, our returning champion Glenn Fisher and his business partner Nick O’Connor teamed up with mega financial publisher Marketwise for a bold experiment: Offer FREE training in financial copywriting to 12 people who competed for the spots. There were 500 people applied. Of the 12 who were selected, Glenn says, four were offered jobs… and two are being mentored by financial copywriting legend Mike Palmer. You know, in many stupid businesses, when something works, the business immediately stops doing it and decides to try something else. Lucky for you, Marketwise is anything but a stupid business. They know a good thin...

So a lot of people are building their brand by pouring tons of money into traffic… A/B testing… tracking every click… but deep down, you feel that something’s not landing. It’s almost like you wonder if you’re coming across as desperate, rather than confident. Maybe it’s time to take a look at a cherished assumption in online marketing: Namely, that more information and more volume equals more authority. Not really, says our own Nathan Fraser. He’s given me an advance peek at his new book, The Signal. I was so excited by the refreshing ideas...

What was discovered and perfected over 100 years ago, that is one of the most important marketing strategies online today? We have a special Old Masters Series show today. It’s a hybrid between marketing discoveries of the early 1900s, and top moneymakers of 2025. Our old Master is Claude Hopkins. Most people don’t realize that there’s a strong connection between two of the most important principles he wrote about and used – sampling, and demonstration – and what makes for an effective lead magnet in today’s world. For this episode, I went back into two of his most important books, Scien...

Our returning champion today, Dr. Doug Pew, is well known in two different worlds: The world of high-powered copywriting for online course creators, where he has done many six and seven figure launches. And the other world where Doug is known is that of music. He is a composer whose work was actually performed at Carnegie Hall! And he wrote an opera that was performed at the Kennedy Center. Those worlds overlap in certain ways sometimes for Doug, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today. He’s written copy for music businesses like Creative Piano Academ...

Do you have an imaginary friend? Whether you do or not, today we’re going to talk about why a particular imaginary friend can solve one of the biggest problems copywriters are having today. And that problem is, your copy’s not connecting with the right target group of prospects. So your conversions are way lower than you’d like them to be. Now, the perfect solution to that would be to have a real-live focus group of honest, unflinching prospects available to you 24/7. People you could ask about their problems, their fears, their hopes, their dreams. But… sorry. You can’...

Ever spend hours, just waiting for the “perfect time” to start writing? Maybe first you decide to do a guided visualization. Or answer a few emails. Could be that there’s that perfect song that always gets your juices flowing… or a motivational youtube video you love… Well… Here’s a tip: Don’t wait and don’t find an excuse to do something else. Just start. I know it sounds crazy. Maybe impossible. But here’s the thing: When you’re not writing, it almost never “feels like” the right time to start writing. And, as it turns out, it’s nearly always be...

What if you found you were sitting on tons of money that you didn’t even know about? It sounds like the beginning of a new Netflix series, right? But this happened in real life to our returning champion, Agency owner and entrepreneur Cath Rehorn. She will be the first to admit that numbers are not her. She’s a words and people person, not a data ninja. But she developed a conversation with ChatGPT to get it to review her Stripe data, even though, as she also admits, at first she really didn’t have any idea what she wa...