Copywriters Podcast

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 unstoppable march forward of AI… ironically, all the non-human things those advances caused are being stripped away from the copy that gets results.
What stands out is genuine human messaging, just like in a store or at a bar or at a Starbacks, one person talking to another. These days, more than anything else, that’s what works.
With everything that’s happened, we need to make a conscious shift in mindset to get back to the garden and write the kind of copy that was working before all this technological intrusion started and messed things up.
And that’s what I want to talk about today. Listen closely–it will make a big difference for you.
If you’d like help shifting to this new mindset and developing the skills to go with it, check out my coaching program:
https://garfinkelcoaching.com

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 on Newton’s three laws of motion, copywriters can reliably depend on the fundamentals Caples laid out.
We are going to explore six more of them today.
And if a 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.”
RESOURCE
Tested Advertising Methods, 5th Edition, by John Capleshttps://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0130957011

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 copy without AI, there’s still some work involved to write copy with AI… but it’s a lot easier.
If you really don’t know how to write copy, there are some things you need to learn… or help you need to get… in order to create copy that works using AI.
Either way, there’s a path for you to be one of the copywriters of the future… one who knows how to use AI to write copy.
That’s what we’ll talk about today.
Finally, the best way to find out about the upcoming workshop where I’ll be teaching the five skills and how to get a superior competitive position is to make sure you’re on my Friday email list.
If you get an email from me every Friday, you’re on it. Obviously.
If not, go to
https://persuasionstorycode.com
And sign up at the bottom of the page.
You’ll also get the first two chapters of my bestseller The Persuasion Story Code, absolutely free.
And we’ll post the link in the show notes.

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 greatest direct response copywriters of all time.
So our Old Masters Series turns to the late John Caples for source material. Based on his book, we’ve put together a list of fundamentals that everyone should remember and practice. It’s easy to forget or get distracted by the latest shiny object, but ultimately, to win, you alwayshave to go back to the fundamentals.
That’s what we’re going to do today.
–
Tested Advertising Methods, 5th Edition
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0130957011

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, we think about those things, for sure. Weworry about those things. We obsess over those things.
But rarely do we think thatwe have room to tell a whole story in those cramped, constrained spaces.
Well, recently I’ve been workshopping a new bookcalled Microstories.
It’s the next step of a new kind of story aftermy book The Persuasion Story Code.
Microstories is a book about compressed persuasion.
See, I kept noticing — in my own work and in thework of other copywriters — what I noticed was that sometimes, the smallestnarrative fragments were doing the heaviest lifting.
Stories that were just one sentence.
Or a mere two lines.
And that small fragment would establish credibility…or soothe an objection… or even, shift a belief.
All without announcing itself as “a story.”
I’m going to share some of my early work fromthe new book today. Stuff you can use right away.
My latest book, The Persuasion Story Code:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFD2KXNQ