Cunning copywriting insights from the smiling mofo’s on Kim’s Mount Rushmore

Below’s part 5 of my interview with Kim Krause Schwalm. One of the few for real “A-list copywriters” on the planet. (Lots of fake ones out there, she’s one of the few real ones) Enjoy... === elBENBO: Who’s on your “Mount Rushmore” of copywriters and what is a big insight you learned from each? KIM KRAUSE SCHWALM: Hmmm… this is a tough one. So many great copywriters have influenced me. I’d have to say the following (I’m assuming “Mount Rushmore” is limited to four): #1: Gene Schwartz—How to step back and think super strategically about your copy approach to a particular promotion, i.e., the things he covers in his book Breakthrough Advertising… things like the prospect’s state of awareness, sophistication of your market, and other strategies. I was actually in the room at Phillips Publishing as a marketing manager back in 1993 when Gene gave a full-day, in-house seminar and talked about his writing process (that famous 33:33 alarm clock setting) and how he found copy inspiration for his big ideas and fascinations that led to so many legendarily successful promotions. It’s funny, I remember before I left my previous job as a Brand Manager for Blue Cross/Blue Shield, one of his direct mail promos landed on my desk at work (I was seeded on several “senior” lists for research). It was the “How to Burn Disease Out of Your Body” one. Little did I know then what it portended. #2: Gary Bencivenga—How to write silky-smooth copy that makes it impossible to stop reading. He “classes up the joint” for any promotion he’s ever written, respectful of the reader without talking over their heads. He provides unassailable proof and connects in a way that builds trust. I was also lucky to be invited to his 2005 “Bencivenga 100” seminar in New York. He even called on me during his seminar to stand up and talk about my Personal Finance control that beat Jim Rutz twice. Gary shared so much wisdom at that once-in-a-lifetime event that still influences my copywriting today—and he and his wife are two of the finest and most generous humans you could ever hope to meet. #3: Clayton Makepeace—How to hit all the emotional “hot buttons” in your copy and use really vivid words to paint powerful pictures the prospect can see (or can’t “un-see”). I had the chance to work on a promo many years ago with Clayton and learned tons of lessons from him that I still apply to this day. I also attended his 2006 “Power Marketing Summit” in Washington, DC and still have that big red binder on my bookshelf. I’ve also hung onto several of his legendary promos… including his chelation supplement direct mail magalogs that mailed in the millions of pieces each mailing drop years ago. One of my favorite leads ever is from one of those promos. He knew exactly how to make his product the hero and use a villain… plus his powers of demonstration and dimensionalization were just the best. #4: Parris Lampropoulus—How to write clearly and convincingly using all the strategies and techniques I just mentioned from the other Mount Rushmore copywriters. He really helped me with achieving the right “flow” with my copy and keeping it from becoming confusing and going off on tangents… something my overly analytical brain (I was a math major in college) is prone to do. Ironically, my relationship with Parris started with me being the client at Phillips Publishing (as an associate group publisher) and him being the copywriter… this was way back in the late 1990s… to going up against his control in my first project with Boardroom (and beating it)… to working with him as a copywriter when he acted as copy chief for Soundview/Advanced Bionutritionals, for whom I’ve written at least 16 successful controls over the years. elBENBO: Tells us about your new course, and how that can help both freelancers and anyone who writes copy for their own offers? KIM KRAUSE SCHWALM: Actually I’ve got TWO new courses I’ve come out with over the past year or so. And I think they’re my best ones yet in terms of the depth I go into, and the tools I provide to make them instantly actionable. The first is Research Beast, which gives you my complete system for doing copywriting research—from avatar and product research all the way through to coming up with the “big idea” and putting together your copy platform and outline. Going through my proven, six-step Research Beast process saves a ton of time and lets you write much stronger, higher-performing copy faster and more easily. I also provide the same tools and templates I use. Plus I’ve recently added new AI Guides that are packed with done-for-you, fill-in-the-blank prompts that let you quickly implement each of my Research Beast steps and save more time. The second is my Get Dangerously Good Copywriting System, which is by far the most expansive and in-depth course I’ve created. It gives you my complete system for writing successful sales copy from start to finish… whether it’s headlines, leads, fascinations, offers and closes, funnels, or emails and lifts. It’s got a ton of insights, tips, and tactics that even the most experienced copywriters will benefit from… but it’s all broken down to be understandable and applicable by beginners and offer owners as well. I’ve included plenty of real-life promo examples (even some full-length promo PDFs), as well as recordings of live critiques on bullets, emails, and other copy. I’ve also included “Playbooks” for each of the main modules you can print off and keep by your computer for quick and handy reference when writing copy… i.e., the different types of headlines or leads at a glance, the 27 fascination formulas, etc. Plus I’ve included my prior “flagship” foundational copywriting course—Copywriting Velocity—as a bonus module in this program. It’s a course people paid $697 for just on its own, or upwards of $2k to attend the live event by the same name that I held in 2019. You get the full recordings of my full-day Copy Intensive, which had top copywriters like Carline Anglade-Cole and “Big Jason” Henderson in the room also contributing. Plus there’s two control breakdowns and an interview with the legendary copywriter and supplement business founder Lee Euler. Research Beast and my Get Dangerously Good Copywriting System have a combined value of $2,494 (and that’s not even counting the value of the Copywriting Velocity program that’s included as bonus). But I’ve put them into an exclusive “Copywriting Maximus” Bundle that I’m making available to your readers for a limited time. Together, these two in-depth, A-list-level, up-to-the-minute courses can help maximize your copywriting results in a fraction of the time it took me to learn all of this on my own. I would have given my eye-teeth (whatever those are) to have access to this kind of training when I was working my way up the “copywriting ladder” years ago. Now I’ve poured all of my systems, tactics, and secrets into these two courses to make them as valuable as possible. It’s the ultimate “shortcut” if you go through and truly absorb all of the training I’ve included. One of the ways I learned how to write great copy, since there weren’t any courses like this back when I was starting out, was to study successful controls. I’d get myself on as many mailing lists as possible. I still have 100s of promos stashed away in my office file drawers organized by topic. But I would only save the ones I had gotten them more than once. This can be trickier to do with online promos, but it can be done. The problem with collecting swipes out in the wild is you don’t always know if they actually worked… or if they were a test that bombed. So I’m also including in the “Copywriting Maximus” Bundle my Complete KKS Promo Swipe File… which gives you 43 proven control promos that I’ve written. They cover a wide range of niches, including just about every kind of supplement niche—anti-aging, memory, joint pain, men’s and women’s health, etc. Plus financial, skin care, fitness, and others. And whenever I write a new control, I add it to this swipe file. If you can find them, a few copywriters sell their control promo swipes for upwards of $49 a piece… but the regular price of this entire collection of 43 control promos (and counting) is already a steal of a deal at $299. Now it’s an even better deal as part of this special bundle offer. And that’s not all. Over the past six years, I’ve built a following of subscribers on my Copy Insiders list who love reading my “What’s in Kim’s Mailbox” emails. This is where I break down an online or direct mail promo I’ve seen (not ones I’ve written) and talk frankly about what’s not working and suggestions for making it stronger, as well as pointing out what IS working and what you can learn from it. It’s a great way to learn how to break down and analyze a promo… but you’ll also walk away with tons of copy and marketing lessons you can use right away. I’ve put together a collection of 97 of these “What’s in Kim’s Mailbox” breakdowns—most of which you can’t find anywhere else—into 4 different volumes, and include promo excerpts for each of them. This “dripping-with-gold” (my readers’ words, not mine) collection normally sells for $238, which is a steal. All this A-list copywriting training is included in the “Copywriting Maximus” Bundle for a limited time. === All righty then. Sale on Kim’s “Copywriting Maximus” Bundle ends tonight. Go here for discount and/or for more info from my affiliate link: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com/kim]( Ben Settle P.S. Buy from my affiliate link by the deadline and I’ll also ship you (at my expense, not yours) another bundle of copywriting joy I am officially calling: “Email Players: Copy Salesliloquies Vol 1” Specifically it includes: The June 2020, February 2021, June 2021, & May 2022 Email Players issues. Plus, also, the transcripts of a couple intense line-by-line sales letter analyses (for my Subscription Biz & Social Lair book offers) I did for our $499/month Profit Pirates clients. Here are a few of the things I share in this bundle of trainings: * Word-for-word the single most valuable copywriting bullet point technique I have ever used. * An extremely clever persuasion secret invented thousands of years ago (and more recently perfected for copywriting by the late, great copywriter Gene Schwartz) that can potentially “ratchet up” your sales copy response like nothing else you’ve ever tested! * A bestselling writer’s secret for writing sales copy, emails, and other advertising that is so “tight” you can practically bounce a quarter off of it! * How to master the lost art of combining content with promotion in your emails. * How to develop your own copywriting style — and avoid sounding like a wannabe of someone else. * The secret technique Jack London, Hunter S. Thompson, and Benjamin Franklin used to quickly excel at the art & craft of writing. * A brand spanking new way (I invented after watching a couple Tarantino movies) to do market research that has put me in touch with my market in a way where I could probably make sales if I wrote my pitches on a wall in crayon. * A clever trick Steve Jobs used to have his audiences literally “leaning in” to hear what he had to say. * The “O” word that is quite possibly the single most persuasive word ever invented for bullets. * An ingenious 2-word combo that can give even outrageous headlines and/or sales letter openers “built in” credibility & believability. * An old magalog trick you can use to make your bullets look like they are giving an entire tip away… where the reader thinks they are learning something free… but really it just makes them want to buy the offer even more. * An infamously kooky newspaper ad copywriter’s secret for using 1 & 2 word headlines to drive up readership & engagement with your sales copy. * 4 sneaky ways to “invalidate” your competition in your sales copy — even if they sell a better offer at a better price. * A 3-word transition sentence the late Gary Halbert used to help keep prospects reading his sales letters top to bottom. * The powerful “sentence stringing” method the late Gene Schwartz used all the time that can help even people with gnat-like attention spans reading your long form copy from headline to order form. * A verbal “twist” gurus & experts can use to stand out in markets full of other gurus & experts all competing for attention. * A secret way (invented by Aristotle over 2,000 years ago) for keeping even your most outrageous bullet point claims from being instantly rejected as typical marketing hype and empty promises. * How to make even “fantasy claims” that would ordinarily sound like complete and utter horse shyt sound completely true & legitimate in your sales copy. * How to increase your sales copy response by making it more legally compliant. * An engagement trick the brilliant late copywriter Jim Rutz used to make his copy easier to keep reading than to NOT keep reading. * 4 advanced bullet point tricks that can help drive your prospects practically insane with curiosity to get your offer. * The mysterious C-word that can potentially sell prospects on buying offers they normally wouldn’t care one iota about otherwise. * How to make “plain vanilla” features and ideas in an ad or email instantly sound dramatic & sexy. * How to make something that’s high ticket & expensive sound downright cheap by the time the prospect gets to the order form. * How to “borrow” credibility from Google and other big organizations in your niche to help sell your offers. * An old school negotiation trick you can apply to your order links that can (1) make you sound more credible (2) potentially nab your business anywhere from 2-5 times more sales than it would get otherwise and (3) sometimes even severely cut down on refunds all at the same time. * A tip (I learned straight from the single most prolific copywriter who has probably ever lived) that can let you pump out reams of pages of sales copy if you’re the easily bored & distracted type who has trouble focusing one project for long periods of time. * The big copywriting secret behind the empires created by history’s two most hated, most reviled, and most successful media tycoons. * A little-known (and almost never talked about) time management trick that can help reduce writing ad copy that normally would take hours to complete into mere minutes. (Before applying this trick it used to take 2, 3,4, even 5 times longer than it does now to write sales letters and emails, with zero reduction in quality.) * Why hardly any of the sales letters for the Email Players “pantheon” of offers & books has a story in them. * The only person on the planet I “endorse” to coach or consult on my behalf. * The secret way I use to write software offer ads that has resulted in 4xs the sales than even our most optimistic hopes when launching them. * The “application plan” sales letter secret that can potentially overwhelm people into wanting to buy from you. * A truly creepy-sounding writing trick bestselling author Stephen King uses to draw people deeper into his books - that can also be directly applied to your bullets, stories, offers, and other parts of your sales copy. * A cunning way to get more sales by urging your readers to leave your sales pitch and come back again later. * An old Hollywood producer's screenwriting trick for picking stories to develop into movies that can also work like crazy for selling offers via sales copy. * A simple bullet point template (anyone can use) that can sometimes make it all but neurologically impossible for your prospects to ignore your sales copy. * An old school MLM tactic (taught to new distributors so they are taken more seriously by friends, family, etc before "showing the the plan") that can help juice up your business’s credibility with your prospects. * A social engineering method that can help create lots of raw, almost neurotic, & completely irrational urgency to buy your offers at the close. * A little known bullet writing method that can literally help create new “neurological connections” in your prospect’s mind as they read. * A quirky memory trainer secret for making words, sentences, and even entire pages of your sales copy almost impossible to forget and far more likely to sell your offers. * How to make otherwise ordinary, “plain vanilla”, and even outright boring-sounding words & claims seem more dramatic, interesting, and sexy in your sales copy. * The bizarre reason why it’s almost always a good idea to put some kind of Biblical reference (even if selling to fire-breathing heathens) in your sales copy if you want to get as much engagement as possible. * Two sleepy little words (used by the late, great Gene Schwartz in some of his crazier ads) that can help make even your most outrageous headlines, bullets, and claims sound more believable. * An example of how to use the psychology behind why humans are so bizarrely attracted to seeing “freak show” exhibits (at circuses, in books, on TV, etc) to make your sales copy bullets more engaging and interesting. * A borderline devious (but totally ethical) way to put prospects in the “defensive crouch” right off the bat — with them finding ways to justify why they are qualified to buy, instead of you constantly proving why you should be bought from. * A powerful twist you can put on some of your bullets that can literally “light up” a prospect’s neurology — giving them almost no choice but to keep reading and wanting to buy whatever your business is selling. * How to open a prospect’s mind to at least hearing you out in your ad copy before telling them about a claim they’d otherwise find crazy, silly, stupid, or flat-out insulting to their intelligence. * A quickie way to “blunt” skepticism about one of your ad’s claims or benefits. * The single best place in your copy to put your offer’s biggest flaw, weakness, or drawback. * The strange reason why getting prospects to argue with your bullets can make them more susceptible to being influenced by your ads and buying your offers. * And lots more. Above isn’t even going into the analysis transcripts. (I’m too lazy to write more bullets — and this email is already way too long..) Bottom line: This bonus bundle of trainings I’ll ship you alone is several hundred dollars worth of value. And it’s all yours. But only if you buy Kim’s Copywriting Maximus offer my affiliate link by the deadline. Here’s my affiliate link once again: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com/kim]( This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2023 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this email may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Settle, LLC. Click here to [unsubscribe]( Settle, LLC PO Box 1056 Gold Beach Oregon 97444 USA