David L. Deutsch on Copywriting and Persuasion

 

"Effective persuasion isn't about hacks, tricks or formulas. 
It's about understanding human psychology 
and then clearly and believably communicating 
the uniqueness and value of your offer."
- David L. Deutsch

Deutsch, who has written copy that has contributed to more than a billion dollars in sales for companies from startups to some of the biggest brands in the world, continues: I've found that copywriting ultimately boils down to just one thing: persuasion.

It may be obvious, but it's important to remember that people take action only when they're persuaded to take action.

And to do that effectively requires what I call the 6 Pillars of Persuasion — grouped for easy recall as S.P.R.O.U.T.

S - Singularity — Today, more than ever, a product must be perceived as unique to capture attention. And unless you can convince prospects that your product is in some way different from whatever else is out there, even if they like the product they will go off to compare alternatives and price shop.

 

P - Proof — What you say must be believed, and we believe what is proven — with facts, studies, track records, and logic. Proof also includes HOW your prospect will get the results you promise (the "mechanism"). That gives them the all-important "reason to believe."

R - Repetition — What we hear once barely makes an impression. Instead, we tend to believe and act on what we hear multiple times. Therefore, the art of copywriting is largely about making the same key points over and over in different ways, from different angles, in a consistently interesting way.

O - Overwhelming Value — It's not enough that the benefits promised and proven are worth the price. Or even worth more than the price. They must be perceived as being worth MANY TIMES the cost. (Some say 10 times — and that's a good number to aim for.)

U - Urgency — People, just like us, usually don't act unless there is some urgency. In copywriting, that's often scarcity — time or supply (or both) is running out. If both are unlimited, the urgency can be the importance of enjoying the benefits as soon as possible, and not being without them longer than necessary.

T - Trust — No matter any of the above items, people don't buy from people they don't trust. (Do you?) So be sure — with your actions, your words, your images, and your intent — that you do everything possible to earn the trust of your prospect. (First and foremost, BE trustworthy.)

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David L. Deutsch supervises, coaches, and trains writers and copy teams both in the U.S. and around the world. He is the creator of the A-List Copywriting Secrets course and author of Million Dollar Marketing Secrets and Think Inside the Box!.

Surviving the Shift - The AI blues

If you’ve been in marketing for a decade or two you’ve already survived big shifts: desktop to mobile-first, mass media to targeted advertising, outbound marketing to inbound marketing, etc.

Each shift shook up how you market, but AI is starting to change who can do the work, how fast it gets done, and what skills actually matter.

And this shift is dramatically faster. Faster in a way that makes you question whether your brain is still running the current version of the operating system. You get comfortable with a tool and, two days later, it feels like you’re explaining Myspace to a teenager.

This creates the illusion that everyone else is up to speed and you’re lagging behind.

Execution used to be the edge. If you could actually do the work -- write, design, build -- you stood out. Now “pretty good” is everywhere. It’s like decent coffee: once rare, now unavoidable.

And that’s a strange thing to watch if you spent years honing your craft. There’s no ceremony when a skill loses leverage. Experience still matters, just less. You’re not automatically ahead … you’re just earlier, trying to update your skills without discarding the parts that still work (taste, judgment and deciding what’s worth doing in the first place).

All this logically leads to compression: fewer people doing more … value clustering around the people who can aim all this capability in the right direction.

Which leaves us in an odd spot today. Still expected to perform while the ground shifts under our feet like a treadmill that occasionally changes speed just to keep things interesting.

Maybe I’m overthinking it. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Or maybe this is just what it feels like to go through a major shift while still being expected to hit deadlines and sound like you know what you’re doing.

Probably both.

The only thing I’m reasonably confident about is that the advantage is moving. Away from grinding, toward choosing. Away from doing, toward deciding.

Would you pay $4,500 for one of my books?

 In 2022, one of my books was turned into the artwork below by Mike Saijo. 

First he deconstructed my book "The Words and Wisdom of Will Rogers". Then, using copy machine toner, put a portrait of Will Rogers over the pages.

The title of the piece is Portrait of Will Rogers, 2022 and it's for sale for $4,500.

 

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Thanks to Patrick Combs. If he hadn't brought this to my attention on LinkedIn, I might never have known of its existence.

Creative Hoarding

 A lot of being creative isn’t about divine lightning bolts or some muse whispering in your ear. 

It’s about noticing things other people skim past. That weird crack in the sidewalk that looks like a map of Italy. The way someone in line at the grocery store hums just off-key enough to make it sound intentional. The shadow on the wall that looks like a hand reaching for something it can’t quite touch.

Most folks let those things slide by. They don’t mean anything. They’re background noise. But if you’re wired a little differently, you snag them. You tuck them away. You build a kind of junk drawer in your head full of odd shapes, overheard phrases, smells that made your eyes water.

And then, when you’re staring at the blank page, or the canvas, or the meeting room whiteboard, that junk drawer cracks open. The thing you thought was useless? That becomes the spark. Creativity isn’t conjuring something out of thin air. It’s remembering that you already collected the raw material, and having the guts to mix it together in a way that feels new.

So yeah, maybe it’s less magic and more hoarding. Except instead of stacks of newspapers and old toasters, it’s the little moments no one else bothered to keep.