If the audience wants more, give 'em more.
He breaks up his writing with asides such as: “Is this boring you? I don't blame you if it is. (I'm almost falling asleep writing about this stuff)”
Describing himself before reaching the age of 40, he said: “I rarely exercised, I had a diet that would gag a raccoon, and my boozing on the weekends would have concerned even Charles Bukowski.”
To make the point that you cannot make people want to do something they don’t want to do, he offers: “Listen, Houdini couldn't always get someone to help him with his stunts, Casanova got his fair share of slaps in the face, and even Jesus Christ couldn't persuade Judas to not be such an arsehole.”
Talking about turning off people with his style, he offers: “A nonbuyer is a nonbuyer is a nonbuyer! Are you getting this? Listen, let's say you own a steak house. Do you really want vegetarians walking into your restaurant? Exactly.”
A Buncha KD Quotes
You gotta whip your lazy, fat slob sentences and paragraphs into shape until they're lean and mean.
👍
Know this: the only people on God's green earth who read sales copy for fun are copywriting fanatics. Everybody else (normal people) avoids sales copy like a gold-digger avoids prenups (I dunno why I keep going on about gold-diggers?) And if someone does start reading some sales copy, the second they become bored or confused by long-winded and flabby language, they skedaddle!
👍
Copywriters who fall head over heels with a product are often guilty of neglecting their market. Yes, yes... it's good to love what you're promoting, but not if you love it more than you love the people you are selling to.
👍
I see it all the time. People send me (unsolicited) their sales copy to critique and I can tell they got distracted by their own writing. Meaning, they get so focused on writing cute, clever and brilliant prose that they forget the purpose of their writing.
👍
Wanna see a few examples of concrete language?
Alright then. Let’s do that.
Let’s suppose you wrote the following sentence: Mr. Buckwheat was very self-conscious.
Now, the word “self-conscious” is easy to understand, I guess, but it isn’t concrete. The word self-conscious is too abstract. It isn’t brought down to earth.
I shall now take the same sentence and bring it down to earth by using concrete language.
Like so:
Mr. Buckwheat was as self-conscious as a lycra-clad cyclist with an erection.
Now that sentence gives you something to hang your hat on, doesn’t it? (Best not to think too literally about that one)
👍
I tellya, breaking the rules (being a maverick) will truly set you apart.
You'll get noticed while everyone else who's busy dotting their i's and crossing their t's and copying each other fade away into oblivion.
You'll start stealing the show.
And in the competitive world of email marketing, you can't afford to not stand out.
Verily I say, if you apply this mindset to your email marketing, it will be your name that stands out in your subscribers' inbox.
👍
Sometimes quitting is the very best thing you can do.
For example, if you've been trying to get your cat swimming school off the ground for the last ten years and you live in a shack, drive a shitbox car, your wife needs clothes and baby needs shoes, and the wolf is at your door, then perhaps you should consider quitting your precious cat swimming school.
👍
Listen: NEVER underestimate the lazy gene in humans.
We want what we want, and we want it right freakin' now!
We want to go from point A (our problem) to point B (the solution) in the quickest, easiest and most direct way humanly possible.
👍
If you want to see them go buy buy instead of hearing bye-bye...
In other words, your marketing messages need to cut through the crap, move them emotionally, and get them to take the next logical step: hire you, sign up, or buy your stuff.
👍
Toenail fungus, stretch marks, hemorrhoids, snoring, yeast infection. Those markets are all layups. When a market has a problem that's both painful and embarrassing, selling becomes duck soup!
👍
Email marketers are even more obsessed with image.
That’s right, they want all the bells and whistles. They jam-pack their emails with HTML, images, fancy fonts, beautiful color schemes, fancy logos and on and on it goes. It's HTML gone wild!
How pitiful.
To think any of that stuff will make your emails or marketing more effective is stupid on a plate.
All that stuff does is distract your subscribers from the one thing that matters - your sales message.
👍
In the last month, what have you learned about copywriting, sales, persuasion, and marketing that has helped move the needle in your business?
If nothing comes to mind, then perhaps you have quit learning in regard to business, marketing, and sales. Hey, don't feel bad if that's the case. It happens to the best of us. I often quit learning. However, when I say quit learning, I mean maybe a week or two goes by where I haven't learned something new or gained new insight. I don't think I've ever gone longer than two weeks without learning something new about sales, persuasion, and copywriting or have at least gone deeper with what I already know.
Look, you'll never learn or know it all. But that's not the point. The point is to get smarter by continual learning.
👍
I believe copywriters who use old and tired scarcity tricks like, for example, "Order now before Big Pharma makes us take this ad down", are lazy, unimaginative, and ham-fisted.
These corncob-brained copywriters are using something that worked very well in 2008, but I suspect most people see that stuff today and roll their eyes.
👍
Now I'm going to teach you a little something I call the "under-over" copywriting secret.
Once you learn (and take it to heart) the "under-over" copywriting secret, you will instantly possess the mindset needed to write sales messages that drag in the bucks.
Okay, Buckwheat, let's roll.
The "under-over" copywriting secret is simply a mindset that:
always underestimates a prospect's intelligence and overestimates their skepticism. (Hey, I just learned how to underline words!)
Let's say you sell air conditioning units. Well, don't assume a prospect knows (or even wants to know) about the inside of your air condition units. They simply want to be able to sit at home in the summer and not sweat like a fat man eating soup.
👍
No, if you truly want to master something, you can't just scratch around on the surface. You must dig down deep, and then KEEP ON digging. You know, when it comes to mastery, you actually never arrive. You can always go deeper. Kinda sucks really. But let's not dwell on the fact that you never really arrive at full knowledge or mastery.
What you should dwell on is the fact that if you're
continually digging down deep, then you will be continually getting better.
= = = = = =
Kelvin Dorsey is a self-described email copywriter, sales
savant, persuasion pundit, storyteller, author and maverick. You can find his
books, such as 7 Silly Stories That Contain Sales, Copywriting, and Persuasion
Secrets and 19 Proven Sales Secrets Every Online Marketer Needs to Know at
Amazon and you can sign up for his newsletter at KelvinDorsey.com