One of the biggest “jumps” I made as a copywriter came from a single PDF.

It was a copy of the Screaming Eagle newsletter, published by Clayton Makepeace and Tony Flores.

The topic was “21 Bullet Secrets That Ignite The Selling Power Of Your Copy.”

As the name would suggest, the newsletter mentions 21 different types of fascination bullets, and then gives several examples of each one.

Some of these include:
The “how to” bullet

“How to rub your stomach away. The simplest and most natural way to lose weight is by this effortless two-minute exercise.”

The “secret to” bullet…

“The secrets of ‘Single Finger’ takedowns…using moves that are indefensible even by a larger and more experienced opponent!”

The “why” bullet”…

“Why up to 70 percent of all poisonings happen to children under five. And the best prevention of them all. Page 34.”

The “what bullet”…

“What you must do immediately before November 15th, 2001 to preserve your wealth and…”

The “what never” bullet…

“What never to keep in your deposit box. Never. And how to stop the state from stealing it.”

Plus 16 other types.

I was first showed this newsletter by one of my clients who was in the survival space. They told me to study it closely, and then they actually PAID me to write at least 10 bullets for each of the 21 types. So 210 bullets in total.

How awesome is that? I was very blessed to have those guys as clients.

When tackling this assignment, I remember feeling overwhelmed at first.

But once I started studying and writing, that anxiety was quickly transformed into a feeling of excitement.

It was easy to see just how powerful a good fascination bullet could be. It’s something you can put into any lead (and most of the best promos do just that). And fascination bullets are also extremely powerful and essential when selling courses, trainings, videos, and info products. Plus, they make great headlines too!

It was also cool to see that the client who gave me this document really “walked the walk” too. They had a very popular offer called Backyard Liberty, which was in the survival space. And if you look at the lead to this sales letter, it is FILLED with fascinations.

Here’s the lead:

Fellow patriot,

There’s a reason why the US government is so eager to disarm the American people.

It’s got little to do with crime rates or mass murders… but everything to do with the very reason the 2nd Amendment was created for: to protect the people from a tyrannical government.

Because when a major disaster hits the USA, a recent executive order allows FEMA to confiscate your food stockpile… and just like in the old USSR, to give it to the government-dependent masses.

That’s right: if you invested $30,000 or more in a survival stockpile, or you’ve been day-dreaming about having enough food to last you a decade… then you’ve got to watch this urgent video.

Hi, my name is Alec Deacon, and in this short and controversial presentation, that will not be up for long, I'm going to expose how a devastating “once in 60 years” event… along with corporate greed and corruption… are setting the stage for a social and economic “time bomb” that will detonate right in the middle of the US…

… I’ll reveal how the impending collapse of the US food supply system will steal the food from your kids’ tables… leaving them hungry and helpless and forcing them to scavenge for scraps…

… and I'll explain what you must do today to ensure that you and your family not only survive… but actually rise to the top of a fallen society… when chaos rules and communities need someone to lead them.

– SPG

P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.

The post On Writing Killer Fascination Bullets first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

As some of you may have seen from my talks, I have a fairly detailed sales letter outline.

It’s not perfect, but it does cover all the major sections of a long-form letter, and it further breaks down those sections into little pieces.

What I like about it is that: 👇

1) It makes writing sales letters modular and

2) It provides a checklist that can be consulted as you’re going through each section.✅

In other words, it makes writing long-form copy less daunting, and reduces your margin for error.

👌

The Sales Letter Outline In Action…

Lately, as I’ve been teaching and training lots of copywriters, I've been reminded of just how valuable this outline can be.

One of me and Justin Goff‘s Copy Accelerator members recently shared the first draft of his new sales letter with us. 

We saw right away that he’d explicitly followed each section of the outline, to the point where each part was prefaced with his internal comments about what section it was, and what was included.

Then he made sure to actually include all of those things.

And no surprise, as Justin and I looked through the sales letter for him on Tuesday during our weekly Copy Accelerator 

The headline needed some work, but that was pretty much it.

Everything else was really strong, logical, and convincing.

Now of course, this guy is naturally a very good copywriter, and that helps.

But I really believe the outline is what allowed him to create such a flawless first draft.

Another example…

One of my coaching clients just wrote his first long-form sales letter.

Previously, he’d only written shorter 5-7 minute scripts.

He felt nervous and a bit overwhelmed about writing a full on VSL.

But I gave him my outline (and customized it for him a bit).

Then I walked him through each section, so he fully understood how the outline worked.

We did this in about an hour.

And guess what?

5 days later he came back to me with a really good first draft.

It was like 8,000 words, which was nuts to him.

Because prior to starting the writing process, he kept saying “I have no idea how I’ll be able to write something so long.”

Yet when he followed the outline, it happened automatically.

This first draft was not perfect, btw, but it was very workable.

We spent another two hours this week going through some tweaks, he’s making final edits over the weekend, and the VSL will go into production on Monday.

I think it’s a killer offer that will do very well.

So, in two weeks, this guy went from never having written a long form VSL to having a final draft that’s now going into production and that could make him millions of dollars. And here’s the thing…

I’m not writing all of this to brag or hype up MY outline.

I’m sharing all of this with you because having a strong, templatized outline helps so freaking much.

And from my own observations, it seems like all of the most prolific, consistently successful copywriters follow an outline.

While those who struggle don’t.

So whether you follow my outline, your own outline, or some other copywriter’s outline… just make sure you DO use an outline of some sort.

In fact, just last week, Justin shared his personal outline for writing killer upsells.

It was different from the outline style I use.

But it was awesome.

It made so much sense.

And, considering Justin is one of the absolute best when it comes to upsells – and routinely helps his clients optimize backend copy to increase both their 

AOVs and Day 1 Profits by 25%… 50%… even 100%… it’s something that I’m going to start using for my backend stuff as well

So will most of our Copy Accelerator members, I’m sure.

In fact, already this week one of our members posted a new upsell in our private FB Group and asked for feedback.

I provided some, and so did Justin, but our number one directive was to go back, look at Justin’s template, and actually USE it.

Which, this writer did.

And, sure enough, draft #2 of his Upsell was dramatically better.

So again…

It’s not about my outline, or even Justin’s outline.

It’s about making sure that no matter what, you DO have an outline that works for you, and that you then follow it consistently.

And, with all of this being said…

I’m curious — do you use a sales letter outline right now?

If so, does it work well for you?

Or, if you don’t but still manage to write massive winners again-and-again, I’d be curious to hear about that too.

I’m pretty convinced about the power of an outline, but if you think I’m wrong – I’d love to hear why as well.

Note: This originally appeared as a post on the public FB Group Stefan and Justin Talk Copy. I'm trying to post there every-other-day, with Justin Goff posting on the other days. You can join the group here: Stefan And Justin Talk Copy FB Group

The post Do You Use An Outline When Writing Long Form Sales Copy? first appeared on Stefan Georgi.

Plus:

• Why The First Draft of A Sales Letter Is A Lot Like A Fatty Cut of Steak…
• The Best Piece Of Copywriting Advice I Ever Got…
• How To Not Let Your Inner Critique Sabotage Your Writing Efforts…
• And A Lot more…

One of the best pieces of copywriting advice I ever got came from my now-wife Laura, when I was first starting out.

She told me to not get stuck on any single piece of a sales letter, but to instead just keep writing and finish my first draft, no matter how crappy or raw I thought it was. This doesn’t sound overly profound, but I promise you it is.

For both new and seasoned copywriters, there’s always a temptation to tweak/edit/enhance/delete/ as we’re writing. Perhaps we don’t like a particular transition from one section of our letter to the next.

Maybe we need to add more proof elements or credibility to a particular part of the letter. Or we just feel as though there are places where the writing is crummy. In many respects, writing great sales copy comes down to our ability to manage our inner critic – that voice in our head that loves saying “nothing is good enough.”

Telling Your Inner Critic To Take A Hike…

There are times where having an inner critic can be useful – like when we’re stress-testing a big idea, or during the editing process – but it’s almost always detrimental during the initial writing process. There’s nothing more discouraging than getting hung up or stuck on a small portion of your sales letter for hours. Not only does it zap your energy and make you feel frustrated, it also kills your motivation. Plus, even worse – it’s a total waste of time.

The much better approach, I’ve found, is if you view your first draft as something like an outline. Like a broad sketch, something that can be filled in afterwards. And there are three main reasons why I think this is the best approach to writing long-form copy:

1. Completing a first draft of a sales letter is a huge moral victory.

Writing long-form copy can be an intense and emotional process. One where you’re battling that inner critic, expending tons of mental energy, and immersing yourself in words. For this reason, the moment you finish writing a sales letter, you’re going to experience a combination of euphoria and relief. You’ll almost certainly find that finishing a sales letter increases your sense of self-confidence too.

2. Once you’ve finished your first draft, you’ll likely realize that a lot of

the parts you hated during the writing process actually aren’t that bad. Hell, they may even be GOOD. The reason why is all about context. When you’re hyper-focused on one small part of your letter, you’re not seeing the forest through the trees.

3. A full draft of a sales letter provides you with the context required to make intelligent edits, additions, and subtractions. Going back to the beloved saying of “forest through the trees” – once you have a completed draft, it’s a lot easier to chop-down the occasional sick/diseased tree in service of the greater good of the entire forest.

Or, in the case of your sales copy, to edit or cut a few sentences, without it screwing up your entire sales letter.

Personally, my first drafts are almost always far too long. But this doesn’t bother me in the slightest – because I can always cut later. I recently explained it to one of my consulting clients like this:

It's Like A Delicious Steak…

Think of the fattiest, juiciest, piece of steak you can imagine. You can always trim off the fat to make the steak leaner and meatier. But trying to add the fat back on later becomes weird. You’d end up with a meaty cut of steak that’s surrounded by chunks of fat. Not only is it gross, it’s also not cohesive. It leaves the diner feeling uncomfortable and confused. It’s the same thing with your sales copy.

This isn’t to say that you can’t add more stuff to your sales letter after completing the first draft. In fact, you almost certainly will. Instead, what it means is that you should look at later additions as seasoning that will give your copy more flavor. This is in contrast to entire pieces of meat. Adding seasoning to a steak is normal. Adding random chunks of meat and fat is bizarre and unappetizing.

So, What Does Any Of This Have To Do With Flemish Painters?

I was recently talking about all of this with one of my consulting clients, and I wanted to find a good analogy to use. I started searching around the web, looking for examples, and eventually found an interesting blog post titled “How To Paint A Portrait Like The Old Masters.”

Here are the steps:

1. Choose Your Master

2. Prepare Your Surface

3. Grid Up

4. Create An Accurate Drawing

5. Apply the Imprimatura

6. Establish Your Flesh Tones

7. Establish Values

8. Paint in the Hair

9. Paint the Ébauche

10. Finish the Ébauche

11. Start The Final Pass

12. Focus On The Eyes

13. Take A Controlled Approach

14. Finish and Varnish

Now, don’t feel overwhelmed, we’re not going to pour through all of these steps in laborious detail. Instead, I just want to highlight a few major notes. And I’m going to do it in a way that makes sense even if you don’t know a thing about painting (I know next to nothing about art techniques).

1. Choose Your Master

^^^ For sales copy, I’d equate this to finding a good “swipe” or sales letter you want to model off of. Swiping is your ticket to consistently better copy done faster. Don’t be too proud. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel here. Look at what the “Masters” are already doing, then modify or tweak that to make it your own.

2. Prepare Your Surface

3. Grid Up

4. Create An Accurate Drawing

5. Apply the Imprimatura

6. Establish Your Flesh Tones

7. Establish Values

^^^ These steps are all about setting things up. And because I’m sure you have no idea what an “Imprimatura” is (I had no idea) – it’s basically just the background color you paint your canvas.

I’d liken these steps to the RMB portion of my RMBC Method [Research, Mechanism, Brief, Copy).

The reason why is because they are all about prep work, just like the RMB Steps are:

First, you need to do Research to understand your target market, what you’re selling, and how you’re selling it.

Next, you need to do the technical work of figuring out the Mechanism behind the problem you’re solving, and the solution you’re offering.

Third, in the Brief component you’re establishing and mapping out everything that will be included in your sales copy.

Following these steps makes writing your first draft much easier.

8. Paint In The Hair

9. Paint the Ébauche

10. Finish the Ébauche

^^^ I also had no idea what an “Ébauche” was. So again, I googled it. From Wikipedia: “Ébauche is a term used in art to denote the first preliminary underpainting or quick sketch in oils for an oil painting.”

In other words, the Ébauche is your first draft. And these steps here are all about starting and finishing your first draft.

As the author of the blog I’m referencing says:

“The values and colours in the ébauche stage – my underpainting for the art work – aren't going to be exactly how they'll appear in the final. I look for the average colour and value for the area that I'm painting. “

It’s a wonderful analogy for writing your first draft. Your words won’t be exactly as they’ll appear in your final draft, but they’ll give you a foundation to perfect upon.

11. Start The Final Pass

12. Focus On The Eyes

13. Take A Controlled Approach

14. Finish and Varnish

^^^ And as you can probably guess– these steps are where you go back, bolster/tweak/improve, and end up with your final draft.

So that’s it for now. But please, if you’re a copywriter who does long-form, please heed this advice. It will make your life as a copywriter dramatically simpler.

– SPG

P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.

The post How Studying Flemish Paintings Can Dramatically Improve Your Sales Copy first appeared on Stefan Georgi.