How Kevin Lawson's Solid Sales Strategies Are Building Sustainable Businesses

[00:00:00] John: So that's how I keep it, simple and easy for me. In my opinion, the biggest things that kill your productivity as a copywriter is to switch too often.

[00:00:10] John: like every two hours you're writing something new on a new niche, new topic. And that kills your productivity, in my opinion. I think there is some scientific study about this, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's like when you switch from think to think it takes your brain 30 minutes or so to kind of readapt and get into the flow.

[00:00:28] John: Hello, and welcome to the next episode of the Customer Acquisition Show. I'm your host, Tom Meredith, the VP of Marketing and Innovation here at Tier 11, and I am joined by two of our amazing copywriters who've both been here for well over, I think, two years at this point. We're gonna say, we'll be talking about all things copywriting.

[00:00:45] John: What converts insights, advice, writing within an agency on multiple. All through this lens of really trying to help our clients do or get what they most want, and that is acquiring new customers. Welcome Yusuf and Aaron. Thank you. So uh, cheer Limb is a completely worldwide team, and I think this is one of our first times having somebody from France here.

[00:01:04] John: Yusif Welcome, and Aaron's coming from the south in Alabama. This is what an Alabamian looks like, just so that the world.

[00:01:12] John: Well, great. How did everybody uh, do on their black Friday creative find anything that worked? I would say it was intense, but we had a lot of winners and for actually not all of the campaign, but almost all of the campaign, we had a really good performance for all the accounts that had the B F C M promo.

[00:01:33] John: So yeah, it was a pretty good one, but it was intense. that's every year like. it's Black Friday, cyber Monday, so the uh, need for persuasive copywriting is probably down a little bit. But you've been like a really interesting perspective cuz you're making the transition from copywriter to media buyer.

[00:01:48] John: Like, how's that working for you and how are you thinking about that? you know, having a background in copywriting is extremely helpful in media buying because we're moving into a word where you can now rely on media buying tactics without having a good copy, a good ad, and a good offer.

[00:02:05] John: Like, three, four, maybe five years ago, you can say pretty much anything on Facebook and you will make some sales and maybe you will be profitable. But today, especially after iOS 14, well basically you need good persuasive copy and strong creative strategy to be able to produce results for your clients or for yourself.

[00:02:24] John: so yeah, the transition from copy to media buying is an interesting. and I'm finding that my background, this copy is helping me a lot like, you can tell right off the bat which copy will perform, which ad will do well and which will not do as well. It's really helpful. Yeah, so you talked quite a bit about like having this persuasive copywriting background.

[00:02:45] John: I think you guys are both pretty traditional in where you come from and your training coming up through more traditional like sales copy. Talk a little bit about like where you've learned from and how you think about your approach to writing persuasive copy for not just Facebook ads, but I think you guys are both writing copy across converge architecture division as well.

[00:03:03] John: so writing persuasive copy on Facebook can be quite frustrating at the beginning, and I'm gonna tell you why. When you write copy, you have this tendency to use the word you a lot and call out personal attributes and whatnot.

[00:03:16] John: So when the first time you start writing ad copy, It can be a little bit frustrating because you can do none of that cuz Facebook will not approve your ad, right? So you gotta find kind of other ways to communicate your message and still be persuasive without calling out personal attributes without using overusing.

[00:03:35] John: I would say the word you. , that's , one thing that is specific to Facebook ads.

[00:03:39] John: to the point of personal attributes and you and Facebook ad copy. , you do have to be careful. You can use the word you, but it has to be in a positive light. I have the uh, tendency to say that in the world of Facebook land, it's like Disney World. Nobody gets to be unhappy in Disney World.

[00:03:56] John: Right? And so if there is a personal attribute that shines negatively on the reader, yeah, it's gonna get banned every. But if you use the word you in a positive light where it is less negative or it's, spinning a positive light, you can get away with using the word you if you know what you're doing.

[00:04:13] John: personalized attributes being what they are, the word you being the single most powerful word in the human language outside of one's. or uh, potential title. you can do it. You just have to be very, very careful of it. And we a great YouTube short out there of our very own Aaron Crocker talking to Aaron Crocker about getting Facebook ads rejected for the improper use of you.

[00:04:34] John: Which we'll drop the link to that in the, uh, description below. Facebook ad policy, I don't see anybody run up against it more. Traditional copywriters making the switch to Facebook ads. So you talked a little bit about personal attributes. Like what are some of the other major mindset shifts you make coming over from a world where you don't need to meet Facebook ad policy?

[00:04:52] John: Yeah, so I think the first thing to be aware of, To identify and actually know what is the most important part of your ad copy, like in a traditional, sales copy, that would be the headline, right? If you had $1 to spend, 80% of that dollar will go to the headline. Well, in Facebook ads, it's not the headline that comes, , on the image or the creative.

[00:05:16] John: It's another thing. The most important part of that ad copy is the copy that comes above the fold. You see there are two or three sentences, then you click see more. those two or three sentences are actually the most important part of your ad copy. And I'm gonna tell you why. Because if you say the right thing in those two or three sentences, you will get people to click and therefore read the rest of your ad copy and click to, go to your landing page.

[00:05:42] John: And you know, potentially buy from you. But if you mess. In those two or three sentences that above the fold, a copy or hook, whatever you want to name it, then it's game over. You lost them. And one of the biggest mistakes I see people making, which is an instant turnoff, is that using acronyms and big words in that above the fold copy.

[00:06:03] John: Because if I read that and I don't understand what you're talking about, I'm scrolling away because that's what I was doing. . So I think that's something to be mindful of and to pay a lot of attention to. The above the fold copy is the most important part of your ad copy. you gotta give it a lot of thought.

[00:06:21] John: and yeah, if you're gonna spend an hour right in an ad copy, spend the first 30 minutes coming up with hooks and above the fold copy that will actually resonate with your target audience because if you miss the mark there, it's game over. And that's because Facebook is an interruptive environment, right?

[00:06:37] John: Exactly. This is why the creative has to stop the scroll. Creative really, really is king of the hill here, right? it's gotta stop the scroll so that anybody would be interested in reading those first couple of lines, it's funny how you describe the ad copy. me being a video guy, I think of like the creative side and.

[00:06:52] John: Oh, there's different blocks that we can mess around with to test. Like if we were to iterate on the scroll stopper of the video, that first three lines is like, you guys should are just typically iterating on that, right? Because the body copy does the job of selling.

[00:07:05] John: But it's really like, how do you hook them to. Get in there. Exactly. And it's also the fastest way to test multiple hooks because the body copy is the body copy, right? Like it's not gonna change that much. But where you can test is actually the above the default copy. That's what you want to test.

[00:07:20] John: And I would say that it is very important to match the above the fold. Copy your hook with your creative. So let's say you have. and above the fold copy that's like a headline. Your tagline on the image or on the video should be the same so you can do a test that is actually meaningful. How do you match that up with this like narrative going through advertising in general where give the machines the control.

[00:07:44] John: You would dump your creative in, you would copy in your headline in, and you let it mash it all together to find the right. Well, in Facebook it's a little bit different, right? Because, depending on what account you're working on, how long you've been working on it, because you can have a lot of data that you can use and leverage.

[00:08:00] John: You don't want to reinvent the wheel, right? So if you have stuff that's proven to work, you're just gonna use that and iterate from it. But generally speaking, I would say the way I like to do it, I come up with five or 10 hooks. , and I have my hooks, and then you add the ad copy right underneath them, So what I'm really testing is the hooks. Once I find like 2, 3, 5, whatever hooks that works really well. I write specific copy for those specific hooks. and that's how you kind of test test your copy and everything. And it's really like a creative flywheel, right? Where you're getting information from the visual creative team, they're getting information from you, like what's working, what's not.

[00:08:37] John: And then, you know, you kind of iterate on that. They iterate on what you're doing. It's kind of like this. supporting each other to always find the best combination overall. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. And it's, the way to go, especially in 2022. We're going into 2023, like as I said, Creative testing and copywriting and all that is the key to win on Facebook as an advertiser.

[00:08:58] John: Which, to be honest with you, like didn't have to do all this work maybe five years ago. most agencies didn't have copywriters. They had, the media buy, writing the copy and it was working fine. But, you know, with customers becoming more sophisticated and with pixel being pretty much not what it used to.

[00:09:16] John: You need a team of creative people who do this full-time to be able to produce the results you're going after. Yeah, we saw how things were going with the need for higher sophistication and ad copy and that's kinda how we started to form this. The copy team here at tier 11 getting really.

[00:09:32] John: A lot more persuasive, like deep research, old school copywriters and is, you know, it's been uh, an interesting journey and sometimes the speed is not quite there, but the thought process and thinking is really topnotch. So you talk about like working with. the visual creative, like, do you prefer to have the visual creative first or do you like to start copy first?

[00:09:48] John: It depends, Like if we have creatives that have been proven to work, that we gonna create copy that matches those creative. But if we have kind of copy that's proven to work with a creative that doesn't really match the copy, then we'll take the copy and creative that matches the copy.

[00:10:04] John: So it depends which one came first. Right? All right. The chicken or the copy. Yeah. . Exactly. Copier the egg. Yeah. Which one came first? you said, let me um, bump in here. You and I haven't had a chance to speak in quite a while, so uh, I'm. , pick your brain here just a bit. Now that you're moving over into the Facebook world from the copy side, you're giving yourself an advantage.

[00:10:24] John: That's uncommon to most copywriters, right? You get to see the analytics real quick, So one of the great frustrations of copywriters is that we don't see how quickly or if our copy's working at all you have that you now are earning that advantage by going into media buying. are you in mostly Facebook at the.

[00:10:41] John: Yeah, mostly Facebook. Okay. So with Facebook then and this is a bit of a side in a rabbit trail, so just pull me back in, but how are you finding copy different from an e-commerce versus say, like a coaching company And how do you then adjust your copy when it comes to a level one client versus say a level three or four client?

[00:11:03] John: Yeah, to answer your question about difference between e-commerce and let's say an info product business, so e-commerce like used to be this very short copy. Headline, three bullet points, call to action, and that's it. Which is fine. However, like I have friends that run e-commerce stores and the best ads are the ads that have in copy that in direct response style, like story-based copy something.

[00:11:29] John: more direct response in style. That's what's working best. right now we're moving into a word where even e-commerce people are starting to write copy that looks more like direct response, traditional copy. So that's for the first part of the question. What was the second part, Erin?

[00:11:44] John: Yeah, just to, how are you adjusting your length of copy? based on level one, say the level 3, 4, 5. level one tends to be longer because I like to do story ads, And the reason for that is twofold, The first reason is because, a way to bypass all personal attribute stuff and the used stuff, like if I'm saying negative story about myself, Facebook, can't say anything cause I'm talking about myself.

[00:12:07] John: It's my story. Right, So that's kind of a trick or a hack, if you will, to bypass those policies in an ethical way. So that's the first reason. And the second reason is because stories work very well. They're very persuasive. You cannot argue a. , it's my story. You cannot say I'm right or wrong.

[00:12:24] John: It's a story. So it's the most persuasive form of copy. And in terms of length, yeah, as I said, for level one. So cold traffic tends to be on the long side of the spectrum. Right. I would say medium to long, depending on the account. And the more you move down the funnel, the shorter the copy will become because it doesn't need to be as persuasive, as level one copy.

[00:12:45] John: But yeah, level one is the longest I would say. talked a little bit about levels, can you kind of hit on the different levels of awareness and just a brief definition of like the ones you're moving them. Yeah, so the level of awareness, if we're referring to Eugene Schwartz level of awareness, the one that I focus on are problem aware people.

[00:13:04] John: and solution aware, like I don't talk to someone who's unaware or someone and I would say the biggest segment I like to focus on is problem aware people. I don't like to focus on solution aware. So for example, if you open your ad with, here is how our product is better here.

[00:13:21] John: Our product is different or whatever, or maybe you're opening with a mechanism behind your product or offer. What you're actually doing is that you are talking and attracting solution aware people. What will happen then is that those people, first of all, it's not the biggest segment of the market that the first thing, you will not have a lot of scale.

[00:13:40] John: That's one thing. And the second thing is that they will compare you to other solutions because if you attracted people who know a solution, They will compare you to the other solution that they have tried or that they've read about or whatever. Whereas where you're, when, you're talking to people who are problem aware, they do not necessarily know any solution.

[00:13:58] John: So when you present your solution, even though it's not the only solution, it seems like the only solution for them. So your ads will work better and you will have also much more. Yeah, so let me echo on this a little bit, Tom, if you don't mind. So I find it interesting you said that you and I come at this slightly from a different angle.

[00:14:19] John: You say you don't like to talk to the unaware, the level one client, and yet I have to make the assumption that everybody's unaware. , right? Even if they are aware of, needing and skills and helping to write, let's use copywriting for example. they wanna buy a copywriting course, right?

[00:14:34] John: Or they're looking for a copywriting solution. You still have to assume that they are beginners, that I can't make any assumption in my. That they already know who we are, what we're about, and what our story is, right? And so I was having this conversation with Tom a couple of days ago that, even at the level two, three, and sometimes even level four people, they will forget your story.

[00:14:59] John: because they have their own story. They're worried about themselves. It's all about me, myself and I, right? so when you reenter their life, they would've long since forgotten you. If you've ever watched a movie and went back and re-watched it and go, I don't remember half of this. This is proof positive that they're not gonna remember who you are, right?

[00:15:14] John: I almost always write Trump. They don't know me, they don't know who I am. They don't know anything about me, or they've forgotten me, or they don't care. Right? And so I always start as an unaware launch for me. but I can be course corrected and talk walked off the ledge there, but just walk me through your, philosophy of starting at the problem aware versus.

[00:15:35] John: So there are two concepts, right? there's the Eugene Schwartz levels of awareness and there is the, levels of traffic that we have at tier 11, right? And to me they are quite similar, but they have, points on which they are quite different. So when we say level one, This is a person that can be problem aware or solution aware or unaware.

[00:15:54] John: This is That's right. You know, like they are problem aware, but we call them level one because we have never advertised to these people before. They have never engaged with us. So to us they are level one traffic. But in the market they're in, they're not level one traffic. Right. You know what?

[00:16:11] John: So that's what I mean. But by doing, like when I write my copy, I write it to problem aware first, then I do the other ones. I'm not saying do not focus on the other segments. You absolutely should. For the people watching us, like you absolutely should write to all the segments, but the biggest segment, in my opinion and in my experience, that will give you the biggest scale is the people who are problem.

[00:16:35] John: That's where you will find most of the people when you go look like, if you look at search volume for keywords on Google, you will notice that people who are looking for keywords that are problem oriented is way bigger than people who are looking for the solution for that. . So let's push back a little bit. Okay. So Lynn Swayze will agree with you completely, right? There's no such thing as a problem unaware client. No. we are just too inundated with information nowadays to be unaware. Right. But you've also admitted that the greatest. Copywriting. A force is story-based.

[00:17:14] John: And story-based is almost exclusively level one. So walk me through how your story-based email or uh, Facebook copy isn't also deeply unaware, right? Cause you're using a story to generate longer copy to persuade. those who are probably unaware of your solution, they may be problem aware to your point.

[00:17:37] John: Right. And they may even be solution aware, but do you dare assume that they know anything about you and do you not assume that they're level one to us, for sure. Right. Oh, they don't. I know they don't, but at that point in the funnel, , people not care about me. My story, right? My offer, whatever.

[00:17:55] John: They just will resonate with something that actually resonates with them because I'm talking about a pain point that they have, a desire that they have, et cetera, through my story, right? So at that point in the funnel, they do not care. And I know that they do not care, right? when we say unaware, like if we're referring to Eugene Schwartz again, They're unaware of nothing.

[00:18:15] John: Unaware of solution, unaware of problem. They're completely unaware, right? Yep. unaware for us, at least at tier 11. Level one, as I said, is people who we have not advertised to, which means. in Facebook you can exclude people and they're level one, you are excluding your past customers, et cetera, So these are truly people who have never seen your message. They know nothing about you, et cetera. So yeah, I'm in the camp with Yusuf and Lynn, where in the world that we live in, especially on Facebook, people. Not unaware. I mean, most likely they'll have seen something else reading a blog post or anything else that's made them aware of the problem.

[00:18:53] John: And I think that story copy does work at the problem aware level. I mean that you're really creating copy that they can empathize with, right? I have a problem. This story has a problem. Hopefully somebody has a solution. It goes right back to my argument earlier that even at levels two, three, and four, at times people will forget your story and therefore a story works.

[00:19:13] John: that's just the point, right? But let's now talk about the greatest mover and all of direct response, and that is the cold traffic. That is the people that don't know anything about you. If you can tap into cold traffic, you can write your own ticket, right? then if that's the case, Holds that premise holds.

[00:19:29] John: Then why ignore level one in your copy? I think we're mixing things up a little bit here. Like if we're talking about awareness, levels, I would say cold traffic is really anything that's not product aware, right? they don't know you. . So this is the problem with and this is something that Ralph burns and I have talked about at length at times, and that is Eugenia Schwartz's five levels awareness.

[00:19:52] John: they only fit nicely in their own box. on paper, but in real life they're just intermeshed, right? And they'll move in and out of awareness states. and they just do not fit nicely as, we would like them to fit. that, just to say that humans are incredibly complex and emotional.

[00:20:13] John: they're all over the board when it comes to uh, their awareness levels. I think that's something that's really least on the video side. You can take somebody through all these or hit all these different awareness levels in a single video. Same thing with the story. Story copy, right?

[00:20:25] John: Like You don't do specifically. problem aware copy. It's like problem aware. Then you're making them solution aware, and since it's a Facebook ad and it's says direct response and people have some expectation of a return on their ad dollar, you're probably making them product aware as well, and you want to, most likely there's a CTA that drives scarcity.

[00:20:43] John: most aware. So it's like really all these things go together in a single ad. It's just how you think about that. Yeah. So let's. Move off of Facebook for a moment and go to the most expensive way to advertise on the planet. That's direct. , If you're going to do direct mail, you are paying crazy amounts of money to run a test, right?

[00:21:00] John: So do you dare then go into that environment and not tell the whole story? Which means you have to assume even if you've got a past customer who has bought a supplement from you, do you dare send that a new supplement package to. Client with the assumption that they know anything about your company.

[00:21:21] John: Let me answer that for you. The answer is no. You start from level one cold traffic and you build them, you build their awareness throughout the copy. Now it takes a lot of copy to do that, right? But to extrapolate that idea back into the world of Facebook, this is why for me, this is my philosophy.

[00:21:38] John: Everybody's cold, everybody's level one. I don't care if you've bought from me before. I assume that you don't know anything about me, and therefore I must rebuild brand awareness and relationship to get you to make the next purchase. That's just where I'll operate from a solution to where product aware and unaware, I have to assume you don't know anything about.

[00:21:59] John: that's not what unaware is. Unaware is you don't know you have a problem. That's correct. And so you have to introduce a problem, right? So for example, I'm writing one for a, company right now that we have that is in.

[00:22:12] John: Copywriting's face. So my very first sentence in my very first ad says, if somewhere deep inside you'd like to fire your boss and stay home and write for a living, right? That's sentence one broken, right? So What's that? Do Im that hints to a person, I would like to write for a living, right?

[00:22:29] John: That's the solution. It's also they don't know they have a problem. they have an idea that they would like to change careers. And so we go and we stir up that hornet's nest, right? And so it doesn't fit nicely in anything as we said before, but to go into a disruptive media.

[00:22:46] John: Facebook, we want to introduce to those guys, the reader, we're interrupting them that they're may be a way to start writing for a living and they may have never even considered it. Right. Well, let's move on to a bit more of like the ins and outs of the day-to-day of writing for multiple clients.

[00:23:03] John: Like how do you sustain. and how do you get deep across multiple clients, write good persuasive copy, do it fast, and then iterate quickly, Yeah. Well, to me, I try to write in the same day for the same client. Right. So that's kind of the ideal scenario, but sometimes you cannot do that because type deadlines and whatnot.

[00:23:24] John: So what I try to do is to write. or put all the clients that are in the same niche in the same day. Mm-hmm. . So let's say we have three supplements clients. I do them all in the same day. Right. Especially if they have similar products or whatever, because you know, it keeps you on your zone of genius instead of hopping from here to there.

[00:23:43] John: Like now you're writing about jewelry, now you're selling coaching, now you're talking about whatever. So it makes it a little bit hard. So that's how I keep it, simple and easy for me. And how, because in my opinion, the biggest things that kill your productivity as a copywriter is to switch too often.

[00:24:02] John: like every two hours you're writing new on a new niche, new topic. And that kills your productivity, in my opinion. I think there is some scientific read study about this, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's like when you switch from think to think it takes your brain 30 minutes or so to kind of readapt and get into the flow.

[00:24:21] John: So I try to keep all for one client one day and. When you have multiple clients, which I always do, I put all the clients of the same niche in same day when it's possible. Sometimes it's not. So you have to kind of finish all the work for one specific client before moving to the next. So that way you can completely unplug your brain from that first client and focus on the next.

[00:24:43] John: You talk a little bit like your process, like prepping before copy. I mean, cuz writing's part of As all of the copywriters I've ever talked to, like copywriting is 90% research, right? How do you prep for copywriting, even if you're batching it across multiple similar clients? Yeah. Well, it depends.

[00:24:59] John: If it's an existing client and I'm already familiar with their market, their product, et cetera, like I go right at it. I take the best performing copy or whatever, we try to iterate from that. We test new angles, so there is. a lot of research, I would say involved in writing for an existing accounts that I'm actively writing for.

[00:25:17] John: But if it's a new client, at tier 11 we have the deep dive research. Right that we do when we onboard the client, which as its name says, it's a really deep dive research where we uncover the pain points, desires, et cetera, of the market, which makes the job of the copywriter easier. It makes the job of the creative team easier.

[00:25:36] John: It makes everybody's work easier, right? so that's what I look at. And I also like to look at what the competitor, what the competition is. And the ads library just to get some inspiration, et cetera. and yeah, then you just start writing. And in terms of process, as I said earlier, I start with the hooks, 2, 3, 5, 10 hooks, depends, right?

[00:25:56] John: And then I plug in the body copy and I, tweak it a little bit because sometimes the transition from one. To a body copy is fine, but for the next hook it can be a little bit odd, so you need to tweak it a little bit to make it transition smoothly. Yeah, that's, pretty much my process for writing.

[00:26:13] John: Add copy. How about you, Aaron? What's your process? Same thing. I mean, head all starts with research. For me, I ascribe to the classic copywriting genius that says, creativity doesn't come from within. It comes from without. , And so I search out everything. I find out who's saying what, and operate from a premise that the voice of customer is king of the hill.

[00:26:35] John: And if the, customers are talking about it, then we should be using it in our copy. And that just comes from the research. And that can be found in a variety of ways. Doing research on Amazon reviews all the way down to forum or Reddit forums. And a plugin that you can get for Chrome.

[00:26:51] John: That's called, let me see if I've got that right here for this Google discussion. Yep. And which allows you to find the forums where people are talking in real language. it's the. Fastest way to get copy done. Voice of customer. you said that was called Google discussion.

[00:27:08] John: It's a Chrome extension. I think this starts a great topic of what are all the copywriting secrets, tools, tricks, hacks. I mean, I know a copywriting's fundamentally like a very thoughtful, deep But all experts have their secrets. Yeah, so as Aaron mentioned, Google discussion is definitely one of them because instead of, spending crazy amount of time trying to found the forums, it just takes you directly to the forums.

[00:27:33] John: So you'll look at the discussions. Reddit is definitely one of the website that I check out regularly, Amazon reviews. So underutilized, in my opinion. There is also a tool called, let me find the name of it,

[00:27:47] John: ad Finder. so it's a Google Chrome extension or plugin, however you wanna call it. And what it does is that when you log in into your Facebook, it hides everything. That's not an advert from your. For the normal person, or as John Carlton would call them civilians, that's a nightmare, right?

[00:28:05] John: But as marketers, that's like a dream. So you're just scrolling and the only thing you see is ads, right? and the way to get it to work and to see, to be able to see ads for, a given niche, you just visit a couple of websites for that specific niche and you will start seeing ads for. . So that's a great way to, what was that?

[00:28:25] John: To only see ads in your advert. What was the, A finder ad finder. the opposite of ad blockers. Right. And yeah, exactly. , yeah. When I talk to people, when, I'm having issues installing some software or something and they're like, do you use ad blocker? I was like, that's the last thing I would want to do.

[00:28:41] John: Whatcha you talking about?

[00:28:44] John: Nice. How about you, Aaron? Any uh, tricks? Secret hacks. Now, if you're in Facebook groups, those are gold, right? And especially if you're in a Facebook group that is in the niche that you're writing for, which is all that really matters. And then going and find out what frustrates people is just , that's just critical stuff.

[00:29:02] John: When it comes to add swipes and things like that, there's both a benefit and a threat here. One of which is how do you know if it's working? if you don't know that it's working, you go to swipe the wrong thing, you'll be just swiping bad. Ads. So the real trick is, is to find something that seems to constantly show up in your newsfeed for, periods of time where they're either idiots spending lots of money or they have actually doubted in to where they know what they're doing and, then you can better um, craft a message around what's working.

[00:29:32] John: Yeah, and I think Facebook ad library is really powerful here. It doesn't necessarily tell you the exact performance. I think about and assume is like the older an ad is. Cause it tells you in the timeline the more likely it is to be a successful ad, right? Or a very bad media buyer who doesn't turn off things that aren't working.

[00:29:48] John: And then if you start to see a lot of themes reoccurring within an ad library, whether it's visual or in the copy, that's most likely something that they've found to be success. Yeah. And also being in, Facebook forms where it's just lively, lively, lively, like one of those is nothing held back now in saltan, nothing held back.

[00:30:06] John: Community is a tremendous resource for gaining what's working now. Yeah. Talking about communities, like if people are aspiring copywriters or really want to stay up on what the latest copywriting trends are, are there any like, groups that you guys are in or suggest for people to join?

[00:30:23] John: Not specific to copywriting, honestly, because I've been moving kind of more towards being, A mix of everything. So a full stack marketer, so to speak, but nothing held back, as Aaron mentioned, is probably the best Facebook group currently for marketers and business owners in general. Well, let's not forget Copied chief of Kevin Rogers now.

[00:30:44] John: Oh yeah, absolutely. But they don't have a Facebook group, unfortunately. Well, they do, but it's page right. Oh, really? You can't actually. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's only though for those who are a part of the, copy. Chief paid community. Yeah. I didn't know there was a Facebook group. Yeah, yeah. For copywriting, copy Chief is hands down the best community, in my opinion.

[00:31:03] John: Yeah. and they have training as well, right? Yeah. They have a whole bunch of training going on. Everything, right? Facebook ads, email or research, long form, copy, everything you need. Freelancing there is pretty much everything. Yeah, and Kevin is a great dude too, so Yeah. I know they've, hooked us up with a couple of our copywriters over time and while we're at it, we might as well mention copy hackers, right. And Joanna Wey, if you are looking to get solid, solid copywriting training, hard to beat her.

[00:31:33] John: So are uh, copywriters I think all of us, like direct response marketers are competitive people and just, you know, wanna win. But how about with each other?

[00:31:40] John: Well, the, classical direct response world is cutthroat. Right? Let's go back to direct amount. you got a control out there. And the control for those who listening who don't understand what it is, a control is a piece that's been unbeatable, right. And it's sustained. The King of the Hill physician for a while.

[00:31:55] John: Well, they'll go out and hire other copywriters to come in and try to beat it, right? And sometimes a copywriter will go in and beat the control by doing nothing more than changing the headline and everything else stays the same. Right? And then suddenly who gets the royalties, the guy who made the last adjustment.

[00:32:09] John: And so it's a constant and perpetual, cutthroat environment in that. But then when it comes to copywriting communities people are just pulling for everybody. The the thing that I love about Terry Levin's environment is, and I've said this in the past, it's the CrossFit version of digital marketing.

[00:32:25] John: There's no egos here. Everybody's pulling for everybody and everybody wants everybody else to win, and everybody will bolster everybody up to help, them win. if you're on the same team, it certainly helps to be have that spirit of spree to core, right? But if you're an opposite agencies, obviously you're Trying to win. It's a competitive environment. I guess talk a little bit about being agency versus freelance and I always found it better when I was like part of a team and other people I could bounce ideas off of. But there's, freedom to being freelance too. Like if you're a freelance copywriter, how do you know you're doing good work or improving

[00:32:57] John: Yeah. Well it ties back to what Aaron said at the beginning of this live. That is numbers, You live for the numbers, like the numbers will tell you, but again, in a specific context, your copy may or may not perform. So you take the best control that has ever existed in history, Whatever it is, right? You mail it again today, not gonna. I would say, Let to know to first know if your copy is doing good or not. You gotta work on a good offer, a good client, a good market. The timing has to be right, et cetera, et cetera. go sell a crypto offer right now compared to selling it two years ago.

[00:33:35] John: your copy can be amazing, but if the timing is right, it's gonna. You know what I mean? So you gotta be very careful if you're a freelancer, about choosing the right market, the right client, the right offer, the right timing, et cetera. I'm not sure who said this, I think it was Gary Halbert, but it was something along the lines of like, the lesson is to go after that.

[00:33:56] John: At least don't go after the hardest market or the hardest offer or whatever. Like make it easier for yourself. Quite make piece bless his heart, , who has now passed, made the comment one time that when you do an advertisement, the right mailpiece, here's what you're hoping for. You're hoping that there's no towers coming.

[00:34:13] John: Right. There's no major news breaks. Right? But you hope that it's raining and the power is out and they've got nothing to do, but set it home and read your direct mail piece. , . So the online world is so challenging because it's the scroll environment, It's a scroll economy nowadays.

[00:34:31] John: Scroll, scroll, scroll. And so getting that initial stop, that initial scroll stop, that's where they creative is so vitally important and,

[00:34:39] John: So it's it's just difficult to get someone to buy in if you can't get 'em to stop. That's all I'm saying. you kinda brought up this idea that Basically, I think you mentioned crypto offers like right, they're dead. are you shifting your general copywriting like where we are economically in this like economic cycle?

[00:34:53] John: It seems like maybe there's a recession on the horizon. Has that started to creep its way in or change how you're communicating with people? Oh, absolutely. When there are, those economical downturns or major events, you wanna leverage that in your copy as much as you can, especially in ad copy, because it doesn't take too long to produce, it's not a sales page, so it shouldn't take you very long.

[00:35:13] John: But you want to leverage those events as much as you can because it's top of mind. So people will connect with you instantly, right? Like, for example, you talk about recess. There was when Quinn Elizabeth passed away, we used that, for the UK audiences, you want to use that as much as you can, but the thing is, you gotta be very quick about it, , because the word is moving very fast.

[00:35:37] John: So what's today an event if it takes you two weeks? to produce your copy. Well, it's not an event anymore. There is something else. So it's not relevant, so you gotta be very fast with it. But yeah, you want to use it as much as you can. how do you think about like balancing that like fast turnover more trending copy versus like evergreen copy that you hope will last couple months?

[00:35:58] John: is there a copy that lasts four months on Facebook? I'm not sure. Ad fatigue is a real thing on Facebook. Yeah. This is why a lot of people love Google because it gives you a more stability. Long term. Whereas Facebook, you are constantly no matter how good your copy is and how good your creative is, eventually people will get tired of it.

[00:36:19] John: Enough seen your ad, so you need to refresh it. But to answer your question so evergreen copy is there. hopefully you're not doing it every week. one add maybe. 2, 3, 4, 3 weeks, right? Three months. It depends on the account, right? It depends on the niche, but yeah, in terms of balancing, I guess I don't have a good answer.

[00:36:39] John: You just gotta do it . But yeah, like if you're writing for an event that's time sensitive, then you will prioritize that. Before you are the evergreen copy, because the evergreen, by definition is evergreen. So whether you produce it today or next week, it's not gonna change anything because the goal is for it to be evergreen.

[00:36:56] John: Whereas when you're writing specifically to a given event, well it's time sensitive, so you gotta be quick. it takes priority. . Yeah. If it's going to be evergreen for any length of time, you've got to keep in mind the things that will change and the things that will not change.

[00:37:11] John: And so if you're writing to a topical event, like you said, like you know the queen passing, right? Well, that's guaranteed to be short lived, right? But if you write to them one thing that never changes human nature. Now you have a much better opportunity before it will evergreen. Right? And so the universal approaches of, what people really want in life is going to get you a lot closer to an evergreen than a topical thing or a news breaking thing.

[00:37:36] John: So we've been talking about topical events is more to ride the wave. you are really just taking advantage of something that happened that you have no control over. You're just riding that wave to get people attention. Really, because you in the game of getting attention right at the end of the day.

[00:37:50] John: So you're using that topical event to just get attention and you are leverage Yeah, and if you're thinking again in terms of levels, whether it's awareness or traffic levels, yeah. Like that's probably a bit more of the unaware and problem where audiences right, you wanna get them into the funnel that you can maybe hit them with a bit more evergreen copy that doesn't require as much topical, or maybe it is topical depending on the scenario and the product.

[00:38:13] John: And if you can drive scarcity with a specific. . Yeah, exactly. So topical events, copy tends to have a broader appeal. Like you can attract people who have no interest in your product, in your offering, whatever. Right. Especially if, you don't do a good job of transitioning or establishing the relationship between the.

[00:38:34] John: and your thing, your offer. Like if you do a bad job of establishing that relationship, you will attract a lot of people. And people will say, oh, I have bad leads, I have, well, it's because of that, because you have attracted a lot of people that has nothing to do, that have nothing to do with your offer.

[00:38:49] John: So that's why. But if you do a good job, At making that relationship clear between the event and how it ties to your thing, then you should do well. So level one. Yeah. Level one, absolutely. That's what I'm saying. . Absolutely. . Yeah. So we've talked a lot about like ad copywriting and you know, here that's only like part of the equation.

[00:39:08] John: there's copywriting all throughout this customer acquisition path, right? Yeah. Like talk a little bit about like after the click copywriting, what are you seeing working right now? Like e-commerce? Should it be send them directly to product page? Should we be creating a bit more landing page type, you know, copy.

[00:39:23] John: before talking about what types of copy, et cetera. One thing that's super important and that can completely kill you. The performance of your ads is absent. Or in other words, the congruency between what you're saying on your ad and the landing page. Like if you're talking about joint pain on your ad, and the headline on the landing page is about blood pressure.

[00:39:43] John: Well, it's a complete mis. and I see people, making this mistake again and again and again. you wanna make your copy congruent with your landing page. And if you are gonna be working with clients and , you're testing an ad that's getting a lot of traction, right? a high CTR link, but people are not converting you may want to ask your client to tweak their landing.

[00:40:07] John: To match the ad because the ad is getting traction. So now let's work on the landing page and make it, congruent with the ad in terms of what's working for e-commerce advertorials more and more for cold traffic. Because they're great to warm up the traffic and to also get a higher quality leads people who are more qualified, right?

[00:40:26] John: Because you're putting more hoops in your funnel. So if someone keeps jumping through those hoops, obviously they're more qualified to buy. And as I said earlier, like the traditional e-commerce pages, they're not performing as well as they used to. So a lot of e-commerce brands are not good, are doing now advertorials or direct response style, like it's literally a sales page selling a physical product.

[00:40:53] John: they still have their Shopify store and everything, you know, product, page description, et cetera. But on top of that, they build direct response funnels for cold traffic, acquisi. How about I know we have quite a few clients who are not e-commerce. Like what sort of stuff are you seeing going on over there?

[00:41:09] John: Info product? Yeah, info product, lead gen. Yeah. Low ticket is doing well, low ticket offers, so anything from three to $27, I would say that's working really well As an acquisition funnel. But you know, , it's gotta be architected in a way that you're not losing money, or at least not a lot.

[00:41:29] John: You guys, some people are profitable with those offer if the funnel is architected in the right way. In terms of lead gen, I mean lead gen is lead gen, so it hasn't changed as much Yeah. But for product offers, low ticket is, the move, at least for now.

[00:41:44] John: Great. Well, any other thoughts or topics you got all wanted to hit on Yeah. Take this opportunity to talk about one of the greatest mistakes that we see in, in the world of landing pages or checkout pages, get a lot of bounce rates and abandoned carts and what's happening on the checkout page that is the missed opportunity? Well, the biggest one that I personally see, and I see it all the time, and I just saw it again today, is that they don't have testimonies on that checkout page.

[00:42:11] John: it's just a big missed opportunity. Cause consider this in your Facebook. And you have testimonies. And on your landing page you have testimonies. But on your cart page, when it turn, turns the time to pull out your credit card and make that big purchase. It's blatantly ag absent of the very thing that help motivate get 'em there.

[00:42:29] John: you definitely need testimonies on your checkout page. If you haven't tested it, you should.

[00:42:34] John: Oh yeah. The lack of proof on the checkout page is, absolutely crazy, especially for e-com folks. No testimonials, no five star reviews, no the guarantee logo, nothing. Right? it's insane. For direct response folks, , they tend to do things well. But for E-com folks, dude, no proof.

[00:42:56] John: Like for some reason they assume that people will remember the testimonial that you have put on your ad, right? Well, they will not, and even if they would remember it. Why would you not put it? what does it cost you to put it there? Nothing. But it can increase your conversion, so you might as well add it.

[00:43:12] John: Just imagine walking somebody from making them aware of their problem, showing them there's a solution. Yeah. You know, giving them your product, getting them from the ad to your landing page, getting them to take the action and then just hoping they'll Not, finalizing the deal with the testimonials.

[00:43:31] John: Yeah, dude. I mean, social proof on the checkout page is one of the biggest needle movers for sure. Yeah. . Great. Well, I think that's a great tip to end it on Yousuf and Aaron, thank you very much. I always enjoy these more these creative talks like I, I mean, I'm a creative guy myself and we can talk about this all day.

[00:43:47] John: So we'll definitely have you guys back. You know, a couple of call to actions here. I'd say if. , you are a direct response copywriter looking for a great team to be a part of. As Yousuf mentioned, bringing freelance can be a little tough. If you aren't, your clients come and go and maybe you don't have the right client.

[00:44:01] John: When you're a part of an agency, you're part of, a team that has new clients all the time. So there's always lots of excellent work and big challenges, and you could join these guys and all the. Great copywriters at tier 11. So I think that's tier eleven.com/careers. We're looking for copywriters and then if you are a brand looking for an agency to really help walk your customers through this whole acquisition path and really hit all these different awareness levels that we've talked about and making sure that you have social proof on your checkout page head over to tier eleven.com.

[00:44:31] John: And you'll see a big old like work with us button and, apply and we'd love to chalk with you and see if we could work together. Otherwise, thank you guys very much. Have a good weekend. And I think we all have teams still in the World Cup, so it's gonna be a, fun Yes. next level. . All right.

[00:44:45] John: Good to see you again. You, let's catch up buddy. I'll see you man. thanks guys. See ya.