Copywriting is changing every day. What started largely as a specialized type of writing for display ads in newspapers and magazines and direct mail has changed dramatically. Today's marketing for copywriting involves online marketing, mobile marketing, social media and video.
In a relatively short period of time the world of marketing turned on its head. Today's copywriters need to be familiar with various online platforms such as WordPress and Joomla as well writing for radio and television. A lot of copywriters who were kings in the days of rolling out direct mail or buying newspaper space are no longer able to compete in the age of video and email marketing.
However, it would be a serious mistake to consider offline marketing dead. Today, direct mail may be more effective because so few people are using it. Text marketing may be effective today but it may be saturated tomorrow.
When building a business, it's important to start with the most obvious questions. Where are your customers located and who is your ideal customer avatar? Unless you have the information at hand, chances are you may be wasting much of your marketing time and energy.
My name is Harlan Kilstein and I'm considered one of the top copywriters in the world. I interned with the top copywriters in the world and today my students are considered to be the "A team" of online copywriting.
The purpose of this website is to introduce myself and share with you my views on the evolution of copywriting. I've seen earthquakes of copywriting in just the past few years. I think you will learn a great deal from this site.
As you go through my site and see my client list, you may want to consider working with me.
Please go through the site first so you can understand my process.
Feel free to contact me
The Internet is turning to video. Youtube and other similar sites enjoy enormous popularity. And the future of video marketing and video copywriting is growing.
A number of top internet gurus have largely abandoned the sales letter. Some of them are creating extremely long videos instead of long sales letters. Is this the wave of the future? We are going to address these issues here in this post.
First, the attention span on the Internet is way down. Studies now show that a visitor to your website makes a decision to stay or go within the first 6 seconds. Whatever you have on your site has to hook them so they will stay and dive into your content.
But a lot of people are creating long videos but not measuring how long people watch them. Do people watch a 60 minute video selling them a product? Even infomercial experts have discovered that 20 minutes is about the limit so they repeat the content every 20 minutes.
The answer is not clear or obvious. My thought is that if the 60 minute video is of a talking head, people rapidly learn they don't need to watch. They can just listen in. Essentially what these people have done is take a video modality and turn it into an audio modality. They are training people NOT to watch their videos.
On the other hand, if the video is fast paced and attention getting, there's a good chance in getting a visitor to your website to stick around longer.
Even though I'm known as a copywriter, I'll be bold and claim that good video combined with a sales letter will out-perform a plain sales letter. Furthermore, good video alone will often out perform a bad sales letter. However, bad video may be the literal kiss of death. If people won't stay for the video, chances are they won't hang around and read the sales letter either.
Today, a large amount of the work I do is creating video scripts and actual videos for clients. The process involves a great deal of research into the demographics of your market and discovering the visual imagery that is most appealing.
If you'd like to discuss your video needs with me, please visit me on my Contact Us Page
I first met Frank Kern watching the old "Underachiever" DVD set. It was a basic introduction into Internet marketing teaching many skills that are outdated today. At the time, it was a well-grounded cutting edge program. The premise was to build a bunch of sites that make a few sales a day and cash in big time. Since I had the copy skills, I plunged into the Underachiever program and made a lot of money.
I went to the Big Seminar and went to hang out in the bar the night before. There by himself was Frank Kern. I went up to him and introduced myself. I told him that the Underachiever set was the best online purchase I had ever made and that I felt it had the most value of all the products I had bought.
Frank thanked me and asked, "Did you write that sales letter for Stephen Pierce about blogging? That headline blew me away."
I had no idea Frank knew who I was but he knew my writing. He asked me if he could call me about writing for him. I said sure.
Frank called me to tell me about a seminar he was doing but before he could talk about it, I had to sign an NDA. The seminar was called "The Serializer Seminar." Frank wanted to charge $10,000 for the seminar and wanted 44 people to attend.
The first challenge was to understand the concept of "The Serializer." Once I did, the letter almost wrote itself.
The headline was:
It’s an exclusive look behind the scenes at the personal money making system I’ve developed but…
No kidding.
This material is so valuable you will sign and notarize your signature agreeing to keep this material “hush-hush” in the presence of my attorney before you set foot inside the seminar room.
You can use these systems, you just can’t reveal them.
I’m setting aside the first rule of Fight Club for just 37 people. No. I haven’t lost my mind. But you’ve never been exposed to…
One of the biggest challenges Frank had was going public with his material. Frank had presented publicly about one of his niches at a live seminar and he was blatantly copied. Frank was concerned about people stealing "The Serializer Method."
I suggested Frank bring in a lawyer into the seminar to supervise the signings of the NDA. In fact, he loved the idea and it set the tone of the seminar.
My favorite line of the letter was:
I’ll come after you with everything I’ve got. Your lawyers will need lawyers to defend against my full court press.
The Serializer seminar sold out in 11 minutes flat. It was Frank's first experience with Mass Control. People couldn't scroll through the letter fast enough to sign up. Frank ended up making $110,000 a minute!
Following the succes of The Serializer, Frank and Ed Dale hired me to write a letter for their Ultra Underachiever Program.
Frank was entering the world of copy himself at that time and wrote a version of the sales letter he called "Regurgitated Vomit." I was able to use some of Frank's concepts in the letter but his copy had a long way to go.
The Serializer Even was the first public use of Jeff Walker's Product Launch Formula. Even though Frank was fairly unknown at the time, he was able to send a $10,000 program. Walker's Product Launch Formula would go on and redefine Internet marketing by creating high demand for products.
The Ultra Underachiever Program sold very well and I became a featured speaker and Frank Kern and Ed Dale's events. They are two of the brightest online marketers I know.
The next call that I got from Frank was insane. Frank wanted to beat John Reese's Million Dollar Day. And he wanted to avoid all of the hassles of dealing with affiliates. Frank and his cousin Trey Smith approached Neil Strauss who has just published "The Game" about the pick-up Seduction world. They wanted Strauss to create a product called "The Annihilation Method." Neil agreed.
Frank wanted to sell a DVD set for $997 dollars and sell a thousand of them. I told him the value was much higher. He was incredulous. "You think you could get people to buy a DVD set at a higher price?" I suggested a price tag of $7000. We compromised at around $4000. It would be the highest priced product to ever hit the market.
This launch was all Frank. He went wild with emails and built Neil a huge list. One email was "The Black Mirror Technique." It was so over the top with magic techniques that it drove people insane. They HAD to buy the product.
I wrote the letter live in front of a seminar audience. It took me about 90 minutes to write the letter. After the letter was written, Frank's cousin Trey made some adjustments to the letter that in my opinion killed the letter. I called Frank and begged him not to run with Trey's letter. In the end, Frank made very few adjustments to my letter. The letter sold out in about 19 minutes. It was the fastest million dollars made online.
From that point on, Frank began running launches himself and doing his own copy. He moved to video where he showed mastery of the techniques involved.
If you'd like to discuss working with you on a project just like I worked with Frank Kern, please visit me on my Contact Us Page
The first time I wrote for Jay Abraham, the legendary marketing expert, it was a rush job. Stephen Pierce and Rich Schefren were introducing Jay Abraham to the world of online marketing through a teleseminar and sales were slow. The opt-in page and sales letter had been written by Michel Fortin. They were getting a huge number of opt-ins but there were very few sign ups.
It was their first opportunity to work with Jay and they wanted to impress him. They wanted to show him their skill online and were counting on a huge showing. There was just one problem. No one was signing up for the teleseminar.
Rich Schefren approached me and told me he needed a letter written for Jay with a catch. The letter needed to be written in a single day. Was I up to the challenge?
We picked a Sunday and Rich showed up at my office to make sure I didn't move from the computer. He informed me that whatever I needed, he would get. My office became my prison for the day with Rich keeping me supplied with Diet Cokes and running out for meals and snacks. My job was to sit and the keyboard and create.
It was a grueling day. I was very familiar with Jay's teachings and concepts but they had never been applied or translated to the online world.
Those were the days of really long copy sales letters. My recollection was that the Jay Abraham Internet Strategies letter was nearly 30 pages.
The letter had to be perfect because Jay had to approve it. I was reaching deep into my bag of copywriting tricks but the main thing I had to keep in mind was keeping the letter simple.
A lot of people in the online world had never heard of Jay Abraham so I had to not only introduce him but build his credibility. And I had to make the case that what Jay had done in the offline world was important online.
My original headline was, “How a 55 Year Old Marketing Genius Who Can’t Even Use A Computer Can Double Your Online Business Overnight!”
I submitted the letter and prayed Jay would approve of the letter. In fact, he loved it and went on to hire me several times to write for him. It was like a rookie being plucked from the minor leagues to hit a home run.
Jay left nearly all of the letter intact except changed the headline to: “How a 55 Year Old Marketing Genius Who Can’t Even Use A Computer Can Double Your Online Business Overnight!” -Then Redouble It Again
Over The Next 12 Months.
The letter was a huge success. The teleseminar went on to gross over six hundred thousand dollars and went on to create three coaching programs that brought in millions of dollars to Jay, Stephen, and Rich. It also blasted off my career as a copywriter.
I went on to write for Jay three more times. The next time was for his "Swinging for the Fences" seminar. At the time that I was hired, they were days away from canceling the seminar. I had to do something immediately to buy some time.
I quickly drafted the following email which was sent out to Jay's list:
Subject Line: First Name, Next Wednesday, Your Competition Throws in the Towel
Dear First Name,
The atmosphere inside my office is growing, magnifying,
and becoming palpable by the moment with excitement.
My staff has seen its share of frenzy but a freshly charged
sense of anticipation is growing each day as the
unofficial count-down has begun.
My associates have insisted I let you in on the latest development.
But like Michelangelo refusing to let Pope Julius II glimpse
the Sistine Chapel until it was complete, I’m painting the final
brush strokes on what I am convinced will rank as one of my masterpieces,
keenest insights, and greatest opportunities for your business to soar.
So, I’ll let you in on a secret. Next Wednesday has the
potential to be a landmark day for your business.
At precisely 9 AM, I am going to click the send button on my
computer. In a nano-second, you should see my email in your inbox.
For heaven’s sake, keep your finger away from the delete key.
First name, turn off the phones, close your office door, and take
a deep breathe before reading. A brief prayer that you read the email
before your competitor does would be in order.
In fact, I suggest you put a post-it on your monitor
so you are one of the first to get the news.
One last thing, please, warn your staff to disregard the
cheering they hear coming from your office next Wednesday.
The email brought renewed interest to the seminar and it filled the room. At the seminar, Jay stood up at the front of the room and announced, "Anyone who needs a copywriter should hire Harlan Kilstein."
My copywriting career took off.
If you'd like to discuss working with you on a project such as the many I worked on with Jay Abraham, please visit me on my Contact Us Page
Killer copy always outperforms sloppy copy. And this makes a big difference in terms of the number of sales coming in for your business. That’s why copy writing is ideally left to those who really know what they are doing.
But you may already be reading the legendary books of Claude Hopkins, Rooser Reeves, John Caples and David Ogilvy -- and you may know for sure that top notch copywriters read their books as well.
Then you begin to realize that you may have the same chance of producing killer copy – you read the same books after all, right?
As you read more, and gain more copywriting knowledge, you start to entertain the idea that you can be in the same league, and write your own copy because you have access to the same stuff as these top copywriters. All these sound good. In fact, all these seem logical, right?
But who are you kidding, really?
Unless you have actually tried this before, and have found through testing that you can indeed write copy that gets results – this stuff rightfully belongs to the professionals.
Just what can killer copy do for your business? It grabs the attention of your prospects. It stops them on their tracks and makes them read your copy. Such a copy will entice the prospects to read on, and helps them realize that an irresistible offer is presented right in front of their very eyes. It will also provide the right proof elements so that your offer becomes believable in the minds of the prospects.
Killer copy also evokes the right emotions to bring out the inherent desires of the prospects, and gets them to act quickly on your offer. In short, your copy becomes your best salesman 24 hours a day without tiring.
Now, your copy also allows the readers to form an image about your business. When prospects read your copy, they will see the brand you have. So you must understand that your copy can do more than just sell – it helps create your brand in your market.
And all this stuff, sadly, is beyond the uninitiated. The best advice to guarantee results for your business is by working with an online copywriter who can give you the results you need.
Copywriting is changing every day. What started largely as a specialized type of writing for display ads in newspapers and magazines and direct mail has changed dramatically. Today’s marketing for copywriting involves online marketing, mobile marketing, social media and video. In a relatively short period of time the world of marketing turned on its head. [...]
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