Jim Edwards and Stew Smith discuss the subtle ways to introduce sales copy into content created for your readers or viewers that can be done by article / blog post or by quick FB Live video as well.
– Talk / write about a benefit, meaning, or education to the content
– Show them WHAT to do but sell them on HOW to do it.
– Use a wizard – Try the Book Wizard for Amazon sales copy – it actually writes a good article too.
– Add emotion to the content and hooks
– Benefit, Benefit, HOOK
– Add Reasons WHY you need to do something
– Add Reasons WHO this content is for.
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The Transcript…
Jim Edwards: Hey guys, Jim Edwards here and welcome back to the Sales Copywriting and Content Marketing Hacks Podcast with Jim Edwards and…
Stew Smith: Stew Smith!
Jim Edwards: And today we are talking about how to sneak, excuse me, how to work sales copy into your content pieces without being obnoxious…
Stew said,
“Without being a pain in the ass.”
but I said,
“You know what? We need to trim it down because I think we have some homeschoolers that listen to this.”
Then we need to tune up Stew’s potty mouth there…
I have to talk to him about it all the time anyway…
Stew Smith: You’ve been a bad influence.
Jim Edwards: Who me?
Stew Smith: Yes.
Jim Edwards: You wouldn’t be the first person I influenced it badly…
So, what we’re talking about is basically a lot of people think of content and sales copy as completely different…
And one of the things that I talk about in my Copywriting Secrets book is the fact that there really is no difference between copywriting and content…
It’s all in the eye of the beholder…
Because back in the day Stew did, well maybe you did, maybe you didn’t, but have you…
Back before the Internet, did you ever send off for more information about something and received in the mail a…
What was the equivalent of a 5-10 page sales letter?
Stew Smith: Yes…
Jim Edwards: Did you ever do that? And did you ever read one of those in by something as a result?
Stew Smith: Hmm…
Trying to think…
I might have.
Jim Edwards: Did you ever buy a bottom line report or you know, the bottom line yearbook or any of those things?
Stew Smith: I can’t recall…
Jim Edwards: Okay…
Stew Smith: It’s been so long I don’t remember what happened last week…
Jim Edwards: Hahaha! Okay…
So, the point, though, is that if somebody is interested in something, what might feel to one person, like a sales pitch…
to another person is a free report…
It is a brochure…
It is information that they’re very interested in reading, consuming, watching, or otherwise taking in…
Because it’s on a topic that they’re interested in.
So trying to say to yourself, “Okay, I’m making content right now, so I need to put on my content hat.”
or
“I’m making sales copy right now, so I need to put on my sales copy hat right now…”
What you need to do is put on your communication hat and give people information that is going to…
Or knowledge or whatever…
And give it to them in such a way that’s going to lead them to naturally want more of whatever it is you’re offering…
Whether you’re selling something, you’re trying to get people to sign up for free, whatever it is…
Does that make sense?
Stew Smith: Oh, absolutely… I try to do it in a way of when I write, I’m trying to be a coach, right?
I’m trying to educate something…
Like for instance, when I write about the tactical fitness that’s in this tactical fitness book…
I write about the three phases of tactical fitness that a lot of people don’t understand…
Jim Edwards: What are the three phases of tactical fitness? Real quick, Stew?
Stew Smith: Well real quickly, you have to get to…
You have to get to the training first in order to get through the training…
So, that means you got to focus on passing a competitive fitness test first…
So, your workout should be specifically geared towards that…
And then whatever your program that you’re trying to get into entails…
You have to prepare for those standards and events that are coming in your future…
Might be running, might be swimming, might be rucking, might be lifting heavy equipment and stuff like that…
And then you have active duty fitness.
Which a lot of people get the three phases confused and either are stuck at phase one forever…
Or thinking, because they’re phase one, they can go immediately to phase three…
They skipped phase two, and they never make it to phase three…
So anyway, there’s a whole lot of things there…
And what I just did there, by the way, by doing this and Jim just did it too…
Was we just did what’s called a… cameo!
Jim Edwards: Cameo!
Stew Smith: Yup…So that’s a way to fit a sales copy into your content…
So make an ‘okay’ video presentation or an article, write about something that is educational that your book teaches…
And then here’s a link to the book, right?
Jim Edwards: Or your program or whatever… So you might even say something like,
“Okay, so I actually have 30 secrets inside of my book…31 secrets…
And secret number 16 is it’s all about, it’s all ice cream…
But what flavor should I choose?
Stew Smith: Orange Sherbet!
Jim Edwards: Do you like I’m sure you like Orange Sherbet…
I like Orange Sherbet…
Stew Smith: It’s all get…
Jim Edwards: But the thing is, what does that mean? All right?
And the thing that you need to understand is that most people say,
“Is a video sales letter are better than a long form sales letter as long form?”
“Is sales copy dead?”
“Should I use a short form sales letters?”
“Should I…”
All this different stuff…
And what you need to understand is that all sales copy and sales copy, it just depends on what flavor is going to make the most sense for your particular audience…
So I always recommend that you start with a video sales letter if you’re able to do that…
Because it’s the quickest way to test the waters if you’re creating something…
But what did I do there?
I basically told you something, but I also made you more hungry to get the book and to find out more about the different types of sales copy that you can create and how to tell them test and all that good stuff…
So, that’s a great way like Stew just did,
“Hey, what are the three phases?”
“Well, here are the three phases of tactical fitness…”
but I really don’t…
“I’ve learned something, but I really don’t know anything…”
Stew Smith: Rightb
Jim Edwards: Hahaha! And, and we laugh because you know, we know that that’s what actually makes people buy…
We’re not being manipulative…
I can’t teach you in a two-minute video or a 500-word article…
I can’t teach you everything that’s in a chapter of a book…
I certainly can’t teach you everything that’s in a book…
So it’s not like I’m manipulating you…
You’ve learned something and if you want to know more…
Then it’s a, you’re obviously,
“You know what, that looks like a cool book, and it’s got stuff in it I’d like to get, let me go, let me go get the book…”
And then you go through my funnel…
And you’re coming to buy a $20 book and end up walking out with $500 worth of stuff, and we’re both happy…
Stew Smith: There you go!
Jim Edwards: So using the cameo is a good thing, but you don’t have to do that with a book…
You can do it with a course, you can do it with a masterclass, you can do it with coaching…
You know, Stew does a lot of coaching students been coaching me for five years, five or six years now and, and he can open up with stuff…
You know, one of the things I always teach my students is that there are only five exercises that you can do, five movements…
There’s push/pull, core, legs, and cardio…
But yet those five things and the way that you intersperse them and the way that you use them can be mixed up so many different ways and can be used so many different ways that…
- A) you’re never going to get bored with your workout…
And
2), you’re able to avoid injury by doing what we call periodization…
And by having someone that understands about periodization, who understands about Max reps versus super sets versus pyramids…
Literally, I can have you do the exact same number of reps three times a week, but by doing a Max Rep pyramid or superset…
I can have a completely different effect on your body and your objectives…
Stew Smith: Nice!
Jim Edwards: So, I mean, obviously I’ve been paying attention, but if you want to learn more about periodization…
This is really the cornerstone of our tactical fitness PT Training Club that we have where I take people of all ages and get them to the next level physically…
Whether you’re a 50-year-old guy that wants to be able to compete with the young guys in the tough mudders…
Or you’re the young guy that wants to go into you know the Seals or the Green Berets, I can help you get there…
Stew Smith: Right… That’s good! That’s how you do it…
Jim Edwards: Thanks!
Stew Smith: You know where I really learned how to do it…and do it well…
Was using one of your wizards. Especially for writing content for Amazon.
Jim Edwards: Right.
Stew Smith: Your book writing wizard, you know when you’re writing the sales copy for…
“What is this book about?”
Jim Edwards: Right.
Stew Smith: Because basically, I do that, I put in all these details of like the book does this, this, this and this…
And then it spits out this really cool you know, sales copy that goes right to Amazon and then I can just look at that and Amazon says,
“Man, that looks really good!”
And it works so that that was, and it wasn’t over the top.
It was, it kind of snuck it in there like we’re talking about and you can use those wizards for that too.
Jim Edwards: Right… And I think for that too, I think, and to tell you what they do is they basically sneak in one of two different methods for getting the verbiage into content that motivates people.
The first is to talk about benefits and meaning as opposed to features.
Most people talk about features and talk about…
We’ve talked about in the past talking about a drill.
You know, the feature is it’ll hold a one-inch chuck…
You know, it’s got to…
And we always feel bad for Chuck ol’ one-inch-Chuck, poor guy…
But what’s the benefit of the one-inch chuck?
That means it will take larger drill bits…
All right?
So that you can do projects like drilling holes for birdhouses…
Which means you’ll be able to do amazing at home projects with your kids and create memories that will last a lifetime…
Now all of a sudden, we went from a feature to a benefit…
It takes the big, “You can drill big holes,” and the meaning is “you can do really cool at home projects with your kids and create memories that last a lifetime…”
Those right there, that’s what gets people to go…
“Yeah!”
That’s how you create the connection with whatever it is you’re teaching people is to take it to the next level of benefit and meaning as opposed to just staying in the features…
So if Stew was talking about doing a pyramid, all right, you doing a pyramid is actually the ultimate way to get back into the groove of exercising…
If, for whatever reason, you’ve had to take time off because a pyramid has both the work out in the warmup built into it…
Stew Smith: And the cool down!
Jim Edwards: And the cool-down built in as well.
Which means you’re able to get a really good workout in a lot less time than doing it other ways…
Which means you’re able to really get the benefit of a workout without adding stress to what’s probably already a stressful situation…
And you won’t be grumpy around your family because you didn’t do your workout.
Stew Smith: Hmmm…
Jim Edwards: So again, just sliding that in…
All of a sudden we’ve gone from talking about doing a pyramid of 1-10-1…
Or as high as you can go…
With one pull to push, three abs, and two tris or whatever…
Stew Smith: Yeah…
Jim Edwards: We’ve gone from a clinical to a motivational…
Stew Smith: and emotional
Jim Edwards: and emotional…
Stew Smith: Yeah…
Jim Edwards: Where it’s like, you know what?
I can do this…And Stew did that with an article that he wrote basically to help me last week…
When I was, I’ve been struggling for the last month with time because of taking care of my dad…
So, but by doing that, it also dimensionalizes your content and makes your content a lot more compelling…
A lot more interesting than just a clinical discussion of pull-ups or drills or creating…
I mean that’s back to the thing of building a birdhouse…
You could write an article about how to build a birdhouse…
But if you incorporate benefits and meaning into,
“Why would you want to build a birdhouse?”
“Why would it be cool to do these projects at home?”
And so it just makes your content more interesting, and it makes it more compelling at the same time…
Let me stop there…
Any comments on that before I share the second thing that you do?
Stew Smith: No! Let’s go on round two…
Jim Edwards: Okay… One thing that you can also do with your content is to add hooks into your content with something like,
“If you want blank, then here’s the key to being able to do that…”
So let’s, let’s use the building a birdhouse example…
Okay…
“If you want to create a memory that will last a lifetime with your kids, then consider creating this easy to make birdhouse in just an afternoon this Saturday.
“You’re able to use one-inch-chuck, and you’re able to create the thing…”
But all of a sudden we’ve started the article with a hook that is an emotional hook!
“If you want a cool project for an afternoon with your son or daughter, that will create a memory that will last a lifetime…
Then consider this afternoon birdhouse project…”
And then you’re selling them on why they should create a fricking birdhouse…
And then you give them the step by step stuff with links to go by your drill or links to go buy your kit…
Everything’s precut, and all you have to do is just hammer the thing together…
And keep little Timmy’s fingers out of the way of the damn hammer…
But what did I do?
I’ve taken content about how to create a birdhouse and turned it into something amazing just by adding a…
“If you want…”
“Benefit, benefit, benefit, hook” at the beginning…
Does that make sense?
Stew Smith: Oh yeah…
Jim Edwards: I mean you could do that with every single article you’ve ever written about getting ready to go to BUD/S…
Hey,
“If you want to pass BUD/S, if you want to make it past the first phase…
If you want to not be one of the guys that hangs his head in shame and putting his helmet on the grinder and next to the statue of the creature from the black lagoon…
And ringing that bell and feeling like crap the rest of your life?
Then pay real close attention to this article about how to increase your max reps and pull ups and push ups…
Because this could be the difference between success and failure…
Jim Edwards: Now that’s a hell of a hood
Stew Smith: Yeah!
Jim Edwards: To start a fricking fitness article with dude…
Stew Smith: Yeah! You know, that’s a good one…
Jim Edwards: And that, and you can do the exact same thing with every other kind of candidate that is out there…
The FBI Academy Ranger, Marine Corps, Airborn Division on that stuff…
Stew Smith: Love it…
Jim Edwards: Oh, it’s adding that hook is what turns content into copy and copy into content…
And nobody can really tell the difference between that…
And that’s like one of the things that I’ve started doing with my Facebook lives is…
I used to start my Facebook lives like the chickens…
“Hey, guys, Jim Edwards here…
Welcome to another episode of letting the chickens out with Jim…”
Now what I’ve done is I start with the hook…
I figured out what the hook is for the article…
Like this morning it was, “There’s always time for the things that really matter…”
And then it’s,
“Hey guys, Jim Edwards here, welcome back to another edition of letting the chickens out with Jim…
Today we’re talking about making time for what’s important as opposed to just reacting to what’s urgent…”
So it’s having that hook at the beginning also hooks people in!
I mean you’re going to get more people paying attention to your content because we’re frankly a lot of people are drowning in content…
So, what you want yours to do is to float to the top…
Stew Smith: Yeah.
Jim Edwards: Does that make sense?
Stew Smith: Oh, absolutely… Hey, just another way that I like to add in another useful bit of information in my content…
Is to place a little thing at the bottom or somewhere stuck in the middle maybe even…
Almost like a sidebar, you know where I say related topics…
Related articles…
And then you know your link to your book is in there as well…
Jim Edwards: Right! So another way to do it, if you talk about a book, if you talk about something, the perfect segue if you really want to sneak it in there…
“By the way…”
After you mentioned something like about your book you, you say something like, you know
“There are actually three phases to tactical fitness… There’s the to the through and the after…
And by the way, I’ve written an entire book on this, and you can check it out here.”
Link.
And then you just keep going with the article…
Stew Smith: Sure…
Jim Edwards: That’s, that’s legit…There’s no problem with that…
Stew Smith: I do that all the time…
Jim Edwards: Another thing that you can do also is if it’s a blog post where you say, where it says my book…
Just have a hyperlink to those from those words, my book over to your book,
Make sure it pops a new window… I think it works better for pops in new windows…
Stew Smith: I like that too…
Jim Edwards: Yeah, but that’s another way to do it too. Okay, so the other thing is there specific things that you can teach that lend themselves better to what we’re talking about here.
And this isn’t hard and fast, okay…
But if we’re talking about content that leads to sales copy…
Or content that leads to a sale…
Or content that leads to a desire to want to know more about whatever it is that you’re selling related to the topic of the content…
Is that if you teach people what to do and then sell it,
I mean this is the classic man,
Teach them what to do, and then sell them how to do it…
Stew Smith: Ah, there you go…
Jim Edwards: So, for example, write and a whole article about what you should do on a weekend…
Projects you can do on a weekend with your kid to create memories that last a lifetime…
So…
“Three cool weekend projects you can do with your kid to create memories that last a lifetime…
Project number one create…
Make a birdhouse a birdhouse is awesome because it’s something you can do…
You can get it done in an afternoon…
It’s a lot of fun…
It’s something you can hang up outside your window and every day as both of you grow older, you can see that.
And every time you see that birdhouse, you remember that awesome thing you did together.
And if you’d like a done for you kit that will help you get it done in a weekend with that little Timmy losing a finger, then click here for the build-a-birdhouse-at-home thing.”
I mean dude! That’s classic…
Stew Smith: I like that one. That’s a good one…
I can do that with like build a pull-up bar and your backyard…
Jim Edwards: Hell, yeah…
Stew Smith: Oh yeah…
Jim Edwards: But are you going to sell him four by fours and stuff or what are you going to do?
Stew Smith: It’s a kit. Just a kit.
Jim Edwards: You’re going to sell him a freaking two four by fours and a fricking pipe…
Stew Smith: This is how you make it. This is how you make a pull-up bar. Make a pull-up bar and make it, so the bar doesn’t spin…
Jim Edwards: Yeah, it’s called a drilling… It’s called drilling a screw into the thing…
Stew Smith: But not everybody knows that…
Jim Edwards: I hear you… I think you might…
Stew Smith: I’m joking…
Jim Edwards: No, but if you think, let’s think about this for a second…
If you showed somebody three different ways to get a pull-up bar in your backyard without having to call Miss Utility or whatever…
Stew Smith: Right…
Jim Edwards: What could you sell them once they had the pull-up bar…
“Now you got a pull-up bar…
Do you want to double your pull-ups?
Check out my app!
Yeah, check out my book!
Check out this!”
All of a sudden now that you got the pull-up bar, I mean I’m being 100% serious here
Stew Smith: No, no, no. It’s great.
Jim Edwards: Yeah, I agree how to build a pull-up bar…Probably nobody’s going to buy how to do that…
But someone who has a pull-up bar is going to want to buy stuff to help him be able to do more pull-ups…
Hey, you got a haircut? Didn’t you?
Stew Smith: No, I just combed it…
Jim Edwards: Oh, okay… Good job…
“But like me, I knew that if I put in the pull-up bar when I put in my first bullet bar, I could only do, I could barely do one pull up.
But I knew if I had it, then I would start doing pull-ups…”
Does that make sense?
“Cause I couldn’t look at that thing and not do it…”
Stew Smith: Hahaha! Yeah…
Jim Edwards: You know what I mean?
Now I’ve got three pull up bars around my property getting ready to have a fourth…
Stew Smith: Sweet…
Jim Edwards: So that’s a cool idea… Actually…
Stew Smith: Yeah!
Jim Edwards: You just made a video, and then you said…
“By the way, if you want to get really good at pull ups…
Here are a couple options for you that we have.”
Just saying.
Stew Smith: Yeah.
Jim Edwards: Another thing to start… So if you think about its a series, okay…
If you create “why” content…
10 reasons why you need to get really good at pull-ups…
10 reasons why…
or
Three reasons why you need to create memories with your kids…
“Why” content actually creates emotion better than “what” content…
Because “why” goes right along with meaning…
“Why you need to get really freaking strong in the beginning phase before you get BUD/S…
“Why the minimum standard guarantees failure in BUD/S…”
Oh, I like that…
Why focusing on the minimum standard guarantees failure,
Stew Smith: Yeah, that’s a wrong mindset…
Jim Edwards: And then “who.”
Another one that leads really well to making sales as talking about “who.”
“Who should do this?”
“Who is the ideal candidate?”
“Who is succeeding?”
“Who is failing?”
“Who is…”
And it’s all about “who.”
“Who’s really making it today in the world of whatever…”
Stew Smith: Yeah…
Jim Edwards: Those types of things… Because all of that then leads to the “how…”
And you can also create “how” content…
If you compartmentalize “How” content that leads to sales if you isolate it into steps.
What you want to do is show people how to get into a certain point where then you had the easy button…
You have the secrets…
You have the answers…
You have the information that’s going to help them get to the next step or get beyond that first step…
And if you can get somebody momentum that’s a big thing…
So that’s the other way to look at it.
Stew Smith: Nah, man, that’s awesome…
Jim Edwards: So, that’s all I got from my notes…
That’s all I have from my notes, and I took all yours down…
Jim Edwards: On my redneck type of my redneck iPad…
Stew Smith: This is mine…There you go…
Jim Edwards: Nice job…
Stew Smith: You know what this is? This is actually one of those school composition books…
Jim Edwards: I love those man… I like the black ones that have the look like salt and pepper on the outside…
Stew Smith: Yes…
Jim Edwards: But see, look here… I got my little button here, like on a real iPad…
Now I’m pushing it, and nothing’s happened yet, but at least it feels more like a redneck iPad…
So, I hope you guys really take some good stuff away from this because this is real…
This is what really freaking works…
It’s, it’s not Jujitsu…
It’s not magic…
It’s not a mystery…
It’s just understanding people…
Understanding what motivates people…
And doing it enough that you can make these distinctions…
Like when we started at the beginning…
When we said, hey, they learned something…
But what did we say?
What did we say at the beginning when we started laughing?
Oh, it’s that you, I taught him something, but they didn’t really learn it out…
Stew Smith: Teach them what to do, sell them how to do it…
Jim Edwards: Right…
Stew Smith: But when I talked about the other thing, just playing around, I forgot, I’ll have to rewatch it and stuff…
We’re basically, we said they…
“We taught them something that they didn’t learn anything…”
Stew Smith: Right!
Jim Edwards: That’s not true…
That’s kind of cynical, but it’s also kind of true…
But that’s how it works, man…
I mean, people, it’s like little breadcrumbs you use. That’s why it’s called content marketing…
Marketing raises awareness, and sales gets people to give their money to you…
That’s what it is…
So you got to constantly keep that awareness going, but keeping the awareness going in such a way that it leads to sales…
As opposed to just churning.
Stew Smith: ABS – Always Be Selling…
Jim Edwards: That’s right…
Stew Smith: There you go…
Jim Edwards: Cool… Well I got, I got nothing else…
I hope you guys enjoyed it…
Stew Smith: That’s right…
Jim Edwards: Great job, Stew!
Stew Smith: Thank you, sir…
Jim Edwards: All right, everybody…
Have a great day, and we will see you next time…
By the way, if you’re not a member of the Sales Copywriting And Content Marketing Hacks Group on Facebook
You’re wrong!
You need to be in that group…
If you want to get a copy of my book, go to CopywritingSecrets.com
Sign up for the waiting list…
The pre-notification list…
See, that’s a better way of saying “waiting list…”
Priority pre-notification list…
Now it sounds important!
We are actually going to be releasing the book here pretty soon…
I have a meeting this week with a fulfillment house out in Boise that’s going to be handling that for us…
We’re getting the funnel and stuff together, and Stew…
If they want to know more about what you’ve got to offer…
Where can they go?
Stew Smith: Well, before I get into that, you can also watch these podcasts on Youtube and get the audio versions on…
iTunes and Google play…
Just subscribed to them and you will get them immediately put into your feed…
So awesome…
Then as soon as we post them up there…
You don’t have to wait for him on the Facebook page…
Which we will also plug them in the Facebook page as well…
Jim Edwards: Cool…
Stew Smith: Yeah, but you can always find out more about me at StewSmithFitness.com
Jim Edwards: Awesome…
Well everybody have a great day, and we’ll talk to you soon…
Bye, Bye, everybody!
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