The Chameleon Copywriter

Here’s a quick math test for you:
Are you adding to the businesses and products you write for?
Or are you subtracting?
Are you multiplying?
Or are you dividing?

When I was checking out at Trader Joe’s the other day the clerk pointed to the toilet paper roll package and said, “Have you read the story on the package? It’s hilarious.”
I’m always a sucker for a good story. Also, as a copywriter, I’m always up for getting inspiration from anywhere, even from a toilet [...]

I was an avid golfer for ten years, from the ages of 12-22 years old.
Now that I’m a copywriter and have to indulge in a lot of lateral thinking, it occurred to me recently that, for me, playing golf had NOTHING to do with golf.
Instead it had everything to do with my father, a dead [...]

I recently read a Reader’s Digest article about Jay Leno and all kinds of marketing lessons jumped out at me. First of all he says, “I’m a huge believer in low self-esteem… If there’s a secret to my success, it’s that I honestly don’t think I’m better than anyone.”
He goes even further and says [...]

On Saturday I went to Shopko (a store similar to Target here in Wisconsin).
One of the items on my list was skirt hangers so I went to the part of the store where hangers should logically be.
No hangers.
I scoured the storage, household goods, kitchen wares and laundry sections.
Nuthin’.
After walking around in frustration for several [...]

The homeless man standing at an intersection near the mall today was the sorriest looking man I’ve seen in a while.
He held a cardboard sign that said something like “Homeless and hungry.”
There was no clear call to action on the sign.
He didn’t have a USP - he looked like most every other homeless man I’ve [...]

I’ve have the privilege of helping Jay White launch and maintain his Email Copy Made Easy membership site.
Today he held a free teleseminar about email copywriting and I made a cameo appearance about 50 minutes into it and talked about how I came to become an email copywriter. In the teleseminar Jay gives many tips [...]

As an email copywriter I can no longer read like a normal person. Any time I read a news article, blog post, piece of junk mail, a book or anything at all, I’m constantly thinking of ways to use what I’m reading in an email.
There are three resources I use that I find particularly helpful [...]

That might seem like an odd concept for one who writes email copy for a living, but the past few weeks I’ve been making an effort to unsubscribe from as many lists as possible.
The less cluttered my email box is, the less cluttered my mind is and the more focused I can be while writing [...]

I figure it’s only fair I show examples of my own work from time to time.
So here’s one I wrote for a client in the self-help niche. The persona is a middle-aged male.
Their customer service person who manages their email replies says this one resulted in a huge number of positive responses. Go figure.
The email [...]