It's taken time for me to identify as a marketer. It's always been a less-than-appealing word to me and definitely wasn't something that I wanted to do or be. I'm not sure where the turning point was, but sometime over the past few months, that changed.

One of the more helpful resources while picking this stuff up has been Dave Gerhardt's Patreon. Dave is currently the CMO of an eCommerce startup called Privy and before that, he was the VP of Marketing at Drift.

A few weeks ago, he released a short video course on copywriting called The 10 Laws of Copywriting. There was a ton of good stuff in the course, so in the interest of sharing, this post offers my notes on the content along with some follow-up commentary.

Learn How People Make Decisions

  • People buy with emotion and then justify with logic.
  • There are eight primary desires that we are programmed to have: Survival and enjoyment of life, enjoyment of food and beverages, freedom from fear, pain, and danger, sexual companionship, comfortable living conditions, being superior, winning, keeping up with the Joneses, care and protection of loved ones, and social approval.
  • Then there are nine secondary desires: To be informed, curiosity, cleanliness of body and surroundings, efficiency, convenience, dependability and quality, express of beauty and style.
  • When designing a campaign, start with human desires and then layer on marketing tactics.
  • New York Times example: "Because you're informed, you'll have all the fun facts and stories to share with colleagues"
  • Another New York Times example: "Because you're informed, you'll have better knowledge of investing your money in the stock market"
  • Cognitive biases screw up how people make decisions. Anchoring bias and Recency bias are a couple to keep an eye on.
"Marketing is a game fought in the mind of the prospect" — Al Reis

Uncover the Selfish Benefit

  • People think about themselves first and foremost. They subconsciously ask themselves: "What's in it for me?"
  • Shopify → Free yourself from the corporate grind
  • Salesforce → Crush your quota and drive a sports car
  • Rogue → Own a world class gym in your home
  • One trick you can use is filling in the blanks to: "Use [Product], so you can [Benefit]"
"Remember the people you address are selfish, as we all are. They care nothing about your interests or profit. They seek service for themselves. Ignoring this face is a common mistake and a costly mistake in advertising" — Claude Hopkins

Tell a Great Story

  • Most people know this is important, but don't know how to do it.
  • Steve's framework: Tell a story to bring the audience in, pose a problem, offer a solution to that problem, describe specific benefits for adopting that solution, and then state the CTA.
  • Andy's framework: Show the undeniable shift happening in the world, show that there will be winners and losers, tease the future and what's possible in this new world, win on aspiration.
"If you can tell a person a story, you can capture their attention. If you can help them tell a new story about themselves, you'll capture their hearts."

Write Like You Talk

  • Forget the rules of grammar. The goal is to write to be understood.
  • Read it out loud. Would you actually say that?
  • People obsess over email personalization but the best way to do this isn't with complex tools and branching logic — It's to be personal!
  • Something like this example beats 99% of personalization methods: "P.S. I sent this email from 30,000 feet above on a JetBlue flight while drinking a Diet Coke. What is it Diet Coke that tastes so good on an airplane?
  • Fill your copy with pronouns like "You" and "I" when you write.
  • Always write as yourself, not the organization.
  • Prefer plain text emails. They feel more personal and stand out in someone's inbox. Most emails shouldn't be highly designed.
  • One last powerful tool is showing your face. A quick picture can show that a real person is behind the message.

Use Their Words, Not Yours

  • Use the customer's words to signal trust. You don't want to sound like an outsider.
  • Find their words in email responses, reviews, social media, and more. Then use those direct quotes in your marketing.
  • If you're just starting out, check out comments for related products to get started.
  • Consider these 10 questions to ask before you start writing: What keeps them awake at night? What are they afraid of? What are they angry about? What are their top 3 daily frustrations? What trends are occurring in their life? What do they secretly admire the most? Is there build in bias to their decisions? Do they have their own language? Who is selling something similar and how? Who has tried selling something similar and why did it fail?
"Always enter the conversation already taking place in the customer's mind" — Robert Collier

Write Short, Choppy Copy

  • The goal of the first line is to get people to read the second line. The goal of the second line is to get people to read the third line. And so on.
  • Think of it as a hand-holding process to get people to the CTA.
  • Lines are easier to read than paragraphs. Space out your thoughts.
  • "So I was thinking about" or "I realized that" can be good starters to provoke attention in the first line of an email.

Be Specific

  • Be descriptive in your copy by going a layer deeper.
  • When you include lots of detail, you paint a picture in the customer's mind.
"Imagine your letter being read by a guy in an apartment in Cleveland, in the midst of a ferocious winter storm, with gusting winds and snow outside at thigh height. You've got to get him so excited that he'll get out of the chai in front of the fireplace, bundle up, slog through the snow, go out to his cold car, and drive down to the post office to get a money order and a stamp to send his order in, rather than take the risk of waiting until tomorrow" — Dan Kennedy

Nail the Headline

  • The headline is the most important part of marketing. Period.
  • However, most people spend 99% of the time writing, then 1% on the headline.
  • How to [achieve the thing they want the most] without [doing the painful stuff they want to avoid].
  • Ask a question that's semi-controversial.
  • Longer headlines that are very specific for more tactical stuff.
  • Think about the headline first and then work through the article.
  • Like anything, the secret to winning the headline game is to practice a bunch. Write 10-20 headlines per post and pick the best out of those.

Back Everything Up with Social Proof

  • Nobody wants to be marketed or sold to. Your job is to know that and prove your pitch.
  • Case studies and testimonials are great, but often better is real commentary from social media. Check out Basecamp's wall of love for example.
  • Actual words are usually going to be better than what a copywriter will come up with.
  • Keep a folder where you save screenshots of people saying nice things about your product.

Address Objections Up Front

  • We all like the waiter that says, "Don't get the fish, the chicken is really good here"
  • Admitting any kind of weakness may be a counterintuitive way to establish trust, but it's effective.
  • Your goal with copywriting should be to drain any objections.
  • Ask your sales team the top 5 reasons people don't buy, then answer them in your marketing.

That's it for my notes! I hope this was helpful in some way — I know it was for me. It's taken some time, but I'm getting more and more comfortable with the core ideas around marketing, understanding how the art and science work together. I'm learning a ton and I know I've still got a long ways to go.

If you are interested in more of this stuff, I highly recommend purchasing the full course and working through the video course yourself!

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