How this A-list copywriter writes her highest-converting headlines, bullets, and VSL copy
Published: Sun, 01/12/20
Here are her answers, in all their blazing glory…
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elBENBO: What’s your approach to writing bullets and fascinations, and what tips do you have for people who struggle with writing them?
KIM KRAUSE SCHWALM: I just recently did a whole training on this for my copywriting mentees. It really all starts with your source material for the bullet. You need to find the things that jump out of you, that make you say, “What???”, that strike you as weird or surprising. You also want to focus on just ONE thing rather a whole list of things—i.e,, “The simple trick that stops indigestion in just seconds” vs. “Nine ways to relieve indigestion naturally”.
And this may seem fairly obvious, but a lot of people screw it up. DON’T give away the answer to whatever it is you’re teasing about in your bullet. The whole idea is to hit them with a whole list of intriguing bullets. All you need is ONE of them to be so irresistible and make the prospect feel like he can’t sleep until he knows the answer to get them to take the desired action.
Also, while in your body copy you may want to have some similar/parallel sentence structures to get a certain rhythm and emphasize a point (i.e., They LIE to you about X, They LIE to you about Y, and They LIE to you about Z), you DON’T want to do this with your list of bullets. Instead you want to mix up your bullets’ structure. I’ve identified at least 25 or 26 bullet formulas you can use to vary the structure and emphasis that I recently shared with my mentees.
elBENBO: What is the #1 tip you have for writing headlines you don’t hear other copywriters talk about?
KIM KRAUSE SCHWALM: Put something unusual or unexpected in your main headline if you can. Use some kind of different word, as long as it resonates. It’ll stand out and grab your prospect by the eyeballs and make him or her want to read the next sentence (which is the job of your headline).
I once got an idea for a headline to test for my long-running Advanced Memory Formula control for Soundview/Advanced Bionutritionals. I had been talking with a female friend who’s my avatar for the product. She told me that she and her friends referred to their memory lapses as being “spacey”.
It’s not the typical word I had seen in memory promo headlines, so I worked it into a test headline that at first my client pushed back on, but I convinced him to try it. It beat the existing control headline and ran successfully for years after that.
Like I said earlier, I also refuse to commit to a main headline until I’ve written the entire promo, and even then, in a subsequent draft or when taking another look I often come up with more headline options, some of which are often better. Many times you get your best ideas as you’re deep into flushing out the promo, or you find a “buried” headline or subhead that’s hidden gold.
elBENBO: Do you have any advice for people for when it comes to writing video vs text?
KIM KRAUSE SCHWALM: While you should always be conversational in your copy, you should be even more so when writing video scripts. Write the way people talk, or how you’d explain something to a friend.
Keep your paragraphs SHORT…maybe one sentence if need be. And break those long sentences up into two or three. Remember, in many cases the words of your script will be shown in a simple PowerPoint presentation or as text or captions. Even more important, remember SOMEONE ACTUALLY HAD TO READ YOUR SCRIPT OUT LOUD.
In fact, a good tip is to actually read your copy out loud and see if there are any spots that leave you breathless, gasping for air. That means you need to shorten some sentences and/or add some commas or ellipses to break things up.
elBENBO: What’s the story behind your latest offer for copywriters and anyone else who wants to get great at writing sales copy, and what’s in there, exactly?
KIM KRAUSE SCHWALM: It’s by far the most comprehensive copywriting program I’ve ever created. It’s called Copywriting Velocity (because I designed it to dramatically speed up your copywriting prowess). It includes all of the following in an instantly downloadable complete virtual program:
* An in-depth Copy Intensive, which I presented live earlier this year, where I shared exactly how I write million-dollar controls. It’s like giving you my “control formula”. It’s packed with specific tactics you can apply again and again to write highly profitable and successful controls. I also went deep into how I do research and why I spend so much time in this phase.
* Four in-depth training modules, 60-90 minutes each plus detailed slides, where I take you DEEP into the elements of copy. The training modules cover 9 types of headlines with actual promo examples, the 6 most powerful leads, 27 fascination formulas that will help your bullets write themselves, and my most effective tactics for crafting offers and closes.
* A 60-minute breakdown of a joint supplement promo I wrote a few years ago (it’s a killer sales page promo that’s still running strong), including the email and sales page PDFs.
* A 90-minute breakdown of a VSL anti-aging supplement control where I explain my complete strategy and approach from start to finish, including the email and VSL transcript PDFs.
* PLUS a revealing interview I did with the legendary Lee Euler, who wrote the highly successful Agora promo “Plague of the Black Debt” and who runs one of the fastest-growing supplement companies in its space. (Lee RARELY gives interviews, so this was a real treat).
Normally this complete program sells for $697...which is a fraction of the $2,498 admission price folks paid to attend my live Copy Intensive, not to mention all the additional training for which my copywriting mentees paid upwards of $12,000 or more.
But people can get the complete Copywriting Velocity program right now for just $497...a savings of $200 off the regular price. Since I’m already charging way less than it’s actually worth, this is a limited-time offer.
To get Kim’s program at that fat discount, high-tail it over to the link before midnight tonight (EST):
http://www.EmailPlayers.com/kim
Ben Settle
P.S. If you nab her Copywriting Velocity program by the deadline using my affiliate link, she will also send you (no need to send me your receipt, Chuckles) access to one of my new copywriting trainings:
“The Swiperoscope Saga: Part 2”
These videos contain over 2 hours of Yours Crotchety’s favorite private swipe file ads & sales letters analyzed & examined line-by-line under the proverbial “microscope.”
Some the tips & secrets in these videos include:
* The criminally underrated copywriting technique used by the late copywriting genius Jim Rutz to write copy so predictably responsive he worked on pure commission. (I once read an obscure interview with Jim Rutz — that is all but impossible to find, but good luck searching for it — where he admitted this is what allowed him to win controls so handily, even against the “best of the best” writers.)
* How to “sexy-up” ordinary 30-day guarantees and other standard offers so they sound exciting & urgent.
* A 2-minute seminar on how to structure your sales copy for maximum sales I learned directly (at a bar during an event I spoke at) from one of the greatest magalog copywriters who ever lived.
* An ingenious product design secret Steve Jobs applied to iPhones… that can be directly applied to your order forms & checkout pages to dramatically goose up sales.
* Why writing to fat people is a waste of time when selling weight loss offers… and who the exact “sweet spot” of the market actually is! (In a weight loss biz I once owned, we converted over 40% of the list into paying customers — and a big part of that was following this 100% ethical & legitimate tip I learned from a doctor shilling MLM.)
* And speaking of weight loss: A sneaky way of using your prospect’s bra size to ratchet up weight loss offer sales! (This is one of those “social engineering” type ideas guys like Gary Halbert used to talk, about that lesser copywriters would not have the courage to even write much less test.)
* A bizarre way to use your chin to “pre-test” sales copy. (It’s not only something the great John Carlton once taught, but I can tell you from experience, it can make all your sales copy exponentially more powerful, more persuasive, and more responsive.)
* A sleepy-sounding word that triggers people to reflexively & automatically “lean in” to read your copy more closely.
* Mysteriously effective ways to use the Bible to ramp up the sales & response of all your advertising. (Works for sinners and saints alike — and have been proven time & time again to work by multiple A-list copywriters and other high level marketing minds.)
* A real life example of how to “tweak” even sucky ad copy into being extremely profitable & responsive. (Yes, even if the copy doesn’t deserve it!)
* The case for 1-word headlines — and the outrageous copywriter who was the best in the game at writing them to study, model, and learn from.
* An “almost magic” word virtually guaranteed to instantly boost you and your product’s credibility. (Obviously, you don’t want to overuse this word — but slip it in to your next ad or email and watch what happens!)
* A clever way the Weekly World News used to help their advertisers be more successful and generate more advertising revenue. (If you sell ad space — on your website, in solo ads, via your podcast, or anywhere else — this can not only keep ad revenue flowing in for you from happy advertisers, but make those same advertisers a lot more successful, too.)
* A gloriously entertaining example of how the great Gary Halbert used trolling in his sales copy to make his competition irrelevant.
* How clients can tell if a copywriter sucks or not without even looking at their copy!
* Why being honest is not enough to protect you from government false advertising accusations… and how to protect your client (or yourself) from being shut down overnight even when your claims are 100% honest!
* Psychological insights into selecting the best testimonials to feature in your advertising.
* The burglar alarm secret for adding instant credibility to your offers — especially if you are new to your market and nobody knows who you are. (You might not always be able to use this… but when you do, it can potentially make your lack of experience, brand, or presence in the market far less an issue than it would be otherwise.)
* How to use “B-roll” copy to make your ads much more persuasive and credible.
* An FBI-approved negotiator’s secret for getting far more sales & response than you normally would by *lowering* the emotional state of your prospects.
* A Hollywood screenwriting method that can make direct mail sales letters that run 10, 20, 30 pages hard-to-put-down even if the prospect is busy or distracted.
* 3 heavy duty words you can use in your ads to make even your most outrageous sounding offers & claims more believable.
* The Donald Trump secret to “benevolently shaming” someone into buying from your sales copy immediately.
* And a ho’ bunch more…
The deadline to get these bonus videos, and Kim’s Copywriting Velocity program at a special “Ben Settle discount” ends tonight at midnight EST.
Here’s where to get you some:
http://www.EmailPlayers.com/kim