Copywriting interview with a Kimpire
Published: Mon, 11/16/20
i.e., “The Kimpire”
Not only is she easily one of the top A-list copywriters on the planet in my opinion… and not only is she one of the few living copywriters to ever beat the late & "for real" legendary copywriter Jim Rutz, twice no less, with a track record of controls longer than the list of deaths related to the Clinton family… but having hung out with her many times, I can tell you without hesitation she’s one of the most brilliant copywriters ever to walk the face of the earth. I call her a “sales vampire” because her controls are notorious for seducing sales like a vampire seduces its prey, sucking away the response from her high-stakes competition like a thirsty vampire on the hunt.
I listen to every word she says about copywriting.
If you want to significantly up your copywriting game, I highly suggest you do, too.
Especially if you’re a freelancer who wants to write big controls & land fat client deals.
Anyway, enjoy…
elBENBO: Tell us about who you are, how you got into copywriting, and why anyone should listen to you about copywriting?
THE KIMPIRE: For more than two decades, I’ve been a top freelance copywriter with a track record of success in some of the most competitive direct response channels and niches. I’ve written dozens of controls for major companies like Boardroom, Soundview, National Geographic, Agora, Healthy Directions, and many others…as well as for smaller companies and well-known health leaders and entrepreneurs.
In fact, I became the first female copywriter to ever get a Boardroom control. I’ve had to go up against legendary copywriters like the late Jim Rutz, Parris Lampropoulus, and others whose names you’d likely recognize.
I’ve written successful promos for wide range of products, including supplements, investment newsletters, health newsletters and books, skin care products, high-priced fitness products and technology, and more.
And I still write for select clients, whether it’s creating new online sales pages or other promos, or keeping my existing controls going strong and continuing to pay me royalties.
I won’t downplay the difficult of getting any kind of sales promotion to work online in super-saturated niches like supplements, fitness, financial, or skin care. But there’s a number of reasons why the path I started off with in direct mail has made me a successful copywriter.
For one, there’s a lot more on the line when you’re sending a 24 or 48-page printed promotion in the mail versus putting a sales page online. Printing, postage, and list rental costs alone raise the stakes considerably.
As a result, a significant amount of scrutiny, countless revisions, and striving for absolute perfection of the copy, meaning every word earns its weight, goes into finalizing a promo before it goes out the door. In today’s rush-to-get-it-done, relatively-low-cost world of online sales copy testing, there typically isn’t anywhere near this level of striving for absolute perfection.
Secondly, in order to establish myself as a top copywriter, I had to go head-to-head with legendary copywriters, the likes of Jim Rutz, Parris Lampropoulus, David Deutsch, Arthur Johnson, Richard Armstrong, and Jim Punkre.
Yes, these top A-listers were the level of copywriting talent that I had to break into and prove myself against. That’s because they were the copywriters that the biggest direct response companies like Boardroom, Soundview, and Agora routinely hired to write their promos.
I’ve lost to many of these top A-listers at one time or another, but I’ve also beaten or tied all of them except one at least once!
There are many great copywriters writing in the online space these days, but many of them never had to earn their stripes by going up against these “big boys” and beating them.
(The fact that I’m a woman kinda makes it even “schweeter”.)
elBENBO: What do you think are the biggest challenges facing copywriters today that they should be aware of?
THE KIMPIRE: There’s a glut of copywriters competing against you for the very best clients, or even for the not-so-great clients. It used to be that U.S.-based companies only hired people based in the U.S. (it wasn’t that long ago that we didn’t have all the online tools we have today). Now you’re competing against the entire world.
Not only that, you may be competing against copywriters for whom what you may consider too small a sum to make it worthwhile is enough for them to live on for an entire month, due to currency exchange rates and lower costs of living. So this adds even more downward pricing pressure.
On top of this, you have a hundred times more copywriting training courses and programs than were ever available even 10 or 15 years ago. Add in the ease and increased appeal of being self-employed and it’s no wonder so many more people have gotten into copywriting and been able to at least learn enough of the basics to make a decent living.
There’s one more challenge, though it may not seem like one. There are more potential clients for copywriters than ever. While this is generally a good thing, it also means you run into a lot more unknowns…you’re not often working with big-name companies, but little-known, less-established ones.
I’ve had some of these turn out to be some of my favorite clients, but I’ve also seen or heard my fair share of nightmare clients as well, the kind who stiff you on payment and commit other travesties. They’re often not willing pay very much for copy, either, and in fact will try to convince you to write copy on “spec” or for some kind of potentially worthless “equity” deal.
For all of these reasons I’ve just stated, it’s more important than ever for copywriters who want to be able to compete in the most lucrative, in-demand niches to get really GOOD at what they do.
It’s how they’ll be able to consistently attract the very best clients—meaning those who value copy and are willing to pay top-dollar for it because they recognize its value. It’s what will let them get results, whether it’s for their own offers or for clients. And it’s what ultimately will boost their earning power and provide the opportunity to negotiate more “win-win” deals, such as royalties.
So ends part one of this five part interview.
Today was more of an intro to Kim and her wiles.
Tomorrow we’ll get into some clever tips anyone who writes copy can use to make a lot more sales and get a whole lot more response.
In the meantime:
If you get her new “Million Dollar Controls” program by Friday, November 20th at midnight EST, and if you email me your receipt by that deadline (not after), you will get a $200 discount, plus I will give you a special bonus:
“elBenbo’s Copywriting Capers: Season 2”
This 2+ hours of audio training contains dozens of insights, ideas, methods, and lessons I learned while working as a freelance copywriter for some of the most brilliant marketing minds on the planet. In many ways, these are some of the most valuable lessons I’ve ever learned.
And, I daresay you can’t even find a lot of this in any book or course.
Here are a few of the secrets inside this training:
* A 4-word question that can “close” more freelancing clients than any fancy one-liners, sales techniques, or manipulative tricks ever can. (Just say this at the start of every conversation you have with a client lead and watch what happens!)
* A market research secret invented by Frank Capra (one of the single most financially successful Hollywood movie directors who ever lived) to know whether your sales copy will be a hit or not before running even a single test.
* The (admittedly bizarre) “why I don’t shop at Walmart” secret for getting an insane level of engagement & sales from your email list, social media followers, & other online leads almost any time you want.
* How to turn a financially withering client dry spell into a book of high-paying clients who want to give you all the work you can stand.
* The 2 worst things you can do when it comes to doing market research for a freelance copywriting assignment. (I know this first hand after watching one of my best clients — who paid me a small fortune in fees — have to rewrite half of one of my sales letters. Embarrassing!)
* The single “ripest” & most profitable market for copywriters looking to do their own thing to get into. (I’ve sold in this niche twice and can assure you it’s rife with hopelessly inept marketers who only succeed because the market is so rabid to buy… and that’s why it probably won’t take much to clean up in it if you have even average copywriting skills.)
* Why (with rare exception) the single dumbest thing a copywriter can do is run their copy through a mastermind group for feedback. (And this is just as much the case if the group is full of savvy or even “world class” copywriters.)
* The one mistake even experienced freelancers make when it comes to so-called “handshake deals” with clients.
* elBenbo’s 2 rules for freelance copywriting success. (One is to never work for free — the other is something far less obvious but just as important to getting paid, getting paid on time, and getting paid the maximum amount you can command.)
* Why you should take any training, teaching, or advice from the early “Web 1.0” gurus from the 90’s and early 2000’s with a big, fat grain of salt. (Hint: when you see a lot of the stupid advice they still give to this day, you will realize a lot of those guys would have been dead in the water if they hadn’t gotten in early, when all you needed to do was have a decent sales letter and a circle jerk network of marketers all giving each other testimonials. This won’t be popular with a lot of goo-roo fanboys who hear it, but it’s for their own growth…)
* The only two people (other than myself, of course) I recommend learning email marketing or email copywriting from.
* The absolute BEST kind of JV partner to do business with if you want to use your copywriting skills to make a lot of money very quickly.
* Why all the stupid copywriter checklists you see floating around social media should be avoided like the bubonic plague if you want to make any real money as a copywriter.
* How to know if something you write about in an email is truly controversial (which is perfect for getting a ton of engagement and probably also a ton of sales, too) or you’re just pandering & virtue signaling for likes and ego boosts like your Facebook friends do all day long.
* A clever way to pump up your writing speed while also attracting more clients.
* How to be the only copywriter your clients won’t dare want to fire, get rid of, or displease. (And this has a lot less to do with talent, skill, or how effective you are than most would assume.)
* What to do with your pricing terms that can often attract nothing but the best clients while also making it far more likely they’ll run your ads without a bunch of pointless edits & changes.
* The “nothing special” copywriting secret I used to write a long-running control nobody could beat (all the way up until the day they retired the offer) in one of the most competitive & cutthroat markets on the internet.
* Why you should probably run from any client, JV partner, or anyone else you want to do with business with if they natter on about using or needing a “nurture sequence.”
All right, enough.
To get these bonuses along with a $200 discount off Kim’s Million Dollar Controls program, do this:
1. Buy it at the URL below by Friday, Nov 20 at midnight EST
2. At the checkout use coupon code: BEN200
3. Forward your receipt to ben@bensettle.com by the above deadline — if you send me your receipt after that deadline, you will not get any bonuses
NOTE:
You will need a smart phone to access these bonus videos.
And it'll have to be newer than when Steve Jobs walked the earth.
Here’s the link:
https://www.EmailPlayers.com/ep-kim
Ben Settle