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A look at the role of copywriting in your content marketing campaigns.
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Tag: Copywriting
Want Attention? Watch The Headlines 👀
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Look at headlines and a recent headline in regards to McDonald’s.
Transcription
Want attention? Watch the headlines.
Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.
Headlines are funny thing, headlines they exist in all forms out there. Okay.
And so whether you’re talking about videos on YouTube, whether you’re talking about links that you’re clicking on, but the specific thing I wanted to point at, is actually News Headlines.
News is a great place to look at these types of things. And you could still see it, when you’re, when you’re shopping in a grocery store, you could still see tabloids, which have amazing headlines, or the magazines that are sitting on the rack next to that on your way out the door.
Those have great headlines, they can be very specific to the audience they’re trying to reach. But if you look at the headlines you think.
What attracts my eye first what words attract my eye?
Me personally, and I’m talking about you ask yourself that but you could really do it when looking through the news online.
Just go to a new site or go to one of these sites that has a lot of different news, go to Google News, or what have you. Just search through the headlines and look at what attracts you.
Look at what really attracts you a little bit to read the whole thing?
Which word is it that pulled you in and what’s that say about you?
And then watch for the ones that are nearly impossible to pick out.
Look at this one. That is from the New York Post, which really do have good headlines. I mean, they’re known for their sensationalism, they kind of go after a lot of that. But they really do have these sensational headlines.
Here’s one talking about the thing that you definitely don’t want to drink at McDonald’s. Does that pull you in?
I mean, anybody that that ever goes to McDonald’s at all?
Or even if you don’t go to McDonald’s, you’re you kind of want to know what that is. What is the one drink that you don’t want to drink at McDonald’s?
My first thought was the milkshakes because the last time I had a milkshake at McDonald’s, it tasted like melted plastic. It was horrible. But maybe it maybe it’s something else.
What is it?
What is it I’ll tell you at the end, but doesn’t drive you a little bit nuts?
A lot of you are going to be clicking off of this just to go see what the answer is. If you wait till the end of the video or the audio here, I will tell you what it is but that’s look at how it puts it. Its hooks in you.
If you can have that type of curiosity-based headline, oh, man, that’s fabulous. And that doesn’t. I know you’re not on. I’m not saying you’re out there putting out news stories.
But I’m saying if you’re trying to get the attention of anybody, a prospective customer or client if you’re trying to get the attention of a donor if you’re in a nonprofit, and you’re looking for donations, no matter what it’s the same idea.
If you can get really good at grabbing attention with nothing more than a couple of words, just a string of words put together.
If you can do that, you can print cash. In the end, that’s what it comes down to. You can or produce whatever you want to produce. The famous copywriter Gary Halbert was famous for putting out an ad for a girlfriend.
He wrote this big long ad with a really nice headline, I don’t have it in front of me right now.
But we’ll talk about it another time where he was advertising that he was he was looking for love. Okay, he was able to do that it doesn’t matter what it is that you’re looking to get.
I’m not saying it’s a one has to do with cold, hard cash. That’s just one of the things that we can all relate to. Because it tends to be something that we all need to use at some point in our life.
But if you’re talking about something that you’re wanting to do, and you’re wanting to get attention you’re wanting to bring attention in, then look at what draws your attention and start questioning why.
Why does that draw my attention?
What is it specifically wood something else using that same angle?
Also be able to draw my attention?
I mean, look at this one is curiosity. Curiosity is based on something that’s very familiar to us one way or the other, whether you’ve been to McDonald’s in the last 10 years or not, you’re still going to be curious because everyone’s been or know someone who’s been to McDonald’s. And it’s one of the most, you know, ubiquitous restaurant chain. is in the entire world.
So it’s going to pull you in, what is the one thing that I wouldn’t want to drink there and why?
Why would that be?
So here’s the answer. The answer is, is she said she got she learned how to make sweet tea at McDonald’s. And they have unsweetened tea, and they have sweet tea. And what’s the difference between the two?
Well, she said, for every gallon of sweet tea that they make, they put in an entire pound of sugar. And they had her making it and she said, she used to get it all the time.
She constantly drinks this stuff, and they get a lot of people playing, you know, tea, it’s gonna be a little bit more healthy than the soda or what have you.
But they’re literally pouring a pound of sugar up a pound package of sugar into a gallon and mixing that up. She said it made her sick to her stomach, and she never drank it again.
No, it was for some people that may not bother you at all. It’s not as outrageous as it seems, when you’re just reading the headline, but it might be outrageous to you. It’s enough to draw you in. It’s a little curiosity and interesting little story.
Nothing major. It’s not, it’s not going to change the world. But look at how a headline can pull you in, can play with your imagination, just a simple string of words. This happens across the internet.
It’s been happening since before all of us were born with print media, paper, physical media, they were using it then and they were talking about the science behind it back then.
So there are lots of people that talk about headlines. I have many, many, many videos and podcasts going way back discussing headlines. I’d love to love to hear your thoughts on this.
Have you ever considered this?
This idea before ad if not, why not?
And if so, how have you used headlines in the past to be able to gain attention in whatever format that you’re using headlines, the title of a video or what have you, it could be used a million different ways.
How have you use headlines to get attention? Leave a comment wherever you’re watching or listening to this or you can leave on over at BrianJPombo.com.
Under this post, that’s all I have for today. You have a good one, go out and grab my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business if you’re willing to overcome competitive forces in your marketplace, regardless of your industry.
It’s a short book and you can download a free copy AmazonProofBook.com.
We’ll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.
How To Transfer Trust In Marketing 📚 (Breakthrough Advertising)
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Brian talks a section in Eugene Schwartz’s classic, Breakthrough Advertising in regards to building believability and trust in your copy.
Transcription
How to transfer trust in marketing.
Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live. Where I get into the nice down and dirty psychology of marketing tonight. There are very few amazing teachers out there like the late great Eugene Schwartz.
This is his magnum opus, Breakthrough Advertising.
It’s a tough one to get, I believe Titans Marketing still sells this, for a pretty penny, worth every dime, Titans Marketing, for Breakthrough Advertising.
I can pick up this book at any time, flip to any page and get something great out of it, which is what I did tonight, I got this chapter, chapter 13, on the seventh technique of breakthrough copy, which is what he calls camouflage.
In the very first few paragraphs, he’s talking about that he calls it how to borrow conviction for your copy.
He’s talking about copywriting copy advertising copy because that was what Eugene Schwartz did, he wrote, copy for advertising. But the principles can be tied to any type of marketing whatsoever, which is an amazing thing is that especially to content marketing.
So you’ve got to pay attention to this, this is great stuff that he says he says in here. He says, “We have to discuss five separate ways to build believability in your copy.”
And he goes on with that. He says, “As long as there is faith in that publication, so if a person’s reading a publication, a magazine or a newspaper, as any space buyer can tell you, it remains an excellent medium for advertising because some of his trust carries over from the editorial pages to the advertising pages.”
So he discusses how trust is built up between the reader and the person that’s read, and they and the person that’s writing it, but the same thing is true across the board.
He even mentions it’s not just print, it’s all forms of entertainment, a person, you know, at this time he was talking about buying a radio or buying a television.
Sometimes people just do it to keep informed just to just to know what’s going on what’s happening and why it’s happening, and so on and so forth. So news media, and nonfiction, if you will.
But but people also rely on any form of entertainment, any form of entertainment, and there’s a trust base in that entertainment factor. So that the shows that you watch, if you if you watch television shows.
If you watch anything off of off of Netflix, that’s a series or anything of that sort. You are expecting very something relatively specific that you’re watching either a comedy, or you’re watching a drama or a thriller.
There’s certain things you expect you expect for it not to go to graphic you expect for it not to do that there’s certain things and it’s sometimes there are things you don’t even think about because you would never see any of those things on television.
But that’s part of your expectations, there’s a trust built up there.
If you have trust in anything, and whether you know you have trust in it or not what you do if you’re going back to something over and over again, you’re going back to a TV station, you’re going back to a YouTube channel, you’re going back to somebody’s blog, or what have you.
There’s a trust that’s built up.
That trust transfers automatically, it will automatically transfer to whatever’s being advertised as long as that advertisement doesn’t break the trust spell if you will, that that trust is there.
As long as they don’t completely go off the wall and stand out and appear to be completely different from what it is that you’ve based your trust in. Then that trust automatically washes over it and it gives it the ability to be believable if you will.
Let’s see if I didn’t lose my place as I’m sitting here waxing with you. Yeah, this is I mean, it’s just some amazing stuff in here.
He calls it a believability reflex.
He says it comes from phraseology.
So if you’re talking about a publication that you’re reading the phraseology that the way that everything is put together in terms of words, that builds trust, and that it carries an aura of truth all by itself, no matter what the material embraces.
He says it’s a conditioned reflex, that we automatically reflexively will begin trusting something fiction or nonfiction. I’m telling you, it’s the same thing.
If you are going through the process, and you’re going from, from, from whatever the person’s watching, listening to paying attention to, and you’re transferring over from, what he goes from editorial to the advertisement.
But you could just say the same thing from entertainment to the advertising, as long as you can blur the lines there as much as possible, then that trust maintains more and more and you have the ability to borrow the trust of whatever format it is that you’re advertising on.
I hope that makes sense to you because it really is a very important thing.
It’s something to watch yourself to make sure you’re not what you are, but make sure that you don’t get carried away with too much trust in the wrong authorities. You know, we do it we do, we do tend to do it with news, news items.
We don’t like that new station but we do like this new station.
So anything this new station says is right, and anything that one says is wrong. And not only that everything that is advertised on there, but you also have a good feeling about going with that advertiser, even though the same advertiser may be advertising over there.
But the smart ones have two very different style advertisements. And the really smart ones have two completely different names for the same company. If that makes sense. These things occur, it can be used for good or evil.
If you understand the trust factor, it happens all the way.
And it’s not just advertising.
It’s why I said marketing because it even happens in one on one sales. When you’re dealing with people, once a trust factor is in place, that trust can be transferred.
This is why network marketing works really well. If you’re working with somebody who is who is a trusted person who has earned trust of other people, and that as long as you are also trustworthy, as long as you can also talk the talk, use the same phraseology and introduce people to your opportunity products or what have you, you get the same thing that trust is transferred.
In some ways, it’s human frailty in other ways it’s one of the best things we got.
Having that understanding of how trust works is so important to your marketing. So hopefully this gives you a bit of it, at least an intro into the concept is a great book.
It’s very deep, not for everybody but if you’re wanting to get deep into the psychology of of advertising, you can’t go wrong with breakthrough advertising by Eugene Schwartz.
That’s all I have for tonight.
Go check out my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. It’s shorter, easier to read. And a little bit more modern, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business you can get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com.
We’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll see you then.
In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.
Strippers vs. Newscasters 👄
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That title make you do a double take?
Yup, same for the producer of this podcast.
Looking past Brian’s colorful selection for a show title, we take a look at an interesting similarity between strippers and newscasters.
Transcription
Strippers versus newscasters, or how are strippers like newscasters.
Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.
This is an interesting concept but once you think about how our strippers like newscasters and specifically those newscasters that you see in cable news, alright.
If you’ve gotten to watch much cable news, they’re worse now than they’ve ever been in terms of doing a very specific thing that strippers are also known for doing.
In fact, it’s so built into the idea and you don’t have to have ever been to a strip club to understand the process here, okay?
You’ve seen movies, everything else, you understand that the strippers’ job is to tease, they’re teasing. They’re teasing a process. That it’s teasing. Something that the person’s not going to get, they legally cannot get it, you know, in most cases, they’re not going to get it from that person.
They’re teasing their product, they’re pushing it right in the person’s face.
And that there’s something very interesting about the psychologically to people.
Not just men, and women to the tease attracts.
The tease gets a person hooked, to go to the next step in whatever process you’re talking about. And what are we talking about here, we’re talking business, okay, this is a business show and we’re talking about business concepts, things that would help a business owner or executive to be able to move things forward.
And you got to understand the real magic.
If you’re looking to take someone, what we talked about yesterday was advancing.
If you’re looking to advance somebody, if you’re looking to advance a complete stranger into becoming a possible lead for your business, if you’re looking to take a lead and turn them into a customer, if you’re looking to take a customer and have them buy something more or to opt-in to something that is going to be more of a continuity product that they pay on a regular basis.
If you’re looking to take them from a continuity product, on to a higher-end product, it doesn’t matter, the same thing is true no matter what part of the quote-unquote funnel that they’re in. And that’s a tease.
It’s one of the best uses of attention-getting of anything in the world.
It’s the ability to say something without actually saying that and without giving all the details. It’s it’s open. It’s an open loop. It’s the concept of putting something out there and leaving something missing, purposefully leaving something missing.
So that they feel the need to go a little further and find out a little more and see what’s missing.
So how are strippers like newscasts?
Well, newscasters do the same thing on cable news. So they’ll say we’re coming up at 11 This and this, this and this, this and this, and they say something provocative to get you to go on to the next level, both newscasters and political commentators.
So you’ll see this on the political shows, they will say something outrageous, you know, what has Joe Biden done again today that has outraged half of America, you know, that they’ll say something in order to get you to come watch the show to come to get to survive the commercial break, to go through and find out what’s next. That’s the Tease.
The tease is a very, very magical thing. And it could be black magic, too. I mean, obviously, you could use this for the forces of evil if you wanted to. I’m encouraging you not to do that but I want you to be aware of it.
I want you to be aware of how it does it to you and how it does to others. One of the reasons why this came up in my mind, I heard it in a couple of different places, and then I picked up this book again, it’s one of my favorites. I love going back to this one is the email client Hoard.
Buy bin settle, this is a tough book to get okay, he puts it for sale every once in a while. I don’t know if he has it for sale right now and most of the time it’s relatively expensive as far as books go, but highly worth it.
If you’re looking to build your business I don’t get paid by Ben settle or anything else.
So I’m just saying from my perspective, it’s been a very profitable purchase.
He says in here he says there are two ways that are both copies that also both copywriting one on one include copywriting one on one is another thing that he was discussing, but he says that these are two of the major ways that he uses over and over again in his emails in order to get people to opt-in for whatever he’s looking to sell.
Number one is the aggressive use of deadlines, which in itself is a tease if you think about it, the deadline is your saying, you’ve got this much time, and it’s lesser and lesser and lesser and lesser, being very clear about when the deadline is and using them constantly.
And being very aggressive about reminding people about a deadline really does add a slight amount of pressure in order to get people to do what they need to do. Because otherwise, it’s like, oh, yeah, I’ll get to that.
Okay, so that I’ll get to that. And we all know how putting off happens. And we all know about getting distracted online and all the rest. So deadlines are pretty useful. Number two, the aggressive application of teasing.
And all you have to do is get on Ben Settle’s email list, and which he should charge for really, because it’s such a good, it’s such a good reminder of how to go about doing this because he is promotional in every single email he puts out.
And you can see just about every email he puts out, he’s teasing something.
He’s teasing something that’s coming up, he’s teasing something that he’s selling. He’s and he’s he just he’s able to put things together in a way that I’m not very good at.
I have not built up this skill quite yet. But he’s able to layout, you know, I’m going to be talking about this, this and this and this, but he doesn’t really tell you what he’s talking about.
He leaves all these empty spaces. It’s brilliant.
I wish I had one in front of me that I can read to you. But you under start watching all the teasing that happens in media around you and which ones catch your eye, which ones make you think, Oh, I wonder what that is, you know which headlines.
This is done in advertising quite a bit, especially in direct response style advertising online, that kind of crazy banner ads and stuff on the side that kind of gets you that that get everybody to click so you could act like they don’t get you to click I know they get you to click too. So watch those. It’s a tease.
Understanding that and then finding a way to work that into what you do it. I’m not saying you have to do it in an unclassy way. You could do it in your own style and everything else.
But understanding the process of the teas allows a person to play the game. And it attracts them a little bit further in so that they can try out whatever it is that you have. And so that they can eventually experience what it is that you provide, whether it be a product, a service or otherwise.
So that’s all I got for today.
Understanding that difference is amazing is a major thing. The difference between the T’s or not teasing at all, can make a huge difference to whether people react or whether they’re attracted to what you’re putting off or not.
Never, never pass up the chance to be able to tease something out there. That’s all I got for today.
Go check out my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.
Chapter Five is especially interesting. I could go into it but I’m not going to for the sake of teasing you. I’m not even giving you a very good tease here but I’m just gonna throw it out there chapter five.
If you haven’t seen it yet, go download a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com I’d love to hear what you think.
Read it get back to me leave a comment wherever you’re watching this or go to BrianJPombo.com and leave a comment there. You have a good night.
We’ll be back tomorrow.
In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.
Don’t Forget This 🔫 (Inspiration from Gary Bencivenga)
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Simple but important message Brian noticed from Gary Bencivenga about not taking yourself too seriously.
Transcription
Don’t forget this.
Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.
I’ve got a secret for you. It’s something you never want to forget. And it’s one of those that’s it’s such a simple idea. It’s really easy to forget. But I’ll tell you what it is anyways.
First, though, I want to remind you about my book,9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.
It’s not one of these that I’m looking to sell a whole bunch of the whole point is I want to get the ideas out there and start discussions. find out whether you agree, disagree and otherwise.
So go check it out, you go get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com.
What is the secret that I want to pass on to you?
Well, it’s not a secret. It’s something you’ve heard before. It’s a very simple idea. This, what brought it to mind today is I was looking over some of Gary Bencivenga. That fabulous stuff that he has out there, if you type in his name into Google, and he’s got a great page, what would you call it Marketing Bullets.
Gary, if you’re not familiar with Gary, he’s a famous copywriter, marketer, he really has a large understanding and a great way to be able to describe it is a fabulous teacher describing how just everyday marketing works.
It doesn’t matter what century you’re talking about humans are humans. And there are just certain things that never go away. So he’s got some great material out there and this was just on one of his lists on that website about success tips, and so forth.
This is it, don’t take yourself too seriously. And the real problem is, is that if you achieve any type of success whatsoever in your life, it doesn’t take much it has its own where you set the bar.
You know, I was thinking about this earlier today, success really is an illusion, in a sense, because it’s, it’s an invisible bar that you’re setting to reach. And it but the best thing about success being an illusion is that failure is also an illusion because it’s an invisible bar that you’ve dropped below.
So you can move those as much as you want in order to achieve success or to overcome failure, or to completely ignore them and just see it as this is life and I’m moving, I’m going for the next thing and I’m going to try it and we’re going to see what happens.
And doesn’t matter whether I make it or not, or whether I do it in the period of time I want to or not, that’s a side note, I’m going off on a tangent here that I don’t need to be going on. But you’re going to come to a point where you feel like you’ve achieved some form of success.
At that point, it’s really easy to get all puffed up and to think, Okay, I figured it out, you know, this is I’m better than a whole lot of other people, I’ve achieved something and you have you probably have it depending on how lofty.
The goal is that you’ve been able to overcome, you probably have done a whole lot better than everyone else. But here’s the problem, we get into this trap of taking ourselves too seriously. And when you do that, when you take yourself too seriously.
You know, pride comes before the fall like that, say, and you’re just liable to make a fool of yourself.
You’re just setting yourself up to and so how do you keep from doing that?
Well, when you start finding yourself getting a little bit big-headed, you back off and just realize, man, you know, life’s short, it’s not gonna last much longer than this, we got this little piece of time to go out there and have fun, and try and make a difference in the world.
And just exist, just really enjoy ourselves and figure out what this whole thing is about.
We know it’s short. So if that’s the case, you take yourself too seriously, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
I don’t know an easier way of saying that and if you haven’t experienced the concept of taking yourself too seriously, you will. And when you get there you just go Okay, that’s what this is and just back off.
It’s not that big a deal.
Life’s short. Have fun. Don’t take yourself too seriously.
It’s a simple idea that we can go off on in a million directions, not necessary.
Now, I just wanted to leave you that. That very simple idea for tonight, and we’ll be back tomorrow.
Come on back, subscribe. Follow wherever you’re at So that you can come back and listen, watch, and let’s start a conversation about this stuff.
Do you do take yourself too seriously, leave me a comment wherever you’re watching or listening to this?
You have a good night.
We’ll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.
Your Customers Demand Proof 📚 (Breakthrough Advertising, Eugene M. Schwartz)
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Many things have been said about the great Eugene Schwartz and his book Breakthrough Advertising.
But yeah, not sure I’ve heard his book compared to a piece of Very Thick New York Cheesecake before.😉🍰
Do Yourself a favor and pickup Eugene’s classic at Brian Kurtz website – https://www.briankurtz.net/products
Transcription
Your customers demand proof.
Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.
I’m holding in my hand a copy of Breakthrough Advertising, by Eugene Schwartz.
Classic. Absolute classic when it comes to marketing, when it comes to, if you’re dealing in any type of sales or marketing, if you’re trying to get a message out to someone and convince them that you’re right and convince them to do something, you gotta get a copy of this book, it’s a it’s not an easy one to get.
It’s been reprinted currently by Titans Marketing, I think you go to TitansMarketing.com (https://www.briankurtz.net/products) and get a copy. I think that’s where I got this one.
And just, it is like reading…I don’t know how to explain it?
When it comes to books, it’s like eating a piece of very thick New York cheesecake, something that’s very rich, and you just have to take a little bit of time because it can jar you if you’re really paying attention. Because there’s so much depth in here and so many things that, to this day, people don’t talk about when it comes to marketing.
Although I have heard a lot of the geniuses out there, the ones that really know what they’re doing, they bring up these points over and over again. And the point I was just reading about in here, the only reason I’m holding this book is to give a plug to it, but also, because it brought up this concept of proof and the fact that your customers and clients, they’re going to demand proof whether they say it out loud or not.
It’s what’s going on inside.
Because you’re making some type of a claim right off the bat. At some point, if you are doing any type of sale whatsoever, you’re saying, if you get this, this is what’s going to happen to you.
And I know FCC and all these…FEC I should say, and all these other alphabet soup organizations and the government that they always try to stop claims from being made, but you can’t get a claim, in reality, a claim is going to be made, the real question is whether it’s a fair claim or not.
And that’s why you got to make sure you follow all the rules. But in terms of claims, you got to know what you are asking them to believe and what type of proof you’re providing, that it’s actually a true statement.
Whatever it is you’re offering, I’m going to give you an example. So I was working with a company years ago and I saw something similar that brought this up. And they made a claim that if you do this, if you take this nutrition product, if you consume it, that you will get blank. And I’ll tell you what, that what that general claim was, is that this nutrition product will raise your antioxidants on the inside. And therefore, you will have a higher antioxidant level and lower oxidized stress to your cells.
If you know anything about antioxidants. There’s a whole story behind it. And I won’t get into the science behind that. But this was their claim. And it was tough because it’s one of those things that you can’t outright prove.
In most cases, you can’t just go out and show people how this occurs. While they had gotten their hands on some technology, which would allow a sensor to see via the skin where your antioxidant levels were. And if you know anything about the science, it’s not this is not an exact science, this is not a direct transfer.
Just because you have high antioxidant levels doesn’t mean they automatically transfer the skin. There are other things that are taking place, it’s how your body metabolizes all the antioxidants and everything and whether it’s doing that properly, and whether you have other proper nutrition in order to have that occur as to whether it shows up in your skin.
But they bet the whole farm on the fact that this would happen, that they would be able to have these units out there with the people that are promoting this with their distributors that are promoting this product.
And they’d be able to take these around test people’s skin, have them take the product, test it after and be able to show that the product worked. We knew it was an all-or-nothing deal.
This thing either worked or it didn’t work and they were betting everything on it and they had for all I know spent millions of dollars to be able to move forward with this and one of my associates he said, if this works, this is going to take them beyond the stratosphere, if it doesn’t work, the company is going to go under.
The second thing occurred, okay, the company ended up going under, but it was only because there was pressure at the top and everything else and the people that were making the decisions didn’t make the proper decision.
But you got to think about how if you can actually prove your claim, how magical that is, you see, because it doesn’t necessarily mean that the antioxidants are doing anything.
But if you can show that that something is occurring in your body, because you consume this product, that’s all you need to show. That’s enough for most people, most people will go along with that, it doesn’t mean that it’s actually doing even anything healthy.
You know, the science and everything that people don’t have the capacity to go and research this stuff and really figure it out, or to follow along with every idea that you put out there. Whether they be theory or actual proven fact, they’re not going to go about doing that.
But if you can prove 1.1 points about what it is that you’re trying to put out there, people will fill in the rest. You don’t have to prove everything, you just have to prove something.
This is why testimonials are so powerful.
And especially if they’re really realistic testimonials, they’re not something that is manufactured, and actors being put out there, putting out testimonials and so on, which gets done that all the time.
It’s completely ubiquitous within any industry, that you have testimonials out there on television, that are completely dramatize, it’s nothing but an actor saying these words, this stuff happens and it ruins everything.
Find something real, find something real that you can present and prove to people, it doesn’t need to be a huge claim it just needs to be something that’s desirable. And if you can prove that claim, in some way, some form, you can make it more real for people so that they can trust you more.
It’s the trust of the trust that is going to get them over the finish line. It’s not the product, it’s not even the promise of the product is the fact that they trust you.
And you are taking that trust and cashing it in. So I’m hoping that makes sense.
Yeah, you know, this is more of a deeper topic. Anytime I ever bring up anything from this book. It’s one of these concepts that people have.
It’s really easy to get lost in those ideas because they’re very out there and nebulous, but hopefully, it makes sense. I’ve got a book that’s a little less nebulous, it’s a little bit more just especially if you’re just starting out on this journey of really strategizing your business to a high level, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.
You go buy a copy the little hardbound books, or you can get a free copy at AmazonProofBook. com digital copy AmazonProofBook.com.
We’ll be back here tomorrow night, talking about something either a principle a strategy, or a tactic that you can use in your business to grow things. Have a great night. In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.
90-9-1 Rule 👀 (Neville Medhora of CopywritingCourse.com)
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Math and Content Marketing, who knew?
Thoughts on 90-9-1 Rule Brian first heard from Neville Medhora of CopywritingCourse.com, on expectations for consumer engaging with your work.
Checkout Neville’s Work here – https://copywritingcourse.com/
Transcription
90-9-1 rule for content marketing.
Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.
We’ve talked before about different ideas when it comes to content marketing. And this may be a big surprise to you if it’s new for you. If it’s not, then you’ll recognize it and you won’t have to get freaked out about it.
So I first heard about the 90-9-1 rule by Neville from CopywritingCourse.com, you can go check out he’s got a lot of great content out there in social media land.
Now, this isn’t a rule that just applies to Facebook, or just applies to whatever your social media is of choice. It’s really a rule across the board when it comes to content. And I bet even for offline content, if you were able to track it, you would find a very similar situation. Because it really comes back to the 80/20 rule, which is it’s just human nature, that if you put out enough stuff, and you’re able to track, you’ll find that a very small percentage do what do the most of what a very large percentage have the chance of doing if I could say it in that sense.
So let me explain this.
What this means is that if you add these up, they come out to 100%, right?
So 90 plus nine plus 1, it comes out to 100. And represents 100%.
If you took 100% of the people that are consuming your content, you would be able to take 90% and they’re the people that are just lurking around, they’re just watching, they’re listening, they’re reading, whatever you’re putting out there, but they’re not going to interact with it much further beyond that, okay, and this is just just the stuff you could track.
I mean, let’s take video for instance, this is just tracking views. So if you got 100 views only about somewhere around 90 are just gonna watch, they’re not gonna, let’s say it’s on YouTube, they’re not going to leave a thumbs up or a thumbs down, they’re not going to comment, they’re not going to take the link and share it with friends.
That’s about 90% and these are all relative terms.
Obviously, the more the bigger your numbers are, the more solid these turn out to be, they’re probably even more skewed in the direction of a large percentage of people not doing anything when you have fewer and fewer numbers.
So 9% are going to interact a little bit. Okay, they may leave a thumbs up, they may leave a thumbs down, they may do something every once in a while they’re going to do something.
And then 1% is going to be your star players. So literally one out of 100, 1 out of 100 are going to leave a comment, they’re going to want to talk back and forth, they’re going to want to learn more about you, they may watch more than one video, they may go beyond that.
And so you have to understand that you got to hit a lot of people if you want any type of measurable response back. This is not to say that the 90% aren’t useful, or that they aren’t doing anything, or that they won’t view more of your stuff.
That’s not what we’re saying here. They might or they may not. But you don’t know you’re not going to be able to track them other than a view other than a hit click here or there, that there’s not much else that you’ll be able to do with that you just have to realize, you have to get enough numbers, everything always I know some people really poopoo the numbers game of things, everything comes back to numbers.
No matter what you’re doing in business, everything comes back to numbers.
Yes, you should be good at what you’re doing so that the numbers you’re hitting matter, and that you get better rates. But everything comes back to get more people through the quote-unquote funnel and that’s all this is.
This is a percentage no matter what you do if you’re in if you’ve done any significant amount of sales, or, or, or any type of direct marketing of any sort, especially direct response marketing, you understand this, you understand this concept. If you’re new to content marketing, this may blow you away a little bit and you may really be shocked that you can get hundreds of views and not a whole lot of action measurable action beyond that.
This is the game you’re in and you just have to realize it and you can look more into the 80/20 rule.
One of my favorite books, especially for someone just starting out looking into this is 80/20 Sales and Marketing by Perry Marshall. It’s a fabulous book on this topic, one I go to back to on a regular basis because he really takes this really deep idea and splits it up a whole bunch of different ways for you to be able to consume it. And so that’s worth looking into.
Also if you’re wanting more help in terms of strategies that you can use to stand out. So going beyond the numbers, go check out my book 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business, you can pick up your own free copy at AmazonProofBook. com.
I’m back here on a daily nightly basis. So come on back, watch, listen, comment, please let me know you’re out there and you have a great night. We’ll be back tomorrow.
In the meantime, get out there and just let the magic happen.
Why Does Business History Matter?
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Thoughts on strategy and the value of reading older books in your industry.
Amazon-Proof Your Business➡️ https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/
Transcription
Why does business history matter?
Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.
I’m pointing to the outside of this book you can see it’s nice in yellow. I love old books, especially ones that I’ve been recommended or by interesting people from time. This is happens to be Alistair Crompton, The Craft of Copywriting.
This is one that’s been recommended by many copywriters. copywriting is the art of writing sales copy the art and the science behind it. And this is one of those that’s difficult to find has not been reprinted in quite a long time.
I was able to find it online for a large amount for as far as the book goes, but a small amount for a good rare book.
Why do I go out of my way to buy rare books, audios, videos, of past business history?
In other words, the techniques, the strategies and the principles that people way back talked about? Why is that intrigued me? Why is that interesting?
Well, I’ll tell you why, but first I want to recommend my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.
If you want something that’s really directed today, even if you’re not into history, this will give you some resources you can get into that won’t cost you that much money. But also it reveals some very turnkey strategies, they’re going to take time they’re going to take effort. It’s not, it’s not a get rich, quick thing.
But if you’re looking for some long term strategies to be able to take your business to the next level, get my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business, you can go out and buy it. Or you can go pick up a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com.
AmazonProofBook.com.
But what about the history, what about the old books like this, right. And this is one of those that’s actually been sitting, I’ve bought it, and it’s sitting on my to read pile my to read pile grows quicker than my read pile. Because I’m a slow reader.
But it doesn’t stop me from going after it. This stuff I know needs to be preserved. But also I want to understand the the principles behind the tactics and the strategies, even if the person is talking about nothing but principles and tactics.
I mean, talking about nothing but strategies and tactics, I want to know the underlying principles of that, because that’s something that never goes away. We’ve talked about before the old Jeff Bezos line about how, you know, show me what isn’t going to change in 10 years.
And that’s what matters most and what changes doesn’t matter. What doesn’t change is the things that you can build large companies, you can build large companies on top of those principles.
So it’s the principles that matter most. I’ll give you a great example. The reason why this is hot in my mind, even though I do this stuff all the time, I just recently bought a old set. And I say old, I don’t mean to be patron, I don’t mean to be putting down anybody in the audience.
It’s old in terms of most of my audio video collection of, of business tutorials and so forth. This happens to be from the 70s, late 70s, early 80s, somewhere in that time. And because it’s rare, I consider it old, okay, it’s not that old. It’s I’m probably older than this material but it’s a rare find.
And it’s one that I’ve been looking for for a while and I found it at a price that was that was higher than what most people would pay but not for me. For me it was lower than what I would pay for something similar. So as long as it is what it says it is, I’m going to be very happy when it arrives. I got it off of eBay.
At the same time I it’s funny where my mind has gone. I’ve been listening to an old audio, and I say old, not in the long sense, but the short sense. So this is only a handful of years old. Let’s say this would be 2017.
In fact for years the reason why I listened to it because I remember listening to it when my daughter was born, if you remember from previous episodes, she just celebrated her fourth birthday. So that’s why it came back fresh in my mind. And I was having a discussion with another business owner and helping him kind of draft a plan for moving forward and I said this technique might be useful to you.
So I went back re-listened to these business people that had been running this prospecting technique.
At the time I wasn’t that certain about It, it didn’t seem as foolproof as some of the stuff that I’ve been using. But in the right circumstances, I totally see now how useful it could possibly be.
And especially so I mean, this was something that was pre COVID. Obviously, four years ago, it was pre, a whole lot of the scenarios that we have today.
Nowadays, with video chat being so available and everything else, this prospecting technique made perfect sense. And I’m like, this could be huge if we can reinstitute this back. But yet he can do it.
If I can help them through that process of reinstituting, this technique, this could be useful, I went back and listen to it. Sure enough, it had all the signs of all these things that back then yeah, it could work in the right circumstances.
But now, it’s almost ideal, because of the situation that we’re currently in. So this is 2021, that we’re filming this. And we’re going through a basically a shutdown of the economy via disease and the government’s reaction to the disease.
And so that’s where we’re still at to a certain extent. So it’s like, this is just what the doctor ordered. I’m very happy I ran back into it. The technique itself is not what’s important, it’s not the tactic.
What’s important is you could build a strategy based on the principle that the tactic was built off of, the principle makes sense. And it will never go away. And a person could listen to the same thing. readapt the technology, let’s say 20 years from now, the person can re listen to this, and completely switch it to fit the technology of the time.
And it will still be a useful technique, if you understand the principles that make it function properly. Once again, we’re back on this old principle discussion that we’ve talked about a lot in the last the last month of videos here.
Hopefully that makes sense to you go out, look for good history, good business history. It will teach you a lot about where you’re at right now. If you can grasp the principle behind the tactics. Hopefully that’s helpful. Hey, we’ll be back here tomorrow night. In the meantime, you get out there and let the magic happen.