John Bejakovic – Copy Riddles

Here’s a copywriting tip you probably have never heard of. I’ll then tell you how to find dozens more of these tricks whenever you like.

Let me start it off with a little riddle.

How can three men, one who has been mostly dead all the day, storm a castle gate guarded with 60 soldiers?

Inconceivable, right? Even if one of these men happens to be a giant and the other a master swordsman, the enemies are too numerous. Success is Inconceivable.

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What if you also include a wheelbarrow in your assets? What if you have a magical, glowing fire?-protective, “holocaust cloak”?

The impossible suddenly becomes possible. Because this is what you can do:

Just load one of the three men — preferably, the giant — into the wheelbarrow. Wrap the holocaust cover around him. Then, roll the wheelbarrow toward the gate. Just as fear and doubt start creeping into the hearts of castle defenders, set the holocaust cover on fire.

Presto. Presto.

This is a scene from The Princess Bride (1987). I am sharing it because it is a great illustration for a critical but often misunderstood copywriting technique.

The Mechanism.

The mechanism is called the “how” That makes your solution work.

Without an intriguing, believable mechanism, your prospect crosses his arms, shakes his head at the claims you’re making, and says, “Inconceivable.”

You can smile confidently at your prospect with the right mechanism and say, “No, no. It’s really quite easy. All you need is a wheelbarrow and this magic cloak… and I’ll show you how to get both, for free!”

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That’s when your prospect’s eyes get wide… he uncrosses his arms and leans in… and he nods to signal that you should go on with your message. That’s the power of a good mechanism.

How can you find a magical, fascinating, yet believable system? Here’s how I do it. The following bullet will help you to do it:

This bullet was written by A-list copywriter David Deutsch.

For reference, David’s copy has sold over a billion dollars’ worth of products. He has written for the biggest direct response publishers, such as Agora and Boardroom, and he’s had as many as six winning controls at the same time, each paying him big money in big chunks, in the form of monthly royalties.

The bullet above appeared in David’s sales letter for one of Boardroom’s million-Healing Remedies and health books that cost less than a dollar And guess what — I tracked down a copy of that book. Here’s page 8.

Aha! So now David’s magical mechanism trick becomes obvious. The coffee grinder wasn’t the whole story. It was only one ingredient in a complex recipe that required many steps and ingredients.

In your sales copy, don’t give away the whole recipe. In fact, you don’t even want to give away the key ingredient (flaxseed in this case), if that’s all your prospect really needs to solve his problem.

What you want is specificity, intrigue, and a sense of humor. Look for the incidental ingredient. The coffee grinder that grinds the flax seed… the saran wrap to keep the eczema cream in place… and the wheelbarrow which allows three men (one of whom was mostly dead all day) access to a castle heavily defended.

And by the way, this incidental ingredient technique isn’t just great for selling cellulite-Be-gone recipes via sales letters. For example, here’s a subject line from a recent email by millionaire email marketer Ben Settle:

Ben’s emails are famous for sexy subject lines, and you can see why. The subject line above is irritatingly intriguing, especially if you’re a freelancer hungry for client work.

So what’s Ben’s pocket watch secret? It’s in the body of the email.

You should pay attention to this:

In Ben’s body copy, there’s no mention of a pocket watch. But Ben hit upon that pocket watch by doing the same as David did above — zooming in on the solution… and then zooming in some more. So far in that the reader starts wondering. “A pocket watch? Why specifically a pocket watch? Gotta find out.”

“Yeah ok,” I hear what you are saying. “This technique is cool, even though it’s kind of sneaky. But I can’t just zoom in all the time.”

You’re absolutely right. Your readers will get smarter if this trick is used in every headline, bullet, or subject line. “Oh, it’s the teaspoon trick.” “Not the banana peel secret AGAIN.” “There he goes, trying to get me to buy by zooming in on a hairbrush.”