Have you heard of voice actor Billy West? I hadn’t either until I read an article that said he’s considered the “new Mel Blanc.”

I sometimes call myself the Mel Blanc of Copywriting because an email copywriter has to be good at writing in many different voices. Mel Blanc was famous for being “the man of 1000 voices,” including the voices of many Looney Tunes characters, such as Bugs Bunny.

I know copywriters mostly talk about persuasion and marketing but the ability to write in someone else’s voice is also a necessary skill.

What Billy West says about voice acting also applies to email copywriting:

“You have to have some kind of power of observation, almost like a trained observer,” he explains. “You watch people and study them the way an alien would. … It’s also kind of an ear a voice performer has, where they’re able to hear things in real life, and they’re able to grab hold of it and then amplify it through another character or a direct impression.

An email copywriter needs to be able to write conversationally and should develop an ear for the cadence and words used in everyday conversation.

When writing for a client, I always try to listen to audios, watch videos of them or talk on the phone with a client so I can hear their actual voice. If that’s not possible I make a point to read their blogs, articles, tweets, etc. so I can become familiar with their voice.

Being able to master voices is the key to helping clients develop a rapport and trust with their prospects and customers.

Remember the rock & roll 45?

Singles used to be a big deal back in the day. Unfortunately it’s a format that seems to have been abandoned by a lot of rock & roll artists.

According to Bono of U2, the rock & roll 45 “is the evolutionary peak of the species…it is by far the most difficult thing to pull off and it is the very life force of rock & roll: vitality, succinctness and catchiness.”

Vitality. Succinctness. Catchiness.

These are attributes email copy should have as well. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that email is the life force of marketing.

Bono again:

When rock music forgets about the 45, it tends toward progressive rock, which is like a mold that grows on old, burned out artists who’ve run out of ideas…it’s an infuriating thing for me to see indie rock & roll give up the single to R&B and hip-hop.

We see the progressive rock effect in marketing too, where marketers forget about email and their relationship with their list and have run out of ideas.

What Bono says about writing singles for other musicians reminds me of what it’s like writing copy for clients:

Writing songs for other people can be so easy. You’re out of your own head and into someone else’s. It comes quickly and you write it down.

If the mold has started to grow on your own marketing…if you still haven’t found what you’re looking for… maybe it’s time to let someone else come into your head and write some email for you.

Here’s what a recent client said about what I wrote for her:

“Anita, you’re not gifted, you’re a genius! People will really feel like it is me speaking to them personally, even fans who know me well. From a psychological perspective you hit all the right buttons. I could never have written those emails – I am just too close to the trees.”

While leaving a medical appointment at a clinic a couple of months ago, I walked alongside a janitor on my way to the elevator.

He sang the entire time while carrying his supplies and putting things in order. He’s an older guy so his songs were from a different era and far more pleasant than the usual Top 40 hits piped through speakers.

We entered the same elevator and he paused to chat with a woman who was exiting the elevator.

During our elevator ride he spent the entire time telling me what a wonderful that woman is and how he wished he could chat with her in Spanish, her native language. He was generous with his praise even though I didn’t know the woman.

As we left the elevator he immediately started singing again as he set about his cleaning tasks.

I was only with him for about 30 seconds so there was no chance to ask him how long he’s worked there or get any details about his life.

Even though he didn’t say a word about himself,  those 30 seconds in his presence told me volumes about him.

Normally when passing people in a hallway at a medical clinic you usually don’t give them more than a moment’s attention and you certainly don’t remember them two months later. The same is true of most websites.

When people drop by your website you probably have no longer than 30 seconds to make an impression before they move in.

Are you like the singing janitor and stand out from the crowd by being different and by NOT blabbing endlessly about yourself or your product?

Do you leave them with the desire to learn more about you and your story?

It’s about time Emma Peel from the Avengers makes an appearance on this blog. Sheesh, what took me so long?

If you have the misfortune of being unfamiliar with Emma Peel and John Steed, the spy duo from the 1960s TV show The Avengers, then take a quick look at the one minute intro to the show:

She shoots a cork off a champagne bottle. How cool is that?

Emma Peel was as comfortable at a fancy dinner party as she was fighting villains with her signature Kung Fu moves.

She was calm, never lost her cool, and was never, ever desperate, even when she was in hopeless situations. This is unlike many marketers who prefer to be like the constantly desperate Ralph Wolf.

At the beginning of each Avengers episode, John Steed would let Emma know she was needed for an assignment and would do this in very creative ways. Here’s a video montage of some of these scenes (and check out the yellow ankle boots at the 5:15 mark):

Steed’s message was always the same…”Mrs. Peel, we’re needed.” Yet he delivered this message in such creative ways that Emma always smiled and probably felt appreciated too.

Your message is essentially always the same too…”Buy my stuff!” But are you being as creative as Steed in how you deliver that message? Do your customers smile and enjoy the message even though they know there will be a pitch?

Finally, Emma Peel knew her services were needed, which is one reason why she wasn’t desperate.

So there you go. Three marketing lessons from Emma Peel: Don’t be desperate. Make sure you or your product are needed. Be creative in delivering your “buy my stuff” message.

Today I get to make a reference to my favorite 1980s comic strip, Bloom County.

But first a little marketing lesson…

When I write copy for a client I often ask them what their prospect’s dominant emotion is while considering their product.

Sometimes it’s a fear of something.

I’ve learned, however, that when we use the word fear in that context we usually mean anxiety.

Fear is actually useful, because it helps save us when facing an imminent threat, such as a mugger. Fear is a rare thing.

Anxieties, however, are the “what-if” type of thoughts that can creep into our life almost every day. It prevents us from doing great things.

It’s not unusual to have a closet full of anxieties, to borrow an analogy from Bloom County.

One of my favorite running gags in Bloom County was Binkley’s closet full of anxieties.

Click here to see some of these comic strips.

Notice how each anxiety is a character. There’s Norma the Nuke and a spotted snorklewacker. Even a beautiful woman is one of his anxieties.

The best way to address at least some of your prospect’s anxieties is through email because you’re not going to be able to cover them all in a sales page.

Let’s say you think your prospect’s dominant emotion is fear of job loss.

What that really means is a closet full of anxieties about finances – anxieties that take many forms.

Help your prospects clean out their closet full of anxieties by addressing them one by one in email.

While you’re at it, might as well tackle your own as well. After all, the best marketing lessons are the ones that apply to your personal life too.

QVC, the ultimate home shopping network, succeeds in persuading people to buy products they can’t see or touch.

Even perfume.

So I think there are a few copywriting lessons here for you.

According to The Atlantic’s story about QVC this month, each QVC host receives six months of training because they must master the details of dozens of products.

Here’s quick video of how they sell perfume on television:

How do they make perfume appear so desirable on TV?

“The answer is that you tell a story—a story about the viewer, and the product’s place in her life.”

QVC hosts usually work in teams, which fosters an “over the backyard fence” atmosphere.

“The model is less a sales pitch than a coffee klatch where friends trade tips on hot new products.”

Here’s how a host describes a pair of earrings:

“It’s almost like they’re coins you’ve been collecting for years, and you had them made into jewelry.” She beamed at the camera. “There’s a very Aztec feel.”

In addition to the stories, the hosts succeed in making you feel like you’re having a conversation with them. QVC fans talk about the hosts as if they are their friends.

How can you create this “over the fence atmosphere” in your business?

Consider making videos where there are two people conversing about the product.

Also, email and social media give you opportunities to be conversational.

Granted, QVC sells products that are largely status items to an audience that is mostly female and your business may be nothing like that.

But QVC is a reminder to every marketer that storytelling and building relationships with your customers is what it’s about, regardless of your product or niche.

An email copywriter is, essentially, a storyteller.

My clients will usually ask me something like, “Write me stories like that one you wrote on your blog/list about the old lady in the grocery store.”

They almost never say, “Write me 7 killer tips about affiliate marketing” even if they have an affiliate marketing product.

Stories are memorable. The reader probably forgets whatever marketing tip was at the end of the story but they remember the actual story.

It’s through the stories that some serious relationship-building can happen too.

Obviously it all depends on your own list and your niche but I’ve had clients in niches as diverse as how to teach your child the Nigerian language, family law, internet marketing and muscle cars and stories seem to work across the board.

Even if the client wants a 7 part series on, say, SEO, I’m able to include stories. I mix it up, of course, and often use a mix of these 5 types of stories during the course of a series:

1.) First person story – a story about you, like, “While I was at the driving range the other day…”

2.) Third person story – such as telling a story about a customer’s experience with your product.

3.) Metaphor – a metaphor is a mini story that succinctly summarizes a benefit or problem in a sentence or two. Gary Bencivenga says that if you master metaphors you’ll be one of the most persuasive people on the planet. A metaphor example: “A burst of energy just hit me like a train carrying 10 tons of espresso.

4.) Analogy/Extended Metaphor – open with a description of a current news item, movie, book, etc. and transition
into the how-to tip/product promo.

5.) An “imagine story”- Tell a story of an ideal situation or fantasy and then show how your product will help make that a reality.

The less an email reads like a how-to article or a sales letter, the better.

Does your product have a logline?

While reading Blake Snyder’s book on screenwriting called Save the Cat!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need, I couldn’t help but indulge in some lateral thinking and consider how his advice on loglines for movies also applies to copywriting.

A logline is a one sentence description of a movie’s plot. If a screenwriter wants a shot at getting a producer to look at his script, a strong logline is essential.

If it takes a screenwriter several minutes to describe their movie, they are doomed, according to Blake. He says it’s important to write the logline before writing the screenplay.

A couple of examples:

“A newly married couple must spend Christmas day at each of their four divorced parents homes.” – 4 Christmases

“A just-hired employee goes on a company weekend and soon discovers someone’s trying to kill him.” – The Retreat

According to Blake, there are 4 things a logline needs:

1. Irony (the unexpected). Here are two examples:

“A copy comes to L.A. to visit his estranged wife and her office building is taken over by terrorists.” – Die Hard

“A businessman falls in love with a hooker he hires to be his date for the weekend.” – Pretty Woman

2. Compelling mental picture. This creates the promise of more.

“She’s the perfect woman – until she has a drink.” – Blind Date

3. Built-in sense of who it’s for and the cost. The logline can convey to the producer in just a sentence what type of movie it is and roughly the budget necessary to make it.

4. Killer title. The title combined with the logline is a one-two punch. The title must be the headline of the story.

It’s pretty obvious how these four things apply to copywriting.

I recommend that as you start writing copy for a product, develop a logline for it, using these four elements.

It will organize your thoughts and, who knows. Maybe you’ll end up using the logline in your copy in some way.

If you’d like an example of a logline for a product, how about my “14 emails that will help you burn fat AND make you some money.”

P. S. For another lateral thinking post, check out my 5 tips from a comic book artist.

Yesterday Mike Geary of Truth About Abs sent an email with the subject line “How to burn a pound of pure fat in a day.”

I opened the email right away.

Not because I’m in a hurry to burn a pound of fat, but because it’s an intriguing concept and I knew if I opened the email I would actually find out the answer.

You see, many marketers use subject lines like this but it’s a bait and switch.

Instead of giving you an answer to the question raised in the tantalizing subject line, they promote some product instead.

It’s a trust thing. If your subject lines constantly tease and the email content is always a lame pitch, then the trust is blown.

For some reason, many marketers in the fitness niche consistently send out quality emails and are good at building trust. As much as I like stories, I don’t mind reading an email that’s all content, like the “How to burn a pound of pure fat in a day” email.

If you send out emails regularly, a mix of how-to and stories works well.

And speaking of Mike Geary, I’ve written a series of pre-written emails to promote his Truth About Abs as an affiliate.

You can get these AND a series of pre-written emails I wrote for Fat Burning Furnace for only $7 if you click here.

Yep, that’s 14 pre-written emails for only $7.

Even if you don’t promote any fitness or weight loss products (these emails will work for any products in those niches, by the way), just get them to read the tips and stories.

I think you’ll learn a thing or two about weight loss you didn’t know before (especially my weird tip about a grocery store item that you would NEVER associate with weight loss).

In other words, these emails will help you burn fat and make you some money if you use them to promote fitness or weight loss products.

So go check them out.

P. S.  If you’re wondering about how to burn a pound of pure fat in a day, I don’t want to leave you hanging. There isn’t a link to his email so I’ll just quickly summarize and say it’s about cheat days and strategic fast days.

If you have the occasional cheat day and eat what you want and follow it with a day where you eat very little, your metabolism on that fast day will be primed to burn more fat.

If tips like these interest you, check out my fat burning emails.

Today we will discuss the power of the Breakfast Club story and how to add Breakfast Club moments to your business.

The movie came out in 1985 and is about five high school kids who have to spend a Saturday in detention together.

On the surface, the kids each fit a certain stereotype and seem very different from each other: a criminal, athlete, princess, basket case and brain.

The movie made such a powerful impact on us Gen Xers at the time because the movie understood us. It perfectly portrayed what high school life was like.

If you’ve never seen the movie, click here to watch a trailer.

It’s almost impossible to discuss the movie without asking, “Which Breakfast Club character were you in high school?”

For the record, I was a mix of Anthony Michael Hall (brain/dork) and Ally Sheedy (basket case) in high school.

In addition to making us feel understood, the movie helped us understand others.

There are many moments throughout the movie where the characters let down their guard and talk about the pain beneath their facades. One even felt empathy toward Bender, the loser/criminal character, when he showed everyone the cigar burn on his arm from his father.

The movie also me feel empathy toward the bullies I knew in high school.

At the end of the movie, the brain character writes an essay in which he says that all five of them realized, at the end of the detention, that all of them are a combination of the princess, criminal, brain, athlete and basket case. They are all more alike than they ever would have guessed.

Or as the Emilio Estevez character said, “We’re all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it.”

So what does this have to do with your online business?

The relationship the Breakfast Club characters were able to develop with each other on that day never could have been planned.

Like all such experiences, it happened spontaneously.

Obviously you can’t get your clients and prospects together in a detention hall and spend a day listening to them.

But when your clients and prospects spontaneously contact you through email and social media, they will sometimes reveal things to you that you never would have thought to ask yourself.

Quite often what they will say to you has nothing to do with you or your product and sometimes it will be negative.

Instead of dismissing what they say, you should treat it like a Breakfast Club moment.  The more you show  you understand them and have empathy, the more effective your marketing campaigns and product development will be.

For more about that I suggest you read my other posts about listening.

Finally, when writing email copy, include occasional Breakfast Club moments of your own, where you are transparent and tell a story about yourself and connect with your prospects on a human level.

No one wants to read one sales pitch after another and constant chest-thumping. How-to information is useful but too much of it is just makes people feel overwhelmed, especially if it’s not immediately applicable to them.

Like Claire in the Breakfast club, who overcame her embarrassment and showed them all her unique way of putting on lipstick, let them see a different side of you sometimes.

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