The $2.5M Copywriting Secret: AI’s Role in Killer Ads

AI is a great slave and a terrible master. Before you use AI to write your copy, you really need to know your shit. You really need to know what makes good copy and bad copy. What. The rules of direct response are all these kind of things so that you can properly prompt the AI because, you know, garbage in, garbage out.

Right.

There was an old rule in direct response marketing, and it said that the success of any direct response campaign depends 40% on the list of the audience, 40% on the offer, and 20% on the messaging. Now, does that mean the messaging is half as important? No, but if you start with the sales letter or the creative and you don't have an offer and you don't have the right list, it's going to be a waste of money, a waste of time.

The note I took was, trauma heals when pain is met with presence. That's literal.

Yeah.

And you won't take anywhere where you're not willing to go yourself. So do your own work.

Right?

Right. Yeah.

And so it's very, you know, somebody starts to go dark and you're not willing to go dark, that's traumatizing. They feel abandoned in it.

Yeah.

And so it's a, you know, do.

Your work with AI now in the scene and all of this stuff. How. What are your thoughts on AI as it relates to world class copywriting?

AI is a great slave and a terrible master. So people make the mistake of. Well, there's two ends of the spectrum. One is the people who put their head in the sand and ignore it. The other is the people who abdicate instead of delegating. Before you use AI to write your copy, you really need to know your shit. You really need to know what makes good copy and bad copy, what the rules of direct response are. All these kind of things so that you can properly prompt the AI because, you know, garbage in, garbage out. Right, right. And then when the AI spits up the copy, it's not going to be great. You have to go in there and fix it. So if you don't know what you're doing, you know, it's like anything else. Right. You just can't. People try to take shortcut. What is that Dave Kekich thing? Life is easy when you do it the hard way.

Yeah. Life is easy when you live it the hard way and hard if you live it the easy way.

Yeah. That applies here as well.

Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. And what's your longest running ad now that you've written?

Right now, I had like three of them running at the same Time that were going for over a decade now. I have one that's been going for 15 years and another one I think is on its seventh year.

And they pay royalties on each of these every month.

Baby.

How much money do you think you've ever. What's the most you've ever made on a single ad you've written? In terms of royalties, probably about two.

And a half million dollars, just as copywriting royalties. That doesn't include being an owner of a business where I'm, you know. Yeah, that's a different thing.

Yeah, that's great. Awesome. So, again, any problem in the world can be solved at the right sales letter or maybe add. Yeah, there's something to that. We can dig into that.

I just did a post about how that's not always true. I opened with my mentor, Gary Halbert, said any problem can be solved with the right sales letter. That's not always true. And I gave a case where, like herp. No, like, if you don't have your business operating correctly, a good sales letter will just hasten your demise because you'll turn on the spigot and you won't be able to handle it.

You know, that's an interesting point too, because Keith Cunningham, I've interviewed him a couple of times, and he's a smart dude and he has this great line where he says more businesses die of indigestion than starvation. And so there is the place where you need business, you need to generate business. Then it's like you've just got so much stuff coming in, but you don't have the foundation set and you're all, you know, you're just getting a bunch of customers so you can speed up the poor reputation that your delivery has.

Yeah.

So. Well, here's the thing, though, about any problem in the world can be solved at the right sales layer. The reason I think that is a pretty profound statement is people underestimate the importance of persuasion in print. For any life or business problem, it may not solve it all, but it certainly can get progress on it. Like if you have a child that needs an organ transplant and you have the ability to write an ad and know where to send it, you have a better possibility. May not solve it, may not get it, but it gives you an advantage.

Yeah, for sure. You may recall I did that fundraiser for my cousin who had cancer and we raised $200,000 in 48 hours before I shut it down. Or you could find your mate with sales copy. Right. If you're on dating apps and stuff, it's just a marketing funnel. That's all it is.

Right, Exactly. Or you can lose a mate, too.

You could.

Yeah. So how, if you're in a state of anger or depression, how does that impact your belly? Does that oftentimes help you or hinder you when it comes to writing?

Depression will definitely hinder you. Shame will hinder you. Anger can make you write great copy.

Yeah.

Because there's, there's, it's one of the most powerful drivers, you know, the top three. Agreed. Fear and anger. And if you mix fear and anger together, it's a very combustible combination. It's, you know, that's why people stormed the Capitol, because they were afraid and angry.

Right.

Frustration, fear and anger. So I'm going to come back to the reason I like having Paris here. Where's Brian Kurtz? Where do you sit down? Okay, so this brings me back to the greatest copywriting panel of all time, which took place. What year was that, Mike.

Thank you very much.

We did a copywriting panel that had Paris. It had. Who was on there? John Carlton. It had Diggory.

Craig Clemens.

Yeah, you.

Me, I was the non copywriter. I was the copywriter wannabe on that panel.

Well, you almost. So aboard, you mailed what, close to 2 billion letters?

Well, all kinds of marketing materials. Probably 2 billion. I didn't have to lick the stamps, fortunately, when I did direct mail. So that was a good.

How many stamps have you licked?

That's private, Joe. I can't. You're getting really personal early on today.

Do you get triggered when you get a direct mail piece? You just lick the stamp that's on some.

Yeah, I peel it off and I save it and hope to use it again, too. You know, I want to comment on something also. I'm not anti. Gary Halpert. I'm not anti. You know, every problem can be solved with a great sales letter. But I wrote a blog post that was an angle on that, which was the creative and the copy is the most important element of. Is the most important is the least important element of any direct response campaign until it's not. And the reason why I say that, and I've written this in my book Over Deliver, which is about what I call the 413920 rule, which is that there was an old rule in direct response marketing going back to Richard Vigori, who was on that panel with us, and it said that the success of any direct response campaign depends 40% on the list of the audience, 40% on the offer, and 20% on the messaging. Now, does that mean the messaging is half as important? No, but if you start with the sales letter or the creative and you don't have an offer and you don't have the right list, you, it's gonna be a waste of money, a waste of time. He gets royalties. He got all those royalties because I did the list selection for him and he knows it and he wouldn't give me credit. Paris wrote tons of packages for us.

I see some anger down to Masni.

We hate each other very much.

No, no, let's write some ads and shit while we're at that.

Yeah, yeah, we're gonna fight at lunch. So if anybody wants. But it's interesting because, and I made it the 41, 39, 20 rule so that the people I'm coaching in my group, that they understand that you have to get the audience right first, no matter what copy you're going to go at them with. And this goes back to Gene Schwartz and Breakthrough Advertising. You need to have message to list. Message to list. The message can solve any problem. But if it's a problem that doesn't need to be solved or no one knows it's a problem, then you've got like you're whistling Dixie, whistling past the graveyard and to no one. And the beauty of online marketing versus what we did in offline marketing is the, you know you can. To have one version of any creative is so stupid. It's so cheap to change creatives in direct mail. Back in the olden days, you had to do different zip strings and it was costly to change, you know, different creatives. And you can only do so many tests Today. Testing is unlimited. That also creates a problem because, you know, when you have unlimited testing, you have unlimited ways to screw yourself up with non statistical significance with tests that don't make any difference or don't give you a good lift. And you don't understand what's a winner and what's a loser. So you still have to have the same discipline that we had in direct mail. That's why in chapter three of my book, I said how paying postage made me a better marketer. And it's because of the discipline you and I grew up in. I mean, I'm a lot older than you, but you look a lot older than me. No, but I mean, we grew up in the same era of direct mail into the Internet. And it's amazing that if people use the same discipline, if you were paying postage and printing for everything that you put out in email or on Facebook or Basically, you are paying for media. You would do much better copy, you do much better marketing. And it's just a fact. So I don't, it's not a lecture, it's just. And I don't tell people that they should be doing direct mail. I'm not. That's not my game. But I really believe that the fundamental truths are always there and they're always going to be there. And anything you put on top of it, I mean, AI and ChatGPT is amazing. I mean, I'm doing these posts now and it's like I get 80% there. But as Paris said, you got to put your stamp on it. You got to put your personality into it. And I have, I have one bot that I'm working with that was like, okay, I know Mike Henix can blow it out of the water, probably, whatever I'm saying. But, but if you take your, if you take your personality, it's a personality bot. So it's basically, it's like, right, like Brian here. And I gotta tell you, it doesn't sound like me. Yeah, I mean, maybe we're doing the wrong. I mean, I'm sure Mike can improve it. Yes, he's, you know, but I do think that you still want to put your stamp on it. You still want to put your personality into it. And, you know, why not? I mean, it's not fun either to just, you know, work with robots all the time, but I gotta tell you, it's a great, it's a great tool.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free and there's a link below in the description, or you can wait till the end of this video or you can Simply go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there. I read Mike's entire book. It's really good. And in typical Mike style, he's always embedding pitches for all his shit into everything. Here's a QR code for.

What he's doing.

He doesn't just pitch, he's always pitching his shit, but he's really good at teaching it and weaving it in. And I also am so appreciative of the years of putting in a lot of effort to understand the psychology. Spending money on stamps. It's similar to that line, if people don't pay, they don't pay attention. Well, there's that with what you're selling and Giving advice to people because everyone here has had the experience where you've read a book or something that was really change your life, very impactful and you've given the book to other people and it has not changed their life and they didn't even read it. Right. Why is that? Well, maybe the $10, $20 financial investment, maybe the psychological investment. So there's all of the. Anything received free of charge is seldom valued. As it applies though to people just using AI or sending out emails that there's no cost that they have to spend. If they don't pay for it, they don't pay attention to all the nuance of what is going to make that.

It's a discipline. I remember there was an urban legend many years ago about that the postal service is going to charge for email. And I was excited about that, I really was, because that meant that all the imposters would have to do much better work, be able to pay for that and make it get an roi. And we were already doing it. So I know we'd be ahead of the game. Of course, alas, it didn't happen. And I'm not saying that it would be a good thing. Maybe not. But I think it's instructive to think about that, that if you had to pay, it's sort of like the same thing was when you're selling. Ken McCarthy said, you know, every time you go out and sell something, make believe it's a $25,000 offer, even if it's a $19 offer. I mean, there's a lot of. They're not tricks, they're mindsets for how you can write copy, how you can develop an offer that is irresistible and it doesn't happen by accident. You got to research your market, you got to get deep with your market and if you don't do it that way, it's going to be half assed and then you can take the shortcut and be out of business. I mean.

Yeah, no, very good, very good. So for first year members, think of the first year as foundation. Second year is growth, third year acceleration. How many of you have been in Genius Network for three years or this is your third year or more. Okay, awesome. Well, thank you. Financially, in many ways. Thank you. And secondly, Eunice, at some point, you know the dollar bill letter that we're mailing out, let's package one of those up for me. I'm going to go through it at some point. I want to show you guys a. It'll need a right at this moment, but oh, perfect. So Eunice has been here now 29 years. Gina, how many years you been here? 20. 20. And yesterday was her 50th birthday. Thank you, Gina. And yeah, we're going to have fun. So as usual, we're going to meander into all kinds of different areas of connection. So during the next two days, you're going to hear some great 10 minute talks. Sam Horn is going to give an awesome presentation and we're going to talk about all kinds of stuff. And where's George at? George McKee, where's George? Right there. Okay, George. George is awesome. George is one of our newest 100k members. And we went to dinner two nights ago and I had a conversation with Simon Bowen, who's been watching. How many of you know Simon? He's the model Method Guy. So Simon is joining the 100k group and he's going to come in, I believe, September. And Simon, I had him come and do a presentation last year in September at the 100k group. And then I took him and his wife with Peter Kobabe, who's an AI guy, and Cherie, we went to the Grand Canyon. He lives in Australia. He's never been to the Grand Canyon. And he's been watching all of these videos that have been recorded in the back room that Manuel's been doing. Some of you here have done some of those videos and they're just like these really, really great videos. There's one of you also, Susan, that is awesome. And he actually took what you said and created a model out of it. You've not seen that yet, have you? Okay, it's cool. Yeah. So thank you. And one of the things he said to me and I just briefly was talking with George and his wife about this. He was his interpretation of what Genius Network is. And he said, he goes, one of the things that people are saying is how it feels really safe here where they feel like they're really connected. And I'm like, yeah, I mean, I think we've created that sort of culture here. And he said, he goes, I think part of it is because you sit down with people in their darkest times with all this addiction stuff that you're doing. And he goes. And most people actually don't sit down with people when they're going through really difficult shit in their life. And you do this all the time and you. That's just kind of like one of the things you do. And I was like, you know, I've been thinking about that ever since we talked about that, you know, and yesterday I was kind of asking some people without them knowing, you know, who talks with people during dark times, just to try to get engaged in this. So the reason I'm bringing this up, whatever happens during this meeting, you're going to leave, you're going to go back to your place. How many of you are put in situations on a regular basis where you have to talk with people in their darkest times? They're just dealing with heavy shit. Yeah. Do you find that to help you? Is that helpful? Explain.

Yeah, I think that there's a different listening that comes from it and then a deeper level of empathy. So like when you're meeting somebody at their darkest time, a lot of times you're not trying to get them somewhere, you're just really being with them in the conversation. So that translates into when you connect with other people, it's just a different listening when you're with other people, whether they're in dark times or not, that you're not trying to get the conversation anywhere either. You're just being with them. So it's kind of like a listening through service rather than a lot of people have a listening through, trying to.

Get something or trying to sell them a solution or trying to tell them what they need to do with their life.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyone else have any perspective on. Yes. Let's throw her money.

Get rid of the coffee. So the way I look at it, I used to teach before. So the way I look at it, how we have safe zones in schools where you can come up to the room of the counselor, talk anything. So I feel like we create, when we listen empathetically, we create a safe space for them that they can, they know they will. It's like a hospital, it's like a rehab, you know, that you will rejuvenate. And as people we have an emotional component to it. We not only provide the space but we also put in that healing energy into them, I guess by just listening, mostly listening because I feel we are all intelligent enough, we are born intelligent, we just lose our way.

Right, Right.

Yeah.

And there are times where I mean we're confident and we're encouraging and we're inspired and life is working and others where we're desperate and we're self centered. And I think, yeah, I think it's the reason I bring it up. I would encourage you to seek out people that are having difficult times because they're all your friends and family. They're everybody. It's everybody. It's just most people, they try to Run away from it at some point. I don't know, maybe I'll mention his name. There's a very famous author that I was with a group of people and there was a homeless person. I'm sorry, not there was a homeless person in the same spot, but there was another guy that had fallen and his head was bleeding and he was trying to climb over a fence. And it was during one of our meetings. We needed to take the group to a dinner that evening. And this person had sold lots of books, many, many millions of copies of books about being a. How would I frame it without giving him away? Just a spiritual author. And this guy just wanted nothing to do with this one guy. Even though he wrote all these books about how to be connected with humans and about caring. He just wanted to get away from the situation. It wasn't even some massive drastic situation. Just a hurt person that was intoxicated. And I didn't want him climbing this fence because he was limping, he had hurt himself. And I got one of our team members to put a blanket down in the back of their car and drive this guy around the block because there was no way to get to his house where he was trying to climb to. And it just struck me that this person that I really admired in like a moment of like, this guy does not give a shit. He can write about it, but he can't live it. And I thought, and there's so many people like that that are the dispensers of self help. There's so many hands going up, I'm not sure who to go to first.

Who should I throw it to?

Okay, thank you.

There's no closer.

So Professor Scott Galloway, if you're not familiar with him, from nyu, he's a genius. Such a crazy interesting guy. He just did a presentation at something called om24 and I made a short link so everyone can see it because it's so profound. So it was in Germany. And he basically predicted how he felt AI was going to affect society and how society has been affected by it. Young men, especially in depression, anxiety. And at the end, the way he closes is so emotional because this guy struggled with addiction and depression much of his life. But he basically said, call five of your friends and ask how are you doing? Followed by no, how are you really doing? And that night I did that with some guys I've known since I was like 6 years old. And I ended up having a group chat for 90 minutes with them. And like I just got a follow up from them yesterday and These are, you know, I grew up in a little tiny town where it's hard. They're depressed. You can tell it. They're definitely suffering midlife depression. And both of them wrote back about how meaningful that was. It was the simplest thing, but just in line with what you're talking about. But those two questions, I can't believe how great and intense and how real and emotional of a response I got.

You've seen the Lex Friedman clip with Elon Musk when he asked him how's he doing now in a situation of a super driven, protected guy like that. It's actually interesting, the vulnerability in that moment. Right. But here's the point, what you just said. You want something that will, I think, really impact. It'll probably impact other people more than you could even imagine, but it'll really impact you is when you put yourself into sitting and just being present with pain. That's really what it is. It's being present with pain. And one of the best ways to remove pain is to be present with it. Where's Doug Brackman? Yeah, you know, Doug Brackman, you know, sitting with the driven entrepreneur. You know, he wrote the book Driven. Doug wrote the book Driven. Doug's not a very smart guy, though. He's only got two PhDs. And so when you're. When you are present with your own pain, the pain dissipates. Throw him a mic. That's wild.

The note I took was trauma heals when pain is met with presence. And that is. That's literal.

Yeah.

And it's. And you won't take anywhere where you're not willing to go yourself. So do your own work.

Right, Right. Yeah.

And so it's very, you know, somebody starts to go dark and you're not willing to go dark, that's traumatizing. They feel abandoned in it.

Yeah.

And so it's a. You know, do your work and be willing to.

And by the way, for a couple things, too. You could put yourself in situations that are way beyond your abilities, that could put you in a role. So I'm not suggesting doing crazy shit here or trying to play therapist with someone that's, you know, it's just not even. Although we do live in a world where there's so much out of control shit that in many cases you just do the best you can.

And it's not saying the right thing. It's being there. I mean, truly, it's just being present and fumbling on your words and all of that is what they need to see that you're human. So it's just. You're in it with them.

Okay. I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you want to watch some more videos that will be useful and awesome, click here. Go ahead. They're over here.

Do it now.

Come on.

Thank you. Watch them.