771 – Kevin Rogers Shares His 4 x 6 Card Copywriting System for Writing (and Checking) Effective Sales Copy

Podcast: Download (Duration: 21:22 — 19.7MB)

Get Notified Of Future Episodes Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Blubrry | Gaana | TuneIn | Deezer | Anghami | RSS | More

Podcast highlights:

01:46 – Updates and origin of a tried and tested framework
05:59 – Four questions every prospect comes with
05:19 – A live demonstration of the four Ps
07:42 – And the remaining six parts are…
10:54 – The immense value of Kevin’s community
14:50 – Proof via years of performance
17:20 – How to make it safe for the buyer
18:10 – Sometimes you don’t need a bonus
19:21 – Call them to action, then close

Stay on top of the most effective business tools with James’s help

Transcription:

James: James Schramko here. Welcome back to SuperFastBusiness.com. This is Episode 771. A good year, ‘71. The year of my birth, actually. Kevin Rogers, copywriter to the stars, Copy Chief extraordinaire, musician, radio voice…

Kevin: Comedian.

James: Oh yeah, occasionally funny as well.

Kevin: Very occasionally.

James: You came over to my event years ago, Kevin. You presented this presentation about your 4 x 6 card system for copywriting. I’m constantly referring members of SuperFastBusiness membership to that training, when they say to me, I need to put together a sales page. Or I say to them, your sales page needs a lot of work. Go here. Here’s a system that you can follow.

Now, since then, I’ve seen your ads on social media repeatedly for the system. I know it’s a foundation for what you use to train copywriters, but also to critique existing offers, because that’s a big element of sales copy, is to have a look at the ones that work really well.

Kevin: Right.

Updates and origin of a proven system

James: And then break them down, which you’re famous for. Let’s talk about the card system there. I just want to know, have there been changes to it since you delivered it at SuperFastBusiness?

Kevin: Yeah.

James: Can people buy the system? Where can they get examples of how the system works? What was the origin of the system? Let’s talk cards. I’m into cards today.

Kevin: Cards. Cards are good. Yeah, this is what I love about this. I called it the 4 x 6 for two reasons. One because it’s essentially the 10 parts of any sales pitch, the essential 10 parts. You absolutely need the first four, and you sometimes need all of the six. So I broke it down into two sections, the four and the six.

And also, because I love 4 x 6 cards myself, I use them all the time. There’s something about having that limited space to write on that forces you to compartmentalize your thoughts. And so I applied that as well.

And the idea of this is that it’s basically like the perfect prep for your first draft of copy. And so you should be able to fit all the pertinent information about each of these 10 parts of any sales pitch onto a 4 x 6 card, maybe using front and back, or probably using just the front of the cart.

And so it’s a way to make sure that you have a checklist of everything you need to sit and get into flow to write a great ad, with all the parts that are necessary to close the deal. And so, happy to share those 10 parts, if you want me to go into that.

James: Ah, no, I think we’ll skip those.

Kevin: Okay.

James: Of course, I want to know what the 10 parts are. It’s the first question. Like, if I was listening to this podcast…

Kevin: It’s Part Two of our interview.

James: No, I have to have empathy for whoever’s listening to this. That’s my job, is to ask you the questions they would ask if they were sitting here right now. The first question, Kevin, what are the 10 parts? Like, give the game away, please.

Kevin: All right, cool. So I’ve actually updated this since your training. I simplified the titles of each of these, and it makes it easier for me to review copy with them. And so let me just run you through the 10 parts quickly, and then I’ll talk about how I use them.

Four questions you cannot do without

So they are this. There are four, what I call essential questions that every prospect comes to your offer with. And I call them essential questions, because if you don’t answer these questions for your prospect, their brain won’t let them make the purchase. They will give up a red flag and they will say, but I don’t know this, and therefore I can’t buy.

If they’re really interested, maybe they’ll email you and ask you, but chances are they’re just going to go away, because their brain locks. So those four are all Ps. Because I like congruency. Product, presenter, problem, proposition.

So product is simply, what is it, and what will it do for me?

Presenter is, who is behind this product?

The problem is, what problem does it solve for me?

And the proposition is, what results can I expect and when? What I also call the timeline. Very important. Think about it, James. If we’re excited if we get the first three boxes ticked, we want to know, okay, but how long will this take? Are we talking about an hour, a week, six months, a year? Like, tell us what we’re getting into here. And that has to correlate with the price and the engagement and the, you know, involvement of the prospect on the offer.

So those are the four.

James: Hang on.

Kevin: The six…

James: Wait, wait, wait a second.

Kevin: Okay.

The four Ps illustrated

James: Just to lock this in. I want to throw you on the spot here. I’m just going to, instant roleplay. Let’s see how your improv is. You’re from CopyChief.com. Hit me with the four Ps for CopyChief.com. Let’s do a real example here.

Kevin: Okay, cool. The product – what is it? It is a training center and community where business owners and copywriters come together to optimize their ads. Right?

James: Yeah, it’s okay. Needs a bit of work, but that’s good. Next.

Kevin: Yeah, not perfect.

James: It’s a first-run draft..

Kevin: Yeah, first draft.

The presenter is Kevin Rogers who spent 12 years as a freelance copywriter working with the biggest names in the business, record breaking launches, and then built this community to help train other copywriters and business owners on how to write better copy.

The problem is that we often try to write alone, and we don’t know if we’re doing it right, and we have no gauge on whether the messaging is going to convert. And so the reason I called it Copy Chief is because the community is your chief, your trusted peers to help make sure you’re ticking all the boxes before you launch a piece of copy.

The proposition is that when you join, as soon as one day, you can post up your copy for critique and get professionals, who would charge you thousands privately to review your copy, to weigh in and look at your stuff and give you feedback. You also have our entire suite of trainings to help guide you through the copywriting process. So you’ll never write alone, and you’ll never wonder what it is you’re supposed to be writing in order to convert well.

James: That’s phenomenal. And you know, I want to say, like, you sent me referrals for copy. Your copywriters from CopyChief.com have been involved in my main products, SuperFastBusiness and SuperFastResults. Those copywriters are sourced via you or via referrals from you from the community.

And what I’m finding is, as my clients ask for recommendations, and I’m steering them back to these sources, they’re saying, Oh, this person was involved in part of when I was doing your sales copy. So you know they’ve got this little network. It’s such a big factor, not having to do it by yourself, isn’t it?

Kevin: Yeah.

James: We hear that you are a good person to do your own copy.

Kevin: Right.

James: But you probably need some help and support.

Parts six to ten

Okay, what are the next six?

Kevin: Next six. So the next six are value, which is where we, you know, show me how it’s better than the alternative. Because we know in most cases, we have options. And so, why is this better than other options I have? And also, how is this a better deal than what I’m doing currently to solve this problem? Right?

So one example I like to give, James, is, if I am a fitness pro, and I’m offering you some videos to help you get in shape, I can say, look, it’s $97 for this entire series of videos. That’s essentially the price of one session with a really good trainer. And you don’t have to go to the gym, and you don’t have to have a gym membership and all those things. So that’s what I consider the value. Show me how this is more valuable than the process I know, and the competition.

Proof? Pretty obvious. Show me it works, give me testimonials, give me case studies, prove it to me.

Safety used to be called risk reversal. I like the word “safety”, because as buyers we want to feel safe. Let me know that you’re not going to rip me off, that you’re a legit company and that if I don’t like what you’re giving me and I don’t feel like you’re living up to your promises, I can easily get my money refunded. Give me a 30-day trial.

Bonus? Excite me with relevant value boosters. James, you know this very well, you do this great. If we’re ever going to offer bonuses, more is not more. That’s a common mistake in offer creation. We don’t want to just give away, here’s some old stuff I found in my hard drive. I’m going to give it all to you. You know?

James: We all need more gigabytes.

Kevin: Yeah. And it’s actually, “Real world value is $28,000, but it’s only 100 bucks today.” It doesn’t add up. Give me two bonuses that make it go faster. You know, relevant stuff.

Action. This is important in any ad. It seems obvious, but obviously we have to have a clear call to action. And part of that is, tell me what’s going to happen on the next page. Because James, we know, one of the biggest friction points in a sale, especially online, is getting the person to click that Buy button, add to cart. And if what happens when they do that is scary or weird or doesn’t seem congruent, we have a big problem.

It’s like my friend, our friend John Carlton says, if your copy has done the job of convincing somebody that what you have will solve their problem, what you’ve really done is create a new problem, which is now they have to give you money and feel safe doing it. Right? And so action is more than just tell them clearly what to do. Make them feel safe doing it.

And then simply close, which is, knock me off the fence. I love to use the classic crossroads close, which is hey, you’ve heard me out. Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for watching this video. It’s clear that you have two paths. You can continue doing what you’ve been doing and probably get the same result, which is frustration and being stuck, or you can take a chance on me at no risk for 30 days and see if I can do you better.

James: Nice. Okay, so let’s run the six past the CopyChief.com product and give us a working example.

The immense value of Copy Chief

Kevin: Okay, cool. So value is, instead of having to buy every course that comes out, you can trust in one source to guide you through trainings in the writing process based only on proven results, formulas, formats, templates.

The cool thing about Copy Chief, James, is that because we’re community-led and we have some of the greatest copywriters and marketers in the business in our community, just like yours, is that we’re all reporting what’s working and what’s not. And we base our trainings on those proofs.

And so we don’t just create a training because it seems like oh, this might sell or this might be interesting to people. It’s like, oh, wow, here’s a trend of something that’s working really well. Let’s take the evergreen parts of it and put it in a training so that people will always know that this is something they can rely on.

James: Woah. Your community, when I went to Copy Chief Live, like it is just dripping with talent. I was having breakfast with Parris, who had limited voice capacity at the time, which was quite funny.

Kevin: That’s right. He had laryngitis.

James: And Dean Jackson was there. John Carlton was there. Laura Gale, Brian McCarthy, the guy we had on helping SuperFastBusiness in a previous episode. Carrie, who’s been helping me.

Kevin: Todd Herman.

James: Todd Herman.

Kevin: Jonny Vance.

James: Yeah. Jonny Vance. You’ve got a blog post, I think, going through one of his campaigns with your 4 x 6 card system, haven’t you?

Kevin: I do. In fact, Jonny Vance met Aaron DeHoog at Copy Chief Live. It was after seeing Jonny’s talk at the event that Aaron got the idea.

And he said, What if we had Harmon brothers produce a funny ad to sell a financial newsletter subscription? Which, as you know, James, that is a very different kind of market. Typically it’s fear-based marketing. It’s opportunity-based. Everything is very urgent. And so to take a light-hearted approach to an investment was a radical kind of concept. And fortunately, they have the money in those niches to test out such a thing, which is not cheap, to have Harmon brothers create an ad for you.

But Aaron and Jonny teamed up and created a fantastically hilarious ad. And so I was able to have both of them on a recent chat I do with my community, to talk about the ad. We basically went through it section by section and they told me – my biggest question for Aaron, James, who is the product owner, is like, how did you take what normally is about 15 to 20 pages of long-form sales copy and decide what makes it into a three-minute video, right?

And so it’s really fascinating to see what choices they made, and the ad is fantastic. So I have a blog post about that where I run that ad, that three-minute ad through the 4 x 6, and I also ran their landing page through the 4 x 6. So you can see those elements in action and see how it’s done at a very high level.

James: And how did they go?

Kevin: It’s going well. I will say, here’s what Aaron shared with us. It’s not killing it, in typical parlance for that market. Because what they’re very focused on is frontend buyers, as you know, and they’re very good at selling the back end. So they live and die, very competitive with each other about frontend buyers.

However, what it is doing is something they’ve never done before, which is finding a new demographic. Thirty to 50-year-olds are loving this ad, and often for the first they’re seeing a lot of new demographic on their list. And so what I can see happening is it’ll force them to continue this line of dialogue and this different kind of vibe and maybe create a whole new market for themselves?

James: Well, it’s interesting timing. Because I think globally, there’s a whole lot of new investors to the market, at an unprecedented level. New, unsophisticated people coming in. And I guess they’re going to try their different flavor of financial investment advice. So very, very interesting to see. So that’s on your blog. We’ll put a link to that in the episode show notes.

The proof is in years of performance

I think we’re up to proof.

Kevin: Yeah, proof. So proof for Copy Chief is six years of copywriters and business owners coming in. And I’m very proud of this, James – not only do individuals get results. As you know, someone can be very quiet in our communities and still get amazing results. And sometimes we get these love notes from people we’re not even familiar with who have been members for years and say, Hey, I just want to let you know I’ve been applying this stuff. I’m not the kind to post but… you know, and that’s fantastic.

But I’m also very proud of the fact that much of the new wave of the leading experts in the industry right now started with Copy Chief. They came into the membership early in their career, guys like Dan Ferrari – who you know, James, I think he’s been to the Maldives with you.

James: And we should be there right now, we should be floating around the Maldives.

Kevin: That’s right.

James: As we record this.

Kevin: I’m mourning for you. I know. We should not be having this conversation.

James: No, we should be having it. I’m turning this week into something really productive and shining the light on some of my favorite resources, putting together projects.

Copywriting has become pretty much the most important thing for when I launch new products, which I’ve done more of this year than any other year, because I’ve traveled the least. This is why it’s in my focal point right now. Big shout out to Dan. Next year, brother.

Kevin: Dan’s, yeah, a great guy.

James: Also, there’s another fellow at your conference who knows Dan, and he’s coming to the Maldives as well. Austin. So we’ve got a really good network there.

Kevin: Oh, cool. Austin and Dan met at a Copy Chief Live as well. So, Austin Lee. Very exciting, yeah. So, tons of proof. And like I said, I’m very proud of the fact that a lot of the leaders now, I think, came on our platform and built their confidence there.

James: So you’re a king maker.

Kevin: A little bit. A little bit. I don’t mind saying I got a little gray in the beard now. Papa Kev, you know what I’m saying?

James: I’m proud of Copy Chief, too. Because I was there at its birth you know, it’s like I…

Kevin: You built it, my brother. It does not exist without James Schramko.

James: No, together, we’ve watched this thing go. For me, being at Copy Chief Live was like, this is what an iteration of what we’ve been doing looks like down the track, but with your own special spin and flavor and flair. We’ve never printed T-shirts at my event. So you just had to come at it at a new angle. I hope we get to do live events again one day, because that was such a good event, really worth the massive travel to get to it.

Kevin: Yeah. It meant the world to me to have you there.

James: What’s after proof?

Making it safe for the buyer

Kevin: Safety. So, standard 30-day…

James: I like the new term, by the way. It’s much easier to understand than risk-reversal.

Kevin: I think so. Yeah.

James: But I had Nir Eyal on my show talking about creating a safe workplace. Safety has to be far more topical now than ever before. And people will do things or not do things based on how safe they feel.

Kevin: Yeah.

James: And I think that’s a perfect renaming. Good job.

Kevin: Thank you. Yeah, it’s becoming a sadly rare commodity in the real world.

James: So why is Copy Chief safe?

Kevin: Safe because you get 30 days to try it out and, you know, use it all, consume as much as you can. And if it’s for any reason not for you, and you don’t feel overwhelmingly supported and welcomed and you’re not blown away by the value, you just write to us and get your money back. No problem. So that’s why it’s safe.

Why there’s sometimes no bonus

The bonus is, there’s actually no bonus. Bonus is an interesting one, probably the one I see eliminated from this list the most often, because it just doesn’t apply. What more can I give, James? You taught me, own the racecourse. Everything I spend the energy to create just makes the membership more valuable. So everything I have is there for you inside of Copy Chief. I can’t give you a bonus on top of that.

James: You know, my latest product, SuperFastResults, has a product called Support Assist. Ten dollars a month, and your questions get answered. That’s the product. There is nothing else. There’s no calls, no training. There’s no gigabytes of crap. There’s nothing else other than a question box. You type your question, you’ll get an answer, usually the same day. That’s the promise.

And the power of that is the lack of any distraction, lack of anything else. And it’s the first product I put out for a while where I had zero creation prior to releasing that. It’s like, the easiest thing for an expert to add to their – I was going to say, “quiver” – to their armory, to their portfolio, is a paid Q&A box. I feel like I’m pioneering this category, but the real feature of it is the lack of any distraction. So sometimes the bonus is not required. Okay?

Kevin: Yep.

Call to action and close

Action is of course, you know…

James: Where do we go?

Kevin: Call to action, you go right to the order page. You’ll see very congruent branding there. You’ll see a few testimonials from members, you’ll see a bullet list of everything you’re getting.

James: Where is this, CopyChief.com, or somewhere..?

Kevin: That’s CopyChief.com/join.

James: Join.

Kevin: And that’s that’s where you’ll see, yep. And you can click over to the order page there.

And close is, again, if you’re ever feeling frustrated trying to do this alone wondering if what you’re writing is good and going to convert, and you’d like a community to help you determine that, trusted professionals who do this every single day, then give us a try and I think you’ll be pleased.

James: Beautiful. And if you want more details on the 4 x 6 cards, you can get it inside Copy Chief?

Kevin: Yeah, I would go to this blog post that you’re going to link.

James: Yeah. And buy it.

Kevin: And you can see it in action before. And to get it, it’s only a $7.95 product, so they can get the full training that I gave. Actually, here’s a cool bonus. On this offer, James, I actually give them my talk from your event. Because it was such a great talk, it was such an epic time for me to be in Sydney. So that’s one of the bonuses on that offer.

James: Great. And if you’re a member of SuperFastBusiness, then it’s inside the membership. The only other way you can get it is from the man himself. Kevin, the funnyman, Rogers.

Thank you so much for sharing your card system with us. And I hope we can get you back.

If you’ve been listening to this and you’ve got questions for Kevin, anything to do with copywriting, anything to do with anything Kevin’s talked about, or if you just want to put him on the spot with some future role plays, then just send me an email or comment where this post is. And we’ll get Kevin back to cover more.

For now, Kevin, thank you so much for sharing, and good luck with your rollout. I know you’ve got some really good things coming to Copy Chief, and it’s so fun to chat with you on a frequent basis about it.

Kevin: Likewise, appreciate everything, James.

Get access to world-class business coaching inside JamesSchramko membership.

Need a hand with your copy? Get in touch with Kevin Rogers at CopyChief.com

Enjoyed the show? We’d appreciate a review on iTunes

Share on Facebook

Tweet