Video Transcript:
Jason Drohn:
Hey, hello. This is Jason Drohn. Welcome to Sales System Experts, Episode Five. We are talking about ad copy frameworks and Aaron, how are you doing?
Aaron Parkinson:
I'm doing amazing, good sir. How are you?
Jason Drohn:
Oh, it's Friday, which doesn't mean anything, but it's fun to think about.
Aaron Parkinson:
I'm going to make it mean something because it's my birthday tomorrow.
Jason Drohn:
Is it your birthday tomorrow?
Aaron Parkinson:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jason Drohn:
How old are you going to be?
Aaron Parkinson:
I will have toured this planet 43 times.
Jason Drohn:
Wow.
Aaron Parkinson:
Hence the gray.
Jason Drohn:
Right, right?
Aaron Parkinson:
The gray is not usually there, but we are out of hair dye on my island.
Jason Drohn:
It's all gone. There's that are blue, right?
Aaron Parkinson:
Yeah, that's it. Everybody's scrambling, trying to make themselves not look like they do and inventory is gone.
Jason Drohn:
Well, iced tea? You can do iced tea or Kool-Aid maybe?
Aaron Parkinson:
This trickery that you speak of, is that what you use? Iced tea?
Jason Drohn:
No, I have no idea. No, I'm good with going gray. I'm just going gray, but it's like-
Aaron Parkinson:
You're good with going gray because you don't have any. That's the kind of bullshit that people say who don't have any.
Jason Drohn:
I have some, you just can't see it.
Aaron Parkinson:
You can't see it, it doesn't count. Mine is clear. I've got the George Clooney thing going down.
Jason Drohn:
It's not bad. It's not a bad thing.
Aaron Parkinson:
My wife still likes me. That's all that matters.
Jason Drohn:
That's all that matters. That's all that matters. All right. So today we're talking about ad copy, ad copy frameworks, right? Five to be specific.
Aaron Parkinson:
Yeah. We're going to talk about five today unless we start rambling on with more, but maybe set the tone. I feel like ad copy is kind of one of those things that everybody thinks about last.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
They know how to build the machine.
Jason Drohn:
Yep.
Aaron Parkinson:
Because there are lots of details and we talk about building the machine all the time, but the machine will only take you so far.
Jason Drohn:
Right.
Aaron Parkinson:
You have to be able to write something compelling enough to make somebody want to do something.
Jason Drohn:
Right, which is the challenge a lot of times. And then you have Facebook's weird thing like you can't make people feel bad about themselves. If you can't make them feel bad about yourselves, how do you get them to do anything? I'm just kidding.
Aaron Parkinson:
Or even too good about themselves.
Jason Drohn:
Right.
Aaron Parkinson:
That's a conversation for another day, but it's also why we don't rely on one channel. We do Facebook, we do Instagram, we do Google, we Google, we do native, influencers. We mustn't get too stuck in one channel because if you remember the mid-2000s, I was doing a million four hits a week on Google.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
And then they decided one day, "We're just going to change the algorithm." And it went down to 200,000 and I was like, "Ahh."
Jason Drohn:
Yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
I have no business.
Jason Drohn:
Yep.
Aaron Parkinson:
Start from scratch. Cancel the order on the Ferrari.
Jason Drohn:
Right.
Aaron Parkinson:
That would be a conversation for another day. But specifically, what we wanted to talk about today was ad copy frameworks.
Jason Drohn:
You said you wrote something up for this?
Aaron Parkinson:
I did.
Jason Drohn:
Is this something you want to share on your screen?
Aaron Parkinson:
I don't know if I want to share it on my screen only because I think it would be boring to read along with me, but I can if that's what we want to do. Maybe I'll just do it quickly and then we'll go through it.
Jason Drohn:
Okay, well you should have a little thing at the bottom that says, share screen.
Aaron Parkinson:
I have the share screen on the bottom. Oh, it's asking me for my system preferences. The old new computer thing.
Jason Drohn:
So don't worry about it. No worries. We'll just talk through it.
Aaron Parkinson:
It's all good. I think I got it rolling. Hold on. There we go. Do you see my screen?
Jason Drohn:
Look at that, boom. There it is.
Aaron Parkinson:
That looks fancy. Wow. All right. So these are frameworks that we build off of in 7 Mile Media, in the agency. And I'm just going to summarize them quickly and then I'll dive into each one a little deeper. The top of it is just the thing that we just talked about, which is everyone always asks, what's what makes a high converting offer? Writing good ads is a battle of psychology. You have to understand what your prospect wants at a deep level. You need to be able to get their attention and you need to bond with them quickly. Sounds simple, right? It's not. It takes a lot of practice and there's a lot of great resources out there.
Aaron Parkinson:
I'm going to talk about the frameworks for our ads that we use as the base and then we build off of. So the first one is called the origin strategy, and this can be a video or it could be image and text. You should always test both. But the purpose of this is to show where you came from, what were your pains, what was your aha moment, and how your life has changed as a result of the thing that you wish to sell. Because the goal is to get people to visualize themselves in your shoes and bond with you. And I can read through this ad if you want, Jason, or we can just talk about your thoughts on the origin story framework.
Jason Drohn:
I think we just talked about thoughts.
Aaron Parkinson:
All right.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah, so origin story framework. So in writing copy, ad copy, whatever, it's one of the reasons to figure out who your avatar is and speak directly to who that avatar is because when you write for one person and then like thousands or millions of other people read it, they read themselves into that story. So like I, 14 years ago, drove a Pepsi truck. So I cannot tell you how many people have come to me over the years and said, "Oh my God, I drove a truck too," or "I'm a truck driver," or "I'm a freight driver," or "I drove over the road," or I love road trips." They write themselves into that story in whatever way suits them. But it starts as that bonding mechanism.
Aaron Parkinson:
And you've given them social proof that they can accomplish whatever that goal is even with humble beginnings. And in my first foray into digital marketing, I told my story, which was that I didn't have a great childhood and my sole purpose was to be a good dad and be around, more importantly, to raise my kids the way that I wanted to be raised. And my story was all about how I found myself a month after having my daughter in two jobs, working 14 hours a day, seeing her for 15 minutes, and how it was just unacceptable. And as a result, I learned digital marketing, and here's my course on how to emulate the same thing. And I went more into detail on it, but I had so many people come to me and say, "You know what, man? I just had a kid and I never get to see them and this sucks and I don't want my life to be this way. And I resonated with your story." And that was my story. Your story was the Pepsi truck. Mine was the crappy two jobs with a brand new kid.
Jason Drohn:
Yep.
Aaron Parkinson:
And we bonded with those people. So being able to have that origin story of where you started, what was your pain, how did it make you feel, what was the aha moment to solving it, and what you've done since then and why it works and why other people should entertain the idea is the standard origin story framework that we use. And it doesn't have to be like we're talking about, learning courses and stuff like that, but you could pivot the origin story to something completely different. The origin story that I have in this one was one of my clients who has an organic supplement company.
Aaron Parkinson:
And so hers I'll just read it out. "Having my daughter was both the greatest day of my life and the most terrifying. It was amazing because I felt feelings deep in my core that I didn't know, I could even have. It was pure love. It was terrifying because, for the first time in my life, I realized I was now responsible for taking care of someone being the best example I could be. I knew what I was currently doing wasn't going to cut it. I had to up my game. So I started looking at everything we were putting in our bodies. I realized that so many of the products on the market have nasty chemicals and harmful side effects. That was my aha moment.
Aaron Parkinson:
I assumed there were other mothers just like me that needed a simple way to solve common issues with natural and organic solutions. That's why I created the XYZ company. At XYZ company, we make all of our products by hand with love, and we use the highest quality organic ingredients. Do you want to sleep better? We can help. Do you want to boost your immune system? We can help. Do you want to detox? We can help. Come and check out everything we have to offer at XYZ company and join a community of healthy, happy, and natural families. Click the link below." Right?
Jason Drohn:
Perfect.
Aaron Parkinson:
So that's an origin story framework that would work in E-commerce as an example, right? So when you start to wrap your mind around it, you can apply the origin story framework to SAS, to an E-Com product, to an education product. You just have to speak your truth and talk about those specific pain points that we talked about inside of it.
Jason Drohn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And to get around all those, those interesting Facebook filters, which is you can't make people feel bad about themselves, you can't make people feel good about themselves because you're talking about yourself or your product, or in this case, both. I mean, so Facebook is entirely about sharing your own story and this is your own story. It's your origin story. And you put that in an ad and you can scale the bejesus out of that thing. And it doesn't make people feel bad about themselves because it's your story,
Aaron Parkinson:
Right, if you're going to rephrase that all too, did you just have a kid? Are you terrified about putting nasty chemicals into them? Have you been looking for a solution? Do you feel like a bad mother? It's not going to get through, right. But my origin story, no problem. Right? So let's go into the second framework. And I don't think I'll share the screen for the second framework, because I think that we can talk through it. Right? So the second one is what I call the real-life video selfie strategy. Right? And the purpose of this is to show your products being used in the real world because people resonate with proof.
Aaron Parkinson:
You just have to make sure that, you do it in a compliant way if there's anything that can be misconstrued as uncompliant. Right? So I used the same client in this framework. And so she would shoot a selfie video with her product in either her business or her home or wherever she was using it. So she would shoot the video and simple phone selfies work best because they look native to the platform. They don't look like an ad. They look like something that someone-
Jason Drohn:
Yeah. Oh, one just got me yesterday. It was like a full-on a selfie with the dude and a chic and I was like, oh, bam. And then there was a pattern interrupt and then they got me. I mean, they got me hard.
Aaron Parkinson:
You bought it.
Jason Drohn:
I bought it.
Aaron Parkinson:
Yeah, so the example with this one is, "Hey, this is her name creator of XYZ business. A couple of people in our household used to struggle with sleep. So I created a product called XYZ that's organic, safe and a great alternative to harmful sleep medications. XYZ product allows the body to absorb magnesium, which is one of the key elements to deeper sleep and most people are shockingly low on it. Here's how simple this is. You just take a small grape-sized amount." So she takes the jar, puts it on her fingers, "and you rub it in the soles of your feet." And she rubs it on her kid's feet.
Aaron Parkinson:
"Your body absorbs it in and then you head to bed, simple stuff." And she puts her kid in bed. "To get your XYZ product today, just click the link below and we'll ship it to you within the next 72 hours. You'll be joining a community of healthy, happy, and natural families." So she's demonstrated her product in action in an environment where the customer can mentally put themselves because they're familiar with it. So it's a real-life product demo versus a product demo where you're like, here's the product, they open it up, they show inside, they show the label. It's a product in action demo. So what are your thoughts on that ad copy framework?
Jason Drohn:
I love that ad copy framework. Well, it cuts through all the fluff. I mean, so at the end of the day, it feels native to the platform. It's the same reason native ads work and it's a simple video. I'm sure it requires zero takes. I mean, it's-
Aaron Parkinson:
And very little editing.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
And you'll see this common in E-com. If you ever see a video, and I'll just use an example of a product that I own called Bar Locker Lock. We do a video that's like, "Hey, do you love riding bikes, but hate carrying a knapsack around just to have your bike lock in it?" And someone is pulling out the old, U-lock in the thing and trying to pull it apart and put it on or whatever. "What if there was a bike lock where you could just take it in, pull it out, no extra bags, simple, simple and it slides down the bar on the handlebars of the bike. So it just snaps right in, pulls out, boom, done. Bang looks cool. No drama, no backpack, no craziness."
Aaron Parkinson:
And it's just that, "Hey, do you hate this? What if you had this?" Demonstration of it working, this will make your life so much easier and call to action.
Jason Drohn:
Right, yep.
Aaron Parkinson:
And you see that video selfie demo just crushes on cool E-com products all the time. We had to be a little bit more elaborate with the last girl's because it's a supplement. We have to explain what it does and how it works and blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you can quickly show pain, agitation, solution, right?
Jason Drohn:
Yep.
Aaron Parkinson:
And do it in that video demo style, it works effectively.
Jason Drohn:
It's not quite so easy with digital products.
Aaron Parkinson:
No, it's not, and not all of these are ideal with each one, but where it does work well is for SAS. When you take a screen share of it, right? "You tired of having to copy and paste this all the time and move this over here," and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah are, or in your particular case, your email writing software, right? "Are you tired of having to spend 10 hours writing all the emails every time you build a funnel? Well, watch this." Industry, boom, bang, and people are just like, wow, like there it is. It can work for digital, it just depends on how you structure it. Right?
Jason Drohn:
Yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
So number two was the video selfie strategy. Number three is us versus them strategy. And the purpose of this style is to expose something obvious about them and make people feel uncomfortable. Something that it might even make them mad because people psychologically bond with someone who's trying to help the little guy and stick it to the man. Right? So us versus them strategy is here's an example of one. Did you know the average American is now graduating with over $40,000 in student debt? The total for all student loans is over $1.5 trillion." Big, shocking, make me sick headlines.
Jason Drohn:
Right.
Aaron Parkinson:
And then it goes on to say, "I can't even wrap my mind around that number. My question is why? Why are we so focused on this traditional education job path? There's so much demand right now for sales. Every company on earth is fighting day and night to get more sales, they compete or they die. Businesses want us to bring them sales. They want us to solve their problem and they're happy to pay for it. Would you like to know how I've tapped into this billion-dollar market? I've put together a simple PDF, web class, whatever that shows you the exact method I use to find products, play simple ads on social media, and sell products. No college, no student loans, no drama. Click below to get instant access." Right? So it's us versus them, it's us versus the establishment and trying to get people bond with you in this unique novel idea or strategy.
Jason Drohn:
Right.
Aaron Parkinson:
What do you have to add to us versus them?
Jason Drohn:
People love to hate somebody and when they're hating one person, then they're joining you, so we see it in the survival space all the time, survival in the proper market. I mean, there are so many things to hate in that space. There's government, there's money, there's infrastructure-
Aaron Parkinson:
Political party.
Jason Drohn:
Right?
Aaron Parkinson:
Survival is awesome for us versus them strategy. It works well.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah. The example that you pulled, I mean, it's interesting. I would imagine it's an affiliate marketing product of some sort, right?
Aaron Parkinson:
Yeah, education, affiliate marketing, could work well for digital marketing courses.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah. Interestingly, you utilize the big trillion-dollar number in education as them for affiliate marketing. I mean, it's cool.
Aaron Parkinson:
And I'll target that at people 20 to 30 years old.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
We're right in the mix of I'm in college or I've just graduated college or I've just got my first dumpy job like I was. Right? That was the kind of ad I would use when I was first getting started where I'm like, man, I just got out of college, I just got a kid, I got two crappy jobs, I'm making $40,000 a year. I'm barely paying my bills, this sucks.
Jason Drohn:
Right, yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
And so that's who... I'm not going to target 50-year-old females.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah. Right, right, right, right.
Aaron Parkinson:
Right? So us versus them draws a line in the sand and can get people to bond with you quickly. The next one is what I call the shock and awe strategy. And the purpose of this is just to show people the massive problem in the world or the size of the opportunity right in front of them or whatever. It's very statistic based. Right? So in this ad, I put a big headline. "It's time to capitalize wake up. Last year, a seven-year-old generated $22 million in revenue reviewing toys on YouTube.
Aaron Parkinson:
Last year, a 15-year-old made over $6 million by people watching him play video games. Last year, Amazon had over 6 million products listed on its website, 6 million products in one year, most by small affiliates. We're in the greatest era in history for those people who want to take control of their finances uniquely. I've decided to put together a free web class, PDF, et cetera, that shows my exact three-step process that I use to find hot selling products, make simple social media ads and make sales. To get instant access click here."
Jason Drohn:
Nice, simple. Yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
So shock and awe of like, holy crap, look at the size of the opportunity. And you could pivot this again into almost any industry. So if we just choose, let's say we're going to sell clothes.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
Right? We'll just choose clothes. Right?
Jason Drohn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Aaron Parkinson:
"Did you know that the average t-shirt is marked up 1000% from China to the distributor to the shipping, to the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and what you're paying for your kids' clothes is 10 times more than you should. And the quality is terrible. And the giant machine is just feeding you that these are what the prices should be, but at Lucy's Wholesale Kids' Clothes, we cut out all the individuals and blah, blah, blah, blah. We bring it directly to the source for you at 25% of the price."
Jason Drohn:
Right.
Aaron Parkinson:
So when people read it, they're like, "Oh man, I feel dumb. I feel dumb paying full price for this machine that upcharges everything before it gets to me. I'm just going to go to the source." Right?
Jason Drohn:
Right, right.
Aaron Parkinson:
And so that would be another shock and awe. The shock and awe are to make people aware, but also make people feel stupid that they're caught in their current habits and break habits.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah. One thing in writing shock and awe in all kinds of ad copy, you don't necessarily want to slant too heavily to the logic-based side of the brain. So numbers are numbers, but you need to pair the numbers with the emotional side.
Aaron Parkinson:
Absolutely.
Jason Drohn:
In the same ad. So you talk about numbers, but if you're over on that side too much, then you lose half of the people reading the ad because you're not talking about emotions.
Aaron Parkinson:
Yeah. You got to shock him with the big stats and then tie it back to how it affects them personally and affects their life and how their life could be better if they paid attention to what's going on. And so the shock and awe strategy is great too because it disrupts people's attention because it's not some big bold-
Jason Drohn:
Oh yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
And the last one is one I don't use a lot, but it's very effective. It's the throwing stones strategy. I wrote this one last night because my team was asking me for an example of the throwing stone strategy. So the purpose of this is to draw a line in the sand between you and the competitors in your marketplace and define why you're different and just coming out and saying, "Why I'm different," isn't that attractive to read from an ad copy.
Aaron Parkinson:
But again, because people's natural gravitation is towards negativity, which is why all of our news is negative instead of positive because it sells more. This takes the negative slant to get them in, to get them to the positive slant. So this was one in the agency world that I wrote last night. And it was easy for me to write because I've been dealing with this week. So the headline is in big bold capital's, "I've been burned by agencies so many times. I just got off my fifth strategy session this week where a company told me this, and to be honest, I'm getting sick of it. The word agency has now become a joke. You've got people buying courses on how to run some ads and then the next week they're taking retainers from unsuspecting clients and they have no idea how to fulfill it.
Aaron Parkinson:
You'll even see them posting in marketing groups on Facebook asking questions like, 'Hey, does anyone know how to generate leads for the XYZ industry? I just signed a client.' This nonsense has to stop. A real agency," and then number down, "evaluate your offer, has successfully run traffic to that type of offer before, can tell you if your offer won't convert and steer you towards a new way to do it that is currently getting results. Has a creative team, tech team, support staff, and they all have the experience, communicates with you multiple times per week so you're never left in the dark, knows how to scale ad spend beyond $5,000 per day profitably, and guess what? Has testimonials. If you don't have these things, then stop calling yourself an agency. You're making it hard for the real professionals like us. Go and work for someone for a few years and get some experience under your belt.
Aaron Parkinson:
Maybe then we'll hire you." Wink face. "If you're looking for a real agency to run your campaigns profitably and for the longterm with professionalism, then schedule a strategy session with me, and let's talk. Book here at 7 Mile."
Jason Drohn:
Yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
Right? So the throwing stone strategy is making fun of your competitors with things that you know the buyers in your market have experienced.
Jason Drohn:
Right.
Aaron Parkinson:
Right? It's not like you're just making stuff up. You want them to be like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. That happens all the time and I've had that happen four times and blah, blah, and this guy gets me. And if he gets me, then he clearly can't run the same way as those other people do." And they come in. So what's your take on the throwing stones strategy?
Jason Drohn:
I love it. So pivoting to consumer kind of oriented brands, I mean, you look at Dollar Shave Club and that was their primary strategy-
Aaron Parkinson:
Amazing.
Jason Drohn:
A viral video was throwing stones. And there's a book that is downstairs called the Billion Dollar Brand Club. And it's an entire book about consumer brands getting that billion-dollar valuation and their viral campaigns and their ad campaigns and almost every single one of them is throwing stones. They're throwing stones. There's a ThirdLove, which is a bra company and they throw stones against Victoria's Secret. And then there are the Purple mattresses and they're throwing stones against Serta. So everything is this David and Goliath jaunt and all of them took that play right out of Dollar Shave Club.
Aaron Parkinson:
Yeah. And you can do angry throwing stones, that one was an angry throwing stones, or you can take comical throwing stones. If people haven't watched the Dollar Shave Club ad that was filmed for $15,000, it's on YouTube, where he's making fun of essentially Gillette and the big companies talking about how overpriced they are and how much money goes to Roger Federer as a sponsor and just how ridiculous the whole concept is. That $15,000 ad got them bought out for a billion dollars five years later.
Jason Drohn:
Yep, yep.
Aaron Parkinson:
And it's all throwing stones, but comically.
Jason Drohn:
You're right.
Aaron Parkinson:
Which is awesome.
Jason Drohn:
Yep.
Aaron Parkinson:
And so you can be angry or you can be comical, they both work.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
Are there any other frameworks, and there's a million of them, but are there any that jump out to you today where you're like, "This is one of my go-to frameworks."? And I may not have already touched on it. I'm sure you use all the same ones that I do.
Jason Drohn:
No. I mean, everything that we do kind of falls within the same wheelhouse. I mean, so one that I know that has worked well in the past is case studies. Doing case studies and sometimes you can do a carousel ad where it's like a case study, case study, case study, or example testimonial, testimonial, testimonial. So those work tremendously well and that's all content that has given to you. Not given to you, but it is something that somebody else provides you based on their experience and it doesn't even have to necessarily be a direct experience or a transformational result of the product or the offer. It can be an experience with a person on the team or good experience of a refund or a good experience of any positive experience that can be slanted to shine the light on the part that you want a light shone on.
Aaron Parkinson:
Absolutely. And we used to use those only for retargeting videos, which we'll get into in another day, but we're finding that starting with the straight-up testimonial ads, instead of pitching the product, just starting with a testimonial ad, is converting well.
Jason Drohn:
Harmon Brothers have the back concept. There've been doing a lot of testimonial videos. They start with testimonial videos or what they do is combine the real-life selfie video with testimonials.
Aaron Parkinson:
He calls it the sandwich video. So it'd be like a testimonial, product demo, professional testimonials sandwiched together.
Jason Drohn:
Right.
Aaron Parkinson:
That's his highest performing ad for Boom by Cindy Joseph, which is very interesting.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
So yeah. I mean, there's-
Jason Drohn:
So many.
Aaron Parkinson:
They're just designed to get people a base to work off of, and sometimes you just need that base to inspire creativity.
Jason Drohn:
Yep. Totally. Well, we are a couple of minutes past and I think you killed it. You did awesomely.
Aaron Parkinson:
Well, hopefully, somebody can take some value from today and go make a bunch of money.
Jason Drohn:
Sounds good. And next week, maybe we'll talk about retargeting next week. What do you think?
Aaron Parkinson:
I think that'd be fun.
Jason Drohn:
Cool. All right, have fun.
Aaron Parkinson:
So see you next week, right?