How This One Copywriting Book Helped Me Sell $7.2k+ of Digital Products.
And the 3 copywriting secrets you need to know.
I want to confess a dark secret.
I never knew you could make money from words.
When I started writing online, it was for fun. The ability to express myself. To teach the world what I learned. And connect to a global community of other writers.
But slowly I realized the power of writing.
If you can write persuasively, you can influence people to take action. And if you master long-form writing, you can sell anything to anyone. Writing online is how I travel the world full-time and make money from a laptop.
That’s a real superpower.
But most writers are still broke…
Imagine opening up your email inbox.
And seeing endless receipts for digital product sales.
Your heart starts to race. You just made $100+ while you slept in your PJs. You start to question all the ways you made money in the past.
Your brain is rewiring itself.
You question your 9–5 job. All that work for such little money. That feeling of making digital product sales never goes away. It’s like digital crack. The euphoria is incredible. It’s addictive AF.
But if you can write, you’ve got a money-printing skillset.
Even in a world of AI. ChatGPT can spew out words on a page. It can give you content. But it can’t provide you with context. People don’t have an information-content problem. They’ve got a context problem.
Context is information in motion.
Content is information that stays still.
Level 1 writers only give content.
Level 2 writers give content with context.
Most content is static for the end user unless given the context to act. I recently broke my wireless mouse. After some Googling, I realized that it was the sensor inside that was cooked.
While I had all the information, I still had no context to solve my problem.
To fix my problem, I needed an expert to help give me more context. I couldn’t just solve everything with info and content. If information was the only problem, we would all be millionaires with six pack abs.
That’s where writers come in.
You need to be able to create context for your audience, not just content. Too many writers are glorified search engines. They sound exactly like ChatGPT or Google. They get stuck writing $5 articles on Fiverr. Stop.
Here’s the playbook for creating context, not just content.
Speak from experience, not features.
People don’t care about your product.
Seriously.
When was the last time you had a wet dream about buying an Excel spreadsheet to track cash flow? Never. I couldn’t think of anything worse.
What do they care about? Their problems.
And people understand their problems from their experience.
Not from a scientific definition.
Don’t write:
“You don’t have product market fit.”
Write:
“You have a panic attack at 2:00am in the morning. Your heart is racing. There is a pounding in your ear. You start to sweat. “Am I having a heart attack?”. Nope. You have a pervading thought that investor money is running out and you don’t have enough time to get your product right for the next round of funding. Your start-up might fail.”
See the difference?
You’re talking about the same problem.
No one ever talks about their problem from a feature angle. They talk about their problems from how they experienced them. Use that language. That’s how you get into the heads of your audience.
To speak from experience, engage human senses:
Touch
Sound
Taste
Feeling
Smell
Look back at my rewritten paragraph.
See how I engaged the experience of feeling. You could feel it. You could hear it. It makes for an immersive experience. I’ve transported you into the feeling of a panic attack. Soz.
But that’s my point.
Level 1 writer bore their audience with features.
When you talk from experience, people say “take my money”.
When you talk about features, people say “let me think about it”.
If you want buyers, not viewers:
Write from experience, not features.
Understand human psychology.
Humans are simple.
We are hardwired with 8 evolutionary drives.
Survival.
Enjoyment of food and beverages.
Freedom from fear, pain, and danger.
Sexual companionship.
Comfortable living conditions.
To be superior, winning, keeping up with the Joneses.
Care and protection of loved ones.
Social approval.
We can’t prevent these desires.
They are inbuilt. These are our default settings. You can attribute 90% of your behaviour back to one or several of these evolutionary drivers.
But yet, writers ignore them.
Most writer’s think they are smarter than billions of years of evolution. Drop your ego. You can’t compete with human nature. You’ll lose every time.
Sprinkle these human drives into your writing.
That’s why writing is a super power. You understand how to use words to influence people to move. To click. To sign-up. To buy. Psychology is the reason we do anything.
I started to rewrite my landing pages to focus on human desires.
Since then? My digital product sales have increased. I’m making a sale everyday. It’s wild. Small, simple changes equals dollars in the bank.
People buy from people.
People aren’t cold-calculated robots. They are emotional. Illogical. Irrational. Prone to biases and prejudice. Fearful and insecure. The beauty of human nature is the messiness of it all.
The six principles of influence.
In 1984, an unknown researcher released the bible of influence.
He released six principles of influence that were as close to universal laws. These include:
Liking
Reciprocity
Authority
Scarcity
Comparison
Commitment
In the decades since, Robert Cialdini’s work has stood the test of time.
If your writing is getting ignored, it’s because you aren’t addressing one of these influence principles. Most writers treat their writing has a public diary.
But not you.
You write to ethically hijack the influence mechanism of your readers. You understand what moves them to take action. You embed these tactics in your writing.
Isn’t this manipulation?
In short, yes. But we are being manipulated all the time, from our parents, the school system, employers, and any form of media.
Used for evil ends, manipulation is bad.
Use for good ends, manipulation is good.
Don’t be naive.
You write words online to manipulate people to your worldview. I’m doing right now as you read this. But I’m manipulating you to help you make more money. Live a better life. Or start your own business.
Everything I write embeds one or more of these principles.
It’s how I’ve been able to sell $7k worth of digital products.
Learn to use persuasion tactics, or be used by them.
Turn your words into wealth.
If you can write, you’ve got a money-printing skill.
I mean it.
The best part? You can learn or get better.
This one book allowed me to sell $7k+ of digital products.
Start by:
Repositioning your digital product.
Communicating in experiences, not features.
Embed fundamental human psychology into your words.
Learn persuasion and influence devices to get your audience to take action.
Watch your digital product sales skyrocket.
👉 Build your PROFITABLE six-figure one-person while you work a 9–5 job (Even if you have kids or a mortgage) If you want my one-person business growth system, I’ve created a FREE email course for you to get started
This is a great piece, Michael.
I started reading copywriting books recently, and I'm learning a lot too.
Thanks for sharing this.
Another good one Michael.
Being a senior copywriter, who's worked for many ad agencies and major corporations, I can tell you the biggest problem copywriters face is the lack of autonomy.
Account handlers, project managers and stakeholders almost invariably rake through any copy presented to them and start by sucking all the emotional value out of what they read, often to such a degree the copywriter feels compelled to surrender to the pressure from above. As a solopreneur, however, you have no excuse to be dull or robotic.