Most ads and sales pages read as if they came off the same template. Same headline shape, same three benefits, same button. Readers have learned to skip all of it.
The way out is a wider set of moves. This post collects 33 copywriting techniques, and each one comes with a real ad that used it: who made it, when it ran, and what happened where anyone measured it.
I rebuilt this list in October 2026. I checked every example against the brand, the agency or press coverage from the time, and replaced 14 of them, mostly because they couldn’t be verified or weren’t worth copying. Where a study explains why a technique works, I’ve linked it.
If you want fill-in-the-blank templates, my 100+ copywriting formulas cover those, and my 27 persuasion hacks cover the psychology. This post is about moves you can see working in finished ads. Each section ends with one way to use the technique in your own copy this week.
| # | Technique | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Name a frustration people put up with | Dyson Airblade (2006) |
| 2 | Speak to the person who actually buys | Old Spice, “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” (2010) |
| 3 | Sell the outcome instead of the spec | Apple iPod launch (2001) |
| 4 | Call out your advantage directly | Dollar Shave Club launch video (2012) |
| 5 | Show what’s at stake | “Daisy” (1964) |
| 6 | Show the everyday cost | CDC, Tips From Former Smokers (2014) |
| 7 | Tell a cheeky joke | KFC “FCK” (2018) |
| 8 | Force a double-take | Volkswagen “Lemon.” (1960) |
| 9 | Make a bold claim, then test it | The 4-Hour Workweek (2007) |
| 10 | Back it with an outrageous guarantee | The Boring Company flamethrower (2018) |
| 11 | Answer the objection nobody says out loud | Phonak Lyric (2017) |
| 12 | Give a gift for showing up | Wall Drug “Free Ice Water” (1936) |
| 13 | Name the unfairness, then hand over the fix | Always #LikeAGirl (2014) |
| 14 | Lead with one real number | GEICO “15 minutes could save you 15%” |
| 15 | Tell a story the reader sees themselves in | Wall Street Journal “Two Young Men” letter (1970s) |
| 16 | Go long when the buyer cares | David Ogilvy’s Rolls-Royce ad (1958) |
| 17 | Admit a weakness | Avis “We try harder” (1962) |
| 18 | Send something unexpected | Chewy’s free pet portraits |
| 19 | Give away a genuinely useful guide | The Michelin Guide (1900) |
| 20 | Put a name and face on it | Amazon “Alexa Loses Her Voice” (2018) |
| 21 | Shock with a headline you can back up | Patagonia “Don’t Buy This Jacket” (2011) |
| 22 | Tell a customer’s story in full | Codecademy alumni stories (2018) |
| 23 | Flip the fear | WWF “Horrifying. More horrifying.” (2010) |
| 24 | Use a mistakes headline | “Do You Make These Mistakes in English?” |
| 25 | Dare them | “Are you man enough to be a nurse?” (2002) |
| 26 | Say who it’s not for | Lilach Bullock’s masterclass page |
| 27 | Flatter the insiders | Artizone “Food Snobs Unite” (2015) |
| 28 | Sell it as an opportunity | Shopify “Let’s Make You a Business” (2019) |
| 29 | Prove you get them | Kentucky for Kentucky in the Oxford American (2017) |
| 30 | Sell the story around the product | The J. Peterman catalog |
| 31 | Demonstrate your one differentiator | Blendtec “Will It Blend?” (2006) |
| 32 | Make the cheap option look risky | Starbucks “Beware of a cheaper cup of coffee” (2009) |
| 33 | Set the price anchor yourself | De Beers “two months’ salary” |
#1: Name a Frustration People Put Up With
Before 2006, drying your hands in a public restroom meant paper towels or a warm-air dryer slow enough that plenty of people gave up and wiped their hands on their jeans.
Dyson launched the Airblade in the UK in 2006 and in the US in late 2007. The launch claim was that it “dries hands completely in just ten seconds”, and Dyson’s own research found that two in three people said hand dryers take too long (Marketing Week).
Nobody was campaigning for faster hand dryers. People had simply stopped noticing the annoyance. Dyson named it, put a number on the fix, and built a product line on it. The Airblade Tap, a tap with the dryer built in, followed in 2013.
A product that removes a familiar irritation needs very little explaining. The copy only has to remind people the irritation is optional.
To use it this week, open your sales page with the annoyance your buyer has stopped noticing, and attach a number to your fix. A bookkeeping service might write: “Still matching receipts on Sunday night? We do it in 48 hours.”
#2: Speak to the Person Who Actually Buys
For decades, Old Spice was the smell of your grandfather. Wieden+Kennedy’s research for P&G turned up the fact that changed the brief: women made 60% of all men’s body-wash purchases.
So “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” talked to them. The spot, written by Craig Allen and Eric Kallman and starring Isaiah Mustafa, went online on 4 February 2010 to sell Old Spice Red Zone After Hours body wash. It ends with Mustafa on a horse.
Red Zone sales were up 60% by May against a 15% goal, and by July they had doubled, according to the Muse by Clios oral history. The ad won the Film Grand Prix at Cannes Lions and an Emmy that year.
Men’s toiletries had always been written for men. The person holding the shopping list was often someone else, with opinions about how her partner smelled that no brand had spoken to.
To use it this week, work out who really signs off on the purchase (a spouse, a boss, a parent) and write one ad hook to them. For a kids’ coding course: “For the parent who’s tired of the screen-time argument.”
#3: Sell the Outcome Instead of the Spec
On 23 October 2001, Apple announced a music player with a 5 GB hard drive. The press release headline didn’t mention gigabytes. It read: “Ultra-Portable MP3 Music Player Puts 1,000 Songs in Your Pocket” (Apple).
The iPod cost $399, a lot for an MP3 player in 2001. Five gigabytes means nothing to most people. A thousand songs in your pocket means something to anyone who owned a stack of CDs.
Buyers judge an offer by the result they picture. A spec only persuades once someone translates it into that result, and most readers won’t do the translating for you.
To use it this week, rewrite the top line of your pricing page so it states the outcome instead of the deliverable. “8 coaching calls” becomes “Your first paying client in 8 weeks”, as long as you can back that up.
#4: Call Out Your Advantage Directly
If you have a clear advantage over the competition, say it loudly and put a number on it.
Dollar Shave Club launched on 6 March 2012 with a YouTube video that cost $4,500. Co-founder Michael Dubin walks through a warehouse and asks: “Do you like spending $20 a month on brand-name razors? Nineteen go to Roger Federer.” The video brought in 12,000 sign-ups in the first 48 hours (Entrepreneur).
The company kept the price comparison going for years, as in this post from its own account.
In 2016, Unilever bought the company for $1 billion.
A meta-analysis of comparative advertising found that comparison ads beat non-comparative ones on attention, brand awareness and purchase intention, and that new brands taking on established ones gain the most (Grewal et al., 1997). Comparison ads also cost a little credibility, which is why the numbers have to be checkable.
To use it this week, add a two-column “Me vs. the usual way” block to your pricing page with one honest number in each column. For example: “Agency retainer: $3,000 a month, 3-month minimum. Me: $900 a month, cancel any time.” Use your real numbers. Comparative claims have to be true.
#5: Show What’s at Stake
Fear works when the reader can do something about it.
The textbook example is “Daisy”, made by Doyle Dane Bernbach for Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 presidential campaign. It aired once as a paid spot, on 7 September 1964 during NBC’s Monday Night at the Movies. A little girl counts the petals on a daisy, her counting turns into a launch countdown, and the screen fills with a nuclear explosion. The announcer closes: “The stakes are too high for you to stay home” (Wikipedia).
It aired once and was replayed endlessly in news coverage. It names a threat, then gives one action that answers it: vote.
A meta-analysis of 127 articles found that fear appeals reliably shift attitudes, intentions and behaviour, most of all when the message also tells people exactly what to do (Tannenbaum et al., 2015). Fear with no clear action tends to make people look away. Drew Eric Whitman puts survival and freedom from fear among the eight core buying drives in Cashvertising, and my notes on the book cover how fear-then-relief copy works in a funnel.
To use it this week, pair every risk you mention with one easy step. A backup service’s email subject could be: “If your laptop died tonight, what would you lose? (Fix it in 5 minutes)”. Don’t invent or inflate the risk.
#6: Show the Everyday Cost
There’s as much selling power in “I don’t want that to happen to me” as in “I want that”. Nobody wants a life that gets quietly worse every day.
The CDC’s Tips From Former Smokers campaign uses real people to show what smoking-related illness looks like on an ordinary morning. Shawn W. lost his larynx to throat cancer and breathes through a hole in his neck called a stoma (CDC). His 2014 TV spot gives tips like: “When you have a hole in your neck, don’t face the shower head. Be very careful shaving.”
The campaign has numbers behind it. A study in The Lancet estimated that its first wave, in 2012, produced about 1.6 million extra quit attempts and more than 100,000 people who quit for good (McAfee et al., 2013). Shawn’s ads came later, so those figures belong to the 2012 wave.
Everyone shaves and showers. Tying the cost to those moments makes it personal in a way a statistic about cancer rates never does.
To use it this week, name the small, visible embarrassment your product prevents. A proofreading service: “Never get ‘I think you meant their’ as a reply from a client again.”
#7: Tell a Cheeky Joke
In February 2018, KFC switched delivery companies in the UK, and the new one, DHL, couldn’t get chicken to the restaurants. Most of KFC’s UK restaurants closed at the peak. A chicken chain with no chicken.
Mother London’s answer ran as a full-page ad in The Sun and Metro on 23 February 2018: the bucket with its letters rearranged to “FCK”, above the headline “WE’RE SORRY.” The body copy is plain: “A chicken restaurant without any chicken. It’s not ideal” (Creative Review).
It won Gold in Print & Publishing at Cannes Lions that year (Campaign).
The joke got people to read it, and the sincere apology underneath made it land. A meta-analysis of humour in advertising found it raises attention, liking and purchase intention but lowers the source’s credibility (Eisend, 2009). That’s why KFC paired the joke with a straight apology instead of joking all the way through.
To use it this week, the next time you slip up (a broken link, a late launch), send a short apology with one self-aware line in the subject: “We broke the link. Sorry. (Here’s the working one.)”
#8: Force a Double-Take
Making people lean in for the payoff is one of the least used moves in advertising, because it means trusting the reader to keep going.
In 1960, Doyle Dane Bernbach ran a Volkswagen ad with a photo of a perfect-looking Beetle and a one-word headline: “Lemon.” The body copy explains: “This Volkswagen missed the boat. The chrome strip on the glove compartment is blemished and must be replaced. Chances are you wouldn’t have noticed it; Inspector Kurt Kroner did.” It closes: “We pluck the lemons; you get the plums” (Stratton Craig).
Calling your own product a lemon makes the reader look twice. The payoff turns the insult into proof of quality control. Ad Age later ranked DDB’s Volkswagen campaign the best of the 20th century.
Curiosity spikes when people notice a specific gap in what they know, and they act to close it (Loewenstein, 1994). Close the gap quickly, or it reads as clickbait.
To use it this week, write one email subject that opens a gap the email closes in its first line. A candle shop: “Why we threw away 400 candles last week” (the answer is the quality check). My headline formulas have more shapes to try.
#9: Make a Bold Claim, Then Test It
A claim most people find hard to believe can stop them scrolling. The work is finding out which version they’ll click.
Tim Ferriss’s first book came out in 2007 under a title most readers thought was impossible: The 4-Hour Workweek. Before publication, Ferriss spent under $200 running Google AdWords ads for about a week on six candidate titles, including “Broadband and White Sand” and “Millionaire Chameleon”, and picked the one with the best click-through rate (Boing Boing). The book spent four years on the New York Times bestseller list.
Your own opinion of which headline is best is a weak guide. A week of paid clicks settles it for the price of a dinner.
To use it this week, write three headlines for your lead magnet, from safe to bold, and run each as a $20 Meta or Google ad. Keep the one with the best click-through. For example: “Write your newsletter in 30 minutes a week” against “A simpler newsletter routine” against “Newsletter tips”.
#10: Back It With an Outrageous Guarantee
In January 2018, The Boring Company put a $500 flamethrower on sale. Elon Musk’s pitch on Twitter: “When the zombie apocalypse happens, you’ll be glad you bought a flamethrower. Works against hordes of the undead or your money back!”
It sold out in about four days: 20,000 units and $10 million in pre-orders (TechCrunch). Customs rules on anything called a flamethrower led to a new name, “Not a Flamethrower”.
Most of the pull came from Musk’s following, so don’t expect those numbers. The part worth borrowing is the guarantee. It was absurd enough to share, and a money-back promise still lowers the buyer’s risk.
To use it this week, put a plain-English guarantee you can honour under your checkout button: “If the template doesn’t save you an hour in week one, reply and I’ll refund you. No form.” Make it specific and keep it real.
#11: Answer the Objection Nobody Says Out Loud
Knowing your market lets you answer the objection buyers are too embarrassed to raise.
Phonak’s brief for its Lyric hearing aid started from a hard number: only about 30% of the roughly 33 million Americans with hearing loss seek treatment, largely for cosmetic reasons. In March 2017 the agency Terri & Sandy launched print and digital ads in 12 countries with headlines like “My midlife crisis is obvious. My hearing aid is not.” (MediaPost).
The headline names the fear (looking old) and answers it in ten words, with a joke that puts the reader in on it. Lyric sits deep in the ear canal, so the claim is believable.
That last part matters. In 2023 the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority ruled against a different hearing-aid seller whose “invisible” aids were visible when worn (ASA). Answer the objection with something true.
To use it this week, list the one thing buyers are embarrassed to ask you, and answer it in a FAQ headline on your sales page. For a beginners’ fitness class: “Never worked out before? This class starts from zero.”
#12: Give a Gift for Showing Up
If you want people to visit, offer them something they want for turning up.
Ted Hustead bought the drugstore in Wall, South Dakota, in 1931. In the hot summer of 1936, his wife Dorothy suggested offering free ice water to people driving across the plains. Ted put up a run of signs along the highway, and the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains says advertising a free product to get people into the store “proved to be immensely successful”.
Wall Drug still gives away ice water, still uses roadside signs, and says it gets 2 million visitors a year (Wall Drug).
Free pulls harder than its cash value suggests. In experiments by Shampanier, Mazar and Ariely, cutting a price to zero changed people’s choices far more than an equal price cut anywhere else (2007).
To use it this week, put one free, useful item at the top of your homepage or welcome email with “Free” in the headline, such as “Free: a 12-email welcome sequence you can copy and paste”. Then put your paid offer on the thank-you page.
#13: Name the Unfairness, Then Hand Over the Fix
Most people carry a grievance about something unfair. If your product lets them push back, say so.
In June 2014, Always released a film made with Leo Burnett and directed by Lauren Greenfield. It named an unfair thing (girls’ confidence drops at puberty, and “like a girl” gets used as an insult) and gave viewers a way to take the phrase back. A 60-second cut ran in the Super Bowl in February 2015.
The film passed 85 million views. Before the campaign, 19% of women aged 16 to 24 had a positive association with “like a girl”, and 76% said the video changed how they saw the phrase (Contagious). It won the PR Grand Prix at Cannes Lions in 2015.
The grievance gave people a reason to watch. Taking the phrase back gave them something to do about it.
To use it this week, open a sales email by naming the unfair thing your buyer puts up with, then give them a way to fix it. Subject line: “You shouldn’t need a $5,000 agency to get your first 100 subscribers”.
#14: Lead With One Real Number
Numbers sell, as long as there’s one of them and it’s true.
GEICO has run “15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance” for more than 20 years. The Martin Agency has held the account since 1994, and by 2016, 93% of Americans recognised the promise. Campaign credits the work with moving GEICO from eighth in its category to second (Campaign US). GEICO also spent up to $1 billion a year on media, so the line didn’t do that alone.
The number has to survive scrutiny. In 2007 the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority made Colgate drop its claim that 80% of dentists recommend its toothpaste, because the survey let dentists name several brands (Cosmetics Business). An inflated stat is worse than none.
Specific numbers read as more credible than vague claims (Xie & Kronrod, 2012).
To use it this week, put one real number next to your call to action: “Members cut their first-draft time from 3 hours to 40 minutes (average of 212 survey replies).” Only use a number you can show the working for.
#15: Tell a Story the Reader Sees Themselves In
Direct mail has to earn the opening and then the read. The most successful letter in its history did both with a story.
Martin Conroy, a freelance copywriter, wrote a subscription letter for The Wall Street Journal that the paper mailed from the mid-1970s until 2003. It opens: “On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men.” Twenty-five years later, one is a manager at a company and the other is its president. The difference, the letter says, is what each of them knew and how they used it (SOFII).
Estimates put the subscriptions it brought in at about $2 billion over 28 years.
The letter never raises its voice. It hands the reader two people to compare themselves with and lets them decide which one they’d rather be. I’ve collected more letters worth studying in my post on direct mail.
To use it this week, write one email in the same shape: two similar people, one difference, and your product is the difference. Subject line: “Two freelancers, same skills, very different January”.
#16: Go Long When the Buyer Cares
You’ll read plenty of claims that long copy is dead. For buyers who care about the decision, it never was.
David Ogilvy’s Rolls-Royce ad first ran in 1958 under the headline “At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”. The ad credits that line to the technical editor of The Motor. The body is a numbered list of 13 facts. In Confessions of an Advertising Man, Ogilvy wrote that the first version ran 719 words, “piling one fascinating fact on another”.
Research on how people process ads backs him up. When a decision matters to the reader, they read the arguments, and more strong arguments persuade them more. When it doesn’t matter, they skim and go by surface cues (Petty, Cacioppo & Schumann, 1983). Long copy is for the first group.
To use it this week, add a numbered list of 10 to 15 concrete facts to the sales page for your most expensive offer: what’s included, how many hours, what happens on day one, the refund terms. Swap every adjective you can for a fact.
#17: Admit a Weakness
Being upfront about a limitation can make the rest of your pitch easier to believe.
In 1962, Avis was a distant second to Hertz and losing money. Doyle Dane Bernbach, with copywriter Paula Green, built a campaign on admitting it was No. 2, with the line “We try harder.” (Duke University Libraries).
Within a year Avis went from losing $3.2 million to a $1.2 million profit, its first in more than a decade. Between 1963 and 1966, the market-share gap with Hertz narrowed from 61-29 to 49-36 (Jalopnik, citing Slate).
A meta-analysis of two-sided advertising, meaning ads that admit a drawback, found the admission makes the positive claims more believable (Eisend, 2006). The usual advice is never to point out a weakness. Avis built its best-known campaign on one.
To use it this week, add a “What this isn’t” box to your sales page that names one honest limitation and turns it into a reason to buy: “This isn’t done-for-you. You’ll spend about 3 hours a week. That’s why people actually finish it.”
#18: Send Something Unexpected
A surprise in the post does more than its cost suggests.
Chewy, the online pet retailer, sends more than 1,000 free hand-painted portraits of customers’ pets every week, the Associated Press reported in 2021. It also sends handwritten notes to new customers, holiday cards, and flowers when a customer’s pet dies. One customer told AP: “I just want to buy everything from them” (AP, via The Spokesman-Review).
Chewy hasn’t published a return on the portraits, so I won’t guess at one. The mechanism is well documented, though. In a restaurant study, servers who gave diners an unexpected extra sweet got bigger tips (Strohmetz et al., 2002). An unprompted gift makes people feel they owe something back, the same idea behind Robert Cialdini’s work on setting the stage before the sale.
To use it this week, send your five newest customers a handwritten card, or a small surprise like a printed cheat sheet. Mention something specific about their business, and don’t ask for anything.
#19: Give Away a Genuinely Useful Guide
A free guide works when it’s useful enough to keep.
In 1900, the tyre makers André and Édouard Michelin published a free guide for French motorists, with maps, instructions for changing a tyre and lists of places to buy petrol. The aim was to get people driving more, which meant buying more tyres. The first edition ran to nearly 35,000 copies. It stayed free until 1920, and the restaurant stars came in 1926 (Michelin).
The brief Michelin set itself is the useful part for a small business: solve one job your buyer has, completely, and keep your name on the cover while they do it.
To use it this week, turn your three best posts or emails on one topic into a 10-page PDF that solves one job end to end, and offer it at the bottom of those posts: “The Pricing Page Field Guide (10 pages, free)”.
#20: Put a Name and Face on It
People respond to a person more readily than to a product. Give your product a name and a voice, or put your own face on what you sell.
Amazon’s “Alexa Loses Her Voice” ran in the 2018 Super Bowl. Alexa, the voice assistant, loses her voice, and Jeff Bezos and a string of celebrity stand-ins (Gordon Ramsay, Cardi B, Rebel Wilson and Anthony Hopkins) try to fill in. The London agency Lucky Generals made it, and it ranked first on the USA Today Ad Meter that year (LBB).
The whole ad treats a piece of software as a person with a job to do. Research on products given human traits finds people warm to them when the human cues fit the product (Aggarwal & McGill, 2007). A voice assistant is about as good a fit as there is.
To use it this week, put your face and name on your opt-in and checkout pages: a real photo and “Hi, I’m [name]. I’m the one who answers your emails.” Or send onboarding emails from a named person instead of “Team”.
#21: Shock With a Headline You Can Back Up
Tabloids have sold on outrageous headlines for a century. The move works in advertising too, provided the copy underneath earns it.
On Black Friday 2011, Patagonia ran a full-page ad in The New York Times with the headline “DON’T BUY THIS JACKET”. The copy set out the environmental cost of making the jacket and asked readers to buy less and repair what they had, as part of Patagonia’s Common Threads initiative (Patagonia).
A clothing company telling you not to buy its clothes, on the biggest shopping day of the year, is a shocking headline. The body copy turned it into an argument.
Patagonia’s sales rose almost a third in 2012, to $543 million (Bloomberg Businessweek). Plenty else was going on, so I wouldn’t credit the ad alone. Lab research does find that shocking content earns more attention and recall than plain content (Dahl et al., 2003).
To use it this week, write one counterintuitive headline your copy can back up: “Don’t buy my course if you have fewer than 500 subscribers.” Then explain who it is for.
#22: Tell a Customer’s Story in Full
A line like “I used it and saved $500” is a testimonial. A customer whose life changed is a story, and stories persuade differently.
In 2018, Codecademy published a short documentary-style video following three learners who used its courses to change careers. The description notes that Codecademy “has taught over 45 million people the technical skills they need for 21st-century jobs – these are the stories of just three of them.”
When people get absorbed in a story, they argue with it less. Green and Brock called this transportation, and in their experiments the more absorbed readers came away more persuaded by the story’s point of view (Green & Brock, 2000).
To use it this week, ask your three happiest customers for a 60-second phone video answering three questions: what was life like before, what changed, and what’s different now. Put the best one directly above the price on your sales page.
#23: Flip the Fear
Shock doesn’t need a taboo. Sometimes the biggest jolt comes from reframing what people already fear.
In 2010, DDB & Co. in Istanbul made a three-ad print campaign for WWF. In one, a shark fin is labelled “Horrifying.” Beside it, the same sea with no shark is labelled “More horrifying.” The other two did the same with a snake and a bird of prey. Each closes: “Exploiting the ecosystem also threatens human lives” (Communication Arts).
The shark is the thing everyone fears. The ad points at an empty sea and says the real threat is the one you can’t see.
To use it this week, flip your customer’s obvious fear into the less obvious, bigger one. A bookkeeper’s email subject: “Scary: a letter from the IRS. Scarier: no letter, and no idea where your money went.” The “X is bad. Y is worse.” shape also works as a sales page headline.
#24: Use a Mistakes Headline
People can’t resist checking whether they’re doing something wrong.
“Do You Make These Mistakes in English?” was written by Maxwell Sackheim to sell Sherwin Cody’s home-study English course, and it ran for more than 40 years in newspapers and magazines. Victor Schwab, Sackheim’s protégé, tested it against “How to Speak and Write Masterly English”. The mistakes headline pulled nearly three times the response (Wikipedia, citing Schwab’s 1939 account).
Every reader has to check. Nobody is sure they don’t make those mistakes.
A study of about 105,000 Upworthy headline variants found that each extra negative word in an average-length headline raised click-through by 2.3% (Robertson et al., 2023).
There’s a right and a wrong way to use this. A lot of clickbait leans on the same pull and then fails to deliver, which teaches readers to ignore ads. The Cody ad delivered: the course taught people to fix the mistakes. My fascination bullet formulas have more headline shapes that run on curiosity.
To use it this week, rewrite one post or email title as a mistakes headline and A/B test it against the positive version: “Are you making this pricing mistake on your coaching page?”
#25: Dare Them
Challenge your prospects and some of them will want to prove you wrong.
In 2002, the Oregon Center for Nursing wanted more men to become nurses. Its poster showed nine working male nurses aged 24 to 64 (one was a Navy SEAL, another rode a Harley) under the headline “Are you man enough to be a nurse?” It went to every middle school, high school and community college in Oregon (Daily Nurse).
The poster turned the objection (“nursing isn’t for men”) into a test of toughness. The executive director, Dr. Deborah Burton, called the response “overwhelming”, with calls from students, parents and men looking to change careers. No enrolment figures were published.
It drew criticism too, for leaning on the same ideas about masculinity it set out to challenge. A dare works best when it flatters the buyer without insulting anyone else.
To use it this week, write an ad hook that dares your ideal buyer: “Think you’re too busy for a 10-minute workout? Prove it for 7 days.” Pair it with a free 7-day challenge.
#26: Say Who It’s Not For
Telling some people not to buy sounds like it costs you sales. Done well, it reassures the buyers you want.
Lilach Bullock, a UK digital marketer, put this warning on the registration page for a masterclass called “How to sign up 10 new clients this month”: “Warning: This is a 1 hour masterclass workshop for those who are looking to implement a proven system for growing their business. If you’re looking for a get rich quick scheme, this training is not for you.”
Nobody signs up hoping for a scheme. The line works because it tells serious buyers this is a real system, and it puts off the people most likely to ask for a refund.
To use it this week, add a two-column “This is for you if… / This is not for you if…” block above the buy button. Make the “not for you” items real: “Not for you if you want done-for-you ads. This is a do-it-yourself program with weekly coaching.”
#27: Flatter the Insiders
People like to signal who they are, and food is one of the places they do it most.
In March 2015, Artizone, an online artisan grocery delivery service in Chicago and Dallas, launched a campaign called “Food Snobs Unite” with the Chicago agency Tom, Dick & Harry Creative. One ad read: “Groceries for people who can use ‘mirepoix’ in a sentence.” It ran on billboards, at Union Station and inside commuter trains (PRWeb).
Anyone who knows what mirepoix is feels recognised. Anyone who doesn’t wasn’t the customer. Research on identity signalling finds people choose products partly to show which group they belong to, especially in categories like food and music (Berger & Heath, 2007).
Artizone shut its grocery service in February 2016, after its main source of revenue, a project in Israel, closed (Progressive Grocer). The copy still holds up.
To use it this week, write one ad hook built on a word only your insiders know, such as “Bookkeeping for people who know what a 1099-NEC is.” Run it as a Meta ad headline against your current generic one.
#28: Sell It as an Opportunity
If your product helps people earn, sell the earning.
In April 2019, Shopify ran its first-ever brand campaign, made with R/GA, with films directed by Traktor. The tagline was “Let’s Make You a Business”. It ran on TV, online video, billboards, radio and social in 12 US and Canadian markets, and put the campaign in empty shop windows too (Shopify).
Shopify sells software subscriptions. The campaign sold the start of your own business, which moves the reader’s question from “what does it cost?” to “what could it pay back?”
Shopify didn’t publish results, and this move has a dark side. Plenty of companies have sold “opportunities” that paid off only for the seller. If you use it, you need real customer numbers behind it, and in the US the FTC has rules on earnings claims.
To use it this week, put a “what this pays back” line on your pricing page in your buyer’s terms. For a $297 Etsy SEO course: “One extra sale a week at $25 pays for this in 12 weeks.” Only use it if your customer data supports it, and never imply guaranteed income.
#29: Prove You Get Them
Show your audience you understand them, even if that means teasing them a little.
In the Oxford American’s Kentucky music issue (Issue 99, Winter 2017), the Kentucky apparel brand Kentucky for Kentucky and its sister brand Southern Socks ran a full-page ad headlined “WE SPEAK YOU’RE LANGUAGE”. The typo was deliberate (Adweek). The fine print at the bottom reads:
We know. It’s “your” not “you’re.” We just figured that a typo would be the best way for our ad to stand out in a fine publication like Oxford American Magazine. But nice catch anyway, William Faulkner.
A literary magazine’s readers are exactly the people who’d spot the typo and feel a little smug about it. The fine print rewards them with a joke in their own voice.
To use it this week, put one affectionate in-joke in an email P.S. that only your readers would get. For a copywriting list: “P.S. Yes, I ended a sentence with a preposition. Fight me.” Then check whether replies go up.
#30: Sell the Story Around the Product
If you sell something ordinary, the better storyteller wins.
John Peterman started the J. Peterman Company in 1987 with the copywriter Donald Staley. Their first ad, for a cowboy-style duster coat in The New Yorker, sold 70 coats. Peterman says they turned down advice to keep the copy short and chose illustrated, story-driven entries instead (Mental Floss).
This entry sells a $319 double-breasted tweed blazer by opening on “A chartered helicopter to Southampton for a martini or two with the Jones…”. The catalog became well known enough that Seinfeld gave Elaine a job there in 1995.
Stories pull the reader in, and readers who are pulled in argue less with what the story implies (Green & Brock, 2000).
To use it this week, rewrite one product description as a 60-word scene, in the second person, that shows where the buyer will be when they use it. For a $40 notebook: “Gate B14, flight delayed two hours, and you’ve finally got the business plan out of your head…” Put the specs underneath.
#31: Demonstrate Your One Differentiator
Knowing what makes your product different is half the job. Showing it is the other half.
In 2006, Blendtec’s marketing director, George Wright, spent about $50 on a lab coat, marbles, a rake and a few other things, and filmed founder Tom Dickson blending them. Each episode of “Will It Blend?” opens with Dickson asking “Will it blend? That is the question.” Every episode proves one claim: this blender is extraordinarily powerful.
Wright said the first week brought 6 million views, and that within two years the videos helped raise retail blender sales by 700%. Those are the company’s own figures (BYU Magazine).
Writing “powerful” proves nothing. Watching a phone turn to dust proves it in under a minute.
To use it this week, film a 30-second phone video that proves your one differentiator with a visible test. A candle maker could film a timelapse of a 60-hour burn, or a virtual assistant an inbox going from 3,000 to zero. Put it at the top of your sales page.
#32: Make the Cheap Option Look Risky
Premium brands can sell the risk of going cheap.
In May 2009, with the recession biting and McDonald’s rolling out McCafé espresso drinks, Starbucks ran ads headlined “BEWARE OF A CHEAPER CUP OF COFFEE. IT COMES WITH A PRICE.” The campaign, which included a full-page New York Times ad, talked about bean quality and barista training without naming a rival (NBC News/AP).
The ad turns a lower price into a hidden cost. It wasn’t universally loved: Marketplace called it tone-deaf in a recession. That’s the risk with this move. It works on buyers who already lean premium and can grate on everyone else.
Visible premium brands also work as status signals. In field experiments, people wearing luxury labels were treated more favourably (Nelissen & Meijers, 2011).
To use it this week, add a “Why I’m not the cheapest” section to your pricing page with specific reasons. A web designer: “Every site is hand-coded and load-tested. Cheap templates break on update. You email me directly, and there’s no ticket queue.” End it with: “Cheap websites come with a price.”
#33: Set the Price Anchor Yourself
Most prices get set by the market. Some brands set the reference point themselves.
Frances Gerety, a copywriter at N.W. Ayer & Son, wrote “A Diamond Is Forever” for De Beers, and it has run in its ads since 1948. Advertising Age named it the slogan of the 20th century in 1999 (Wikipedia, citing Ad Age).
De Beers’ advertising also told buyers how much to spend. The suggested amount for an engagement ring rose to two months’ salary in the 1970s and 80s, and later to three. By the end of the century, 80% of engagement rings had a diamond in them (The Marketing Society).
This is anchoring. People estimate a value by starting from a number they’re given and adjusting, and the adjustment is usually too small (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). “Two months’ salary” handed every buyer the starting number.
To use it this week, put a true reference price on your pricing page in your buyer’s terms, or list your highest tier first so the middle one looks reasonable. For a $1,500 brand strategy package, if it’s true: “Most clients spend about one month’s ad budget on this, and it decides where the other eleven go.”
How to Test These on Your Own Offer With AI
Reading 33 techniques is the easy part. Picking which three to try on your own offer takes longer, and an AI model saves real time here.
Here’s the workflow I’d use with Claude or ChatGPT.
1. Paste in your sales page or offer, plus two or three sentences on who buys and why.
2. Paste in the table of 33 techniques from the top of this post.
3. Give it this prompt: “For each of the 33 techniques, write one headline or opening line for my offer that uses it. Use only facts from my offer. If a technique would need a claim I haven’t given you, write ‘skip’ and say what fact you’d need. Then pick the five lines most likely to make my buyer stop and read, and explain each choice in one sentence.”
4. Cross out anything that rests on a claim you can’t prove.
5. Test three to five of the survivors where you can measure fastest, which for most small businesses means email subject lines or a $20 ad test like the one in #9.
When I ran one of my own offers through this, the best new version brought in 57% more sales than my existing copy.
The model is good at volume and bad at truth. It will happily call your hearing aid invisible (see #11) or invent a statistic (see #14). Every line it gives you needs checking against what you can show.
The number to watch is the one closest to the money: replies, clicks to your offer, or sales per send. Opens on their own tell you very little. My primer on ChatGPT for copywriting goes deeper on prompting, and I write up AI workflows like this one for online businesses in Bionic Business.
Where to Start
Start with the technique your competitors would be most uncomfortable using. If nobody in your market admits a weakness, try #17. If every ad in your niche is shouting, try the quiet double-take in #8.
