Jay White’s “How To Make Six Figures Writing Catalog Copy” Interview Transcript
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Below is the interview transcript explaining how to break into freelance catalog writing.
START:
BEN: Jay, how are you?
JAY: I’m good, Ben. Thanks for having me today, man.
BEN: To get things kicked off, a lot of people listening to this are either freelance copywriters or people who want to be freelance copywriters. And we’re always inundated with the fantasy of getting a client on the Internet—and you write this long eight page sales letter, and maybe it takes two weeks or two months to write it. And you have kind of different approach with the catalog copywriting. Why don’t you tell us why copywriters should be interested in doing catalog copywriting—either instead of, or in addition to, what they’re doing now.
JAY: Well the great thing about catalogs and I’ve been a copywriter for about ten years and most of that time I spent writing for catalogs as an in-house writer for one of the world’s leading sporting goods and outdoor companies. And so this is kind of how I cut my teeth. Before I learned how to write a sales letter, I was writing catalog copy. So I’m kind of going at it in a little big of a backwards fashion as opposed to how I’m trying to teach people how to do it—going from the sales letter aspect to a catalog aspect which I think is easier actually.
But anyway why should people be interested in catalog copy? There’s three main reasons why catalog copy is a great place for a copywriter to be looking for business right now. And one of those reasons it’s because it’s such a huge market place. I was reading some statistics a few months ago, and right now there are about 17,000 different catalogs that go out every year. Now I don’t mean total catalogs, I’m talking about 17,000 different titles, okay? About 11,000 consumer catalogs and about 6,000 business to business catalogs. And every year the catalog business grows by leaps and bounds. Last year the catalog sales came in at around $145 billion. Next year, or excuse me this year, they’re already looking at it to be around $160-$165 billion. And then by 2010 they’re thinking it’s going to hit $200 billion. So as you can see, there’s a lot of money being spent with people buying through catalogs—just good old regular catalogs like you get in the mail. And it’s growing. It’s a huge market place.
But one of the biggest things about it for a copywriter is there’s very few copywriters servicing this industry. I mean how many catalogs writers do you know?
BEN: Absolutely none. Besides you I honestly—it was so under-the-radar for me that…
JAY: Exactly.
BEN: …I didn’t even think about it until I think I saw something you wrote on the Internet somewhere. And I thought, “Now that is intriguing…” because I had never even heard of it.
JAY: Yeah. Exactly. I mean when you think about it it’s a big book full of copy. And if somebody’s gotta be writing that. So you hit it right on the head, man. Under the radar. Catalog copy is so under the radar and the people that are writing it and making very good livings at it are basically keeping their mouths shut and just doing their thing you know—saying, “I’m going to keep my big piece of the pie and not let anybody in on this.” So there’s very few copywriter servicing this industry. And there’s the potential to make a lot of money in the catalog industry. There’s no reason at all why a copywriter who’s doing the right things and can write a decent copy block and knows how to get clients can’t make 6-figures a year writing catalog copy.
Now, I don’t come out here and preach and say, “You should just write catalog copy and nothing else.” I say use this as an additional income stream to your sales letter writing business. Because to me it’s easier, you can write a block a lot quicker than you can a sales letter. And it’s a lot more fun. Because you get to write about a whole bunch of different things. As opposed to just focusing on one particular niche or one particular sales letter for weeks at a time. So with those three things in mind I think that right now there’s a huge opportunity for copywriters in the catalog industry.
BEN: One of the things that attracted me to it is because I’ve been slowly segueing out of the freelance copywriting thing and more into info-publishing which I think a lot of people are—and certainly a lot of smart copywriters are doing that—and it seems like the perfect way to fund your info-publishing thing a lot easier than spending weeks or months just tearing your hair out over one promotion and one client. You could just bat out these catalog copy blocks, make some good money, support yourself and still have money left over to finance you’re doing on the side. Is that sort of a way you do it, too, or…?
JAY: Well, in a way yeah. As a catalog copywriter you can take as little business as you want. Maybe you’re working a day job and you just want to earn a little extra money—catalogs are a great way to do that. Or you can build an entire career around it if you wanted to. Again, what I suggest is kind of balance that and keep writing your sales letters, keep writing your emails, keep writing your direct marketing pieces. And add catalog as another income stream that you can tap into.
BEN: There’s a lot of—at least when I started looking into this deeper—I saw a lot of what you would call myths or misconceptions about the catalog copywriting business. What are some of the myths that people might be hearing out there that might be actually steering them away from even looking at it?
JAY: Well, I tell you I go to seminars and things and I meet other copywriters and we all compare backgrounds, “Where are you from, how did you get started…” and when I tell them I came up through catalogs, they always do the same thing. They kind of step back and go, “Oh! I’ve never known anybody who’s written for catalogs before. I always thought that catalogs were blah blah blah.” And then I come and say, “No, that’s actually a myth.” And one of those myths that gets tossed at me most of the time is that you can’t make any money in catalogs. A lot of people think you just can’t make any money—that people won’t pay you a decent amount of money to write a catalog block. And that is just not true.
Now, I’m not saying that there aren’t a lot of catalogers out there who pay peanuts for copywriters and copywriters will gladly come in and write for peanuts. I’m not saying that there isn’t that faction out there. But there is a large faction that pays very well for copy. And I’m talking about making $500, $600, $700 a day writing catalog copy. Maybe a $1,000 depending on the subject matter. It’s easy to do. And if you can find those clients and tap into that money stream, you’re good to go. You’re really good to go.
One of the other myths that they have about catalog copywriting is that everybody says, “I thought they were all in-house writers.” And there is some truth to that. Some of the bigger companies have an in-house writing crew that they use specifically so that they can write only about their things. When I worked in the catalog industry that’s what I was part of—an in-house writing crew. But as the market grows, and as they keep adding more and more titles, catalog titles, and sending out more and more nichified books, then they’re needing more and more new copy. Which means that the people that are in-house are overloaded with work and so they’re starting to farm this stuff out. And that’s why this right now is a great opportunity to tap into this and position yourself right up front and say, “Hey, I’m the guy to take care of that for you.” Because they’re starting to farm more work out.
And one of the other things about copywriting that I think a lot of people think is that there’s not really prestige with it. It’s like you said, it’s kind of an under the radar thing. With sales letters it seems like in our industry that the bigger ones who write the cool, mondo sales letters are kind of super-stars. And in catalog copywriting that’s not really the case. You’re just kind of a piece of the puzzle and you do your job and you send it off and you get paid. Now there’s a lot of people who like that. And they just do their little work at home, and get their checks, and go buy cars and swimming pools and what not. And if that’s your thing then catalogs is the way to go because you’re not in the spotlight. You’re a piece of a bigger puzzle and a very integral piece, but a piece nonetheless.
BEN: Plus—and I think I remember something you said about this—when you write a regular sales letter and something doesn’t go right, it probably has nothing to do with your copy—but the client wants to blame you and point the finger at you. But with catalogs, if something doesn’t work they don’t even think about you as being the problem.
JAY: Exactly. And in a sales letter yes, the client could come back to you and say, “Your sales letter stunk and that’s why my thing doesn’t sell.” Well, that may or may not be the case, but there’s a very good chance if it’s just relying totally on the copy that yes, maybe the copy was the problem. In catalogs there’s a lot different components that happen there. You have the copy, you have graphics, you have the placement on the page, you have where the page is at in the book, you have a lot of competition on the page with other products. You have who the book is being mailed to. So yeah a lot of time if something doesn’t go as well as maybe a cataloger thought it would—they don’t come back to you and say it’s your fault. Because it’s kind of a group effort.
BEN: Yeah and that’s good because that’s one of the growing—I’ve seen it with myself and I’ve seen it with people I know—they’re getting tired of doing client work because of that very reason. The copy is what—20% of the process—but they don’t want the headaches. They’re putting their hearts and souls into these things and the guy running the ad might not market it properly and so I really thought that was a very attractive point. Kind of going on that theme of some of the differences between catalog copy and doing regular sales letters, what are some differences between writing catalog copy and maybe the long form ad or sales letter?
JAY: The obvious one is length. You don’t have to write a huge, long diatribe that goes into detail on this tangent and that tangent and this bullet point and that bullet point. You’ve got a little piece of real estate on the page. You’ve got to make your point, and make it fast. Get in, hit it hard, hit it hard, hit it hard, hit it hard and get out. And that’s what I love about catalog copy is the fact that you can produce a good copy block in less than an hour. I’m at the point where I could do in about 30 minutes because I know what works and I know what hot buttons to push in certain niches. And I can crank this stuff out. Now a sales letter—you know how it is—you get into this think and you gotta research it for weeks. And then you gotta pull out one draft and try 19 headlines. I don’t know about, I just don’t really like doing it. It’s like pulling one of my teeth.
BEN: It’s very exhausting.
JAY: Yeah. You’re bleeding onto a page and you’re hoping, “I hope somebody buys this…” Well, with catalogs you bleed a little bit but then you move on and you start another one and then you move on and you start another one and you do a bunch of them at a time instead of one big long one that you spend weeks on.
Another thing about the catalog copy that’s different from regular sales letters—and I touched on this earlier—with the regular sales letter you have your product right there on the page and that’s all you’re talking about and that’s all you’re leading your prospect towards. With catalogs… you have competition on the page. It may be only one or two things right next to the product you’re writing about that are competing for that person’s eyes. Or it might be 10 or 15 things depending on the product and how many different placements they have on the page. So you’ve gotta make it good. Gotta make a good pitch and you gotta know how to do it. And you gotta know how to do it quick. Because there’s a lot of things on the page that are pulling your eyes around and you’ve gotta find a way to suck those eyeballs right to the product that you’re writing about and make the sale.
BEN: When I started getting catalogs here, I subscribed to the catalogs you recommended and everything and I’m just amazed at how good the copy is. I think it’s better than—I don’t know who’s writing all this stuff—but I’m looking at this thing going, “Wow… this is another swipe file source.” Like you said, this is real salesmanship. This isn’t screwing around for three paragraphs trying to get to the point. I mean these guys just hit you in the jugular. I find myself wanting to buy everything in like SkyMall so if for no other reason it’s going to make you a better copywriter I would imagine.
JAY: Absolutely. I will make you a better copywriter because you will hone your craft and you will pare it down. You will start cutting away the fluff that you tend to throw in a sales letter and start getting more to the meat—because that’s exactly what a catalog copy block is—rich, red meat. And that’s what it has to be. There’s no room for any fat around it. You gotta get right to the point.
BEN: I know you can’t go into a whole bunch of detail, because it would take probably three hours, but could you share some tips on how to write a good catalog copy block?
JAY: Well, I think every copywriter learns about the AIDA formula early on: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. And that is the proven tried and true formula that still works today if it’s done correctly. And the same principal that the AIDA formula uses in the sales letter can be used in a catalog block. You have to find something to get their attention to pull them in, you have to pique their interest, create the desire and then have a call to action. Now as opposed to a sales letter where you would use three or four pages for each particular item of the AIDA formula in the catalog block, you’ve got maybe a line or two. So you’ve got to get in and get out pretty quick. But the AIDA formula is still present and still works in catalog copy. Power words are very, very important in the catalog copy block. I’m talking about things that evoke images, things that evoke feelings. You could say, “Wow! This thing is really great!” and people say, well, that’s what everybody says. You draw this picture of how this particular product will really put them in a different state of mind or in a different state of happiness or something like that—it’s the same kind of thing as the sales letter. You just have to use those power words to evoke those images and feelings in the catalog block to bring about the desire for the product.
One other thing is you want to—and I kind of touched upon this a minute ago—you want to use the senses. You want to put the product in the person’s hands. You want them to feel it. You want them to smell it. You want them to taste it on some occasions. You want them to slip on the coat and feel how the leather feels. You want to show them how the lure looks when it’s coming back to the boat. You want to talk about the flash. You want to talk about the colors. You want them to see a huge fish coming up grabbing it and taking off with it. You want them to feel that line going out. And you want to use all five sense to do this. Like I said, it depends on the niche, it depends on the catalog. But I’m telling you if you’re writing about food—you want to have that person’s stomach growling by the end of the block. And when I write blocks about food I usually go upstairs—I have an office in the basement—I usually go upstairs and raid the refrigerator an hour into it because I’m so stinkin’ hungry because I’ve hit all those hot buttons..
BEN: (Laughter) Yeah…
JAY: Same way with smell, same with touch, same way with hearing. Use the senses. The sense are very, very powerful in catalog copy.
BEN: I remember one of the blocks you wrote—you’re talking about a coat or something—it’s “butter soft” and I’m thinking I can feel that. Like we were talking about earlier—it can only make you a better copywriter doing this and reading these things.
JAY: You have to put the product tin the person’s hands or on the person’s body or on the person’s feet—man when you’re talking about shoes, you have to make them feel like these people were born in them. Like when you slip them on they’re like an old friend that you’ve had for years. That’s the kind of thing you have to evoke in catalog copy. And if you can get that feeling across, you’re going to make a sale 80%, 90% of the time. The senses are extremely important.
BEN: What do you do if you’ve never written a catalog block—and you know you could do it, but you have no experience, you don’t know anyone in the industry—what are some ways to get a client?
JAY: You’re wanting to go out and market yourself right away. The best thing for you to do is go to the google, type i the word “catalogs” and see what comes up. Because there are several sites. A couple that come to mind are catalogs.com, another one is cataloglink.com. There are places where you can go out and you can sign up for virtually any catalog they have in their database and their will be thousands. There will be thousands. And what will amaze you is when you start looking at these catalogs you’ll see catalogs that you never, ever dreamed existed.
And that’s what’s awesome about catalogs is it’s a niche within a niche within a niche within a niche. They’re narrowing down these niches to the nth degree and targeting people with them, because they know that if they give them exactly want they want there’s a higher chance that they’re going to buy. So when you go and you start looking through these catalogs it will be amazing. There won’t just be fishing catalogs. There’ll be bass fishing and crappie fishing and pan fishing and northern species fishing and off shore fishing and inshore fishing. And it just goes on and on and on. I used to write for these kind of catalogs. Same deal with hunting. It’s not just a hunting catalog—it’s a deer hunting catalog. It’s not just a deer hunting catalog, it’s a shot-gun season catalog. It’s a rifle season catalog. It’s an archery catalog. It’s a crossbow catalog. It’s a mule deer as opposed to a white tail deer catalog.
It just goes on and on and on and on and that’s what’s cool is you can find the niches that you love and that you’re passionate about and you can write for those things. googlecatalogs, catalogs.com, cataloglink—I would highly suggest if you’re interested in this just go out and look around and sign up to get a couple of these if you want and check them out.
BEN: Do you just call their customer service or email them or…?
JAY: First of all, I would suggest finding the niches that you love and making a list and then yeah, find an email of the office or a phone number—I used email to contact these people, I try to find some kind of a decision maker and then just basically tell them who you are and what you do.
BEN: I remember one of the things that you talk about is you shouldn’t bother contacting anyone unless you have some samples ready. How can someone create samples if they’ve never written before?
JAY: That’s probably one of the biggest questions I get is how do I go about making samples? And making samples in the catalog industry is incredibly easy. All you need to do is take and look at a catalog—any catalog at all—and find a copy block that you read and go, “It’s not really that great.” It doesn’t do a good job of selling you, putting you in the product, making you want to buy it. Take that copy block, copy and paste it onto a Word doc and re-write it. It doesn’t have to be graphically brilliant. All it has to be is words. This is what these people are hiring you for—for the words. So if you give them samples where you just basically got kind of a “before and after” thing, this is how I’ve rewritten it, that’s all you need. You give them four or five of these—preferably in the niche that they are selling or that they are in, they have their catalog in—then you show them a better idea of your talents and how you can improve what they already have and how you can create new copy blocks for new products for them. So it’s real easy. Go out and find some copy blocks and rewrite them to make them better. Put four or five of these on a Word doc and you got samples.
BEN: Do you literally rewrite the whole idea and everything, or do you just search and replace specific words, or is it a complete rewrite or…?
JAY: You know what, I just take it and I look at it and I think, “This could do a lot better.” And so in the after column I just rewrite the whole block. So I used a lot of the same ideas and a lot of the same selling points. I just try to sell better.
BEN: I guess you wouldn’t have any different selling points to work with.
JAY: Right. Possibly not, possibly not. But yeah, you take what they’ve got and you just improve on it. Just shine it up and put some lipstick on it. Show them your talent. Show them that you can help them sell things.
BEN: Which would be good practice anyway before you actually take an assignment I would think.
JAY: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
BEN: Alright… let’s say somebody gets contacted back by one of these catalog people and they have no idea how to price themselves. Are the clients going to say, “Here’s what we pay.” Or are they going to ask them, “What do you charge?”
JAY: (Laughter) Probably next to the samples questions this is the most asked question I get. How can I much make? How much should I charge? It’s kind of a little bit of a dance and if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll end up doing a whole lot of work for very little money. They’re going to try to get you for as little as possible. And like I said there are smaller catalogers that can only hire at a certain price. And if you want to take those jobs that’s fine. But here’s the thing: I don’t see any reason why somebody couldn’t make $50 to $100 per copy block in this industry. And when I say copy block that means per product. That might be 80 words, that might be 120, it might be 50. Usually average around 75-80 for a block. I don’t see any reason why you should take less than $50 a block for that because a.) you’re worth it and b.) you can help them sell the product. So there are niches that you can command higher fees for based on the products that you’re selling. If you’re writing for let’s say the Tiffany Diamond Company…
BEN: Right.
JAY: Or you know a crystal company, something like that—well you’re writing for products that are in the four figures. Or even five. So they’re going to pay a premium price for copywriters to write for that particular niche. If you’re writing for a company like Oriental Trading Company which is a book that a lot of hobbyists get and you find a lot of little things in there for like part supplies something like that. Usually 20, 30 products on the page… not the biggest profit margins. Not the biggest prices. So you might not get $100 a block in something like that. But you’re only going to be writing two or three lines a product, too. So it’s all relative to the market that you’re in and the niche that you’re targeting.
BEN: Some of these copy blocks are two pages long. Do you charge more for those than, I would imagine, than…
JAY: Well, in my experience you’re going to have longer copy blocks and you’re going to have shorter copy blocks. So it all kind of evens out. It all kind of balances out at the end. For the one that’s a page, page and a half, yeah, if you’re only charging $75 for that, then maybe you should be getting more. But in the same vain, on the next page you might write one that’s only 50 words long and you’re charging the same amount of money for it.
BEN: Yeah, that’s true…
JAY: That won’t take you nearly as much time. So in the end it tends to kind of a wash. I’m talking about per block basis. Some catalogs go with a per page basis. And you’ve got to kind of figure how many blocks, and take that and multiply this… and I know there are some catalogs that do a word basis. I’ve never worked for any of those myself but apparently they’re out there. So like I said, it’s a little bit of a dance…
BEN: Are they expecting to throw a figure out there, or are they going to say, “Here’s what we pay per word or per block…”? Or is it different for everybody?
JAY: It goes both ways.
BEN: Okay.
JAY: Sometimes you’ll have a client that says, “How much do you charge?” and sometimes the client will say, “Well I can pay this much…”. And again, it’s a dance. It’s the negotiation. I always tell my club members to position yourself as a higher end copywriter and you’ll get higher end jobs and make more money. It’s the same as in sales letters, too. If you take $250 for a sales letter then that’s all you’re ever going to make on the sales letter. But if you take $5,000 for a sales letter you could be just as talented as the $250 copywriter but you positioned as higher just because of your higher fees. So it goes both ways. They’ll ask you and you can ask them… but in the end, if you got the talent, they’ll want you and they’ll pay you what you’re worth.
BEN: You know what else—and I don’t know if this applies to the catalog industry or not—but it’s starting to apply to a lot of other industries—we were talking about the in-house thing earlier. And it’s cheaper a lot of times for companies to outsource anyway because they don’t have to pay your payroll taxes and all that. So it would seem like if there’s this growing demand—has this been the case where you’re seeing just a bigger demand for freelancers instead of in-house?
JAY: Oh yeah. I have seen that. There’s a huge opportunity for copywriters to put themselves on the forefront of this wave that’s coming in from the catalog market. And get themselves a handful of good clients that will keep them busy all the time. I mean, that’s what’s great about this. When you’re writing for one client and you do a good job, buddy, they’re going to come back to you again and again and again and again. I have a client that produces the catalog that if I told you what it was you would instantly recognize it. And they come to me about every 6 weeks. Because they put out all these little books. And they know how much I charge and I know about how much I’m going to make. And my first year with these folks I made nearly $20,000 just from them.
BEN: And that’s just one—if you had four or five…
JAY: Yeah! Imagine if you had three or four like that. And I’m telling you, I would come down at night after my kids go to bed and after my wife goes to bed, and I would knock out couple hours worth of catalog copy and be done with the whole project in about ten days.
BEN: Are their deadlines pretty steep or are do they give you plenty of time to do these things?
JAY: In my case I’ve had the time I need. But thing is you can crank out catalog copy a lot quicker. So you can get a lot more done a lot faster. There are some clients that will always put a huge monstrous deadline on you. And you know that’s just the way clients are. And catalogs tend to come and start looking at copywriters way in advance. So you have time to prepare. You have time to put it into your schedule. And most of the time these people are pretty easy to work with.
BEN: That’s good… because that’s definitely I’m sure a question you get sometimes.
JAY: Oh yeah.
BEN: You were talking about all these different little niches popping up. What are some of the ones that for someone who’s just trying to break in that they should be cutting their teeth on? I mean, I don’t know if everyone should be going after SkyMall right away, or how that works. What would you suggest?
JAY: Here’s the deal: There are a lot of growing niches in the catalog industry. But what you want to do is you want to focus your energy and your abilities first on the things you love. Because when you write about something that you’re passionate about, that passion is going to show through. And the client is going to see that and they’re going to know that this person knows my customer, knows my products, and knows my business better than copywriter B may who really doesn’t. So if you focus on the things that you’re passionate about, the niches that you’re passionate about, and target those audiences first, or those catalogers first, you’re going to have a much better chance of getting hired right off the bat. And a lot of times you don’t even need to say, “Well I’ve had 8 years experience writing for the outdoors industry.” All you have to say I used to be a guide on the river, or fishing is my passion, or I’m a huge Nascar fan or whatever. If they see that you’re passionate they’re going to know that you have a vested interest in that product or in that industry. And that your writing is going to show that passion and really ring through with their customers.
BEN: So it seems to me if you’ve been writing for a certain niche, or maybe just writing articles for certain niches—like if you’re in the health industry—it’s almost a no-brainer to go after those health catalogs, assuming you’re in to it and everything.
JAY: Sure.
BEN: You already know hot buttons, you already material to draw upon that you’ve already written.
JAY: Yes, exactly. Exactly. You know how their customer thinks. So you can hit the hot buttons in a copy block that will resonate with those customers. It’s like somebody who’s been quilting their whole life. Who loves to quilt. If you came in—and you were just beginning—but you said, “You know what, I’ve been quilting my whole life. My grandmother quilted. I quilted, I run a quilting club. I’m a member of ‘Quilter’s Anonymous’…”
BEN: (Laughter) Yeah…
JAY: They’re going to look at that person and say, “You know what, you don’t have as much experience as this guy does, but you know who my customer is. And you know how to sell to them.” So there’s a better chance that that person’s going to get hired. So make sure that your passion shines through.
BEN: By this point I know there’s a lot of people who want to know more about this… where can they go to get more information this and maybe you could tell us a little bit about your catalog copywriting course.
JAY: Well, I put together something that I think will help a lot of copywriters get into this industry in the fastest and easiest way and start making money faster than anything else out there today. I know there’s some catalog courses out there. I feel like I’ve put together the most comprehensive thing.
Now what this course entails is recently I did three tele-seminars that I recorded in MP3 format. And it covers basically everything I know about catalog copywriting—how to write it, how to market yourself, how to price yourself. I answer a lot of frequently asked questions—there’s a whole lot of information in there—almost three hours worth. You’re going to get those as part of the course in downloadable format that you can put on an i-Pod or that you can burn to a CD.
I’ve also taken those particular tele-seminars and I transcribed them and put them into a 180 page eBook so you can print out and follow along. If you want to, I’ve also added a few things. So there’s a lot of thing in the eBook that are not in the tele-seminars that will be very helpful to you.
I put together a couple cheat sheets that you can print out and put on your desk. One of them deals with how to find clients. One of them deals with how to write a copy block in 30 minutes or less. Basically they show you the shortcuts that I take to do these things and to move through these steps quicker. And you can have those right no your desk—just print them out.
I’ve also included a report, “The World’s Best Kept Catalog Copywriting Secrets” which is from Bob Bly—if you’re into copywriting you know who Bob Bly is. Bob has been generous enough to let me include this into my course. This is some great stuff—he covers a lot of things that I don’t touch upon as far as the catalog copywriting industry and the production process. I think he sells this for about $29 on his website—and has sold hundreds of copies at $29. It’s part of my course for free.
I’ve also included six camtasia videos that are basically a “look-over-my-shoulder” type of thing. What I’ve done is I’ve put together some sheets like you would get form a client, and I have written catalog blocks from scratch with just a basic product description there. And I recorded this so you can basically watch me write catalog copy from scratch, look over my shoulder, and I’ve got audio on there so you’re listening to me and you’re listening to my thought process. And as I write it down I tell you why I’m using this word, I’ll tell you why I’m using this line, I’ll tell you why I’m putting it into this order. I’ve got six of these for you here on different niches, copy blocks in different lengths. I’ve created copy from scratch, I’ve also edited existing copy which is something that you will be asked to do as a catalog copywriter—I show you how to do that. Six of these as part of the course. This is by far the most popular part of the course with members—my people are emaiing me all the time, “We need more videos!” And I say okay, I’ve got that coming, just hang on…
I am going to give you the exact email template that got a 27% response in three hours and it got me my first catalog gig in four days. And I mean I’m giving you the exact email. And basically you just plug a few things that I had in there and put in some of your things and it’s ready to go. This thing is tested, it’s proven, and it’s ready to rock. And I’m just going to hand it to you and make it as easy as possible for you to start getting clients right away.
But that’s not all. You get a free 30 day pass into my catalog copywriting members club. Where every month I’ll be putting in more bonus videos for you. There will be frequent job alerts—there’s stuff that comes across my desk all the time—things that hit my test before they hit monster.com and careerbuilder.com and things like that. I will put them up immediately so that you will have first access to these jobs. I’ll put in industry news so you know what’s going on. I’ve got a forum going up so you can chat with all your buddies and find out how everyone else is doing. I’ve got an “ask me a question” section where you can ask me anything and I’ll come out and answer your questions.
There’s mentoring, there’s private email access… but the best part about this is a client lead generation system that works like this:
Every month you can come out to the membership club and you can click on a button and you can download a list of qualified catalog copywriting client leads. These will be names, addresses, urls, phone numbers—I’m basically handing you a client list to work. I’ve got a database of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who produce catalogs and use copywriters. And I’m going to hand you a different list every month. It’ll be generated from random so you won’t have the same list as everyone else. And it’ll give you an opportunity to start marketing yourself right away.
So I’m going to give you an email template to send, and I’m going to give you people to send it to. I’m not sure what else I can do for you… and I’m just trying to help you leap frog and get to a place in the catalog world where you are making 6-figures a year because it is possible.
How do you find this course? Where do you go? Well, if you go to:
you’re going to find a page that you’ll hear my voice on and you will get access to the first module of the audio tele-seminars I did absolutely free. So you can listen—it’s about an hour—you can hear me talk about the catalog copywriting in more detail and you can decide from there if you want to pursue this or not. But I’m going to give you access to module one absolutely free at www.catalogcashmachine.com.
And, I hope to see you there.
BEN: To add in there for people listening to this, or if you’re reading a transcript, if you go to the exact link—catalogcashmachine.com—and you decide to buy the course—and you email me your receipt to ben (at) bensettle.com—I’m going to send you another little extra bonus gift that will actually help you not just with catalog copywriting, but any other kind of copywriting. It’s an exclusive report I created that you can’t buy anywhere else.
But I also want to add one more thing. I’ve been through Jay’s course. And I think you’re severely underpricing this thing. One little gig and it pays for itself several times over—probably hundreds or thousands of times over—over the course of a year or so.
JAY: Like I said before, I earned about $20,000 last year from one client. Now if I hand you a list of clients every month, the list every month turns into hundreds of leads over a year, if you only turn five or six of those leads into clients, I mean, and one of them pays me $20,000 a year—do the math. You’re already over 6-figures right there. And you’re working solid and making money as a copywriter. And writing fun, cool, interesting products. And you’re not bogged down into a sales letter.
BEN: You’re not a slave to anyone else’s agenda.
JAY: Right! Exactly.
BEN: I would much rather spend just a few hours here and there than days and thinking about a client and his business and his problems. I would rather just bang out a few copy blocks every day and go and do my own stuff.
JAY: It’s so much fun. And you’re not the only person to tell me, “Jay, you’re giving this thing away.” I have gotten so much pleasure out of writing catalog copy and I have seen so many other copywriters struggling and I think, “I just want to show you this thing over here…” Because it’s not something that I’m cornering and saying, “Oh I’m going to corner this market and not tell anyone.” Because at 150, 160, 200 billion dollars per year, that’s a pie we can all have a big chunk out of.
So I’m just trying to give it to you at a price that I think is fair and that anybody can afford. And I hope you like it. Because a lot of people that are in it right now are really digging it, and they’re out there working and getting gigs and everything.
So www.catalogcashmachine.com. Go out there, you can listen to my first module for free. I hope to see you inside because this is a tremendous opportunity. And I appreciate you letting me talk about it today, Ben. catalogcashmachine.com is the web address on that one more time. I hope to see you inside because there’s a lot of money to be made in catalogs and I want you to get a chunk of it.
BEN: Alright everyone just remember, if you buy it from that link make sure you email me your receipt at ben (at) bensettle.com and I’ll send you a very special report that I don’t sell to anyone else and I don’t give it away to anyone else but customers of this product. Thanks again Jay, and I’ll talk to you soon.
JAY: Thanks Ben, appreciate it, buddy.
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