As part of my re-commitment to my physical fitness, I've been exercising more lately. In fact, I've done a full-body strength training, an intense aerobic dance class, and an hour-and-a-half yoga class over the past 3 days. Then last night after yoga, I stopped to get...

Do any of these sound like you? “The problem I'm having right now is that I don't know what to write.” “It feels like my words aren't doing justice to my thoughts! I know I have great ideas and content but it's somehow so difficult to write it down the same way it's...

Freelance copywriting often seems more challenging than ever these days. Between the gazillions of copywriters you're competing with, and the advent of Chat-GPT and more sophisticated AI tools on the horizon, it may seem like it's harder than ever to launch and...

Yesterday I had my first mentoring session with one of my new copy mentees, who's fairly new to copywriting. I also had a great interview with Troy Ericson for his "Secrets of Scale" podcast. (I'll share it when it goes live.) Even though both conversations were quite...

All too often, I see copywriters give short shrift to their email subject lines. But they are right up there with headlines in terms of their importance in getting your copy read. And if your copy isn't read, it can't be acted on... and thus, no sales, leads, or...

It's hard to believe we're just 5 days from Christmas! Whether you celebrate or not, hopefully you'll be taking some time off to spend with family or friends... and reflect on your goals for the coming year. I'm looking forward to both of my young adult children being...

Everyone's talking about the latest AI tools (like ChatGPT and the next generation GPT-4 that should be out in 2023). Some are going "googly-eyed" over AI's capabilities and how it will replace what copywriters do... others are "pooh-pooh"-ing it and claiming it's not...

This is the last day this week that I'll be sending you one of my favorite past Copy Insiders and "What's in Kim's Mailbox" issues. It's got a funny story from back when I was running a $23-million-a-year supplement business while in my early 30s. And some key...

Today I'm sending you a Copy Insiders and "What's in Kim's Mailbox" flashback issue. It's one I wrote 3+ years ago on my birthday. There's a valuable and widely-applicable lesson here you can use to really go deep into your prospect's head. In looking back, there's...

Direct mail can be a great source of inspiration for successful online sales pages and video sales letters (VSLs). In fact, many of the best-performing sales pages you'll fine online right now in the supplement niche were originally written as direct mail magalogs,...

Becoming a "great" copywriter is something many beginning and up-and-coming copywriters aspire to. And while everyone's definition of "great" may vary in terms of what their goals are, the path to greatness is often the same. It's being dedicated to continuous...

As you nurse your Halloween candy "hangover", perhaps your stomach is churning as you read this email.  Well, like I talked about in the interview I did with Glenn Fisher and Nick O'Connor (a snippet of which I shared with you yesterday), it's a great way to...

The past month of so I've been sending you some of my most popular past issues. That's because I was on a much-needed break that included a 3-week vacation. It was a fairly active but well-paced trip, starting with a few cold, rainy days in Munich for Oktoberfest (it...

About four years ago while attending the huge digital marketing event, Traffic and Conversion Summit, I saw a “fireside chat” onstage with Dr. Robert Cialdini, author of the classic book on marketing psychology, Influence, and his more recent Pre-suasion. There were...

Right now I'm thinking of a variation on the classic Gary Bencivenga headline for a financial newsletter promotion many years ago... Lies! Lies! Lies! But instead, this particular headline would be... Lines! Lines! Lines! What kind of lines, you ask? SUBJECT LINES, my...

Being a freelancer or entrepreneur can be a tough experience. We valiantly try to go it alone, relying on whatever internal motivators we can draw on to wake up each morning, accomplish what we need to get done, and go on to the next item on the list. Or not. Yep, all...

Many years ago a movie called "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" featured a mismatched couple: the glamorous Jessica and somewhat dorky Roger Rabbit. One of the famous lines associated with Jessica's character is this: "I'm not bad...I'm just drawn that way." But there's...

I've heard from so many copywriters about their struggles with "Imposter Syndrome"... the feeling that others (their clients) will figure out that they're some kind of fraud. It shocks me how I hear this from successful copywriters even at the highest levels... heck,...

Issue #159--July 19, 2022 In celebration of my milestone birthday just over a week ago (yes, the big 6-0, holy crap), I'm taking a trip down memory lane... I'm sharing some of my earliest memories, and tying each one to a copywriting or marketing lesson you can apply...

In recent years it's felt like we're making some strides with how women are portrayed in advertising. But an email that landed in my inbox yesterday made me start to doubt that, at least initially. It made me flash back to 2015, when a huge billboard portraying a...

Issue #158 Whether you're a seasoned marketer or wet-behind-the-ears copywriter, chances are you've heard about the importance of figuring out what stage of market sophistication your product or service is in. It's a crucial part of my research process that I cover...

It's been a while since I put out a fresh new issue of "What's in Kim's Mailbox". But in the meantime, I've been collecting an array of direct mail and email promotions that have caught my eye (and not always in a positive way). So to reward you for the long wait,...

Issue #157 In today's issue, I'm going to be summarizing the very best tidbits of copywriting "gold" I dropped last week--just in case you missed them. These tips and tactics are sure to help you with the two most important parts of any promo... plus give you an idea...

Every once in a while I have one of my Fast Track to A-List copywriting mentees take over the helm and write a guest issue. And today we're hearing from Cain Smith... a copywriter from Manchester, England. He's been freelancing for more than 3 years and earlier this...