How To Write A Solo Ad Swipe In 4 Easy Steps

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Hi, my name is Igor Kheifets and this is the List Building Lifestyle, the only podcast
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Jonathan: You are listening to the List Building Lifestyle show. Welcome back,
boys and girls, to another edition. Here is the IM-er from Israel, Mr Igor
Kheifets.

Igor: The IM-er. Awesome. That’s such a concise intro.

Jonathan: Yes, yes.

Igor: But you know what? I have a question. Do we confuse people at this point? I
think I have like a whole list of nicknames or labels. So I’m just afraid it’s
going to hurt my branding.

Jonathan: We need to stick with one then. We need to stick with one. But wait a
second, with this many shows, wouldn’t that get boring?

Igor: I guess it can be, I guess it can be. But Coca-Cola has been around for like
100 years and we’re still drinking it.

Jonathan: Yes, yes. But I think you got to hit people from different angles. I
think that there’s different levels of awareness. A smart guy taught me that, so
you got to hit it from different angles. [laughter]

Igor: Well, salute to you, my friend. You’ve listened to the last episode.

Jonathan: What’s good today, Igor?

Igor: Well, today we’re talking about swipes, as promised. I want to teach you…
No, no, I want to show you.

Jonathan: [laughter]

Igor: I want to show you. I want to present you with an opportunity to discover
how to write a great email swipe for your Solo Ad because as you know, the process
of buying Solo Ads, you’re sort of obligated. I want to say sort of because you’re
not really obligated, but many Solo Ad vendors prefer for you to provide them with
a swipe. But you’re sort of obligated to provide an email creative to the vendor
that you’re hiring to run your traffic. Now, frankly speaking, if they allow you
to do so, and I say that because we don’t, like if you work with my agency, I
control the swipe, I don’t let you to write your own, just because I know my list
better, I know how they respond, I control the lingo, I know the angles I’m
supposed to hit, I can look at your offer and within a few minutes come up with a
swipe, not a problem for me. But many of the Solo Ad vendors, it is a problem for
them. Mainly because of two reasons. First reason is because they don’t really
understand copywriting. They know some basics, they try to stick to formulas, but
they suck. Because most people suck, that’s okay. I don’t say it in a mean way,
like I’m better than they are. Although I am really much better than they are when
it comes to copywriting. I’m just saying that they’re not investing as much time
into studying that skill as I do. They focus on other things, and it’s their
business, all the power to them. Now, the second reason is because they’re lazy.
They prefer for you to write the swipe. In fact, if they could, they would give
you the log in details to their email autoresponder account so you go load to
them. Because they don’t want to do it anyway. So when it comes to Solo Ads, you
better have an email swipe, because you’re going to use it 90% of the time. Now,
this is why it’s so critical for me to help you understand what makes a good swipe
and what’s the purpose of the swipe. Because a lot of people think that the
purpose of the swipe that you use on a Solo Ad is to kind of just sell the product
or overcome an objection or maybe build your brand. But none of it is really true.
What your Solo Ad creative is supposed to do is get a targeted and committed click
to your squeeze page. Your squeeze page is supposed to generate enough curiosity
to get people to opt in. Your sales pitch is the one that’s supposed to be
selling. The mistake I see a lot of people make is, first of, they either use a
really generic swipe, which we’re going to be talking about down the road, I have
a episodes planned on that, but they either use like a generic click bait swipe,
which doesn’t get them the committed click they need. Or they almost want you to
mail a sales letter, which never works. It’s not going to pull enough clicks and
it’s going to be too overwhelming for an email. It’s just not the right media for
that. I’ve seen people mail an entire fricking sales letter through an email. That
just is really scary, really scary stuff for the brand. That is why I want to give
you five rules. It’s a five-step formula, if you will. There’s five elements. The
subject line, so that’s the subject, the email title, if you will, whatever you
want to call it, the one that shows up in the inbox and that determines whether
the person is going to open that email or not. Then there is the intro, which is
the actual email like the intro, the body, and the call to action. I’m not sure
why I said five, it’s four. It’s the subject line and then it’s a three-piece
email swipe. Now, we’re going to get back to the subject line in a little bit.
First, I want to talk about the actual email creative. The reason I break it down
to three different parts is because each part serves a purpose. The purpose of
your intro is to get the person to read the next line. Literally, the purpose of
the first line of your email is to get them to read the second line. You kind of
have to get them on a greased slide almost, to suck them into that email after
they open the email thanks to the subject line. What you do in order to create
that, you need to cut to the chase; no foreplay, no verbal foreplay here at all.
Just cut to the chase and describe the problem your target market has
experiencing. Now, the reason you want to talk about the problem and not any
solution and not tell them a story is because there’s nothing more interesting to
the client, to the potential prospect you’re working with than their own problems.
They literally walk around all day long and all they think about, unless they get
sort of like shocked out of it, all they think about is the problem that they’re
experiencing right now, the biggest one. You know what I’m talking about, Jon? You
ever had a problem, like when you were adopting, isn’t that what you were thinking
about all the time?

Jonathan: Yes, that’s a good point. Anything that had to do with adoption caught
our attention, because that’s the world that we were in.

Igor: Yes, exactly. It was always about that because that’s the biggest problem
right now. If you would like to attract your ideal customer, the best chance you
have doing so is by getting a customer that’s problem-aware, that is wondering how
to solve that problem. You need to figure out what is that problem your product
solves and talk about it. Talk about it in the intro to your email in the most
concise and easiest way possible. That’s how you gain people’s attention. Then you
move to the body of the email. Now, the body, what it does, it teases, noticed the
keyword here, teases the solution to the reader’s problem by talking about how
it’s different from all the other similar solutions this reader has been promised
in the past. I assure you, they were promised something. They were promised at
least a couple of other solutions that they did not act on, that’s how the
marketplace works. If you’re advertising to that list, make no bones about it that
your competitors are advertising as well and your prospect is now at a point where
they’re aware of the fact that they have a problem and they probably have seen a
couple of potential solutions. Your job in the body of your email is to clearly
position why your solution is effective and why it’s different from everything
else they tried before because if it seems like something they already tried, they
will immediately throw it out. They will immediately thrash it and kind of
disqualify it just based on the fact that they supposedly tried it, even though
they didn’t. The last part of the email, the third part, is the call to action.
Now, remember, in the body, I told you you’re supposed to tease the person. You’re
not supposed to reveal everything about your product, you’re not supposed to go
into the features and the benefits. You’re just supposed to tease the solution,
perhaps even paint this ideal scenario where the prospect no longer experiences a
solution and sort of like hint into how it’s going to happen. But then, in the
last part, the call to action, you have to tell the reader what she needs to do to
learn more about the solution. Now, this is not a place for you to start hyping
things up. It’s not a place for to be funny, clever, or creative. Just tell her
where to click. That’s about it. That’s all the swipe needs to do. Jonathan, any
questions about the actual creative?

Jonathan: None so far. But I just want to get something clear. You keep going back
and forth between creative and email and swipe. That’s all the same thing? It’s
the actual email that goes out to the Solo Ads that you purchased?

Igor: Yes, that’s right. The reason I’m using the word ‘swipe’ a lot and then I
kind of intertwine it with ‘creative’, because anyone who comes from the offline
business world, for some reason, that’s what they call it, ‘the creative’. Anyone
who’s online, they say it’s a swipe. That is why the swipe and the creative are
both the same thing, which is the email, kind of like a squeeze page and a capture
page being the same thing, which is the page that captures the prospect’s email
address.

Jonathan: Got it, thank you.

Igor: You are very welcome, my friend. The swipe, again, it’s the intro, it’s the
body and the call to action and each has a purpose. Now, the most important part
for your solo ad by far, of course, is the subject line. Now, the subject line is
tricky because especially if you’re doing Ezine Solo Ads, which is something we’re
going to be discussing in the future episodes, where you’re not guaranteed the
clicks, the subject line alone can result in your entire promotion bombing
completely because nobody will open the damn email. The faith of your entire
campaign sometimes can be literally hinging on how good your subject line is. Now,
the good news for you is that Uncle Igor has two formulas you can use to write a
really, really good subject line that gets the right people to pay attention and
open your email. The formulas are very simple. The first one is how to get ‘insert
outcome they want here’ without ‘insert thing they hate here’. An example, ‘How To
Make Money Online Without Previous Experience’, ‘How To Make Six Figures Without A
Degree’, ‘How To Start Your Own Business Without Credit’. When I say the thing
they hate what I mean is like the thing that they consider unattainable sometimes,
not just the thing that they find ‘work’. It could be a lot of different things.
But what’s important is that you promised them the benefit that they desire
desperately without the thing they really, really, really hate or really, really,
really, really afraid of. That’s the first formula. Works every single time. Now,
the second formula is for people who are experiencing problems. For people who
hate their boss but can’t walk away from their job, for people who hate the sound
of their own voice, for people who suffer from lower back pain. Now, if I came
across this subject line ‘For People Who Suffer From Lower Back Pain’ exactly a
year ago when I was tied to my couch, I’d be reading that email. I’d be all over
the email and all over the solution regardless of what the email actually said.
Remember, you’re not going after everyone. What you’re doing is you’re going after
a very specific type of prospect that is experiencing that problem that your
product solves right now and that this problem for them is really, really
pressing. You’re trying to get the best possible prospect for your advertising
dollars in order to maximize your Solo Ad ROI.

Jonathan: Makes sense. Now Igor, I feel like we should mention, or maybe not, I
don’t know, but this is really what the direct response mythology is, isn’t it?
Each little piece of it moves your prospect one step closer to the action you want
them to take. The subject line gets them to read the email. The email has the
three parts that move them through the copy and get them to your squeeze page. The
squeeze page has the job to bring them into the sales page.

Igor: Well, yes. What you’re talking about, and I think this is what I’m hearing,
is that instead of trying to perceive the marketing process as one huge leap over
a Grand Canyon, what you’re trying to do is you’re building a bridge one piece at
a time for them so they need to take one small step after the next. I call this
concept ‘the concept of micro commitments’. When you email them and they open the
subject line or read and open the subject line, it’s one micro commitment. They
read the email, that’s the second one. They click on link, that’s another one.
They check out your squeeze page and opt-in, that’s another one. You’re always
taking them one small step at a time, until they’re so deep into it emotionally
that they end up buying the product. It is a lot like when you have a hot bath and
it’s really, really hot, so you don’t jump in. But you put your toe in, then
second one, all of a sudden half your leg is in, then you’re standing on one foot,
and then all of a sudden, you’re sitting down. Even though the bath is still
really, really hot, you made your way in because you gradually went in bit by bit.

Jonathan: Yes, it reminds me of actually our last episode where you talked about
the stages of awareness and kind of the stages of where they are when they’re
reading the copy and moving them through that. What I’m seeing here is that
there’s a sequence of events rather than just some big, magical button. There’s a
sequence of events that have to happen to get the action you want.

Igor: Exactly. It’s a strategic sequence of very specific events that have to
happen according to this plan. It never happens in any other sequence, it has to
happen in this very specific sequence and only then it makes sense and it works.
Tell me how many times you’ve seen people try to cut through. They try to shortcut
their way and they sort of skip all the way to the end. Or they see a guru or they
recognize that a guru is doing something and they only see a part of the puzzle,
they try to copy it and it doesn’t work because they’re not copying the entire
sequence, rather what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to copy just one
element thinking that it’s the entire set up.

Jonathan: Right, right. That’s one of the reasons why you can’t just guess what
Igor is doing and try to imitate him on his Solo Ads. You’re going to have to get
into Igor Solo Ads to know the whole process, because you’re only getting a little
glimpse in each episode.

Igor: Yes, and that’s why it really pays sometimes to play prospect with competing
businesses. If you’re trying to build a business that is similar, like if you were
trying to build a Solo Ads business, your very, very good move for you would be to
play prospect with us if you were Solo Ads, and actually go and buy, because
you’ll see the entire process laid out and experience it for yourself, so then you
can replicate it. Now, obviously, people already have done that, so I have no
problem talking about it. But I’ve done it myself. When I was doing the coaching,
I played prospect with Lee Macintyre, who was really successful at the time
selling coaching. I was playing prospect with Tony Robbins. In fact, I played
prospect with Tony Robbins and actually ended up buying the $10,000 coaching
program.

Jonathan: Nice.

Igor: Which, of course, I benefited from greatly. It’s just, I went in playing
prospect and ended up buying, it’s just ironic. But when I went to this program, I
learned a bunch of different things that I was able to take my business and
improve it. Again, playing prospect to observe the entire process is really,
really good. When it comes to email swipes. You know what I see, Jonathan? I still
a lot of people just trying to steal. Like Dennis was hanging out with these guys
who produce somewhere around 80,000 clicks a day.

Jonathan: Wow.

Igor: These guys are really powerful mailers and they do a lot of things that I
would consider to be unethical. In some countries, these things are actually
illegal. But I guess it’s not my job here right now to judge them. But basically,
what happened was, it was like looking at their stuff because they were for some
reason really opened, showing it, and they had all of our swipes. Now, of course,
I realized that everybody steals our swipes. Everybody steals our emails. But
here’s the thing, they can be stealing them for as long as they want. They won’t
produce anywhere near the kind of results they produce for us because they have
been created for us, by us, with a specific strategy in mind. They’re a part of
the bigger picture, bigger process. What they’re trying to do is they try to take
like a bolt out of my machine and stick it into their machine hoping things are
going to work just as well. It just doesn’t work like that.

Jonathan: Yes. [laughter] Steal all you want, you’ll never get the magic till you
pay. For everybody out there playing prospect is also known as funnel hacking, by
the way. [laughter] I do it all the time too.

Igor: That’s right. We have an episode about funnel hacking with Russell Bronson
actually. Yes, so if you Google ‘Russell Bronson and Igor Kheifets’ you’ll see
there’s an episode with Russell where he explains the concept, in case you’re not
familiar with it.

Jonathan: Nice. Alright. Igor, any parting thoughts as we’re wrapping up this
episode?

Igor: Yes, there’s one thing about Solo Ad swipes. They’re really scary. For some
reason, people are really afraid of writing them on their own. I’ve been paid in
upwards of $150 just to write an email like that. It literally takes me ten
minutes, and for that, people are willing to pay over $100. What this tells me is
that people are really, really afraid of writing their own email swipes, either
because they don’t think of themselves as great copywriters, or they don’t know
what to write, or perhaps they’re just, I don’t know, maybe they’re just afraid to
screw it up. But in any case, it’s not scary. It’s an illusion. It’s a mirage. If
you just follow the formula I gave you today, it’s the subject line, you get two
formulas for that, and a three-step email creative writing sequence. You do that,
as long as you know your product, you have no problem writing a really good swipe
that’s going to pull great committed clicks to your offer when you run the
traffic.

Jonathan: Excellent. Alright. You want to tease next time?

Igor: Yes. Next time we’re talking about how you get scammed with Solo Ads. In
fact, what I’m going to do, I’m going to tell you about four specific ways that
Solo Ad vendors or I guess look-a-like Solo Ad vendors, people who pretend to be
Solo Ad vendors, end up taking you for your money. I’m going to reveal their
tactics so you’re aware of what you need to look for when you’re dealing with a
shady Solo Ad seller.

Jonathan: Alright. That is a wrap for another List Building Lifestyle show. We’ll
be back in your earbuds next time. Thank you for tuning in.

Thank you for listening to The List Building Lifestyle Show, make sure to
subscribe on iTunes or Google Play to never miss an episode because who knows just
one conversion tactic we share on the show might double your list and double your
business. Download the transcript of today’s episode and all future episodes at
listbuilderslifestyleshow.com and don’t forget to claim your complimentary copy
of “The Wealthy List Builder’s Survival Guide” at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com/survival .
This is Igor Kheifets until next time we talk, have a good one.

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