“You’ve been banned from EVERY betting site in Australia?!?”
I blurt that out before I can help myself.
“Um … yeah,” says my client.
“And you don’t mention this anywhere?”
“No … not really.”
I’m already scribbling down ideas.
“You know, it’s not that hard to get banned,” he offers. He seems genuinely unsure why I’m so excited.
“Don’t care,” I say, furiously writing. “That’s a great story.”
This was yesterday afternoon.
I’m consulting for a client in an industry I’d never thought I’d work in:
Sports betting.
And he and his biz partner have come to me for about 200 words of copy for their website.
They’ve built software that spits out the best ‘tips’ based on a proprietary algorithm.
And so far, this same algorithm has made him the single most profitable better in this field for five years.
At first I was iffy about getting involved. Gambling doesn’t really square with my faith. But as he explained how it worked (and how he’s consistently made a profit), I realised it was more like investing: taking calculated risks where you have a long-term edge.
So I start grilling him for details to try and fish out a ‘hook’:
“How much did it cost to make?”
“About $100k over the last 5 years.”
“A hundred grand?!? What did you spend that money on?”
“All sorts of things …”
“Tell me one.”
“Well, there was a programmer …”
“What country was he from?”
(He’s looking at me weirdly — I’m asking the COUNTRY?)
“Well, there was a guy from Canada … China … and the first bloke was from the Ukraine.”
“The Ukraine!!!” I say, typing furiously.
I keep going for about half an hour, asking weird questions: “What’s changed in the sport lately?” “What does that meant to the average better?” “How did you get banned from betting?” “How does your algorithm work?” “How many books did you read?”
He’s quite confused.
But I know what I’m doing. I’m assembling my sales story.
And when I’m done, I sit back and say:
“So let me get this straight …
The biggest betting site in America is about to offer betting on your sport, for the first time EVER.
It will send a flood of American betters into the market.
It’s going to raise the stakes of these bets by 10 to 100 times.
Yet NONE of these Americans know the rules of the sport as well as Aussies do — yet.
Which means all the Aussies who know the game have a MASSIVE advantage.
And here YOU are, the most PROFITABLE player in this space for 5 years, and the most BANNED man in Australia.
The betting houses live in FEAR of you — they adjust their figures the second you tweet an opinion.
One time you even got 20 people banned for life at once when they made a killing off one of your tips.
And now you’re sharing how you do it:
You’ve come up with your own hand-tuned algorithm.
You’ve invested $100 grand of your own money in it — over five years.
You’ve hired programmers from around the world — Canada, China, even the Ukraine.
And now you’ve built a service that offers people access to the exact same algorithm YOU’ve used to become the game’s most profitable player for 5 years …
And you’re offering that service for a few MEASLY bucks a week.”
I paused.
“Are you seeing how this might make a good story?”
He sat back.
“Mate … mate,” he says, dumbfounded. “That is GOLD.”
I keep going. “I can even see the headline to this page …”
The Incredible DFS
GOLD RUSH
of 2020
A Once-in-a-Generation Opportunity for Aussie DFS Players
to Make A KILLING Off 10,000 Unsuspecting Americans
A Secret Briefing from Australia’s
MOST PROFITABLE & MOST BANNED DFS Player …
My client’s eyes go wide.
“I don’t know how you’re doing this,” he says.
I smile. “You don’t need 200 words of copy … you need 2,000,” I say. “And we’re going to tell this story.”
And that’s exactly what I’ll be doing.
See, one of the biggest gripes I have with most copywriters’ copy is … it’s soooo freakin’ BORING.
People look at headlines like the above and roll their eyes. “Ugh. Clickbait. I’d never click that. People don’t read that stuff anymore.”
WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! Don’t be so stupid!
(Not you, dear reader. You’re not stupid. Just the people who say that are.)
Never, ever assume YOU are the target market. It is the WORST thing you could do.
And as someone who has worked on leads like this that have made literally MILLIONS of dollars, I don’t want to hear any other copywriters lecturing me with their crappy, uninformed opinions on this. You can take your “online courses” about “writing non-salesy copy” and shove it. Salesmanship WORKS, darn it. Always has and always will.
Here’s the truth:
If you are an Aussie punter in this market … who feels like it’s hard to break in and get ahead of the ‘big boys’ … and yet now you have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to FINALLY have an advantage over a bunch of know-nothing Yanks … this lead above is IRRESISTIBLE to you.
And that is the copywriter’s job:
To find the AMAZING story behind the product … and tell it in a way that works the market into a lather where he simply MUST have what you are selling.
Yet in 2020, not many writers can do this.
After all, everyone thinks “clickbait” headlines don’t work on sales pages anymore. So they replace it with boring, bland copy. YUCK.
Not me. Brink back the sexy in salesmanship, please. People WANT to be thrilled about what they’re going to buy.
I fully expect that many of the clients reading this will think “ew, I don’t want to sell like that”.
Which is fine. I have never wanted to work with people who like boring copy.
But if you want to push the envelope?
To actually sell … and get people excited about it?
I can help.
Join my email list to be notified when I have an opening come up.
We’ll find the sexy story in your product … and tell it in the best way possible.
Daniel Throssell