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What I learned taking Sam Parr's email copywriting course
The founder of The Hustle created a pop-up newsletter to teach you how to write effective sales copy.
šš» Welcome to Newsletter Examples, where I highlight cool sh*t Iām seeing in newsletters that you can borrow for your newsletter.
This week, Iām sharing 5 lessons I learned taking Sam Parrās copywriting course, CopyThat. Reading time: 3 minutes.
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Lesson 1: Copy the masters
I learned a lot from Sam in the two years I spent working for him at The Hustle.
One thing heās great at is getting people to click on a landing page or ad copy, and converting them into subscribers or paying customers.
Sam wrote this legendary Hustle ad (inspired by theSkimm), which converted new subscribers at an absurdly high rate:
After Sam sold The Hustle, he and his wife created a pop-up newsletter to teach people the art of sales copywriting. (You should sign up just to see their marketing funnel.)
In the two-week course, which costs $169, they share more than a dozen examples of effective ads, breaking down what makes each one special and what you can learn from it.
But they donāt just teach you about the ads, they have you copy themāwriting them by hand on a piece of paper.
Sam personally used this technique, called copyworkāwhich helped Ben Franklin, Jack London, and others improve their writingāto learn how to write irresistible ad copy.
Hereās how Sam puts it, in an email introducing the course:
Lesson 2: Create a slippery slope
Your goal as a copywriter, Sam says, is to get readers to fall down a slippery slope, where the words āsuck you right in.ā
The longer people read your ad, the more they will agree with you, which will help you convert them into customers.
Sam uses this Wall Street Journal ad as an illustration of a slippery slope:
This ad ran largely unchanged for 28 straight years, resulting in over $2B of subscriptions. (You can see Samās full annotated versionāwhich opens best on desktopāby clicking here.)
You may not get billions of dollars in subscription revenue, but you can go to school on the ad that did:
Lesson 3: Keep it simple
In one email, Sam highlights some of the lessons heās learned from reading the shareholder letters of Warren Buffett.
Buffett runs a complex insurance and investment empire. But in his letters, he boils things down to basics, as Sam shows here:
Lesson 4: Question assumptions
You might assume that people donāt waste time reading long ads, or that a simply designed landing page doesnāt convert. Thatās not always the case.
I remember one time Sam making a bet with one of our designers that he could create a better landing page for a $300/yr newsletter we had just launched.
Hers had minimal copy and was full of bright colors and cute (but vague) phrases.
His was longer but minimally designedāblack text and a white background.
As a test, we spent $1k on two days of Facebook ads, driving traffic equally to each page.
The designerās page made $300. Samās made $3k.
Hereās some more advice Sam offers on short vs. long sales pages:
Lesson 5: Donāt forget āAbout Usā
When most people think about sales copywriting, they think about landing pages.
But unsubscribe pages, welcome emails, and About Us pagesāwhich often have bland, boilerplate copyāprovide opportunities to nurture and convert customers.
Sam uses Grouponās old unsubscribe page to show how an email opt-out can be turned into an opportunity to entertain (and retain) readers:
He breaks down one of The Hustleās original welcome emails, showing how to grab peopleās attention with humor:
Sam also puts his money where his mouth is. He and his wife Sara created this epic About Us page for CopyThat, which provides them with street cred and makes them relatable. People love pictures, especially pictures of dogsā¦RIP Sid š¶
Hope you enjoyed this weekās examples. Iāll be back next week with more!
ā®ļø -Brad
P.S. Whatās your welcome email look like? Send me a screenshotāIām highlighting the best ones in an upcoming issue.
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ICYMI: Links to recent issues
šØ The 5 coolest things I saw in newsletters in 2024
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š The secret to Semaforās growth
š§ Why 700k people love Contrarian Thinking
āØ How to make long emails engaging
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