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.

šŸ‘‹šŸ» Welcome to Newsletter Examples, where I highlight cool sh*t Iā€™m seeing in newsletters that you can borrow for your newsletter.

This week, Iā€™m sharing 5 lessons I learned taking Sam Parrā€™s copywriting course, CopyThat. Reading time: 3 minutes.

Not a subscriber yet? Sign up here.

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 heā€™s 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 donā€™t just teach you about the ads, they have you copy themā€”writing them by hand on a piece of paper.

Sam personally used this technique, called copyworkā€”which helped Ben Franklin, Jack London, and others improve their writingā€”to learn how to write irresistible ad copy.

Hereā€™s 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 ā€œsuck 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 Samā€™s full annotated versionā€”which opens best on desktopā€”by 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 heā€™s 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 donā€™t waste time reading long ads, or that a simply designed landing page doesnā€™t convert. Thatā€™s 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 designedā€”black text and a white background.

As a test, we spent $1k on two days of Facebook ads, driving traffic equally to each page.

The designerā€™s page made $300. Samā€™s made $3k.

Hereā€™s some more advice Sam offers on short vs. long sales pages:

Lesson 5: Donā€™t forget ā€˜About Usā€™

When most people think about sales copywriting, they think about landing pages.

But unsubscribe pages, welcome emails, and About Us pagesā€”which often have bland, boilerplate copyā€”provide opportunities to nurture and convert customers.

Sam uses Grouponā€™s 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 Hustleā€™s original welcome emails, showing how to grab peopleā€™s 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 šŸ¶ 

Hope you enjoyed this weekā€™s examples. Iā€™ll be back next week with more!

ā˜®ļø -Brad

P.S. Whatā€™s your welcome email look like? Send me a screenshotā€”Iā€™m highlighting the best ones in an upcoming issue.

šŸ’„ Want to work with me? Here are 3 ways I can help:

1) Consulting and advising: I help media companies and brands uplevel their content through 1:1 coaching calls, content and strategy audits, and team training.

2) Content-as-a-service. Need help writing your newsletter or producing your podcast? Iā€™ve helped build some of the worldā€™s best newsletters and podcasts, and my team and I can help. Find out more here.

3) Advertise in this newsletter. Want to get your message in front of 2k+ newsletter operators? Hit reply and Iā€™ll send you my 2025 rate card.

What'd you think of this week's edition?

Tap below to let me know.

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.