Copy Drills

How to Make Your Copy More Emotional by Twisting The Knife

Twisting the Knife is one of the foundational copywriting skills, and you’ll use it with almost every sales page, sales email or blog post you write.

I’ve heard many copywriting experts talk about it in the past, but I’ve never seen anyone explain HOW to do it clearly, with examples and exact steps.

Heck, when you google “Twisting the Knife in Copywriting”, you’ll get a one-paragraph explanation at most, which will tell you to “make your copy more emotional”.

“Ok, but HOW can I actually make my copy more emotional?”

I couldn’t find a good article about it on the internet.

That’s why I decided to write my own – with examples that help you understand the framework, and copywriting drills that help you practice it in your own copy.

When (and why) should you Twist The Knife?

You can Twist the Knife any time you talk about a common problem of your audience.

You can use it in blog posts that solve a specific problem of your audience.

Here’s an example from my blog post about talking to family and friends that don’t support you.

I shared a story of telling my mom and dad that I’d quit university to run my business full-time.

You can use it in sales pages that help you sell your products and services.

Here’s an example from my sales page for Ultimate Guide System, my online program on growing your email list through Ultimate Guides.

Here, I talked about how many entrepreneurs spend hours and hours working on their business each day, only do get a handful of new email subscribers each week:

You can use it in sales emails or engagement emails as part of your product launches.

Here’s an example from one of my sales emails from my $36,381 launch of Ultimate Guide System.

In this email, I Twisted The Knife by sharing a story of a friend that struggled to grow her email list through guest posts:

You can Twist The Knife whenever you talk about a problem of your audience and want to make them feel the pain they experience around their problem.

This way, you’re making your readers care about your ideas and solutions – by showing them that you first understand their problems.

How to Twist the Knife in 5 Simple Steps

Once you break down the big ambiguous idea of Twisting the Knife into a step-by-process, it becomes quite obvious how to do it:

Step #1 – Common Problem: Take a common problem of your audience (that they already experienced and desperately want to solve)
Step #2 – Relatable Story: Tell a relatable story where you or your clients experienced this problem in the past (that will show your readers that you understand their problem).
Step #3 – Dirty Details: To make your story more engaging, share the specific details of the story (ideally, share even the uncomfortable details that nobody else wants to talk about)
Step #4 – Thoughts and Emotions: To make your readers feel their emotions, share your own thoughts that went through your head, and the emotions you felt in the moment.
Step #5 – Negative Consequences: Finally, share any horrible consequences that happened because you didn’t solve the problem (that you don’t want to happen to your readers).

Go back to some of the earlier examples in this post and see if you can identify some of those steps in them.

Let’s look at some more examples, shall we?

I want to bombard you with real-world examples of Twisting the Knife from profitable launches so you can really internalize the concept – and learn how to use it yourself.

Example #1: Ever feel like you don’t fit in?

This is the beginning of an email from one of my friends, Selena Soo, where she does a great job of Twisting the Knife.

It’s part of her launch for her INFLUENCE program (an online course on connecting with influencers in your industry).

Twist the knife copywriting example selena soo

Read through the email, see if you can identify how she twists the knife, then compare it to my analysis below the email!

Here’s my analysis.

Step #1 – Common Problem:

You’re shy, socially awkward, and you don’t “fit in” with people around you.

Step #2 – Relatable Stories:

Selena makes the pain more real by sharing two real, personal story from her life.

First, she sets up a story from her high school:

“For so much of my life, I’ve struggled with shyness and felt like a fish out of water. This goes way back to high school, when I moved from Hong Kong to attend an all-girls boarding school in Tacoma, Washington…”

Then, she continues with a story from business school:

“Even 10 years later when I was in business school, I felt totally out of place…”

(notice how sharing the details like the exact boarding school makes the story more real)

Sharing personal stories is a phenomenal way to make your readers feel the pain.

When your readers read about your pain, if they can relate to it, they’ll instantly feel it too.

Step #3 – Dirty Details:

The part that makes her story feel so real are the “dirty details” that most people don’t want to talk about.

Notice how she shares details like:

“I couldn’t find common ground with the girls at my new school, who would wear lots of makeup and talk about boys and sex.”

“Instead of going to parties, I spent a lot of late nights alone in my tiny dorm room at my desk – reading books and studying for tests.”

“While I ended up being at the top of my class, I certainly was not winning any popularity contests. I felt very lonely, and I didn’t have many friends.”

To write a great story that makes your readers connect with your pain, focus on the tiny, dirty details.

Think about the pain (for example: “I’m shy”), and then think about how it showed up in your life.

Write about specific situations where you felt the most pain (“instead of going to parties, I’d be alone at my desk…”).

As you do this, you’ll likely notice some pain or discomfort building up in you – that’s great!

If you’re starting to feel the pain as you’re writing, your readers will experience it too.

Step #4 – Thoughts and Emotions:

Selena talks about what she THOUGHT and what she FELT when those painful moments happened in her life:

“I felt very lonely, and I didn’t have many friends.”

“My classmates were brilliant, ambitious, and kind… but I just felt like I couldn’t connect with them.”

“Sitting there for what felt like hours + pretending to be somewhat interested (even though I was bored out of my mind!) was incredibly uncomfortable and painful.”

This way, her readers can see how her problems impacted her life.

Step #5 – Negative Consequences:

In this example, Selena doesn’t really share any negative consequences.

To find out what these could be (and make her email stronger), she could talk about how not fitting in negatively impacted her life.

What did she want that she couldn’t have?

How did her business grow slower because of this?

How was her life worse?

By answering those questions, she could show her readers why they should solve this problem, and improve her lives beyond just “not feeling lonely”.

To summarize, here’s the breakdown of Selena’s copy:

Step #1 – Common Problem: I don’t fit in with people around me
Step #2 – Relatable Stories: Feeling out of place in high school and business school
Step #3 – Dirty Details: Couldn’t find common ground with girls who talked about make up and sex, spending nights alone in her dorm room instead of partying, not having many friends.
Step #4 – Thoughts and Emotions: Lonely, disconnected, uncomfortable and painful
Step #5 – Negative Consequences: (not in her copy, but she could add these)

Example #2: How would you learn 46 bass lines in 3 days?

Next, let’s look at an email from one of my clients, Luke McIntosh from Become a Bassist, that he used as part of a recent successful launch.

Study the email. See if you can break down how he twisted the knife. Then, compare your notes with my analysis below the email.

Twist the knife copywriting example luke mcintosh

Here’s my analysis:

Step #1 – Common Problem: It takes a long time to learn a new bass line (a song performed on bass).
Step #2 – Relatable Story: You have to learn 45 new songs in just a few days – what do you do?
Step #3 – Dirty Details: The actual screenshots of emails and YouTube playlists, when he received the email, “I only knew ONE song”,…
Step #4 – Thoughts and Emotions: “OK – but surely I don’t have to learn everything from scratch… I must know some of these songs, right?”…
Step #5 – Negative Consequences: If I messed up, (1) I wouldn’t get another gig ever again, (2) the audience would demand their money back, (3) the band would be blacklisted from playing.

I love this email that we worked on together with Luke. It’s just such a great example of twisting the knife to begin your sales funnel.

Notice how the final section with negative consequences instantly makes this email more powerful. All of a sudden, it’s not just about learning the songs fast…

It’s about not getting hired for another gig ever again (a much bigger pain).

Example #3: The frustrated personal trainer

Now that you’ve seen twisting the knife in action, I want you to take a stab at it – so you can see how you do.

Imagine you’re a personal trainer that has a solution for reducing client cancellations.

The common problem:

The clients schedule an appointment with you. Then they don’t show up, without letting you know about it.

The solution is irrelevant here, we’ll just focus on the pain.

So how would you twist the knife in this situation?

Can you think of…

A relatable story
The dirty details
The thoughts and emotions that would go through your body
The negative consequences

Take 10 minutes and write out the story.

Then compare it with mine below.

“Back in 2013, when I was working at a Gold’s Gym in Los Angeles, I genuinely hated my life as a personal trainer. (setting up the personal story)

I’d wake up red-eyed every morning at 4am, and I’d be in the gym by 5.

I had about 14 clients booked every day, and I was excited to make a living doing what I genuinely loved.

…Except when the clients didn’t actually show up for their sessions.

Way too often, a client would ghost me, or send me a text 5 minutes before our session (“sorry, can’t make it today!”).

Here I was, at 5 am, in an empty gym, and instead of training my clients, I was watching cat videos on YouTube. (dirty details).

Why the hell was I waking up so early if my clients didn’t even care to show up?

Why was I working 16-hour shifts when more than a third of my clients cancelled every single day?

I thought I’d be earning $700 a day, so I could save up for my own gym at a time… (thoughts)

…and here I was, barely making the ends meet, even though I was bending myself backwards over my clients. (negative consequences)

What’s worse, every time I got a cancellation text from my clients, I felt like someone stabbed me in the chest.

It felt worse than not being invited to a party that everyone was invited to.

Every time I got ghosted, I felt the same kind of rejection as when my Tinder date didn’t show up. (emotions)

And worst of all, I felt like all of this was my fault. Maybe I wasn’t good enough at training them. Maybe they weren’t happy with my last session. Maybe I’d never succeed as a personal trainer and live out my dream of running my own gym after all… (thoughts)“

Here’s a quick breakdown of what I did in my story above:

Step #1 – Common Problem: Client no-shows
Step #2 – Relatable Story: I worked 16-hour workdays in a gym in Los Angeles, and every day a third of my clients didn’t show up for their appointments
Step #3 – Dirty Details: Waking up at 4am, coming up to an empty gym at 5, and watching cat videos
Step #4 – Thoughts and Emotions: Thought you would be making $700/day, saving for your own gym… Then feeling rejected, broke, as you would never be able to have your own gym.
Step #5 – Negative Consequences: Barely making ends meet, despite working 16-hour workdays.

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Copy Drill: Twisting The Knife

To get better at twisting the knife in your copy, you can repeat the copywriting drill you just went through with either fictional examples or examples of your own clients and readers. Both are great practice.

Simply take a common problem of your audience, write a story about it, share the dirty details, your thoughts, and emotions as you went through it, and the negative consequences.

Here are some ideas for fictional examples:

You’re at a first date with a man/woman you’ve had a crush on for years. Yet, you completely freeze up, and you end up parting ways as friends.
You had the last round of interviews for your dream job. You get a phone call with bad news – you didn’t get the position, so the next time you can apply is next year.
You studied for weeks for your Organic Chemistry test, but when you get the test in your hands, you have no idea what to do. Your mind goes blank.

You can also take a few examples of common problems of your own audience that you’ve dug up in your research, and write painful, emotional stories around them that hook your readers in.

You can use these stories to start your blog posts, sales pages, sales emails, and more – and instantly capture the attention of your readers.

7 Days. 7 Copy Skills. 7 Copy Drills.

Twisting the Knife is just one of the 7 key copy skills you need to write copy that sells better than hot lemonade on a hot summer day.

If you want to know…

How to instantly capture the attention of your readers (so they read your emails until the end instead of closing them)
How to keep your readers on their toes throughout your launches (and receive hundreds of responses to your engagement emails)
How to get your readers to say “shut up and take my money!” (and unlock the doors to 5-figure and 6-figure launches)

Then you’ll love The Copywriting Hell Week – the challenge I designed to help you with your journey of writing copy that converts.

Simply leave your name and email in the box below, and you’ll get it delivered straight to your inbox!

-Primoz

How to Source Great Copy From Your Favorite Books

By Primoz Bozic 2 Comments

This morning, I sat down to reread one of my favorite copywriting books, Great Leads by Michael Masterson and John Forde.

But this time, it was different:

I didn’t just read the book to learn from it or refresh my memory.

Instead, I automatically scanned the copy and highlighted all the parts where the author painted the dream, and spoke about the desires of his audience that got them excited to read the book.

I went through page after page, and kept highlighting the parts where he either painted the dream (in blue) or twisted the knife (in red):

(the Kindle app on the phone lets you highlight in different colors, which is super useful for this exercise)

Within minutes, I had 10 pages of highlights that were screaming to be recorded in a research document, never to be forgotten.

I pulled out my laptop, opened a new document, and copied all the interesting parts into it:

All of a sudden, I had a page full of compelling research that I could use in my copy, to produce stronger, more compelling copy in the future.

From phrases like “waste no more time figuring out how to “begin” sales copy”, “forge an instant connection with your reader” and “never have to worry about writing a dud” I could pull article ideas, headlines, sales narratives, and more!

Before we go any further, let’s make two things clear:

This technique wouldn’t be a replacement for talking to my readers and customers (nothing beats finding the exact language of your readers), it would be another great tool to have in my research toolbox.
I would never steal the exact copy from other copywriters – but I could broaden my vocabulary and see patterns in the problems and desires of my audience.

I realized that I could use the very same technique on any copywriting book in my industry, as well as any sales page, sales email, opt-in copy… Any piece of copy out there.

I could also effortlessly pull interesting stories, facts, statistics, anecdotes, and even objections of my audience out of everything I read.

This way, every time I’d read copy about copywriting, I’d also automatically understand my market better and become a better copywriter.

As soon as I discovered this technique, I knew I wanted to share it with you.

I opened a Google Document and started writing this blog post.

I just needed to find a sticky name for this idea, so I could refer to it in the future, and so my clients would remember it.

That’s how Copy Scan was born.

Copy Drill: How to use Copy Scan to write better copy

The next time you read a book, article, e-book, sales page or e-mail related to your industry, don’t just read it.

Instead, scan the copy for:

Problems of your audience (to twist the knife)
Desires / goals of your audience (to paint the dream)
Their objections, opinions and beliefs
Leads and buried leads
Stories and anecdotes
Headlines
…and any other copywriting elements you want to get better at

Highlight these – and save them into a research document for later use.

This way, every time you sit down to read a piece of copy, you’ll learn from it, increase the amount of research you have, and become a better copywriter (as you learn how to recognize copywriting frameworks in the copy).

As you go on your highlighting rampage, here’s one extra tip to keep in mind:

Highlight the parts of copy that trigger an emotional response in you.

If a promise of the author excites you… It’s likely a desire that your readers have as well, which will excite them.
If you can relate to a story the author shares, and you can feel their pain as you read it, you’ve uncovered a painful problem of your audience.
If you can’t stop reading and crave to find out more about an idea, you’ve found places where the author successfully built suspense and anticipation.
If you think “wow, I didn’t know that!”, you’ve identified surprising or counterintuitive facts and information.
If you think “that’s interesting!”, you’ve identified interesting statistics, facts or stories.

I recommend you to read and highlight the copy first – then take some time to move all the highlights into a dedicated research document.

If you have an assistant, he/she could even do this for you – and save you a few hours of work down the line.

So go on, play around with this idea – and let me know how it goes in the comments!

Want to write copy that converts better than cold lemonade on a hot summer day?

If you liked this copywriting drill, you probably won’t hate the 7 more copywriting drills I have in store for you.

My readers that went through these secret drills said that “they help them see their copy in ways they’ve never seen it before”…

But I’ll let you experience that for yourself.

If you want to write stronger, more compelling copy that actually connects with your readers and makes them excited to buy from you…

…or if you just want to have the most profitable lemonade stand in the country…

…join The Copywriting Hell Week, my 7-day copywriting challenge, by leaving your name and email in the orange box below.

You won’t hate it.

-Primoz

Want to Write Good Copy? Don’t Bury The Lead!

By Primoz Bozic 1 Comment

“Kenneth L. Peters, the principal of Beverly Hills High School, announced today that the entire high school faculty will travel to Sacramento next Thursday for a colloquium in new teaching methods.

Among the speakers will be anthropologist Margaret Mead, college president Dr. Robert Maynard Hutchins, and California governor Edmund “Pat” Brown.”

Take a few seconds to read through the story above.

Then, find the lead in it.

If you’ve never heard of it, the lead (or lede, as some people like to call it), is the first sentence of any sales email, sales page, or any other piece of copy you write.

It’s main purpose? Get the reader interested enough to continue reading to the next sentence (and hopefully, until the end of your copy).

So go on, stop reading this blog post and find the lead based on the description above that is most likely to catch the attention of your readers (in this case: imagine you’re writing a newspaper article).

What do you think the lead is?

Did you think of something like…

“Governor Pat Brown, Margaret Mead and Robert Maynard Hutchins will address the Beverly Hills High School Faculty on Thursday in Sacramento…”

(Most people will think of something like that)

or…

“There will be no school this Thursday!”

(if you did, nice work, you’ve found the lead!)

What you just experienced here is called Burying The Lead.

What does “Burying The Lead” mean?

This copywriting framework was born somewhere between 1861 and 1865, during the Civil War.

During the war, the telegraph machines that war correspondents used to deliver news were unreliable, and you would never know when the connection would die.

They were forced to deliver the most important news first (instead of burying the lead).

Just imagine that instead of saying “The enemy has reached our gates!”, the war correspondent would say “Thank you for the supplies you sent us yesterday,…” and then lose the connection.

It would be a disaster!

In Civil War, burying the lead meant the difference between life and death.

Burying The Lead in Copywriting

In copywriting, it makes the difference between readers reading your sales emails and sales pages until the end (and opening their wallets), or closing them (leaving you with an empty wallet).

It’s also one of the quickest ways to take your copy from “BORING!” to “can’t keep my eyes off you!”.

Today, we’ll learn how to NOT bury the lead, so you can fill up your wallets with those golden coins!

And since one of the best way to learn a new copywriting framework is through real-life examples, let’s study a few of them!

Don’t Bury The Lead: Example #1

Let’s start by analyzing this very blog post I wrote.

The intuitive way to start this email would be by saying something like:

“Ever heard of “burying the lead”?”

“In copywriting, there’s a framework called burying the lead…”

BORING!

While the intuitive way to start writing a blog post MIGHT be to simply say what you’ll talk about today, it’s not the most interesting way to start the email.

Similarly, if you ever started a sales email with:

“Yesterday, we talked about…”
“Today, we’re going to talk about…”

Or any other part of copy that’s not the most important or interesting part of your copy, you likely buried the lead.

Now take a few minutes, study this blog post up to this point, and see if you can find an alternative lead to it.

Try to find the most interesting part of the blog post – a story, a fact, a statistic,… something that would peak the interest of my readers enough to keep reading the blog post.

For extra credit, you can also think of a completely different lead you would use to write this blog post.

Ok, now stop reading, and go find the alternative lead(s).

No cheating!

As you can see, I started with a story that I’ve found in Chip and Dan Heath’s book Made to Stick, where I first familiarized myself with the concept of burying the lead.

I came up with this story during my research for this email, and chose to lead with it because I felt like it was the strongest way for you to EXPERIENCE burying the lead first-hand and instantly internalize the concept.

Alternatively, I could have lead with the origin story from Civil War…

…or, I could come up with a lead like this (from one of the blog posts I’ve found on lead writing online):

It’s hard to say which of these leads would be best without testing all of them, but it’s safe to say that all of them are far more interesting than saying “Today we’ll talk about burying the lead!”.

Don’t Bury The Lead: Example #2

Let’s look at another example from the email I sent to my email list to announce The Copywriting Hell Week – a copywriting challenge I created for my readers.

Take a few minutes, study the email, and identify 3 potential leads.

Again, the boring way to start my email would be saying something like:

“Today, I’m excited to announce a new copywriting challenge!…”

We want to do better than that.

Instead, I researched how Hell Week works, and crafted a story based on it:

I dove right into the story, and added a visual image to get your attention.

The lead worked, as my inbox was flooded with hundreds of responses from my readers within a few hours of sending out the email:

This isn’t the only lead I could use though.

I could also start my email with my story of doing 1,000 push-ups in 1h17min, or I could come up with a different story altogether.

Don’t Bury The Lead: Example #3

Our final example is the beginning of a sales email from one of my clients, Sam Gavis-Hughson (he helps coders land jobs at companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook):

Where’s the lead in this email?

What’s the most interesting part of it?

Did Sam nail it, or did he bury the lead?

If you guessed that he buried it, you guessed correctly!

The lead in this email is at the very end of the screenshot:

“Getting good at interviewing could mean a $5k raise (or more). Invested over 40 years, just $5k per year turns into more than $1 MILLION.”

This is how my copywriting friend Alp Turan rewrote this very email with a better lead during an email copywriting workshop he hosted for my readers:

Notice how a small change in narrative instantly made the email WAY more compelling (I love the subject line $1m excuses as well!).

How to Stop Burying The Lead in Your Copy

If you paid close attention to the examples in this blog post, not burying the lead is rather simple:

After writing a sales page, a sales email, a blog post (or any other piece of copy), scan it to find the lead.
The lead is the most interesting piece of information in the email (typically a story, a statistic, a fun fact, a big desire or problem of your audience…)
Once you’ve found the lead, replace your existing lead with it.

That’s it!

Copy Drills: Don’t Bury The Lead!

Now you know how to spot the lead… but you’ll only internalize this framework until you know how to spot leads intuitively by practicing it.

Just like Kobe Bryant didn’t go to sleep before he made 400 shots a day, neither should you before you find 400 new leads a day!

(excuse my bad sense of humor, that was a well-intended joke)

This is where Copy Drills come in.

To help you stop burying the lead, I designed a series of copywriting drills and exercises that you can use to get better at finding the leads in your copy.

Copy Drill #1: Find the lead

The first exercise you can do to get better at finding the leads is to simply spot them in the wild.

You can do that by:

Working through your “swipe file” of good copy you’ve found online.
Reviewing your old sales funnels, sales pages, engagement emails, blog posts (or other copy)
Reviewing copy of other entrepreneurs or copywriters you follow (simply search for emails from them in your inbox)
Paying attention to the leads any time you read something (blog posts, books, emails, ads,…)

The more you practice finding the buried leads, the faster you’ll get at spotting them in your own copy.

As a benchmark, I suggest applying this drill to at least 50 pieces of copy – that should be plenty to start “seeing” the patterns in the copy.

Copy Drill #2: Rewrite old leads

As an extension of the previous drill, you can replace the existing leads with better leads every time you find a buried lead.

I encourage you to do that with your own copy, as well as with copy of other entrepreneurs you follow.

This is a great way to get better at writing engaging leads that really “hook” your readers into your writing.

Copy Drill #3: Get a second set of eyes on your copy

Another great way to find buried leads in your copy is to get out of your own head and show your copy to a copywriting coach, a client, a reader or a friend.

As they read through it, pay attention to their reactions. When do they laugh, stop, smile, or shout “yes! this is amazing!” or “I love this part!” or “that’s super interesting!”.

When they do, you’ve found the lead!

This is what I regularly do with my copywriting coaching clients – I help them find the leads that they can’t see with their own eyes, which helps them get better at coming up with their own leads.

When in doubt, get a second set of eyes on your copy!

Copy Drill #4: Make lead-finding part of your writing process

Finally, I encourage you to make finding the right leads part of your writing process every time you sit down to write copy:

Think about what the lead for the copy is BEFORE you ever write it
Write the copy
Once finished, double-check your copy if you wrote the best possible lead, or if you can find a better lead for it

This way, you’ll bury the leads way less often,

Then, once you finish writing the email, double-check that you actually started your copy with the correct lead, and that you didn’t bury it.

If you find an even more interesting lead, replace your existing lead with it!

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Want to write copy that converts? Join The Copywriting Hell Week!

If you liked this blog post, you’ll love Copywriting Hell Week.

Copywriting Hell Week is my 7-day copywriting challenge that will teach you how to write copy that converts first-time website visitors into loyal customers and raving fans.

Through 7 copywriting missions, I’ll teach you 7 secret copywriting skills of world’s best copywriters through exercises and drills – and get you started on your mission of becoming a master copywriter.

The result? More traffic, more email subscribers, more sales – for years to come.

Just enter your name and email address in the box below, and join in on the fun!

P.S. This article is part of my new series called “Copy Drills”, where I share practical copywriting drills that help you write better copy. If you love it, do leave a comment below to let me know about it – or share the article with a friend who wants to write better copy!