41 Copywriting Secrets That Cost Me $22,000 To Learn

Most copywriting courses charge $1,000 for the information I’m about to give you in this article for free.

Most copywriting courses charge $1,000 for the information I’m about to give you in this article for free.

These are 41 Copywriting Secrets that I have personally used to go from a nobody five years ago to a full-time six-figure copywriter today — with over 5,000 email subscribers and over $11 million sold in the funnels that I’ve written for myself and for my clients. This is what I do all day long.

Let’s dive in.

(**Heads up… Everything I’m about to show you is available as a CHEAT SHEET. Click the link, put your email in, and you can use it anytime you want to write copy.)

Secret #1: Your Copy Should Be a Mirror

When people read your copy, they should feel like they are reading a story about themselves. It should be emotionally resonant — when they read it, they’re nodding:

“Yes. Oh my gosh, yes. This sounds exactly like problem I’m going through.”

The copy is about them, not you.

Secret #2: People Do Not Care About You

Write with WIIFM — What’s In It For Me?

They care about their problems, their pains, their desires, and their life. They don’t give two rips about your success and what you’ve done. Every sentence you write should be for them — to solve their problem, improve their life, move their things forward.

Secret #3: Find Your Big Behemoth Idea

Great copy actually doesn’t start with writing. It starts with a big idea.

Something so explosive that when they see it, their heart starts pounding. It matters that much to them. It’s so resonant with what’s happening in our culture, in their life, that they’re saying, “Yes, I need to know more about this now.”

Secret #4: Make the Skeleton Dance

Every product has drawbacks. Don’t hide those drawbacks. Show them to your reader.

What this actually does is create believability and trust in what you’re writing. If you only talk about the good things in your product… people start to assume you’re hiding something. Don’t hide it, show it.

Secret #5: Be a PASTOR

PASTOR is one of my most highly-used, highest-converting frameworks.

It stands for:

1. P — Problem: Talk about the person’s problem

2. A — Agitation: Make it worse. If they don’t solve this, what happens?

3. S — Solution: Introduce the solution, which is your product

4. T — Testimonial: Give testimonials, proof, case studies — whatever it takes to prove your solution works

5. O — Offer: Make them an offer they can’t resist

6. R — Response: Give a reason to respond right now

Secret #6: Sell Benefits, Not Features

Steve Jobs is the most iconic example of this. He sold “1,000 songs in your pocket” with the iPod instead of saying “five gigabytes of storage.”

No one cares about the storage. They care about the songs in their pocket.

Another way to reframe this: when you sell a quarter-inch drill bit, you’re not selling the drill bit — you’re selling the quarter-inch hole that someone gets from the drill bit.

What is the thing that your people get from buying your product? Not the product itself — the outcome.

Secret #7: Make Your Reader Imagine Themselves With Your Product

Adobe is phenomenal at this. They constantly show people using Photoshop and Lightroom — putting you in the perspective of editing photos and making amazing designs. They’re showing you your life with that product.

What does your reader’s life look like after they buy your product? Put them in that image. Paint that picture.

Secret #8: Obey the 40/40/20 Rule

• 40% of your success in sales comes from the quality of your list — the people you’re selling to, whether from Meta ads, your email list, whatever

• 40% comes from the quality of your offer

• 20% is the copy

Great copy cannot save you from a bad offer or a bad list. Fix those two things first. Make a great offer to a great list, and the copy will act more like fuel — an amplifier.

Secret #9: People Buy Emotionally, Not Logically

People will justify logically. If I go tell my wife I bought a $1,000 course, I’ll say something like, “It was on sale.” That’s the logical story I’d tell her.

But I didn’t buy it because it was on sale. I bought it because I have a pain that the course solves. Or there’s a fear deep in my soul and that course promised it would solve that fear for me.

Those are the parts we don’t say out loud — but that’s actually why we buy.

Secret #10: Deadlines Are Generous

When you give a deadline, you’re forcing someone to make a decision — to buy or not to buy. Whether they buy or not, that’s totally fine.

What you’re actually doing is giving them relief from the indecision that’s been stewing in them. “Should I buy this? Should I not?” Well, now the decision is made because the deadline is over.

Secret #11: Long Copy Is the Daddy

The more you say, the more you sell. The more people read your stories, your ideology, your features, your benefits — everything in the copy — the more they’ll be indoctrinated with the idea of wanting to buy from you.

You can’t be boring. You have to be exciting. But long copy will always outpull short copy.

Secret #12: Curiosity Is the Most Potent Drug in Humans

Humans are physically incapable of not solving their curiosity. If you say something that makes someone curious about what you’re going to say next, they will want to click your headline, open your email, or read your sales letter.

In your copy, open a loop of curiosity. Say something they’re already wondering. Open the loop there, then tell the rest of the story in the copy.

Secret #13: AI Cannot Tell Stories, But Stories Sell

Everything you sell is bought by a human, and humans are wired to process information through stories.

The more your story feels real to them and resonates with what they’re going through, the more likely they’re going to attach themselves to you and your product — which then gets them to read the whole sales letter. The more they read, the more they sell, and so on.

Secret #14: Great Copy Cannot Fix a Bad Product

I’ve gone down this rabbit hole many times — writing great copy for a really crappy product, especially in the ecom world when I was taking clients early on. I learned my lesson.

Before ever taking a client, I start asking: “What kind of testimonials, proof, case studies, success stories do you have?”

If they don’t already like it, I can’t write for it. Because copy is more like fuel — it doesn’t create sales, it amplifies sales. If you don’t have a fire already going, there’s nothing I can do for you. But if you have a fire going, I can turn it into a roaring, exciting fire that sells.

Secret #15: Write to a Starving Crowd

Find people who are already interested and desperate for what you have to offer. Stop trying to create desire. Think about what they already like, what they already want, why they would already want the thing you have.

Gary Halbert told this story when he was teaching a college class. He said:

“If you could have one advantage for opening a new burger shop, what would you choose?”

People said things like: best prices, best location, best ingredients.

And Halbert said, “No, you’re all wrong.”

What he’d choose: a hungry crowd.

Who cares if you have the best prices, the best ingredients, or the best location? If you don’t have a starving crowd who wants what you have, you will not sell a thing.

Secret #16: Study One Master

My first year in copywriting, I bumbled around trying to study a bunch of different gurus. Don’t do that.

Find one person whose copywriting you’re absolutely addicted to. Study everything they write, everything they sell. Buy all their courses. Buy everything you can get your hands on. Turn them into your mentor from a distance.

Once you’ve read everything that person has to offer, then move on and start studying someone else.

It’s way too confusing to learn copywriting if all you do is bounce from guru to guru, because everybody’s angle is a little different and it messes with your head.

Secret #17: Proof Smokes Promises for Breakfast

Promises are like balloons — the bigger they are, the more likely they pop. Anybody can make a promise. Anybody can make a claim. That doesn’t make it believable or trustworthy.

The rarest ingredient in high-selling copy is proof:

• Testimonials

• Case studies

• Demonstrations

Put proof in your headline. Put proof in your body copy. Put proof in your offer. Put proof after your objections. Put proof everywhere you can to show people this is legit.

Secret #18: Demonstration May Be the Greatest Form of Proof

PT Barnum helped Otis elevators get off the map — and they now make up 70% of elevators on the planet. The way they did it was through dramatic demonstration.

Barnum put Otis himself floating in the middle of a town square on one of his elevators — an elevator designed to stop from falling even if the ropes were cut. He did it live. He cut the ropes live. The elevator flew, then stopped, based on the mechanism Otis made.

After that one demonstration, Otis became a multi-millionaire in the 1800s.

Can you demonstrate your product? It will sell more.

Secret #19: Pain Sells More Than Desire

Promising someone a bright, fluffy future is good — but it doesn’t sell as much as finding a pain they have right now and showing them how to solve it.

People are less attached to the future. They are so entrenched in what they’re going through right now that they will buy whatever it takes to get out of discomfort.

Secret #20: Write in Your Market’s Words

Very much like Secret #1 — mirroring your market.

The way you do it: scroll through forums and comments, read direct messages, go hang out with the people in your market that you’re trying to sell to. What are the exact words they’re saying? Use those exact words and put them into your copy.

Like John Carlton’s famous “one-legged golfer” ad. He was talking to the guy who created that golf method, and that guy was the one who gave him the headline idea — the sales letter that made millions of dollars. John didn’t write that headline. He stole it from his market.

Secret #21: Think Like a Fish

Don’t hang out with fishermen — other marketers obsessed with fancy lures and the latest gurus. That’s how fishermen think.

Spend time swimming with your market. What do they care about? Where do they act? Where do they spend their money? Where do they go? What do they buy?

You have to understand the people you’re selling to far better than the people who are trying to sell to them.

Secret #22: Know Their Awareness Level

Eugene Schwartz created the five stages of awareness:

1. Unaware

2. Problem Aware

3. Solution Aware

4. Product Aware

5. Most Aware / Offer Aware

If you’re selling something brand new and people don’t even know they have this problem, you’d sell with stories and education.

But if you’re selling a smartphone in 2026 — everybody knows about smartphones. They’re solution aware, product aware, and offer aware. So instead of stories, you make an offer with a unique mechanism so different from everyone else that that’s how you stand out in a saturated market.

Secret #23: Play Golf Often

I usually play golf once or twice a week. Whenever I’m stuck writing copy or can’t think of a new breakthrough idea, I actually leave everything I’m doing and go play golf for 3–4 hours.

By the time I come back, I’m brewing with fresh angles and ideas — because I’m letting my mind do the work to find the answers for me.

This is called incubation, from Joe Sugarman. It is vastly underrated. Most hustle bros just try to work through slumps. Never do that. It’s way more fun to play four hours of golf and come back with flowing ideas.

Secret #24: Write Like a Barista

Pretend you’re a barista at a coffee shop. You’re pulling a shot, somebody’s sitting at the coffee bar, and you’re having a conversation with them. You’re genuinely excited about the product you’re telling them about. You’re talking to them like they’re talking back.

That’s how you write copy.

• Super simple and easy to understand

• Short sentences

• Clear words

My hack for this: I voice-dictate my ideas and stories into my phone to capture my natural flow, then go back and edit it on the computer. That writes probably half your copy.

Secret #25: Sell Identity, Not Products

Don’t sell someone running shoes. Sell someone on the idea of being a runner.

People buy who they want to become. If you can attach your product to their identity, they will be far more attracted to what you’re trying to sell them.

Secret #26: Every Sentence Has to Earn the Next

If the sentence I just read doesn’t make me want to read the next sentence, cut it.

Getting people to read a lot of copy is like taming a lion. You have to be very careful how you walk that lion down your sales page. One slip-up and that lion gets scared and runs away.

Secret #27: Compete With Netflix

You are not competing with other advertisements. You are competing with entertainment — TikTok, Netflix, YouTube.

Everything you write has to be so compelling, so addictive, so entertaining that they don’t want to go to those other forms of entertainment. They want to sit and read exactly what you have to say.

Secret #28: One

Write your copy for:

• One person

• With one offer

• To one funnel

• That solves one problem

• With one big idea

Anytime you try to layer multiple offers, multiple stories, or try to appeal to this person and also that person — it’s noise. You might as well have never written it.

Secret #29: Your Headline Has One Job

Your headline’s only job is to get them to read the next sentence.

You’re not selling the product. You’re getting them to invest in reading the rest of what you have to say. Capture their attention, open the loop of curiosity, and get them in.

Secret #30: Repel the Losers

There are people your product is not for. Call those people out. Tell them exactly why they should not buy your product.

One — you don’t want them buying your product anyway.

Two — by calling out who it’s not for, you actually increase the desire from the people who it is for. It feels exclusive. They’re thinking:

“Oh yeah, I’m not that guy. I’m definitely not that person. This must be for me.”

While you’re repelling the losers, you’re increasing the desire for the people who will actually pull the trigger.

Secret #31: People Buy You Before They Buy Your Product

Whether you’re a personal brand or a company, your voice, your personality, and your personal views on life will encourage someone to listen to more from you. Because people like us buy from us.

It’s one of the reasons I’ve bought so much from people like Daniel Throssell and Ben Settle — because I’m very much like those guys. A lot of Ben’s worldviews I share. Daniel and I are both 33, both dads, both disciplined, both believe in Jesus. We have all these things in common, which makes me more attracted to what they’re selling.

Secret #32: People Read With Their Eyes

Formatting matters. Short sentences. Paragraph breaks. Rhythms — one sentence, then three sentences, then two sentences. Big bold text to break up paragraphs.

Good formatting reduces the illusion of how much copy they have to read and creates a slippery slope where they just glide down because you’ve made it so easy to digest.

It’s like a meal on a plate. If it looks ugly, gross, and overwhelming, you’re not gonna want to eat it.

Secret #33: Inject a “Don’t Give a Sh*t” Attitude

Neediness is the ultimate way of repelling great buyers. If they read your copy and feel like you’re begging for the sale — it’s gross. People don’t like that. It’s unattractive.

Gary Halbert used to do this thing where after he made an offer, he’d say:

“Look, you could buy this or not. Either way, I’m eating steak tonight.”

Basically saying: I don’t care whether you buy or not. I’m rich, I’m good, I’m happy. You can do whatever you want.

That’s the ultimate aura of non-neediness. Inject that into your copy.

Secret #34: Make Your Copy Itself Valuable

You’re now 34 secrets into this article… which is actually an ad to get you to download my cheat sheet, join my email list, read my emails, and buy my stuff.

(Oops, said the quiet part outloud!— see secret #37)

But you’re still reading! Because this article is incredibly valuable!

When you can make your ad itself so valuable that it doesn’t feel like an ad — it feels like pure value — people don’t throw that away. They don’t skip it. They keep the things that are actually helpful to them.

Secret #35: Specificity Is Credibility

Don’t say things like “I’ll help you lose weight.”

Say “I’ll help you lose 10 pounds in 30 days.”

Specific claims feel true. Vague claims feel fake.

Secret #36: Do Not Reinvent the Wheel

Go to websites like Swiped(.co) or create your own swipe file of emails and ads that have worked on you in the past. Figure out: why did they work? What did you like? What didn’t you like?

Use that to recreate the wheel for your own emails, sales pages, and ads. Figure out what’s winning, take notes, swipe those, make them your own.

Just don’t steal someone’s work.

Secret #37: Say the Quiet Part Out Loud

You have things in you that are polarizing, contrasting, and create massive conflict in people’s lives. You need to be polarizing.

Say things that will shock people — because:

• Shock creates conflict

• Conflict creates attention

• Attention creates traffic

• Traffic creates sales

Secret #38: What to Say Beats How to Say It

Every market has a “trigger” based on what’s happening in their world — the culture, the zeitgeist, their industry. It’s top of mind and all they’re thinking about.

If you can figure out their biggest pain, biggest fear, or biggest desire that’s happening culturally right now and say something about it, you will trigger them to give you their attention.

Secret #39: Stack Value Before Revealing Price

Pump up your product — so many bonuses, premiums, benefits, all jammed together — before you ever reveal the price.

By the time they get there, they’re thinking, “Oh my gosh, this is going to be $1,000... $2,000... this is going to be incredibly expensive.”

Then they hit the price and feel immense relief — “Oh, it’s $300? I thought it was going to be $1,000.”

You’ve price-anchored them with value first. That makes it far more likely they’ll buy, because your actual price is so much lower than their internal anchor.

Secret #40: Consumption Is Good, But Absorption Is Better

Reading and understanding are two very different things.

You need to say things — your stories, your copy, your offers — so clearly and so simply that they don’t just read the whole thing, they absorb it. They’re able to make a decision because they know exactly:

• What they’re going to get

• When they’re going to get it

• How they’re going to get it

• What it’s going to do for them

Secret #41: Ruthlessly Attack Your Enemies

If someone out there is selling your people an inferior product — or worse, something actually harmful to them — you need to attack them.

It creates conflict. Say why that product is trash. You have a responsibility to tell your people why it will hurt them.

And two — it creates this intense, dramatic conflict between you and them that generates attention, which creates traffic, which creates sales.

Thanks for reading!

Here’s what I want you to do next…

Grab the Cheat Sheet so you can use these next time you write an ad, email or sales page.

I appreciate you taking the time to read this.

If you have any questions, I reply to every single email sent my way.

Your copywriting friend,

Alin “El Copy Goat” Dragu

P.S. If you want me to personally help you write better copy and sell more stuff — checkout CopyCreator Club.