HOSTED BY Kevin Rogers

COPY CHIEF RADIO

Ep 187: Show, Don’t Tell In Your Copy with Max Hamm

Copy Chief Radio

Ep 187: Show, Don’t Tell In Your Copy with Max Hamm

In This Episode

The second I plopped down in my fluffy, brown chair to write this, I saw a red disc-shaped object flash by the window outside.

My nervous-by-nature beagle, Jessie, sprung out of a deep slumber, leapt onto my chair and barked ferociously out the window, her howling shouts so close to my face I could smell her sour sleep breath as she yelped at the scene outside.

In an instant, my snug writer’s haven was transformed into a raucous crime scene in the making.

“The hell? Is there a UFO landing in our yard?” I muttered, craning my neck to look while trying to calm Jessie.

The red “alien object” turned out to be a frisbee tossed waywardly into our yard by my neighbor Jim, with his lithesome terrier, Felix, chasing it down in full sprint.

Okay… to be real (got to be real)… that didn’t actually happen, but it easily could — and if it did, a boring way to describe it would be: Just now my neighbor’s dog chased a frisbee into my yard and caused my dog to freak out.

That’s a quick and dirty example of showing instead of telling when writing, and it’s a critical aspect of persuasive copywriting.

Today’s CCR is with my great friend, Max Hamm, who is another comedian turned copywriter, and a leading authority on how to blend the two artforms to make your copy pop off the screen, win attention, build trust, and get the sale. We once teamed up on a cool podcast series called “You, But Funny.”

Now, Max is fresh out of the copy lab with an excellent new book called Funny Money. It’s packed with super implementable examples and frameworks for turning your messaging from ignorable to enjoyable, which not only makes you more sales, but pleases the Facebook gods and can actually lower your ad costs, among other happy results.