How to sell a $2,000 handbag

How would you sell a $2,000 luxury laptop bag?

I just joined a really expensive copywriting mastermind. One of the things we do in that mastermind is "mock copy critiques". 

Basically, every month, the people who run the mastermind give us a fake brief to write an email promoting a fake product for a fake company. Last month, we wrote an email for a fake handbag brand selling a luxury handbag for $2,000.

Everyone in the program approached it like another direct response-y product. They told you about all the benefits of this handbag, and how supply was running out, and how there's a money back guarantee, so you should buy it right now.

The coach had the same feedback for all of them: that's not how you sell luxury products.

I heard him say it over and over again. If you want to sell a jacket that you make for $5 in a factory in Vietnam for $1,000 on Fifth Avenue, you can't look like a spammy marketer. That's gonna make your jacket seem cheap.

And you can't be too logical in your copy. It's completely illogical to buy a $5 jacket for $1,000 because of the name on the label. So you can't be direct. You need to create an aura and a mystique.

I was reading legendary marketer Dan Kennedy's book No B.S. Marketing To The Affluent last month... and he basically said the same thing.

Luxury copy breaks all the rules of copy. When you're a beginner copywriter, you learn to write at a 5th grade level. But luxury copy is wordy and pretentious.

When you're a beginner copywriter, you learn to be direct. But luxury copy is indirect.

That got me thinking. Is following the "normal" rules of copy even good anymore? 

Because when I'm scrolling through my inbox or my Facebook feed, when I see copy that looks a little bit too direct response-y, I just tune it out.

I assume that everyone who writes "normal" copy is trying to scam me. Today there's so much of it out there (especially because AI is writing most of it.) It all sounds the same.

If you want my money, you have to sound different.

That's why the email you're reading now doesn't look like a typical marketing email. If I wrote the same stuff as everyone else, you'd probably get bored of my emails and stop reading them.

If you have a smart audience then the same thing goes. The more you use obvious direct response tactics, the more you hurt your brand, and the more trust you lose.

That doesn't mean you can't use direct response tactics. You won't make any sales if you don't use ANY direct response tactics. 

But you have to HIDE the direct response tactics you do use. Otherwise you sound like a scammer.

-Theo