//25 Quick-Fire Lessons to Make You (or Someone You've Hired) a Better Copywriter TODAY.//
We’ve seen a surge of new faces around here after I was named #3 on the “34 Of The Best Copywriters To Watch Out For In 2022”.
And what better way to say hello than to share some wisdom?
What follows are 25 copy lessons…
If you’re a copywriter? Take ‘em in. Think on them. Then apply them!
If you’re a business owner? You can either shoot this link to someone on your copy team (this is a free post anyone can see) or take a read yourself. You never know what you might find.
Read them below or join the conversation here.
Enjoy!
//25 Quick-Fire Lessons to Make You (or Someone You've Hired) a Better Copywriter TODAY.//
I just hit 250 completed calls with the students in my advanced mentoring program…
So let’s celebrate by sharing 25 of the lessons I’ve shared with them to unlock:
>> 50k months in copywriter income…
>> Launch runaway winners on cold traffic...
>> Beat controls at the biggest DR companies on the planet… and more.
Become your biggest critic. A critical eye will tear your copy apart, revealing the flaws in your structure, the “coincidences” in your story and virtually every objection it can uncover. This critical eye can either be yours OR the eye of your potential customer. Make sure it’s you.
Give people the opportunity to paint themselves into your story. Telling a first-person story isn’t enough. Reach out to your reader/viewer throughout. Phrases like “you know what it’s like…” “does this sound familiar?” “when was the last time you did this?” draw your potential customers into the copy more. Make them part of the experience.
Writing is easy, thinking is hard. Beneath every piece of copy are variables. The offer, the market and their worldview and more. It’s your job to make them align. Without this, you don’t have a strong sales message. This involves thinking, thinking and more thinking. Many start writing long before they’ve done enough thinking.
Clarity is king – but easily overlooked. Confusing your potential customer is a quick way to lose the sale. And a lack of clarity is the fastlane to confusion. You know exactly what your copy is saying… but you’ve been in the document for hours. The customer hasn't. Read every single line of copy like you’re a sleep-deprived member of your market. Where does it need more clarity?
Who researches more, wins. The biggest differentiator between you and other copywriters is research. Whoever understands the market more will find the better angle/hook/story. This is how you come out on top 8.5 times out of 10. (Lesson #5.1, there are no guaranteed winners.)
You won’t like it all – but don’t let your mental frame hurt you. You like some parts of copy more than others. That’s natural. But don’t let this stop you from bringing your a-game to where it needs to be. I used to despise emails but they were the traffic drivers to my long form promos. I had to change my mental frame around emails from “afterthought” to “vital”. And now I enjoy writing them.
Time away from copy is just as important as time in copy. Creativity is a necessary but finite resource of copywriting. You can’t brute-force it. Often you’ll have your brightest ideas during or immediately after you take some time away from whatever copy you’re working on.
Metacognition is a superpower. IMO, there comes a time when the most impactful growth comes from metacognition. Or “thinking about your thinking.” None of us are special. Thoughts and feelings are transferable to our customers. So start going deep on what you feel when you make a purchase. What processes are running through your brain to get to this buying decisions. And so on. Translate this back into your copy.
“Pre-pay” your claims. One of the easiest ways to prove your claim is to pay for it upfront. Proof first, then claim. All you’ve got to do is make the connection between these two parts crystal-clear. I also call this the stealth claim – because it no longer feels like one.
Get in the habit of modelling loosely. There’s a limit to how far most people can go with simply “modelling” every bit of copy they write. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. But by modelling loosely, you can begin to understand the psychology behind every block, paragraph and line of copy you write. This is more transferable.
Stories aren’t always dramatic. They don’t always require a near-death or humiliating experience. Sometimes a good story is actually just a narrative. Something happened, here’s why it’s relevant to you.
Momentum is EVERYTHING. You know those days when you just can’t seem to get writing? When you start, stop, start stop? Same thing happens in copy. Your first line of copy needs to be the start of the slippery slide Joe Sugarman talks about. Then, every line after needs to be making that slide even more slippery. You want the reader to breeze through your copy without slowing down (though, there are exceptions).
The exceptions are: emphasis & explanation. Sometimes it serves you to slow down the copy to emphasize a story element, emotion, future benefits or something else. Sometimes you need to slow down to explain something more complex (a mechanism, part of an investment case, etc). When should you do this? When your gut tells you to. This is something you’ll develop over time.
Find your “voice”… Every great copywriter has their voice. You can tell it’s their copy, just by reading it. And this is never more clear than when you sit in a copy review and have them read it out loud. Finding your own voice – the voice of your inner salesman – gets you in flow, removes a variable and can be repeated over and over.
…then find the voice of the spokesperson. Once you’ve got your voice, layer the voice of the spokesperson over it. Do it right and this won’t sound like the hot-mess you may think it will. It will have your salesmanship + the spokespersons personality. That’s a winning combination.
When something’s wrong, cut first, edit second. Too often we feel like we should write our way out of the creative problems in copy. But 7 out of 10 times the answer involves cutting our way out instead. Bottom line: if you feel something is wrong, first ask yourself if cutting a block of copy fixes it.
Wordcount matters. The old adage of “there’s no such thing as copy that’s too long” is true-ish. But that doesn’t mean you spend an extra 2,000 words/10 minutes if you don’t need to. Tight copy builds momentum.
Always get a second pair of eyes. Until you get really, really good (and even then…) you’ll have a hard time identifying what’s wrong in your copy. Particularly if it takes multiple months of work to complete. You’re in too deep and will have a hard time seeing the forest for the trees.
Don’t forget about logic. Emotion sells. We’re emotional creatures. Blah blah. That’s all true. But every promo also needs logic to create structure. The logic will tame & focus the emotion. This is why templates exist. (Though free yourself from templates ASAP.)
Manage your energy levels. Energy is finite. And creativity is a huge drain on it. You can’t be tapping into your pool of energy 24/7 if you want to produce quality copy. Take time to recover. You don’t have to be productive 100% of the time.
Always have one key focus on what you’d like to improve. The biggest growth will come from focusing on one key part of copy at a time. It could be leads, momentum, headlines, closes, whatever. This doesn’t mean you stop trying to improve elsewhere at the same time – you’re just giving focus and ATTENTION to where your biggest improvement will come from.
Focus on royalties, not fees. Easier said than done, we’ve all got to put food on the table. But by switching your focus to the royalty potential, you’ll focus more on producing the BEST work you can and less on how quick you can write. Only one of these is good long-term for your growth, reputation and business.
Never try to convince your reader. Your argument might be irrefutable. But if that market disagrees with you to begin with… or if their worldview simply won’t accept what you’re saying… you’ve got no hope of converting them. Instead, channel their biases and existing beliefs to your conclusion.
You’re putting together a puzzle of biases. Following on from the above, every market has a box full of biases and beliefs. It’s your job to put them all together in a puzzle that allows the market to say “yes” to your offer.
Don’t give clients a chance to call your copy a write-off. Some clients like to fail fast. Your promo bombs? They’re onto the next one. Unless you give them something to test right away. So always deliver something to test. It could be that your second headline turns your “so-so” copy into a runaway winner.
And the bonus #26? Once you get good enough, you know when to break the "hard" rules of copywriting.
P.S. If you like what you see…
And want more…
Then become a paying subscriber of Conversion Confidential by clicking the button below.