How To Write Ads
January 31st, 2009. Published under Copywriting. No Comments.
I believe one of the best copywriters who ever lived was Gary Halbert. He wrote some of the most profitable letters and space ads on history. And, on top of all that, he was a fantastic teacher of copywriting as well.
One of the things I learned from Gary is the importance of making things easy on yourself. For example, let’s say you want to write an ebook on losing weight.
What’s the best course of action?
Well, maybe you can study horse racing. Maybe you can spend years around the best horse trainers to find out what their secrets are. Maybe you can get in with the inner circle of horse racing. But is all of that time, work and stress necessary? Not at all. There is a much more hassle-free method to getting everything you need to know about horse racing.
Instead of doing things the hard way, Gary would recommend you go out and buy the top selling books and ebooks on dieting. Then you clam up in your office or the library and read. While reading jot down notes. Lots of them. And take out all of the unique, exclusive dieting tips, tricks and secrets in each of those best sellers.
Take your notes and write that report on horse racing. And this report will contain the best of the best tips, secrets and tricks that you took out of the books and reports you read. The final result is a valuable report packed with great information horse racing fans will love.
Easy does it best.
You can do the same thing when creating advertising. In fact, this works great if you have to craft a sales message on the fly for any kind of media.
What we’re talking about here is referred to as swiping in advertising circles. The process simplifies everything for the ad writer. Halbert was big on swiping. He taught it during a copywriting seminar in the mid 1990’s. Almost the entire even was about the process of how to swipe to create your own profitable ads.
You do not have to become a great copywriter to swipe. Learn to do it the right way and a lot of obstacles to creating advertising that works will disappear.
Do that and you’ll experience these benefits…
** Writer’s block will no longer exist. You’ll know where to start and ad. You’ll no longer be figuring out what to say. Because the swipe ads give you all that information.
** You’ll write promotions at warp speed. Swiping allows you to write faster. Again, part of the reason is because you wont have to guess. You can look at a great ad and almost fill in the blanks with your copy.
** Your copy will be up to 300% more effective. Whenever you model success the odds of success are on your side. When modeling a successful ad you stand a much better chance of writing a winner.
So the idea is to build a swipe file and use it when creating ads.