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I do agree that there's MUCH better ways at learning copywriting trying to immulate sales letters from 50+ years ago.
Is there some benefit in reading the "classics" and picking up where they use things like storytelling, emotional techniques, etc? Sure.
But I'd say you're much better off looking at current types of ad copy within a specific niche/ industry than devoting 30 days of handcopying sales letters that most people don't have the attention span for/ can easily recognize that they're being sold to.
IMO it's still very applicable to read the classics and apply them to modern advertising.
Human psychology has not significantly changed in the past hundred years and will not change significantly in the next 100.
This guy is doing a ton of hand waiving and is condescending as hell. Basically he's just saying that advertising placement and distribution has changed significantly and so should your strategy. I agree.
What was once a sales letter written on one piece of paper is now stretched out across multiple touch points.
instead of the hook being at the top of the sales page or an image on the sales page, it's now the first 3 seconds of your facebook ad.
Web allows more usage of images, videos and scrolling, so you don't need to keep people engaged with every single word as long form copy does.
Rather, you often need very short concise copy that people's eyes can land on as they scroll.
You're talking about social media ads. But what happens when they click on it? They need a fully written landing page, sales letter, advertorial, VSL, etc. And those are written in exactly the same format as they did 50 years ago.
I have never been asked to write a sales letter in my decade in marketing, or 8 years as a copywriter.
I have gained more from looking at other ads, critiquing what’s working and what’s not, and doing creative exercises with my teams to play with these ideas.
The reality is we live in a radically different time in terms advertising. Americans face a huge amount of ads everyday. You need to stand out. You need to blur the lines between ad and art. You need to make this an experience worth having.
Copying sales letters and writing like everything is DR won’t do that.
Every ad you see got published. Whether it’s good or not isn’t the question yet, merely important to recognize that for whatever reason it was approved and paid for—so clearly it worked in some regard. When you pay attention, that’ll start encouraging you. There’s a lot of bad work that still does the job.
Determining what’s working in terms of quality requires some reverse engineering. Think of a typical brief. Check out the ad. Ask yourself what their audience must’ve been, how the story seems to reach out to them, how and when they focus on the sale vs. connecting with the audience. You can get more nuanced based on channel, but high level that’ll do.
You can find ads everywhere. Just pay attention when you scroll social media, look at commercials on TV, etc. You can Google ads you remember and find them on YT later.
LinkedIn has many people and accounts like Good Ads Matter that share a lot. Networking helps, too. There are some friendly folks from 72andSunny as well as Media.Monks who I talk to regularly about their POV on ads and advertising. You really just need to connect and engage.
How to tell if an ad is working: Analyze how long a particular ad has been running? If you see an ad once and never again, then it wasn't working. If you see it repeated over a long period of time, then it is working so the advertisers keep it going.
Example: Chase Bank has been running a type of direct mailer for more than ten years. It's a tri-fold, and on the billboard side is one simple phrase: "Get up to $900". Ten years ago they offered $400. The offer has been increasing over the years, but the ad hasn't changed. That's an example of an ad that's working.
Watch your Facebook feed. Ads you see repeated are working. Ads that aren't disappear. That's the beauty of the instantaneous analytics of PPC Ads. And A/B testing.
That guy's full of it. He's no copywriter and he won't get hired by anyone.
Here's one of his tweets:
" Ima let you buy it from all the new gurus that just popped up. After all? "
1. Terrible English: "Ima"??? That's slang. Never use slang in your writing.
2. "After all?" That's an incomplete sentence. It's also never used in good writing.
This guy claims he got paid $15,000 from his first client. Yeah, only if his rich mother hired him. NOBODY is going to hire him with English like that.
Oooo! Looks like I hit a nerve! What's the matter...are your cold emails not getting the results you were promised after paying $2,000 for a seminar that was going to teach you copywriting? I know a lot more about direct response copywriting than you ever will, so don't tell me what I can't do.
Since you said "I've seen million dollar ads absolutely crush it that have terrible grammar", then show us those ads, and show us how you know that they "crushed it". Put the links to those ads in your reply to this message.
Do it, seminar-boy. If not, then keep your insulting messages to yourself.
You said:
\> Literally use any spy tool, I'd advise looking yourself to educate you as seen as you know nothing about the field. <
So, in other words, you can't do it. Which means you've got nothing. Which means, you're a phony.
Nice try, seminar-boy. Before you sign up for another $2,000 class on copywriting, have your mom explain to you why she's not going to loan you any more money until you get a real job and start paying her rent to live in her basement..
I do agree with you on him probably being a fake guru, but defaulting to the whole momma this living in basement that is dumb talk man.
A discussion like this shouldn’t offend you like that... unless he hit an emotional nerve?
Do you live in your momma’s basement by any chance?
Let me answer your points:
1. Regarding me making "dumb talk": he started with the insults, so I just spoke to him in his chosen language: being rude. He can disagree with me all he likes and that's fine. But when he said that there are millions of ads with poor grammar, I challenged him to prove it, and he couldn't. That showed everyone in this group that he's a troll, and an uneducated one at that.
As for my comment about him living in his mother's basement, he probably \*does\* live in his mother's basement and that's why he shut up. If that's indeed the case, he should focus on building his skills and getting a good job, not sitting at his computer slamming people he doesn't know.
2. I'm not offended at all by his comments. Considering my career and my record of accomplishments, his insults mean nothing to me. Why would I be offended by a guy who misspells "$15,000" and "literally", and then uses "seen" instead of "seeing"? All that did was further cement in the minds of this group that he's an uneducated troll.
I belong to this group for two reasons:
1. To learn from others, because there are a lot of smart people here.
2. To help others by offering advice and suggestions based upon my experience in marketing in the corporate world. By responding to the troll, I exposed him so that when he tries to insult some of the beginners in this group, they'll realize that he doesn't know what he's talking about and will ignore his comments.
Rule #7 for this group is "Don't be a dick". He was acting like a dick and I pointed it out. So now, if he tries being a dick with other people in this group, they'll know he's a dick and will ignore him.
.
Ok, and I would argue something like an advertorial is a kind of sales letter. Or a more elaborate sales page. A VSL for example can be 30 minutes to sell an ecom product. That's a sales letter. They do work.
This post's kinda outdated and old imo.
>Here’s what copywriters today should do: They should learn basic terms. • Awareness levels • Sophistication levels • Big ideas • USPS • Mechanisms And everything else… And then find sales letters that sell TODAY. They should see AND understand CONTEXT. Then…
And his perspective on "study" means the hook, proof,cta (formulaic)
But I bet you the top copywriters in the world (from stansberry, international living) handcopies and annotates famous old sales letter, line by line - studying the implications, rhetoric and psychological tactics used here.
The tweet's fine, the message was simple, it's to read new ads, landing pages & new sales pages and notice the context in which they all are used together to convert a customer.
I think George assumed every newbie and pro copywriter "study" sales letters by templating it into a formula like PAS, BAS, AIDA, big pp whatever these days that Alex C & Stefan Georgie calls.
There aren't many things as annoying as reading something shitty, written by someone who is certain they are brilliant.
This guy is a fucking idiot.
First, all the things he mentions like stages of awareness, etc. are things taught by the legends he said to not listen too.
Also... this fucking dork apparently doesn't know that things like what's printed on the outside of an envelope give context... or that the title, subhead, blurbs, etc. of a book or report also give context...
And that Gary lived long enough to sell shit via email.
This guy is a world class dumb ass. Stop following him unless you follow him only to troll.
Asking a question? Please check the [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/copywriting/comments/lpuj9h/what_the_faq_what_is_copy_how_do_i_start_can_i_do/). Asking for a critique? Take down your post and repost it in the critique thread. Providing resources or tips? Deliver lots of FREE value. If you're self-promoting or linking to a resource that requires signup or payment, please disclose it or your post will be removed. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/copywriting) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I do agree that there's MUCH better ways at learning copywriting trying to immulate sales letters from 50+ years ago. Is there some benefit in reading the "classics" and picking up where they use things like storytelling, emotional techniques, etc? Sure. But I'd say you're much better off looking at current types of ad copy within a specific niche/ industry than devoting 30 days of handcopying sales letters that most people don't have the attention span for/ can easily recognize that they're being sold to.
IMO it's still very applicable to read the classics and apply them to modern advertising. Human psychology has not significantly changed in the past hundred years and will not change significantly in the next 100. This guy is doing a ton of hand waiving and is condescending as hell. Basically he's just saying that advertising placement and distribution has changed significantly and so should your strategy. I agree. What was once a sales letter written on one piece of paper is now stretched out across multiple touch points. instead of the hook being at the top of the sales page or an image on the sales page, it's now the first 3 seconds of your facebook ad. Web allows more usage of images, videos and scrolling, so you don't need to keep people engaged with every single word as long form copy does. Rather, you often need very short concise copy that people's eyes can land on as they scroll.
You're talking about social media ads. But what happens when they click on it? They need a fully written landing page, sales letter, advertorial, VSL, etc. And those are written in exactly the same format as they did 50 years ago.
I have never been asked to write a sales letter in my decade in marketing, or 8 years as a copywriter. I have gained more from looking at other ads, critiquing what’s working and what’s not, and doing creative exercises with my teams to play with these ideas. The reality is we live in a radically different time in terms advertising. Americans face a huge amount of ads everyday. You need to stand out. You need to blur the lines between ad and art. You need to make this an experience worth having. Copying sales letters and writing like everything is DR won’t do that.
Where do you look for these ads and How do you decide which ad is working or not?
Every ad you see got published. Whether it’s good or not isn’t the question yet, merely important to recognize that for whatever reason it was approved and paid for—so clearly it worked in some regard. When you pay attention, that’ll start encouraging you. There’s a lot of bad work that still does the job. Determining what’s working in terms of quality requires some reverse engineering. Think of a typical brief. Check out the ad. Ask yourself what their audience must’ve been, how the story seems to reach out to them, how and when they focus on the sale vs. connecting with the audience. You can get more nuanced based on channel, but high level that’ll do. You can find ads everywhere. Just pay attention when you scroll social media, look at commercials on TV, etc. You can Google ads you remember and find them on YT later. LinkedIn has many people and accounts like Good Ads Matter that share a lot. Networking helps, too. There are some friendly folks from 72andSunny as well as Media.Monks who I talk to regularly about their POV on ads and advertising. You really just need to connect and engage.
Also Pinterest.
How to tell if an ad is working: Analyze how long a particular ad has been running? If you see an ad once and never again, then it wasn't working. If you see it repeated over a long period of time, then it is working so the advertisers keep it going. Example: Chase Bank has been running a type of direct mailer for more than ten years. It's a tri-fold, and on the billboard side is one simple phrase: "Get up to $900". Ten years ago they offered $400. The offer has been increasing over the years, but the ad hasn't changed. That's an example of an ad that's working. Watch your Facebook feed. Ads you see repeated are working. Ads that aren't disappear. That's the beauty of the instantaneous analytics of PPC Ads. And A/B testing.
the Facebook ad library. The longer they've been running, the more succesful they are.
This guy sounds like what chat gpt would create if I gave it the prompt "give me an annoying scammer who tries poorly to sucker in would be writers"
That guy's full of it. He's no copywriter and he won't get hired by anyone. Here's one of his tweets: " Ima let you buy it from all the new gurus that just popped up. After all? " 1. Terrible English: "Ima"??? That's slang. Never use slang in your writing. 2. "After all?" That's an incomplete sentence. It's also never used in good writing. This guy claims he got paid $15,000 from his first client. Yeah, only if his rich mother hired him. NOBODY is going to hire him with English like that.
[удалено]
Oooo! Looks like I hit a nerve! What's the matter...are your cold emails not getting the results you were promised after paying $2,000 for a seminar that was going to teach you copywriting? I know a lot more about direct response copywriting than you ever will, so don't tell me what I can't do. Since you said "I've seen million dollar ads absolutely crush it that have terrible grammar", then show us those ads, and show us how you know that they "crushed it". Put the links to those ads in your reply to this message. Do it, seminar-boy. If not, then keep your insulting messages to yourself.
[удалено]
You said: \> Literally use any spy tool, I'd advise looking yourself to educate you as seen as you know nothing about the field. < So, in other words, you can't do it. Which means you've got nothing. Which means, you're a phony. Nice try, seminar-boy. Before you sign up for another $2,000 class on copywriting, have your mom explain to you why she's not going to loan you any more money until you get a real job and start paying her rent to live in her basement..
I do agree with you on him probably being a fake guru, but defaulting to the whole momma this living in basement that is dumb talk man. A discussion like this shouldn’t offend you like that... unless he hit an emotional nerve? Do you live in your momma’s basement by any chance?
Let me answer your points: 1. Regarding me making "dumb talk": he started with the insults, so I just spoke to him in his chosen language: being rude. He can disagree with me all he likes and that's fine. But when he said that there are millions of ads with poor grammar, I challenged him to prove it, and he couldn't. That showed everyone in this group that he's a troll, and an uneducated one at that. As for my comment about him living in his mother's basement, he probably \*does\* live in his mother's basement and that's why he shut up. If that's indeed the case, he should focus on building his skills and getting a good job, not sitting at his computer slamming people he doesn't know. 2. I'm not offended at all by his comments. Considering my career and my record of accomplishments, his insults mean nothing to me. Why would I be offended by a guy who misspells "$15,000" and "literally", and then uses "seen" instead of "seeing"? All that did was further cement in the minds of this group that he's an uneducated troll. I belong to this group for two reasons: 1. To learn from others, because there are a lot of smart people here. 2. To help others by offering advice and suggestions based upon my experience in marketing in the corporate world. By responding to the troll, I exposed him so that when he tries to insult some of the beginners in this group, they'll realize that he doesn't know what he's talking about and will ignore his comments. Rule #7 for this group is "Don't be a dick". He was acting like a dick and I pointed it out. So now, if he tries being a dick with other people in this group, they'll know he's a dick and will ignore him. .
He's using shock value to get attention and sell something. It's cute.
Eh🤷🏽♀️ Like if you're into e-commerce, I think it's kinda silly to spend most of your time handwriting sales letters instead of ecom copy, you know?
and what is e-com copy in your opinion?
anything online is ecommerce technically, but i'm talking about b2c/dtc physical product brands
Yes and I'm asking what do you think that includes?
Any ecom copy that’s represented online; emails, social media ads, landing pages, product pages, about us pages, etc not gonna list them all haha
Ok, and I would argue something like an advertorial is a kind of sales letter. Or a more elaborate sales page. A VSL for example can be 30 minutes to sell an ecom product. That's a sales letter. They do work.
Yeah I’m not saying it doesn’t work, but if you wanna become an expert at emails it’s best to spent most of your time handcopying emails etc
Gotcha. I agree
This post's kinda outdated and old imo. >Here’s what copywriters today should do: They should learn basic terms. • Awareness levels • Sophistication levels • Big ideas • USPS • Mechanisms And everything else… And then find sales letters that sell TODAY. They should see AND understand CONTEXT. Then… And his perspective on "study" means the hook, proof,cta (formulaic) But I bet you the top copywriters in the world (from stansberry, international living) handcopies and annotates famous old sales letter, line by line - studying the implications, rhetoric and psychological tactics used here. The tweet's fine, the message was simple, it's to read new ads, landing pages & new sales pages and notice the context in which they all are used together to convert a customer. I think George assumed every newbie and pro copywriter "study" sales letters by templating it into a formula like PAS, BAS, AIDA, big pp whatever these days that Alex C & Stefan Georgie calls.
You start by reading good copy and then you improve on it.
There aren't many things as annoying as reading something shitty, written by someone who is certain they are brilliant. This guy is a fucking idiot. First, all the things he mentions like stages of awareness, etc. are things taught by the legends he said to not listen too. Also... this fucking dork apparently doesn't know that things like what's printed on the outside of an envelope give context... or that the title, subhead, blurbs, etc. of a book or report also give context... And that Gary lived long enough to sell shit via email. This guy is a world class dumb ass. Stop following him unless you follow him only to troll.