Anyone with an internet connection and a half-working computer can become a copywriter. But becoming a good or capable copywriter isn’t as easy. If you’re currently unsure about how to actually improve and practice writing copy, read on…
Be sure to listen to episode 002 of the podcast to hear my ramblings on this topic.
Debunking common myths and misconceptions
If you’ve already googled other people and businesses talking about this topic, you’ll have probably stumbled upon these tips and exercises:
- Handwrite old classic ads
- Study funnels
- Read your copy out loud
- Ask people to review your copy
- Write every day
- Blahblahblah…
- You get the point
I used to handwrite the old classic ads when I was starting out. Did all the ones in Gary Halbert’s copywriting challenge. Did it improve my writing skills? Eehh.. maybe.
I obviously study funnels and obviously write every day. You’re not much of a copywriter if you don’t. This is the equivalent of giving a racing driver advice along the lines of “well, first off you’re gonna need a car.”
Reading your copy out loud is a good way to spot clunky and difficult sentences or paragraphs. It’s not practicing copywriting though, that’s editing. Same goes for asking people to review your copy.
Alright, there’s more advice out there but they’re mostly the same stuff rehashed.
But everyone misses this one exercise.
Presenting Ben Franklin’s copywriting exercise
Who would’ve thought that the best way to improve your copywriting chops is to do a 280-year-old exercise? Who would’ve thought that people have struggled (and solved) the same basic tasks ever since a particularly witty caveman started carving stuff in caves to communicate messages to others?
Nothing new under the sun.
“Yeah I get it, now what’s that dang exercise and how do I do it?”
This exercise is split into two days.
Day one
- Select a marketing message (an ad, landing page, youtube video/intro, etc.)
- Write down what is communicated in bullet form, making sure that your bullet informs what is being said (but not how)
- Do this for the whole message, then save the document and forget all about it
Day two
- Come back to the document and rewrite the message looking only at the bullet points
- When you’ve rewritten the message, compare your version to the original one, taking notes of everything that feels relevant (word usage, paragraphs, overall style, etc.)
And that’s it.
The beauty of this exercise is that it gives you clear and undeniable data on how your writing differs from the original text.
If you have a copywriting hero you want to emulate, this is the best way to learn their style.
And once you’ve learned their style, you can always improve and add your own twists to the texts.
Here’s how ol’ B. Franklin presented this exercise in his autobiography (which is available for free on the web):
“About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, try’d to compleat the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses; since the continual occasion for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and compleat the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method of the language, and this encouraged me to think I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely ambitious. My time for these exercises and for reading was at night, after work or before it began in the morning, or on Sundays, when I contrived to be in the printing-house alone, evading as much as I could the common attendance on public worship which my father used to exact of me when I was under his care, and which indeed I still thought a duty, thought I could not, as it seemed to me, afford time to practise it.”
If you’re wondering how to actually start writing, the best way is by hand, not by typing. Why?
Because with a keyboard you type in the letters.
With pen and paper, you draw them. Drawing automatically activates the creative part of your brain, typing doesn’t.
Also there are studies that show that people learn and remember concepts better when they take notes by longhand (as opposed to digitally).
And lastly, Gary Halbert was a huge proponent of taking notes by hand.
But before starting this exercise, remember this!
This is a powerful way of learning how to emulate other writers, for better or for worse.
Make sure that whoever you’re emulating is actually a good writer and (if you’re in copywriting) that the ad is working.
No point in emulating writing styles that don’t work. And your brain won’t see a difference between good and bad writing. It only tries to emulate the original text, disregarding its quality of it completely.
Years ago I picked up some bad writing habits from doing this exercise. I simply had no clue what good copywriting looked like, so I started emulating the overly poetic, in-your-face brand copy style.
This completely backfired as I was mostly working with smaller businesses back then (they wanted sales and didn’t care about anything else).
So, with that in mind, do this exercise regularly, and you’ll see results…. what kinds of results?
That depends on who you’re emulating.
Check out my podcast for more copywriting and marketing ideas and takes
