“How do you become a better copywriter?” This is a question I always ask myself, and I’ve found another great source for learning which you can also go for.
Other than reading the books I’ve recommended, the other thing you can do for yourself is to get Titans of Direct Response here.
You might notice that it’s a very long sales letter of sorts, written by Brian Kurtz, if I’m not wrong…
If you printed it out, it’s probably over 60 pages long, which is just about right…
Why just about right? Because, I know that I read at one page per minute, which meant that it took me one hour to read the sales page.
Before you gasp at the length, let me explain.
When I did retail and face-to-face sales, it takes between 15 minutes to maybe 3 hours time total, to sell not-so-expensive to expensive products.
Which, I find, translates to roughly the same amount detail that should or could be poured into your copy and sales letter to convince and persuade the customer to buy, for the 15 minutes or 60 minutes or more that he spends reading it.
Remember, there are no letters that are too long or too short. There are only letters that are too boring.
(Robert W. Bly also has a very useful table for determining copy length.
High involvement + high emotion = long copy
High involvement + low emotion = medium copy
Low involvement + high emotion = medium copy
Low involvement + low emotion = short copy)
The Titans of Direct Response pack is not cheap, which explains the length of the (very excellent) sales letter.
Anyway, I have not finished going through my copy of Titans yet, but the first dvd (Dan Kennedy’s) and material already blew me away.
I really suggest you get it, and the books. Titans also comes with great swipe files.
Again, lest you think or get misled by someone who says that copywriting is about wordsmithing and writing flowery prose and copy, I’m sorry to say that you should listen to someone else.
You don’t have to listen to me, of course.
But, I’ve recently won an Infiniti Q30 car drive (not the car, unfortunately, haha) by applying some copywriting that I learnt from the books I’ve read.
Do you think I would’ve won the drive with flowery prose and fancy wordsmithing?
I don’t think so.
Do you think you’d win if you wrote flowery stuff against my writing which told Infiniti what I’d do with their car if I won?
That’s an answer you’ll have to give yourself.
But yes, get the Titans pack, and those books.
You’ll become a better copywriter.
For sure.
P.S. The other way(s) to become better is to always have curiosity in the world around, keep thinking of ideas and combining old ideas to form new ones. But I’m guessing you knew that already. 🙂
P.P.S. Herschell Gordon Lewis and Drayton Bird’s books and writing / teaching style really appeal to me, so I have quite a few of them, and have since expanded my 45 title library by now… Will update the list again soon!
