Copywriting

It’s been a running joke at my house when Amazon drops off another book. I’ve been building my copywriting library faster than I’ve even been able to read them.

But one tip stuck out to me early on… Write every day.

Yesterday I attributed my writing to what Seinfeld has called not breaking the chain. Seinfeld set himself a goal to write jokes every day. When he would write them, he would mark a big X on the calendar for that day.

After a while, you see a calendar full of X’s and you don’t want to break that chain of X’s.

The same thing works with these little morning habits.

But there’s something else that happens when you do something every day.

It becomes easier.

Building this habit of sitting down in front of the laptop and pushing out a post forms a foundation from which to grow.

Are my posts good at this point? No. I’m not naive here… But I’m getting the habit of writing down so that I can take the next step to figure out how improve my writing.

So for me, step one was just writing every day.

Step two ended up being writing 300-500 words minimum per day.

Step three was then to do that easily within 30 minutes.

That’s where I am now… But look at the doors working on a habit like this have opened.

At this point, I can sit down and crank out 300 words in less than thirty minutes (sometimes as little as 10 or 15) without even knowing exactly what I want to start writing about before I sit down.

So maybe my next step is picking a theme for the blog. I know I’m all over the place with these posts at the moment.

Or maybe it’s getting good at a certain style of post. Perhaps I could create a great resource using lists?

The whole point… I can take the next step to improve because I’ve taken steps to get where I am today.

You don’t start out writing an award winning blog with thousands of subscribers. Well maybe somebody does, but not me. I have two subscribers currently and they’re both me…

But you improve and if you stick with it and stay consistent you can reach your goal.

The advice was “write every day”… not “write every day you feel like it”.

Be someone that doesn’t compromise your goals. I want to be a copywriter… not just a copyreader.

So that’s why I write.

Yesterday I wrote about the process I’m using to build some of my copy habits.

Today I want to highlight a psychological principle that’s built into the process.

I take no credit for being clever in its creation. Only that I notice it in hindsight after I learned more about the principle reading a chapter of Influence by Robert Cialdini.

Though even with my limited experience in sales and marketing, the principle seems obvious – though I didn’t necessarily know the name of it.

The Contrast Principle

The contrast principle essentially states that what you see or do first has an influence on similar experiences that come directly after.

In Cialdini’s book he describes an example of putting one hand in cool water and one in warm. The subjects then put their hands into the same room temperature water and were amazed to find that one hand seemed cold and the other hot… Yet the water was the same temperature.

So what does this have to do with copywriting and my Swipe Surgeon strategies?

For most people, writing the sales letter is the hardest thing you can do.

In my process, I’ve made the steps leading up to it much harder.

For example, let’s say you’ve got even a five page sales letter. It’s a little one.

Depending on formatting, that could be between 500 and 1500 words in those five pages.

If you follow the Swipe Surgeon process… You will have just written every sentence on an index card and put them in the proper order to manage the flow. The amount of thought and focus that goes into understanding why a sentence belongs in the place it does in a sales letter is difficult.

By the time you get to writing your own letter, you have done some very hard drilling. Based on the contrast principle, this final step should feel much easier than before.

The Bigger Picture

Even stepping back and looking at the process as a whole. Let’s say you’re not just mastering as swipe. But writing your own letter for a customer.

The process and depth of work done in mastering the swipe process does not make the efforts required for a completely different letter seem so difficult.

Certainly there are many other psychological principles at play here. My examples here were intended to only view through this single perspective.

I hope you consider the contrast principle as you set up your own processes and goals. It can really help make a difference in your output.

However, time is up for the day. Process calls.

I’d like to hear from you. I’d love it if you were part of my email list. But even if you’re not, you can always reach out to me at [email protected] and strike up the conversation.

It’s Labor Day 2020. I’m still up at 5 today because I’m not sure I’m sold on celebrating “Labor Day” by not working. It almost feels like celebrating your sobriety with a drink.

So today I work for me.

Here’s a pro-tip… This should be everyday.

But today at least I don’t have to shut down my personal business at 8am.

What are we going to do today?

The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to work some copy!

The focus of this post is going to be doing to “copywork” of hand writing promos.

Now I can’t vouch for this myself yet because I haven’t written anything for anyone. But I have started copying promos. (How’s that for transparency…)

However, I do think it takes more than just writing out the promo mindlessly. Maybe that will let some of it seep into your subconscious.

But I am going to take a more holistic approach to this.

Here’s what I do.

Quality Matters

A word of warning… Only do this with truly great promos. The goal here is to sear the principles of the promo onto your brain. If you pick garbage to work with and do all this work it’s like training for a marathon by eating donuts. Also – this isn’t a short process for me. This process can take me a week or more depending on the time I dedicate.

Read

First, I read the promo to myself. Out loud if you want. But the point is to get through it. Depending on how much time I have, I may do this several more times.

In between readings, I push myself to summarize (even if just mentally) the point of the promo from memory and try to articulate some of the points in makes. This is free recall though. So no looking back to remember.

Write

Once I’ve gotten through that part, I sit down and write out the promo by hand. Sometimes this takes me an hour or more. Ideally, I like to get through the whole promo in one sitting, but that’s rarely the case.

If I’m writing in a different session from my reading, I will re-read the promo before I start writing.

Annotate

Once I’ve got it copied by hand once, I bust out my colored pens and start marking up what I wrote as a copy breakdown. Often this is in a different session. Every section should be getting some kind of label and get some understanding on why it’s there.

So now I have a promo I’ve probably read 5-10 times. I’ve written it all out by hand and made annotations on the entire promo. I am starting to get familiar.

Flow

Now I take a printed copy (single sided) of the promo that hasn’t been marked up. I cut up each section of the promo based on how I annotated it. The shorter the sections, the harder the challenge. But I cut it up and then flip all the pieces upside down on the table and mix them up. Don’t give yourself any tips here.

Then I flip all the pieces over and try to re-assemble the promo from memory. The goal here is to understand the flow. I have a manilla folder I keep these pieces in so I can go back and practice regularly (see spaced repetition).

So now I’ve read this promo several times. Written it in my own hand. Annotated the entire document. And mastered the flow of the promo.

Create

Now I put all the pieces away and try to re-write the promo in my own words. This isn’t hard recall. This is understanding the flow and trying to build my own promo from it. Again this isn’t easy. But doing this highlights my weaknesses pretty quickly.

After I work my way through this, I’ll start writing up ads and emails for the piece… But that is for another day.

It’s the start of another week for me. Time to get to work on a promo.

If you’d like more details on this process, join the email list.

If you’d like to see the results of the promos I dissect, let me know. Perhaps it’s something I’ll look to make available to my subscribers.