Get better at writing copy

Here’s a trick that I’m using to learn how to be a more effective writer. I’ve always been big on “learning by doing”… my learning style is such that I can listen to someone explain how to do something, but it never makes as much sense as when I can get my hands dirty doing it on my own.

Three stages to improve your copywriting

Here’s the exercise I use to improve my writing skills. I simply take someone else’s article or copy that I admire and work with it until it becomes a second nature to me.

• Study each paragraph. Look and contemplate why they used the words they used. How are the sentences structured? 

• Determine the motivation behind each paragraph. What triggers are used? Is there a clear call to action in the paragraph, or is it designed to prepare the reader mentally for something later?

• Write it 10 to 30 times by hand. Over the next month, write the entire letter out, repeatedly, in your own hand writing. This method is bound to take some time, but the result will be well worth it. Once you have written your article or copy repeatedly, you’ll begin to almost memorize the techniques and and nuances that the original writer used. Next time you sit down to write your own material, their wording and even part of the mentality that they sat down to write with will have become familiar

After you have copied the first sales letter so many times that you are actually sick of the thing, it’s time to move on to the next letter. Pick out another sales letter you admire and copy it by hand 10 to 30 times, until you begin to know it by heart as well.

Keep doing this with more and more of pieces of writing, and you’ll find some interesting things happening when you go to write your own… once you have analyzed and copied dozens of sales letters, you’ll find yourself naturally producing high-caliber copy with little to no outside help, which is something copy and ad writing courses make you pay to learn!

I recommend continuing this exercise for the next year… you’ll find yourself getting better and better at writing ads every single month. Even if you only end up writing ads for your own business and not making a career as a full time copywriter, you’ll appreciate the new skill you’ve learned to write the most profitable ads possible.