Copywriting question from a desperate newbie
Published: Wed, 05/26/21
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Hi Ben,
I’m a proud newbie, hopefully not like the ones you wrote about on your website.
I’m currently volunteering to write copies for a non-profit here in Nigeria, and also trying to learn the ropes about writing professionally .
I’m very desperate, and I know I have to learn the rudiments and I’ve started, but I’d really appreciate getting one or two tips to get me started as a writer.
I really look for to hearing from you.
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The whole “give me a couple tips” ask means he's already missing the entire point.
There are no couple tips to get started.
There are only fundamentals.
And the best thing any newbie copywriter can do — starting yesterday — is learn, practice, apply, and master the fundamentals of copywriting.
The key word is fundamentals.
NOT tactics.
Going at your market or client with just tactics’ll get you killed.
It’s like a guy with a boring personality using some PUA tactics he learned in an eBook sold on Gumroad to get a date, only to creep the chick out or turn her off when she quickly finds out he’s got nothing else but a few lines written by someone who does have a personality.
So it is in copywriting.
Or, really, anything you want to learn.
This is a mistake as old as business itself.
In fact, last month I revisited for the 4th time the book “Marvel Comics: The Untold Story”, and was reminded of this very phenomenon. About 10 years or so after Stan Lee created the modern Marvel Comics universe (that all the movies are based on), DC Comics started getting worried. And, like your typical copywriting goo-roo fanboy, started reacting and assuming if they simply did what Marvel and Stan Lee was doing, they could copy their success.
In one case, they assumed it was Stan Lee’s puns.
A lot of his characters made puns.
So what did DC do?
Started having their writers do a bunch of puns with characters who were not created or written that way originally, and just sounded idiotic. They were able to emulate all Lee’s puns, but that was just one surface element that worked for Lee’s characters. DC tried the same nonsense with their covers, too - “Oh, Stan Lee is putting a lot of dialogue on his covers! Let's do that!” or “Marvel has a lot of red on their covers, that must be what’s working!”
Dumb.
And Stan Lee purposely toyed with DC.
And it’s because DC never understood the fundamentals (telling exciting stories, great cinematic artwork, characters with fleshed-out personalities, etc etc etc) and just kept chasing Marvel’s tactics.
So for the newbie copywriter:
Stop chasing hacks and tactics.
Learn, apply, & master the fundamentals, instead.
There aren’t all that many to learn, anyway.
And in fact, in the June “Email Players” issue I cover several (not all).
Especially the kind of structures and frameworks I use in my own ads.
No 70+ point checklists.
No stupid jargon-heavy theories.
And no ninja tricks or whatever.
That kind of nonsense is for amateurs.
The June issue is for people who want to work hard at copywriting, learn it at a deep level, and create a framework to write ads within that, once you get that down, you can start exploring all the sexy copywriting tactics you think work in a vacuum now.
To the business at hand:
The time to subscribe in time to get the June issue grows short.
Here’s the link:
https://www.EmailPlayers.com
Ben Settle