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Best swipe file collection of headlines, bullet points, transitions, closing ?

by Flierboy
16 replies
Folks,

What's the best swipe file collection of headlines, bullet points, transitions, closing ?

I am just starting out in IM with my first product, and can't afford to pay $ X,000 for good copywriters.

So following the advice in the sticky threads, I purchased Maria Veloso's "Web Copy That Sells" and decided to write a sales letter on my own to earn enough money to hire a pro copywriter in time.

I am finding that copywriting is intense and hard Following the book directions, I am being forced to think of my market and product in ways I never thought.

So I figured it would be cool if instead of searching on the web eveytime for good examples, what if I had a great reference collection of headlines, bullet points, transitions etc.

I came across Lawrence Bernstein's "Made You Look: 527 Email Subject Lines That Dare You to Look Away" (infomarketingblog.com/made-you-look/). Although this main product is about email headlines, it does come with a 300 pg bonus "Breakthrough Copywriting Templates" which seems to perfectly meet my sales letter swipe file needs.

What do you guys think of Bernstein's product? Would you recommend another swipe collection to a rookie copywriter?

Thank you for any recommendations. Your help is most appreciated!

Best,

-Ritesh
#bullet #closing #collection #file #headlines #points #swipe #transitions
  • Profile picture of the author James Pateman
    Hi Ritesh, 527 is a lot of emails.

    There are also some free lists too.

    regards,
    James Pateman
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    Internet Marketing Blog
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    • Profile picture of the author dtendrich
      ...I'm personally not a big fan of Lawrence's e-mails...

      I'm on his list, because he has great content from time to time, but his e-mail headlines and content never really grab my attention. But I appreciate the free content he puts up, and the products he offers sound great, too.

      There's a really killer collection on Clayton Makepeace's blog, but I can't remember which post. I'm sure if you google Clayton Makepeace swipe blog you'll find it.

      Best,
      David
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      Copywriting Tips, internet marketing jargon, thoughts, and rants by me.

      Atlanta Copywriter, serving clients worldwide.

      Write your life.
      David Tendrich
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  • Profile picture of the author Jag82
    Hi Flierboy,

    If you are looking for a huge collection of proven sales
    copies that you can swipe, look no further than these
    2 sources:

    1. Agora Catalog
    site:isecureonline.com/Reports/ - Google Search


    2. Hard To Find Ads
    http://hardtofindads.com


    To organize my swipes, this is what I do.

    Get out an excel sheet.

    Create multiple worksheets.

    And each worksheets will be for swipes
    for each components of a copy (e.g. headlines, opening,
    bullets, offer, guarantee, P.S etc)

    You can copy and paste the relevant portion
    to the relevant worksheets.

    You can also use a tool like SnagIt to create an
    image of the parts you need.

    With these 2 resources, you will have enough
    materials to create a mega swipe file.

    I've one of my own. And I can't imagine
    doing copy without it.

    Hope this helps!

    Jag
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeHumphreys
      Originally Posted by Jag82 View Post

      Hi Flierboy,

      If you are looking for a huge collection of proven sales
      copies that you can swipe, look no further than these
      2 sources:

      1. Agora Catalog
      site:isecureonline.com/Reports/ - Google Search

      Jag
      Be careful with Agora's stuff because not everything they have online is a proven winner or written well. There's even a mega swipe file of Agora floating around which has a number of duds or badly written pieces in them.

      Agora has a massive house list which responds well to their offers. Doesn't mean the sales letter used is one you'd want to study if you're trying to learn how to write great copy.

      Joe Sugarman has some great swipe file material in his book Adweek Copywriting Handbook. Besides being a great book (for under $15!) on learning to write great copy, Joe breaks down both winning and losing direct mail pieces he used over the years.

      Hope that helps,

      Mike
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      Kickstart Your Copywriting Business: How To Get Loads of New Clients FAST!

      Kick-A$$ Eight-Figure Producing Copywriting Gun For Hire | Marketing & Copywriting Blog
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    • Profile picture of the author dtendrich
      Originally Posted by Jag82 View Post

      Hi Flierboy,

      If you are looking for a huge collection of proven sales
      copies that you can swipe, look no further than these
      2 sources:

      1. Agora Catalog
      site:isecureonline.com/Reports/ - Google Search


      2. Hard To Find Ads
      http://hardtofindads.com
      Wow, thanks, Jag! I've found some absolute gold mines on both of these sites, neither of which I'd ever heard of before. Preciate you sharing the wealth!

      David
      Signature
      Copywriting Tips, internet marketing jargon, thoughts, and rants by me.

      Atlanta Copywriter, serving clients worldwide.

      Write your life.
      David Tendrich
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  • Profile picture of the author Daniel Scott
    Raydal has a great product that has tons of examples of his autoresponders... and it's only $17 (see his sig).

    One of the best products I've seen in ages.

    Honestly, though... my advice is just to bookmark pages that interest you (or save junk mail). Look at enough of them thoroughly to see WHY they convert so well... and you will eventually get a feel for good writing.

    It takes a lot of time though.

    -Dan
    Signature

    Always looking for badass direct-response copywriters. PM me if we don't know each other and you're looking for work.

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  • Profile picture of the author Shane Hale
    Awesome! Thanks for the post this was what I have been looking for besides opting in and collecting my own.
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    Cloud Gift Sharing at it's best!
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  • Profile picture of the author transflash
    Thanks for these resources. I am just getting started in copywriting and wasn't even aware of swipe files yet. This is going to help me out a lot.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jared Alberghini
    The All-In-One thread Allen recently started has turned into quite the amazing resource...

    http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...wipe-file.html

    Jared
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    P.S.

    Join The Future: Telekinetic Marketing

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  • Profile picture of the author colmodwyer
    Be careful with Agora's stuff because not everything they have online is a proven winner or written well. There's even a mega swipe file of Agora floating around which has a number of duds or badly written pieces in them.

    Agora has a massive house list which responds well to their offers. Doesn't mean the sales letter used is one you'd want to study if you're trying to learn how to write great copy.
    The Agora house list responds to good copy, and not so much to poor copy like any other list does.

    If there's a winning Agora promo out there, I say study the crapola out of it!

    Colm
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeHumphreys
      Originally Posted by colmodwyer View Post

      The Agora house list responds to good copy, and not so much to poor copy like any other list does.

      If there's a winning Agora promo out there, I say study the crapola out of it!

      Colm
      Winning promo... sure, you'd best study every winning promo you can find from any copywriter.

      My point was just because someone lumped together every salesletter of Agora's that they could find online doesn't mean that they were all winners. Unless Agora is running that sales letter as is, month after month.. or you get your hands on the metrics on how well it converted, you don't know if it was a winner or not.

      An experienced copywriter *should* be able to spot the holes in the copy of the non-winners but even being highly-skilled at writing copy doesn't mean you will always be able to identify the winners from the duds on sight.

      When an inexperienced or aspiring copywriter studies duds, they run the risk of picking up bad habits that will be hard to break or will limit their chances of success.

      Bottom line, study winning sales letter regardless of whether they were offline or online marketing pieces... a week old or a hundred years old. It's one of the things I did to make my copy chops get stronger in a hurry.

      Take care,

      Mike
      Signature
      Kickstart Your Copywriting Business: How To Get Loads of New Clients FAST!

      Kick-A$$ Eight-Figure Producing Copywriting Gun For Hire | Marketing & Copywriting Blog
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      • Profile picture of the author Jag82
        Originally Posted by MikeHumphreys View Post

        Winning promo... sure, you'd best study every winning promo you can find from any copywriter.

        My point was just because someone lumped together every salesletter of Agora's that they could find online doesn't mean that they were all winners. Unless Agora is running that sales letter as is, month after month.. or you get your hands on the metrics on how well it converted, you don't know if it was a winner or not.

        An experienced copywriter *should* be able to spot the holes in the copy of the non-winners but even being highly-skilled at writing copy doesn't mean you will always be able to identify the winners from the duds on sight.

        When an inexperienced or aspiring copywriter studies duds, they run the risk of picking up bad habits that will be hard to break or will limit their chances of success.

        Opps that someone is me!

        You are right. Not every sales copy in there is a winner.
        That's for sure. I won't know for sure too, unless I have
        access to their statistics.

        I gave the Agora example, because they are renowned
        as a leader in direct response information publishing.

        So chances are - on the whole - their sales pages
        are usually better than the average sales letter you read out there.

        That said, you made a correct point.

        Don't take every copy from that Agora catalog as a winner.

        Jag
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  • Profile picture of the author John_S
    "Best" is a tricky word.

    The top selling sales letter of 1908 might not appeal to today's consumer. Especially when a lot of people use these things like a template.

    The universal human appeal, perhaps. A particular lesson drawn from study, certainly. A "swipe"? Not so much.

    I'll argue for the "best" as something you hand select, piece by piece, understanding why it's in your swipe file.

    I was one of the nut jobs who, when Gary Halbert said to rewrite copy by hand, filled up a spiral bound. So I would argue that there needs to be some least little effort applied before you can make "a" swipe file into "your" swipe file.
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  • Profile picture of the author Flierboy
    Matt and Magic Mel, Thank you for your recommendations. I bought Jeff Gardner's 'My Instant Swipe File'. Wow, exactly what I was looking for, and waaaaay more than $17 worth IMHO

    David, Jag, Daniel, Mike, Jared, John, and everyone else,

    Many thanks for taking the time to drop in with your advice here. It's really helpful and I appreciate it much.

    You guys really helped overcome my writing block. My salesletter version 0 is about 80% complete, and I hope to have it ready for a review by Wednesday next week.

    I look forward to your comments and help me make this a converting letter

    Have a great weekend everyone,

    -Ritesh
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