How Many Of You Learned Copywriting Just By Doing It?

I used to write my own direct mail pieces before I had any clue what copywriting was. I would send out multi-page sales letters with giant walls of text and no real concept of what headlines even were.

The good thing was that the little response I would get would always be a deal in the bank because whoever responded to those things had to be REALLY interested.

I don't know any consistently successful copywriters who haven't studied the craft. Same goes for biz owners who write their own copy but aren't "copywriters" per se.

Some more than others, but ALL of them are sponges for knowledge about writing, persuasion and PEOPLE.

Sitting down and writing a piece of sales copy for a product is not a destination or an education. It's just doing the work.

But that's step one, and you can't get to step two without it - so, yes. Do that.

Then start STUDYING... while you continue to do the work.

Then keep studying... and do less of the work, for more money.

Then keep studying... and do the work when you feel like it.

Then keep studying... and refuse the work.

The end.

The first ad I ever wrote was in 1993 for my own massage therapy business with absolutely no training at all... not even basic business classes like intro to accounting either. My first ad was basically my name, the phrase "Nationally Certified Massage Therapist" and my phone number.

I quickly figured out that if I was spending my hard-earned money to pay for that ad, then it needed to work A LOT better than that initial ad.

So I started reading and studying the marketing gurus at the time. Initially I started with their books that I could find at the local library or grab at the local Barnes & Noble. Eventually, I found ones who I liked what they had to say and their teaching style so I started buying their training programs... sometimes second-hand through Ebay... sometimes from the guru themselves.

I got on their mailing lists and read everything they sent me. I started applying what I learned to my own marketing. My marketing for my massage business started doing really well and eventually I incorporated and hired additional therapists to work for me.

That forced me to get into more high-level marketing training that I'd pay $500-2000 to get access to. My marketing got even better. By 2003-2004, I was working over 110 hours per week so at the repeated urging of my future wife and other family members, I hired a then well-known national marketing firm to take over my massage center's marketing.

They tried for 8 months to beat my control pieces (both offline and online marketing) and could not beat any of them. They suggested I bring in another agent from the firm if I could find one in their company directory that had worked with massage therapy centers before. All of this info was located in their firm's online forum.

While I was searching through that forum, I discovered their recommended reading list for their rookie agents. One of the books on the list was "Tested Advertising Methods" by John Caples. I was already doing A/B split testing on my direct mail marketing so the title of the book intrigued me. I went out and bought the book the next day.

It was the first copywriting book I ever read and one of the best decisions I ever made. I took what I learned from Caples book and applied it to my next marketing piece that I ran head-to-head against the marketing consultant's challenger. My piece out-pulled his by 5:1 and I fired the firm later that month.

Like Brian said, I've been studying and applying what I learned to my marketing and copywriting efforts for a long time. I've spent tens of thousands of dollars on my copywriting/business/sales/marketing education and not everything I bought turned out to be a high-quality book or product.

The thing is, if I had studied the right materials from the get-go, I would have eliminated at least 5 years of trial and error. I could saved myself a lot of money on bad marketing I used for my own businesses too.

And if I had gone the route of getting one-on-one mentoring instead of doing self-study almost the entire way, I would have gotten to where I am in my copywriting career a whole lot faster.

At least that's been my experiences to date, so please take it as such.

Take care,

Mike

And don't forget to pay attention to what copy catches you eye and why. Your own perspective as a consumer can help once in a while.

I started with a Dan Kennedy book back in 1994. It had an ugly font and a large format, but I don't even remember the name--one of the "No B.S" ones. I regarded him more as a marketing strategist than a copywriter at the time, but his contrarian approach struck me.

That lead me to "Confessions of an Advertising Man", and Ogilvy was the first copywriter I studied. The internet wasn't much to look at back then, so the library was my main source. No courses...just his books and the examples in them. Then Caples, Hopkins...then back to Kennedy. In 2000-1 I did some freelance copywriting work and it was all 'learn as you go'. But I knew a lot more than my clients, and that's all that matters.

Every job I had post-college, 1997 on, had me writing something. In 2004-8 I did business development consulting, and marketing was a big part of that. Bringing in new sales through fax blasts (yes, we still did those and they worked), newspaper ads, web copy, direct mail and more. Again, still no course.

2008-9 was a LOT of white papers for the IT firm I worked for; that's when I first learned about online inbound marketing...and postcards. Never figured out postcards for the IT world--I think they do well for restaurants and consumer goods.

Then along came my wife and it was time to move to the US. And here we are. Bought my first course after joining WF and found it didn't teach much I didn't already know...more of a sales letter template. I've bought one or two other things from copywriters I admire from the IM world, but honestly haven't even had time to look at them.

That is exactly how I started out almost 13 years ago. Writing sales copy for my membership websites and products.

I remember owning 3 membership sites that brought in over $6,000 each month and noticing how by making one small change to the headline I could see an increase in sales.

From there I studied the greats.

I bet I started before any of you. I distinctly remember my first copy/my first campaign. I was 10 years old. It was a poster competition for the school fete. While the rest of the kids were drawing planes and cars and other irrelevant stuff I draw a close up of a kid's face...with his mouth wide open...his eyes bugging out...you could see his tonsils (a nice touch I thought) and I had a speech bubble saying "Muuum...I wanna go to Mona Vale School Fete!!" At the bottom of the poster I had the place and the time. I won something or other. Six years later I was invited to join J. Walter Thompson - at the time the most prestigious and the biggest ad agency in the world. It was like finding the "Golden Ticket" to Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory. No kidding.

I love studying.

But I prefer observing (or deconstructing) how other copywriters/marketers leverage techniques.

I learned a lot more that way.

I own a lot of great copywriting and marketing books.

But honestly...

It's mostly just regurgitated stuff.

Go on your own journey towards mastery.

It's a lot more exciting.

Mark