Anyone tried this method of copywriting?

Well first of all, before changing anything in your Ad copy, you must split test it because you can easily find yourself with a worst Ad copy as the first you wrote. If you don't split test, your Ad copy like you stated may be a reflection of your own mood at the time of writing and visitors don't come cheap. A great place to split test are Traffic Exchanges because you get plenty of visitors in no time for free...

...and even though some will tell you Traffic exchanges are not that great, they are "excellent" for Split testing your Ad copies, and I dare anyone say the opposite.

PM me if you need a list of the best free traffic exchanges I compiled over a period now of almost 11 years.

Bernard St-Pierre

Your ad or sales letter is your sales presentation - Unless you can get the copy spot on first time, us mortal humans have to edit.

Jerry Seinfeld would spend an hour editing an 80 word joke down to 5 words. His audience is a lot tougher than ours, but it's a good lesson for all of us.


Mate if you can write a sales letter in half an hour and get good results, good on you

Before writing anything I think about the outcome I want. I call that planting the seed. Then I let it go. Within a day or two the method or hook becomes evident. That's when I sit down and write until I have nothing left. With some writing (not sales copy), this might go on for many days. During this time I don't edit and rarely even go back to reread anything. I just write.

When I stop writing I print out the pages and sit down to edit. This might take another couple of days or more. I can't even remember the last time I scrapped something and started over from scratch. By the end of the editing stage I usually have something that works.

Then I leave it for a few more days and come back and do the final editing and proofing. I've been writing this way for years. I don't do this for shorter pieces, only assignments or projects with serious substance.

"Coypwriting"??

Start with proofreading your coyp.

To be honest, I've never scrapped a piece and started fresh. The reason being that I have the groundwork/skeleton outline (including hooks, angles, arguments etc) all in place before I start to flesh it out.

The rest is just making it read smoothly, adding in metaphors, facts, proof, and replacing dull words and phrases with the fizzle and sizzle.

Two thoughts for you.

First, I learned a while ago how to write a first draft. I used to write slowly and carefully, writing and rewriting in my head before committing it to the keyboard. The result needed little editing, but it was cold, stilted, and forced. So I started free writing the first draft. The result was loose and packed with usable material, no matter how ill-organized or trite it was.

Only then did I learn to rewrite. Not edit, but rewrite. Now I print the draft on paper and start over with a blank screen. The draft may be a mess, but it is full of possible directions and ideas. I distill, organize, and reword. The result, to me, is much more interesting. This isn't the only way to do it, but it works for me.

Second, in one of his books, Bob Bly mentions the "quality curve." He says that the improvement from draft to first rewrite is 80-90%, but that the improvement from first rewrite to second is only 3-5%, and so on.

If I have done a decent job mapping my sales points and outlining as necessary, I should only need to draft, rewrite, and polish. Of course, time lapses always help, if your deadline allows such a luxury.

For what it's worth, that's my approach.