What Is Copywriting?

A great mentor of mine told me, "One of the best ways to learn is to teach."
And I've always admired people who "get" their craft.

They seem to spend more time than I do organizing my thoughts.

Because of this, I'd like to write my thoughts down for you to read, so I can
better understand our craft.

A few of my credentials:

* 25 years old with 5 years experience as a professional ad writer. I quit school
at 20 years old and haven't needed any other job since.

* Helped create the single most profitable affiliate offer running in the last 3
years (although, as you know, the business owner should get 95% of the credit
for an offer's growth and continued success)

* My copy has pulled in more than 8 figures, worldwide.

* And I've written more than 2 million words (conservatively) of finished
draft, "Let's publish this shit" copy that pulls in money.

I'm no Clayton Makepeace. I bow down to Gary Bencivenga. And I worship
the ground the late Gene Schwartz walked on. But I may have something
worthwhile to say.

I'll leave that up to you.

Our first topic: What Is Copywriting?

John E. Kennedy says - "Salesmanship on Paper."

Claude Hopkins says - "Salesmanship, multiplied."

Joe Sugarman devotes an entire paragraph to his description, which tells you
to bring together your general experience, your specific knowledge, your
passion and put them on paper in a way which sells products.

Eugene Schwartz says great copywriting is market making.

In a nutshell, good copywriting sells products. But how?

Through presenting benefits. Through tugging our reader's heartstrings.
Through making the new familiar and making the familiar new.

We all know that. But what does this really mean? Well, it means that great
copy causes your reader to desire your product more than he fears parting with
his hard earned money, more than he fears getting ripped off and more than he
distrusts you (since he hasn't met you, face to face.)

Zen Monks will tell us desire is the cause of all suffering. They say this
because they truly know desire. Most people think of desire as being drawn
toward something.

As being attracted to something or someone because of it's virtues.

The truth is: Desire is a dissatisfaction towards your current situation. Desire is
a form of pain. Desire is your attempt to run towards a better life... a better
outcome.. and a more fulfilled existence.

Desire is the manifestation of the sentence, "I will be happy when..." "I will
feel sexy when..." "I will feel like I have arrived when..."

Building desire in someone is about shining light on what they lack and then
showing them a paradise in which they lack nothing. In which they are
fulfilled. In which they are the very best version of themselves.

In which they no longer have the suffering Desire causes.

And it's a two fold process:

1. Shine light on the hole in their life.

This can be harder than you think. Because our minds are extremely powerful
machines. We can ignore what we don't want to see. And cover up parts of
ourselves we would rather ignore.

Carl Jung was a genius philosopher and psycho-analysts around the world use
his techniques to heal people. One of his concepts was called "The Shadow."
And The Shadow is the part of ourselves we refuse to see.

The truths about us we cover up, to spare ourselves pain and suffering.

You may think, "Not me. I don't have a Shadow." But the truth is, we all do.
We all hide flaws from ourselves. In fact, Jung's main way of "outing" your
own Shadow is to look for those negative characteristics you project onto
others.

Those are often your own flaws. The flaws you're scared to notice in yourself.

I hate people who are lazy, put off work and procrastinate. I also spend most of
my "bad" days watching YouTube and wasting time.

You may get angry at people who have an inflated sense of self. You may take
a good, hard look at yourself and find yourself SCARED that your own
self-image is too inflated. That you have too high an estimation of yourself.

The copywriting lesson here is simple: Many people will not openly admit
their flaws, their problems or their struggles to themselves. Which is often why
Problem Agitate Solve is a broken formula.

Most people will say, "No. I'm fine the way I am. I just have this outside
problem that's bugging me." Or, "No. I don't piss my money away because I'm
scared of success. I just can't make this new business thing work!"

Your job, in shining the light on your prospect's problem, is getting them to
peek at the underlying cause of their problem. Because this short, simple peek
is a GAME CHANGER!

This peek is often enough to change their entire outlook on life. And changing
someone's mind is the very first step in any form of persuasion. Whether
you're giving them a new technique to try (which makes a former problem
easy to solve) or showing them a new side of themselves they did not know
existed.

Just a peek. You don't need to beat them - your customer is your wife. You
don't want to let her live under an illusion. But you don't want to assault her
ego, either.

2. Show them the Promised Land.

Show them a life where they lack nothing. A paradise where they have
everything - everyone - and every feeling they need.

This is where Benefits come in. This is where Features come in. This is where
Proof, Credibility, Testimonials and all the rest comes in.

This is where Grasping comes in. This is where Dimentionalization comes in.

This is where you bring your prospect out of the darkness and into the light.
You lead them by the hand - step by step - towards a bright new future for
themselves. And then you stand at the gateway and let them take the first step
towards their idyllic future.

This isn't a game. This isn't trickery.

If you have a good product, this is simply telling the truth. Your job is to have
a larger Vision than your prospect. To be able to see things as they CAN be,
not as they are.

Your job is to look at a customer, then look at a product and then to see your
customer living a beautiful life, having mastered the techniques in your
program. Fulfilled.

Copywriting is having a larger Vision for your customer than he has for
himself. Copywriting is then guiding your prospect to the threshold of this
brand new life with enough momentum that he takes the first step, all by
himself.

How? That's something we will go over in future posts. It's also something I
haven't quite figured out, yet.

I just know enough to know this is a lifelong game. There's too much for any
one of us to master.

So let me know how I can help you - give me a topic for my next post. And
leave feedback on this one.

Thank you for reading my ramblings.

- Alex


.