How To Write Ads
BusinessI believe one of the best copywriters who ever lived was Gary Halbert. He wrote some of the most profitable letters and space ads on history. And, on top of all that, he was a fantastic teacher of copywriting as well.
A great lesson Gary taught was how to use winning advertising and business models. Instead of creating your own from scratch. Pretend you decide to write a special report on horse racing.
What’s the best course of action?
Should you study weight loss science? Should you spend years doing clinical trials? Should you roam the world looking for the perfect diet plan or diet pill? Well not really. Because there is a much easier way to access the most cutting edge weight loss science, clinical trials and new diet breakthroughs. Without doing all the work yourself. Curious? Then listen to this.
Rather than doing things the old school way, Gary might tell you to go out and get the best sellers on health and fitness. Take all these books and start reading them. As you do so, write down notes in a notebook. Make sure to extract all the really juicy stuff readers would be hot read about.
Then you take all that information and write your own dieting book including only the unique and exclusive stuff from each book. The stuff that does not overlap. What you are left with is a compact book on dieting with all the filler taken out.
Easy does it best.
You can do the same thing when creating advertising. In fact, this works great if you have to craft a sales message on the fly for any kind of media.
The formal name for this strategy is… swiping ads. And it really does make it easier. Back in 1996, Gary taught a little bit about swiping during a seminar in Florida. The main focus of the seminar was on swiping great ads for your own promotions.
Look, if you don’t want to become a top notch copywriter and don’t have time to learn all the formulas, etc. then swiping is the way to go. All you have do is learn how to do it right.
Learn to swipe and life gets easier when preparing ads…
** Thing’s like writer’s block will no longer plague you. Everything you need to begin writing a great ad will be there in the swipe. Blundering your way through thinking about what to write won’t be a problem either. The swipe contains everything you need.
** You’ll write promotions at warp speed. Swiping allows you to write faster. Again, part of the reason is because you wont have to guess. You can look at a great ad and almost fill in the blanks with your copy.
** The effectiveness of your ad will increase. By using a proven template you boost your chances of writing a winning promotion. That’s why using swipes is such a powerful concept.
Don’t even think about writing another ad before you have a swipe at your side.
