Ben Settle’s Weird Copywriting Tips – Part 1
Today marks the beginning of a 4-part series of copywriting questions and answers with Ben Settle.
At first, I thought I would publish everything in a single post. But then I saw how much Ben wrote!
5,049 words, to be exact.
A bit much for a single blog post.
So after discussing it with Ben, we decided to break this up into four separate installments, one a day for the next four days.
Let’s get started…
1. What is the best way to get good at copywriting?
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this.
Ask 10 different copywriters, you’ll get 10 different answers.
But besides reading and studying everything I could get my hands on about the subject and writing ads out by hand, there is something else that made the whole process go faster.
And that is when I started writing every single day.
Or, at least every week day.
This has all kinds of benefits besides just getting good at writing.
It can also help you get clients and/or customers for whatever it is you sell.
True story:
Back in 2006 my freelance copywriting business hit a dry spot.
I had no client work, no prospects, no nothing. So what I did was, I spent my days writing ezine articles — usually about 10 per day. And so, I was constantly honing my writing, persuasion and other copywriting abilities (I treated each article like it was an ad — and they are in this sense — to get people to click my resource box link).
This forced me to get better at writing, telling stories, structuring a persuasive argument, etc.
I also started generating traffic and leads (shocker!)
And, even better, I took the best of those articles and put them into an eBook as a free opt in bribe for my site. Not long after that, prospective clients started contacting me saying, “I read your eBook…would like to talk to you about your services…” and there was no real selling or “convincing” necessary.
They saw I could write (most copywriters are lazy and clients know this).
They saw I knew what I was talking about.
And they were somehow effected by the writing enough to contact me, so the proof I could do the job was there.
Now, I’m not saying this is the only way to do it.
Or even the fastest way, necessarily.
But that was one of the best copywriting educations I ever got. Not only in terms of the “how tos” of writing and persuasion, but also in terms of how to attract and close clients.
So write, write, write… and as you build a list, email it every day.
You’ll get really good at copywriting.
You’ll start getting leads for whatever you sell.
And, yes, you’ll likely make money at the same time.
2. I’d like to know more about the CREATIVE process Ben uses to create ads. Does Ben follow the same process to write every ad? Does he use a swipe file? Does he use the “Index Cards in a Shoe Box” method of Gary Halbert? What order does he do research, brainstorming, headline generation, coming up with the “Big Idea”, bullets, etc.?
There are lots of different things at play with ads, and each is different.
But let’s say it’s a brand new market I know nothing about.
What’s the process?
First, I start with researching the market using a very specific “market analysis” formula. It pretty much lets me know everything I need to know about the market, what they do, who they are, how they think, how they buy, what TV shows they watch, what magazines they read — if they even so much as go to the bathroom at a certain time of the day, I’ll know about it. (Well, maybe I don’t know THAT much about them, but you get the idea…)
Then I look at the product or service being sold.
Usually, I sell info products.
So I’ll go through it and take notes, and write the bullets out as I go. I’ll also get ideas for stories, appeals, ways to word things, maybe offers nobody has thought of or whatever… and write all that down in my notes along with the bullets.
So all this stuff is dumped into a long text document.
No specific order.
No rhyme or reason.
No nothing but a bunch of random bullets, ideas, notes, scribblings, etc.
That big mess then becomes the basis for my first draft.
From there, I rearrange things into the structure I want to use. So I’ll move all the headline ideas to the top where the headline will be. I’ll move all the story ideas under that where the story will go. I’ll cut and paste all the bullets under that. Then the closing ideas.
Then, I let it sit for a few days.
(I almost always structure my schedule where this is all done on a Friday, so I can forget about it all weekend.)
Next, I start massaging it.
Sentence by sentence by sentence.
But, I break it up into sections.
So if I get bored or stuck with the story section, I’ll move on to the bullets or the close or spend time on the headline, whatever excites me at the moment.
This is kinda the hard part.
I got this giant mess in a text document.
Lots of random words, ideas, babblings, notes, whatever I wrote down (many of which won’t even make sense to me even though I wrote them). But I trudge through this swamp as fast as possible so it starts to resemble something that at least makes sense. And I just keep reading through the ad until I think the main ideas and format is all there.
At that point, I start reading it out loud.
And I do that 10 times — minimum.
The first 3 or 4 times is slow, as I’m correcting everything (spelling, grammar, ideas that don’t belong, rewriting sentences, clearing up ideas that are confusing, adding in content where needed, and all that kind of stuff).
It’s extremely tedious and not very much fun.
Especially when you get to the 7th or 8th time.
But it’s always worth the effort.
And by the 10th reading, the ad is so tight you could probably bounce a quarter off it.
As for the last part of the question, yes, I do have a swipe file but don’t really use it for anything except inspiration. Ditto with note cards — which come in extremely handy whenever I’m stuck for ideas.
3. I always have trouble with that first paragraph in a sales page, any tips?
Try the Gary Halbert “If/then” opening.
No, it’s not “creative.”
But it gets the job done in a snap, with minimal fuss and anxiety.
Plus there is a lot of ways this opening gets into someone’s psychology. According to Eugene Schwartz (and let’s face it, he was the man) the structure of the paragraph has built-in credibility. Whatever you say will be a bit more believable just by the way the words are laid out — as the “if” implies a condition to get what’s promised in the benefit described in the “then” part of the sentence.
Here is an example straight from a Gary Halbert ad:
“If you would like to know how someone can start with a simple idea… and then… generate over $51,000,000 in sales in just one year… this is going to be the most interesting message you will ever read”
There’s a lot going on in that opening.
There’s an implied benefit.
A story begins to be told.
There’s curiosity and it gets you sucked in.
Of course, this opening is not always the best way to go, and is not always the most effective way to do it.
But it’ll at least get you started if you’re stuck.
4. How do you determine which emotional hot buttons to press when writing for specific niches?
It’s all about market research.
One thing you do NOT want to do is just blindly look at competing ads (even if they are supposedly making lots of money) and copy their appeals.
Yes, those other ads can be helpful.
And I do recommend combing through them and writing out the benefits you see common in multiple competing ads.
But don’t blindly assume they’ll appeal to your prospects.
Why?
Well, for one thing, you could be dabbling in marketing incest. That’s where everyone starts looking at what everyone else is doing and then copies it thinking “that’s what works!”
Sometimes they may be right and they do work.
But a lot of times, they don’t.
I’ll give you a real life example.
Two markets I have done a lot of work in (in the past, not recently, though) are the golf and martial arts markets. And being the John Carlton fanboy that I am (and since I have lots and lots of his golf and martial arts ads) I studied them intensely.
But you know what I discovered?
I couldn’t use all the same emotional appeals he used.
And there were many appeals not in those ads that I needed to include in the ads I was writing, due to the specific market segments I was going after.
Yes, in some cases, they made sense for my market.
But while researching the market segments my clients were selling to I found myself using different emotional hot buttons, and leaving others out.
So my point is, do your homework on your market.
Don’t assume anyone else’s ad is hitting the right emotions for your ad.
Every ad is different, every market is different and the unique product-marketing timing relationship that exists right now is different than it was 1 year ago, 10 years ago or 50 years ago.
So you have to do the research.
You have to become one with your market (temporarily).
You have to get your hands dirty and ask the right questions of your market and find the answers (ideally by talking to people IN your market and experiencing the same pains they are when possible).
This is the end of Part 1 of 4. More tomorrow.
By the way, if you like the copywriting tips you’re getting here, then you’re going to LOVE Ben’s Copywriting Grab Bag.
It’s a thick print book filled with scores of copywriting tips, tricks, and lessons — some of Ben’s very best stuff. I have a copy of it on my desk and use it as a reference.
Right now, you can save $50 off the normal price by ordering through this link.
Even better, I’ll throw in an extra bonus gift: an 18-page PDF report I wrote called “6 Forms of Proof that Boost Web Copy Conversions.” In this report you’ll learn…
- How to convert even the most skeptical of prospects into paying customers.
- 25 different forms of proof and how to use them in your sales copy.
- Not just WHAT forms of proof to use… but HOW to use them, too.
- And more.
This 18-page PDF report is yours free for instant download when you buy through the link below.
But the discount and the bonus gift are only available until this Thursday night, April 21.
Please note: To get the $50 discount, you must enter the coupon code HEALY at checkout. Do this before you enter any information — and make sure you click the “Apply” button. You will see the price reduce by $50 when you do this. Here’s what that looks like:
Got it? Good. :-)
Now click the link below to learn more about The Copywriting Grab Bag — and claim your $50 discount and free 18-page PDF report.
-Ryan M. Healy
