Fight a land war with Russia.
Put all your eggs in one basket.
Bring a knife to a gunfight.
Summarize the greatest book on copywriting ever written.
Am I an idiot for trying this? Maybe.
But this book (The Adweek Copywriting Handbook) taught me so much about copywriting, I can’t help but pass the favor on.
My personal notes from the book number almost three thousand words. But don’t worry – I won’t spill them all here.
I’ll just share a little taste.
Here are three key lessons I learned from reading “The Adweek Copywriting Handbook” by Joe Sugarman.
Sell the sizzle, not the steak
You’re probably thinking…what does this mean?
Great question. Let’s start with an example.
The Hustle’s steak is “a daily newsletter that rounds up the most important news in business.”
The sizzle is what it actually sells. “Get smarter on business and tech in five minutes.”
Sell the concept; don’t sell the product itself.
The iPod was an expensive media player. But…the sizzle was “A thousand songs in your pocket.”
Sell the experience.
That sells.
You might be thinking “Great. That works for products like the iPod that were the first of their kind. What about <my product>, which isn’t?
Sell what makes the product stand out.
The Apple Watch Ultra isn’t the first Apple Watch. And it isn’t the first smartwatch geared towards extreme sports. So it sells what makes it different.
“The most rugged and capable Apple Watch.”
The concept is what people buy.
Be curious, and then an expert
Step one. Be curious. Sugarman calls this “general knowledge.”
This is the easy part.
Just spend time learning about things. Get into rock climbing. Learn how watches work. Travel to Guatemala. Fix a bike.
You’ll be secretly building muscle by doing all this.
What’s that muscle, you ask? As a copywriter, you need to be very good at coming up with new ideas or concepts.
And the best way to do that is to have bunches and bunches of new experiences.
This also means being a good listener. You’ll be learning all these things from experts, after all.
The more you experience, and the better you listen, the more prepared you’ll be when you need to tackle a new concept.
So that’s general knowledge. Specific knowledge is just as important.
Because as a copywriter, you have an important job. Making the complex sound simple.
When you’re pitching whatever it is you’re pitching, you need to be the expert. You need to explain the nitty gritty details .
Especially because what you’re pitching will often be new and different. New and different is scary. Your job is to make it not scary.
Put simply: you really need to understand what you’re writing about.
And the best way to do that is to accumulate a bunch of general knowledge.
Keep your writing personal
Do you notice how I talk to you?
It’s very personal.
I don’t sound like some marketing manager in some stuffy office in Manhattan.
It feels like a personal message, from me to you.
How am I casting this spell?
It’s simple.
When writing, you want to create a personal connection. And the easiest way to do that is to write like how you’d talk to someone.
That means using a lot of “I”, “you”, and “me.”
We call this “Just you and I” writing.
This works for two reasons.
One, it creates a connection. You can feel that I’m one guy, writing this in my dimly lit home office on a Sunday night.
Two, and just as important, it allows you to use one of your strengths; your personality.
Personality and voice is hard to copy. And if you write in a true, one-to-one style, it’ll come through.
Well, there you have it.
The book teaches you everything you need to know about copywriting.
But, these lessons were my favorite.
Sell the sizzle, not the steak.
Accumulate general knowledge, and use that to get specific knowledge.
Write personally, and directly.
If you’re curious how I use the rest of the lessons from this book, there’s more. Check out my swipe file.
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