Advice I gave in 2015

Hey {NAME} -- Below is an email I wrote in 2015! (Man, that feels decades ago.) The email title was: 5 Things I Learned About Sales Copy in 2015. It's pretty remarkable how relevant this list still is in 2020. Tomorrow, I'll tack on a few extra things I learned about copy in 2020. Here's my list from 2015: [--- Begin 2015 email ---] 1. "Give Yourself The Chance To Get Rich" This could also be titled: A Good Offer Trumps Without a solid product that matches your prospect’s desires, writing sales copy is liking throwing darts in a dark room. You can know all the tricks, push all the right buttons, but if people don’t truly want what you’ve got, then you’re going to struggle. Of course, a big part of copywriting is directing people’s desires towards the sale of your product… so good copy will ALWAYS help. But… your time on this Earth is limited. Why push a stone uphill when you could just as easily tap it and let it roll downhill with momentum? Find the easy, home-run products. If you freelance, only work with products where you set yourself up for success. Legendary investor Chris Sacca has an investing rule I love: "Give yourself the chance to get rich". Same goes for writing sales copy. Work in the spaces where people are spending big money solving big problems with the products you sell. 2. A business owner should know good sales copy — and should write his or her own in the beginning. Until you’ve reached a certain level — where you’ve got a product offer that’s cranking — you should write your own sales copy. You know your product, your audience, and your story better than anyone else. Also, and I’ve been a big proponent of this from the beginning, handwriting and learning sales copy is a great way to study successful business models that will give you your best ideas. By closely looking at an offer — and how someone is presenting that offer — you can get tons of ideas for products or services you could offer. 3. Copy is still an art form Some people will tell you that sales copy is becoming a science... that the copywriters of the world will soon lose their jobs to software (and AI)... that all you need to do is say x, y, z and people will buy. This is true to an extent. But, as in any field, the cream rises to the top. And the top players are paving their own way. Creating their own "formulas and methods". Which side do you want to be on? The side that follows the model or the one that creates the model. Who do you think has a better chance to get rich? You can use software that will write copy that "gets the job done". But, and this leads to my next point, if you’re spending money on driving traffic, you’re likely going to need more than "gets the jobs done"... otherwise you’ll go broke. 4. Paid Traffic Trumps The best copywriters in the world are the ones who can convert paid traffic (cold traffic). I’ve seen a lot of copywriters studying sales letters written for customer lists (warm traffic). This is great. Study these sales letters for sure. However, know that these type of offers 99 times out of 100 won't work at scale... to paid traffic. There are only so many affiliates you can lean on for traffic. In most businesses, you can only sell your current customers so much (and you still need new customers coming in the door). Writing for the backend is sooo much easier. Build a relationship — get people to like you — then offer them something of value. These backend offers convert like crazy (if you’re halfway decent at writing copy). I don’t even have sales letters for my internal backend offers. I can just send a few emails and get 10% of my customer list to buy a $1000 product. If I tried sending paid traffic to the same offers with the same copy I’d lose my shirt. Study the paid traffic heroes. That’s where the big boys play and where you’ll learn the most. CopyHour focuses heavily on paid traffic sales copy — like the old space ads we copy all the time. These are the most successful ads that have sold millions to cold prospects. 5. The best way to learn copywriting fast is still handwriting Of course I’d write this! I sell a handwriting course. Fortunately for me, it’s still true :-) CopyHour made an appearance on the I Love Marketing podcast this year thanks to Dan Meredith. Dan hand copied sales letters for 4 hours a day and in 6 months time, he hit 6-figures as a copywriter and marketing consultant in the fitness industry. Recently, I spoke with a copywriter at a $100MM a year company. He said that they created an internal program to develop new up-and-coming copywriters — to teach them the ropes and get them up-to-speed as quickly as possible. The program was only able to produce 1 semi-decent copywriter in a year's time. Bluntly, he told me that a 3 month round of CopyHour was able to do something (develop solid copywriters)… that a $100MM company with almost an unlimited budget was not. There is something magical about handwriting a proven piece of copy — do not ignore the power of the hand and pen. Bonus 6. Don't make this mistake This should go without saying… don’t make the mistake of never writing something original of your own! Couple the handwriting exercise with your own writing. P.S. I wanted to share this also because I think it's a fantastic quote that describes why CopyHour's method works so well: "The best teachers are those who show you where to look, but don't tell you what to see." - Alexandra K. Trenfor [--- End of the 2015 email ---] Pretty interesting right? Especially the part about software and AI (which still hasn't replaced us!). I don't think I can disagree with my 2015 self at all. Have a great night, talk to you tomorrow. - Derek  Sent to: {EMAIL} [Unsubscribe]( CopyHour.com, 340 S LEMON AVE, 5007, WALNUT, CA 91789