June 14

The Art and Science of Swiping Copy

Howdy.

You’re probably on this page because you followed the The Art and Science of Swiping Copy link and:

(1) You’ve invested in the full collection of my Best Ads… and The Stories Behind Them, or

(2) You’re a member of The Marketing Rebel Insider’s Club, where you have access to a rotating selection of my full collection of successful ads.

Both of these options solve two troublesome problems for anyone looking for samples of good copy:

They’re there to study. To see how it’s done right.

And you can use any of them as a template when writing your own copy.

These samples were successful… so you know you’re studying the good stuff.

Even top writers occasionally pen bombs (ads that don’t work)… and if you used a bomb as a template for your own ad, you’d be going down the wrong path.

This was a key to my early success as a freelancer.

I knew a marketer who was on every mailing list in the world… and he also knew the honchos of the companies sending the ads out. So he knew what was a control — a winner — and what wasn’t working. When he handed me a letter or ad and whispered, “This is a control”, I knew I had the good stuff.

I dug into it. I broke it down, paid attention to words used and phrases crafted, saw how the headline was put together – all of it.

These ads are also excellent templates, once you’ve seen how they’re put together, for using when writing your own copy.

I never suggest you brazenly rip off an ad or headline… because you don’t have to. However, you are welcome to borrow the “framework” of any ad here… and use it as a guide for writing your own stuff.

As you’ll soon see, the “framework” of any ad involves sections:

The headline (plus subhead),
the opening paragraphs,
the bullets,
the presentation of the offer,
the close,
the guarantee,
the introduction of bonuses,
etc.

There is a “spirit” and an “attitude” in each section of these broken-down ads which, as you’ll discover when you read the attached notes, give you guidelines to using similar angles, words, and attitudes in your own stuff.

It’s like building a house.

If you build your first one without help, who knows what you’ll wind up with. But if you follow the plans of someone who knows what they’re doing, there’s an excellent chance that you’ll be happy with the results.

So you may move a bathroom, for example, from one end of the house to the other, but you won’t put two baths upstairs and none downstairs… because you understand that each floor needs one. It’s just like that with copy — you’re crafting a “ride” that takes your prospect through the pitch, section by section. You can change some sections around, but you should only do so once you’re familiar with WHY the section was placed in a successful piece where it was.

This process of looking at successful ads, with notes, will remove nearly all the mystery of what goes into a great pitch.

My collection includes the “classic ads” — the ones I wrote a while ago, which have been ripped/copied so often by other marketers that I earned the title “most ripped-off and respected copywriter in the world” — and also more recent ads (but always with the caveat that they worked).

This is fundamental mentoring here. The more work you put into studying these gems, the faster you’ll start creating great copy yourself.

Stay frosty,

John

Click Here to return to the John Carlton’s Best Ads… and The Stories Behind Them home page.

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