What is copywriting?
It is with subjects like this that most people turn to Google.
More specifically, Google’s dictionary feature.
So, what does it tell us?
Is that right?
To the masses, yes. To you and I, no.
Any new-age blogger who produces tat on a page can call themselves a copywriter, but real copywriting takes a particular set of skills that can’t be picked up from simply re-writing the slogan of your Dad’s cousin’s salon.
If you want to be a copywriter, your understanding of the word needs to change. You need to know why the copywriting you should be learning, isn’t necessarily the ‘copywriting’ you’ve heard about.
You need to know the fundamental difference between its two schools.
The two schools of copywriting
There are two types of copywriting:
- Direct-response
- Indirect-response
All these lessons will focus on one. Direct-response copywriting.
Why? Easy.
Indirect-response copywriting is the type you’ve probably heard of before. This is the school that Mad Men and most marketing degrees focus on.
It covers TV ads, most website copy, product packaging – the works. Anything that doesn’t try to get the reader to act NOW.
Indirect-response is often referred to as brand copywriting. Its purpose is to get the reader to remember the product or company and paint them in a positive light.
This school of copywriting has its place and parts of it cross over into direct-response, but crucially, you’ll fall far behind if you choose it as your path of study.
Direct-response copywriting however – that’s your golden ticket.
Direct-response aims to get the reader to act immediately. That could mean subscribing to a newsletter, clicking through to claim an offer, or even buying a product outright.
The key element is that direct-response copywriting convinces readers to act. And unlike its indirect cousin, the results can be clearly measured.
And more importantly for a lot of people – since direct-response copywriters are in the game of selling that can be measured, they typically earn more money. A lot more money.
Direct-response’s secret ingredient
Direct-response copywriting can trace its origins back to the early 1900s. Ad men would run ads and send letters to potential customers, emphasising the importance of ‘acting NOW’.
It was all about convincing them to desire the product and giving them the opportunity to buy it via an order form. It would often be accompanied with a ‘special offer’, urging the prospect to act immediately and giving them the means to do so.
Unlike traditional ads that showed a product, told you how great it was, and left it at that – direct-response ads gave the reader a reason to act ‘now’.
And this was DR’s (direct-response’s) secret ingredient.
By relying on a reader’s action, they could accurately measure how successful a particular ad had been. Whereas traditional forms of advertisement were just left to guess.
Advertisers could count the number of returned order forms and easily judge the ad’s effectiveness. That meant it was easier to test ad variations, and easier to track the cost of marketing.
‘But, how does that help me?’
It’s unlikely you’re here to learn about sending physical adverts to a customer list – possible, but unlikely – so you may wonder why any of this is relevant.
2 reasons:
- You can use the lessons early DR taught us to fast-track your learning
- The old school fundamentals remain EXACTLY the same for modern DR
Not to worry – these blog posts won’t just be a set of history lessons.
But they will teach you the proven techniques used by the old masters and how they can be adapted for the modern world of selling and marketing.
Although I encourage you to seek out work from the original DR copywriters in your own time (and you really should), I will provide you with their ad copy when necessary throughout the lessons.
What these lessons will teach you
If you haven’t guessed by now – these lessons will focus on direct-response copywriting.
And if you want to learn how to persuade readers with your words – yes, these lessons are for you.
Oh and for the purposes of these lessons, whenever I refer to ‘copywriting’, assume I mean DR copywriting, unless otherwise stated.
Well. I hope you enjoyed this drivel.
If you did, I’ll talk to you in the next lesson.
Alex.
