If you only ever take on board ONE THING I say – let it be this:
You do NOT need to buy a course to become a master copywriter.
Copywriting and marketing skills in general are the biggest target for false ‘gurus’ who want to earn a quick quid by selling average courses for extortionate prices.
Since you’re interested enough in copywriting to be reading this right now, I imagine you’ve already come across a few adverts from these knobheads.
Here’s a rule of thumb for you.
Never pay for a copywriting course if you can’t find examples of the teacher’s own work.
The number of fake-it-till-you-make-its around is honestly staggering.
If someone claims they can teach you copywriting but doesn’t give concrete evidence of their own success – click away.
Who to trust?
I can speak with good authority on this matter.
Since thrusting myself into the world of copywriting, I have read 100s of books and taken dozens of courses, both long and short.
In other words, I’ve wasted my money so you don’t have to.
I’m a little obsessive when it comes to my job and since the beginning, I’ve wanted to make sure I know as much as possible.
You pick up new things to test pretty often, but rarely do they prove successful. I never trust a concept until I can be shown proof that it works.
So, although I’ve theoretically consumed thousands of hours of knowledge, most of it has wound up linking back the same themes, instead of leading to a mental breakthrough at the end of every course.
Not everything out there has enough merit to be worthy of your cash.
Of the 100s of books and dozens of courses – I would only recommend buying a handful.
Want another rule of thumb?
The best knowledge is in the books of old.
Most of what I’m going to teach you in these lessons can be traced back to the same 5 or so books, written by those who lived in the 20th century.
As we discussed last lesson, DR copywriting methodology hasn’t changed in the last 100 years – because human nature is human nature forever.
That means the books from the original ad-men house the rawest, most to-the-point lessons and advice.
They wrote the truth, backed by the proof. They didn’t have online courses to flog – everything in their books was meant to hold value in its own right. Their lessons had to work, or they didn’t sell. Simple.
Any copywriter worth their salt will study them:
Eugene Schwartz
Claude Hopkins
Gary Bencivenga
Victor Schwab
There’s a few more worthy of mention too, but I don’t want to distract you. After all, I’m writing these lessons so you have a good grasp of copywriting without having to buy anything.
Regardless, I’d recommend looking into them at some point – and if you’re anything like me you’ll already have a separate tab up to search for them.
Put your faith in the following resources
I’m not going to write out the specific resources I’d recommend (although I may do something like that in the future) because I want you to stay focused.
The purpose of these lessons is to make you an excellent copywriter, not to splinter your concentration with a dozen more books.
But.
Since we’re all tempted to delve into new avenues from time to time, I want you to give you a piece of advice.
Only trust copywriting ‘teachers’ who fall into one of the following two categories:
- Old masters with published books and wide acclaim
- Real copywriters whose work you can actually find online
If anyone else asks you to pay them for their copywriting knowledge, ignore them.
And although there are some valuable courses out there, please remember you don’t NEED to buy one to succeed.
If you’re a little strapped for cash, don’t worry.
These free lessons will serve you just as well.
Oh – and by the way – by far the greatest teacher is first-hand experience and real-world learning.
But I’ll get more into that another time.
Okay – lesson over. I’d suggest clicking through to the next one now, but if you just can’t resist reading up on the copywriters of old, I understand.
Talk to you later.
Alex
