Reddit mentions of The Copywriter's Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide To Writing Copy That Sells, 3rd Edition

Hire someone if you can. Copywriting is not something you can learn in a week. Sure, anyone can write, but persuasion, style, graphics elements are all elements you have to learn.

This is my best copywriting book of all time, and I have read a lot of them. It's simple, well-written, concise and very effective. Make sure to read "Elements of Style" a couple of times as well.

As for general pointers, here are a few quick, very quick tips:

1. Always keep your links blue. People like blue. People associate blue with a link. People want to click links. It's an urge. Come on, try not to click [this link] (http://youmightnothaveclickedbutyoulookedatitiwin.com)
   
   
2. Keep sentences short. Very short. People's attention span is low. After five seconds they won't even remember the beginning of your sentence. Here is an example: let's say you are trying to sell a product, and have very few times, and lots of variables to analyse from the webpage design to the text, where you have a complete control on every element of the project; basically, you only need to develop an excellent writing style and text and possibly mix it up with other graphical elements for other people and, first and foremost, customers, and you also need to think about the marketing department, which, obviously, will disagree with everything you do while you work for your prospective customer, while writing a first draft...
   
   Did you really read all that? Did you understand the message? Thought so.
   
   3) The simple most important point in copywriting is the header. Final answer Adwords can cost up to $1.00 a click. You know how much time most people will spend on your website after costing you a dollar? 5 seconds. Five little seconds. You have five seconds to impress them and the header is the first - and most of the time the only - thing they will read. Make it clear, outstanding, not too long and make it arise curiosity.
   
   Let me give you an example. Say you never went to reddit and had five seconds to decide whether it is a good website. Which header would be the most effective?
   
   "Well visitor to our fantastic website! My name is Mark and I created Reddit for people, just like you. Reddit is a place where blah blah blah".
   
   -or-
   
   "Interesting, funny, educating stories, upvoted by people like you"
   
   It's obviously still weak even under its second form, and it would be tough to write copywriting for reddit anyway, but you get the point.
   
   4) Unless what most people think, perfect grammar and orthograph are not a must You know where my perfectly-written texts end? In the thrash bin. The best copywriting I've read had various mistakes and ineffective sentences. Perfection does not sell. Nobody wants somebody perfection, despite what most people think. The fact you want perfection implies you will never be satisfied.
   
   That being said, do proof-read your text. Mistakes make you look like a fool, and too many of them will ruin your credibility.
   
   5) Sub-headers, Post-scriptum, facts, testimonies, guarantees are the most read element of a copywriting, in decreasing order of importance People like Post-scriptums. It should be the last thing on your page.
   
   6) Work on it, split-test it, think like a customer You cannot know how they think until you get data feedback. You won't get it right the first time unless you are extremely good and experienced.
   
   7) Your first copywriting attempts will be thrashed immediately. They will be incredibly bad. I am looking at my first copywriting attempts and they are simply ridiculous. The worst mistake? Too long. Keep things short. People are busy. No need for a ten-pages copywriting page if you sell a $10.00 product. Avoid technical terms. Be direct, friendly, professional and do not use hear-say.
   
   8) Everything is important in copywriting. Even positionning. Every pixel that lights or doesn't light up on a computer is important. What you don't put is almost as important as what you put. When you copywrite you need to think of everything. Everything. Rythm, pace, style, wording, positionning, color scheme, elements...
   
   9) Use everything you have. Bolded, italics, underlined, cross-lined, bullets points, and CSS to its full extent
   
   10) Call to action. Don't forget it
   
   This is FAR from all, and I haven't even discussed style, the most important elements in copywriting, but it should be a good starting point.

I started with books. Lots and lots of books. Here are a few of my favorites (not affiliate links)

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

How to Write a Good Advertisement

The Copywriters Handbook

CA$HVERTISING

Here is what I recommend currently:

For beginners:

Free: https://www.coursera.org/courses?languages=en&query=digital+marketing

Paid: https://www.udacity.com/course/digital-marketing-nanodegree--nd018#

(You can get it free if you take the courses with out the degree)

Foundations To Advanced Topics:

Paid: http://neilpatel.com/advanced-marketing-program/

(Neil Patel is one of the few Internet Marketers I would trust. He has successful businesses and is fairly transparent)



Books that can help you with marketing:


Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Once you read this book you will see the techniques used everywhere in marketing. Once you understand the techniques you can apply them yourself.

The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller - Everyone talks about copywriting, but IMO most copy is written way to salsy and is obvious. I have had much better results using stories to sell and most of my sales pages use story telling techniques to bring the reader on a journey.

The Copywriters Handbook - That said, you should still understand the point of copy and this book does a good job. Once you know the fundamentals of copywriting you can sell almost anything.

What to avoid:

Avoid any courses that are selling Techniques or formulas (I.E: My Super Awesome Snapchat Method that brought in $5000") while most have useful information the issue is simple:

Formulas/Templates/Tactics will only get you so far and won't always work. Yes, some methods have been proven to work time and time again, but you are still better off learning the fundamentals of marketing and sales over reusing tactics and templates.

By learning the fundamentals you will be able to rapidly test and try new things to see what works and doesn't. This will give you more flexibility and success in the long wrong.

Most people sell courses around tactics because most customers want a lazy way to make money. Do they work? yes and no. There is no real answer - these tactics may work for you or not as there are a lot of things to factor in.

When buying a course check out the instructor. A lot of Internet Marketers only had 1 success before selling courses on the subject. If someone claims to be an awesome marketer and doesn't have more than 1 success as proof, something is wrong and most likely that success was a fluke.

Most trustworthy marketers normally will have a long track record of successes or at the very least have well known clients (Google/Facebook/Coke/etc).

TL;DR: Avoid tactics/templates/Formulas and learn the fundamentals of marketing.

What kind of marketing will you be doing?

There are a lot of good resources out there. I've been in some marketing role for the past 10 years (developer working in support of B2B marketing, B2C/e-commerce, currently B2B targeting large corporations) and depending on what you are doing I could help point you in different directions.

One thing you have to figure out is how metrics driven you will be. The past few years have shown a big shift from marketing for marketing's sake to true measurement of performance (i.e. ROI).

There is a great book called "Marketing Metrics" that talks all about this. There's another good web site, MarketingNPV.com that talks about marketing measurement.

While that is at a higher level (in other words, if your boss doesn't do this stuff now it will be hard for you to come in and try to change his mind) you will want to focus on a few other things. Some books that have helped me a lot in terms of general marketing education:

Building Strong Brands - if the role is more brand focused. Obviously doesn't hurt to learn this stuff as growing and updating your perspective always helps.

Copywriter's Handbook - I think this is necessary for any marketer. Learn how to write succinct selling copy. In my experience, learning how to use words well is a key skill in any marketing role. I've used it to write tag lines, brochure/collateral copy, web copy, large PDFs for lead generation, press releases, etc.

Copyblogger - Good online resource. They are very salesy (always trying to push some eBook or webinar), but if you can deal with that there is some good knowledge there.

Good luck! Marketing can be very fun... just prepare yourself, in this industry there are a lot of people who are much better at marketing themselves than marketing their company or product. Fortunately, as more executives and marketers start focusing on measurement of results, these people will be weeded out.

Hope this helps.

I found some tape recording of a consultation session he did with clients - pretty amazing.

Heres Some more:
My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising

https://www.youtube.com/user/kopywriting/videos

https://www.youtube.com/user/marketingshowtv/videos

https://blog.kissmetrics.com/

http://socialtriggers.com/

The Ultimate Sales Letter: Attract New Customers. Boost your Sales.

The Copywriter's Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide To Writing Copy That Sells

Writing That Works; How to Communicate Effectively In Business

No Photoshop. If it's a writing course, stick to the writing. They can learn Photoshop somewhere else.

Good choice on getting Hey, Whipple. It's a great book for advertising in general, and Sullivan is a writer, so there's just that much more value in it. This book also lays out some good basics succinctly. It's not gospel, but it's a start.

The guru of direct response copywriting https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0805078045/ref=tmm_pap_new_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=new&qid=&sr=

Also this:

http://www.amazon.com/Copywriters-Handbook-Third-Step-Step/dp/0805078045

And this (not only about copywriting, but definitely game-changing thought):

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Not got any Sullivan, but Andy Maslen's a mainstay of my reference library:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Copywriters-Handbook-Step-step-Writing/dp/0805078045