(Part 2) Best products from r/copywriting

And I have these in my list on amazon. Would love to get some opinions on them:

 

How to Win Friends and Influence People

by Dale Carnegie

 

Secrets of a Freelance Writer: How to Make $100,000 a Year or More

by Robert Bly

 

Words that Sell

by Richard Bayan

 

Tested Advertising Methods

by Caples and Hahn

 

Writing That Works

by Kenneth Roman and Joel Raphaelson

 

Confessions of an Advertising Man

by David Ogilvy

 

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

by Al Ries and Jack Trout

 

The Robert Collier Letter Book

by Robert Collier

 

Nicely Said: Writing for the Web with Style and Purpose

by Nicole Fenton and Kate Kiefer Lee

 

Letting Go of the Words

by Janice (Ginny) Redish

 

Essential English for Journalists, Editors and Writers

by Harold Evans

 

Can I Change Your Mind?: The Craft and Art of Persuasive Writing

by Lindsay Camp

 

Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer

by Roy Peter Clark

 

Read Me: 10 Lessons for Writing Great Copy

by Roger Horberry and Gyles Lingwood

 

Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: The Classic Guide to Creating Great Ads

by Luke Sullivan

 

WRITE IN STEPS: The super simple book writing method

by Ian Stables

 

On Writing Well

by William Zinsser

 

The Wealthy Freelancer

by Steve Slaunwhite, Pete Savage and Ed Gandia

 

Write Everything Right!

by Denny Hatch

 

The Secret of Selling Anything

by Harry Browne

 

The Marketing Gurus: Lessons from the Best Marketing Books of All Time

by Chris Murray

 

On Writing

by Stephen King

 

Writing for the Web

by Lynda Felder

 

Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content

by Ann Handley

 

This book will teach you how to write better

by Neville Medhora

Read

Here are three books to get you started:

• Predatory Thinking
  
• Creative Mischief
  
• Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This
  
  Get noticed
  
  Advertising is mostly about making sure that people see your product in the mess of crap that people have to deal with. If you want to break into advertising, it's the same principle.
  
  The trick is to treat your submission like a brief. How can I grab their attention? How can I prove myself quickly?
  
  Alec Brownstein is a good example. As The Guardian says:
  >He bought Google Adwords spots next to the names of six ad executives he wanted to work with, and waited for the job offers to come in.
  
  >And they did.
  
  Build your portfolio
  
  Find your best stuff. Make some new stuff (just make sure you put that it was for your own pleasure, and wasn't used).
  
  Make your portfolio an example in itself.
  
  Make a kickass covering letter
  
  Letters of note has a great one for inspiration. It starts off:
  >I like words.
  
  Don't confuse the kinds of copywriting
  
  Not all kinds of writing are advertising. Copywriters will also do business letters. They'll help clients with their brand's tone. They'll write copy for webpages.
  
  Ad agencies might be interested in that. But they're going to be more interested in your headlines. That you can grab someone's attention and make them cry and laugh.
  
  Don't fucking give up
  
  It's going to be tough. But you can do it.

> Do you any things differently when selling offers of $10,000+?
>> Definitely - For that I would go with the sales team - Option #1.

Makes sense. I went through a sales course once where the sales trainer said normally the max price he would sell in one phone call was $5,000 to $8,000 or thereabouts.

In a different sales training I saw, they taught to use two salespeople and two phone calls. This was for selling $10,000+ coaching programs.

Fronter / first call: Interviews, qualifies and screens the prospect to see if they're a good fit.

Closer / second call: If the prospect passes the fronter, they're transferred to the closer. Who answers any lingering questions and objections and gets the sale.

The laws may vary from state to state, but the sales trainer said at the end of the sales call he would record--and inform the caller he was going to record--the final authorization by the customer to run the charge on the credit card. For legal compliance.

"[Customer's full name], do I have your authorization to run a one-time charge of $10,000 on your credit card?"

He would use an earphone-style microphone (like this one) plugged into an audio recorder. Sound goes into your ear on one side of the earphone, the other side of the earphone that faces the phone has a microphone to record the caller.

Thanks, this has been an amazing and informative conversation!

Learning from someone better and plagiarism are two different things. And I don't think Ogilvy meant he copied word for word from Bob Sage.

He meant copying as in style. If you're copying to learn and understand how to write successful ads then go for it. You ultimately have to find your own voice, but you have to learn a process first.

Plagiarism is just copying word for word what someone has said without doing your own research.

But, it's okay to learn and copy styles from other advertisers, artists, comedians, etc. Gary Bencivenga talks about people copying John Caples, "When Doctors Have Headaches, What Do They Do?" It's in his marketing bullets #7.

In the end, your voice will probably be a mixture of many styles or an extension of what others have already created.

I haven't read this book yet, but check out Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon. Here's a TED Talk laying out the idea of the book.

“Good artists borrow, great artists steal.” -Picasso

Also, what's the purpose of having a swipe file if you aren't going to use ideas from it?

Copywriting is about achieving a measurable business result. In your shoes, other than what you're already doing, I would.

• Call the people who are hiring and ask whether they would be prepared to answer a few questions. Mainly, you want to know what their business goals are and what types of assets they typically use in their campaigns.
  
• Spend some time reading about how different types of campaigns measure conversions. Be prepared to say why your writing can help the university achieve the desired conversion rates in the relevant campaign types.
  
• Read Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins (old, but a classic) and The Copy Sourcebook by Andy Maslen. There are loads of other books you can read, but those are enough for Friday.
  
  I think it's fine to say you want the job because you love writing in general. But I would frame that as the stepping-stone that brought you specifically to copywriting. Then you say why you're attracted to copywriting.
  
  Thinking about it, I'd add one caveat: if you do get to talk to them, check to see if they do measure conversion rates. It could be that they just need someone to continually re-write course catalogues, based on input from academics. They may not measure conversions at all. That's a very different prospect.

The more you can do, the more irreplaceable you become to your current employer and the more attractive you are to prospective new employers. Plus, graphic design is endlessly fascinating and worth learning for its own sake.


But, what kind of design work are they asking you to do? A good agency shouldn't be asking a complete novice to do even layout work unsupervised.


That aside, you might find these useful:

• The Non-Designer's Design Book (3rd Edition)
  by Robin Williams
  
• Design Matters podcast by Debbie Millman
  

Doesn't really matter that you're not a student. Book is all that matters to agencies, aside from cultural fit. You really need to study some award books and archives and learn what makes copy good, then make a book of spec (fake) ads. Pick 5 brands in various categories and go. I highly recommend this book to help you get started concepting.