I’m a big fan of studying other kinds of writers besides just “copy” writers – especially political writers.
Which is why I’m always urging people to read political authors, books and blogs.
The farther right or left the better, the more radical the better.
Case in point…
Right now you almost can’t turn on the radio or TV without hearing about Ann Coulter and her book “Godless: The Church Of Liberalism.”
And love her or hate her (very few “luke warm” reactions to Ann Coulter), she recently dropped an incredible “copywriting” tactic in a radio interview you can start using immediately if you want.
She said when she sits down to write a newspaper column or book chapter — especially if it involves a complex topic — she simply pretends she’s writing an email to one of her friends.
She says this forces her to keep even the most entangling legal and policy details simple and easy to digest.
I don’t know about you, but I find this extremely useful copywriting advice.
Especially since the ability to make the complex simple is one of THE most important selling skills you can have.
Anyway, I’ve already started using this email tactic with my own stuff and I can honestly say it’s made writing copy ten times easier for me.
And you know what?
If you ever find yourself stuck trying to make something complex simple in your ads, I can practically guarantee it will make things a lot easier on you, too.
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The next step AFTER writing copy like you were writing an email to a personal friend is get some people who ain’t too bright to read it.
See if they get your over-complex babblings.
This is pretty easy to do.
Just make up an email list of people you know who voted for George Bush the second time.
Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh
Ben – Great tip. I remember when I was starting out, it was very difficult for me to write in a conversational tone like I was writing to a friend.
My big breakthrough was when the owner of the company I was working for at the time let me send an email to nearly 20,000 people. The response was amazing. All of sudden, I realized that there are REAL people out there! And they respond!
Andrew – I laughed out loud when I read your little political joke. By the way, I voted for Michael Badnarik. He had NO hope of winning simply because of his last name…
What the hell do you know about American politics Andrew? Who would you have voted for if you were actually an American and anybody actually gave a rat’s a$$ what you think? That dumbass John “I voted for the war before I voted against it” Kerry? I think an even dumber list of people would be Australian copywriters who think they understand American poltiics hahahahahhahaa
“kindest regards”
Todd
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