Do you know who Earl Nightingale was?<\/p>\n
He was one of the early “success pioneers” who devoted his life to helping others succeed.<\/p>\n
His most popular work is “The Strangest Secret.”<\/p>\n
The theme of which is “you become what you think about.” <\/p>\n
That is, according to Earl, the strangest secret in the world for success (or failure).<\/p>\n
Well guess what?<\/p>\n
This also applies to writing ad copy<\/em>, too.<\/p>\n Except, when it comes to copywriting, it’s more like:<\/p>\n “You WRITE what you READ about.”<\/strong><\/p>\n This is so consistently true, it’s almost spooky<\/em>.<\/p>\n For example:<\/p>\n Sometimes people send me their ads to look over. Usually I delete these emails (if you want me to critique your ads, you gotta pay<\/em> for it, unless I choose yours for one of my “mob critiques”<\/strong>).<\/p>\n But sometimes, for fun, I take a peek.<\/p>\n Usually what I see ain’t pretty.<\/p>\n I really HATE judging ads — no matter my personal preferences — without seeing test resultz or knowing more about the market.<\/p>\n But some of these are just really, really BAD.<\/p>\n They are simply copying the “HYPE & SCREAM” style of so many Internet sales letters.<\/p>\n With no original thinking attempted.<\/p>\n No “depth” as to what the product will actually DO<\/strong> for people (or how it will do it).<\/p>\n No even trying to establish credibility or build trust.<\/p>\n Dumb.<\/p>\n REAL dumb.<\/p>\n Anyway, these doods are not bad people, by any means.<\/p>\n They are simply victims of the “other” Strangest Secret: <\/p>\n “You write what you read about.”<\/strong><\/p>\n We ALL do this, too.<\/p>\n We all tend to write what we read about.<\/p>\n And to paraphrase Earl, when it comes to writing ads: <\/p>\n “If we read about crap… we write about crap.”<\/strong><\/p>\n This is one of the reasons “A List” copywriter Doug D’Anna said (in the interview he did for my book at www.CopywritingGrabBag.com<\/a><\/strong>) most copywriters should throw their swipe files away<\/em>.<\/p>\n Many times they are doing FAR more harm than good.<\/p>\n