{"id":8973,"date":"2014-08-28T18:30:49","date_gmt":"2014-08-29T01:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/?p=8973"},"modified":"2014-08-28T18:30:49","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T01:30:49","slug":"the-steak-eggs-swipe-file","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/the-steak-eggs-swipe-file\/","title":{"rendered":"The steak &#038; eggs swipe file"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A common copywriting question:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>&#8220;Ben I&#8217;m new to copywriting people keep saying to copy out world\u00a0class ads in my own handwriting. do I really need to be doing this?\u00a0Is it really that helpful it sounds boring lol!&#8221;<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I get why people ask this question.<\/p>\n<p>It IS boring.<\/p>\n<p>It IS tedious.<\/p>\n<p>And, it IS rather unappealing sounding.<\/p>\n<p>But, the answer is:<\/p>\n<p>Yes.<\/p>\n<p>Do it.<\/p>\n<p>Do. it.<\/p>\n<p>Starting tonight.<\/p>\n<p>The reasons people give for doing it (i.e. Gary Halbert&#8217;s\u00a0&#8220;neurological imprinting&#8221; theory) are very sound and, I can say\u00a0from first hand experience, it can make a huge difference in not\u00a0only your ads&#8230; but the speed in which you get really good.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s actually a lot like the &#8220;steak &amp; eggs&#8221; diet.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been doing it the last couple weeks.<\/p>\n<p>And, since it&#8217;s fresh on my mind, I&#8217;ll use it as an analogy.<\/p>\n<p>Basically, what you do is ONLY eat steak &amp; eggs.<\/p>\n<p>(Drenched in butter.)<\/p>\n<p>And that&#8217;s it.<\/p>\n<p>Nothing else &#8212; except water.<\/p>\n<p>(And a weekly &#8220;re-feed&#8221; day where you eat anything you want.)<\/p>\n<p>It was taught by an old school body building guy for getting rid of\u00a0excess fat really fast and, yes, it works like crazy &#8212; not just\u00a0for me, but for lots of other people who do it, too (like the\u00a0personal\u00a0trainers I know who recommend and do it themselves &#8212; hat\u00a0tip to my boy Dan Meredith who taught it to me).<\/p>\n<p>But, like copying ads out by hand, it&#8217;s boring.<\/p>\n<p>And tedious.<\/p>\n<p>And, yes, sounds unappealing.<\/p>\n<p>But (again, like copying ads out by hand):<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s also super simple (it doesn&#8217;t get more simple).<\/p>\n<p>Works really fast.<\/p>\n<p>And, gets you to your goals a lot faster.<\/p>\n<p><strong>In fact, I will even say this:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Just like with the steak &amp; eggs diet, where every day you are\u00a0(noticeably) a bit leaner and lighter&#8230; when you copy ads out by\u00a0hand you should be *noticeably* better after each ad you do. By\u00a0&#8220;noticeably&#8221;, I mean, the next time you write an ad for a client or\u00a0your own product, you will no doubt notice it&#8217;s a bit easier than\u00a0it was last time.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;re a bit faster at it, too.<\/p>\n<p>And, your ads are bit more persuasive.<\/p>\n<p>More:<\/p>\n<p>Like the steak &amp; eggs thing, you don&#8217;t need to do it long term.<\/p>\n<p>You do it juuuuust long enough to get to your goals.<\/p>\n<p>After that, you will unconsciously apply the structure, format, and\u00a0particularities of the ads you&#8217;ve been copying out by hand, and\u00a0apply them to your own work, without even having to think about it.<\/p>\n<p>So anyway, that&#8217;s my tasty answer.<\/p>\n<p>And, if you (gasp!) doubt me, test it for yourself:<\/p>\n<p>Write out 10 ads in your own hand.<\/p>\n<p>Then, write an ad of your own.<\/p>\n<p>The difference should be night and day.<\/p>\n<p>But, there is a caveat:<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">They must be truly GREAT (not just good) ads<\/span>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In other words&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t do this with any online sales letters (and especially not a\u00a0sales letter during a launch) &#8212; look at the old school direct mail\u00a0ads, where people had to spend money to test them, and not just\u00a0slap them up on a page and blast an email to their list.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s that?<\/p>\n<p>You don&#8217;t know which ads are great or not?<\/p>\n<p>You want some guidance?<\/p>\n<p>Then check this out:<\/p>\n<p>Right now Michael Senoff is selling his $297 Gene Schwartz product\u00a0for just $20. And, if you buy it by the deadline (Monday at the\u00a0stroke of midnight) you get a free bonus:<\/p>\n<p>A swipe file of over 527 classic ads.<\/p>\n<p>(All neatly typed up in Word format).<\/p>\n<p>This collection includes ads from the best of the best.<\/p>\n<p>Like Gary Halbert (my favorite ads to copy out by hand)&#8230; Gene\u00a0Schwartz&#8230; David Ogilvy&#8230; And hundreds more. All yours to study,\u00a0model, and copy out by hand to get that neurological imprint of\u00a0what it&#8217;s like to write world class ads.<\/p>\n<p>But time&#8217;s short, my little droogie.<\/p>\n<p>Grab it all (for a measly $20) here:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.CopywritingGrabBag.com\/labor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>www.CopywritingGrabBag.com\/labor<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ben Settle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A common copywriting question: &#8220;Ben I&#8217;m new to copywriting people keep saying to copy out world\u00a0class ads in my own handwriting. do I really need to be doing this?\u00a0Is it really that helpful it sounds boring lol!&#8221; I get why people ask this question. It IS boring. It IS tedious. And, it IS rather unappealing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-copywriting-and-sales-letters"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}