The Adweek Copywriting Handbook

The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful Advertising and Marketing Copy from One of America's Top Copywriters

Joseph Sugarman

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781118428795
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Publicité

Great copy is the heart and soul of the advertising business. In this practical guide, legendary copywriter Joe Sugarman provides proven guidelines and expert advice on what it takes to write copy that will entice, motivate, and move customers to buy. For anyone who wants to break into the business, this is the ultimate companion resource for unlimited success.

Section One

Understanding the Process

Preview

This handbook is based on a book I wrote in 1998 called Advertising Secrets of the Written Word. The book consisted of the lessons I had taught at exclusive seminars I conducted beginning in 1977.

My challenge was to take the first book, revise it to make it current and add many of the copywriting techniques to be considered when you write for the Internet, direct mail, public relations releases and other copywriting tasks. In the revision process I had to reread my book chapter by chapter and revise it where necessary. What I discovered in this process was that all the principles remained the same regardless of changes in the way we communicate that have occurred since I wrote it.

The modifications were primarily to update certain facts and figures that had changed over time or to cite a few examples that were more contemporary. Regardless of the media, however, one fact emerged. You should always first express whatever product or service you are selling in a print direct response ad. It is in this format that you can develop the real essence of your product or service.

That’s exactly what I do. If I have to sell something on the Internet, in a catalog, or on TV, I first produce a print ad. And from the print ad, if I do my job correctly, I will find the clues and the concepts that best reflect the strong selling points that I can use in any other media.

With a print ad, you won’t have the interactive nature of the Internet or the motion of TV images. You’ll need to sell your product or service on a flat piece of paper with no sound, no motion—just your words.

In the first section of this handbook, I take you through the step-by-step creative process of writing that print direct response ad. I think you will be surprised at how easy it will seem once you read the simple steps involved and learn about the thinking process you have to develop.

I take the mystery out of the process and at the same time show you how you can create great copy even if you’ve never written any direct response copy before.

In fact, the most often heard comment I’ve gotten from those who read my book is simply “I now realize how easy it is to write great copy.”

I have built several businesses from the power of my pen. Being able to write copy for your own business is a powerful tool that will serve you for the rest of your life. And to learn how, let me guide you through the steps you will follow as you quickly master this skill.

Chapter 1

General Knowledge

The preparation to become a copywriter involves knowledge. There are two types. The first is a very broad or general knowledge and the second is a very specific or targeted knowledge. Let me explain.

The best copywriters in the world are those who are curious about life, read a great deal, have many hobbies, like to travel, have a variety of interests, often master many skills, get bored and then look for other skills to master. They hunger for experience and knowledge and find other people interesting. They are very good listeners.

Look at my background. I’m an instrument-rated multi-engine commercial pilot, an amateur radio operator, and a professional photographer; I love computers, music, reading, movies, travel, art and design. I’ve done the complete catalog for my company including everything from setting the type to doing the layout. I’ve done all the photography and even some of the modeling. (My hand became quite famous, but more on that later.) I’ve tried many sports—golf, tennis, football, baseball, basketball, scuba diving, skiing, and snowmobiling. I’ve traveled to every continent on the globe with the exception of the Antarctic and I know I’ll eventually get there. I’ve mastered a second language—German—during the three years I spent with the military in Germany. I’ve had hundreds of failures and many successes, with each representing a learning experience.

The best copywriters have a variety of interests and master many skills.

The thirst for knowledge, a tremendous curiosity about life, a wealth of experiences and not being afraid to work are the top credentials for being a good copywriter.

If you examine the lives of some of our greatest writers, you will see that they experienced a great deal and wrote about their experiences. Hemingway, Steinbeck—both lived and then wrote about their adventures. The more we experience and the more knowledge we have, the easier it is to come up with that big copy idea or marketing concept.

But more significantly, it is important to experience as much in life as possible and not to fear failure. It’s not whether you win or lose in life that’s important but whether you play the game. Lose enough and eventually you will win—it’s only a matter of time. Edwin Land, the inventor of the Polaroid camera, said it best when he described his definition of a mistake: “A mistake is a future benefit, the full value of which is yet to be realized.”

I can remember when I was very young and would fail at something I had tried very hard to accomplish. I’d often say to myself, “No big loss—it’s in my back pocket. One of these days I’ll use what I’ve just experienced simply by reaching into my back pocket, and presto, I will have the answer just when I need it.”

Experiences Create Ideas

Our minds are like giant computers. Every experience that goes into your brain—both good and bad—becomes more program material and data to recall and assemble in new ways in the future. Remember when the first Apple computers came out with their big 64K memories? You might also remember the slow speed and the poor graphics compared to the high-powered personal computers we have today. Today’s computers are faster, are more efficient, can accomplish more and can interrelate information faster and more easily. So it stands to reason, the more we’ve experienced, the more we can draw upon when it comes time to relate those experiences to new problems or opportunities.

There is nothing really new in life. It’s simply a matter of taking previous pieces of knowledge and putting them together in a unique and different format. Matter is not created and destroyed. Everything on earth that was here a billion years ago is pretty much here now. The only difference is that it has taken new forms.

The more you have stored in your brain from experiences and knowledge and the more you are able to interrelate that knowledge and come up with new combinations of old material, the greater an idea person you will be and the more powerful your capabilities as a copywriter will be.

There is a saying that goes, “If all you have is a hammer, you look at every problem as a nail.” The more tools you have to work on a problem in the form of experiences or knowledge, the more new ways you can figure out how to solve it.

Lateral Thinking for Ideas

Edward de Bono, one of the great creative thinkers of our time, coined the term lateral thinking to describe the process of coming up with ideas by not focusing or thinking of just the problem. Often, by relating the problem to something that has nothing to do with the problem, a new idea emerges.

De Bono created a product that he called his “Think Tank,” which encouraged people to think more laterally and consequently more creatively. It was an eight-inch sphere mounted on a platform. Through a small window you could see a selection of 14,000 words printed on small plastic pieces. You shook the Think Tank and then looked into it and wrote down the first three words you saw.

You then tried to relate the three words to your marketing problem, to come up with a fresh perspective toward solving the problem. For example, let us say I wanted to sell my airplane. Typically, I would run an ad and focus on just the airplane, its features and equipment. But in using the Think Tank for lateral thinking, I might draw three totally unrelated words, farm, salesman and compassion and have to create an ad incorporating those three words. This process would cause me to search my brain, my data bank, and all my past experiences for some way to relate the three words while keeping in mind that I had to sell the airplane.

The Dictionary as a Tool

Lateral thinking is simply a tool. So is your dictionary. And so is your mind. Probably one of the most important keys in copywriting and conceptualizing is the ability to relate totally divergent concepts to create a new concept. Once again, the more data you have to work with from your life experiences and the more your mind can relate this data to a problem, the better you are going to be at coming up with that really great idea.

Running Your Own Company

Another factor that makes a great copywriter is the experience of running your own company and being responsible for every word you write. The really great direct marketing copywriters often don’t work for advertising agencies, but rather run their own companies and experience their own successes and failures. Ben Suarez, Gary Halbert, the late Gene Schwartz and dozens of others recognized as top copywriters have owned their own companies and learned over years of trial and error—years of both big mistakes and great success. You can’t beat that type of experience.

In my case, I have been presented with thousands of products, have written ads for hundreds of them and have had to come up with that big idea hundreds of times a year. Even as I look back at my advertising, I see a learning curve that would not have been possible had it not been for that immense wealth of broad experience. You’re going to read about many of those experiences throughout this book. You’ll be able to avoid many of the pitfalls and mistakes I made climbing my way up the ladder and you’ll understand why these mistakes were indeed learning experiences.

The preparation for becoming a great copywriter is a lifestyle. It’s a hunger for knowledge, a curiosity and a desire to participate in life that is broad-based and passionate. If you have this personality, you are already well on your way. If you don’t, simply being aware of it is often enough to start a mental process and movement that will take you to where you would like to be. But being a great copywriter is more than just having a lot of experience in life. What you will learn in the next chapter is just as important.

Chapter 2

Specific Knowledge

I was sitting in the laboratory of the Sensor Watch Company in Dallas, Texas, looking through a microscope and learning everything I could about how a new digital watch was designed, produced and assembled.

I was becoming an expert on digital watch technology, on integrated circuits, quartz crystals and oscillator circuits. “Why are all the contacts gold-plated?” I asked the engineer. “They’re gold-plated in every integrated circuit. It’s part of the technology,” was the reply.

The conversation continued. It had been two days and I was still delving into every aspect of this new digital watch I was planning to introduce. I still hadn’t reached the point where I could write an ad o...