When you procrastinate, I don’t believe it’s the type of task that’s important. You might choose to watch television or bake a cake. It doesn’t matter. Nor does the ease of the task you choose make much difference. You might choose to procrastinate by doing something you actually find quite difficult, like going for a […]
Category Archives: COPYWRITING
An old mentor of mine – the great Mark Ford – used to wind me up in a debate about subject line open rates. He said it was pointless analysing open rates. But, I argued, if you can increase the open rate, you get more people to see the email. So what, he’d ask? Well, I’d wonder, […]
Who. The. Hell. Would be a copywriter? Seriously. I threw out a request on Twitter for folks to tell me what they thought the hardest thing about being a copywriter is and…jeez. Ping. Ping. Ping, went notifications. Hundreds of fellow sufferers gave their two pence and the little tweet soon turned into some kind of […]
Did you hate it?” No, the interviewer replies. “Shame. You’re supposed to,” says McQueen. When it comes to getting someone’s attention, you’ve got to go for emotions. If you don’t at least try, you’re guaranteed to fail. If you’re not thinking about how your audience relates to your writing, you shouldn’t call yourself a copywriter. You’ve […]
No. This is not the introduction I was planning. I hate using I. It should be ‘you’ – that’s more engaging. I is self-indulgent. All good copywriters know that. But I need to use I, don’t I? Sometimes I wish I could open every piece Trott-style… In 1805 Gary Bingham was a captain in the […]
In 1963 things were really beginning to take off for Rowlf. After a false start recording several commercials for Purina Dog Food, he was put in the cupboard and almost forgotten. But when his owner was invited to do a skit on The Jimmy Dean Show, Rowlf was brought back in for a second shot at stardom. […]
Copywriting should be fun. It should be challenging too. But if you’re finding it too challenging, it’s wearing you down or it’s taking up too much of your time… You’re probably doing something wrong. So here I want to give you some tips on how to better manage your time as a copywriter. Most of […]
Before you write any piece of copy, you need to figure out if the idea you’re writing about is any good. If your idea sucks ass, your copy will suck ass too. On the flipside: if your idea is good, writing the copy will be much easier, and faster. And chances are, your copy will be […]
He looked at me gone out. Really? You read everything aloud? Even the 10,000-word letters? I was being interviewed for a podcast and we’d got on to my editing process. Yep, I answered. Pretty much. Between you and me, dear reader, sometimes I’m in a rush and won’t get a chance. But I would say nine times […]
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It’s 1938… Very bad things are going down in Europe. Anti-Semitism is rife. The Nazi’s are about to annex Austria. And for a little known university graduate, there’s no choice… He needs to get out of the country. Fast. He flees to America. He’s lucky. He gets a graduate place at Columbia University, where he […]