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How To Become A Copywriting Pro In 5 Hours Or Less

Posted on 02. Feb, 2010 by DaveAnderson in Copywriting, Internet Marketing

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You’re likely familiar with the concept of ‘modelling success’.

If you want to be successful at anything at all, one of the quickest ways to do it is to model the habits and behaviours of people who have already achieved success in that area.

This is how you take something potentially complicated and vague, and distill it into its’ simplest form so that you can immediately implement it.

But how often do you actually do this, if ever? Do you ever LITERALLY MODEL the work of somebody already successful in your field?

One of things that I’ve invested a lot of time in recently is improving my Copywriting skills. I’m currently reading a book by Maria Veloso called Web Copy That Sells: The Revolutionary Formula for Creating Killer Copy That Grabs Their Attention and Compels Them to Buy.

(Amazing book … I highly recommend it)

At one point in the book, Maria discusses the importance of modelling and assigns a piece of homework that totally opened my eyes.

Here is the homework … straight from the book:

‘In web copywriting, the best way to model success is to select a website that you admire greatly and that you know has produced tons of sales for its owner. Start copying it by hand. Write the entire sales letter out in your own handwriting. Write it out two or three times over the next week. Depending on how fast you write, this will take roughly five hours—less if you write quickly or if the sales letter you choose is short.’

So, I did it. I went over to one of the highest converting sales letters in our industry and copied it out … by hand. It took a long time. Though I did it over 4 days, I think it took me about 5 hours in total.

But let me tell you, it was absolutely worth the time, 100%.

It was a pure learning experience. By the end I felt like I was beginning to internalize the wording, the way the phrases where crafted, the rhythm and even the mind-set of the person who wrote this particular sales letter.

I’m definitely going to do this again. Likely once more with the same sales letter, and then I’ll move on to another one, written by somebody completely different, but equally successful.

I had been told before that modelling is THE fastest way from A to B, but never quite understood what that really meant. Now, I get it.

So I throw it out to you. You’ve got to be a little bit brave to give this a shot. It will take some of your time. You can’t go into this assignment carrying the fear that you’re wasting your time. You have to make the decision to INVEST 5 hours of your life to become better at something.

Here’s the thing – If you are dead serious about leveraging the true power of the Internet to build your business, learning to write web copy isn’t really an option. It’s a necessary skill that will continue to separate those who are truly successful, from those who simply enjoy playing around on the internet.

I encourage you to give it a shot, and let me know how it goes. If you’re experience is anything like mine was, you will be absolutely amazed and thrilled that you invested the time to complete the assignment.

Have a great week!

Dave

P.S. I’m really excited to hear about your experience with this assignment. Leave a comment and commit to doing it, and then come back when you’re finished and share your experience. And don’t forget to tweet this to your followers. It will be an eye-opening activity for anyone who puts the time in.

Tags: Copywriting, Internet Marketing, Network Marketing, sales letter, web copy