Copywriting Dean

Many copywriters advise that you keep a swipe file. Meaning that you keep a collection of high quality advertisements to study and get ideas from when writing your own copy.

There are ways to collect an awesome set of offline advertisments… and one way is to BUY products from successful offline mailers. But frankly I’ve never gone this route.

I primarily write copy online and I look for online copy to put in my swipe file.

In the past when I found copy I liked I’d bookmark it or add it to my favorites. This worked OK… until the site disappeared, the offer was taken down or the copy changed.

Then I tried saving the webpage with the copy to my computer. This works OK still. But it can be messy with all the extra files attached to the webpage. Especially if all I want to keep is a headline.

So now I’ve discovered my favorite method for keeping a collection of swiped ads.

Windows Vista, Windows 7 and some versions of Windows XP have a “Snipping Tool” that allows you to highlight a portion of your screen and save it as an image.

Now it’s easy and painless to save a simple headline. Take for example this quick swipe of the headline from my Copywriting Services page. (Which of course was based on a swiped headline

I’ve set up a folder on my PC’s “Desktop” called appropriately, “Swipe File.” And another folder inside there is named “Headlines.” I save all swiped headlines in here.

Then when it’s time to look at successful headlines, I can open up any image inside this folder. Windows opens the image inside of it’s photo viewer and allows me to hit “Next” over and over again browsing my swiped headlines.

Fantastic! So much cleaner than paper or saved web pages.

Of course, most of the images you are creating involve copyrighted material. So you shouldn’t be sharing or selling your swipe file with anyone.

But creating a swipe file this way for your personal use is no problem. (At least that’s what I believe. I’m no lawyer, so do your own research.)

In any case, you have permission to swipe any of my sales copy for your personal use in this way.

And if you’re looking for more copy to swipe, you might start here:

Productivity Engineering

Good luck hunting and swiping!

Qualify the reader with a prehead…

“Hit Them With An Attention

Getting Headline”

Tell them why they need
to act now or else miss out.

Greetings Reader,

Enter the conversation they’re already having in their mind. What problem is your product solving for them? Address this problem here. And build up to the first subhead.

There’s A Solution…

Start to educate them about what a solution might be, but don’t necessarily tell them what it is yet. What qualities would a solution have? Next subhead…

It’s My Product…

Now introduce your product as the solution that has those qualities. Then let them know about people who love your product…

My Product Will Do This For You…

• Write benefits…
• that appeal…
• to the results…
• your reader…
• would want…
• from your…
• product..

How Much Is That Worth To You?

Explain why they’d be better off by getting your product today. Tell them the price and compare it to how much it’d cost if they tried to get the same results with a different route.

Plus Your Satisfaction Is Guaranteed

Let them know if they’re not satisfied, you’ll give them a full refund. Assuming that’s what you’ll do.

Here’s How I’ll Sweeten The Deal Even More

Describe your bonuses if you’ve decided to offer any with your main product. You don’t have to if you don’t have any.

Act Now Or Lose…

Ask for action now. Tell them why they must act now for the best deal.

Order Link…

Thanks for reading,

Signature

PS Write something here that will have them curious to scroll up. For example, “Remember when I told you about winning a chess championship blindfolded?” This is because people often read the PS second after the headline, so you want to get them back into the copy.

PPS Remind them why they need to act RIGHT NOW.

This is just one of many sales letter templates you could use. But I suggest using one when you first get started. Here’s one to try. And a hint, look at the subheads. See how they sort of carry on the conversation by themselves? So that if you JUST read the subheads, it’d be like reading one paragraph? Try to do the same thing when you write your sales letter.