Friday, January 30, 2009

Swipe File Secrets

By John Anghelache

The late, Gary C. Halbert, is my favorite copywriting mentor. Not only was he ultra-successful but he could teach the art and science of crafting ad copy like nobody's business.

Gary was all about leveraging resources to make life easy. For instance, imagine you decide to write a book about getting healthy and fit.

What's the best course of action?

Well, maybe you can study horse racing. Maybe you can spend years around the best horse trainers to find out what their secrets are. Maybe you can get in with the inner circle of horse racing. But is all of that time, work and stress necessary? Not at all. There is a much more hassle-free method to getting everything you need to know about horse racing.

Instead of doing things the hard way, Gary would recommend you go out and buy the top selling books and ebooks on dieting. Then you clam up in your office or the library and read. While reading jot down notes. Lots of them. And take out all of the unique, exclusive dieting tips, tricks and secrets in each of those best sellers.

Armed with this research you write your version of a health and fitness book. Only this book has all the great info from the other books you read. The exclusive details that bring value to your book. The end product is a book filled with the very best information on health and fitness.

Easy does it best.

This lesson applies to crafting promotions. You can shortcut the entire process and create great space ads... websites... and... other forms of advertising quickly.

What we're talking about here is referred to as swiping in advertising circles. The process simplifies everything for the ad writer. Halbert was big on swiping. He taught it during a copywriting seminar in the mid 1990's. Almost the entire even was about the process of how to swipe to create your own profitable ads.

Forget about learning how to write like the best copywriters. That takes way too much time and is unnecessary. Once you learn how to swipe putting together promotions that bring in money is much easier.

Do that and you'll experience these benefits...

** Thing's like writer's block will no longer plague you. Everything you need to begin writing a great ad will be there in the swipe. Blundering your way through thinking about what to write won't be a problem either. The swipe contains everything you need.

** You'll crank out ads in record time. The swipe ad is there to help you write faster. You no longer have to figure out what to say to a prospect. Everything is there for you in the swipe.

** The ads you write could be three times more responsive. Think about it. You are essentially modeling success. When you do that success is on your side.

So the idea is to build a swipe file and use it when creating ads. - 15615

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