5 Copywriting Exercises: How To Write Better Sales Copy

Summary

In this video, Alex teaches five copywriting exercises to elevate your writing from good to great. Start by creating an Inspiration File to collect and organize creative content. Use a thesaurus to enhance your language with powerful words. Test different hooks with paid ads to see what resonates most with your audience. Utilize the Hemingway Editor to simplify and clarify your copy. Lastly, differentiate between features and benefits, using a Feature to Benefit Converter to craft compelling benefits that sell.

Takeaways

• 📝 The secret to writing great copy is to start with bad copy and then refine it.
• 🚀 Copywriting exercises are valuable for both beginners and experienced writers and can be used throughout the copywriting process.
• 💼 Maintain an Inspiration File to collect and organize examples of effective copy from various sources for future reference.
• 🔍 Use a thesaurus to enhance your copy with more powerful and emotive language, but avoid overcomplicating your message.
• 📊 Test different hooks with your audience before finalizing your sales copy to see what resonates most and drives clicks.
• 📈 Utilize tools like the Hemingway Editor to improve the readability and impact of your copy by simplifying complex sentences and removing unnecessary words.
• 📚 Understand the difference between features and benefits, focusing on the latter to communicate the value and emotional appeal of your product.
• 🛠️ Use the Feature to Benefit Converter to transform product features into compelling benefits that answer the question 'What's in it for me?'
• 👍 Engage your audience by asking for their input, such as suggesting alternative words or phrases to enhance your copy.
• 🔗 Subscribe to the channel for more copywriting tutorials and stay updated on improving your copywriting skills.

Q & A

What is the main secret to writing great copy according to the speaker?

The main secret is to first write bad copy and then fix it through a series of copywriting exercises.

What are the 5 copywriting exercises mentioned in the script?

The 5 copywriting exercises are: 1) Creating an Inspiration File, 2) Using a thesaurus effectively, 3) Testing hooks with paid ads, 4) Using the Hemingway Editor to improve readability, and 5) Understanding the difference between features and benefits.

Why is an Inspiration File important for copywriters?

An Inspiration File is important because it serves as a collection of examples from various sources that can inspire and provide ideas for future copywriting projects.

How does the speaker suggest using a thesaurus in the copywriting process?

The speaker suggests using a thesaurus in the final step of writing to sprinkle in more interesting and compelling language, but warns against using overly complex or confusing words.

What is the purpose of testing hooks with paid ads?

The purpose is to determine which hook or angle is most compelling to the audience before committing to it in the sales copy, by tracking ad click-through-rate.

What does the Hemingway Editor do and how does it help in copywriting?

The Hemingway Editor helps in copywriting by identifying complex sentences, suggesting simpler alternatives for words, highlighting overly descriptive adverbs, and indicating passive voice, aiming to make the writing more concise and readable.

How does the speaker define the difference between features and benefits in marketing?

Features are factual statements about a product or service, while benefits are the results expressed through desired emotions that answer the question 'What's in it for me?'

What is the Feature to Benefit Converter and how is it used?

The Feature to Benefit Converter is a tool that helps in transforming product features into compelling benefits by asking a series of questions that lead to the identification of the core problem, pain point, and desired emotion.

Why is it important not to copy others' work directly according to the speaker?

It is important not to copy others' work directly because it is unethical and can damage one's reputation. Additionally, duplicate content can be easily detected online, which can lead to serious consequences.

What is the speaker's advice for entrepreneurs and freelance writers regarding copywriting?

The speaker advises entrepreneurs and freelance writers to subscribe to their channel for copywriting tutorials, use the provided exercises and tools, and to focus on creating compelling and original copy that resonates with their audience.

How can one avoid making the 5 biggest copywriting mistakes mentioned by the speaker?

One can avoid these mistakes by watching the speaker's video on the 5 biggest copywriting mistakes, applying the lessons from the exercises shared, and continuously learning and improving their copywriting skills.

Outlines

00:00

📝 Copywriting Exercises for Killer Copy

Alex introduces five copywriting exercises designed to enhance the quality of copy from good to great. These exercises are valuable for both novice and experienced copywriters and can be integrated throughout the copywriting process. Alex also shares insights on using copywriting tools daily and encourages entrepreneurs and freelance writers to subscribe for more copywriting tutorials. The first exercise involves creating an Inspiration File, a collection of screenshots and examples from successful copy, to draw inspiration without directly copying others' work.

05:04

🔍 The Power of Thesaurus and Hook Testing

The second part of the script emphasizes the importance of using a thesaurus to enhance copy with more compelling language. Alex suggests replacing common words with more powerful synonyms to evoke emotion and action. A challenge is posed to the audience to creatively redefine the word 'Great'. Additionally, the concept of testing hooks with paid ads to gauge audience interest and click-through rates is introduced, advocating for data-driven decision-making in copywriting.

10:06

📚 Hemingway Editor and the Art of Simplicity

Alex discusses the Hemingway Editor, a tool used to make writing concise and impactful. The tool highlights complex sentences, suggests simpler word choices, and identifies adverbs and passive voice that can be improved. A demonstration is provided using a client's newsletter, showing how simplifying language can enhance readability and effectiveness. The audience is encouraged to use the Hemingway Editor and share their experiences.

🔑 Unlocking the Difference Between Features and Benefits

This section delves into the distinction between features and benefits in marketing and copywriting. Features describe what a product has or is, while benefits explain the value and results it offers to customers. Alex provides examples and introduces a Feature to Benefit Converter tool to help transform product features into compelling benefits. The tool guides users through a series of questions to articulate the core problem a feature solves, the pain points it addresses, and the desired emotions it evokes, ultimately leading to a persuasive benefit statement.

🚀 Final Thoughts on Copywriting Mastery

In conclusion, Alex summarizes the five copywriting exercises and encourages viewers to apply them to improve their writing skills. A call to action is made for viewers to like the video if they found it helpful and to watch a related video on common copywriting mistakes. The video ends with a prompt to subscribe for future content and a farewell from Alex.

Keywords

💡Copywriting

Copywriting is the art of writing persuasive content, typically for advertising or marketing materials. In the video, copywriting is the central theme, as the speaker, Alex, provides exercises to improve one's copywriting skills, turning 'good' copy into 'great'. The video aims to help viewers enhance their ability to write compelling sales copy.

💡Inspo File

An 'Inspo File' is a collection of inspirational content such as screenshots, emails, and sales pages from various sources. Alex mentions that maintaining an Inspiration File is a practice used by many successful copywriters. It serves as a repository of creative ideas that can be referred to when seeking inspiration for new projects.

💡Thesaurus

A thesaurus is a reference book or software that lists words grouped together based on similarity of meaning. In the context of the video, Alex suggests using a thesaurus to find more interesting and compelling language during the final step of the writing process, to enhance the emotional impact and engagement of the copy.

💡Power Words

Power words are emotionally charged or action-oriented words that can evoke strong feelings or drive action. Alex emphasizes the importance of using power words in copywriting to make the content more engaging and persuasive. Examples given include replacing 'scary' with 'bone-chilling' or 'boring' with 'mind-numbing'.

💡Testing Hooks

Testing hooks involves experimenting with different introductory statements or ideas to see which one resonates most with the audience. Alex recommends running paid ads with different hooks to determine which one generates the highest click-through rate, indicating a more compelling message to the target audience.

💡Hemingway Editor

The Hemingway Editor is a writing tool designed to improve the clarity and conciseness of text. It highlights complex sentences and suggests simpler alternatives. In the video, Alex uses the Hemingway Editor to demonstrate how to make copy more readable and accessible to a wider audience, aligning with the average reading level.

💡Readability

Readability refers to how easily a reader can understand the text. The video discusses the importance of writing at a level that is easily digestible by the average reader, often aiming for a 7th-grade reading level. Alex shows how the Hemingway Editor can help assess and improve the readability of copy.

💡Features vs. Benefits

This concept distinguishes between the attributes of a product (features) and the advantages or positive outcomes those attributes provide to the user (benefits). Alex explains that while features describe what a product is, benefits sell the product by connecting with the customer's desires and needs, as illustrated by the example of a '1 Terabyte Hard Drive'.

💡Feature to Benefit Converter

The 'Feature to Benefit Converter' is a tool or method for translating product features into customer benefits. Alex provides a spreadsheet example in the video to guide viewers through a five-question process that helps uncover the emotional and practical benefits behind product features, making the sales copy more persuasive.

💡Cognitive Fluency

Cognitive fluency is the ease with which information is processed by the brain. The video mentions that when copy becomes too complex, it disrupts cognitive fluency, leading to a loss of reader interest. Alex advises simplifying copy to maintain cognitive fluency and keep the reader engaged.

Highlights

The secret to writing great copy is to first write bad copy and then fix it.

Introducing 5 simple copywriting exercises to improve copy from good to great.

Exercises are valuable for both new and experienced copywriters.

Using copywriting tools daily to enhance the writing process.

The importance of having an Inspiration File for collecting and organizing creative content.

How to use an Inspiration File to store and categorize marketing materials for future reference.

The practice of buying products to learn what works behind the scenes.

Signing up for email lists and using Gmail filters to organize inspirational content.

A disclaimer against copying others' work and the importance of originality.

The role of a thesaurus in enhancing copy with powerful and emotive language.

The challenge of finding synonyms that are interesting but not overly complex.

The value of testing hooks with paid ads to determine which resonates most with the audience.

Focusing on click-through-rate rather than conversion rate when testing hooks.

Using the Hemingway Editor to improve readability and conciseness of copy.

How the Hemingway Editor highlights complex sentences and suggests simpler alternatives.

The significance of understanding the difference between features and benefits in marketing.

A feature is a factual statement about a product, while a benefit is the emotional result it provides.

Using a Feature to Benefit Converter to transform product attributes into compelling benefits.

The process of asking five key questions to derive benefits from features.

Examples of converting features into benefits to create more persuasive sales copy.

Encouragement to subscribe for more copywriting tutorials and resources.

Transcripts

You have heard me say it before...

The secret to writing great copy?

First, write bad copy…

And then fix it.

And here’s how…

Hey guys, welcome!

It’s Alex and over the next few minutes, I’m going to walk you through 5 super simple

copywriting exercises that you can start doing right away to turn your copy from good to

great!

Now, these exercises are crazy valuable whether you’re a brand new copywriter just starting

out or a seasoned vet, they can be used throughout your entire copywriting process...

And I frequently use these exercises to improve my copy.

And with a few of these exercises, I’ll even let you look over my shoulder and show

you a couple of really, really cool copywriting tools that I use almost every single day on

my laptop.

So guys, if you’re an entrepreneur or freelance writer looking to grow your business with

crazy good copy, be sure to hit subscribe below so you don’t miss a single copywriting

tutorial from me!!

Okay now, let’s dive into the 5 copywriting exercises for writing killer copy…

All the great copywriters and marketers I know have an Inspiration File – essentially

of collection of screenshots, emails, sales pages and products from other people, businesses

and brands!

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve signed up for something online and I think

“Oh, nice!

I like what they did there.”

Boom. I take a screenshot and I add that to my Inspo File.

It’s a Dropbox Folder that I can easily access or add to from my phone or my laptop

because hey, you never know when inspiration will strike! I have it split into different

subfolders like Emails, Landing Pages, Sales Pages, Upsells, Products etc.

This makes it way easier to go back later when you’re looking for ideas for future

pieces.

I frequently buy other people’s products to see WHAT they are doing behind the gate.

it’s one of the best ways to learn!

And another tip...

I like to sign up for a bunch of email lists from related businesses.

And then rather than just let those emails clog up my inbox, I add a filter in Gmail

that skips the inbox and tags them with “Inspo”.

Then, anytime I’m looking for a subject line or an email on a particular topic, say

a webinar replay…

I can just search “webinar replay” in my inbox inspo file and see all the other

emails that people have written on that topic.

But guys... I have one BIG FAT FREAKIN’ DISCLAIMER HERE.

The point of this exercise is to find INSPIRATION.

NOT COPY WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING.

I’ve seen this happen so many times and it’s just not cool.

Plus if someone finds out that you’re copying, your reputation is GONE.

These days it’s really not hard at all to find duplicate content online.

This actually happened to one of my clients. Someone copied nearly every single

word from their landing page, INCLUDING CLIENT TESTIMONIALS!

Are you kidding me?

So, be copy writers and not copy cats, alright?

Give me a thumbs up below if you’re with me on this one...

And then lets move on to Exercise #2…

I swear I haven’t haven’t had anything to drink today.

But seriously, as a copywriter if an online thesaurus is not your best friend who knows

all your deepest darkest secrets, you’re DOING IT WRONG!!

I like to bring in the thesaurus into the final step of my writing process.

After I’ve written the copy, I’ll go through it and sprinkle in some more interesting and

compelling language.

Use POWER words that evoke emotion or action.

For example, replace scary with bone-chilling.

Or boring with mind-numbing.

Unaccepted with controversial.

You get the idea.

Now quick challenge…

I’d love to hear your genius twists on the word “Great”...

As in “Wow, this video is really great!”

Comment below…

And let me hear from you.

Now, one very important thing to remember here is that the words you use should be more

INTERESTING, not complex or confusing.

Just because a Thesaurus says amalgamation is a synonym of mix doesn’t mean you should

use it!

So mix it up, and don’t amalgamate it up if you catch my drift!

And let’s move onto, Exercise #3…

And I love this one.

Just because we’re copywriters, doesn’t mean we always KNOW what hook or angle will

convert the best…

So, TEST YOUR HOOKS to your audience before you commit to any one in particular in your

sales copy…

So how do you do this?

One of the best ways to test this EARLY on is to spend a few dollars running multiple

paid ads – either on Facebook or Google – with different hooks to a pre-launch landing

page where you can give something of value to your audience.

But, remember, the goal here first is not to track lead or sale conversion rate, but

ad CLICK-THROUGH-RATE.

It shouldn’t take too much time or money to spot a clear winner.

You can’t lie with data – your ads will tell you what hook is more compelling to your

audience.

Or in other words, what hook garners more attention and drives more CLICKS.

Then, make sure to use that same hook throughout your entire sales funnel and messaging.

You don’t need to get all fancy with this. You can easily set up Facebook ads. It’s

super easy to do and can save you a ton of time and money on writing an offer based on

a hook that just doesn’t work.

Ok, now let’s move onto exercise #4.

So you’ve heard me say before that the average person reads at the 7th-grade level.

One copywriting tool that I use all the time is the Hemingway Editor.

Named after the master of literary brevity himself, the super simple tool aims to tighten

up your words and make them more concise and impactful.

And yes, more easy to read by everyone.

So common, let me show you how to use it.

Ok so to use the Hemingway Editor just go to Hemingwayapp.com and you’ll come to

the free web version of Hemingway Editor. Now, the Hemingway app makes your

writing bold and clear as it says here.

But it’s really cool! Essentially you just copy in any copy that you’ve written, and

the Hemingway Editor immediately will tell you the readability of your piece.

So, here are the 5 things that the Hemingway Editor will highlight in your piece of copy.

The first thing and the most obvious is the red and yellow sentences.

So, essentially a red sentence is anything that the Hemingway Editor deems to be complex.

The yellow sentences are hard to read but not entirely complex…

Still something worth looking over to see if there’s anyway you might be able to easily

simplify those sentences.

The purple words are words that you can replace with a simpler version.

It also highlights the adverbs which are overly descriptive, might not add that much to the

copy...

Which you can consider omitting.

And then it will also highlight the green passive copy which could probably be written

in a little bit stronger, direct tone.

So I’m going to show you a quick example here. One of my clients Numeologist.com send

out weekly newsletters.

So I want to show you the first version of a newsletter that was written to go out

sometime last month.

So you can see here immediately this copy is written at an 11th grade level…

So now remember if someone’s reading your copy and they reach a point where there's

no longer cognitive fluency they will leave because brains like simple information that’s

easy to process.

So, this piece of copy I worked though... I changed some of the sentences made it a

little bit simpler for the average person to read, and this is the new version of the

copy that I came up with.

Essentially not changing any of the essence of the message, just simplifying and removing

words and also breaking the longer walls of text or paragraphs into shorter sentences.

So overall a much more effective piece of copy.

So I highly recommend you check out Hemingwayapp.com and put it to use.

Comment below and let me know if you found this helpful.

And with that let's move onto Exercise #5...

One of the most powerful things you can learn as a marketer and copywriter is the difference

between features and benefits.

So here’s a quick distinction:

A feature is something that your product has or is.

It is planned, built, and executed in order to directly solve a common problem.

In sales copy, features are factual statements about what your product or service is, and

they are NOT what entice your customers to buy.

Benefits, on the other hand, are why someone is purchasing your product.

They are RESULTS expressed through desired emotions and answer the question...

"What's in it for me?”

So here are a couple of examples…

Feature: 1 Terabyte Hard Drive Benefit: Take hours of video worry-free!

Never forget the day your child took their first step.

Feature: Batteries Included.

Benefit: Ready to use!

No disappointed child on Christmas morning.

Feature: Low-Calorie Benefit: Look better than Heather at the high-school

reunion.

Obviously.

So, if you’re stuck on how to turn your product features into super juicy benefits,

I actually created a simple 5-question Feature to Benefit Converter that I’m going to show

you how to use right now.

Alright guys, so what you see here is the Feature To Benefit Converter spreadsheet.

I will link to this in the description below. You can download it and then re-upload it to

your Google Drive or whatever is easiest for you.

You’ll see that you start here in column “A” with listing the feature.

Then the five questions you want to ask yourself are “Why is this feature notable?”

“What problem does this feature solve?”

“What is the core pain point this problem creates?”

“When does this matter most?” and “Why does your customer need this?” as in the

feature.

Then finally write your final benefit.

So I already pre-populated this Feature To Benefit Converter with a couple of examples

that I gave earlier in my video.

You’ll see here a one terabyte hard drive.

Ask yourself, why is this feature noteable?

Well, more storage space, more backup.

Right?

That's really why you're listing this as a feature.

What problem does this feature solve?

I mean it probably solves a few but think of the core problem...

The biggest problem that someone might have if they don't have a one terabyte hard drive…

Lost files, right?

Now what is the core pain point that this problem creates?

So maybe sadness, disappointment… that might be a big one, but really the loss of memories.

I mean, that's huge.

Now when does this matter the most?

Well, vacations, baby's first steps… think about all of those times where this problem

is actually a really big frickin’ deal.

Then you want to ask yourself why does the customer need this?

So I like to think of this in terms of desired emotions…

A one terabyte harddrive is sort of a hard thing to tack emotions to but when you go

through these 5 questions, all of a sudden the emotion behind why someone might need

a one terabyte harddrive becomes evident.

So peace of mind, right?

Trust.

I won't lose any more memories.

Okay, then you can write the benefit. Once you're in that place of thinking of the desired

emotion the benefit becomes a lot more evident.

Never forget the day your child took their first step.

Boom, benefit.

It can be simple here and then of course when you work it into your copy you can add a little

bit of finesse. Add in a few more emotional words or power words like I talked about earlier.

But there you will have so many juicy benefits that will be much more compelling to your

audience.

Ok guys, there you have it!

5 copywriting exercises that’ll have you writing like a pro in no time!

Please give me a thumbs up below if you found this video helpful!

And next up, check out my video on the 5 biggest copywriting mistakes you could be making.

You can watch that video right here.

And please subscribe to catch my video next week!

Till then, I’m Alex. Ciao for now!