Is it really possible to become a world class copywriter in just 30-days? One of the most famous letters in the illustrious Gary Halbert Letter is titled “Hands on Experience.” Gary goes over, in extreme detail, the process he would use learn copywriting, as if he was starting again from scratch.
His most mysterious instructions are as follows:
I want you to get a copy of the following ads and direct mail letters:
“Do You Make These Mistakes In English?”
“What Everybody Should Know About This Stock And Bond Business”
“The Nancy L. Halbert Heraldry Letter”
“How To Burn Off Body Fat, Hour-By-Hour”
“At 60 Miles An Hour The Loudest Noise In This Rolls Royce Is The Ticking Of The Electric Clock”
“Why Men Crack”
“How To Collect From Social Security At Any Age”
“The Admiral Byrd Transpolar Expedition Letter”
“The Lazy Man’s Way To Riches”
Now that you’ve obtained copies of these ads and letters, I want you to sit down and copy them out word-for-word in your own handwriting.
Now if you’re like me, you’ve read this probably a zillion times over, wondering the whole time: “Thanks Gary, but where the heck do I find all these ads in the first place?”
So I’ve spent countless hours online trying to track each of these down for my swipe file. And to save you the trouble, I’m listing all of them right here. With one exception, each of the ads will open as either a JPG or PDF file:
- “Do You Make These Mistakes In English?”
- “What Everybody Should Know About This Stock And Bond Business”
- “The Nancy L. Halbert Heraldry Letter”
- “How To Burn Off Body Fat, Hour-By-Hour”
- “At 60 Miles An Hour The Loudest Noise In This Rolls Royce Is The Ticking Of The Electric Clock”
- “Why Men Crack”
- “How To Collect From Social Security At Any Age”
- “The Admiral Byrd Transpolar Expedition Letter”
- “The Lazy Man’s Way To Riches”
And here are 9 bonus ads for your swipe file:
- The “Billion Dollar Salesletter” for Wall Street Journal
- Gary Halbert’s “Tova” ad
- Halbert’s “Amazing Diet Secrets of a Desperate Housewife”
- Space ad by Eugene Schwartz
- Vic Schwab’s ad for “How to Win Friends & Influence People”
- “Astrology Today” ad by Ben Suarez
- David Ogilvy’s “How to Create Advertising that Sells”
- Gary Bencivenga’s “Lies, Lies, Lies” promo
- “Mercades Diesel” salesletter by Ed McLean
In addition to above, here are more (free) educational resources to help you with your copywriting career:
- Gary Bencivenga
- Gary Halbert
- Clayton Makepeace
- Ryan Healy
- Bob Bly
- Ben Settle
- Ken McCarthy
- Info Marketing Blog
- Marketing & copywriting book reviews
- David Ogilvy’s famous speech about direct response: “We Sell or Else”
- Fantastic interview with David Ogilvy from 1977
Lastly, on the issue of finding your first clients…I’ve found the resource below to be extremely helpful in my copywriting career:
If you found any of this helpful, please drop me a line by sending me a quick email.
P.S. If you’d like to learn even more about how to write copy that sells, I recommend you join the private Copywriting Code membership site. It’s packed with valuable copywriting lessons, and more are being added all the time. Click here to check it out.
The Ryan McGrath
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