The Secret Technique That’ll Make You an Incredible Writer
The Amplified Impact Podcast
July 4th, 2023
So, I recently went on a passionate rant on LinkedIn about the misconception surrounding AI and copywriting.
People worry that AI will make copywriters obsolete, but I strongly disagree.
Copywriting is not just about making money; it’s a powerful form of communication that influences human behavior.
AI can assist with writing, but understanding human psychology and effective communication is crucial.
To become a better copywriter, study good advertising, pay attention to what captures your interest, and try copy work—writing out great examples by hand.
AI may be inevitable but copywriting, especially done with a human touch, is a timeless skill that will never go out of style.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“You need to just become a student of good advertising and paying attention to what words are being used that compel you to take action and become aware.”- Anthony Vicino
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Episode Transcript:
Anthony Vicino [00:00:00]:
Yo, what’s up everybody? Welcome back to the pod So the other day I kind of got up on a little bit of a soapbox. I got a little bit preachy on LinkedIn about a topic that’s really near and dear to my heart. I get the question a lot about AI replacing the need for copywriting or graphic design. And people who are afraid to go and learn these skills because they think it’s gonna be become obsolete within the next few years and they’re going to have wasted all this time and energy learning this skill. And if you guys have paid any attention to this content or watching any of the videos on YouTube, you know that one of my strategies for building wealth, especially if you’re early in the game, is to go learn high value skills that you can then go apply and add value to people’s businesses and help them make more money. And one of the easiest, well, not easiest necessarily, but one of the most powerful tools for doing that is copywriting. But there’s this misconception about what copywriting really is and a lot of people, because they hear what Chat GPT is able to do and like, oh, it can generate the copy for you. They think that copywriters are just going to become obsolete and that this is a skill that is not worth learning.
Anthony Vicino [00:01:09]:
And I couldn’t disagree more because I think copywriting is not just a skill to make money. That’s the first mistake. It’s a form of critical thinking that has the express purpose of influencing other human beings. Okay, with that in mind, then it is one of the highest leveraged forms of communication because the end goal is to move another human to take action that’s in alignment with your desires. So think about that. If the express purpose of copywriting is to influence other people, then it’s not really about the words on the page. It’s in understanding the human psychology, in understanding communication principles, and how to share ideas in a compelling, influential, persuasive way. Right? If you outsource the actual writing to AI, sure, that’s fine, you can do that.
Anthony Vicino [00:02:07]:
But you are only as good as that tool. Right? And the goal is to grow by multiplication, which I think I talked about on a previous episode. But all that’s to say, copywriting, I believe, is still a massively valuable skill, whether or not you actually apply it as a copywriter or you just use it to then produce even better copy in conjunction with the AI. I don’t think this skill is going to go anywhere. And I think more importantly, the people who understand human psychology, communication and influence are in a position to thrive regardless of what AI brings to the table in the future. Now, one of the big questions that I get from people is how do I become a better copywriter? What are the are there tools, resources, books? So a couple of resources that I want to share with you guys and then an exercise that is an absolute game changer. It’s been recommended by Legends of Copywriting for the last 50 plus years. It is the de facto way to become a better copywriter.
Anthony Vicino [00:03:05]:
I’m going to share with you the very secret behind closed doors strategy that copywriters just like myself and all the big wigs have ever used. Okay? So stick around for that. But a couple of resources that I think are really, really good is the Boron letters. This is the book. There’s another one called the Ad Week Copywriting something or another by Joseph Sugarman, another really great book. But at the end of the day guys, you need to just become a student of good advertising and paying attention to what words are being used that compel you to take action and become aware. When you see an advertisement scrolling through Instagram, what got you to stop, right? And a lot of people think copywriting is just the writing. They think it’s just the words on the screen.
Anthony Vicino [00:03:48]:
But no, it goes further than that. It’s the video, right? The script that the person is speaking at you. So if you’re getting stopped by a video on YouTube, that’s copywriting. They put words down, they expressed them, communicated them in a way that they were hoping would influence you to do a thing, which was to stop and to watch and then maybe go and buy the product or like the video or do whatever, right? So it’s all about compelling action rather than any other form of writing, which is really just trying to compel or share information. And that’s a very different type of writing. But writing to compel action, it’s very different. Okay? So the exercise that I want to share with you guys, it’s really powerful, it’s really simple, really effective, though. It’s called copywriting.
Anthony Vicino [00:04:30]:
That’s not my journal. So let me pull it over here. If you guys are watching on YouTube, you can go over to Youtube.com amplifiedimpact. You can check out this podcast because what I’m going to be holding up to you is an example of what’s called copy work. So this is copy work. I’m going to hold it up to the camera so you guys can take a close look. And all copy work is, is you take the, the great ads of, of yesteryear, you great examples of great writing, good copywriting. And then you sit with that piece of work and then you write it out by hand in your journal into your notebook.
Anthony Vicino [00:05:06]:
You speak the words and then you write it out word by word by word and then you speak it out again. And the reason that you’re doing this, the reason you’re writing out somebody else’s copy, is you are going to come to a better understanding of the words that they use, how they put their words together, what was their sentence structure, what type of idea are they conveying and then how did they convey it? When you write somebody else’s words, you start to learn their voice in the different ways that you can express an idea. And this is so much more powerful than just reading something passively. And this is something that I did at the beginning of my fiction career when I wanted to be a science fiction writer. I would sit down with a page from Stephen King or Brandon Sanderson, these authors that I looked up to, and I was like, I want to write like them. I want to have a voice like them. And I would write out the entire page of whatever was there, word by word by word, so I could understand. How do they structure their dialogue? How is that different than their exposition versus when they’re doing their world building? All of these things start to seep into your mind, and because you’re swimming in good examples of what great writing is, and you’re really sitting with it with intentionality, it starts to bleed into your own writing, and you start to understand what makes for a good sentence.
Anthony Vicino [00:06:23]:
How do you structure it? What words should you use? So go to the Google machine and just Google Classic Copywriting and find some examples of old ads. And then every day, just write one out. It takes 20 minutes, maybe 30 minutes at the most. Just get your journal out every single morning and just write it out. This is called copy work. It’s a very, very powerful technique. In fact, one of my buddies, Sam Parr, who built the Hustle as a big newsletter that he sold for a couple, like, many millions of dollars to the HubSpot. He’s a fantastic copywriter, and he put together a website called Copywork, I think is what it’s called.
Anthony Vicino [00:07:02]:
Is it copywork? Let’s look it up right now while we’re here live. It’s either copywork.com or copy that. I think it’s copy that. Yes, it’s copy that. And you can sign up for his email course. It’ll walk you through over a ten day period. Every day he’s going to send you another sales letter. So makes it really easy to know what’s a really good example of a sales letter that you should emulate.
Anthony Vicino [00:07:26]:
He’ll send you those and then work on your copy work. So I get no kickbacks from that, by the way, guys, just go do it. Because this is a great skill to have. It’s timeless, regardless of what AI does in the future, the ability to structure your thoughts and convey them in a compelling manner, never going out of style. So, hope this brings you some value, guys and gals, appreciate you being here, as always, looking forward to seeing you tomorrow, bright and early or late and dark, whenever. It doesn’t really matter when you listen, I guess. Um, but until then, stay hyper focused, my friend.
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