Copywriting And Direct Marketing Beating The 'better Copy Trap'

By Author: David Parker
Total Articles: 36
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With a lot of people I have spoken to about writing copy there comes a time when they start endless editing, polishing and rewriting what they are doing.
Hours turn into days and days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months and this endlessly polished piece is still sitting on their computer unfinished.
Eventually they panic and get the piece out the door but they have spends days or possibly even weeks on their copy with minimal gain in response rate.
Sure, this one piece is perfect but if they could have finished another piece and had that 80% right and left the other piece 80% right they would have been ahead.
It is a sure fire sign that you've gotten yourself into the 'better copy trap.' There is every chance that you've wasted more time that you'll ever want to admit.
What Not To Do.
Trying to get out of the better copy trap is incredibly difficult. There are two mains ways I've seen others approach it.
Put your head in the sand and stay in the rut. Yep, there are people who do that. They endlessly polish and nothing is ever accomplished with any sense of economic reality. To be ...
... honest this is most common in copywriters who are professional writers who don't worry so much about their own bottom line.
The other way to get out of it, badly, is to use the Dan Kennedy motto 'Good Is Good Enough' in a manner that verges on self depict. Crank out their copy as quickly as they can, do inadequate preparation and get it done prematurely.
What To Do!
When you move on from the amateur hour and want to write good copy and do it efficiently, you'll realise there are three phases to writing copy.
Phase one - The Research Phase. There is no output at this point. You gather more information than you actually need. The oft quoted number is 7 times the amount of research. I think this is a fairly reasonable jumping off point.
Once you've done that you can graduate to phase two.
Phase Two - The Writing Phase. Take your research, use at least a template for your copy outline or better yet, swipe a similar (and successful - can't stress that enough) promotion and use it as the skeleton for your copy. Then you write your ad based on your research.
Phase Three - The Polishing Phase. This is where you clean up your spelling and grammar. Read the promotion beginning to end aloud to see how it reads. Look for where you get boring, off topic or start to ramble. Cut those out. Then go back and look at what you can do to boost response to what you've written by 100%. There aren't too many places you can do that. Headline, Lead Offer and P.S.
Focus your time there.

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