If You Want to Be a Great Copywriter, Then You Have to Put in the Reps.
The Copywriter Column #214
If I’ve learned anything about marketers, it’s that we all love shortcuts.
Hacks.
Tactics.
Frameworks.
Blueprints.
Playbooks.
Templates.
These aren’t all bad things. They can be useful.
And our desire for them isn’t because we’re lazy as much as everything moves significantly faster than it did even 10 years ago, and we’re constantly looking for ways to stay relevant.
But now with the advent of AI, if you even take time to blink, you’re at risk of getting left behind.
However, even if you do keep up, you’re at risk of something far worse…
Not being able to do the thing.
I think this risk is especially true for copywriters.
My Messy Journey from Clueless Blogger to Email Expert
When I took to publishing my first blog posts on the internet way back in 2003, I had no idea what I was doing. Blogging, for the most part, was a fairly new idea that began to slowly lift off. Nobody knew the best way to do anything.
But soon enough, others started gaining traction, pulling in readers, finding ways to increase engagement, grow their following, and so on.
Some of these people shared what worked for them, and as someone desperate to be successful in similar ways, I adopted their approach.
It was still messy. I wrestled with it and failed a lot, but slowly found my footing.
Before I knew it, I had strangers in my inbox asking me for blogging advice. And because I had put in the time figuring out what did and didn’t work, I was able to offer sage advice.
Even more so, the more I wrote, the easier it got.
Fast forward to 2017, when after years of figuring it out, I decided to pigeon-hole myself into email copywriting. I wrote for all kinds of clients – B2B, B2C, DTC, 501c3, SaaS – but I kind of fell in love with the eCommerce industry.
Did I have formal training?
No.
But a grown adult by then, my ego was a lot smaller than when I was a freshman in college. So I sought help from experts like Samar Owais, Joanna Wiebe (Copy Hackers), Rob Marsh, Kira Hug, The Copywriter Club community, and more.
Then I wrote emails.
LOTS of emails.
We’re talking thousands upon thousands of emails for dozens and dozens of brands.
Like before, it was messy. I failed quite a bit, but similarly, I began to find my footing.
Before I knew it, people were coming to me for advice on writing eComm emails. And like before, because I had put in the time figuring out what did and didn’t work, I could offer sound advice.
More importantly, I could write an eComm email in my sleep.
Why Your Shortcuts Are Only as Good as Your Foundation
You see where I’m going with this yet?
It’s one thing to be able to pull up ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Cursor – whichever LLM you choose – and prompt it to write you copy for whatever it is you need to write copy for.
It’s another thing entirely to do that with a pen and a piece of paper.
If you cannot write an ad, an email, a landing page, a sales page, a blog post, a webpage, a product description, [insert deliverable here] – if you cannot write it without the assistance of a robot tool, then you shouldn’t be using that robot tool yet.
Learn the basics.
Learn the fundamentals.
Learn the principles of great writing.
Then wrestle with them.
Make mistakes.
Get it wrong.
Get it right.
Do it over and over again until it becomes second nature.
Then and only then will all those shortcuts be worth it.
Trust me.
Sincerely,
A recovering shortcut-addict.
Want to simplify your approach to copywriting?
The Minimalist Copywriter's Playbook is a free micro-course that strips away complexity and reveals the core strategies that transform your copy (and your results).
The Copywriter Column is a weekly glimpse into the mind of an agency copywriter. Thinking about subscribing? Here’s what else you can expect.