A new subscriber to my list wrote in today to ask:
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how would you approach copywriting & marketing if you had to start from scratch. or if, let’s just say your brother (if you have one) asked you he wants to learn copywriting and marketing. what would you tell him? what would you tell him in terms of getting clients (it seems this is a whole phd education on itself)?
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That’s not unlike asking how I would approach a career in computer programming if I had to start from scratch.
But even though I have literally hundreds of posts on my website that are relevant to answering this question, I decided to entertain this reader and so create a single resource to point people to in the future.
So here are 10 pieces of Bejako wisdom for newbie copywriters:
1. The 5-year rule: It will take months and more likely years to get consistently good and make good money from copywriting. Unless this is a job that you imagine you will be okay doing every day for at least the next five years, then don’t get started at all.
(By the way, this bit of advice isn’t unique to copywriting — I apply it to every complex project or undertaking I’m considering.)
2. There’s no “one thing.” Copywriting and marketing are really a collection of different principles and techniques you have to understand and master to some extent, preferably to a high extent.
3. Books: The best way to learn if you have dedication (see point 1 above).
4. Ads and working funnels. The best marketing is out there for free. Look at it critically. Try to deconstruct it consciously, and write down what you see. Patterns will soon start to emerge that you won’t see if you simply look at advertising like a consumer, or worse, if you dismiss it by saying, “I could do this” or “I’ve seen this described in a book.”
5. Get real practice, as soon as you can, preferably today. “Real practice” does not mean hand copying sales letters or writing mock ads for made-up products. You have three options. Get a job, get a client, or start your own project. No need to restrict yourself to just one of these options, by the way.
6. Start an email list today even if no one is reading it but you. Write about what you’re learning and apply it within your emails.
7. You will have to pay one way or the other. In one case, you will have to pay in time and money (the freelance route, which means buying your education in drips and drops via courses or coaching or ongoing mistakes that nobody corrects for you for too long).
In the other case, you will have to pay in freedom that you’ve sacrificed and in having your productivity arrogated by an employer (the route of getting a job, and working for somebody who knows what they are doing and can teach you and correct your errors).
8. The golden ticket is not to be a copywriter but a marketer who either 1) guides client businesses to make more money and gets paid accordingly, or 2) eventually takes his skills and runs his own business.
That said, copywriting is a kind of Trojan horse that can help you do either of those more easily. If you have this understanding at the start and if you take it seriously, it will make your path easier and more lucrative.
9. If after everything you have read so far you still want to become a copywriter (or better yet a marketer), then the sooner you get started, the better.
This is not a field in which you have to study for years before you can have the authority to actually do any work — though it might take you years to figure out the various elements (point 2 above) and have them click in your head.
10. Read my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters book if you haven’t yet, and consider re-reading it if you have read it once already. It lays out several of those fundamental principles and techniques (point 2 above) and exposes you to a handful of the top people in this field, many of whom have written informative and very affordable books (point 3 above).
Here’s the link to get started: