Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Dear kekel379,

Great advice from Carol, to which I’d like to add the following:

First up, STOP focusing on what you don't have because scarcity creates angst, which in turn, creates more scarcity.

Second up, become a student of advertising. No, I do NOT mean you have to go back to college, because even WITH an MBA, you're going to be less employable in an ad agency than
someone with no MBA but who has the work experience you lack.

This means more traditional education may not necessarily be
the answer to your problem right now.

To become a student of advertising you’re going to do your own work, your own reading, and your own studying while also juggling parenthood, your other job, and life in general.

This means you need to consume books and magazine articles on or by the great copywriters: John Caples, Claude Hopkins, David Ogilvy, Gary Halbert, John Carlton, Dan Kennedy, Joe Sugarman, Joe Vitale, Neil French, Tim Delaney, and David Abbott. You read all of this stuff, you apply it, and you LEARN and with time and practice you’ll become a better writer. As you live it you'll become it, but in order to do this you've GOT to get of the Woe Train, because THAT train's only heading to Doom Station!

A lot of people go into advertising because they want to work on glitzy accounts for major clients. Those people come down to Earth with a solid BUMP when they wind up writing ads for credit card companies and hemorrhoid cream, or when they're told again and again to redo work that doesn’t sell.

The lesson here: don’t ignore the mundane and the everyday stuff. The top stuff is not yours by right: as an ad agency junior, you’ll start at the bottom.

So, what is advertising copywriting about if it’s not about winning awards? Well, it’s not about selling stuff. SALES is about selling stuff. Advertising and marketing are about POSITIONING and CONDITIONING, but before you can do that you must reacquaint yourself with the basics of your craft and you must stop thinking about the things you don't have.

Instead, think about the things you WILL have.

This has got nothing to do with Bob Proctor, "The Secret", or the Law of Attraction but it's got EVERYTHING to do with your ability to align your compulsions with practical, manageable, definable, and achievable results.

It's all about creating a plan: your plan!

This means deciding what you want to achieve (being a copywriter) figuring out where that things is (is it REALLY in an ad agency? What about freelance stuff? What about teaching? What about creating your own products?), estimating how long it's going to take you to get there (three months? Six? A year?), and then saddling up and heading out towards that SPECIFIC horizon.

The key is ACTION. Ya’ll have got to get off your butt and DO something, coz this pony will not come to you on its own.

You mentioned that you feel a little insecure trying to break into advertising after almost six years. Er ... you've been kind of busy: your priorities have been directed elsewhere. So again, FORGET what you lack; likewise with regard to your portfolio. Don't have one? Then CREATE one!

(As an aside, David Ogilvy didn’t write an ad until he was 38 years old!)

Pick real products, goods, and services; flick through any glossy magazine and select products that are badly advertised (this won't take long—most products are badly advertised). Then pull those ads apart. Figure out what it is about those ads that sucks wind, figure out why those ads DON'T work and why they don't do the client any favours, then set about creating your OWN ads that DO work.

Do this with 10 to 15 products, goods, services, and professions and work (and think) in campaigns. The ads you create must work as stand alone ads, and as a sequence.

Do this with the ads you'll create while junior is sleeping, or out
on a play date, or at day care, or with a relative or friend, or otherwise occupied. Even if this means an ad takes you two days to complete. The important thing here is the the result: your SUPERIOR ad.

Forget about the execution side of things. Rough layouts ought to be fine. Any art director or creative director you show your work to ought to be able to see through your outline to a final ad.

What's important here is the strength of your ideas, not what your ad looks like. Without an idea you don't have an ad: you have a pile of loosely strung together thoughts and scribbles, but you do not have an ad.

To position the goods and condition thinking of the prospect an effective ad must have a point: it must have reasons why, it must have an offer, a list of benefits, it must have a story, a deadline, or a reason to act, and it must offer value that is greater than the cost of the goods and that is of higher value than the fear of loss or of missing out by not taking action.

Only when this has happened in the prospect’s mind does the buying begin. Here, there is no selling. For copy to work effectively it must persuade. As well as the books above I suggest you read “Hey Whipple, Squeeze This” by Luke Sullivan. Funny and insightful it will help you, as, I hope, this humble two cents worth has helped.

Good luck to you.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA