I just got a note that apparently hit a hot button with me…
I won’t reveal the guy’s name, because I don’t want to publicly embarrass him… But someone contacted me via LinkedIn, asking if my book, The Copywriter’s Guide to Getting Paid, was still relevant today.
It was written in 2015, he reasoned (actually, it was 2014, published 2015). And now it’s 2017.
There have been two new generations of iPhones since its publication date. So surely, I must be in the process of rewriting the book, for the all-new 2017 secrets to copywriting business success… Right?
Well, that might be a great marketing ploy to sell more of books… But… Nope!
And here’s where I love having just written and published The Architecture of A-List Copywriting Skills essay last week.
Because I would have just been angry about the question before coming up with that model — now, instead, I can provide a really useful response!
Here’s what it all comes down to…
Marketing PRINCIPLES almost never change…
You know you have a principle when it’s not reliant on a specific technology or media to implement. You know you have a principle when it describes fundamental human nature, including how we relate with each other.
Human nature doesn’t change. And so principles don’t really change much, if at all.
We may discover new things, and so we can add new principles to our short list of what we know to be true and an effective foundation for making decisions.
But it’s pretty much impossible for a principle, once established, to fall off and no longer apply.
Strategies are almost as enduring. A principle may be that multiple contacts with a prospect increase their likelihood of response. A strategic implementation of that may be that you do a series of follow ups.
None of that has changed any time recently. Not in 100 years.
What’s changed? The techniques and tactics used to implement. Classic technique may have been multiple visits from a salesperson, or multiple letters sent. That’s changed to multiple touches via letter and phone. Then fax and email. Then social media. And the content may have shifted somewhat, too.
But the principles and strategies endure.
This is why about half of my Top 10 Best Copywriting Books are decades-old. Because their principles and strategies are just as relevant as ever. (As are some of their techniques and tactics.) And every book on that list, regardless of publication date, is there because of its principles and strategies — which means if you’re reading them in 2017 or 2067, they’ll be just as valuable.
I’m not just trying to defend my book!
I very distinctly remember reading an Amazon review of a Perry Marshall book on Google AdWords. This was a couple years ago, so I’m not going to go hunt down the review.
The basic point of the review was that Perry’s AdWords book had been published something like 18 months before. That Google had made a bunch of changes to the AdWords platform since then. And so Perry’s book was outdated and useless.
I seethed.
One of the things I really like about Perry’s work is that technique and tactics have always been the superficial veneer of what he teaches. Perry doesn’t teach a topic without going deep into strategy and principles.
I’ll use another concept Perry has become known for to illustrate: 80/20.
The basics of 80/20 is that 80% of your results come from 20% of your effort. And within 80/20, there’s another 80/20 — he calls this 80/20-squared. So 64% of results come from just 4% of effort. And so on.
I’d say the 20% of Perry’s AdWords book that generates 80% of breakthroughs in the people who read it has nothing to do with tactical instructions for how to use Google AdWords.
Rather, it’s the strategic statements Perry makes, like, “I’ve never seen a highly-profitable Google AdWords campaign that doesn’t use email autoresponders for follow-up.”
Hmm. That’s a strategic decision. To build your AdWords campaign around permission-based marketing with automated follow-up, or to try to make the sale one-and-done.
That’s not 80/20. Nor is it 80/20-squared. Probably not even 80/20-cubed. More like to the 4th or 5th power, at least.
To know that you’re going to have a lot more success with AdWords if you build in email follow-up from the beginning completely changes how you approach it.
AND — here’s the important part — it doesn’t matter if you read this in a book that’s chock-full of outdated references to updated AdWords features. It will still create an enormous breakthrough.
As long as you’re looking for the principles and strategies, you can still get at least 80% of the value from that book as when it was originally published! And it’s a book about a constantly-evolving technology.
The more you focus on principles and strategy — and the less on techniques and tactics — the more enduring any lesson will be…
When you write about a technology platform, as Perry did with his AdWords books, you are tied into the tactics and techniques of the platform. That kind of book necessitates constant updates to stay relevant.
But let me tell you a little something about the copywriting business…
It changes at a snail’s pace.
The foundational principles of building a profitable copywriting career and business haven’t really changed since I discovered copywriting in 2005. And I don’t think they’ve changed all that much in the decades before that.
We’ve continued to learn new things.
The alternate business models for copywriters that I talked about in The Copywriter’s Guide are even more relevant today (Brian Kurtz’s The Next Million Dollar Copywriter post observed this trend).
There may be new tactical implementations and new media for approaching clients that weren’t as relevant before. But the principles and strategies laid out can be easily adopted — and were the focus anyway.
Final takeaway…
I seldom quote the Bible, but it’s probably the best collection of selling stories and persuasive parables in all of western civilization.
In the book of Matthew, Jesus teaches the parable of the wise and foolish builders.
I’ll quote from the New International Version:
—
24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.
27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
—
To build your skill on tactics and technique is to build your success on sand. To focus instead on principles and strategy is the rock on which you can set a firm foundation for your success.
I won’t promise it’s a path to Heaven — but it’s definitely a reliable way toward a successful copywriting business.
Click here to get The Copywriter’s Guide to Getting Paid free…
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
There is a cock-eyed notion running around among marketers that if it’s “new”, it’s automatically better. And if it’s “old” (or perceived to be), it’s obsolete, and no longer applicable. That’s why, of all the college grads with degrees in marketing or advertising, most have heard of David Ogilvy. But I only encountered ONE who ever heard of Claude Hopkins.
I immediately asked him, “Tell me about your professor.” He answered, “He used to be a salesman.” I wasn’t surprised.
In working for HP in 1987, I wrote a computer manual for users to help them get better results from using the “vi” (pron. vee-eye) text editor. In 1990, I was the driving force that led to its getting on bookstore shelves under the name “The Ultimate Guide to the Vi and Ex Text Editors by Hewlett-Packard.
That was 30 years ago. That book is still selling on Amazon, and it is STILL the best book ever written on the subject. And user comments prove it.
Human nature hasn’t changed in over 3000 years. It it won’t change in the next 1000 either unless some major shift in human nature changes.
Quit looking at publication dates, and look for PRINCIPLES based on and rooted in TRUTH. Quit listening to those people called professors who are called such because they profess knowledge they don’t actually possess, and who have never paid for their own advertising for their own business.
Drayton Bird loves my definition, but one professor kicked me out of a LinkedIn forum. He claimed 20 years of experience in the real world. I didn’t respond by saying 20 years in and advertising agency is not the real world, though it was very tempting. 🙂
Clarke
Clarke, you have good company among us dyed-in-the-wool direct marketers. When \”Growth Hacking\” came out, I quickly recognized that about 90% of its \”new\” discoveries were rehashes of Uncle Claude\’s lessons in Scientific Advertising — a book that\’s nearly a century old…
You wrote a great companion post to “The Architecture of A-List Copywriting Skills” last week. The correlations you pointed out in Matthew were spot on. A strong foundation is more important than building a house on sand.
You shared there is more benefit looking for principles and strategies instead of techniques and tactics in reading books. I have to admit that I looked for techniques and tactics in most of the books I’ve studied about copywriting.
I’ve been going through them again since your “Architecture” post last week. Definitely hit a goldmine! Searching out the principles and strategies has already helped me with my writing.
Some other people I’ve talked to in this writing world have said they felt “empty” after reading some of the books like “Breakthrough Advertising” and others. I felt the same way because I was scanning for quick tactics instead of searching for strong principles to build my skill on. That empty feeling won’t happen again because now I know better!
I believe this idea has taken months (maybe years) off my learning curve.
Thank you for sharing such great information, Roy. It’s very helpful!
Wow! This is really cool feedback, and I\’m so happy to have helped. It\’s very clear that you\’ve had an instant shift in perspective that will serve you well going forward. Best wishes on your newly reinvigorated journey!