When is the last time you analyzed great copy, line-by-line?

At my Financial Copywriters Workshop last week, we spent a TON of time talking about all the principles and strategies BEHIND great financial copy.

All the thinking that goes into it.  All the planning.  How to structure your promotions.  Plus all the marketing and business aspects you need to know to actually make money in this market.

And that was all 100% critical — and, I believe, what distinguishes me from so many other great copywriting instructors.

When you’re able to learn to think like a great copywriter, you’re way ahead of someone else who’s just trying to copy the words.

(Novices consistently do this — but their end result is junk because there’s no substance or structure.)

And yet…

It all came together — powerfully — when I actually sat down in the end and went through a piece of copy line-by-line…

Once you understand the thinking…

Once you understand how things are REALLY done, behind the scenes…

Once you understand the little tips and tricks that go into creating different copy elements, proof mechanisms, and the like…

Digging into the copy itself reveals some POWERFUL stuff!

And so, for the last 90 minutes or so of the workshop, we went through and the attendees could see EXACTLY what I was doing at different points in the copy, and WHY I did it that way…

Informed by the all the thinking behind it that I’d just equipped them with.

You don’t always get a chance to hear — from the copywriter’s mouth — why they wrote something the way they did…

I do offer this in the Story Selling Master Class bonus materials.  For the Titans of Direct Response sales letter.  And for a letter I wrote that sold over a million dollars in backup solar generators.

In those two videos — each about an hour and 45 minutes each — I break down, line-by-line, exactly what I’m doing with each element of copy.  With an emphasis on how I’m applying the principles of STORY SELLING.

But you can always learn to do this yourself.  The more you study and learn copywriting and marketing, the more you’ll pick up ideas and principles about why and how you might approach a specific copywriting challenge.

Then you can start looking at others’ ads.  Recognizing lessons you’ve learned, in action.  And developing your chops by really tearing apart their ads and looking inside, to figure out what makes them tick.

You can certainly do this yourself.  I also do it in my new Why Ads Worked series.

Both the Story Selling Master Class and Why Ads Worked are included with a BTMSinsiders All-Access Pass, giving you complete access to the entire BTMSinsiders training catalog.  (Right now it’s under-priced, and I expect to raise the price soon.)

Here’s a few pointers for you to do this for yourself…

First off, you should always be learning, as much as you can, about how marketers and copywriters in your industry present their selling messages.

Read and analyze their copy.  But also, go to seminars, buy products and training, read books.

Remember: the idea is to get the thinking behind it, not just what they do.

My coach Joseph Rodrigues often refers to the four modes of learning:

— What…

— Why…

— How…

— What if…

This can be applied to analyzing copy, too…

— What are they doing in this sentence or copy section?

— Why would they be doing it?  Why is it done here?  Why have they chosen to include this to contribute to their overall selling message?

— How are they implementing this, on a tactical level?  How is it being executed in this ad, in this context?

— What if I were to apply it on my next project — what would that look like?

Now here’s how to kick this up a notch…

Get in the habit of doing these promo breakdowns.  The best copywriters do these frequently.  Agora Financial asks their copywriters to at least review a promo once per day.

But don’t just review to review.

Review to apply.

We’re following the “scientist-practitioner” model here.  That is, we’re learning, but not merely for the sake of learning.  We’re learning to apply and to use.

Pay special attention when you see certain elements showing up again and again, especially from multiple copywriters or marketers.

If EVERYONE in your market does something a certain way, maybe there’s something to learn from it.  I’d probably start by copying it, because it might be a required element.  Then, in a controlled test, I’d try NOT using it and see how it works.

If NOBODY in an industry is using something but you’ve seen it have success elsewhere, consider testing its use in your industry.

And if a few people are using something, and others aren’t, consider whether it might be an advantage to adopt or avoid that particular approach or element.

The idea is that through time — especially in your first few years in an industry — you’ll start to pick up an entire toolbox of copy tools you can use in specific situations, to write better copy, faster.

And, in fact, you may even accelerate your progress by sharing.

For example: in that workshop last week, and in my preparation for it, I came to a few of my own realizations about where I hadn’t been applying refined enough thinking in a few areas.  And so I can’t wait to apply those going forward.

It’s only as you go on your journey of learning, applying, learning, and applying that you’ll have those breakthroughs for yourself.

Yours for bigger breakthroughs,

Roy Furr