Full of bravado… I entered an ad-writing competition in January.
“Of course I will win!”
Rather proud of my entry I was.
Today I was looking for something related to the topic… and stumbled across the file.
Do I open it? Is it worth it?
I well-remember the result from that fateful time…
Well… there was no “result”. At least for me.
No one contacted me to say: “Chris, you won!!”
No one contacted me to say: “Chris, you came runner up!”
(I would’ve been happy with that.)
No one contacted me 😢
So I opened the document…
(Nothing like some self-flagellation first thing in the morning.)
Hmm…
It certainly is creative.
But…
It certainly is AWFUL to read.
For supposed “advertising copy” it was rather lacklustre in the persuasion department.
The writing itself wasn’t bad.
But it was like I was trying to cram all 4 hours 10 minutes of The Return of the King Extended Edition…
…into a 22 minute Friends episode slot.
Irony, perhaps… as it’s for an industry I now write email copy for!
(Where I get to dangle all the prepositions I want, like here ↑)
But… funny thing…
The style and tone of my competition ad is actually more like I’d write for these daily emails!
Perhaps I was having a premonition?
The learning?
Ummm… skill-building takes time.
But you knew that already 🤓
So I’ll offer this: keep some of your old stuff around.
Every now and then take a peek.
Just like testimonials…
They can give you a little lift when you see just how far you’ve come.
And now… to more or less contradict myself…
I haven’t come that far on the ad-writing front since writing it.
To be fair I’ve nopt focused that much on writing ads.
But I have developed a more sensitive nose for whiffy copy.
And that has been helped by the copywriting courses I’ve taken.
Which leads nicely to this:
You can discover how to make your copy smell like roses in no time with The Method course:
https://milham.me/awaimethod [affiliate link]
Go out there and give ’em hell!
Ready to build your email list? Go here…
EmailForTheWin.com
Chris Milham