Public Writing (2) Fall 2019
2019.12.12
Your final projects should be your own work. I encourage all students to get ideas and inspiration from the experts, but work handed in for a grade should be your own creation, not a “copy and paste” job.
Please be sure to upload digital versions (MS Word documents) of your final projects to the class Canvas site, as well as handing in hard copies to me. They should be posted with the subject heading "final project/your name" to the Canvas site.
You can give me your hard copies now. Or if you want to revise more, submit your papers in my mailbox in room 106 of the Main Building by 5 p.m. Friday, 2019.12.13.
Thanks for a great semester and good luck on your exams!
JBH
2019.11.28
This week in class, we went over yet another marketing expert's tips about copy. While it may seem repetitive, because most of these copywriters and marketers make similar points, it is also important to listen and learn what they are.As far as this class goes, my goal has been to share with you some possibilities.
These possibilities are real, and a lot of people have built major incomes on their own or with just an assistant or two to help with website design or other technical details. If you are interested in doing something with these possibilities, in English or in your native language, it’s very do-able.
If not, it’s just been a good opportunity to work on your English writing skills in another format than the typical academic English approach. This kind of writing style is also useful. It’s another register, that’s true, but I think it helps people improve their written communication to spend some time writing in a way that’s more natural and comfortable without getting stressed about all the grammar rules.
So I am going to go over one more list of things to do to get started as a copywriter today, and if someone feels like getting going with Dan Lok, that’s great. If not, that’s okay too.
The point is, what’s available for free, along with perhaps a few important books, is really all you need to get started writing copy.
For some of you, that might be hard in English without getting some editorial help.
But in your own language, the principles still apply.
And the marketing, communication,and persuasion principles we’ve talked about in this class are the best of the best in the world as far as marketing.
There are legends in the past, like Caples, Ogilvy, and Halbert.
And there are legends who are getting really old, like Dan Kennedy and Joe Sugarman.
And there are still others who have worked directly with legends or learned from them personally or by reading their stuff – Clayton Makepeace, Matt Furey, John Carlton, Jay Smith, Ben Settle, Brian Clark, Joe Polish, and many others.
I’ve met several of those people personally, and invested in training with a couple more of them.
This is a real business opportunity, but it takes work. If you’re interested, building an income on your own is extremely do-able. But it’s rarely done. It takes consistency and it take time. Most people want a paycheck right now, either getting paid by the hour or by the week, and don’t have the ability to wait and keep working. I’m not a success story yet either, at least not the way that I will be in the next couple years.
Dan Lok is another expert who encourages people, by giving them a glimpse of what is possible. And like all the others I mentioned above, he’s sharing the information because it’s true, but also because it can make him some money. If you are interested in following up on what he or many of the other have to teach, it’ll cost you something beyond the initial free information they offer. And there is nothing wrong with that. You pay a lot more for a lot less value with most education.
Take a look and see what you think.
https://danlok.com/copywriting-tips-for-beginners/
More background info about Dan Lok
https://www.goalcast.com/2018/11/26/entrepreneur-dan-lok/
2019.11.14
1. Cialdini Principles ads show and tell.
2. Today, I’d like to share something I found that gives a more thorough overview than I think we have before, offers some solid tips on principles and techniques, and puts you ahead of 99 percent of the people who know nothing about how we are being persuaded every day.
Please read and review: The Science of Email Copy
AND
Market Research.
3. Then, take a look at what a guy named Nate Schmidt is doing. I’ve been following his progress since he got started a year ago.
https://www.wral.com/nc-state-student-drops-out-and-earns-1-million-with-e-commerce-business/18728787/
For this week, I’ll share with you a quick way to make at least $3,000 a month on your own. I came across Nate Schmidt’s 18-minute YouTube video last year, just after he made it early in October 2018. If you’re interested, take a look. It may help you with your assignments for this semester. He gives you eight steps on email copywriting.
It’s a good lesson, it’s free, and it works. If you’re interested, the opportunity is right here. This guy is talking about something that works for people who seriously go for it. I have watched him and several others do it over the last few years. Most people don’t want it bad enough and move on to other things because it does take a lot of consistent work. But I’ve seen people do it -- fast, and I am working on some similar things myself.
4. Next Assignment: Three ads totaling at least 2,000 words (including explanation if ads by themselves are short). One due each week -- headlines and ledes peer reviewed and CUBA critiques completed -- by Week 15 of the semester. Please post at least one first draft each week and organize classmates to help with peer review and CUBA critiques on your own.
Possible Topie Choices:
a. Apology Ad (see Swiped.co for examples)
b. Political/NGOAd – in English. Can be for Korean political cause/ candidate/ group, but include enough background for reasonably well-informed people to follow with no “inside information” needed
c. Dentist or other professional email series (e.g. 5 to 10 emails to remind people/ invite people to come in and get their teeth checked or cleaned(scaling))
d. Your own e-commerce Gmarket/ AliExpress/ Shopify/ Amazon/ Affiliate marketing/ other kind of advertising for people to buy products or services from you.
e. Other ideas?
See you next week!
JBH
2019.11.07
Class today started off with looking over some writing from last week's "Talk-Write/Write-Talk" session, and we all noticed improvement in the copy people were coming up with.
After that, we moved on to look at Robert Cialdini's principles of persuasion in a short video. That video and transcript are linked here.
For next week, with your partner(s), please bring back two or three examples of these principles at work in our daily lives. The examples could be advertising or any other kind of public communication. Make sure they fit the principle you were assigned in class so we have a good variety of examples. You will present your example to the class and explain how they fit the principle.
After that, we will decide together on our projects for the rest of the semester. I've got a few ideas, but I want yours, too. We will be doing at least two more major projects for quality points scores before the end of the semester, and they will be about the same size (word count, length, etc.) as the major projects we have already done. Bring in some ideas about what you would like to work on related to copywriting and we will create the assignments together next week.
See you then!
JBH
2019.10.31
We took an email dictated by the zen master of the Internet in class. Then we started writing our own email based on what we heard by telling a story about that lesson or another lesson we have learned that connects to selling/persuading readers to buy or otherwise take some action because we convinced them to do so.
If you like, go ahead and follow Matthew Furey’s suggestion and write an email for a seminar, a class, or a lecture on writing emails for big money. Use a story or example from some of the things we’ve already talked about in class (Neville Medhora, copywriting niches, copywriting masters, copywriting techniques, etc.) Try not to teach, but get your readers curious with a story about the idea of buying for your valuable product or service.
Your email should have an attention-getting subject heading, a story that grabs the interest of your reader(s), and make them interested in what you are offering or suggesting, and ends with a call to action that directs your reader(s) to buy or do something. There is no length requirement, but it's hard to say anything in 100-200 words. The ideal is probably 600-800 words. Over 1,200 words is probably too long.
Post your email copy to the Canvas discussion area before Monday night (11-4). Use the heading "Your Name/Talk-Write" this time. Please comment with helpful feedback to a classmate before we meet next Thursday (11-7). You do not need to give feedback in groups, but one-on-one in Canvas, please provide suggestions on your classmate's headline and lead, as well as CUBA feedback.
See you next week!
JBH
2019.10.24
1. Briefly review CUBA (groups and whole class).
2. Talk about Proposals.
3. Write like Apple (11 points to cover).
For next week, submit the first draft of your second ad to Canvas. Meet with your small group and get peer review for your headline and lead on Ad #2. Also, choose a CUBA buddy and get CUBA feedback your entire ad. Then, submit a revised version of Ad#2 as a comment under your first draft in Canvas. When you come to class next week (Oct 31) bring hard copies of both ads with you for me to score.
We will also keep talking about writing great copy.
Have fun!
JBH
2019.10.24
1. Briefly review CUBA (groups and whole class).
2. Talk about Proposals.
3. Write like Apple (11 points to cover).
For next week, submit the first draft of your second ad to Canvas. Meet with your small group and get peer review for your headline and lead on Ad #2. Also, choose a CUBA buddy and get CUBA feedback your entire ad. Then, submit a revised version of Ad#2 as a comment under your first draft in Canvas. When you come to class next week (Oct 31) bring hard copies of both ads with you for me to score.
We will also keep talking about writing great copy.
Have fun!
JBH
2019.10.17
We finally got a chance to take a look at the ads we collected earlier in the semester and analyzed their content in terms of the elements we've talked about to far from Neville Medhora's book:
In small groups, we examined connections between the ads we collected and their connections to Medhora's concepts, such as emotional content as in the envelope exercise; no one cares about you (aiming messages to the reader, not yourself); Write Fun (maybe wacky) but not boring, and trying to find ways to make our ads new, novel, and helpful.
We also checked for AIDA, which as the instructor noted, can be seen in a popular song such as Arianna Grande's 7 Rings: “I see it-I like it-I want it-I got it.”
Continuing in our groups, we went over the rest of the Medhora text, taking turns leading the class discussion on writing to a typical customer, which Medhora refers to as "Bob." We also discussed chapters on subject lines/headlines, whether it's better to write short or long, using our best "caveman voice."
We also talked about serif vs. sans serif fonts, and reminded students to write like you talk.
For homework next week, please get some CUBA feedback from a trusted adviser in this class or elsewhere. Give them a copy of what you’ve written and ask them to mark the CUBA areas. They may also offer suggestions for improvement (CUBA=Confusing,Unbelievable, Boring, or Awkward - more info here).
Then, please improve your ad copy and post it as a comment in Canvas under your first draft. Also, please write up a proposal in as much detail as possible for your second ad. It's probably a good idea for that second ad to be in the same general niche or area as the first one, but that is not a requirement. We will continue to talk about copywriting techniques and build a few more skills when we meet next week.
See you then,
JBH
2019.10.10
This week in class, we got started by going over things we talked about when last we met, wrapping up our masters and niches presentations and going over some great hand-copied ads.
Then we continued looking over Neville Medhora's book, focusing this time on his ideas about AIDA. To finish off, we went over the Copy Logic copywriting peer review process that will help us all create amazing written ads for this class, and into the future. A basic overview of that peer review process is linked here.
For next week, continue the peer review process with your group on the headline and lead of your spec and submit a revised version as the last comment under your first post.
Also, finish reading Neville Medhora's book so we can quickly cover the rest of it in the next few weeks.
We will continue next week with more ideas from Copy Logic on ways to improve our copy.
See you in class!
JBH
2019.09.26
We heard from small groups this session about Direct Response niches and Marketing masters of the written word. It was good background information for everyone who didn't know much about niche marketing and names of some of the best in the business. Check out the class Canvas discussion page for reports on the group presentations to remind you who and what to Google about for more information.
Next week, sadly, we won't meet as a class. However, we still have homework as usual. First, one person from each group should post the group's presentation scripts or documents, as well as upload any visuals in a pdf or whatever format works.
After that, please choose a niche to work in for your first major project. We will be starting on it soon, but first, before next Thursday (Oct. 3rd), Please hand copy at least 500 words of a great ad or ads in your niche with pen, pencil or stylus (not keyboard). Post a copy or photo of your hand-written words to Canvas along with the word count.
For the following week, please write the first draft of a spec assignment in your preferred niche. A spec is a sample ad written to show prospective clients what you can do. Please write a total of 400 to 800 words. That doesn't mean your ad needs to be that long. But if your ad is short, use up that word count by explaining to the reader what your ad is trying to do.
Refresh your memory with the AIDA chapter in the text, which we will talk about when we meet again, as well as your sample ads for local products and services.
See you in class!
JBH
2019.09.19
This was the third week of the semester, but because of the Chuseok holiday, only our second session. Fortunately, we had things to work on in between our 송편 and family time.
Back in class this week, we got started in our text that tells us it will teach us how to write better. We looked at the first writing assignment from that short book, writing positive and negative letters to the same person, and shared our work. We also talked about our four writing samples of ad copy, picking the best one and writing four different headlines/subject lines for it to get a feel for the most important part of direct response writing: the headline or subject line that gets the reader's attention.
The instructor had asked students to also bring in some samples of local ad copy, either from print or photos of ads that looked interesting and kind of "direct response-y" We didn't get to those samples this week, but bring them in again next time and we may have some time to talk about them soon.
Please post the assignments that you already did to our class Canvas discussion site. Everyone should have gotten in invitation. Log in and copy and paste your letters and ad samples we went over in class as a post, with the subject line "Your Name/Chap. 1&2".
Then, you have two things to prepare for next week's class: First, read and be ready to discuss chapters 3-6, which ends with the all-important AIDA formula. Also, in your groups, be prepared to present to the rest of the class what you found out about Direct Response masters OR Direct Response Niches so we can get to work on following some great examples and writing some great copy.
Have fun!
JBH
2019.09.05
In our first session of the fall semester, we started off with the question "What is public writing?"
A number of different responses came out, including blogs and journalism, editorials, public service announcements, social networking messages, and advertising. But while we focused on editorials and opinions last semester in Public Writing 1, and moved on to creating our own blogs, this semester will move toward more commercial writing, or at least selling our ideas to others by learning from and improving on what advertising copywriters do and what they say they do.
We began by learning a little about the man who's been called "The Father of Advertising," David Ogilvy. Although he is well-known for his agency's ads, his first love was direct response advertising, as he explained in a video.
But whether you are interested in advertising is not the point; using the techniques of clearly communicating a message -- "selling an idea" -- that Ogilvy and others pioneered is definitely worth learning.
We took a look at Ogilvy's rules for writing. We are going to be learning about his rules from others, starting now.
The first part of doing that is going over a book that promises to teach us how to write better. That book may seem a bit informal, even silly at times, and the author sometimes uses salty language. But Neville Medhora has used writing effectively and it's the most simple and quick way to get the principles of what we want to learn quickly. It's definitely worth a couple bucks. Please buy the book and start reading it ASAP. The chapters are very short. Read chapters 1 and 2 and over the Chuseok Holiday, do some writing.
Please write two letters like the ones in Chapter 1, but not to your mom. Write to a teacher, a boyfriend/girlfriend, or a politician. we will talk about them and do some writing next week in class. After reading Chapter 2, please write 4 short samples (50 to 250 words each) of copy focusing on the benefit to the reader of whatever product or idea you want them to buy/agree with.
In addition, we are going to get look at written copy (words in print) in advertising locally. Let's start off with things you can find locally. Please bring in three photos or samples of advertising or labels for products you could buy here that use English (or Konglish) in interesting ways.
We will leave it there for now. Don't forget to come to class in two weeks with hard copies of four pieces of your writing as well as three samples of professional writing that advertises interestingly. Be ready to tell us what you found unique about these ads.
See you in two weeks!
JBH