How To Become a Copywriter in 2024
Here’s how to become a copywriter in 2024
The Key?
Every lock has a key that opens the door.
We can live our life searching for the key right until the end or we can ask others that have the key.
BUT FIRST …
The Problem When Wanting To Become a Copywriter
In 2024 there is a gigantic problem for anyone wanting to know how to become a copywriter.
Let me explain.
When I began copywriting way back in the early 90s no one could tell you what a copywriter was.
As time moved forward and the web arrived - Yahoo and AltaVista - the word got out about copywriting and how words can increase response.
In the early 2000s, you could start to find a mentor that would teach you copy. In those days the only names that appeared were; Michel Fortin, John Carlton and Gary Halbert and strangely enough - me.
Before then you had to get a job and become a copywriting apprentice - a bit like star wars without the lightsaber!
Want To Become a Copywriter? - Here’s The Problem
Around the years 2006-ish car-selling-like marketers realised they could sell this stuff and make a killing doing so. They had no experience as a copywriter, but had good experience as marketers - or snake salesmen.
Today in 2024 the web is awash with new-age copywriting mentors that frankly have as good as zero experience from the front lines of copywriting.
Any copywriter that has been on the frontlines for years will tell you every job is different, every project is different and every client is different to deal with. Unless you know that - it’s designed to fail.
Yet, they will tell you that making money writing copy is fast and easy. It isn’t.
I call them ZOMBIE MENTORS. They leave a trail of the walking dead behind them. It’s easy to do. They tell lies, myths, and legends and cheat their way into innocent copywriters’ pockets.
So 2024 it has never been more difficult to become a copywriter yet if you take some good advice it really still isn't that tough.
If I Was Starting Again As A Copywriter In 2024 Here’s What I Would Do.
Unsubscribe from every copywriter email list and group right away. This will reduce the noise in your mind and give you - eventually - a fresh perspective.
Go buy any books from John Caples or David Ogilvy. Both dead, both brilliant and both true masters.
Write every day. The first rune of copywriting is - WRITE. If you are not writing daily you are not practicing the skill of copywriting. I write around 3000 words every day without fail.
Study marketing. Buy books from Jay Conrad Levinson, Seth Godin and Perry Marshall for online marketing.
Study success that is proven. Find a live model you can copy and try your best to do it better.
Write a whole page or two about why businesses need you and what you can do for them.
Practice in the morning. Practice in the afternoon. Practice in the evening. Practice writing - practice, practice and more practice.
A Copywriting Story Of Copying
Years ago I used to see an advert in the back of the Sunday magazine. It ran an advert that was for a Vacuum cleaner that was clearly ripping off a Dyson but much much cheaper.
I asked a question here.
I found out the advert was costing around £80,000 to run per week.
The cleaner was just £39.
That meant to make the advert pay for itself they had to be selling 2,051 cleaners every week. That would just pay for the advert.
That advert still runs today.
What does it tell you about that advert?
So I copied the layout and rewrote the whole advert for my services as a copywriter. I ran the advert in a local newspaper. I was inundated with responses. So much response I couldn’t take the clients and had the advert stopped.
Find copywriting uccess and study it.
If you really want to become a copywriter in 2023 you have to avoid 99.9% of the zombie copywriting mentors online.
If I was starting again. If I wanted to become a copywriter. If I needed to find a copywriting mentor. The above bullets are exactly what I would do.
Your Mentor
Alan Forrest Smith