One thing I've noticed about myself since I've been learning about writing copy is that I'm starting to pay more attention to how the rules of advertising are applied elsewhere. For example, I was standing in line at the supermarket today and glancing over the magazines they have at the checkout counter. Now, I never read People, Good Housekeeping, the Globe, or any of those other celebrity or womens' rags, but I couldn't help but notice how the headlines on the covers were basically the same as the ad headlines I've been studying in the copywriting books by Sugarman, Bly, and Oglivy. A few examples, taken from memory: 76 Easy Ways to Clean Your House in Under 5 Minutes The Shocking Truth about Breast Cancer Revealed Charles Tells Fergie "You'll never be Queen," Read About Their Explosive Blowup on South American Tour Then I realized that the cover of a magazine is basically a giant piece of copy, meant to entice people into buying it. It's the same kind of headlines mentioned in Scientific Advertising, which was first published in 1923, which is the same as any number of web pages out there. Technology changes, but human nature doesn't. It finally hit me that there really is copy everywhere. Might seem obvious to everyone else, but I'd just never thought about it before. Anyone else experience a similar eye opening?
The same thing occurs on top blogs. All medias that target MASSES, not specific niche groups did, do, and will do it in the future I guess.
Well, that's because everybody wants profits... But, seriously, the front covers of a magazine are like the ad titles or website headings, aren't they? The main concept everywhere is: 1) First Attract 2) Then Keep them Glued 3) Then Gain Credibility 4) Then Sell To Them
And do it all in a short enough space to where they don't lose interest. Ah, the vagaries of the Web 2.0 attention span.
Actually, it's an old idea. The web picked it up from print media. A natural extension of sales letters (snail mail) which were once very popular (with sellers) and the great ones were very profitable .. and still are. The term "copywriting" came from print media. If you think that hype is new, do some reading about "Snake Oil Salesman" as well as P.T. Barnum.
MM, while I tend to agree; is the attention span of Web 2.0 the fault of the reader or of the writer?
Glad you discovered all the copy around you. Talk to most good copywriters and the words "swipe file" will probably come up. While a little different to each person, it involves "grabbing" copy you see around you for future inspiration. For instance, I'll go through magazines before I toss em and rip out anything that I think is good (start of a story, ad layout, headline, etc). I keep sales letters, postcard mailers and anything else that might inspire me down the road. In the list from MeganMorgan above, many fail at step #2. They focus too much on getting attention (like all those "urgent" email subject lines). So, you get attention, then you blow it and now you've lost. As to being "new." No. In fact, many people have packaged copywriting and "web writing" books, seminars, etc that are just rehashes of old information with a new label. Of course, it's always new when you first discover it.