Try This 2-Step Hack to Make Your Copy *Shine* Like My Bald Head
The best farmers’ market runs every Saturday in Portland, Oregon.
Hundreds and hundreds of stalls come together at the university on the west side of town, stalls stacked high with every type of delectable good you can imagine.
Farm fresh strawberries and apples.
Bundles of bok choy and lettuce and onions.
Vegan cheese. VEGAN CHEESE!
(Yeah, I hear you dairy lovers waiiiiling. 😭)
Anyways.
Recently, my wife showed me one of her new favorite stalls.
A teeny, tiny, unassuming vegan bakery on the corner of the west row.
Now … this bakery didn’t seem all that amazing on the surface.
Their booth basically consists of 2 long folding tables covered with a tablecloth to display the baked goods, and a sign with their logo.
Like I said, underwhelming on the surface.
But I can confidently say that this is the best bakery I have ever patronized in my adult life.
Why?
2 reasons. Very simple.
Reason 1: Their products are just really GOOD.
In a world where anyone can buy a subpar product, mark it up in price, and sell it anywhere, it’s rare to find something that is actually top-notch in quality.
Even worse with how many terrible online courses get peddled on a daily basis.
Side note … I actually saw someone asking for a copy critique on r/Copywriting yesterday for a piece they wrote on “hypnotic breast augmentation.”
Yes.
The product was being sold to women … and claimed that they could magically hypnotize themselves into having larger breasts.
Messed up, weird, derogatory. And almost certainly a terrible product.
I wouldn’t even waste my time.
So that’s my first “hack” to make your copy shine. Write for and design products that are just really GOOD.
Half the work is done for you when you take this approach.
And in the beginning of your career, you may have to work with “subpar” products.
But eventually, you should strive to only work with solid, high quality products if you can.
It makes your life a million times easier as a copywriter.
Reason 2: These aren’t just ANY baked goods … they have (and highlight) their weird ingredients that make their products unique.
My favorite thing to get at this stall is a sticky bun.
But it’s not just ANY sticky bun.
It’s a tahini caramel sticky bun. 🤤
How weird is that!? Tahini is NOT an ingredient you’d typically see in a sticky bun.
The other thing I like getting there is a miso-peanut butter cookie.
Yes, the same “miso” as “miso soup.”
It’s so weird and unique and totally delicious.
This bakery found a way to actually make a mundane product (baked goods) highly unique, and present that to the customers.
So that’s my second “hack.”
The product you’re selling doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel.
But you should be able pull out at least one thing that makes that product unique and different from the competition.
Doing so can immediately elevate that product’s “status” against the competition … and help sell more of it in the process.
Of course, these are not the only ways to make your copy shine. There are plenty of other things you can do, which I talk about in my daily newsletter at www.stealthiscopy.com.
And just to be clear — neither of these “hacks” will work if you don’t already have good writing chops to begin with.
But I hope this helps you.
And now … I’m gonna go eat my (tahini) sticky bun.
David Patrick
