The Adweek Copywriting Handbook

Drawn from Joseph Sugarman's legendary $2,000-plus marketing seminars, The Adweek Copywriting Handbook teaches that copywriting is a learnable mental process, not a mystical talent. Sugarman demystifies how to mentally prepare to write, how to craft a 'slippery slide' of copy that compels readers from the first short sentence straight through to the order, and how to deploy 31 psychological triggers, 23 copy elements, and 10 graphic elements that turn attention into action. With candid stories of his own failures and successes selling everything from pocket calculators to BluBlocker sunglasses to a $6 million home and a $240,000 airplane, plus annotated classic ads, the book equips novices and veterans alike to build businesses 'through the power of your pen' across print, catalog, direct mail, radio, TV, infomercials, and the Internet.

What it argues

The Adweek Copywriting Handbook

Key ideas it contributes

• Product and Customer Expertise — The copywriter's depth of general and specific knowledge about the product's nature and the prospect's motivations, gathered through study, curiosity, and broad life experience.
• Slippery Slide Copy Structure — The structural craft of arranging headline, subheadline, short first sentence, seeds of curiosity, and logical copy sequence so each element compels the reader to continue reading without stopping.
• Buying Environment Creation — The tone, graphics, word choice, and integrity conveyed in the layout and opening paragraphs that set an emotional context conducive to purchasing, matched to the product's price point and nature.
• Emotional and Concept Appeal — The degree to which copy sells a concept and emotional benefit rather than mere features, leveraging the emotional charge of words and storytelling to engage the reader.
• Editing and Clarity — The refinement process that expresses the intended message with the fewest words, correct rhythm, simple language, and appropriate reading level for the target audience.
• Psychological Triggers Deployment — The use of motivational levers such as honesty, credibility, curiosity, greed, sense of urgency, exclusivity, satisfaction conviction, and others to address the underlying reasons people buy.
• Reader Trust and Credibility Perception — The prospect's psychological state of believing the seller is honest, credible, expert, and acting with integrity, which lowers resistance to the sale.
• Reader Engagement and Curiosity — The prospect's psychological state of compelled attention, curiosity, and harmony with the copy that keeps them reading and mentally involved.
• Reader Desire and Purchase Justification — The prospect's emotional wanting of the product combined with logical justification (value, belonging, hope) that primes the buying decision.
• Reading-Through Behavior — The observable behavior of trafficking the ad, reading a large portion or all of the copy through to the offer, which is prerequisite to ordering.
• Product-Market and Timing Fit — Contextual conditions including product nature, price point, current fads, timing, and whether the product is positioned as a cure that determine whether the offer can succeed in a given medium and moment.
• Purchase Response — The ultimate outcome of the copy: the prospect exchanging hard-earned money for the product or service, measured as orders, sales volume, and response rate.