Learn Copywriting in 76 Minutes – Harry Dry – Transcript

00:00Let's start with a game, six words. I'm going to ask you which ones do you remember? Okay. Seamless transition, charging pitbull, muscular Irishman, better way, leg of lamb. Which ones do you got? Irishman, pitbull, leg of lamb. You remembered the ones which you can visualize. You have these three rules.

00:15Can I visualize it? Can I falsify it? Can nobody else say this? So, you get three no's, you're probably writing a lot of rubbish. You get three yes's, you're onto something. Why should people learn copywriting? It's the number one skill in marketing. Write copy that can't be copied.

00:32This one's the one of the most famous lines of all time. They're instantly communicating what it is by showing what it isn't. Exactly. That's exactly it. So, when you're writing copy, how do you know that something's going to instantly resonate? test. One Mississippi, two Mississippi. Phew.

00:47You get it? Harry Dry is the first person that I call whenever I need help with copywriting. And the reason is that he's not just good at it, but he's really good at explaining it, at teaching what he does. I mean, you'll see. The guy has frameworks for everything. My favorite one is these three questions that he asks whenever he writes or reviews copy, and he's going to talk about that here.

01:11But, we got to talk about the elephant in the room, and it's copywriting. It's sort of a smelly industry, right? I always think of hucksters and fraudsters on Twitter who are just trying to game your psychology with whatever deceptive trick they have up their sleeve. This is the man himself, Harry Dry.

01:28I know that you have these three rules that you apply to every sentence. I do. What are they? I do. Um can I visualize it? Can I falsify it? Can nobody else say this? So, you get three no's, you're probably writing a lot of rubbish. You get three yes's, you're onto something. I'll give you two examples of what not to do, what to do.

01:47So, I saw an ad on the way here, don't just get a job, change an entire industry. It's a recruitment company. Um Now, if I said to you change an industry, you close your eyes, Can you Can you Can you Can you see that? No. Can you falsify that? Falsifiable to be proved true or false. Uh Can you Can nobody else say it? No, I could start a recruitment company tomorrow and write don't just get a job.

02:10Change an entire industry. Um now let me tell you what I would do all three, New Balance. Worn by supermodels in London and dads in Ohio. I think that is so good. It's so good. So if you if you close your eyes, can you visualize the supermodel in London, the dad in Ohio with a barbecue but pair of New Balance on? You can.

02:30Can you falsify it? It's true. Like supermodels have worn New Balance. Dads in Ohio do wear it's it's true. And can nobody else say it? Well, no because a load of dads in Ohio aren't going to wear a Prada and a load of supermodels aren't really wearing Reebok. Like it's it's bespoke to New Balance. It's something they can only say.

02:47So that's There's the three rules. Now I want to go through them like one by one with you. Rule one, can I can I visualize it? So let's start with a game. Why does this matter? If If you can't If you can't visualize it, you won't remember it. Lisa Cron says um if I can't see it, it's not there yet. So I'm going to read to you six six words.

03:09I'll tell you which ones I'm going to ask you which ones you remember. Um seamless transition, charging pitbull, muscular Irishman, better way, leg of lamb. Which ones you got? Irishman, pitbull, leg of lamb.

03:22Irishman, pitbull, leg of lamb. I don't even remember the other So what I'm talking about here is the Did I get it right? You got it Yeah, you There's no right or wrong. I'm proving it What What What What I'm talking about here is the difference between concrete and abstract. You remembered the ones which you can visualize. You can see the Irishman. You can see the pitbull coming at you. You can't see a better way. So this is concrete and this is abstract.

03:41What abstract is is it's intangible. You can't drop it on your foot. If you try and drop a better way on your foot, it just fades away. But if you try and drop um a muscular Irishman one foot, you know it hurts. Um how do you do this? So, how do you how do you go from from abstract to concrete? The best way I found is to zoom in on the words. So, what I like to do, I get a sheet of paper and I draw a line down the left-hand side.

04:04At the top, I'll write abstract. At the bottom, I'll write concrete. All right, it's right I'll write the word at the top. Um and I'll just rewrite it and rewrite it and ask myself what like what do I actually mean here? What am I actually saying? Until I end up with a concrete object. So, here you could have written not very good, worn by pretty people in big cities, and old people

04:30in non-big cities. But instead, pretty people I can't I guess I can kind of see that, but a supermodel? Absolutely. Everyone can see a supermodel. In London, oh man, that's sexy, you know, big supermodel London, and then dads in Ohio. Now, that's funny because also the juxtaposition of these two makes me laugh. So, another example of this, like right on the money, is you might come to me with an app idea. You might say, "Hey Harry, I got an I got an app I want to share with you. It's about regaining

04:58fitness." So, I what I do is I go through that little zoom in test we did. You write regain at the top. And I'd say, "All right, what do you mean by regain?" And you might say, "All right, it's for getting people off the couch who've been sitting on the couch for the last 6 months." And I say, "What do you mean by fitness?" And you might like what type of fitness? You might say, "Running." How far? 5 5K. So, now we've got from regain fitness, we've got uh from from getting up off the couch

05:25um to running 5K. Couch to 5K. Funnily enough, that's the name of the most um the most downloaded, the most popular fitness program of all time. Really? Uh and this wasn't made by Nike or Adidas. It was made by a Boston TV producer, but it stuck cuz it was good.

05:46Um rule two, can I falsify it? All right, why does it why does this work? Like why does why do we like stuff which is falsifiable? I I came up with this tip and I thought about it myself and what I what I concluded was um, when you write a sentence which is true or false, it's like as a writer you're putting your head on the chopping block.

06:04Um, it makes people sit up a little bit in their seat, our ears prick up. This is true or false. Galileo um, got got sentenced to 10 years house arrest by the Romans cuz he said that the earth spins around the sun. They didn't like it. If Galileo said um, the earth has a harmonious connection with a celestial object, they'd have said Galileo go go down the pub, have a beer.

06:27Have a um, how do you do this? How do you how do you write copy that's falsifiable? Well, you want to write a sentence which is true or which is false. Best tip I've seen for this is um, deep in a Reddit thread um, by a now deleted account so I can't I can't get any credit I'd like to and it says um, you can't talk, you can only point.

06:47Picture your best friend um, right now who's single, okay? And I want you to try and set him up on a blind date with somebody, okay? Now, we're going to go two versions of this. The first version you got to you got to set him up but you're not allowed to you're not allowed to um, describe them with anything that's objectively true or false. So, you have to write subjectively. So, you could say he's good looking, he's intelligent, whatever. What would you how would you describe this friend?

07:10Good family. Great values. Good family. Great values. Smart. He's clever. Hilarious. He's funny. Yeah. He's funny. You're talking. Funny guy. Now, I'm a woman right now. If I'm a woman or a man, I would I would say I'm you know, you're just you're just saying stuff. Like is he is he actually funny?

07:28Now, three run. Now, um, describe this friend, your your single friend but you're only allowed to say things which are are true or which are false. So, instead of say you said um, good values. You could say um, why? Why does he have good values? Point to something. So, if we're good looking, I'd be like, looks like Ryan Gosling, 6'2". Looks like Ryan Gosling. Exactly.

07:52Have you seen the meme? Uh, I haven't seen the meme. There's like this popular meme going around that all these chicks, it's like they hold these signs, it's like, 6'5", works in finance, trust fund, blue eyes. it. That's exactly it. Reads on the tube. You know, he's not If you say someone's intelligent, it's like, all right, whatever. Does he read He reads on the tube. That's true or false? Um, that's what I mean by falsifiable. Can you Is it able to be proved true or false? Now, what's funny So, what is the lesson with the pointing? This is what I still

08:20don't understand. When I say When I say don't talk, only point, let's say I'm trying to sell you gold, all right? I might say gold, you know, it's a great investment, David. You want to get some gold, you know, that stuff never to go out of fashion. I'm just talking right now, or I could point at the graph of gold for the last 50 years, and it'd be like, just going one way. I could say that when there was the last financial crash, what happened to gold? Just point. I just point at the graph. So, you just point at stuff.

08:43That's a better way. It it it basically it gets you off the adjective trail. So, this is interesting. So, say we're going to advertise for gold, and all I can do is I can just point. What I could do is I would point at a beautiful castle that is clearly majestic. I could point at a family's gold stash, and we could show them feeling very comfortable, be insecure because they have so much gold. I could point at the chart of gold. And now what I'm doing is I'm getting things that are concrete,

09:12they're visual, they're falsifiable. point at Warren Buffett and say, how much gold does Warren Buffett have in his portfolio? That's a reason to buy gold, perhaps. I don't know. You have to research stuff. You can't just like If this takes This takes work. That's why it's better. Finally, final test, can nobody else say it? Um, Jim I think his name is Jim Durkey.

09:31Um, never write an ad a competitor can sign. Why I like can nobody else say it is it kind of forces you to look a little bit deeper at what you're at what you're selling. Volkswagen had this ad back in the back in the day. Your car has five numbers on the speedometer. Volvo Volvo has six.

09:48One could get the impression that the people who made your car lack a little confidence. No one else can say that. The only way of saying it is you got to get in the Volvo, see how many see how many dials there are on the speedometer. So it's visual, the visual aligns with the text. Nobody else can say it. Super simple, differentiates what you're doing. That's why it works. Exactly, it's true. It's falsifiable, it's true.

10:07There's a lot of people I talk to and they're like, "No, copywriting's for chumps. I'm not going to learn that. It's not really important." But you are the first person I met who changed my mind on that. Why should people learn copywriting?