“Suppression is building bombs. When you bury an emo-
tion, you bury it alive.”See the difference? I do this with all my copywriting. I take
what I’m handed and translate it into benefits, clear language,
and bottom line emotion. This truly does feel like translating
languages to me. And like learning any new language, it takes
time to master.
I take the copy given to me, turn on the part of my mind that
knows how to speak copywriting, and I translate the words in front
of me into words youcan understand.
I also do this copywriting translation with news releases. For ex-
ample, last month I was hired to write a news release for a woman’s
book. I could have written a headline that said, “New Book Ex-
plains How to Communicate Better,” which is what the book is
about. But that’s Italian. It doesn’t speak in emotional terms or in a
way most editors want to hear.
After doing some research and learning more about the author,
I translated the headline to instead read, “Female Pentagon Advisor
Reveals Tips to Success.” The latter is far more intriguing. All I did
was translate her book into news. I took it from Italian to English. I
took it from English to Emotion. I took it from words to power.
What’s the secret to being a good “copy translator”?
I could probably quote a relevant line from any number of
books on marketing. But I’ll grab one from a 1965 book I just re-
ceived today. It’s by Robert Conklin. The title is The Power of a
Magnetic Personality. He wrote: “Putting it simply, it means this:
Every time you state a fact, describe how that fact will benefit the
other person.”
There you have it. It’s what I’ve been saying for years: “Get out
of your ego and into your reader’s ego.” Translate what you want
to say into simple words and concepts that make sense to your
readers.
I hope I’ve done that with this brief chapter. I began with the
idea to tell you how I write sales copy. But I didn’t want to just say,
“I translate all words into sales copy,” which may or may not makeHYPNOTIC WRITING