A Practical Exercise to Start Writing Copy Even if You’re a Complete Beginner

Andrew Trachtman
3 min readJun 6, 2021

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I’m busy and tired today.

That means minimal fluff.

STEP 1:

Pick a niche to write for.

Health, Wealth, Relationships

Pick the one that’s most interesting to you.

STEP 2: Google around and see if you can find a course or a product in the niche you picked.

“How to build wealth”

“How to get laid”

“How to get 6 pack abs”

Just type in stuff like that until you land on a webpage that gives you an option to enter your email.

STEP 3: If there’s a sales page — congratulations! Go to STEP 4.

If not — just wait. If the company is one even potentially worth studying, you’ll get promotions in your email.

STEP 4: When you find a sales page (you can also use the emails you get) all you need to do is go through it.

If you end up buying the product, great! Study the sales page (and the inevitable upsells).

If not — STILL study the page.

What parts made you not buy?

Was there something they could have said to make you buy?

Was the letter lacking proof?

Was it hard to read?

Was it boring?

Ask yourself those questions and take notes.

STEP 5: Take your notes and use them to REWRITE the sales page (also works for emails).

Once you think the sales page is strong — feel free to share it or send it to others and ask them what they think.

If it’s engaging enough — you might even find them reading and wanting to buy!

STEP 6: Find out how to get in touch with the company whose page you just re-wrote. This could mean emailing support and asking to speak to a supervisor (and work your way up)

It could mean finding them on LinkedIn.

It could mean BUYING THEIR STUFF and coming at them as a customer who wants to help.

Whatever you need to do — do it.

Then once you have an email address or access to a decision maker…

STEP 7: Send an email asking for permission to send a sample.

These people are busy.

Send a short email asking if they’d like to see a sample you wrote.

Let them know that if they like it — they can run it for free. You just want to know the results if they do run it.

Expect lots of no-replies, follow ups and some frustration.

But also remember — to test your “free” spec piece, it actually costs a business a lot of money. They still need to pay for traffic. Or even if they run your piece to their email list — that still costs them money if they have a current control.

What if yours doesn’t beat it?

That means the business owner lost money for the day which could be in the realm of tens (even hundreds) of thousands or more.

So — remember, treat this like you’re asking the business to spend at least $10k to give you a shot. Because in some ways, they will be.

That just about wraps this one up. Hopefully it was helpful!

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Andrew Trachtman

I currently write copy for multiple 7 and 8-figure business and freelance on the side when I have free time (which is... not that often).