I have read Li Jiaoshou’s copywriting techniques, but why can’t I write copywriting that sells products?

There was a cause for this matter. Because Lao Miao admired Li Jiaoshou 's copywriting skills, he recommended Li Jiaoshou's official account to many people. Some of them were young people who had just started working in advertising, and some were senior advertising gurus like the Ding Shi'an brothers.

Everyone’s unanimous response was: Wow, that’s great, this brother is really awesome, he must study hard.

But after a while, some people gave feedback that they felt it made sense when they read it, the analysis was easy to understand, and there were many cases to illustrate it, but they just couldn't use it.

It is often the students’ problem if they cannot apply what they have learned. I have also heard many people say that they cannot use Kotler’s “ Marketing Management”. Teacher, do you have any questions? Lao Miao reviewed some of Li Jiaoshou's lecture notes with a meticulous spirit, and found that there were indeed some.

1

Some basic attributions are not very accurate and can easily lead students astray.

Li Jiaoshou has written a widely circulated article about "X-type copywriting" and " Y-type copywriting ". The gist of the article is that "X-type copywriting" is "self-indulgent" and describes the product completely from a self-perspective, making it difficult to resonate with consumers. Therefore, he advocates "Y-type copywriting", using simple and straightforward language to influence user experience.

There are many so-called "X-type copywriters" in the market that talk to themselves. There are a lot of clichés like "Enjoy life and live a happy life" that Li Jiaoshou opposes. It's so annoying to read them. But the main reason is not that the copywriter wants to "happy himself".

The copywriter is usually a third party, the so-called "Party B". It is usually very unlikely that they will be self-satisfied with the product's functions, technology, etc. It is usually the client, the so-called "Party A" who is self-satisfied in this regard.

Self-congratulation in the way of expression is a common mistake made by copywriters. But the reason is not that copywriters are unwilling to stand in the user's position, but usually because they can't.

When writing copy, you need to think from the user's perspective, just like you need to eat when you are hungry, drink water when you are thirsty, and take off your pants when you go to the toilet. This is complete correct nonsense.

From ancient international advertising masters to domestic advertising gurus, they all remember to remind people not to get too carried away with advertising creation itself.

Leo Burnett said: "We want consumers to say: This is a really good product, not: This is a really good advertisement." When a veteran copywriter faces a rookie he is mentoring, the first thing he often emphasizes is "Don't talk to yourself."

But this is not easy. "Thinking from the user's perspective" is not only a consciousness, but also an ability. We have a large number of self-congratulatory copywriting, which is mainly due to the lack of insight into users and the ability to think from their perspective, rather than a lack of awareness.

We urge copywriters not to talk to themselves, but to be sincere, think from the consumer's perspective, and use the consumer's language. This is actually useless. What copywriters (as well as other marketers ) need most and will always need is to improve their ability to "think from other people's perspective."

I remember that Li Jiaoshou wrote an article titled "Why we can't think from the user's perspective" and Lao Miao also wrote one titled "Why we are particularly prone to falling into the narcissistic marketing trap", but knowing why is not very useful. What is really useful is to have methods to improve.

So we will do consumer research and copywriting testing. Ogilvy said, "Don't write ads that you wouldn't want your family to see." In order to spread satirical poems among the people, Bai Juyi read them to old ladies, but even so, it was just the tip of the iceberg, because "the general public doesn't really know what they want until those ideas are presented to them in the form of products."

There are no shortcuts here. Real consumer insights are based on understanding human nature, observation and thinking about things, and a lot of experience summary.

Some advertising masters will use some seemingly stereotyped methods to avoid the copywriting being self-talking.

For example, Ogilvy would emphasize that the title should "include your sales promise and bring out the benefits of the product to potential users" and tell people not to use "puns" in the title because they would distract people's attention.

Ye Maozhong gave us creative requirements for the TVC, which required the product name to appear three times in the 15-second script. This way, your advertising can only revolve around selling products, and you won’t be able to please yourself even if you want to.

In addition, copywriters need to be familiar with the "perceived quality" characteristics of different products:

Every product has a corresponding high-quality signal that affects consumers' perceived quality. Consumers' perceived quality is often very different from the actual quality of the product. For example, people judge the quality of a car by the sound of its door closing. Laundry detergents with more foam are of better quality. Thick milk is more nutritious, and so on. For different categories of products, consumers have high-quality signals to judge the product category.

In his discussion of X-type copywriting, Li Jiaoshou called it using "gorgeous expressions to describe products" and said that "they are more like linguists, rhetoricians and poets." Type Y copywriters, on the other hand, are not good at flowery rhetoric, but spend a lot of time understanding what users think and want to use simple and straightforward language to influence users’ feelings.

There is something misleading here.

Saying that X-type copywriting is unreliable is unreliable because it does not understand user feelings, not because of its "flowery rhetoric." In fact, the examples Li Jiaoshou used to argue for himself were precisely "gorgeous rhetoric": "When you are writing a PPT, the cod in Alaska are jumping out of the water; when you are looking at a report, the golden monkeys in the Meili Snow Mountain are just climbing to the top of the tree..." And the X-type copy he cited - "Enjoy life and live a carefree life" - is not gorgeous at all, but very clichéd.

In the context of us Chinese, "gorgeous" is a derogatory word, which is a bit unfair. "Flashy but not practical", "gorgeous words covering up empty content", the faults are "untruthfulness" and "empty content", not "gorgeousness".

Copywriting is first and foremost a salesmanship, and secondly, advertising copywriting requires strong writing skills.

There are a great number of outstanding advertising professionals in China who study journalism and Chinese, and this is even more so with the new media . Mimi Meng , who is extremely popular, is a master of literature. Not only can she write erotic novels, but she also has no pressure in writing fresh novels. The concise language and precise word choice in those Zhiyin-style "erotic novels" amazed Lao Miao.

Both gorgeous copywriting and plain copywriting have outstanding representatives, and the prerequisite is user insight.

"At 60 mph, the loudest noise on this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock." That's good copy for the Y-type.

"Diamonds are forever" is a good copy that looks like an X-shape.

"Men, should visit Heilan Home twice a year", "You have washed your hair all your life, but have you ever washed your scalp?", these are good Y-type copywriting.

Gao Xiaosong's "Life is not just about the immediate, but also about poetry and the distance" and the Hulk canned peas' "Harvest under the moonlight" are both gorgeous and good copywriting.

See the best:

Clothes are gender. Clothes are space.

Clothes are class. Clothes are power.

Clothes are a performance. Clothes are a means.

Clothes are about showing off. Clothes are about revealing. Clothes are about reading and being read.

Clothes are persuasive. Clothes are to be taken off.

Clothing is a kind of sophisticated politics, and politics is a kind of sophisticated clothing.

This "gorgeous" and seemingly self-contained copywriting actually contains a profound insight into women's shopping psychology and behavior. This is one of a series of advertisements made by Xu Shunying for Zhongxing Department Store, and this series of advertisements has accompanied Zhongxing Department Store's 28-fold sales growth.

2

Let’s look at the differences between the following roles.

Novelist, fiction critic and university Chinese teacher.

The great thing about novelists is that they can write great novels, such as Mo Yan and Shi Naian.

The great thing about critics is that they tell us what is so great about these great novels, why they are so great, and what are not so great about them; for example, Liu Xie and Jin Shengtan.

The job of a Chinese teacher is to improve your Chinese skills so that you can write great novels.

If you want to improve your literary level quickly, the best thing you should do is to find an excellent Chinese teacher, study and train according to the teacher's guidance. Of course, it is also necessary to read a lot of excellent novels and read critics' comments.

Li Jiaoshou's articles are closer to "novel reviews", which contain many valuable summaries and distillations, as well as comments on excellent and poor-quality advertisements, but they are not very efficient in improving the level of copywriting.

For example, Li Jiaoshou mentioned that copywriting should have a "visual sense". This is very correct, and the reasoning behind it is profound:

Pictures can more easily reach the emotional and instinctive centers of the human brain, while the effect of language is much worse, and the effect of text is even worse. Humans have had vision since they were lower animals and make judgments based on what they see. Language only developed after they evolved into humans, and writing has only been around for a few thousand years.

Knowing this principle is very helpful for appreciating copywriting and evaluating its quality, but it is not very helpful for improving copywriting skills. A good copywriter needs a lot of practice to achieve “visualization of words”.

Often do picture talk

Use the picture to outline the copy or title you thought of.

Writing TV commercial scripts

Make airplane drafts, etc.

These are all ways to practice writing “visual” texts, and they cannot be achieved simply by repeatedly emphasizing that the copy must be visual.

One more thing to add is that in addition to the “visualization of text”, there is also the “textualization of pictures”. The two are integrated and are the usual requirements of advertisements for copywriting and art. But it is not easy to do this and it requires a lot of training. What our advertising professionals lack is extensive professional advertising training, but they do not lack the ability to comment on advertisements.

Leo Burnett said: I find it easier to write a speech about good advertising than to create a good ad.

3

"Going with the body" is more important than "going with the heart".

Li Jiaoshou has a useful article called "7 Pages of PPT to Teach You to Understand Internet Copywriting in Seconds", which was an important article he wrote in the first few years. But what really made this article popular was that someone copied it and changed the title:

The difference between a copywriter with a monthly salary of 3,000 and a copywriter with a monthly salary of 30,000

I believe that in the advertising circle, more people watch the copycat version than the genuine one. If we compare these two titles, we will find that they are obviously different.

Li Jiaoshou is more rational and starts from the actual benefits obtained by the audience. This is in line with the concept conveyed in most of his articles: understand user feelings, find user needs, and clearly commit to solving user problems.

However, “copycat products” use a different angle: using contrast to stir up emotions.

This article "Monthly salary of 3,000 and 30,000" has become an incentive for many copywriters; but for those who are related to copywriting, such as clients, company bosses, and AEs, it expresses dissatisfaction with the copywriting and makes demands. It's all full of emotions.

What Lao Miao calls "going to the kidneys" is actually being able to hit the user's instinctive and emotional centers, which is more effective than bringing rational benefits to customers. (For details, please see "Boss: It's embarrassing to say that the marketing manager earns a million dollars a year, but he doesn't know the real driving force of marketing")

1. The most accurate marketing approach is “ignition”.

2. Ignite the market atmosphere! What is the market atmosphere? It is a collection of consumer behaviors and emotions!

3. A rational message enters the emotional center from the thinking center. If it cannot cause an emotional response, it cannot enter the instinctive center and cannot affect a person's final behavior.

4. Emotions can be contagious to people instantly and form a group effect, but reason and ordinary information cannot do the same.

4

We still need to attach importance to the role of creativity.

Li Jiaoshou is an advocate of scientific advertising. Most domestic advertising practitioners and related professionals are supporters of scientific advertising. Because he has no talent, Lao Miao has to believe in scientific advertising.

Li Jiaoshou has made a lot of efforts in the scientificization of advertising. He has developed some creative modules, made some regular summaries of popular articles on the Internet, and explored the application of some foreign communication and behavioral theories in combination with the current market communication status. I don’t know whether Li Jiaoshou has tried to create advertisements through big data and manual functions, but it can be seen that he does not recognize the role of creativity in advertising, and even attributes "wanting to be creative" to the characteristics of self-indulgent X-type copywriters.

There has always been a debate between science and art in the advertising industry. Of course, from talents to theories, the scientific school has always been the mainstream. From Hopkins to Ogilvy, they are all masters of the scientific school. But judging from the works, the works of the Art School are not inferior. Bernbach's work "Think of the Small Advantages" made Ogilvy sigh that "even if I live to be 100 years old, I will not be able to create such a work." Xu Shunying, mentioned above, is an important representative of the Chinese advertising art school. She simply believes that: "It is the most ignorant to understand advertising from a scientific perspective."

But even the most extreme scientific representatives will not ignore the role of "creativity" in advertising, even the most critical role.

More than a decade ago, I was taught at Ye Maozhong’s company that “creativity is power” and “if you don’t have good ideas, die.” I still remember it vividly. Under the leadership of Mr. Ye, the company created advertisements during that period that were either popular or considered "vulgar", such as "Men should be harder on themselves", "Those who use it will know", "If you want to eat vitamin candy, hurry up", "Feel more comfortable the next day", "Washing is healthier", "Big Red Eagle Victory Eagle", "Steaming is better for nutrition", and "Men visit Heilan Home twice a year".

Once, Ye Maozhong said to us all with some pride: "Half of the CCTV bidding segments are now playing our creative ads."

The core skill that gave birth to these works is creativity, rather than modules, methods and structures, which are usually summaries given by others after the creativity is successful. Creativity is not a flash of inspiration, but is usually a concentrated reflection of copywriting techniques, thinking paths, creative methods, the ability to think from other people's perspectives, market insight, divergent thinking, and writing skills.

In the future, artificial intelligence may be able to develop to the point where it can write a novel that can win the Nobel Prize, but as of now, creativity remains the core content in advertising and even communication. Other tools are more in service of creativity.

5

The techniques of writing copy are not complicated. Ogilvy's content on how to write copy in "Confessions of an Advertising Man" is only a few pages, but it is detailed enough. But the basic skills required to write a good copy are very profound.

It requires insight into human nature, the ability to think from other people's perspectives, the ability to stimulate people's emotions, understanding of products and perceived product quality, the ability to innovate divergently and horizontally, and a sense of words, language, context and images. Any one of these requires professional training and a lot of practice to achieve.

In the Internet market environment, in an environment where marketing is viewed from a communication perspective, the ability to write copy may be the most important skill for marketers and operators . Because it will not only be used in traditional advertising, but will be present in every aspect of marketing.

At the end of the article, here are a few questions to practice our copywriting skills:

1. "Charge for five minutes, talk for two hours", "I won't accept any gifts this year, the only gift I'll accept is Melatonin", how can such catchy advertisements be successful?

2. How do pretentious advertising slogans like “If you don’t buy clothes for three days, your face will feel ugly; if you don’t go shopping for three days, your soul will feel ugly” and “Diamonds are forever” become successful?

3. Why is Nanfu Battery’s “One battery is better than six” more successful than the advertisement modified by Li Jiaoshou?

4. "To you bitch, why should I help you?!" How did Mi Meng's pornographic writing in a slutty and vulgar style become an Internet sensation?

Some people may work in marketing and advertising for their entire lives but still cannot figure out these four questions.

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