Have you ever read something online that really made you think? Have you seen a creative sales page, opt-in example, confirmation page or other neat copywriting examples online that you’d like to remember?
If you just said yes (and you should) then you should start creating a swipe file. A swipe file is not permission to steal other people’s hard work, but instead, it’s a way to study effective and proven examples of copywriting so that you can improve your own.
From fiction authors to comedians, to graphic artists, and yes to copy writers - swiping is the way to learn to do better. The reason is that if you fill your brain with well-made examples of something you want to create, you’re going to do better than if you used poorly made examples or if you used no examples at all.
When you collect swipe files, use them as an example of well-formed words. Look at how they made their writing persuasive, and how they put sentences together. Look at how the words are spaced, look at the images they used, see how they highlighted that word there. Use the swipe files as lessons and inspiration but not to steal. A swipe file is just a collection of examples for you to look at.
Ideas to Collect:
- Opt-in Page Examples
- Effective Confirmation Pages
- Welcome Emails
- Email Series
- Opt-in Page Copy for Freebie
- Examples of Forms You Like
- List of Trigger Words
- More…
Whenever you need to create any of the above, look at your swipe file to help you get ideas. Do not copy a sentence word for word, instead, notice the style and why what they did works and figure out how you can repeat it. The best thing to do is take samples outside of your own niche so you don’t risk accidentally plagiarizing your results.
Collect & Analyze Examples
To start collecting these examples create a file on your computer. You can use Evernote, Dropbox, or something like Trello to create the swipe file and keep it organized for easy searching when you need inspiration. But don’t just collect the files. Once you save the file you should analyze the work and figure out why it works.
- Did they use trigger words?
- What about persuasion?
- Was the text interesting or did you get bored?
- Can you make it better?
- What is the purpose of the page you are saving?
- What action are they wanting the visitor to take?
- Did they communicate benefits over features?
- What type of credibility do they have?
- What order is the information arranged in? Why?
- What type of subject line did they use?
- Is the information inside the email relevant?
- How is the viewer led to click through inside the email?
- Is anything really standing out to you?
- Right or wrong?
- What will you learn if you download it?
As you answer these questions you’ll start to understand what is working now for list building copy and what is not working so well. You can find hot products on affiliate networks like JVZoo.com and Clickbank.net to find out what’s working well so you only analyze what is working and don’t try to guess based only on your preferences which could be different from the norm.
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