When Claude Hopkins (famous copywriter) started working with Schlitz beer in the early 1900s he had a problem.
College Derek could tell you the problem…. Schlitz sucks.
Well, actually I’m lying.
At the time, Schlitz didn’t suck quite as bad. They were fifth in the beer market, if you can believe it, but they had no clear differentiators. In other words, they had a generic product indistinguishable from the competition.
But good old Claude figured out something revolutionary.
He went deep in his research of Schlitz, their process and what their competitors were doing.
And he figured out what we now call a "Big Idea".
Hopkins toured the Schlitz brewery and was impressed by the company’s rigorous purification methods.
However, what struck him most was that these processes were not unique to Schlitz but were common practices in the industry, though unknown to the general public.
So he started writing ads boasting of Schlitz’s purity.
This concept of "purity" became the Big Idea that catapulted Schlitz from 5th in the beer market, to tied-for-first.
Hopkins created a home run ad campaign simply by making an observation about his product that no competitors had mentioned. The rest of his copy was fairly standard for a beer ad.
What I’m saying here is:
Big Ideas are often more important than the actual copy you write.
They are what turn a mediocre or even a good sales letter into a massive success.
A lot of copywriters don’t think of the Big Idea as being their primary job. I mean, their job is to write a bunch of words, right? The Big Idea feels so small in comparison to the overall size of a sales letter.
But it is the key to creating a massive success… even if the rest of your copy is so-so.
I’ll give you a few examples of this tomorrow.
I promise once you grasp this, it’ll make you a lot more money as a copywriter and business owner.
Talk then!
- Derek