Thread by @CopyRodeo

Gary Halbert was a legendary copywriter.

He was so good just one of his letters grossed over $140,000,000

Most people think he didn’t create a copywriting course.

But they are wrong.

Here is Gary Halbert's 5-step copywriting course.

Thread

In April 1987, Gary Halbert wrote to his newsletter subscribers...

A detailed five-step process you can follow to:

- Learn copywriting from scratch
- Improve your persuasive chops

Let's get started 👇

What do you need to complete this course?

According to Halbert, you need:

- A modicum talent
- Ability to follow directions
- Appetite for VERY HARD work

Note: isn’t that hard, so let’s go.

Step one:

For Gary, the first thing you need is a strong advertising foundation.

So, how do you get that?

Simple.

By reading the BEST advertising books.

Here’s his reading list:

The 9 best advertising books according to Gary Halbert:

1] Scientific Advertising - Claude Hopkins
2] The Robert Collier Letter Book - Robert Collier
3] Tested Advertising Methods - John Caples

4] How To Write A Good Advertisement - Victor Schwab
5] The Gary Halbert letter - Gary Halbert
6] The Boron Letters - Gary Halbert

7] The Lazy Man's Way To Riches - Joe Karbo
8] Breakthrough Advertising - Eugene Schwartz
9] 7-Steps To Freedom - Ben Suarez

Important:

In this step, you only need to read those books for pure pleasure.

Don’t force yourself to take notes.

Just read.

Now, besides reading great marketing books Halbert also recommended…

Reading ads and sales letters written by the best copywriters in the game.

Here’s the full list 👇

The top 12 best copywriters according to Gary Halbert:

1] Gary Bencivenga
2] Dan Rosenthal
3] Joe E. Kennedy
4] Pat Garrard

5] Steve Brown
6] Drew Kaplan
7] Claude Hopkins
8] Joe Karbo

9] Ben Suarez
10] Joe Sugarman
11] Gene Schwartz
12] Gary Halbert

Step two:

Now what to do with those ads?

Well, Gary recommends hand write them.

But that’s necessary?

⚠ Important note ⚠

Handwriting ads could help…

But it’s way better to practice active reading and reverse engineer them.

Step Three:

At this point, Halbert recommends typewriting one of those sales letters from scratch 😂

But instead of that, you can write an ad for a product you like.

Step Four:

Here Gary recommends reading all those books again.

But this time taking plenty of notes.

Step five:

This is fun and simple.

All you’ve to do here is create a collection of ads and sales letters.

Now let’s recap:

The 5-step Gary Halbert copywriting course goes like this:

1] Read the best copywriting books
2] Reverse engineer the best sales letters
3] Write a sales page for a product you like

4] Reread the books and take plenty of notes
5] Create a collection of the best ads & sales pages

If this thread was helpful to you, here are the next 2 steps:

1. Follow me (@CopyRodeo) for more sales & writing sauce

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https://twitter.com/CopyRodeo/status/1597244914047205377

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