20 more inspirational copywriting quotes from the best copywriters!
Posted by James, 3 September 2021 (5 minute read)
Towards the end of 2020, I posted 22 inspirational copywriting quotes from the best copywriters. But that only really scratched at the surface when it comes to what the industry’s very best have offered.
Copywriters and writers over the years have provided what feels like a bottomless well of advice and guidance. So in today’s JW’s Thoughts of a Copywriter, I thought I’d put together 20 more inspirational copywriting quotes. I hope you find something that gets you thinking – or even better, copywriting!
On getting started
1. “It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea.” – David Ogilvy
2. “I think clarity starts with having (a few questions) really clear in your mind: ‘What is this blog post about and what am I going to teach my readers with it? How will it make them feel once they’ve learned this?'” – Henneke Duistermaat
3. “Avoid the ‘hard-to-grasp’ headline – the headline that requires thought and is not clear at first glance.” – John Caples
On copywriting
4. “Anything you write is, at its core, selling something. Maybe that something is a product or service. Maybe it’s you.” – Kira Hug
5. “I’ve learned that any fool can write a bad ad, but that it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one.” – Leo Burnett
6. “Marketers have a tendency to try to abstract their messages to the point that everything can be said in two to six commonly used words, which somehow gives us the comforting sense that we’ve created a polished marketing message. As if that’s the goal. Let me leave you with this: polish doesn’t convert.” – Joanna Wiebe
7. “Each problem has hidden in it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem. The greatest success stories were created by people who recognized a problem & turned it into an opportunity.” – Joseph Sugarman
8. “Good copy can’t be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You’ve got to believe in the product.” – David Ogilvy
On writing for your audience
9. “Your job is not to write copy. Your job is to know your visitors, customers and prospects so well, you understand the situation they’re in right now, where they’d like to be, and exactly how your solution can and will get them to their ideal self.” – Joanna Wiebe
10. “Let’s get to the heart of the matter. The power, the force, the overwhelming urge to own that makes advertising work, comes from the market itself, and not from the copy. Copy cannot create desire for a product. It can only take the hopes, dreams, fears and desires that already exist in the hearts of millions of people and focus those already existing desires onto a particular product. This is the copywriter’s task: not to create this mass desire – but to channel and direct it.” – Eugene Schwartz
11. “A big reason so many businesses compete on price is because they can’t prove what value they offer, so they’re stuck with the one selling point that’s a breeze to communicate: cheapness.” – Mish Slade
12. “Here’s the only thing you’re selling, no matter what business you’re in and what you ship: you’re selling your prospects a better version of themselves.” – Joanna Wiebe
13. “Instead of representing the buyer’s expectations, needs, wants and concerns, many personas are built around a profile of what the business would like its ideal buyer to be.” – Jennifer Havice
14. “Good advertising is written from one person to another. When it is aimed at millions it rarely moves anyone.” – Fairfax M. Cone
15. “The vast majority of products are sold because of the need for love, the fear of shame, the pride of achievement, the drive for recognition, the yearning to feel important, the urge to look attractive, the lust for power, the longing for romance, the need to feel secure, the terror of facing the unknown, the lifelong hunger for self-esteem and so on. Emotions are the fire of human motivation, the combustible force that secretly drives most decisions to buy. When your marketing harnesses those forces correctly you will generate explosive increases in response.” – Gary Bencivenga
On assembling great copy
16. “The secret of all effective advertising is not the creation of new and tricky words and pictures, but one of putting familiar words and pictures into new relationships.” – Leo Burnett
17. “The mind thinks in pictures, you know. One good illustration is worth a thousand words. But one clear picture built up in the reader’s mind by your words is worth a thousand drawings, for the reader colors that picture with his own imagination, which is more potent than all the brushes of all the world’s artists.” – Robert Collier
18. “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.” – Elmore Leonard
On what copywriters need to know
19. “The very first thing you must come to realize is that you must become a ‘student of markets.’ Not products. Not techniques. Not copywriting. Not how to buy space or whatever. Now, of course, all of these things are important and you must learn about them, but, the first and the most important thing you must learn is what people want to buy.” – Gary Halbert
20. “Brevity doesn’t mean bare bones or stripped down. Take as long as you need to tell the story.” – Ann Handley
Got any more inspirational copywriting quotes? If so, tell me about them in the comments below or over on Twitter (@JWCopywriting).
And if you need a copywriter for your business, get in touch and let’s start working together today. Find out what services I offer here and then use my contact form – I aim to respond to all enquiries within 24 hours.
In a couple of weeks, I’ll be turning my attention to headlines – perhaps the most important element of any copy.
Speak soon,
JW