If you write, having a swipe file to take inspiration is a lifesaver (and a moneymaker).
There’s an easy formula for writing ads:
- First, gather as much information you can about the offer. You want to know the what and why about the specific thing you’re promoting.
- Then, dig through a swipe file (a pile of inspiration, basically) to come up with ideas.
Much of the time, it’s hard to put something on the page without getting inspiration first.
Besides your own swipe file, there are a lot of resources to find proven ads. Especially sales letters.
And here are some you can constantly check to find new ideas:
Swiped.co: This is a huge collection of classic and modern ads. Some are proven ones (The ones marked as “Control”), others not. In both cases, this is a great place to get inspo.
Swipefile.com: This actually is Neville Medhora’s personal swipe file. It’s a collection of ads and sales letters, as well as interesting marketing and copywriting tweets and quotes.
Game Of Conversions: This is Csaba Borzási’s YouTube channel.
He broke down 100 of the most successful sales letters in advertising history. It’s an easy way to inject into your brain some copywriting juice from real masters like David Deutsche, Gary Bencivenga, Eugene M. Schwartz, and all the rest.
This is the link to the folder containing all the ads.
Kick-Butt Controls: You have heard about Carline Anglade Cole only if you’re a copywriting nerd.
She has sold millions of products in the alternative health market, and here she gathered her top-performing ads. What we like here is the way she uses short punchy headlines and images to grab attention.
Good Email Copy: “Email copy from great companies.” This is how this website describes itself. Great to find inspiration. (But it’s hard to know if the emails actually worked.)
Good Sales Emails: Similar to the previous one.
Sales pages folder: This folder gathers a lot of sales pages, squeeze pages, and more from modern brands. We are not sure about the owner, but props to them for putting together this resource.
The Gary Halbert Letter: A lot of proven sales letters are nothing else than a headline, an intro, and a huge list of key points in the form of bullets. For some inspiration, this is an issue from Gary Halbert’s newsletter containing a list of fascinations (or “catchy bullets” if you will) he personally gathered.
