Hello! 👋

The beauty of copywriting is you can always learn to write more and better.

With writers like Ray Edwards teaching and guiding hundreds of writing and marketing professionals, there's only more hope for copywriters. ✨

In today's Morning Rush, we're sharing our conversation with Ray. 👇

But, First: Who's Ray Edwards?

Now, let's dive right into the conversation. 👇

Thousand Faces Club: What is more important while writing — being clever or clear and truthful?

Ray: Being clear and clever don't have to antithetical, but they're not neccesarily related. When we're writing advertising or marketing copy, it's so easy to be clever; yet it often doesn't communicate the real message you're trying to convey. So, I tell people it's better to be clear than clever — and think about articulating messages that others find meaningful. That's the biggest leap you can take with being persuasive with your words.

Thousand Faces Club: That's fair! Can you get better at assessing your copy?

Ray: One way to assess your copy is to see if it sells more than your last copy. That's how you know it's effective! Is it better writing? Yes, because it's achieving its goal. Those who are more literary-inclined may say it's colloquial writing, and I'd say that's better in this case. Another way to assess the quality of your writing is to read it out loud to another human being. There's something about reading your words out loud that exposes the weaknesses in the sentence structure, word choices, and the difficulty of reading certain passages. Reading to another human layers another element, which is you're looking for a response from the other person. For instance, if you notice a look of confusion on their face, you'd stop and ask if it's not clear. So, that's very helpful. Also, reading more of what kind of writing you aspire to do helps. I read great copy every day; my friend Mike Morgan calls this a daily copywriting vitamin, so, I look at it like that — taking my vitamins.

Check out Ray's book.

Thousand Faces Club: Ray, you always say no matter which business you're in, copywriting can make or break you. Does it apply to all creators because we see people creating video content, particularly on TikTok or Instagram? Do they need to up their copywriting game?

Ray: Yes, absolutely! Let's take TikTok, for instance — most content on TikTok is less than a minute long, especially content that makes you discoverable to a larger audience. So, I'd ask myself this question: does that make the language I use in that one minute less important or more important? I'd answer more important. While some people say it denegrates the quality of your writing, I say it doesn't. It illustrates and highlights the importance of every single word, pause, change in intonation, pacing, and cadence. If I want somebody to take something seriously, I might begin to speak more softly, there's more silences. That's copywriting. It's all copywriting.

Found this chat insightful? You'll find our entire podcast with Ray Edwards super helpful. A must watch for all writers. 👇