Sales trainer Jim Williams described radio advertising as "mass salesmanship." Most folks here are salespeople. And based on the answers we've received to the question, Who does the copywriting at your station? many of us write own ad copy.
Dan O'Day for years has been teaching radio copywriters how to develop their skills and provides a number of recorded training sessions at his website. For example, in this video he offers five tips for copywriters:
So this week we'd like to learn about any training you've had and would recommend to hone our copywriting skills:
1: What copywriting training have you had?
2: What programs, books, or other resources have you found helpful in learning to write effective ads?
3: Where do you find help when you're stuck for an idea?
Please share your experience and recommendations in the comments below. Thanks!
I was a fairly decent writer in college, even though I was a geology major. (I know, a geology major selling radio? That's another story.) I was even asked to change majors by the English department and then they requested that I take their graduate Creative Writing class. Needless to say, I was the only undergraduate geology major in the class. But it was my first English class that taught me all I needed to know. "Write for your audience." When I got into radio, I applied that one thing, and it's led to 6 Pennsylvania Association of Broadcaster's Awards and one Radio Mercury nomination.
Learned copywriting from reading Roy Williams and firsthand in my Monopolize Your Marketplace consultants’ training. Here’s three free CEO tools that will help anyone writing copy to help lead your prospect to the upfront conclusion that they’d have to be out of their mind to do business with anyone else but you, regardless of price: go to AndyMcNabb.com and click on the Free CEO Tools - Instant Results tab.
I started in radio when you got your 3rd class license by taking a test and were hired at a small town radio station. Generally speaking,you could do the job you were hired to do and then dabble in any other duty of interest. Salespeople wrote commercials. Training was: take notes from the client and write it.Then hand it to a DJ to produce it. That was the scope of the training.
Luckily I had always been the sort of person who could tell a story. I could grasp it on my own. I listened to other stations to hear their commercials. It would be a few years before I ever saw books filled with spots to inspire one's imagination. It wasn't until my 3rd station I learned stations had copy writers. In short, no training at all, not even how long the copy should be or any of the basics.
By mere chance I created a commercial for a restaurant using a character that was a old rancher and his dog (who was vocally a combination of a gorilla and camel bleats the rancher understood). I did the continuing series of spots for several years after leaving the station. When a new series of spots was put on the air, people would call to request it as if it was a song. Call it dumb luck because I had no clue what I was just doing. I simply stumbled upon something that resonated with the audience and the client loved it. In fact, it was one of those very rare times you created a commercial that took on a life of it's own.
These people and all their articles, books, podcasts, videos and other training programs:
Also, DigitalMarketer.com offers a certification in Direct Response Copywriting, which is very good.
And, of course, that every-so-ruthless and relentless teacher...experience.
From David Kuehn: Roy Williams is great for big picture overviews. For effective "nuts and bolts", I recommend Phil Bernstein at philbernstein.com and Don Fitzgibbons at guruofads.com.
Way back in 2001, when it still existed, I spent several months working on the Certified Radio Copywriter program offered by the Radio Marketing Bureau of Canada. It was pretty extensive, lots of assignments, case studies, the whole shebang. I've also taken Wizard of Ads training (for that sweet, sweet alumni discount!), read Roy's books, etc. Read/watched most everything Dan O'Day did back in his day. Followed and conversed with Blaine Parker. (It was me who asked him in Hot Shots about what's out there for radio copywriter training ... right before he ended the weekly scribe.) I follow a few of the Wizard partners, and watch their writings for nuggets of good info. Took in that webinar RSC offered with Lisa Orkin from Radio Ranch, which was fun. Lisa is a gem. And then there's the 20 years I've been doing the job day in and day out now. Is experience still worth anything?
From Bob Sherman: Like many, I was writing in high school and in college at the local paper and a weekly, I have been blessed as a 'creative analytical' to write for sound, personality, images, emotion, inflection, memorable effectiveness, and results. And LISTENING is the single most underrated tool for creating a great commercial. I listen to everything and the best copy comes from clients, their customers with uncliched word combinations that listeners do not expect to hear and material I would not think to write. But you have to train yourself to recognize it when you hear it. Roy Williams appeals to my analytical side and George Carlin's Ad Speak Calculator helps to force me to create new words. I'm convinced I can teach some how to write a memorable commercial is less than 10 minutes, without a creative having a creative bone in their body 
at July 20, 2018 4:50 PM PDT
From Joe Lyons: I learned about copy from Don Keyes (Formerly of MacLendon) He, in turn introduced me to Chuck Blore.
Adding their knowledge to my high school creative writing classes showed me the way.
I'm going to get in trouble. People are going to be angry. So it goes.
Anyone who can answer these three questions quickly and succinctly isn't really a copywriter.
There. I said it.
Learning to write copy is an ongoing process. Nothing is either quick or succinct. (Except maybe your finished copy.)
If you're going to be both creative and effective, you're always learning. Every campaign and even every advertisement that you create can inform what you do next.
Training?
I also studied screenwriting. Writing screenplays was one of the best exercises for my radio copy. In a screenplay, each page is an advertisement for the page that follows. If you can't sell the reader on turning the page, you lose.
Books?
Any copywriter that hasn’t read Ogilvy is missing out. And in that book, he calls radio the Cinderella medium. (He was a big fan.)
But possibly the most important book had nothing to do with copywriting. The New Pioneers: The Men and Women Who Are Transforming the Workplace and Marketplace is a book about different-thinking entrepreneurs in the pre-internet '90s. In my first class with Dick Orkin, he told me to read it. In having nothing to do with copywriting--it had everything to do with copywriting. It was the wake-up call that being a copywriter requires being interested in business and ideas and unorthodoxy.
Stuck?
Or, go for a walk and get away from whatever you're stuck on. Man does not live by being shackled to a workstation. Linda Kaplan Thaler was struggling for a solution to her creative problem. She was out of the office, standing on a sidewalk looking in a store window when she was struck with the idea for the AFLAC duck. (People thought she was insane. They insisted on also presenting a "normal" idea.)
And that's another lesson on being stuck: Be hungry to learn how other people solved creative problems.
Beyond the three questions...
An interest in writing at large is really useful. It can lead to a broader range of style and technique. My favorite writers have impacted my copy style.
Full immersion in advertising generally, and radio specifically helps. Eating, breathing and sleeping it has made my work better. Listening to Cheech & Chong, Firesign Theater, Bob & Ray, Radio Mercury winners, old radio shows...
Studying the psychology of decision making has been incredibly potent. It's hugely useful understanding what Dr. Donald Calne means when he says that intellect leads to reason but emotion leads to action. So is understanding the power of the blink moment as described by Malcolm Gladwell. And understanding the power of authenticity over fakery.
Studying iconoclasts and not being afraid to be iconoclastic has been useful. It has helped me in going out on a limb--but doing it with a strategy.
The Bottom Line
Knowing the mechanics of radio advertising is easy.
Knowing how to continually produce new and different and effective advertising without continuously plagiarizing yourself is not.
Being a copywriter requires having a global interest that encompasses many different books, courses and techniques for getting unstuck. It might end at the bottom of the page. But copywriting begins out there.
The writer of this 7/21/18 article in The Irish Times suggests that radio ads can be so bad that people are compelled to listen to make fun of them.
Anyone who regularly listens to the radio will tell you that radio advertising is reliant on a few distinct tropes. The most prevalent of these usually involves a stilted conversation between two people in which they have less than 30 seconds to get down to brass tacks. Those ads usually go a little something like this: “Anne, long time no see! How are you?” asks Mary. “I’m a little hung-over, truth be told,” Anne says with a laugh. “You’re a gas woman!” says Mary. “Speaking of gas, have you had your gas boiler serviced this year?” Fin. Just a chill, cordial conversation between two pals who haven’t seen each other for a while, you know yourself. No time for niceties when there are gas boilers to be serviced.
...
These sorts of spots do such a terrible job of re-creating natural-sounding dialogue that they make for mesmerising listening.
Read the full article here.
I started my career at a UK radio station that had 6 full time copywriters. I got 6 months experience and coaching from some of the best writers in UK radio at the time!
I learned from them and then was thrown in at the deep end moving to a station where I was the only writer.
I read as much as I could.
I did the CPCC and the Canadian CRC (the first to pass outside Canada and the US in both courses)
I still read, watch videos from the likes of Dan O'Day and Mike Bersin (Creative Led Selling).
You have to know that you know.
Then your clients have to know that you know.
I am sure there are some sales execs who are very good radio advertising copywriters.... but how many? what percentage?
i studied linguistics at the university and got internship at a news room, reporting to an editor who had worked at Voice of America,later joined an International Advertising Agency as a trainee copy Writer/Radio & Tv producer. my first copy was 4 pages and creative director , who now lives in Uk, cut the copy to 60 words , he became my mentor. Later i worked for many other agencies and interacted with over 20 creative directors and senior copy writers, most of the creative directors had studied in South Africa ,Australia , Uk and America .the training gave me the ability to morph like Mystique a la XMen . i also listened to radio , read books on copy writing like David Oglivys book, watched tapes from cannes festivals and the umbrella body for advertising in our country could organize seminars , and talks from visiting advertising gurus, like the late Andy Rock etc. When stuck? i visit the target audience and live with them, it maybe watching a football match in a hall down town or remote village ,or visiting communal activities , i have also realized that briefs from client service team can make me stuck , so a times a talk to the clients direct
From Kurt Kaniewski: I know this is a little late, but here goes. I REALLY learned to write ad copy by saving every Dick Orkin/Bert Berdis ad that came to our station, compling 'em on a cassette and listening to 'em everywhere I went-hoping through osmosis I could pick up why this "slice of life" (with a twist) style worked so well. Turns out after adding my own style, it began to make sense-to a point I've helped with ad campaigns for many satisfied clients. The ultimate barometer was having Bert Berdis write me-complimenting me on my sense of humor. Being told if he was still producing radio ads he'd fly me to New York to work for him was a nice indicator, too. My other major copy writing influence was the late Joy Golden. You may be old enough to remember the Laughing Cow Cheese campaign a while back. She wrote 'em. She actually DID fly me to New York to do some work for her. And she taught me the craft of writing monologues as opposed to dialogues. Very cool stuff!
