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Episode 184 - 4 Tips for Higher Converting Copy (w/ Jess Jordana)
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Today's guest is copywriter, Jessica Jordana, and she's here to share her thoughts on artificial intelligence and what she things it means for business owners, things she wish people knew about copywriting, and four tips for higher converting copy.
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As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check 'em out at https://daveyandkrista.com/ And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts.
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Transcript
Importance of Repetition in Messaging
00:00:05
Speaker
I think repetition is the pro move. It's not a cop out. So I think sometimes in the past, and I've done a better job on coaching clients on this upfront, but people get a little weird when you repeat the same thing from page to page or you repeat a similar thing from one part of the page to another.
00:00:25
Speaker
And that actually is intentional because you want to make sure, I mean, there are ways to say it a little bit differently, but most of the time you want to repeat the exact same thing if that's a part of your foundational message so that people come to know that about you.
AI in Business and Copywriting
00:00:42
Speaker
Welcome to the Brains That Book Show, where we help creative service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
00:00:51
Speaker
Today's guest is copywriter Jessica Jordana, and she's here to share her thoughts on artificial intelligence and what she thinks it means for business owners, things she wished people knew about copywriting, and four tips for higher converting copy. We do spend about the first 15 minutes or so discussing AI, so if you want to jump ahead to the copywriting talk, totally okay. I've included a timestamp in the episode description so that you can do just that.
00:01:14
Speaker
As I mentioned in the episode, I do generally think that AI is a bad idea, and I stand by that. But I also say that a bit tongue in cheek because I recognize that nearly all of us use tools on a daily basis that utilize some sort of AI technology. But anyways, if you don't know Jess, she's an incredibly talented copywriter, she's done a bunch of work for us before, and she's been on the podcast a few times now.
00:01:37
Speaker
Definitely be sure to check out her other episodes. I still reference a lot of the things that Jess has taught us about copyrighting. You can find all those resources more in the show notes. Also in the show notes, check out Jess's free video series on how to find your brand voice. As always, links, resources can be found in the
Introduction of Sponsor: Basecamp
00:01:56
Speaker
show notes. Check them out at DavianCresta.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts.
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Speaker
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Speaker
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Risks and Challenges of AI
00:03:20
Speaker
One of the reasons I'm excited to chat with you is because, you know, AI is all the rage now with the launch of chat GPT, how immensely popular it has become. I, you know, just the outset and you know, I'm going on the record here. AI is a terrible idea. I just think it doesn't end well.
00:03:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I would agree with my we were talking before the podcast started about my dystopian dream that I had last night and it was basically like a full dystopian world where something was taking over. I don't remember what but it was AI because there's so much content out there about
00:04:00
Speaker
how it's going to change everything. And I do think it can it has the ability to change a lot of things. But I also think that we have to go into it with our brains screwed on kind of and make sure that we're utilizing it in a way that helps us instead of just like blindly kind of following what comes out.
00:04:18
Speaker
Yeah, well, one of the cool things about AI, so there's another tool, there's chat GPT, but then OpenAI has another tool called, I think it's pronounced Dolly, D-A-L-L-E, and that's the image generator, the AI image generator, right? So what I'm going to have it do is I'm going to load a picture of you, but I'm going to ask it to create a dystopian version of you. All right, that's what I'm interested in. Like right now?
00:04:39
Speaker
No, not right now because people would be like, what is he doing? I can't see this. But you know what? I think that what I'm going to do, maybe I'll post to the show notes. No, I'm just kidding. We'll talk about it.
00:04:51
Speaker
We'll talk about that first. But that is one of the cool things about it is it's fun to play with. But to your point, or to what we were talking about earlier, and dystopias, I don't think there's an imagined AI future where people are like, oh, and this ends well. And the robots play nicely with the humans. Right. Yeah. And the weirdest thing to me about chat GPT specifically, but the direction that AI is going in general,
00:05:20
Speaker
is the fact that it can reason like I saw an article about it taking like they had it take the LSATs and the MCATs and it passed and part of those tests like the whole thing the whole reason why you don't just study the information but you also take practice tests is so that you can practice that reasoning but the tool can do that and that's a little creepy and I don't really know where that's gonna go but
AI's Impact on Copywriting
00:05:45
Speaker
Yeah. But what's interesting about that, right, is, you know, to me, it shows sort of the shortcoming of tests, you know, like, I wonder what lawyer would say, Oh, yeah, if you do really well on the LSATs, you're also for sure a really good lawyer, you know, same thing with whatever the medical test is. And so on. So I wonder if more so it's just pointed out maybe a flaw with, you know, how we test and how we determine what somebody knows.
00:06:09
Speaker
And I'd say that's even true of real life. It's like, I wonder how many academics weren't very academic or didn't feel like they're very academically gifted. I saw this viral Twitter post and it was somebody who's like, I don't know, maybe they work for SpaceX or a company like that. They're literally like building satellites that land on the moon, but they like almost failed their intro to programming class. So I wonder if it points to flaws like that.
00:06:36
Speaker
One of my weird talents is that I can pass almost any test without studying. And so it's just kind of poking holes in what is knowledge, what is intelligence, I think, because is intelligence what exists as facts in your head or is intelligence your ability to manipulate and use tools to your advantage to get a result? And I think it's more so that as we're moving toward all of this kind of stuff.
00:07:04
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the, the neural link stuff too. I don't know if you follow that with Elon Musk at all, you know, but if you start going down there, I mean that kind of stuff, again, I just, I think it ends poorly. I mean, I think like, you know, giving people the gift of walking who've never walked before is of course a good thing, you know, but there's this, at the very end of the path here, I just think it's bad. But anyways, we're not really here to talk about,
00:07:27
Speaker
This dystopian future we're ending up in. We are going to chat about AI and how we can use AI. And then we're going to jump into some copywriting tips because we have a copywriting expert with us. So outside of general thoughts about AI and what it means for our future, the future of humanity, what are you thinking about AI and how it impacts, especially the copywriting industry and various creative industries? Is it good? Is it bad? How are you feeling about it? Where can we find these tools useful and so on?
00:07:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think that there's this interesting thread on Twitter that's like farewell copywriters kind of thing. And I think they're just absolutely wrong because I think the biggest thing that I hear, inquiries, students, like people who use promptlets, anybody coming into my DM inbox asking me is not how do I put more volume of content out there? It's how do I sound more like myself? How do I connect with the right people?
00:08:25
Speaker
How do I kind of get them to take action consistently? So I think it's not getting at that as much. And so if that's your kind of root problem, I do not think that AI is going to solve that for you.
00:08:40
Speaker
But I think if you can work to solve some of those problems and have your foundational messaging in place, that it can help you get faster at things. It can help you repurpose content to put it out in more places and things like that. I just don't think it's going to replace a copywriter or the work that a business owner has to do in order to get that clarity in order to get consistent and sounding like themselves and all of that kind of stuff.
AI as a Content Creation Collaborator
00:09:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And I guess even something like chat GPT, and have you played around with chat GPT at all? Yeah. Yeah. And so even something like chat GPT, what you get out of it is only as good as what you put into it. You know, any of these super fun to play with, but you know, if you're trying to write sales copy, let's say, and you don't give it a good prompt and then work the prompt from there in a significant way, then what you get is pretty bland. You know, it might be better than maybe what you feel like you can just do by, you know, sitting down or,
00:09:39
Speaker
you know, whatever, not really thinking about it, but it's not necessarily top notch.
00:09:45
Speaker
I could die on the hill of templates don't solve problems for everybody. I'm not talking about design templates, but copy templates specifically I have a bone to pick. I think that's why I created promptlets because the whole concept of promptlets is that the prompts help you get that quality information out so that then you have something to put into the template. I think that's where people miss the mark.
00:10:13
Speaker
just knowing what to put on the page is going to solve their problem. But then if you don't know where to go access that information about your own business or you don't even know how to answer those questions or anything like that, you don't know how to say something in the way that you would say it, then that's not going to help you at all. And I think another thing that's important to remember is that there are a million ways to say anything. And I bet if you and I
00:10:39
Speaker
typed the same prompt into chat GPT, we would get something different out of it. So it's not that like an AI tool is gonna give you the right answer that's like living somewhere. It's just going to give you an answer. And whether or not that's quality or not, you have to have the filter and the clarity about your own business to take it through in order to see is this something that is gonna work for my business or for my audience or whatever.
00:11:06
Speaker
And if you don't have that filter, then it's just going to be more words on the internet, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Have you used chat GPT for any projects at all, whether internally or externally or a tool like that?
00:11:19
Speaker
I mostly use it to ideate. I think subject lines are a dime a dozen. So when I'm writing subject lines for my own content, I like to just play around and see what it would suggest and see if there's an angle that I haven't thought of to kind of go at it from. And same thing with like headlines for blog posts or whatever. I have used it to simplify a really difficult topic.
00:11:46
Speaker
So I was writing for a client about, this is like a really heady topic, about the intersection between capitalism and socialism and how we can bring those things together. And my brain is like, okay, how would I explain capitalism and socialism to a second grader and then put those things together in a way that makes sense? So I just kind of used it to simplify that. But in order to do that, I had to already know what I was going for.
00:12:15
Speaker
because it could give me, I mean, those are big topics. So it could give me a million different things, but I had to know what I was trying to clarify or what I wanted to come out of it in order to get it to really help me. Oh, that's amazing. You know, off the record, you're going to have to send me that copy. I am so interested in seeing it. So even the stuff you use, so I've used it in largely the same way where, you know, if I want to come up with a couple subject lines, you know, I might do that.
00:12:43
Speaker
I have found that, and I don't want to say I've never used anything from chat GPT, but off the top of my head, I cannot think of a single example of a subject line that like I actually use from chat GPT, but there's a subject line that maybe will come up and I'll be like, oh, that's interesting. And then from there will lead to other test subject lines, you know, and I'll ultimately use one of those. And so, you know, to a certain extent, maybe it helped me get to my end result quicker. Maybe I wouldn't have come up with the end subject line,
00:13:12
Speaker
or I wouldn't have chosen the subject line I did without chat GPT's help. So I found it really helpful in that regard, but I haven't actually found myself using things from chat GPT. Yeah, but I think that that's such an interesting skill in and of itself, like both as former teachers, the thing, I mean, I taught AP language to high school juniors. And the main thing we were studying was analyzing why something is persuasive.
00:13:38
Speaker
So in order to be able to use chat GPT to generate ideas and then say, Oh, I like that one. You have to then tell yourself, why do I like that? And how can I extend that in another way? And that's a big skill. Like that's something that takes seeing a lot of different marketing or seeing what works with your audience and things like that. And so I think cultivating the ability to analyze, Oh, this captured my attention. Why is that? Or.
00:14:06
Speaker
What specifically do I like about this headline can
AI's Transformative Potential
00:14:10
Speaker
be really valuable as business owners because then you can not just notice what is intriguing, but you can manipulate it to help your own copy as well.
00:14:20
Speaker
So would you say like analysis of chat GPT right now? I think there's a new model of it coming out in 2023 or 2024 that graphic that was like the dot and like the big circle. It's like, I'm going to try to describe this for podcast listeners, but it was basically a graphic that had like a little dot and it said what chat GPT knows now. And then it had like a giant circle and it was like what the next
00:14:47
Speaker
iteration of chat GPT knows, which is that's the scary thing, I think. Yeah, no, I think for sure. You know, I mean, I think very much we're living in a moment that's kind of like the iPhone, you know, and maybe even more transformative than the iPhone, but it's hard to remember what life was like before the iPhone.
00:15:04
Speaker
and just everything, all the little things that it introduced that we just take for granted right now. And I think chat GPT is largely like that. You know, it's interesting for a friend had asked me to send her a prediction for 2023, you know, it was part of a roundup post. And I'm not sure if that's gone live yet, but if it is, I'll put the link in the show notes so listeners can go and check out all the different predictions.
00:15:23
Speaker
But one of my predictions around chat GPT in particular, and I think these AI tools that are able to generate content at scale is that a brand, I think is just going to become that much more important, you know, because I'm already skeptical of a lot of what I find on the internet, right?
00:15:41
Speaker
But now that I know that, okay, well, was this blog post even written by humans, right? There's going to be an extra layer of like, well, who actually wrote this? And I'm probably going to give more weight to organizations that I already know and I already trust their expertise. Yeah, they could be using AI, but they've already built that reputation or that I know they have a serious human element.
00:16:05
Speaker
Like I'm just going to trust that more than AI. And I just think that there's certain things that I'm not sure how AI would ever replace. I think the example that I use, I don't know, one of my blog posts or maybe it was one of the SEO lessons I was just working on was backpacks. I love, it's kind of a weird thing, but I love backpacks. And when you're reading reviews on backpacks,
00:16:27
Speaker
What is AI gonna tell me about a backpack, right? Like it could probably come up with a pretty compelling post around one, but at the end of the day, the reviews that I ultimately go to are the ones with video anyways, you know, and it's actual person talking about this bag, you know? So I do think that there's a limit to what AI can offer us. And I think that ties in really well with what you brought up. Like, you know, if you don't know your idea client, if you don't know your brand voice, like,
00:16:53
Speaker
Yeah, you can get something that's good enough, maybe, out of chat GPT, but it's not gonna be particularly compelling, you know? What you put in is what you're gonna get out.
00:17:01
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that kind of goes toward, is AI going to be an extension of your knowledge? So is it going to take your existing knowledge and extend it in some way? Or is it going to generate your knowledge? You don't want that one, definitely. So I think that's important for us to kind of differentiate. Same thing I was looking, Presley and I were researching
00:17:27
Speaker
Disneyland with a toddler because we're going to Disney with Parker and April and we're trying to find out what's the best way to rent a stroller when you're flying to Disneyland because we don't want to take our big stroller but we want that in the parks and I keep finding like how to rent a stroller in Disney and I'm like no no no I want to know the best service
00:17:51
Speaker
that you can rent it from and why? Like, why is that like the hack on Disneyland? And so I think that's where that experience comes into play. And that's something that you can't get from AI generated content, at least not authentically. So I think that's, yeah, definitely really important in terms of your brand, like what's your take on things? And then also, where does your credibility come into play in that?
00:18:17
Speaker
Yeah, I just think with the how ubiquitous information is across the web and how much more information there's about to be because all these content sites are going to be flooding the internet with all these AI generated content or articles. It's just going to be that much important to focus on your brand. How do you build trust with people? And I think that's a matter of becoming more human, becoming more personal.
00:18:41
Speaker
So it'll be interesting, but just putting a bow on this conversation, you know, that I think distinction between whether AI will one day be, you know, an extension of our knowledge or generating or not, you know, how that interplay that kind
Consistency in Copywriting
00:18:55
Speaker
of scares me. So
00:18:56
Speaker
We should probably get to some copywriting tips though, because really when we first started talking, one of the things that we wanted to chat about was conversion copywriting. So writing copy that actually gets people to take action. And just to set this up, you know, a lot of this I think comes from
00:19:16
Speaker
having discovery calls with people who are like, well, I'm a pretty good writer, I can do this, right? And one of the things that I've been trying to convey to people, and I don't know how adequately I do this on calls, is that it's like hiring a friend who's really good with a camera for wedding pictures, right? Yeah. Like there are two different things. Like, yeah, they might get a couple of nice shots of you, but it's not gonna look like if you hired somebody who does this day in and day out, right? And I think copywriting, it's just so overlooked in that regard.
00:19:46
Speaker
Yeah, you might be able to write some nice things about you and your business or, you know, what is it you do? But a copywriter is just thinking on a whole different level about getting people to take action. I mean, I think maybe twofold, getting people to trust you and then getting people to take action. So, I mean, I don't know what comes to mind there. Like, is that a conversation you often have with people as they're considering copywriting?
00:20:07
Speaker
Yeah. I definitely think that conversion is the buzzword, right? I think differently from like four or five years ago, almost everybody in the business world knows the word conversion now, but do they actually understand like the depth of what that means? Because we think about like, yes, technically conversion in the business sense is the purchase point ultimately, but you also have conversions for free things. You also have,
00:20:36
Speaker
when you're asking people to take action on smaller non-sales kind of things, is that converting. Conversion really just means changing something from one state into another. And I think that has to happen consistently and holistically throughout our businesses if we want the
00:20:57
Speaker
point of sale conversion to be really strong. Even the Jasper.ai tool says that it writes high converting copy, but I can imagine it's mostly just writing high converting copy around the point of sale. It has high converting button copy or whatever, but it's not taking that whole customer journey of establishing trust, of being consistent and showing up day in and day out.
00:21:27
Speaker
repeating your message over and over in a way that people understand. It's not taking any of those aspects of conversion into account. So I think that's something that kind of needs to be talked about because that is really just a matter of consistency. It's a matter of connection and all of that is going to contribute to conversion. But I think people just think about that like last action.
00:21:51
Speaker
Yeah, I would agree. I think that's such an important part. And I love how you approach copy and having worked with you before, like you working on a number of our projects. You do that so well, but it is so important, right? To take the whole customer journey into account. I guess, you know, sometimes I wonder, maybe this is a quick aside, like, are there a certain punch list of things that you just wish clients would know? You know, like sometimes you wish if you could just speak to them plainly, Hey, this is what you need to know about this topic.
00:22:18
Speaker
Yeah, I think, I mean, these are in no particular order. I'm just going to say as they come to mind. But I think repetition is the pro move. It's not a cop out. So I think sometimes in the past, and I've done a better job on coaching clients on this upfront, but people get a little weird when you repeat the same thing from page to page or you repeat a similar thing from one part of the page to another.
00:22:43
Speaker
And that actually is intentional because you want to make sure I mean there are ways to say it a little bit differently but most of the time you want to repeat the exact same thing if that's a part of your foundational message so that people come to know that about you or can start to register it in their brains because I mean
00:23:04
Speaker
the very old statistic was what like seven to nine touch points make a sale i would imagine that somewhere between like sixteen and twenty now with the amount of noise in the world but in order for sixteen to twenty
00:23:19
Speaker
touch points to contribute to the same desired sale, the same message has to get to them 16 to 20 times. And so I think that's really, really important that just because you're repeating yourself doesn't mean you don't know what else to say. It actually means you know what's important in your message and you know that you need to repeat that. So I would say that's the first one. What do you think about that?
00:23:42
Speaker
Oh, 100%, I think repetition builds trust, right? Like I wanna hear, I mean, again, we use Dave Ramsey as an example a lot in this regard, right? I mean, you listen to one Dave Ramsey episode, you've listened to them all, you know? But one of the reasons you trust him is because his message is just on point every time. He might, in working with a particular caller, for instance, you know, that might be unique, but what he's telling them, you've heard in every other episode that he's recorded, right?
00:24:08
Speaker
Same thing with like, if you're reading the sales pages of his various programs and books and things like that, you know, you just hear the same lines over and over and over and over again. One, I think that's the way your message gets through. I mean, to your point, I wish that everybody was reading every word on my Show It SEO course sales page, but the reality is they're not, right? And so I have to repeat things and I have to repeat things from my ad to the sales page and then the emails and so on and so forth.
00:24:35
Speaker
But then again, I just think it builds trust. I think it builds consistency. You don't want to be going to somebody who's saying something different every time you talk to them.
00:24:42
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I don't know if this is a weird thing that I do, but I listen to a lot of podcasts. And I typically, the ones that I listen to regularly, I recite their intro, like, with them. It's very weird. But, like, imagine if I was listening to the Brands at Book podcast or whatever and the intro was different every single time, then I couldn't have... And it's like this kind of nostalgia and, like,
00:25:11
Speaker
knowingness of the podcast that you're like, Oh, there's like a comfort, a comfort to it, I think. Yes. Yeah. And so I think that is, it's the same thing. Like I can't even tell you how many times I've said in presentations and summits and podcasts over the years, connection is the conversion long game. And I say that over and over and over again, because that's what I believe. That's like the heart of the copy that I write for clients. And so I think that that is so important to,
00:25:38
Speaker
And it doesn't even have to be some special tagline either. I think that can feel a little overwhelming to non-writers, but it really can just be like, what do you believe about what you teach? Can you say that over and over and over again? Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's so good. Well, should we move on or are there other things that you feel like, Oh, I wish I could just, I wish everybody knew this about copywriting.
00:25:59
Speaker
I think we can move on. The other one that I was going to say is that it's not always a copy problem. If you have a sales problem, I think this goes back to the holistic customer journey. Copy at the point of conversion is not necessarily going to save a business or solve everything inside of a business. I think sometimes people treat it like that.
00:26:24
Speaker
Oh, if I just knew what to write for this button, then like everything would change. And there's just so much more that goes into it. And I think that can feel empowering to business owners because you have the power to really strengthen your conversions by how you show up day in and day out, by how you do the things that you do know how to do. So I think that that's
00:26:47
Speaker
both an encouragement to just not view copy as like the be all end all. It's definitely very important and I don't want to kind of gloss over that, but it also is so much strengthened by the consistency of the business owner and how you're showing up in general.
00:27:04
Speaker
Yeah, Chris and I actually just before this recorded episode on creating like sort of a beginner's marketing plan. You know, if you don't know where to start, start here sort of thing. A lot of it centers around consistency. You know, I think like just showing up day in and day out and I think oftentimes we're looking for the silver bullet, whether it be from, you know, if I just hired this person to do my website or just hired this person to do my copy, if I just hire these people to do my ads
Managing Copywriting Expectations
00:27:25
Speaker
or
00:27:25
Speaker
you know, if I just had a little bit more money or I just took this course, right? And it's never any one of those things, even though any one of those things could make a difference, right? And they certainly come together, you know, hopefully in a positive way, but a lot of it is just a consistency of showing up every single day and getting a little bit better each day, I think, you know?
00:27:43
Speaker
Yeah. And I think a lot of the silver bulletness of some of those things is that it helps you show up more confidently and more consistently. So like ads, for example, helps you show up in front of more people and getting a copywriter to help you with your message helps you feel more confident about the message that you're putting out there. So I think, yeah, it all comes back to that consistency for sure.
00:28:05
Speaker
Yeah, I love both of those things, repetition and consistency and realizing, you know, the problems usually never just that one thing. I like that. So moving on though, I guess I want to get to some of your best tips or writing copy that gets people to take action. And we talked about sort of that holistic approach before that too, because I usually save this kind of question to the end. You know, it's not realistic and I think it's going to tie into your tips as well. I think it's not realistic for most businesses to
00:28:32
Speaker
hire a copywriter for everything they need copy for. I'd say that the punch list of things like if you have a budget for, I'd say like brand identity is up there, website copy is up there, sales pages for your flagship course is up there.
00:28:48
Speaker
the daily social media posts you do, that's copy. You want to know some copywriting, enough to make you dangerous to be able to write that post and compel people to take action, right? But you're not gonna hire a copywriter usually to do that for you. So I guess two-part question. Before you get to the tips, the first part would be, what would you recommend for people building basic copywriting skills on their own, just enough so that they can, like I said, they can be dangerous?
00:29:17
Speaker
And then we'll jump into your best tips for writing copy to get people to take action. First, I would totally agree. I would not advise a business owner to hire a copywriter for every single word in their business. I just think that is wildly unapproachable. And it's also not helpful to you as a business owner because it kind of
00:29:37
Speaker
has you leapfrogging over that valuable clarity that you get as you write for your own business and as you try to put things into words that make sense to people. I think skill-wise, I think the very first thing, and this might be a little bit unexpected, is first and foremost, you need to learn to manage your brain. I think that part of the reason why
00:30:04
Speaker
A lot of business owners think that they're bad writers is because they're expecting way too much from their brain. They're expecting to sit down at a blank page and just magically come up with the perfect headline for their services page or whatever that like sounds like them speaks to the right people, all of that kind of stuff. And that's just not how the brain works. Like first you have to get all the pertinent information out of your head and onto paper.
00:30:29
Speaker
Then you have to kind of design the flow of the page in terms of outlining and then you have to maybe take a few cracks at a headline or you have to write the body copy first and then decide what headline makes sense for that body copy. Like it's not just a one and done sit down and it magically happens kind of thing. And so I think the way that I teach my students and clients to manage their brain is
00:30:55
Speaker
quite simply just to break up the process. So to get your ideas down first, then to outline and decide what you're going to write. Then without what you're going to write, write each section or get the information in place and then kind of edit and revise from there because
00:31:13
Speaker
Our brains can't physically create and edit at the same time. And whenever you sit down and try to write the perfect thing in 30 seconds, your editing brain is going to take over and just tell you that you're stupid to be honest. That would be the first thing.
00:31:30
Speaker
That's one of the hardest things I think, you know, in that advice was just to sit down and start writing. My editing brain is always on, you know? And that's, I think, you know, something that I wish I could get over. I'm thinking even just writing papers and stuff like that. I wish I could just sit down and write. And because when I let myself do that, you know, one, I finish quicker, right? And two, you know, I often get to where I'm going quicker because, and it might seem not intuitive, but then I can go back and all of a sudden it's a lot easier to copy edit what you wrote.
00:31:59
Speaker
Yeah, I think you can also cultivate the skill of creation in other avenues. Like I know that you write different things than just like business content. And so I think that's kind of where you can cultivate your creation brain as you're writing these things that are just kind of like letting your brain flow. And then you get into the business stuff and it's more of an editing kind of situation. So I think that's another way to do it. But I definitely think like the
00:32:28
Speaker
I'm going to sit down in a blank page or worse in the back end of my template and go to this one section and just expect words to pop into my brain. And that's just not how it works. Yeah. Yeah. What's your next step? The next one would be to learn how to sound like yourself.
00:32:48
Speaker
So this doesn't seem like something that you would need to learn, but nobody has taught us how to write in a way that sounds like us. They've actually kind of tried to squelch that out of us through school and essay writing and college and all of the things.
00:33:04
Speaker
And so I think the best way to do that, I actually have a free video training that kind of teaches you how to find your voice, but it really is to simply just like listen to yourself and document. And I give a simpler way to kind of do that or a more defined way to do that in the video series. But I think that that is something that's overlooked a lot of times. People are either
00:33:26
Speaker
writing in a very academic scientific sort of way or they think that their brand voice exists somewhere and like needs to be found when really it's just starting to write more personably and really sounding a lot more like yourself in conversation. Yeah.
00:33:45
Speaker
That's one of the things that I'm excited for. Maybe a chat GPT will do away with, you know, the traditional essay writing, because I mean, to your point, right? I mean, it's like, that's what we learned growing up. And so if you, you know, if you struggled in English class your entire life, you grow up and you're like, oh, I'm a bad writer. But heck, you know, that has nothing to do with, you know, whether you could be, you could be a great copywriter.
Effective Copywriting Tips
00:34:05
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, and then the last thing I think would be to have a list of I Call it like an offer sheet like just something in a Google Doc That's like your offers and what they are who they're for and kind of just like small copy tidbits for each offer because I think a lot of times we go to like quote unquote sell something and we get
00:34:32
Speaker
all up in arms about not knowing how to be clear about it on not knowing how to say it and things like that when really it's just that it's a heightened moment and you know what your program is about. You know what it does for people who it's for all that but you just need it to exist somewhere outside of your brain so that you can pull from it whenever it's time to write that like high converting copy or whatever.
00:34:56
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I think one thing that I try to do is keep a list of, you know, if I'm writing a sales page for, it doesn't matter what it's for, but any one of our products and I'm like, oh, I really like this line or this whatever, you know, I put it in a separate doc because then I, you know, I have this whole doc I can pull stuff from and I can rearrange and combine things and all of a sudden I have something new. Again, going back to your point earlier about repetition, you know, it's like, if I like this, you know, and I have it on a sales page somewhere, like that doesn't mean I can't use it for an email or I can't use it for a social media post.
00:35:26
Speaker
not everybody's gonna read every word. You're always gonna have turnover in your audience as well. So I think that's a really valuable advice too. Well, we should probably get into your best tips for copywriting. I'll save my aside. I'm just, I'm the king of asides. And aside, let's just talk about,
00:35:43
Speaker
So anyways, your four best tips for copywriting, that's what you got here. I wanna make sure that people know that the free video series is going to be in the show notes as well. So people can access that. Cause you mentioned that in passing. We'll talk more about that in a minute. All right, tip one. Yeah. So tip number one is to have a goal in mind. I think this is like everybody's tip for everything, but I think it's sometimes overlooked. We go to write something and we imagine that people are just gonna take action because they feel so compelled from what we write.
00:36:13
Speaker
when really we don't know how exactly we want them to take action or are we specifically wanting them to go to our free video series or buy the thing or book a call or whatever. So I think having that goal in mind very, very specifically from the beginning really helps to make sure that you're going to get there and that you're not going to forget to tell them to do it that way at the end of it, which that's skipping to part of number four, but that's number one is to have a goal in mind.
00:36:43
Speaker
Yeah, it's like one of those things where I always tell people when we talk about marketing, it's like, well, you need to really understand your ideal client. You need to come up with that client avatar. And it feels so lame to say, okay, like Davey, but then get on to what the real stuff is, right? But this is the real stuff. This is just a simple thing where it's like, well, yeah, I mean, I kind of know in the back of my head, no, write it down. So anyways, tip two.
00:37:10
Speaker
Tip number two is to cultivate action before the sale. This is going toward that holistic customer journey. It's asking people in your social media posts to comment or to DM you or to go read this blog post or whatever. It's showing people
00:37:30
Speaker
how to function within your world and that is to take action. I think if the first time you ask somebody to take action is to buy something, then you're not going to get a very great result.
00:37:45
Speaker
going along with that establishing trust, people need to know that when they take action with you, they get something desirable. So that could be they DM you when they get a DM back. It could be they read a blog post and they get a good takeaway, but that's going to transfer to the sale ultimately because they're going to transfer that trust and know, okay, when I take action with Davey, then I'm going to get a desirable result.
00:38:12
Speaker
Yeah, and I think those kinds of things can be cultivated in, to your point, every marketing channel that you run. I think email's particularly important. I always try to make sure that there is a reason to click on a button in an email. Oftentimes, our emails are just directing people to the content we've created for that week, but I think there's something important about getting people to actually read that post in the blog post itself.
00:38:39
Speaker
obvious benefits like there's some SEO benefits in there and so on and so forth, but like just that action of clicking the button and getting them to, you know, go to whatever is so important. So you can think about them in terms of these little micro yeses, I think along the way. But yeah, I think that's incredibly important. Yeah. And I think like, I mean, I really cultivate replies from my emails just because I think
00:39:01
Speaker
that's my strength is conversation so i tend to play on that inside of my business and nothing is going to be like a slap in the mouth when you like put your heart out there in an email reply and then nobody emails you back like
00:39:16
Speaker
So I've really worked from the very beginning to, even when people weren't replying to my emails, I would say on like my Instagram stories, I set aside half an hour every week to reply to people who respond to my emails. And that was absolutely true, but nobody was responding yet. But what that did is it established trust that I was gonna reply back and that I was there to actually kind of converse with them. So I think like,
00:39:43
Speaker
kind of showing proof that you're there to receive whatever action they are going to give you, I think can go a long way. Yeah, I think that just makes such a big difference too. And I think people are so jaded as well with hearing that kind of stuff. Like, you know, if people respond to our newsletter nine times out of 10, I am the one responding to them. Unless it's like a support issue, then of course, you know, Krista, our member of the support team will take care of that. Or if it's like more of a design question, but it will be like me or Krista,
00:40:13
Speaker
I remember we were, I was on a call for like this high level mastermind I was trying to be sold on, you know? Trying to be. Yeah, it was like, well, you know, you take this call and you kind of know they're going to sell you on it. But you know, this was like a $30,000 investment.
00:40:29
Speaker
and the person who was selling it wasn't even on the call. It was just like one of their setters, you know? And I just thought to myself from like, from minute one, it was like, ah, okay. Well, you know, like if I'm going to be paying $30,000 for a mastermind, you know, like I want to know this guy showing up, you know, like that's the guy I want to talk to. I don't know. I think those things go a long way, but anyways.
00:40:51
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. What number are we on? I think this is three. So I think it's important for especially business owners who label themselves as bad writers to focus less on saying it differently and to focus more on meeting your person in the moment. So I think a lot of times like photographer, for example, we get hung up on how do I say that I take pictures in a different way? Like how do I say that in a way that nobody's ever said it before?
00:41:20
Speaker
And that's not quite as important as knowing your ideal client, like you said, and being able to really specifically meet them in that moment. So whether you're painting the picture of what they're feeling right now, or you are painting the picture of what's possible when they hire you as their photographer, I think meeting people in that moment is going to go a lot further in terms of connection and trust. And then that is going to further them down the line. They're not going to sit there and say,
00:41:50
Speaker
Oh, this person didn't say that they took pictures in like different words. So I'm not going to hire them kind of thing. So just focus on the right thing and don't get hung up on that like kind of egotistical like I'm not going to say it in this same way kind of thing.
00:42:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think we give people similar advice for copywriting when it comes to ads, you know, like if you don't feel like you're a great writer, you don't have to write long form ad copy, you know, you keep it short and punchy. And, you know, that's going to be better than trying to force the long form, you know, you're trying to sound fancier than maybe you're capable of sounding in that moment. I don't know. And it just leads to confusion.
00:42:29
Speaker
Yeah, I do think sometimes short and punchy is a lot harder than long form. Yeah, for sure. It kind of depends. For sure. Yeah, I mean, no, that's that's true, too, you know, but I think there is this relief of pressure when you realize, okay, well, you know, I don't have to write five paragraphs.
00:42:46
Speaker
Yeah, you don't have to sound smart. You can just kind of say it and be done with it. Absolutely. So number one is have a goal in mind. Number two, cultivate action before the sale. Number three, meeting your person in the moment. And then what's number four?
00:43:03
Speaker
Number four is to ask clearly and remind them of the reason. So this kind of goes back to having that goal in mind. If you want them to comment on your Instagram caption, then ask them clearly to comment.
00:43:18
Speaker
and then reminding them why they would do that. I think this is a big hack. These phrases are really, really helpful. So we have, if this, then that, or since you this, then you want to do this, or because you're here, I know you want to do this. So those are really powerful phrases because you're saying,
00:43:40
Speaker
If this resonated with you, then take this specific action and people's brains really just want to follow through on that. And the other two are really just variations on that. We're kind of calling out their identity being tied to the action that we want them to take. And that's a really compelling way to do it because people want to
00:44:02
Speaker
If they feel excited because of what you just said, they wanna follow through on that excitement to get the result that is possible from that. And so if you tell them taking this action is gonna get you there, then they're gonna be more likely to do that. So I think that is more compelling than just saying, comment on this. It's saying, if you really resonated with this, then comment below. And that is super simple, but it is more compelling as a reader to wanna carry that out.
00:44:29
Speaker
Yeah. Do you have a list of those phrases that you use? I do. Inside the promptlets, we have like a whole sentence starter kind of thing for headlines and just sentence starters in general that are frames to help you say something in a certain way. But the caveat with that is that I wouldn't provide a list just kind of cold like that because most people don't have the meat to go inside of it. So we try to make sure that they have
00:44:58
Speaker
kind of the substance before we then give them the frames to put them inside of. Yeah, I could see how those frames would be hugely helpful. You know, one that we talk about a lot is just being able to say, so that, you know? Yeah, so you can. Yeah. And it's just, you know, I think it's one of those things is such a simple, and I fall prey to this as well, where I'll be writing. And, you know, especially if I have Krista or Jesse or somebody look at my copy and they'll be like, well,
00:45:25
Speaker
you know, what is this going to allow them to do? You know, like this is, and so just always remembering like all, you know, just by adding a simple phrase, like so that you can, you know, whatever.
00:45:35
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, even like if we think about a blog post, like you could have a blog post that's like how to write better about page copy, or you could have a blog post that's how to write better about page copy for more conversions or for more sales. And that's obviously going to be more compelling. It reminds me of, I used to write in like big purple letters. I wouldn't grade in red, but purple letters. So what on my students papers, cause like you're telling me these things, but I don't know why that matters. Like what's the
00:46:04
Speaker
point. And so that is a way to really make sure that your people are reminded constantly of the results that they can get as they're taking those actions.
Resources for Copywriting Skills
00:46:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's such good advice. I want you to talk about the free video series as well. And I'll make sure that's mentioned at the beginning of the episode where people can hear from you. I mean, I just did a SEO session for one of your copywriting groups. So I know that you are providing tools for other copywriters as well. I really enjoyed doing that. So maybe you could speak to that as well. Cause I know we have listeners who have written in saying, Hey, I'm, I'm trying to get better at this. So what are the various resources that you offer?
00:46:42
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So for business owners who are wanting to write better copy or to sound more like themselves or to really connect with the right people, the free video series is called how my students have gone from writer's block to booked out using these copy conversion tips. So it's really going to help you in just three videos that amount to less than 45 minutes total. It's going to help you establish more of that foundational message that is unique to you.
00:47:11
Speaker
that is really going to get you more of those conversions in bookings or purchases or whatever your business model is. So that is at JessicaJordana.com slash writers block. And we'll hopefully put that in the show notes. And then I mostly do everything on Instagram. I'm at JessJordana on Instagram, but I did just finish out my first cohort of my copywriter program, which is called the wildly wealthy
00:47:37
Speaker
Writers Club and that is really just my place to have copywriters pick my brain about what it looks like to run a successful copy business like services business because I think a lot of people are educating on how to scale with courses or how to scale with
00:47:56
Speaker
group programs or whatever but not a lot of people are teaching how to actually scale and get more out of your businesses with your services and it's a lot simpler than you would think it would be so a lot of the copywriter program is tying people back to what is simple and the
00:48:16
Speaker
kind of series that I use to lead into that if you're a copywriter who's interested in that is called 10 things I'm afraid to tell copywriters about my successful business. And so it's basically kind of everything that I've done embarrassingly wrong in my business when it comes to being a services based business owner and kind of airing my dirty laundry on that and showing you how you can
Conclusion and Appreciation
00:48:41
Speaker
do it better than I did. So we can leave the link for that and the show notes. I'm not sure what the URL is on that right now, so I can give it to you later. Yeah. We'll make sure that we get all that and that all of that is listed in the show notes. If you're interested in any of that, you know, I posted on LinkedIn.
00:48:58
Speaker
because I used to post something like that, I need to be better. But it was, one of the things I was talking about was we have an intern, really it's Krista's intern, but we're teaching her marketing stuff because that's what we do as a business in addition to brand and website design.
00:49:13
Speaker
I think the most important skill that somebody can learn as a business owner is copywriting. I think that's where it should start. I think if you're taking a first semester course on business, it should be copywriting, mandatory skill, everybody learns this. Not that everybody has to become a copywriter, but to learn enough to be dangerous, because it's just going to, everything you do in your business is going to revolve, I think, around copy.
00:49:39
Speaker
So anyways, thank you Jess for your time and expertise. I've become sort of the king of the sides lately, you know, where it's like, you know, there's so many things that I'd love to chat about and you, you know, you've done so many different things well. So it's hard to fit into one episode everything that I want to fit in from, you know, what you're thinking about AI to, you know, all the latest copywriting tips and, you know, of course just more generically running a business. But I always appreciate you being so generous with your time and what you know.
00:50:07
Speaker
Yeah, of course. This was fun and I hope that it's helpful and I'm always here to chat about the asides or to do another episode if we can't fit it in. Awesome. Thank you. All right, thanks. Thanks for tuning into the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to dvandchrista.com.
00:50:41
Speaker
you