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Episode 177: How to Cut Through the Noise in 2023 (w/ Ashlyn Carter)
1.8k Plays2 years ago
Today’s guest is copywriter Ashlyn Carter. Long time listeners of Brands that Book will remember that Ashlyn was one of the very first guests of the podcast. Back in episode 2, she talked about how to write high converting website copy—that episode is still full of practical tips, so be sure to check it out if you haven't listened to it. Ashlyn has written sales copy for some of the biggest names in the creative industry and has earned the reputation of someone who has really honed her craft.
As always, be sure to check out the show notes at https://daveyandkrista.com/how-to-cut-noise-2023/ for the resources we mention during the episode.
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Transcript
Combatting Offer Fatigue
00:00:05
Speaker
And one thing that really scared me this launch, it was our 11th launch of Copywriting for Creatives, is offer fatigue. I think that is very prevalent, and you've got to figure out a way, whether it's a new hook, when you're coming in with the angle of what's going on in the world, or just thinking outside of the box, I think it's very important. You've got to nail that. Offer fatigue is real.
Podcast Introduction: Davy and Ashlyn
00:00:29
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands at Book Show, where we help creative, service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
00:00:39
Speaker
Today's guest is copywriter Ashlyn Carter. Longtime listeners of the Brands That Book podcast will remember that Ashlyn was one of the very first guests on the podcast. All the way back in episode two, she talked about how to write high converting website copy, an episode that's still relevant today and still full of practical tips. So if you haven't listened to it, be sure to check out that episode as well.
00:01:01
Speaker
Ashlyn has written sales copy for some of the biggest names in the creative industry and has earned the reputation of someone who has really honed her craft.
Copywriting Insights and Trends
00:01:09
Speaker
In today's episode, we benefit not only from her expertise as a copywriter, but also as a business owner. We cover a range of topics from the importance of emotional hooks to her best tips for writing headlines and what she thinks is coming in the next year. We also get to hear about a fascinating email project that she's been working on. And we just get to catch up.
00:01:29
Speaker
As always, be sure to check out the show notes at dvandcrested.com for the resources we mentioned during the episode. And before we move on, can I ask you a favor? If you enjoy listening to the brand set book podcast and find this episode helpful, would you mind heading over to Apple Podcasts and leaving us a review? Reviews are helpful for so many different reasons, but most importantly, they let us know that the kind of content we're producing is the kind of content you want to hear. Now, enough from me, on to the episode.
Games and Marketing: Settlers of Catan
00:02:05
Speaker
Do you play Settlers of Catanidil?
00:02:07
Speaker
Is that the one in Parks and Rec? No. I'm not sure. I didn't watch Ton of Parks and Rec, but it's a great board game. I feel like you've been like Parks and Rec. I know. Yeah, everybody says that, and I just need to find what network it's on and maybe go finish some episodes. Yeah. But it's one of our favorite things to do at like our till retreats. Jesse, Ryan, and I have been talking about doing like a YouTube podcast where we invite a fourth person to come play, and then we just talk marketing while we play. That is a brilliant idea. What do you think? I love that.
00:02:36
Speaker
I would have to learn how to play first. That's right. It'd be more fun if you were learning as you went. Well, I'm going to put you on the list for when we do that.
Business Hurdles and Team Growth
00:02:46
Speaker
Good deal. So I reached out, it's been way too long. And when I reached out to see if you'd come back on the podcast, which you graciously have, and I really appreciate, I kid you not, 24 hours later,
00:02:59
Speaker
my sister texted me and was like, I love Ashlyn Carter. I have no, I have no use for any of her like Instagram or YouTube. Like she's not a copywriter by trade, right? Yeah. But she's like, I love all the content she produces. And I'm like, this is so random. I so appreciate that. Yeah. And I thought I was like, this is so rare. I was like, did Krista tell you that she's coming back on the podcast in a few weeks? She's like, no.
00:03:21
Speaker
She was just watching whatever and texted me since she knew you'd been on the podcast before. Did she follow the entrepreneurial world? Yeah, she follows the entrepreneurial world. And she is in marketing. So when she says she has no use for those, what she means is that she's not specifically a copywriter, although I'm sure she utilizes what she learns and all that. I just thought that was so funny. So I had to share that. Yeah, that's going to be my... I'm going to rattle on that for a week. Thank you so much.
00:03:47
Speaker
So she was really excited to hear that you're coming back on the podcast. And we have so much to talk about because we haven't really talked for the last, we haven't connected for the last few years. You know, we're coming up on 2023 and I'm excited to hear like, what'd you think about what's coming up? But before we get there, what's been going on? What's been the latest? We, so, gosh, it's been
00:04:08
Speaker
I think like 2021 was my hardest year in business. And then I think 2022 was like, hold my beer. It's been, it's been a good year, but it's been a year of team building and culture more so than I thought it was going to be. I think, I don't know if you guys saw this, but like 2020 was an incredible financial year for us. And then now I feel like now we're dealing with the repercussions of the great resignation and the quiet quitting
00:04:37
Speaker
movement and more and more people moving into this small business world. So yeah, we've just seen, there's been a lot that we've been figuring out and trying and it's been overall so good. God is so good. I, it feels like I have such an incredible team assembled. I'm embarrassed to say I got through how many years of business, six and a half years of business as the only full-time employee. And that was not the smartest decision. So I'm glad that there's two other people now, besides just me.
00:05:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
Burnout and New Strategies
00:05:08
Speaker
What do you feel like made 2021 especially hard? I resonate with that for sure. First of all, it's hard to – I've talked about this with some other peers too. Once you hit a financial goal, it's really hard to make less than that on another year and not feel like
00:05:27
Speaker
that's a failure because it's certainly certainly not. I took about half the year off to how I know y'all know y'all are very I mean well as experienced as us we're two and two with kids and what that impact is on a business owner and so that was probably the hardest part about 2021 was just
00:05:45
Speaker
And I took it offline and then I came back in social media and I felt like that meme of that guy who's like, hello, youths or whatever, like fellow kids at the skateboard, like what in the world? Social media is so different now. That learning curve and feeling like after you've been in the industry,
00:06:02
Speaker
Again, you probably know these feelings too for so long. And now there's all these new people. You're like, shoot, do I still have it? I don't know. How do I need to pivot? What do I need to... Because you're also doing a lot more work. Now you have more of a name and a brand. So you've got the...
00:06:17
Speaker
client work coming in, whereas the people that maybe don't have as much have the luxury, they can be more visible because that's what they, you know, they're playing the card, they've got to play. And so all that mindset stuff going on between your ears. And I think that was what 2021 was for me. So by the end of the year, I was like, I made some decisions about what 2022 would be like. And yeah, one of the big ones was like, I've got to get some help. I am not
00:06:39
Speaker
Yeah, I want to hear more about some of the team building stuff too. I found that 2021 was just the worst and I'm still sort of reflecting on what 2020 the damage done in 2021. You know, I think for me, it was just a season of burnout.
00:06:56
Speaker
Just not feeling as motivated, I think because 2020, and I've talked a little bit about this on the podcast, but it felt like it should be a sprint, you know, like with 2020, it was like, I had no idea what was going to happen. So it was just like, put your head down and work. And then I think mentally I thought someone was going to ring the bell and be like, okay, you know, whatever this is that we're dealing with right now is over and everybody can rest, but that never happened, right? So it's just like,
00:07:20
Speaker
I think I brought that mindset into 2021 and somewhere along the way just, you know, got burned out. And then, yeah, I mean, just thinking about last year and the way that the ways that impacted work. And I feel like now in 2022, this year has been fun because especially as the year goes on, I'm feeling more motivated again, more excited about the work that I'm doing. But it was, I mean, it was a hard year. I am so grateful. You first of all, your classic dating lates you so well said.
00:07:51
Speaker
Vanessa, I don't know if you follow Vanessa Lau and I know Elise Darma, Elise Darma is a friend, but like they have very large internet businesses and they both have like publicly talked about burnout and theirs happened in the same timeframe. So I know that you're right. It was kind of a, the ring the bell is a great metaphor. Cause yeah, I think we're all like the sprint got exhausting. We had to kind of reset and be like, okay, no, this is it now. So how am I going to deal?
00:08:18
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So you started building a team. What's been exciting about that? What's been hard? Okay, I first of all, I needed an executive assistant, which sounded like the bougiest
00:08:33
Speaker
I was screwing up my calendar constantly, not getting back to emails, even us. And I know y'all did an episode recently on productivity and like, but even with like all those things in place, I was still messing up. So that was like one thing I realized, like I need somebody to crack a whip on me.
00:08:48
Speaker
And I had an integrator Rachel for years. She's my college roommate and it was such a great relationship. And I'm so excited for her. She's having her third baby and was going to homeschool full time. So with her moving out, that's kind of when I was like, all right, I've got to rebuild here a little bit. That's when I, like I mentioned earlier, cannot be the only full time anymore. I need
00:09:09
Speaker
more boots on the ground here and then did some reshuffling. So now I hate it sounds so clinical but like we have like departments now that I guess like seeing grooves and lanes in the business where it was like an assembly of contractors for a long time and that worked for
Networking Post-COVID
00:09:26
Speaker
you know six years but now we really we need
00:09:29
Speaker
department meetings and we need not just a full team meeting, but those departments have to come together as well and have discussions so we don't take up time in the full meeting. So all that kind of stuff has been really interesting to learn. And it's also been challenging to realize that I have like sticky notes everywhere. My queen B roll, what is that? Is that a
00:09:52
Speaker
Clockwerk. Mike Michalowicz, I think is his name. I always say Mike Wazowski. Not Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc. but Clockwerk, where he talks about the queen bee role of the business. And I know if I am not in Google Docs,
00:10:07
Speaker
or talking to people were like not making money. That's kind of the two things that literally only I can do is like write our stuff. That's the other point I was going to make is I've learned a lot this year about the value of, and it's interesting in this post COVID world, like being in the room and talking to people and
00:10:26
Speaker
building relationships. I don't know, I just had never really been comfortable with that side of business or seen myself in that, but I'm learning when I go to something or show up on a call with other entrepreneurs and I make a relationship, that does behoove the business. I'm trying to get more comfortable with that as the year goes on.
00:10:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's another thing that I think initially I was grateful for more time at home and less travel and that felt good. But then again, that's one of those things where I feel like I really, I've always been a relationship builder. And so I think we're getting back to like our first, some of our first travel actually in a few weeks or you're heading out to show its conference. And I'm really excited for that. And to be back in a place where I can like meet people and
00:11:12
Speaker
And I do think those help move a business forward on so many levels. It might just be internally where you're meeting another like-minded entrepreneur and they speak something into your business or your life that makes a big change. Or it might just be a relationship that it's a high for now, but six months from now it becomes a client. So I'm really excited to get back to some more travel and in-person stuff with people.
Learning from Copywriting Classics
00:11:34
Speaker
Nothing like it. Yeah, absolutely for sure. So we have a high school intern for the first time. She is very interested in copywriting. And she's actually, I'm shocked at how quickly she's picked things up. But I have to ask, what are a few things you would tell her if you were speaking to yourself back at her age, what would you tell her to focus on? So good. There's such wisdom and value in like the,
00:12:04
Speaker
for lack of better way to say, the old dead guys, like the old copywriters, Bill Bly, Ogilvy, some of these books that I don't think I picked up and started reading really until about I started my business. And I've been writing copy, marketing copy for years before that. And I read a few of the classics in like my corporate years, but that's something that
00:12:27
Speaker
I mean, even given the landscape on iOS changes and how that's impacting like direct response, ad copy and all that, even within the confines of that, the psychology and the persuasion techniques, if she can get those ingrained in her psyche of like how she writes and how she approaches writing, that is just invaluable. It's an old tool, but it's a tool for a reason, but rewriting old sales letters and finding old classic sales letters and just like
00:12:56
Speaker
making that like a ballerina like getting the techniques so ingrained that you can then riff on it because you know, that's what I would tell myself to do again, because I again, I didn't start doing that until I started my business and I got more hungry about I was hungry about work and but I didn't do professional development beyond much that was like new and flashy when I was a corporate like I wanted to learn, you know, hot new techniques and stuff, but there's just a lot of value in the old stuff.
00:13:26
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I'm going to reach out and get a list of some of these classics. Oh my gosh, I love the list for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And that would be awesome. And I'll post those in the show notes once I get them, but also I'm going to for sure share those with our intern. And even for people like listening now that are a little more seasoned, like I still, and I want to get back into it. I'll go through seasons where every day for a month I'll start my work day by like reading an old sales letter or looking at an old ad and just thinking like, what does that have in it that worked? Or is there, does that spur an idea in me?
00:13:56
Speaker
I at least haven't found that to be a sustainable thing I could do for like years. That would be awesome if I could do every day like that. But it's a good little sprint to do for a month or a few weeks to brush up those skills. So, you know, sort of a random aside question from there, I related if you if you were to go back in time, restart your business, what are some of the things that you do differently think?
00:14:20
Speaker
That's always such a hard question because the journey that made me who I am, you know how it is, you mess up and that's the thing that, I mean, I'll tell you, like I was very slow to chop off calligraphy from my business because I constantly told myself that people wouldn't trust me if I hadn't proven to them that I knew what it was like to sell in their market. And I knew what it was like to sell a nice to have or beauty or artistry. So I just didn't chop it off.
00:14:50
Speaker
I don't think we have that luxury as much anymore because given that there's such a groundswell and like you see the clarion messages that like cut through the noise are specific. They are, I'm not even going to bring up the whole conversation of niching because everybody has opinions on that. But regardless of where you fall about niching, that
00:15:12
Speaker
It's got to be laser sharp of a message to get through. We just came off a launch. There's so much noise out there right now. That's the only way you're going to be able to stay in. I feel like that's only going to be in 2023 too.
00:15:27
Speaker
I think I got away with maybe a muddled message or I was just afraid to kind of like go all in on something. And you have to throw, there's a certain amount of like throwing spaghetti at the wall before you're like, okay, that hits. Like that's what it needs to be. I was just afraid.
00:15:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's interesting though because I think we all sort of – I think it's easy to come up with ideas and then add them and it's always harder to chop things off and get more specific and double down on certain things. I think in current businesses too, that's something that we're currently going through, figuring out.
00:16:02
Speaker
What is it that we really do well? And how is it that we best serve people and then really starting to focus there? But then there's always that concern. It's like, well, you know, but what if someone wants this? Like we can do that too. So that is constant struggle.
Team Building and Growth Impact
00:16:17
Speaker
That is tough. I feel like for me, it would, it definitely goes back to team building. You know, I'd build a team much sooner than we did. It makes such a big difference. It does make a big difference. And that's the sign of like building a business that you don't, when you love your craft,
00:16:31
Speaker
You just don't even think about it. I feel like there's two names that come to mind of people I know in this whole world that they're just such artisans of their craft and in love with it so much. And I get that. And it's hard for those of us that function like that. There's a lot in this bubble to be like, oh yeah, and I need to shake hands and be in the room and rub elbows. That's part of it.
00:16:53
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. What have you been doing differently this year? What do you feel like coming out of 2021? I know you mentioned 2022 has been a year of team building and culture building. How much of that do you think is like a result of what we all just went through collectively? And how much of it is just kind of the natural evolution of your business?
Email Marketing Strategies
00:17:14
Speaker
Okay, so there's two big projects that we worked on this year.
00:17:19
Speaker
One is we built our own email server, which was a bear of a project, but we saw the fruit of all that labor this past launch. So what that involved, and I love tools like ConvertKit, and I haven't really played around with Flowdesk a lot. I have questions about the deliverability on Flowdesk, but I love platforms like that.
00:17:43
Speaker
the problem is we got to a certain size because basically you're buying into a cost because you're buying into a shared server and that server convert kit servers or whatever the way and i am no like data scientist but this is my understanding of it they are doing the best they can to get your email into as many inboxes as possible right the problem is at the end of the day you don't own that ip and so
00:18:12
Speaker
What we wanted to do is see, could we build our own server and warm up our own IP to a point that when we send emails, we have greater control over, it requires far more babysitting of the server to make in like all the IP addresses and everything. But we saw open rates go up and you know, it's like standard in most industries, 20, 25, 30 ish percent.
00:18:39
Speaker
we're regularly seeing 60 to 70% open rates. I think that made a big difference because we couldn't tell with our email list. I think it was like, it got up one time, and that's the thing too, it got up one time to 60,000. Oh my gosh, we cleaned off probably 20,000 bots that were in there. Then, so it got back down to probably more like 25 to 30,000, but we could not tell so many, and we used Infusionsoft.
00:19:08
Speaker
I have thoughts on it. But we couldn't tell what was getting in inboxes and it was getting to the point where it's like,
00:19:18
Speaker
You're paying in ads, you're getting people on your list. You're like, if they're on this list, I have got to get to their inboxes. It's starting to cost us that we can't. And so we spent the first six months of the year moving over to our own server and warming that up. And so that has meant this year we're sending out to keep our server warm.
00:19:39
Speaker
two weekly emails. That was a big change for me. That's a lot more. That's double the amount of like copywriting, content writing. And so that's been an adjustment and trying to figure that out. But we found like in my fear too, even though I say it to clients all the time, like you can send more emails
00:19:54
Speaker
Don't worry about it." And then it came my turn that was like, oh gosh, everyone's going to unsubscribe when I start sending two times a week. But no, it's done so great. I think that is going to continue into 2023. Again, back to the noise thing. I feel like I sign up for brands all the time now and they're sending me two, three emails a week and I don't mind it. I think we're all used to a little bit more. Maybe our muscles have gotten a little bit stronger when it comes to the amount of messages that we can consume or
00:20:23
Speaker
amount of emails we're more comfortable with. But that's been like a big thing we worked on this year and what I've seen to next year. The second big thing is pulling down our course content and our curriculum to much more tight or tangible bites. It's like the TikTok effect, you know how we all used to could watch 16 minute videos and now we're like,
00:20:45
Speaker
30 seconds, get to the point. I don't have time for anything more than eight minutes. On YouTube, if it's more than eight minutes, I'm like, I don't have time for this. And I'm still listening on double speed. What happened? Our little goldfish brains. I do that too. Sometimes I'm watching a TikTok and they don't get to the point in the first 10 seconds. I'm like, wow, that is brutal, Ashlyn. But I think
00:21:06
Speaker
When it comes to course curriculum and you were in the industry five years ago, it used to be like 72 videos. Woo hoo. Now everybody's like heck no. I don't have time for that. So that's been a big thing is like looking at the curriculum that I have and I've got three courses and then I've got templates too. And just like, how can we pull them even further down? Like how can we get to the point faster?
00:21:30
Speaker
Pulled down copywriting for creatives is my signature Curriculum and I did that last year ripped it down and I'm doing the other two Courses that I have this year to just like we cannot have these long videos anymore. Yeah, I want to go back to sending the emails So you're sending two emails a week in part for practical purposes trying to keep that email server warm the email server is that are you running like a dedicated server through convert kit or is this your straight up your own and
00:21:55
Speaker
through Mailgun, have you ever heard of them? Yeah, so Mailgun, they're kind of like a Sengrid. Yes, so they house it all. And then like the skin over the top that we use is FG Funnels. After so many years, the tech bloat was so frustrating, not just financially, because you're paying for stuff and there's overlap. But from a conversion measurement standpoint, I was getting so frustrated that I couldn't track from like point of entry into
00:22:25
Speaker
Our ecosystem or my world to like Did that person spend or not? That was driving me crazy You know, I know a lot of people listening like you have a certain a lot of us have dual sides like you've got your service provider side and then you probably do have like digital products or templates or shop items I just got really frustrated that I couldn't track everything and so I
00:22:50
Speaker
FG Funnels is newer, and it kind of felt like a risk. It still kind of does sometimes, but I know some of the people behind it. And we've had a good experience so far. But man, just being able to we did this past launch and be able to pull such greater metrics, that's where I find
00:23:10
Speaker
piece of mind, because it launches in marketing in general, so emotional. And when I can look at the numbers and see the story that the numbers tell, I stress out far less. So it's been a heck of a move, but I'm glad we've done it.
00:23:26
Speaker
So real quick, just because you had mentioned you have opinions about it. And so before we jump into a few other things here, you had mentioned ConvertKit Flowdesk, Confusion Soft. Now you're using Mailgun slash FGFunnels. Do you have opinions about the other three real quick? Yeah, I am always so impressed with ConvertKit, their commitment to deliverability. And I want to look more into Flowdesk. I just do not.
00:23:53
Speaker
That's the thing too, I learned through all of this. What your server sometimes is telling, what a convert kit or a flow desk is telling you is your deliverability is not always true. Definitely not. If anything, I mean, you see it in the nature of what you do. iOS,
00:24:10
Speaker
updates completely ravaged and crushed our ability to know, like, is that a true open rate or was that we don't know? And so a lot of times I've had some students and they're like, no, Flodusk, like it's telling me it's delivering. I'm like, you actually cannot trust that. Like you theoretically, because it's so packed and so HTML saturated,
00:24:33
Speaker
Statistically, it is going to be throttled by Yahoo, by some AOL. That's the question I have about it. I want to do a whole deep dive into it and really figure it out. I think for creatives, the creator economy, it's a beautiful product. We've got to be able to get in inboxes.
00:24:58
Speaker
Yeah, and that's the key, right? It's not going to be your most profitable channel if you can't even get in the inbox. And that makes sense. We've talked about moving from ConvertKit, but we never do. This is something I've been saying for years now. So we're probably sticking with ConvertKit. We do have a dedicated server on ConvertKit, which is a step down from what you're doing, but a step up from just server sharing, I guess.
00:25:23
Speaker
But yeah, that's so interesting. I haven't heard, I mean, I know people do that, but I haven't, we'll have to talk more about that in your experience. Yeah, we could totally nerd out about that. Oh, that would be great.
AI in Copywriting
00:25:34
Speaker
So let's get back to a little bit of copywriting and how that's changed over the last few years. You talked a little bit about TikTok, the impact that's had on our ability to maybe consume longer form content like YouTube and things like that, and probably why YouTube has rolled out things like YouTube Shorts, right?
00:25:50
Speaker
There's something about that short form content that just keeps on going on and on and on. So has copywriting changed in similar ways? Absolutely. We have AI now. We did not have that a couple of years ago and it has exploded. In writing circles, you definitely have that fear because I have the fear too. And so I, again, whenever I get nervous about something, my knee-jerk reaction is like, must research everything about it. And so that's what I did when I kind of got nervous.
00:26:16
Speaker
all the robots are coming for our jobs. And what I've landed on, like my hypothesis, is it is such a great tool for rejigging ideas in your head and getting you maybe out of a block, helping, I think, headlines. They're usually pretty good.
00:26:34
Speaker
Everything though, and I say this, I really like some of these platforms. I can't help but think that they sound a little word-sality though, what it spits out. Also, if you're talking brain voice and personality, they got nothing on you at anybody. It's just an interesting tool. There's product description generators. I think they expedite the writing process if you've got a lot of writing, but
00:27:00
Speaker
That'll be interesting to see. Does it get smarter over the next few years? I don't know. And I don't think we've had a lot of maybe creatives really latch into all that yet, but maybe that could happen next year too. We'll see. Yeah. I generally think that AI is just a terrible idea in general, but philosophy aside, something interesting just in the last few months, so Google's rolled out with a Google helpful content update, and then they rolled out with a spam update shortly after that. And the kinds of content that has been hit by that is AI content.
00:27:30
Speaker
So say more about that. That's so interesting. Yeah. So basically there's this one guy follow Neil Patel just sent out a, an email about this, but he, since he manages, he sees data across so many different sites because he also owns Uber suggest.
00:27:47
Speaker
But it looked like, you know, and again, I just skimmed it, but it looked like the bottom line was, you know, if you had content on your site that was purely AI generated and posted, that that content seemed to be most impacted by these different updates. And it makes sense too, you know, like,
00:28:04
Speaker
to your point about brand voice and things like that. And I just can't imagine that the most helpful content in most cases is going to be content created by a machine. I think there's people who have really mastered the process of starting with AI and then basically taking that and building on it to get it to where it needs to be. So I think maybe there's promise there, but yeah, I just. I'm with you.
00:28:29
Speaker
I'm on Team Human, so. Team Human, I mean, nobody, the creativity and the artisanship and like the storytelling, like you, that's why I get so excited when creatives figure out how to write that. Cause I'm like, you can, you can learn this. Like it's totally a learnable skill and there's, you're not, a bot will never be able to replace you on this. Like there's, yeah.
00:28:51
Speaker
Yeah, well, it's interesting. Google does seem to be actively trying to fight completely AI bot created content, which I think that's a good thing. But what else has changed? Anything else like in terms of the sort of type of content you're writing or you're creating or, you know, maybe has it magnified the importance of certain
Creating Strong Hooks
00:29:13
Speaker
things? Like I imagine headlines are that much more important.
00:29:16
Speaker
That's good. That was not on my list, but I would say yes. What was on my list related to that is hooks. The hook has to be, again, the noise out there. It's got to be sticky. The neat little thing you could do is scroll through. I keep mentioning TikTok. It's just fascinating to see
00:29:36
Speaker
in real time stuff go down. So if you scroll through TikTok enough to start getting some ads, see how and especially when you get retargeted the same ads for the same product, but they're pitching different hooks to you to see what's going to snag your attention first. That is what is fascinating. And I think for those of us in the creative sphere, especially those of us who've been offering something for a long time,
00:30:00
Speaker
One thing that I'm seeing with our clients and one thing that really scared me this launch, it was our 11th launch of copywriting for creatives is offer fatigue. I think that is very prevalent and you've got to figure out a way, whether it's a new hook when you're, you're coming in with the angle of what's going on in the world or like just thinking outside of the box. I think it's very important. You've got to nail that offer fatigue is real. I've seen it with so many clients.
00:30:27
Speaker
Yeah. How do you prevent, what are some of your tips for preventing offer fatigue, especially around emotional hooks? One of the gals on your team too, she had mentioned this concept of lawyering up that maybe you could talk about as well. I love talking about that. Okay. So one thing that we did to combat that this launch this time around is like change up the, I call it a hype piece, but whatever tool you're using to pitch
00:30:52
Speaker
your offer, your fall mini sessions, whatever the thing is you're trying to sell, how are you telling people, hello, this is open for business, whether it's a webinar, a workshop, masterclass, challenge, all those kinds of things. So we did a completely different challenge this time around. And we also, one thing I was like, let's just try it. It will either be judged
00:31:15
Speaker
into the oblivion or it'll work is get real female with it like tongue in cheek. We did like a homecoming theme. Like I even did a shoot with Abby Grace Freeman. She takes photos for us. We did it on, I was up there anyway, but we were next to Gail's campus. And so she was like, order pom poms. And like, we just went all in. It was very well received. But again, I think it cut through the noise and it stood out. So I think
00:31:42
Speaker
being if you feel like you have something you've pitched over and over and over and over again can you come at it with a completely creative maybe tongue-in-cheek like go for it just see if that alone shakes it up a little bit because it might and just you're trying it's just that attention span is so short so how can you get in on that the lawyering up concept i think
00:32:02
Speaker
hopefully it's starting to crystallize for people. Sometimes I feel like I talk about it so much, but I'm just so passionate that your art doesn't sell itself. And a lot of, again, creatives, artists, makers, those of us who love the aesthetic side of things, are afraid to use data and proof and argue for the value of what they do. Because I guess we think it's art. People are only buying from emotional reasons.
00:32:32
Speaker
Yes, but you've got a lot of logical buyers out there. I have to remind myself sometimes to bring emotion into my copy. Just because you like to buy one way doesn't mean other people don't. I love helping people figure out how to use data and proof points. You need to have a proof point to back up any claim that you're making in your writing, even if you're creative. I would say especially if you're creative, actually.
00:33:00
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's so
Understanding Customer Motivations
00:33:02
Speaker
important. I think it's so easy to project, well, this is how I purchase it, this is how I think through something, and so this is how everybody thinks through it. We were working on copy with a, it was actually for a firm that offers accounting, continuing education.
00:33:17
Speaker
So I'm thinking back to my days as like an educator where we had to do, you know, high school teacher, we had to do CPE to keep our certifications and all that. And all the angles that I'm coming up with are like, well, you know, when I was doing it, I was trying to find the class that was easiest, quickest. Could it be done virtually? Could I just take the test, you know, right?
00:33:39
Speaker
But I was talking to a friend of mine who he works for one of the big four accounting firms. And he was like, yeah, there's definitely accountants like that that are looking just to check the box. But he's like, there are a lot of accountants that they want to be on the cutting edge of their industry. They want to be the go-to person for specific subjects within their firm. So it's not just about like, can you check this box? And so it was a good reminder for me like, okay, I need to go back and I need to take a look at some of the other different angles that somebody might be approaching this decision from.
00:34:07
Speaker
but it is, it's so easy to fall into that. Well, you know, I just want to check the box, right? And I love that you said, cause I, that's, I saw that in my own launch, like my own team was like, Ashlyn hit emotion again, like in Instagram stories or whatever. Like you're getting a little too analytical and getting your own humble pie served back to you is so good.
00:34:26
Speaker
Yes, I find it happens to me so often. And daily, I think, over here. All right. Well, one of the things that I want to ask about is headlines. And I also want to end by talking about any hot takes you have for 2023, for sure. But one of the things that I think really has made a big difference for us is paying more attention to our headlines. I think it's one of those things where you just kind of get into the groove of,
00:34:51
Speaker
Yeah, this is good enough or whatnot. But it really can make a big difference on so many different levels. If you're writing ad copy, the click-through rate on the ad or somebody at least just stopping and getting that impression for a landing page, getting people to continue reading through and potentially signing up for whatever it is that you're offering on that landing page, emails we've already talked about. So maybe you could talk us through some of your best tips for writing headlines.
00:35:16
Speaker
yep okay so my first tip is do not write it first do not do not do not write it first if anything it's the last piece that I write because you've got to figure out when you're in the writing process of something what's going to bubble up to be
00:35:33
Speaker
the best lawyer for the argument. That's always how it is. It's like, what is stickiest in everything I'm writing? What is the, yeah, what is the most irresistible thing? So I can't find that until I've written eons. Then the second tip is don't be afraid to borrow from other areas. Like I see this with students inside copywriting for creatives a lot. They'll have a great, and I think it's because they get more used to writing.
00:36:01
Speaker
they'll have a great line like down on the homepage or over on their about page or on their services page. I'm like, that's your, that's the hero of the entire sales argument. Let's pull that over and trade those out real easy. So I think be open. I would say to anybody who's listening, be open to like seeing, finding your hero headline, wherever it may be hiding out, like, and be open to moving it. Cause I think otherwise you miss out. We get really married to like,
00:36:27
Speaker
our ideas and don't be afraid to move it. The last tip I have and it's my team and I still do it. I have in my shop and copywriting for creative students have it 35 headline templates and I use those too. I have a friend, his name is Justin Blackman. He's a copywriter and I think it was for, he made himself write a hundred headlines for a hundred days and like just to get better. And I asked him one time, I was like, Justin,
00:36:53
Speaker
how was it? Should I do that?" And he was like, absolutely not. It was awful. But he got better. And I'm using that as a broad example to even those 35 headline templates. I know our agency girls, when they're writing drafts, they'll pull that out and those write 35 different versions. It's like a muscle and you find in there the key. So I mentioned these three tips because I think not a thing. I know headlines are the hardest.
00:37:19
Speaker
So don't put so much pressure on yourself to just whip one out at the beginning of your writing project. That is literally the worst time to write one, in my opinion.
00:37:28
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it's funny you say that because what I find, so typically when we're writing ad copy, I'll come up with headlines and I put it in quotations because it will help me sort of brainstorm different angles or maybe different hooks. So it's not really like, oh, I'm sold on these headlines yet. And then without fail, as I actually write the copy, you know, I go back and typically almost every one of those headlines is going to change because I'm going to write something finally and it's going to be like, oh, that's a good line. How, you know, how can we turn that into a headline? You know, one of the things that
00:37:58
Speaker
I really, I remind our intern of a lot because I've struggled with it to this day, which is just that perfectionism where it's like, you can't go on to the next headline until you figure out the perfect headline for this. But there's something to be said about just writing down what comes to mind and maybe writing 35 or a hundred, you know, whatever. I typically don't even get to 35. I use typically, we do lists of like 20.
00:38:21
Speaker
Yeah. 35 is a struggle to get to. Yeah. Usually I'm like five or 10, even if I'm running like subject lines for an email, I'll do like five, but it's like the good stuff really comes if you can just sit with it for another five minutes and see what happens.
00:38:36
Speaker
Yeah, and try not to think about it too much, you know, because it's like, and Seth Godin has said this before, which is you have to write so many bad words before you get to the good word, you know, and that's been, I think, very formative for me, certainly over the last few years. I think with kids, I don't know if you found this, you're just forced to adopt that mindset, because you just got to keep pushing forward.
00:38:58
Speaker
Yeah, that is really helpful. Well, as we turn our attention to 2023, what do you think is coming?
Economic Challenges and Offer Strategies
00:39:03
Speaker
So 2021, 2022 have been challenging years. What do you think is coming in 2023? Okay. Did you see, I posted a little bit about it and it got good feedback, but I posted about the lipstick index. Have you heard of that? Yes. Well, I hadn't heard about it until you posted about it.
00:39:22
Speaker
Yes. That is one thing I'm like, and I talked to a ton of peers and my coach and like other people I knew that were launching and a lot of us that were launching around the same time saw that like for like a high ticket offer in our industry is just, it's, it's asking for a mortgage payment right now. And that's, that is a tough sell. So how can you, especially, you know, if,
00:39:47
Speaker
And it looks like we are in recession and that continues into next year. How can you still get people little quick wins, but you have to die to your darlings a little bit that maybe your signature big high ticket offer or your long mastermind coaching program or whatever it is may not be the fit right now. And so, and that would be great, but like, how can you then give them
00:40:12
Speaker
Little moments of an when i was reading like researching before i read that post reading these articles i was like oh my gosh this is me like i buy like this i'll be. At the grocery store do something like i just got a little nail polish for myself you know like that i do that so how can you get your audiences are your audience ways to do that.
00:40:32
Speaker
even if you're a service provider like I was talking about this with some students and I had some service providers pipe up and like I oh my goodness you know who's doing a killer job at it Angela at Saffron Avenue she has these she does these brand drops where she will make like four pre-made brands and then she only sells like four versions of each
00:40:55
Speaker
And she'll drop them with a wait list and you buy basically it's like a mini, it's kind of a day rate. A day rate is a great example of, I think like a lipstick offer. It's an opportunity to have her work on your brand. You get your results in a week and it's like under $2,000.
00:41:12
Speaker
And I know that I was just talking, but in comparison to like a $10,000 brand refresh, like that is a great offer. So I think figuring out like, can you have day, right? Day rates, strategy hours, VIP sessions, template packs, all that kind of stuff and price them competitively so your audience can have little moments of getting that dopamine hit from you. Yeah.
00:41:35
Speaker
Well, we're gonna have to, we'll link to it in the show notes to your post about the lipstick effect, but you could tell people are interested in it because. Yeah, it was interesting. Lots of engagement. Yeah, I think that's an interesting take for 2023. Any other hot takes?
00:41:49
Speaker
It'll be interesting also to see because again, I've talked to a few friends about this. We saw with this past launch, there is course fatigue out there and people have invested in things that have not worked. And so how is that all the better to you than if you've got a course or a product that does work, but I think because now we've had this backlog of people that.
00:42:12
Speaker
things for the past few years. If they didn't get results, you've got to battle that in your messaging and in your sales process. I always saw that head on this time around. So that'll be interesting to watch too.
00:42:22
Speaker
And there's just so many, you know, making a course now is easier than ever, you know, selling stuff online. Webinars aren't, I mean, there's a million different platforms through webinars. You know, back in the day, it was like such an investment just to get into making the course online. That's interesting. I'm interested to see, yeah, I just think that creating content, creating like helpful content is more important than ever. And it's awesome. I want to hear more, yeah, like what do you think?
00:42:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think because there's so many different tools and platforms out there that there's a lot of people that are getting, they're mistaking the platform for the content, if that makes sense.
Content Engagement and Authenticity
00:42:59
Speaker
So it's like, oh, I'm gonna get, I'm on this platform and I'm gonna get really good at this platform in the sense of I know when to post and maybe how it works. But it's like, if you can't create content that people are interested in, then it doesn't really matter.
00:43:12
Speaker
This is something that I think has been true. It's not really hot take because I think it's been true for a long time, but I think it's like just because there is so much out there right now that it's even more of a distraction for people. I feel that I'm not on TikTok. Krista's on TikTok as you know. I probably should be on TikTok, but I just can't get myself to do it.
00:43:31
Speaker
No, I think I use it probably for reasons I shouldn't. I don't get on other platforms because I only get on that one because it makes me laugh. Yeah. Yeah. And like the other ones feel so serious and businessy. And I'm like, I just want to giggle for like 30 minutes. And it's funny because my sister, who we talked about at the beginning of this episode, she will send me, she'll send the family group text videos almost every day from TikTok. And they're always hilarious. I always think I should get on this.
00:43:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's when I just need a break to laugh. But I think that goes back to the point around content, right? Facebook, I mean, I think we all have Facebook accounts because maybe we run ads on Instagram. I was about to say because our ads are tied to it. Exactly. There's just so much that's kind of tied to it. It's like email, but not as good as email, right? Oh my gosh, yes. And then Instagram, to a certain extent, feeling a little bit dry over there in a lot of the same ways, but maybe it's not quite as bad.
00:44:23
Speaker
So, but again, like why do people go to TikTok? All the reasons you just mentioned, you know, it's like the type of content and slight-hearted and just user-generated content becomes that much more important for brands. Yes, it's not polished. Yeah. Yeah. And how can you encourage as a brand people to create user-generated content around your brand? It'll be interesting. Maybe you've convinced me to finally sign up for TikTok. At least for the giggles.
00:44:47
Speaker
I don't love the whole privacy, all the privacy concerns around it. That's one of the big things for me. I went through a phase. I probably downloaded it for a few days, deleted it maybe three or four times before I was like, okay, I'll just turn my VPN on.
00:45:02
Speaker
Exactly. And with that said, like I have an Alexa in my house. So, you know, I feel like there's so much like, yeah, exactly. It's like, there's no consistency. All right. Yeah. Well, Ashley, I don't want to take up any more time. Thank you so much for joining us again on the podcast. It's been way too long. I feel like we used to see pre COVID we saw each other.
00:45:23
Speaker
at least every six months. Yeah, you know, it was like relatively frequently. So hopefully, hopefully that starts happening again as conferences start happening again. Although I feel like conferences have hit hard times as well. Yeah, we'll have to get them to pick up again. Yeah, exactly. Well, thank you so much. And yeah, really appreciate your time. Awesome. Thanks, Davey.
00:45:46
Speaker
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 davianchrista.com.