020. Copy Camp Week 2 - The 4 Foundational Practices for Writing Great Copy

Welcome. I am marketing expert and business coach Melissa Kellogg Lueck, and this is the Doing Business Like a Woman podcast, where we are exploring and teaching you how women are reinventing the way business is done and money is made to help you create greater impact and financial freedom one business at a time. Well, hello my friends, and welcome back to Copy Camp, where you come to camp and learn how to create compelling content. Doesn't that sound fun? Don't you love alliteration? I hope you're having a fabulous day. And here we are, Week two. How's it going? Were you able to get something out of week one, our week one Copy Camp episode, and practice that or think about it this week? I hope so. I know that you're out there saying, yes, I did it. So awesome. Good job. I'm applauding you from here. I do a lot of, like, Facebook lives and zoom meetings and stuff, so I'm used to having people, like, responding to me. So here I am just talking to you and there's no response. It's kind of strange. But anyhow, I know you're there and I'm sure that your copy has gotten better just over this past week. And so last week, just as a little recap, and if you did not hear week one of Copy Camp, I just encourage you to go back and have a listen to that because it really is the foundation of how to improve your copy and create compelling content. And it really is all centered around what you're thinking about yourself and your ability to write, your ability to communicate, your ability and value as an entrepreneur. And I have a great argument for you over there of how valuable and amazing you are and how your message is, is really what counts. And so I just encourage you to go back and have a listen over there because I don't want to get distracted. And going back to that because I could talk about it all day. I want to really dig into what we have for you today. And today is going to be a more tactical episode. And I want to talk about really, what are our three. No, actually four. Now that I am looking at my list. My note says three, but there are four things under it. The foundational practices for writing great copy. And so I'm going to share these with you and discuss them. And this is going to be your work this week. These are the four things that I want you to think about and to be putting into practice as you are creating your content over the course of this coming week. And that includes your post, you know, social media posting, even if you do videos or spoken communication, these can be helpful. But certainly anything that you're doing in writing, your email campaigns, your newsletters, your blog posts, your LinkedIn articles, anything that you're writing, I want you to keep in mind these four foundational practices that I use myself in my own writing, that I teach my clients, and they're going to drastically help you improve your copy and create copy that makes people want to take action as a result. So. So, number one, and just as a reminder, so Copy Camp, before I get into that, Copy Camp is really a series of three episodes of the podcast where we are really digging into the practice of writing compelling content and creating compelling content for your business that will help you to grow your business, grow your sales, grow more relationships, deeper relationships with your audience, help you to engage with your email list, engage with your social media followers and friends, and just really build your business and generate more sales by creating more relationships. Because I want you to remember what we talked about last week is my definition of marketing, One of my definitions of marketing. You'll probably hear me define marketing on this podcast in a lot of different ways, but really, it all boils down to the definition that marketing is creating connections with fellow human beings as a human being, as a normal human being, talking, communicating with other normal human beings and creating a connection. Connection, right. That is really simply what marketing is. So any way that you want to do that, that you want to show up in that way is going to work for you, number one. And number two is, is going to create more business for you, more sales. All right? So you get to decide where you want to show up and how you want to connect with other humans. But all the different ways work. So don't get caught up in, you know, the latest marketing fad. I mean, I've been in this business for 20 years, people. I've seen a lot of marketing tactics and fads come and go, and they all work. Every single one of them work. Yes, they work. But what makes them work is you, is you. Your energy, your personality, your unique way of showing up in that strategy or in that tactic. Right? In that way. So you get to decide where you want to show up, where you want to take your creativity and your energy, and wherever that is, you will create clients in that place. All right, so back to creating great copy. My three foundational practices for writing great copy. And that's actually four. I keep saying three. Okay, I almost got on my soapbox there. I got a little distracted, so I'm back. Okay, so number one, is to write like you speak now. This was not how I was trained in my corporate days or in my MBA program or when I was working in banking and finance. This was definitely not what I was doing. And so this is a practice that has been something that I've worked on over the last six years, but it really is the way marketing and copy has grown and has changed that consumers, people, audiences, buyers, they want to be communicated with in a very authentic, honest, genuine way. And so as small business people, as solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, the way for us to do that is to write like we speak. So that can be really hard because especially if you want to sound professional or you're trying to be professional and you know you're not, you don't have a lot of confidence in your own voice. This is an invitation to you to develop your own voice and begin. And all that means is you just practice, you just write a lot and you put your writing out there. And the more you write and the more that you develop your own voice and learn to trust your own voice, the more genuine, the more authentic you will sound. There's like no magic formula for being authentic or genuine. It just comes with practice and time and learning how to trust yourself. So for me, I had a lot of trust in my writing ability and my ability to create content for my clients and for other people. But like I said in the last episode, when I started really heavily marketing myself and myself as a coach and talking about my value and what I have to offer, it was very uncomfortable. So I understand if you feel that way. And it took me time to develop my voice and to learn to, you know, kind of take off the, you know, highly buttoned up facade because I was trying to sound professional and trying to sound smart, but really I could just be myself. And I'm already smart. I'm already 100% worthy and capable, and I have plenty of value to offer. And so I can just be myself and offer that value without being creepy and weird and trying to be professional. So I just encourage you to, to really take off the. Or just let that formality or that trying to sound smart or trying to be a good writer facade, just let that fall away. And write your emails, write your social media posts, write your blog posts as if you're talking to someone, okay? Talking to an ideal client that you absolutely love. And when you do that, then your writing and your message is much more simple, easy to understand, it's easy to read, and it's engaging. If you think about sitting down across the table, having a beer with your best friend or with your favorite client and just talking to them. That's how I want you to write. And that is very engaging. And so a lot of people, I mean, I can do that at the keyboard and write and, you know, write by typing. For some people, speaking is very helpful. So you can use the voice typing feature in your word processing, whatever you use for word processing. For example, Google Docs offers that. It's just automatically a feature in Google Docs. I know that Microsoft Word also offers that where you can do voice typing. And I'm not familiar with, I'm not a Mac person, so I don't know about Mac, but I know a lot of Mac folks use the Google Apps. So yeah, so Google Docs, Microsoft Word, even if you used your smartphone, I know that you can dictate notes or things and just speak into your phone. And maybe that's what you need to have that genuine, authentic, informal spirit to your writing. So write like you speak. That's number one. Number two, I want to encourage you to tell stories. Now, we, we all know that stories are so engaging. I mean, if you think about the Bible, which is one of the most, you know, widely spread, ubiquitous books that most of us, a lot of us know, it is just a collection of stories. It's all stories. It's all, you know, a manual for living, but told in story. And so I love thinking about that as an example that this is really a foundational practice for writing great copyright, that it's, it's a book that is a collection of stories that's been a bestseller for thousands of years. So just tell stories. And I know I've, I've heard this, this as advice a long time ago, for years and years, I've heard this as advice. And I always thought to myself, well, I'm not a good storyteller. Like, there's got to be like a formula for telling stories and telling great stories. And maybe there is. I'm sure that, you know, like people that write movie scripts and TV scripts, they all know, like, whatever the formula is for story. But I want you to remember, you don't have to know any special formula. You are already great at telling stories. And you know how I know? Because I'm willing to bet that you have told a story already to a friend, you've told a story to a child, you've told a story to a client. So you know how to tell stories. So just tell your story the way you tell your story and it's Good enough. It's good enough to get the message across. And so consider incorporating stories as you tell them in your copy, in your content and it drastically improves the. The engagement, the interest. It's just very interesting to read other people's stories. So that's number two. Number three is I encourage you to take readers on a journey. And that sounds very fancy writer thing, right? But it's really not. It's really just process of identifying and empathizing or understanding the situation that the reader is in. What is the challenge they're having, the problem they're having. So the journey starts with that, like stating what's the issue, the problem. And then it goes to talking about a simple solution. And then the next step of the journey is how exactly how they can get that solution. And then what is the outcome of implementing that solution? Right? So, so say for example, you are a health coach and or wellness coach or I don't know the proper term, but anyway, that you help, you help people heal their relationship with food. So maybe you write an email about the issue that your clients face is that they have tried every diet on the planet and still don't feel good about themselves, are not able to lose weight, still find themselves yo yo dieting or whatever it is, right? So they have this issue so you can tell a story, right? We talked about that. But maybe. And you can tell the take them on this journey through story or you can just talk about the issue. For example, the issue might be that they find themselves yo yo dieting and that you understand what it feels like to be a yo yo dieter and maybe tell a story. Then you talk about a simple solution to this problem is to heal the relationship with food. Then next you tell them exactly how you do that, that you have a process, a simple process that you lead your clients through to help them to learn to love themselves, love their body, think about food in a different way. I don't know what the whole process would be, but you talk about that simple process that you lead them through and that by the end of it, the resolution is that they no longer yo yo diet, right? So you kind of take them on that journey from the initial challenge or issue or struggle that they're having all the way through your solution, your simple process. And then the outcome of that. And so that is number three in our foundational practice, is just to take readers on that journey and use that in your content. And then our fourth and final is I want you to always be thinking about your reader and imagining that they're reading this and they are absolutely loving what you have to say and they want more. So you've always got to tell them what to do next, offer next steps to them, and we're going to talk more about this next time, but always, always offer them a next step. This doesn't mean you have to, you know, be salesy or whatever, but it just means offering them what they do next. Because if I, I see this so often that, that people will write some marketing copy, copy or sales copy or a post or whatever, and then it's basically like ending it with okay, bye, and not offering next steps because they're assuming their thought is, nobody wants this. Right? But if you were thinking everybody wants this, everybody, you know, they love what I have to say and they want more. We've got to make sure that we're offering them next steps at the end of our copy. So that's definitely critical. So there's your four foundational practices to writing great copy. So number one, we want you to, I suggest you write like you speak. Number two is to tell stories. Number three is to take your readers on a journey from their challenge, from the problem they're having all the way through to the resolution and the result they want. And then number four, imagine that they want what you have and they love what you have to say and want to go to the next level with you. So offer them next steps. Okay? All right, my friends, that is copy camp for you today. I want you to get out there, create some compelling content, and please reach out to me on social media, on Instagram or Facebook, and let me know how you're doing. I want to hear from you. I want to hear if this has been helpful for you and how your copy is changing and the results that you're getting from from that. So I know that the links to all my social media are in the show notes, so please reach out to me. I'd love to hear from you, and I hope you have a great week. Talk to you later. Bye. If you like this podcast and want to take this work deeper, I invite you to coach with me one on one. It all starts with a conversation. Let's get on a call together and I'd love to learn more about you and your business. And together we can identify what is standing in the way of creating the business and life you envision. And then we'll create a plan to get you there. So visit my website@melissam Kellogg.com and find a spot on my calendar. I look forward to seeing you.