Copywriting for the Living

Photo by Émile Perron on Unsplash

It’s Content Consumption month at Praxis, so after reading Bryan Franklin and Michael Ellsberg’s book, The Last Safe Investment, I set my sights on a podcast about one of my skills of interest, marketing. The Praxis curriculum lead me to discover Copyblogger FM, and I was nose deep in notes within an hour.

Sonia Simone hosts Copyblogger FM’s short, weekly podcast, where she talks about the ins and outs of marketing. No sugarcoating. Nothing head-spinning. Just hard-hitting and useful facts.

Last week, I listened to three of Sonia’s recent episodes: “3 Skills to Master to Become a Marketing Badass this Year“, “3 Observations on Trends (but not Predictions) for 2018” and “The 3 Success Factors that Help Writers Earn a Great Living“.

Here are some takeaways from my listening:

• To be an excellent copywriter, you must become a hybrid: a killer and a poet.
• To be a killer copywriter, you must learn the art of strategy, discover the value in analytics and use the marketing tools at your disposal to promote your life-giving content.
• You do not have a right to anyone else’s time. If you want people to listen to you, write something worth reading.
• With regards to popular CRAP (“Content Regurgitated As Product”) writing, Sonia says here, “As a writer, you don’t want to have anything to do with that work because the pay is horrible, and the work is soul-destroying.” How’s that for a reality check.
• “Marketing” does not inherently translate into “lies.” In truth, marketing is a way for you–the hero–to win, as heroes should.
• To become an in-demand writer, you must understand conversion strategy, be reliable and get yourself in front of prospective clients (through social media, etc.).

Much of Copyblogger FM’s content in 2018 will revolve around becoming a hybrid copywriter. Click here to start listening to the podcast and learn how to sell your product without sacrificing your soul.

P.S. As usual, this is not an ad. Just a little encouragement from me to you!