Three Big Reasons Your Copywriting Isn't Creating Instant Appeal

Intro: After generating over a million dollars in sales and selling one of her businesses with a single email, your host, Kathryn Thompson, takes an unconventional approach to marketing and sales. So if you're ready to tap into a more powerful way to be seen, heard, and a sought after entrepreneur in your industry, without having to spend endless hours marketing your business and chasing clients, you're in the right place. Be The Sought After Entrepreneur Podcast is here to help you ditch the cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all approach to marketing and use your unique energy to effortlessly attract the most aligned clients. When you do this, you can spend less time marketing your business and more time doing your soul work and enjoying the richness of your life. Welcome to Be The Sought After Entrepreneur Podcast, and here's your host, Kathryn Thompson.

Kathryn Thompson: Hey, hey, super stoked that you're tuning this week's episode and cannot wait to dive into today's topic [00:01:00] because I want to share with you an observation that I have made now having worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs across various industries from the financial industry to the relationship and love industry to the holistic health and wellness.

To marketing and sales in a lot of ways. From large corporations to medium-sized to small startups, working with innovative tech companies, clothing brands, again, you name it. And also now having run two successful companies of my own, having sold one, and now having creatively owned and. What I have witnessed and observed across the board is a pattern that I see for why marketing content and copy often doesn't perform.

And one of the biggest things that I believe is overlooked in why it's not performing. But before I share that with you, I want to start by really distinguishing what I mean by content and copy and what the difference is. Because I think [00:02:00] this is one of the areas that contributes to why. We don't see our content and copy performing because we actually don't understand what the difference between the two are.

And we use content and copy interchangeably a lot, or at least that's what I see out in the world, that business owners tend to interchange it. And then this expectation around what content and copy is gets muddled because they are different and they have a very different function. And so. So, oftentimes I'll see business owners hire a content creator or a copywriter, and they want the copywriter to be the content creator and vice versa.

And I'm not saying that we can't do the same thing, I'm not saying we can't be hired to do content and copy simultaneously, but they are different. And so when we understand the differences of it, we can understand what we're measuring for both, because that plays a factor in performance in the long run.

The difference [00:03:00] between content and copy copy writing is really designed to sell your target audience on what it is that you want them to buy into, so to speak, and that can be a free workshop that can be a paid service that can be a product, right? But copy is designed to. Communicate to your audience in a way that gets them to take action, and direct response copy is very, very, very different skill than being able to write well and write content well.

And that, to me, is an area again that I think people can go sideways with because the goal with copy is to get someone to opt into what it is that you're doing, to buy what it is that you're doing. It's not to write content to educate, to entertain, which is what content is designed to do. Content is designed to inform, to educate, to entertain.

They go hand in hand though. [00:04:00] Right? So you, you're, they're not created separately, they go hand in hand, which is the biggest observation for why I believe copy doesn't perform. Because we're using copy to do everything. We're looking at copy to do everything to communicate, to educate, to inform. And so what ends up happening is, is that when we look at copy, direct response copy, the thing that's going to get someone to leave their email, the thing that's going to get someone to click on the button or click on the ad, the thing that's going to get somebody to buy the thing that you're doing.

We look at that as well. We have to entertain. We have to inform. It's got to be catchy and fun and all of the things. That's what your content's designed to do. So when we're looking at copy to do all of that, copy often doesn't perform because the content is the thing that's going to drive people to your world.

Content's going to be the thing that creates awareness [00:05:00] about what you do in the first place. Content's going to be the thing that has people align with your values. Do I align with them? Am I, you know, um, Wanting what they have, do I, you know, resonate with what it is that they're putting out there?

That's what content's designed to do. Copy's designed to get them to click the button to buy now, to da da da. The problem is, is that we look at copy as the thing that's gonna do everything. And We then use that in our business. And so we put that out there and we wonder why people don't buy. Well, they haven't been informed.

They haven't been educated. They haven't been entertained or aligned with your values. They don't have the know, like, and trust. That's what content is designed to do is to build the know, like, and trust. Copy is designed to sell people. They go hand in hand and they have to work together. And if you're trying to run your business solely on writing copy, buy my thing, buy my thing, buy my thing, It's not going to perform the way that you likely want it to [00:06:00] unless you have a really specific offer that's like a no brainer offer without you even having to write a freaking thing.

Then people will buy into it. The problem is it's difficult to scale because you end up selling to the same audience over and over and over again. So if you're not building your audience, which is what content is designed to do, is to help you build the audience. If you're not doing that, then you're going to be selling to the same audience over and over.

And eventually Either everybody in your audience buys or the people that have bought bought and now the other people are like, well, I'm not gonna buy the thing for whatever reason. Maybe they're not ready, whatever. And so they go hand in hand and they have to work hand in hand together, which is why I often talk about that ecosystem.

And I talk about how the ecosystem has to work together. It's all connected. And if you're relying on your copy to do everything for you, You don't really have an ecosystem, which is that customer mind journey. How are we attracting [00:07:00] people into our world? How we attract people into our world is not the same message we used to sell.

That's a very, very, very different perspective because somebody that comes into your world might not be ready to buy. So if you're hitting them with sales messaging. They're not even there on that customer journey and they're gone and turned off because they're like man I've been sold to well before I was ever even ready Obviously this person only cares about selling to me and doesn't really care about me Naturally moving down this customer buying journey and taking the time to do that and to offer value and reciprocity Right, which is really really important so the biggest thing that I have observed from hundreds of entrepreneurs and the biggest thing that I see is overlooked is one Not really knowing the difference between the two, content and copy, and relying on The copy this to do everything for you and therefore approaching it from that perspective and also approaching it from what I call a micro perspective, [00:08:00] looking at one email and going that one email did not perform the way I wanted it to looking at that one social media post going.

What do I post today to get people to buy or do the thing I want them to do? We're looking at things as a one off when in reality. It's an ecosystem that's all connected and that to get someone to opt into your free workshop, let's just say there's work that has to do up front, you have to use promotional content or content to drive people to even land on your landing page in the first place or your sales page, which is why I often say if you're relying on your sales page to do the selling, you're in trouble because by the time someone lands on your sales page, they should already be sold.

The sales page is not designed to sell your offer. That's what the content leading up to the sales page is designed to do. That's designed to move people down that buying journey. For example, if somebody comes into [00:09:00] your world, and I use a dating analogy often, somebody comes into your world, and they come in not even really knowing who you are, there is that awareness that has to be built.

Awareness around who you are, what you do, what you stand for, but awareness around the solution that you offer and whether or not that solution is in alignment to the person sitting in front of you. That all has to happen up front. Before you can ever pitch the sale, because the sale is copywriting.

Copywriting is designed to sell your audience on what it is that you're doing. It's designed to get them to take action. Content is designed to build the know, like, and trust, but it's also designed to create demand. It's a thing that's going to inform and educate someone on why they need the thing in the first place.

And without that, the sale is going to falter. Now, I'm not saying you won't make sales because you will if you have a really well defined offer and it's kind of a no brainer and it's like super freaking [00:10:00] clear about why somebody should buy it. But if you sell The Invisible, and what you do is esoteric, my guess is that clarity and that one big tangible promise isn't there.

And that's not a bad thing, it's just that, that's what makes content and copy so important, especially when selling The Invisible, and why they have to work so interchangeably, because If you miss the content bit, and you're trying to sell, sell, sell, you're not really informing people. And what tends to happen is, is they'll get on a sales call with you, and they'll say something like, I don't even really know what you do still.

That's a very key indication that the front end content is not doing its job, so to speak. It's not creating the demand or desire for what it is that you offer. And If you've been in my world for a while, you've probably heard me say this, which is kind of a mind blowing thing, [00:11:00] but if you're relying on your sales page to sell your offer, you are completely approaching things backwards.

Because your sales page should actually not be the thing that sells your offer. Your content is the thing that actually does that. Your content is the thing that creates demand. Your sales page is then written in direct response copy, which is copy that's designed to sell what you do, which is short form, it's not wordy, it's not all drawn out, any of that.

That's not what copy is. Copy is like medium form. like short bite sized sections, headers, that sort of thing, how it works, what, who it's for. It doesn't have to be long and drawn out. If you're using, if you feel the inclination of, oh, well, I haven't really expressed why somebody should want this and I need to do that on the sales page.

Again, that's an indication that your content is not doing its job, or you're not even seeing content. As part [00:12:00] of the mix, which is the biggest thing that people overlook. They try to rely on content and copy the copy of it to do everything, or they're interchangeably using content and copy as the same thing when it's not.

And so understanding that difference is going to help alleviate some of the havoc that you have in your business because when you understand what your content's designed to do. You can then build a very beautiful customer buying journey for your people that naturally moves them down that customer buying journey.

And at every stage of that journey, you have to communicate something differently because they've changed, their awareness has changed, their Demand is growing, let's just say. For example, if someone comes into your world for the first time, and they don't even really know what it is that you offer and why it's even important, right?

So say you're a mindset coach, and you're all about helping people rewire their subconscious in order to like, bust through, uh, They're limiting beliefs and achieve whatever it [00:13:00] is that they want. If they don't even know that their subconscious is the thing that's holding them back, selling them on a sales page, telling them they need subconscious rewiring work, they're not gonna listen to you.

It's like trying to tell someone to quit smoking. They know maybe smoking isn't good for them, but they're not quite ready to do it, and they don't really know why they want to do it in the first place, or they don't know maybe that you're gonna help them with hypnosis to quit smoking. Well, why would I hire you to use hypnosis to quit smoking when I could just cut cold turkey?

Right? So you have to understand that people that come into your world in the very first place, they won't even know why They should even listen to you in the first place. And that is what your content is designed to do, is to create that awareness. It's designed to educate and inform people at a very high level why this is important, why they need it, [00:14:00] so to speak, or why this is going to help them, how, how it's going to help them.

And then as they move down that buying journey, then we have to communicate some of the nitty more nitty gritty details of what it is that you do. So for example, why subconscious reprogramming is the thing that you need if you want to like bust through these blocks? Well, then you get to a middle of the funnel, let's just say, or middle of the journey, and you start to present the solution.

So there's a variety of different ways to do this. It's not just hypnosis, right? There could be a lot of different approaches out there to supporting people in this, but maybe hypnosis is the thing that you offer. Well, then you have to build a case for why hypnosis is the thing and not something else, or why your approach is unique and how it's helped people.

Because by the middle of the funnel, when people get there, they go, Okay, I'm buying into this. I see this. I can't believe I haven't seen this before. You've got my ears perked. Now I'm listening. [00:15:00] People start to question at the middle of that journey, will this work? That's a big question people have. Will this work?

And you have to present and show them why your method works and you can do that with testimonials, case studies, you can do that with your own story. And then, as people move down the buying journey even further, when you start to present the sale to them, then, they're gonna go, what's the investment?

That's too expensive. Will this actually work for me? Right? These are all these questions that start to pop up, these hesitations, so to speak. And it's, doesn't have anything to do with you, likely, or your service, or whether you're good enough, or anything like that. We often internalize it, make it about ourselves, but it really often isn't.

It's just about, have we done a good enough job, so to speak, in communicating with this person to support them in making a decision one way or the other to, to invest in what it is that we're, we're putting in front of [00:16:00] them. And at every stage of that journey, there's copy interlaced into that because copy's the thing that.

It sells your audience and what it is you want them to do. It's the thing that asks them to take action in some way, shape, or form. That's what copy is. And so it's the opt in page if you want someone to leave an email. That has to be done in very precise, clear, succinct language. It's not about selling somebody on the notion or idea that they should leave their email.

That should have been done well before they ever landed on that opt in page. That should be done well before they ever land on that sales page. Which is why I rarely use sales pages. I created Spellbound's sales page because people were asking me about what they would get. And so I was like, I better create a resource of some sort to show them exactly what they get.

But I had sold already six figures [00:17:00] without ever even using a sales page. I think I've written like two or three sales pages of my own in the four and a half years that I've been running my online business. Because, one, I use sales calls to sell the offer, but by the time somebody gets on a sales call with me, they already know what my offer is, they already know how I can support them.

It's just a matter now of, like, do we align? Or is this the right time for me? Or, you know, am I right for this program right now at this moment? I get that question. And that's, those are questions I expect on a sales call. Questions I don't expect on a sales call or ones that are like, I don't even know what you do, or I still don't understand how this all works.

That again, is that indication that that content's missing, um, from the whole equation. And so this is an observation. Like I said, that. I have made that has wrecked, that wrecks havoc on business [00:18:00] owners because the content and the copy isn't performing, so to speak. And oftentimes it leads us to believe like, oh, I don't know what's working, what isn't working?

Or it has a slurring spaghetti against the wall, or it has us questioning. What is actually going to, um, work? We don't actually know. And, which leads me to one last final bit that I want to share with you that is an equal observation that I make is this perfecting of the copy and the content before it ever goes out.

And I see so many business owners sitting on these beautiful ideas, these beautiful experiences, these beautiful things that they want to put out into the world. And they're nitpicking a sentence or two in their copy and content. At the end of the day, your audience will tell you what works. And if you're putting something out for the first time and you've never tested it before, and you're not really sure, about your audience or what's going to get [00:19:00] them to like really bite at the thing.

Putting it out into the world and refining and optimizing the copy is all part of the process which is I would say more advanced thing that I talk about often but I want to share it with you because Again, I think there's this perspective that when I write copy and I write content, it's out there in the world and it's set and it's in stone and we'll just never change it.

And that is like the furthest from the truth. Again, I've worked with multi million dollar companies. I'm talking like eight figures, uh, business owners who are constantly refining their copy and content. Constantly refining things or putting things out into the world that are like that flop that didn't work Um, I have this beautiful woman that I know and she's like nine times out of ten your ads are gonna like completely fail, you know, like it's, it's about testing.

It's about getting out there and taking quick action and, and putting something out into the world and not sitting there trying to perfect [00:20:00] a sentence or two because you think it's not going to work when in reality, you don't actually know. And most copywriters don't. Most of us who are trained in direct response copy and are trained in writing, marketing content, we have an idea of how we can write really good content and copy, which again, it all starts with the offer and it all starts with the messaging around the offer, how it's positioned, how it's packaged, who it's for, why it was created, how it's going to support people.

What's the unique mechanism that, You know that we're selling so to speak, what are hesitations that people have had in the purchasing a, what are some really cool case studies? What are the results that you're getting? These are all things that I would ask somebody when I, when I'm going to sell their offer or start to create a map out a content plan.

I map it out from that big picture because to me it starts at the macro, not the micro. It's not starting at one email or two emails or. What should I post on social media? It's starting at the macro. [00:21:00] And from there, from the macro perspective, from the high level is when you can start to make really cool content that naturally in a sequence moves people down that buying journey.

But when we're You know, trying to operate in a tunnel and looking at the one email we're going to send, or the one social media post that we're going to make, or the one blog post we're going to write, we're missing the big picture. And so we have to move ourselves back up to that big picture, and everything that you do from the big picture, from the macro, is going to drive and influence what you do with the micro.

And it's not the other way around. And that, to me, is Such a big key lesson to learn as a business owner is that when we're operating in the micro, we're often in reactive mode, in my opinion. And when we're in reactive mode, we can't see the big picture for what it is, but we can't see how everything works together because we're just so [00:22:00] focused on the next thing that we have to do, which is the social media post or the.

blog post or the sales page that we have to write or the next thing we have to sell. We're not looking at how everything works together. And that goes for every offer that we sell. And that goes for the entire business as a whole is how does everything sort of fit together, which then brings you to far higher performance when it comes to your content and your marketing.

And. Has things working in a more efficient, streamlined way where your energy isn't leaking all over the place? Because that's the other big thing that I see is this big energy leak, whether it's an energy leak in the person running the company, or it's an energy leaks with your entire team, or It's an energy leak of your soul.

Entrepreneur, like you said, just with yourself is like, I'm exhausted because I'm trying to create and keep up with this creation, content creation, hamster wheel, so to speak, and nothing's really working. [00:23:00] And I feel like I'm just winging it and throwing spaghetti against a wall. And as a result, I'm either speaking to the void, drawing a blank, you know, being friend zoned, all of those sorts of things.

And I'm doing that. That's, that's a result of. not looking at things from that macro perspective and how everything fits together and constantly trying to perfect the one email that's going to go out that in the grand scheme of things, in my opinion, is not going to make or break anything. And that is another big identity shift that has to happen as a business owner, in my opinion, is that That one email that you send is not going to make or break the business.

That one subject line that you're nitpicking to death is not going to be the thing that has people not opening your emails. That one header that you wrote or had somebody else write is not going to be the thing that [00:24:00] makes or breaks it. And at the end of the day, there is fluidity to change it and edit it and tweak it and optimize it, which is what Copy and Content and Marketing is all about and you have to have room for that in your business.

You have to have room for that as a business owner, whether you're solo and you're doing this yourself or you go to hire a team. Because the minute you hire a team and you're operating from what I call the micro, what do I post today? What email do I send today? Your team gets into reactive mode, they'll never be able to perform the best that they can perform and they will never be able to do really solid, amazing work and not from an overachieving perspective, but just from a perspective of like inspiration and creativity because they're constantly just trying to.

Do The Thing, the task that is on their list that day, um, and there's nothing worse, I think, about [00:25:00] that as a team member is, is just feeling like you're in do, do, do, do, and there's no real intention. There's no real plan. There's no real strategy that sort of thing. driving the ship, that gets to be um, a really awkward position for people to be in.

Because in my opinion, most people just want to do a good job and they want to feel like one that they're part of this. Team, and they're, and they're contributing to it and that we're all doing a really amazing job. But when, when we're kind of running with our heads cut off, it's a, it's a tough place to be.

So that for me is one of the biggest observations I see for why content and copy really don't perform. And it's as a summary, it, I'm gonna just bring it back to that is that one, we don't really understand the difference between content and copy in the first place. And we're either using it interchangeably with.

As the same thing when it's not and we're looking at our copy and [00:26:00] content as one to do one thing when really they're two very different things and Then the other thing and the other big one is that micro level we're looking at everything from a micro level to build this really beautiful thing, when in reality we have to start with the micro, the macro, sorry, we have to start with the macro, that big picture, that high level, why we're doing it, let's set the intention, let's have some goals, let's have some targets, what are we aiming towards in the first place?

Because if we don't have an aim, how do we even know that it's performing? If we don't have an aim of where we're going and why we want to go in that direction in the first place, then how do we know? If it's performing, cause that's a big one I get from people. It's like, my stuff's not working. And then you look at it and you're like, well, I want you to like, just, let's just reshift that a little bit because it's actually is working.

It just needs to be optimized. And that brings me to the third thing. You have to leave [00:27:00] room in your business for optimization that you will create far greater. Results for your business. If you come with the mindset of optimizing and optimizing being you're getting results from your content and your copy, but they could be better, right?

You could be spending less on ads. That's what I mean by optimizing. Optimizing is just improving, you know, maybe the landing page copy or uh, the ad visual to get lower ad costs. This is what I talk about optimization and, and every. Every single million dollar business that I have worked for does that.

And the ones that don't, struggle. The ones that are at that realm who are not leaving room for optimization or even looking at it from that perspective, are struggling because they're running with their kind of heads cut off and they're not really sure what's working and what isn't working. [00:28:00] So, with that, I really hope that that episode has shed some light for you on like, Three really key things, in my opinion, that are so important if you want your content and copy to perform.

Um, and, and actually do the thing you want it to do, which is attract people into your world and to put your amazing work. Into the hands of more people and to have the impact that you want in this world. And so with that, I cannot wait for next week's episode 'cause I've got another really juicy one for you.

When I talk about optimization, what that looks like and what to expect and. what not to do when optimizing, because there are a lot of things I see again, observe from working with people, um, tons of entrepreneurs of like the mistakes that we make when we go to optimize copy and what that actually even looks like.

So I cannot wait for that episode to drop. So be sure to tune in and subscribe to the show. So you don't miss it. Cheers. Thanks for listening. We'll see you right back here next time. You can [00:29:00] also find us on social media at CreativelyOwned and online at CreativelyOwned. com. Until next time, keep showing up as your authentic self.