Hiii RadGirl!! Yesss, my subject line today is a take on Carline Anglade Cole’s My Life as a 50+ Year-Old White Male ❤️❤️ Carline is SUCH an amazing and inspiring copywriter and—
Gollum! Gollum!
Ah, that’s better. Now that I’ve cleared my throat and got my own voice back, I can tell you the story behind today’s subject line.
A few years ago, through a series of word-of-mouth recommendations, I got a chance to work with Marina.
Marina is Brazilian. She’s a former top-level athlete turned personal trainer and fitness model. She also sells workout and diet programs for busy and stressed moms.
Marina wanted to send conversational emails to her list. But she didn’t want to write the emails herself.
So she and her husband (a well–known direct marketer) made me an offer. A flat monthly fee + a cut of whatever money we made through the emails I’d be writing. But it was important that the emails really sound like her.
“Sure!” I said. “Love to do it! It’ll be a challenge! But a good copywriter can write in anybody’s voice!”
I knew just what to do.
I got on multiple calls with Marina. I wrote down her fitness and health philosophy. I listened to her funny personal stories. I asked about the restaurants she’s been eating in… the TV shows she’s been watching… the thoughts that pop up in her head when the lights go out.
I also started stalking her online. I analyzed each of her Instagram posts for word choice, punctuation, emotional tenor. I made a “Marina vocabulary” file.
And then I got to work. I told my stories of how I used to hate my crazy curly hair in high school… how I struggled to accept cellulite on my thighs, even though it’s a perfectly natural part of being a woman…
I agonized whether to include one exclamation point (important!) two exclamation points (mind-blowing!!!) or three excla—
“Yeah, I get it.” I hear you say. “You worked hard to mimic her voice. What’s the point you’re getting at?”
I see you’re impatient today. Fine. I’ll hurry it up.
The emails I wrote for Marina made some sales. But I hated the process.
It took an enormous amount of time to juke the emails so they would read passably like her.
And even so, what I wrote never really sounded like Marina. It was obvious to me, and I assume obvious to anybody who actually knew her.
No, we never got any complaints from readers (“WTF, this sounds fake”).
And it was impossible to tell how the sales were affected (“This email Marina doesn’t sound like the Instagram Marina I know…. better hold off on buying till I get this sorted”).
But a couple months into this experience… when I realized this wasn’t going to be a giant money maker for either her or me… I wrote to Marina, said thanks for the opportunity, but it’s time for me to move on. And I did, to the real estate investing space, a market where I had more natural fit.
So the point you were asking about:
Lots of new copywriters claim they can write in anybody’s voice. “Love to do it! It’ll be a challenge! But I can mimic anybody with my secret research processss!!!”
And maybe you can.
I cannot. Not if it’s a real, live, sentient human being I’m supposed to mimic. Not if the lexical similarity needs to be greater than 60%. Not if I don’t plan to spend months or maybe years growing into the role.
This is part of a bigger issue in copywriting.
I remember hearing in the “Gene Schwartz Graduate Course on Marketing” that Gene Schwartz — yeah, one of the greatest copywriters of all time — couldn’t write winning copy outside his specialized field.
I don’t remember the exact details. But the person who said it was somebody in the know (maybe somebody who had worked with Gene).
And this person said that when Gene was taken out of his “Lethal Weapon,” “Rub your belly away” ads and sales letters, his copy didn’t pull. In spite of the meticulous research he did.
Same story with Clayton Makepeace. Another giant. Clayton made crazy sales in health and financial. But I heard Rich Schefren say on a Facebook live that when Clayton wrote some stuff for Rich in the IM space, it also didn’t pull. In spite of Clayton being a natural.
I’m not 100% sure what my takeaway for you is. If you’re a copywriter, I’m certainly not telling you to skip research. I’m also not telling you to refuse jobs just because the client’s voice is not “you.”
But perhaps, this is just argument #4338, not only for specializing with your copy… but for specializing with a few clients — or maybe even hunkering down with one client only.
And if you’re not a copywriter, but a business owner who’s been writing his or her (Heyyy RadGirl) own copy…
Then everything I just said is an argument against casually outsourcing your own voice to a copywriter. Regardless of how much they assure you they will sound like you. It’s not impossible. But it is likely to take time. You might decide it’s better to do keep this sensitive and valuable part of your business to yourself.
Which brings me to my upcoming Influential Emails training. Here’s a reason NOT to sign up:
Influential Emails is not about tips and tricks to jazz up a one-off email or a sequence for a client you will never work with again. Yes, I’ll reveal some high-level stuff. And yes, you can use this to improve storytelling or get more readers sucked in, regardless of what you write.
But Influential Emails is really about the long game. About influencing and building a relationship with an audience. About getting them to look at you (or your email alter-ego) as a leader.
That’s why Influential Emails only makes sense if you are writing to promote yourself… or your own business or brand… or if you are working with a long-term client.
In other words, if makes sense if it pays you to invest time and effort to create long-term, powerful influence, instead of just one-time sales.
In any case, the deadline to sign up for Influential Emails is tomorrow.
I CANNOT WAIT FOR YOU TO JOIN and find out all my amazing secrets! 🙏🏼🙌🏼💞. YOU ARE WORTH IT!
Seriously now. Here’s the link:
https://influentialemails.com