Last day of The Copywriter Club live event in London.
This morning, I decided to skip the 7am writing of this email. Instead, I walked the streets and parks of London till it was time for the event to start.
Then a full day of presentations, workshops, lunch, and a live podcast episode followed.
Event concluded, everyone still standing joined for a farewell Hop On Hop Off bus tour of the Westminster City and the City of London.
The bus came to Trafalgar Square and it was time for a group photo.
Linda Perry, TCC’s mindset coach, turned around in her seat towards me. “Were you even in the picture?” she asked. “Are you hiding back here?”
Rob Marsh, co-founder of TCC, also turned around. “John’s taking notes,” he said. “This will probably be in an email next week.”
Which brings me to a reply I got from a long-time reader in response to my rushed email yesterday:
===
Great points as always John.
I’m curious if you ever write your emails in advance? I find it’s much easier to batch content. That way I can get into a creative zone and work faster, and also not have to think about making more content for a while.
Seems like it could make your life much easier during big events like The Copywriter Club? What am I missing?
===
I think it’s smart to write a bunch of emails instead of one — if you’re a copywriter working for a client.
But I don’t do it for my own emails for two reasons.
First, I like the tiny bit of excitement and danger involved in finding the time to write an email each day and a fresh, current occasion or idea to write it around.
(I’m writing this at the London Bridge train station, waiting for the train to take me to Gatwick airport, which will hopefully result in me getting back to my own bed in Barcelona later tonight.)
The second reason I don’t write my emails ahead of time is more practical, and certainly more relevant to you, at least if you are interested in having your own email newsletter:
One big reason people read email newsletters is for that feeling of freshness, immediacy, novelty.
I know I quickly lose interests whenever I realize I’m reading an autoresponder email, however clever and useful it might be (I’d rather just read a book).
My prediction:
The value of rushed, typo-riddled, and yet fresh emails will only increase in a world where you no longer need to batch or schedule your emails ahead of time, or even put then into an autoresponder, because an email or 20 can be generated on the spot by glossy, generic Claude or ChatGPT.
The fact is, much of the value I provide with this newsletter is that I’m here every day, and that I happen to be human.
Just something to consider:
There are certainly days when you might not be able to write a new email. There might also be days when even if you do write a new email, it’s not obvious to your readers that it’s really new.
But if you:
1) make an ongoing effort to do write a new email every day and
2) make an effort let your audience know it’s new… then this will give people a strong added reason to read your new email tomorrow as well, beyond any fun stories or insightful takeaways you might share.
Time for me to travel. So one final point.
Whether you decide to write a fresh email each day, or you prefer to batch a bunch of ’em in one go and then take a long break, consider my Simple Money Emails course.
The core promise of it is a simple method to write an email that makes sales today, and that keeps your readers reading tomorrow.
If that’s something you’d like to do: