Good morning, and welcome back to Marketing Qualified, your favorite weekly newsletter (hopefully 🤞). Here are today’s topics:

• Become a better copywriter in 3 minutes or less. We break down the top tips from one of the best podcast episodes we’ve listened to in a long time.

• You need to dominate space. Make sure your content stands out in a crowd.

📝  Become a better copywriter in 3 minutes or less.

Are you a podcast person? If so, stop what you’re doing and check out this whole episode right now!

Not a podcast person? Do it anyway!

Oh, you’re still here? Ok, fine… we’ll summarize it for you. 😉

One of our favorite podcasts, My First Million, dropped a new episode this week. In our opinion, it’s one of their best ever.

It’s a masterclass on how to become a better writer.

The hosts, Sam and Shaan, have both built and sold multiple companies. Including two of the top email newsletters in the world (both of which sold for millions of dollars).

So it’s safe to say they know copywriting.

In the episode, they discuss their top learning and tips for writing excellent business copy. We highly recommend going and listening to the whole episode to hear all the nitty-gritty details. But if you’re short on time, here are the highlights.

Begin with the end in mind.

Be crystal clear about these three things before you write a single word.

1) What’s the reaction you want?

Pick the emotion that you want someone to feel after reading your writing. Do you want LOL, OMG, WTF, Aww, or something else?

People will only share or act if they feel something at the end.

2) What’s the action you want someone to take?

Do you want someone to click a button? Schedule a demo? Forward to a friend? Know what action you want to jumpstart and then lead them towards it.

And only choose one action. Any more than that, and people get confused.

3) What’s the takeaway?

Ultimately, if the reader could only remember one line or idea, what do you want it to be?

People remember sentences, not books.

Write headlines, not outlines.

In school, you’re taught to start your writing with an outline. Don’t do that. Why?

Because what got you As in school isn’t what gets you dollars in the real world.

In school, you’re rewarded for:

• Hitting a word count.

• Using fancy words that you pulled out of a thesaurus.

• Writing with flowery prose and complex sentence structures.

When you’re writing for the internet, you have to do the exact opposite — be short, simple, and concise.

So, instead of beginning with a complex outline, start with a headline and subheadline. This helps you clarify what you’re going to write but keeps things super simple and focused.

Draft fast, edit slow.

Write the first draft ASAP. It will be bad, but that’s ok. Just get it out.

Then let it sit. Go do something else.

New ideas will come when your brain is free to relax and roam. This is why shower thoughts are a thing.

Give your brain a break between drafting and editing. It can be as short or as long as you need. Figure out what works best for you. But it’s essential that you take a break.

That way, when you sit down to edit, it’s like you have a new set of eyes. The changes you need to make will feel obvious and glaring.

After all, great writing is great editing.

Build your swipe file.

Collect examples of work you like and save them to a swipe file. That way, they’re sitting there waiting for you when you need inspiration or ideas.

Don’t bury the lead.

For any piece of writing, the first sentence should punch.

Put the most important thought at the top — the provocative idea, the promise, the bait.

Don’t try to give a ton of background or introduction. You want to grab their attention but not tell them everything just yet. That way, they keep reading.

Here’s a great example:

This is from an article that went viral several years ago.

It piques the reader’s interest, asks a provocative question, and then promises an answer later. Only after all that does it start to dive into background information. By then, the reader is already invested.

They call this the “slippery slope.” The purpose of each sentence is to get someone to read the next. And the next and the next.

Write like you talk.

A lot of people think they’re not good writers. But good writing is just good thinking.

If you don’t know what to write, then start talking out loud. Write down what you say.

If it still doesn’t make sense, then you need to refine the idea or understand it better first. Before you can write well, you need to be able to explain it out loud in simple terms.

You shouldn’t have to have a Shakespearean alter ego inside you with a different style and feel than how you actually talk.

That’s why so many LinkedIn posts feel cringey. People write in strange, grandiose styles that they would never use in real-life conversations.

The most engaging type of writing is when it feels like the author is just having a normal conversation with you.

If you would never talk about it, don’t write about it.

Many brands write about topics that would never be interesting to talk about.

If you wouldn't walk up to a coworker or friend and say, “Guess what I just learned?!” or “Guess what happened today!” or “I had this interesting idea about…” then it’s not a topic that’s interesting enough to write about.

If it’s not even interesting to someone who knows you, it won’t be interesting enough to a stranger.

If it’s not a good conversation starter, skip it.

Write to one person.

Pretend you're writing directly to one person, and it’s just a coincidence that thousands of others might read it.

This helps your writing feel personal so people can connect with it.

If you liked these and want more copywriting tips, check out the full episode.

📰  In the news this week.

📁  The text file that runs the internet.

🎧  20 podcast recommendations for marketers & creators.

🤔  What happens when TikTok is your marketing department.

❓  Can we really ‘create’ demand – and does it matter?

🎨 Color trends for 2024.

👀 You need to dominate space.

Get out of Photoshop and into a real environment.

Will it stand out against others? Will it stop the scroll? Stop someone in their tracks?

Which one do you read?

😂 Marketing meme of the week.

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