Over the last year, I have MASSIVELY pivoted my content marketing strategy…
Have you noticed?
In this blog, I’m going to dish out all the dirt on WHY the “old way” stopped working for us…
And the 2 things we’re doing now instead.
Hey Posse, what’s up? It’s Alex.
I’m going to do things a little differently this week and totally skip the intro…
Because I’m feeling spicy and this is my blog and I can do what I want.
So let’s jump right into it…
Over the past year, I massively changed my content marketing strategy on social media and email…
Here’s what happened and why…
Change #1 – Benefit vs Buyer Driven Messaging
Over the last year we changed up our social content in a pretty big way…
Instead of creating content that JUST copywriters would be interested in or content that JUST business owners would be interested in…
We made a strategic decision to make our social media messaging less specific to one particular audience.
I KNOW that sounds totally counterintuitive.
And goes against ALL the advice I typically give…
Which is: the more specific the better.
I know, I know, I know!
And listen – specificity IS everything when you’re just getting started, but once you hear WHY we made this pivot, it’s going to make a lot more sense to you…
First, let’s rewind about 5 years…
When I first started my YouTube channel, I had one core avatar in mind – aspiring copywriters. Period.
I solely taught people how to get paid to write…
And my audience consisted of people who wanted to start a freelance copywriting business from home just like I had…
And therefore, all of my posts on social media looked something like this…
And this.
And it worked really great.
The posts did exactly what they were supposed to do: attract my ideal customer avatar.
My business grew FAST – to 7-figures in ONE year…
And I truly don’t think this would have happened if I wasn’t SUPER specific about who I served.
But then you might be wondering… if it worked so great, why did you change it?
Well, over time, my audience began to grow and their skills (and challenges) began to expand too…
My aspiring copywriters were no longer aspiring copywriters. They had taken my programs and were out there DOING the damn thing…
Landing clients and leveling up…
And even starting new brands and businesses of their own!
As my friend Stu Mclaren said, “Copywriting is the gateway drug to entrepreneurship.”
And my YouTube channel was dishing it up, which I guess makes me your dealer?
Anyway, that’s when I realized that my content needed to grow and expand WITH my audience…
So that I could continue serving my most loyal customers and create repeat customers…
As opposed to ONLY focusing on gaining aspiring copywriters as new customers who would then soon outgrow my content.
Not to mention, I really LOVE teaching higher-level marketing strategy and coaching growing business owners so I was really excited about this upward growth…
But then something else started happening, I started gaining more authority in the marketing industry as my business grew…
I was named 2022’s Marketer of the Year by DigitalMarketer…
I spoke on stages and at masterminds to entrepreneurs everywhere…
And suddenly it wasn’t JUST copywriters who wanted to learn copywriting and marketing from yours truly…
It was also entrepreneurs, coaches and creators who wanted to grow their business like I had…
And other freelancers, marketers and business owners who wanted to clarify their messaging, scale their marketing and improve their offers…
And so now my business starting growing *this way* to serve new audiences.
Now listen, I’m not saying you SHOULD start a business serving multiple avatars…
That would be bad advice…
But what I’m saying is that it’s normal for your content to evolve over time as YOUR audiences grows…
Let’s normalize growth and evolution in our content and businesses…
The Copy Posse was attracting new audiences and if all of our social media posts look like the ones at the top of this blog, then we wouldn’t be doing a very good job of serving those people would we?
Now while I will ALWAYS continue to coach and train the best copywriters in the industry, it’s my vision to become THE leading authority in copywriting and marketing education…
And so I decided to shift our messaging on social media to be more BENEFIT focused and less BUYER focused…
Here, let me show you what that looks like…
“3 key elements of great copy” – nothing specific to copywriters. This will capture the attention of anyone who wants to write great copy…
This post is about the importance of storytelling in messaging. Again, there is no language being used that isolates any portion of our audience. Anyone in the marketing world can find this post valuable…
“Great emails do these 9 things” – it’s specific enough to draw in anyone who writes emails… but also super inclusive.
“Try these hooks in your captions” – see how we’re not using the word copywriter? And how this post would obviously still interest a copywriter AND a business owner?
By making our social messaging more benefit-focused and no longer hyper-fixating on ONE type of buyer, we’re serving and attracting a broader audience who can benefit from our content.
And let’s remember what the #1 purpose of social media is…
To get new leads on your email list.
And that is exactly what happened.
Our list started to grow with both copywriters who were looking for specific freelancer training AND business owners looking for marketing strategies to grow their own businesses!
Which was awesome…
Until we realized our “old way” of sending every email to our entire list was shooting us in the foot.
It meant business owners were now getting our copywriter-specific offers, and vice versa…
And what happens when you bombard a person with an offer they are NOT interested in… they unsubscribe.
Which, obviously, we don’t want.
This created a fun new challenge for us to solve in our marketing…
Which leads me to…
Change #2 – Personalized Email Segmentation vs One Size Fits All
Because we now serve two different customer avatars in our audience, we make a very concerted effort to segment our email list based on a lead’s actions with our brand and the type of content they interact with.
So we have a copywriter segment…
AND a business owner segment.
This allows us to send highly-specific and personalized promotions to the aspiring copywriters on our list, but suppress the business owners…
And, if we get it wrong, we give them the option to personalize their communication with us and opt out of a specific segment.
You can see here we give business owners the opportunity to tell us, “I’m not a copywriter, but I still want your copywriting and marketing tips!”
Like when we promote my flagship 8-week copywriter coaching program, the Copy Posse Launch Pad…
Which to date has taught over 1200 copywriters from around the world the skills they need to start a freedom-based copywriting business – on their own terms.
I’m talking about healthcare workers, students, and teachers who started copywriting as a side hustle to make some extra money every month…
Burnt-out execs and who were ready to escape the corporate grind and create a life of more freedom and flexibility…
Shift workers who were tired of the long hours and late nights and wanted to travel the world and work from anywhere…
New moms and dads who wanted a way to work from home while spending quality time with their kiddos…
Creative writers and artists who wanted a more lucrative and versatile and way to get paid for their words…
And so many more.
Btw if you want to get paid to write, check out this blog with 7 ideas to make money online here!
So we only send copywriter-specific emails to our copywriter segment and then we can do the same thing with our business owner segment.
By sending THEM offers that they would be interested in…
Like my STORM Marketing Method.
Which has my entire step-by-step marketing method and is more suited for business owners who are DIY-ing their marketing…
Or more advanced copywriters who are ready to level up their marketing services to better serve their clients and build businesses.
Segmenting our email list has been a game-changer.
It allows us to run parallel campaigns to both segments, which essentially doubles our marketing opportunities and results…
And our unsubscribe rate has gone way down…
Here’s a quick comparison to show you the power of segmentation.
In the fall of last year, we promoted something called Posse Week – a live multi-day online event that is 100% for aspiring copywriters who are curious about starting a freelancing business…
When we were promoting this offer to our entire list without segmenting out the business owners, we had a 15.4% unsubscribe rate. Ouch.
When we did a similar campaign this spring for our copywriter audience, our unsubscribe rate was 2.3%. That’s more like it…
In addition to segmentation, we also give everyone on our list the opportunity to opt out of any campaign or promotion WITHOUT unsubscribing from our email list but putting a little opt-out above the main unsubscribe link.
It looks like this.
Giving our email leads the opportunity to control and personalize their email experience has been a game-changer for us and it’s something we’re looking to do even more of in the future!
Why am I sharing this all with you?
To remind you that marketing is one big giant experiment and a series of problems we need to solve as business owners and marketers…
You try one thing, it doesn’t work. You try something else and it works great, but then you need to pivot to something else.
No one has perfect marketing… it doesn’t exist. Marketing is all about delivering the best possible content and offers to the RIGHT market… and you better believe that can change over time.
Take risks, have fun, and remember nothing is permanent! Just because it’s published on the internet doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind, opinion or strategy.
That is straight marketing facts and you know I’ll always keep it real with you.
So if you want to hear more about all the marketing, copywriting and branding strategies I try, mess up, and try again, make sure to stick around and leave a comment for any topic suggestions below!
I will see you next week with a brand-new blog. Until then, I’m Alex. Ciao for now!