Making conversations about copywriting count!

Joining Wendy in this episode is copywriter James Daniel. He describes himself as ‘That old guy who writes copy – you know, the beardy one with glasses.’ We should point out there could be other old guys with beards and glasses out there! It’s easy to like James style of writing because he’s a conversationalist who realises that people don’t speak geek or tech. He doesn’t talk jargon when he explains great copy.

Talking with James’ about his pivotal moment peels back some interesting layers that some would shy away from...

Connect with James here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdcopywriter/

 

Grab his latest book ‘Before you JFDI’ for FREE here:

https://www.jamesthecopywriter.co.uk/

 

Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction 00:01:30: The power of conversational emails 00:02:19: "Do you talk like that at home?" 00:04:00: Maintaining a natural voice in conversation 00:05:13: Meritocracy 00:07:28: James's pivotal moment 00:14:40: The value of initiative 00:15:15: From journalism to sales 00:18:22: A (sneaky) second pivotal moment!

00:20:37: Final thoughts

 

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Making Conversations Count - Episode 8 

Wendy Harris & James Daniel 

December 10th 2020

 

Wendy Harris: Welcome to Making Conversations Count, the podcast where we have business leaders share their pivotal moments to help aspiring entrepreneurs on their journey.  Today in the studio, I am joined with James Daniel.  He is EarthMonkey Media and does copywriting.  So, James, it's good to have you here.  Tell everybody how we met.

James Daniel: Thanks, Wendy, it's great to be here, thank you.  The first sort of contact that we had, I think, was via LinkedIn, wasn't it?  You'd been reading some emails that I send out every week with copywriting tips and marketing ideas, and I heard from you and I know you were particularly taken with one email that had some totally bizarre suggestions about a hippopotamus, I think, wasn't it?

Wendy Harris: Yes, I remember that clearly!  It certainly made me read the email when I saw hippopotamus in the text, which meant I had to reach out.  I actually thought, that's really clever, since I post generally on a weekly basis about hippos somewhere along the line; I squeeze my love of hippopotamuses in for everybody to share with me and I thought you'd written it especially for me.

James Daniel: I had, yeah!  No, it's a funny thing, that injecting a little bit of humour and some vague stuff that doesn't really seem to naturally fit with business, it just gets people reading, so you draw them into your content.  That's how I like to write emails.  But, yeah, that was our first contact of course and since then, we've just been chatting and thought it would be a good idea to have this talk about how I sort of got to where I'm at now in my copywriting career.

Wendy Harris: It's purely that conversational style over that email.  I'd seen some of your posts, which is why I'd subscribed in the first place, because I thought, here's somebody who really gets it, who understands that having a conversation through copy is the way to build relationships; so, I subscribed and I've just been a lurker of those emails really. 

When that one was just for me, I know because it...