So you want to be a copywriter with Bernadette Schwerdt

Often it’s the people with the least confidence who have the most talent. Imagine how powerful you’d be if you could combine your inherent ability with the confidence to talk about it. You’d be unstoppable.

When Oprah Winfrey came to Australia, she could have picked anyone to handle her PR. She picked Karen Eck, founder of Eckfactor, one of Australia’s premier PR agencies, and the campaign generated over $190 million in media exposure.  Karen has worked with some of the biggest brands on the planet including Uber, Sony Pictures, Anthony Robbins and The Wiggles. You could say she knows how to get people noticed!

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Eckfactor

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Join our community of copywriters at CopyClub.com.au.

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Even if you have zero knowledge about copywriting, you can reinvent yourself and land the job of your dreams. Discover how Louis Lucente did just that by doing a copywriting course at the Australian Writers' Centre. One year on, he’s working with some of Australia’s biggest brands.

Louis Lucente is one of Australia’s finest musical theatre stars. The lure of creating a side hustle to supplement his acting work had been niggling Louis for years so when lockdown came along and he had time to stop and think, he knew that now was the time to get started.

Within a year, he went from having zero knowledge of copywriting to creating a successful freelance copywriting business,to landing the job of his dreams with one of Melbourne’s hottest creative ad agencies and working on some of Australia’s biggest brands.  

We talked about:

• How he got started as a copywriter
• How he found his first few copywriting clients
• How he landed a job in an advertising agency
• The connection between acting, theatre, creativity and copywriting and how they intersect
• How to work with clients or products when you are ethically challenged 

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Louis Lucente

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Join our community of copywriters at CopyClub.com.au.

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Copywriting careers start anywhere – even on Nepalese hiking trips! Gabi Pasztor shares her story of transitioning from a career in teaching to become a full time freelance copywriter.

Gabi Pasztor loved her job as a teacher but when a tour guide on a Nepalese hiking trip asked her to write the copy for his tour website, she thought, maybe others could use my services too!

With zero experience in business, or networking, or client development, she is now the owner of a very successful copywriting business, sets her own hours, works with who she wants when she wants and has never looked back.

In this podcast I talk to Gabi about how she transitioned from being a teacher to being a full-time copywriter, the steps she took to make it happen, the mistakes she made and the lessons she’s learnt along the way.

We talk about how Gabi:

• transitioned from being a teacher to a copywriter 
• set up her copywriting business from scratch, and why not having a business background was an asset
• found her first few clients
• leveraged her personal network to find work 
• built strategic partnerships to generate high value clients 
• turned word-of-mouth introductions into long term clients
• built her website (and why she’d do it oh-so-differently next time)
• outsources key activities
• uses LinkedIn to gain connections and engagement 
• pitched to clients and the script she uses that gets great results.

If you’re keen to transition from one career to another, and find a side hustle that inspires you, check out our copywriting courses and discover, as Gabi did, that creating a copywriting career is well within reach of anyone.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Quill Copywriting  

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Join our community of copywriters at CopyClub.com.au.

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Discover how copywriting can help you turn your passion into profit.  

Donna Webeck’s dream was to earn money by writing about real estate but with no experience in the sector, no background in writing, no contacts in the real estate industry, that dream seemed just that.  Until she took the plunge, did a short course in copywriting and now here she is 6 years later with a flourishing, thriving business writing real estate copy for some of the country’s top real estate agents, earning a six-figure income and having the flexibility and freedom to be there for her family and see them grow up.  In her own words, she now has her dream job.

Today I talk to Donna about how she did it and how you can do it too.  In this episode, we talked about:

• How she got started in the real estate copywriting industry
• How long it takes to write up a real estate listing
• How much you can earn as a real estate copywriter
• What the future of real estate copywriting holds
• Tips on how to write copy for real estate
• What to do when the property you’re promoting is less than exciting
• How to leverage contacts and strategic partnerships to easily find new clients
• How she overcame shyness and introversion to become a successful and confident networker
• Why you only need to find one client to kick start your copywriting business
• Where to find clients and what to say (Donna found a new client at a funeral!)
• Why it’s not always necessary to visit the property
• How to leverage Google to help you write your listings quickly
• Why ‘show, don’t tell’ formula for writing copy helped her become Australia’s ‘go to’ real estate copywriter
• How she used a short course in copywriting to launch her career

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Join our community of copywriters at CopyClub.com.au.

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A once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity that turned toxic was the catalyst for leading journalist Kate Halfpenny to turn her hand to content writing. And what a journey she’s been on ever since. She shares the highs and lows and lessons learnt here.

Bad mothers. Boogie boarding. Bad jobs that make us question our worth and ability.  Making a sea change. Life. Death.  Empty nesting.

What’s all this got to do with copywriting? Well, a lot actually because my guest today is Kate Halfpenny, one of Australia’s most successful journalists. As the executive editor of  Who magazine for 24 years, chief of staff for The New Daily newspaper for many years, and a writer for The Age and other leading publications, Kate moved from journalism into a marketing  communications role – and absolutely hated it!

That experience forced her to confront what she really wanted to do, where she really wanted to live, who she really wanted to spend time with, and part of that reinvention was to become a content writer and a highly sought after one, at that.

That’s what it’s got to do with copywriting.

In this episode, Kate and I discuss:

• What’s being a ‘bad mother’ really mean and why it might actually be a good thing
• Why she took a communications role and why it ended so badly
• How to pitch to the media and get your stories picked up
• How to ‘bug’ journalists without being annoying
• How to come up with great ideas
• How to navigate transitioning from motherhood to empty nesting
• Why life is too short to be anything less than honest
• How to deal with rejection 
• How to know when the copy you write is good or not
• The 7 step structure for writing content 
• How to make a sea change
• Why we love Guy Pearce

Mentioned in this episode:

• Kate Halfpenny on LinkedIn

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Join our community of copywriters at CopyClub.com.au.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Instagram is a powerful tool to add to your self-promotion strategy, and in this episode  you’ll learn exactly how to use Instagram to be your authentic self and find new clients.

Emily Osmond is an Instagram expert. She is the founder of the Modern Marketing Collective program and is skilled at helping small businesses use Instagram to build their following.

In this episode we talk about how to:

• use Instagram to gain new clients
• use a four-step process for creating great Instagram content
• create an authentic brand on Instagram
• understand the best types of content that builds your Instagram following
• use Instagram to get people to know, like and trust you
• build credibility and create value
• find the balance between sharing and selling
• showcase your values and beliefs to instil trust
• feature testimonials and case studies in a respectful way
• write your Insta bio that positions you as a person of trust
• use your bio to build your email following  
• use the feed, the reel, and Instag ‘live’ to generate leads

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Join our community of copywriters at CopyClub.com.au.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you’re interested in learning how to set up, structure and launch your brand spanking new copywriting business, this is the episode for you.

I have trained over 9000 people in the art of copywriting and I know that the one thing that trips most people up when starting out, is how to set up the copywriting business in the first place.  Whether you want to launch your side hustle or maybe take it to the next step and give your  current job the flick and become a full time copywriting, there are lots of little things you need to think about, but they can become big things if you don’t have the insights and expertise to set them up correctly in the first place.

And that’s what this podcast is all about. 

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Join our community of copywriters at CopyClub.com.au.

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Wouldn’t it be great if you could get one copywriting client and turn that one job into an ongoing series of jobs without any extra effort? If you’re interested in learning how to secure monthly retainers so that you don’t have to constantly seek new work, this is the podcast for you. 

In this episode we talk to Ami-Leigh O’Donnell. Ami is a leading digital marketer, social media manager and copywriter. Her superpower is turning one off copywriting jobs into long term retainer contracts.

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Join our community of copywriters at CopyClub.com.au.

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In this episode, Bernadette chats to Matthew Farmer. He is the Content Team Manager at StudioHawk SEO agency. His firm was named as ‘Best Global SEO Agency’ in 2021 and count blue chip companies like Envato, Officeworks, Amart, Petstock and New Balance as their clients.

Matthew manages a team of 15 SEO copywriters and works closely with the clients to create SEO content that gets them on page one of Google.

In this episode, Bernadette talks to Matthew about:

• how he got started as a copywriter and why the impostor syndrome and lack of confidence set him back
• why the hard, early years of working in a call centre helped him become a better copywriter
• what he looks for when hiring an SEO copywriting freelancer
• what not to do when applying for copywriting jobs
• how to get your resume noticed (for all the right reasons)
• the 3 key pillars of SEO success and how you can leverage them for your business
• his process for writing SEO content for his clients
• how to create a portfolio if you don’t have any clients
• the best free keyword planning tools
• how to get backlinks to create more authority
• the best blog length for getting on page one of (and how often you should post a blog)
• the top 7 hotspots for keywords
• the importance of understanding ‘search intent’ when writing SEO copy
• why Google loves content that’s phrased as a question
• how his novel writing informs his copywriting and why the process is similar

About Matthew:

He is the Content Team Manager with StudioHawk, a boutique SEO Marketing company, and a Global Search Awards winner for Best SEO Agency, Globally. He leads a team of remote-working Freelancers, giving out briefs for blogs and web copy, and writing copy for their growing suite of SEO clients. He is also a published novelist. He is now, in his own words, ‘Sitting in what I consider my perfect job’.

Mentioned in this episode:
https://studiohawk.com.au/
https://ahrefs.com/
https://www.semrush.com/
https://analytics.google.com/

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Join our community of copywriters at CopyClub.com.au.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Glenn Peters started out as a music journalist, turned to copywriting in his mid-thirties and has never looked back. He is now one of Australia’s busiest copywriters and is consistently rated by the top creative directors as their copywriter of choice.

He’s worked with Jeep, Crikey, ANZ, Telstra, Coles and writes for almost every medium – long copy, short copy, online, print, TV, radio, direct response and more. There’s not much he hasn’t done in his long and illustrious copywriting career.

In this episode he talks to us about:

• where he finds copywriting inspiration when he’s stuck for ideas or lost for words
• how he came into copywriting late in his career (and why starting late was an asset, not a liability)
• why he prefers copywriting to journalism (and why copywriters get paid so much more)
• when (and where) he found his ‘identity as a copywriter
• how to give ourselves permission to be a copywriter
• the ‘war’ between copywriters, ‘suits’ and clients and copywriters and how empathy can be the superpower that resolves the conflict
• the power of long walks to generate creative inspiration and why his ‘art walks’ fuel his creative energy
• how to make your copy more active (hint: get rid of words that end with ‘ing’)
• why clients are as scared of you (the copywriter) as you are of them
• how to inspire the client to be more honest with you and give you more helpful feedback
• why fear is a critical component of creativity
• why deadlines are a good thing
• tips on how to write long copy, create a ‘tone of voice’ and how to write copy that’s funny

About Glenn Peters

For over a decade Glenn has been entrusted by many Melbourne agencies including DDB, Ogilvy, Whippet, Cummins & Partners, Penso, TBWA, The Royals, Noisy Beast, The Brand Agency and Big Red to solve their clients’ problems.

Digital, TV, Direct Marketing, Radio, Print, OOH, you name it, he’s written for it. Financial services, telcos, big retail, automotive, sports or FMCG, you name it, he’s sold it.

His life passions are his family, music, being president of his local cricket club, and barracking for Collingwood Football Club. (We won’t hold that last one against you Glenn!)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/glennpeterscopywriter/?originalSubdomain=au
https://glennpeterscreative.com/meet-glenn-peters/

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Join our community of copywriters at CopyClub.com.au.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.