Yes, you write. But when it comes to marketing, you can do a lot more than that. Today, clients are looking for help from specialists like copywriters who bring more to the table. In this episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I spoke with Emily Reagan about how writers can offer additional services and expertise to their clients. Emily helps virtual assistants step up into a more helpful role as Marketing Assistants, and it’s something we think more copywriters need to consider. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.

Atomic Habits

Rob Marsh:  You’re a copywriter, but you can do other marketing stuff like design or email systems. Is there a need for that? This is The Copywriter Club Podcast.

As a copywriter, you probably have a hand in all kinds of marketing activities—everything from the overall marketing strategy to brainstorming lead magnets, to creating and posting content, or writing and managing ads, to figuring out which email systems will help increase engagement and purchases… you probably already do a lot of this stuff. What’s more, a lot of clients want smaller, more nimble teams these days, and that means working with people who can do more of the tasks they used to depend on an entire team to get done. Some people taking on these expanded roles call themselves marketing assistants. Whether that title works for you or not isn’t important. What really matters is that there is a growing need for writers of all kinds to take on this larger, more inclusive role and contribute more, often using A.I. to bring it all together.

My guest for this episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast is Emily Reagan. Emily started out offering marketing support especially related to Facebook ads, but she expanded beyond that to include copywriting and other marketing services. And she’s spent the past couple of years helping others do the same thing. We talked about the importance of adding additional marketing services to your copywriting business to make yourself more valuable—maybe even indispensable—for your clients. It’s yet another way to stand out from all the other writers out there who don’t offer clients anything extra.

While we talked, Emily also shared a lot of details about her business—she works with clients and helps other writers grow their marketing skills. As she tells it, her business grew serendipitously… going from one thing to the next as it made sense. It’s not exactly a path that others can follow, but it is a strategy for finding your own path to the work you love doing. I think you’re going to like this discussion.

As usual, this episode is brought to you by The Copywriter Underground. You’ve heard me talk about how we’ve recently rebuilt The Underground dashboard to make it easier to find the ideas and insights you need. But as I started recreating this new dashboard, it occurred to me that no one has time to watch more than 70 different workshops—even for those workshops that help you gain the skills and strategies you need to build your business. So I’ve taken more than 30 of those workshops on finding clients, having sales calls, using A.I., building authority on LinkedIn, and dozens of others… and I’ve created playbooks that break down the ideas in the workshops into easy-to-follow steps. Each playbook is 3-5 pages long. You can read through one and implement the ideas in minutes. And then if you want more detail, you can watch the accompanying workshop. Each playbook even includes a checklist so you don’t miss any steps and can make sure you get things done. I’m working on completing playbooks for all of the workshops and training inside The Underground. They should all be ready by the end of April. You can get the first 30 or so right now by visiting thecopywriterclub.com/tcu.

And now, my interview with Emily Reagan…

Hey Emily, welcome to the podcast. And let’s, let’s just start out by saying this is a long time coming. The last time we saw each other, it’s like five years ago. And I don’t know why we haven’t had you on sooner than the now, but I’m glad you’re here now that you’re here. Yeah, tell us. Tell us your story. How did you become a copywriter?

Emily Reagan: Yeah, it’s been five years in the making. The last time you and I were together was right when the pandemic was happening in 2020, so it’s a completely different time. And my business has changed a lot since I showed up to your conference in real life. But you know how business owners, especially the online ones, are running around like crazy, trying to wear all the hats, do all the things, and keep all the marketing and all the gardens happy? I am the person who started training the marketing assistant to help within that marketing department. It started because I was a military wife for 20 years, had this hodgepodge of journalism and PR jobs, and was just lucky to find a job only to move a year or two later. And it kind of all came together beautifully in the online space, and then I just started teaching my friends how to do it.

So when I went to your conference, I wasn’t officially calling myself a copywriter, but I was still finding myself doing that work. Had I known about it back in 2007 when I was freelancing my first press releases, I would have just gone all into Copyright. Marketing, but I didn’t know what I didn’t know. So yeah, now I train virtual assistants to be in the marketing department, because marketing, it’s more fun, it’s creative, it’s flexible, it pays more. And that’s where I’m happy. I

And the cream always rises. I mean, “Assistant” never would have appealed to me, so I’ve really struggled with my own marketing. I’m like, do I use the title: virtual assistant? Because that’s the SEO word, but it’s so much more. And I think the term virtual assistant is just really getting kind of dumbed down. When I get into my Kia Carnival, and I see the little button for a virtual assistant, I’m thinking of AI. And so this job title has evolved since I even started, you know, training people four years ago, and that’s why I kind of went all in with the idea of a marketing assistant, because there’s just so many options online, and then you start adding different skills like copy or customer service or podcasting content marketing, and you’ve just created a whole different type of unique specialization for yourself. So it’s really fun to see how it all comes together online.

Rob Marsh: So let’s talk about being a marketing assistant. You just kind of listed off a bunch of the things that they might do. But let’s, let’s go a little bit deeper with this idea, because I really like it. I think that there’s space maybe for a lot of people who have been vas, but they feel like they’re doing more, but maybe they’re not ready yet to call themselves a copywriter or a designer or a CMO or whatever the next thing is, there’s kind of the space out there. So how do you define that marketing assistant?

Emily Reagan: Yeah, and especially getting confusing when you see AI can help. You’re seeing things being delegated and outsourced overseas for super cheap. So you know, all businesses have six main departments. We have operations, customer service, HR, finances, you know, accounting, product development, and then we have marketing and sales. And so this marketing, I think, where a lot of business owners get it wrong is they’re trying to find a virtual assistant to do everything and save their business by Thursday and launch and video edit, you know. And so, really drilling down into what department I am in and what kind of results I am going after? A lot of us hold ourselves back, thinking we need a four-year marketing degree, and those kinds of days are a little bit over.

Rob Marsh: So, if I wanted to maybe step into that newer role, do I need to know how to write copy and also use Canva and edit video for the person that I might be working with in order to get things onto reels or YouTube? What are the things that I need in my skill wheelhouse in order to be able to, you know, start calling myself a marketing assistant?

Emily Reagan: I think you need to combine, like, complimentary skills, for sure. And what’s interesting is, in my course, I am teaching, I say, I, you know, I’m teaching you how to grow an audience online and help your clients sell to that audience, right? And so we’re nurturing, and we’re selling, we’re converting. And so that’s kind of the role of the marketing assistant, is, which channels are we driving traffic? Like, how are we nurturing them? How are you getting them on the list? Which algorithms like, like, what? Right? So that’s a little bit of the game. But in my course, I teach the tech, I teach the strategy, and I’m always saying and complimenting you.

The next thing is copy. You have to learn how to sell with words. So I think anytime you can add copy to a specific or niche or even general marketing, you know, service, you are going to be sitting pretty. You’ll you’ll have, you know, more career flexibility. You know, easier retention with clients because clients really want that long-term help. I mean, I don’t know about you, but in the online space, I’m seeing a lot of teams simplifying, streamlining, and condensing. We don’t all want 20 employees in our business anymore. We’re looking more at profits. The online space is changing. So if we can find someone who can offer a little bit higher value, you know, they can also, you know, charge more too. So it’s figuring out, what is the right way to add copy in there. And I think copy is a must. That’s something I preach. And, like I said, when I was starting, I didn’t know it was a thing. I kind of fell into it, and it started with, like, Okay, well, I need to whip out this thank you page; my client gave me nothing, and it’s holding me back; I’ll just take care of it. So that’s kind of how it started with me. Or, like, blogging, or, you know, Pinterest. How do I get the click on these, you know, simple Pinterest pins I’m making?

Rob Marsh: You just said something that really like, rings a bell, and it’s that I’ll just take care of it. It’s as if they’re the person who is right for this kind of title or role is the person who cares about the business of the person they’re working for. Is that right?

Emily Reagan: Okay, so we’re finding how we can, like, fit our copy words into marketing systems. So like, if you’re already naturally doing that and thinking in terms of strategy or what comes next, and you’re enjoying it, and the client is asking you, that’s such an opportunity to, you know, level up into the next role. Like I said, assistants are leveling up to specialists to marketing managers and strategists. I don’t know about you, but I know a lot of copywriters do way more than just copy. They’re coming in and now advising on the strategy of the funnel or the launch or the webinar, and so those are opportunities to start wearing that you know are dubbing yourself like the higher title that you might not feel ready for because you’re already actually doing it you just you know might not recognize that. That makes

I’m going to tell this story in reverse and spoiler alert. It ends with you, but it starts with you. I actually went on to do a hodgepodge of skills and enjoyed it. I like variety. I have this crazy skill set, and one of the jobs I’ve worked with a lot of high-end copywriters and marketers, some of them, you will know that I will never mention their names on this podcast, and I found myself in this role as an ads manager, combining my unique skill set, I’m doing the tech the audience. I’m doing the copy, and I’m doing a little bit of the design. Am I going to do a perfectly produced Facebook ad? No, at some point, like, I will hire out the specialist. So let me just throw that out there. And I’m like, chuckling because the ads are going live, and everyone’s like, this guy is so great. His copy is so good. I’m studying it, and I’m like, It’s me, it’s me, it’s not him. And I’m, you know, it’s going great, and then all of a sudden, the funnel breaks, it doesn’t work, and who gets thrown under the bus? It’s me, the ads manager. There’s only so much in my control if the button’s not working, the landing page isn’t loading, and the tech isn’t delivering what it said I got I got hosed.

And so I found myself at this moment with a very high-end funnel expert who everyone would know if I said his name, just staring me down, and he looked at me and he said, Are you a copywriter? Because they’re doing like a funnel audit, and I’m just like fudge. I quivered. I went silent. And I regret that moment to my day, and I should have reflected back to the fact that if you’re doing copy, you are a copywriter, and just own it. And you and I had that conversation in the bar in San Diego where I told you, I don’t know why I’m here at this at this conference with all these copywriters. I look at you and your experience and everything you know with advertising and marketing, and you know your method for writing copy, and I don’t bring that to the table, but I bring something else, right? And at that bar, I told you, hey, I don’t feel like a copywriter, and you just like, anointed me one right then and there.

And so it’s permission to call yourself that. And, you know, take responsibility for what you do bring to the table and own that. And I’m just putting it out there for your listeners, like I buffed it, even after you annoyed at me, I got fired. Long, long story short, they needed to fire me. They had no right to run ads to a broken funnel, right? So I think about that moment that was really pivotal for me to own my experience and what I bring to the table that will never happen again. And I have since done ads for other people. Like, right now I’m doing, I’m actually working with an ads manager, but, like, I know enough about copy messaging and how it should work, where now I’m, like, managing it as a CMO, and we’re doing great. Like, it had nothing to do with that one-time client experience. I did ads for another client, like in January, and we did great there, too. So I don’t know, I don’t know if that made sense, but it was just like a fun story that kind of brings it all together. And it’s really about like positioning yourself as an expert, but really feeling it and believing it.

Rob Marsh: Thanks for sharing that. I forgot that conversation. I remember hanging out with you at the bar, but I totally spaced that, that that had even happened. I was in a fog, and that whole week was kind of crazy. But yeah, so I guess if anybody’s listening and they’re thinking, and wait a second, maybe I’m ready to step up, you and I together, we can knight them right now and say, look, if you’re writing copy, you’re a copywriter. If you’re writing copy for yourself… if you’re writing it for just one client… if you’re a VA or you’re doing something else, but you’re still helping them with that stuff, lean into that and grow that experience. And, you know, do the things that you need to do in order to really step into that role.

Emily Reagan: Yeah, or taking it to the next step. I was thinking of a brand voice person I worked with—a client, and she gave us all of these amazing messaging points, and then what we need help taking it to the next step. And so I know that she has since pivoted and added, like, building the AI copywriter to go with it, with my brand voice, and so like making it that full package, just a higher value, we would have paid probably $10,000 for that instead of the five, because now I have something I can turn around and give to my team. Who I pay. I do pay for lower-level tasks for some of that. But here’s what’s never going away, like the data analysis, somebody to sit down and have the oversight. Copywriters are so good at being strategic with surveys. You know, before we hit record, I was talking about Brittany McBean, and I got a chance to see her brain working in a launch for my course. The way she analyzed the survey data just blew my mind. I’d never seen that. And that’s the kind of stuff that my little AI copywriter can’t do at her level. And what I we ultimately need is that final messaging right? And that’s what copywriters do so well, they do the market research. This is why I always get hesitant to call myself one, because I like to come in with, like, the final product and, like, make decisions, but that final messaging stamp is just getting noisier and harder to stand out. I mean, you have a lot of good podcasts here on the show talking about, like, how to write the hook, but we need the people to, like, oversee them and make sure it’s actually moving the business forward right like businesses are kind of struggling right now on the online space. So we got to stand out. We’ve got to convert even better than before.

Emily Reagan: I found myself doing a lot of quiz funnels, you know, I worked with Chanti Zak, and I took her course, and I was able to do that. For a lot of the work, I partnered with a copywriter. I was actually doing a lot of the tech, and then the ads, and so that’s kind of where ads kind of fell into my lap, and it’s really fun to watch what copywriters turn in. And I’ve always learned that way back when my clients called me their VA, I can remember them hiring copywriters and me just eating it up because I was the one making the changes, like going into the landing page and like, oh, they that makes sense. So I never had actually taken a copywriting course, which is why I felt like an imposter back in 2019, so I kind of found a way to marry my knack for writing and copywriting and design and build these funnels. And then I started teaching people how to do the work, too, because it’s been so empowering for somebody like me. There are a lot of over-educated, underemployed military spouses or women who had a baby break, or people transitioning to staying at home or making a change in their careers. And I just realized, like, you don’t need a marketing degree in this day and age if I can teach you how the algorithms work and what business owners are trying to do so we can give you the whole picture. You can learn how to do this and start with a couple of services. So there’s like two parts of my business now, and it’s pretty wild to go from behind the scenes to the face of my business, which is slightly uncomfortable, but you know, when you know you’re helping other people, you’ll, you’ll do it and, yeah, what do you want to talk about in there? Because there’s, like, so many little side conversations.

Rob Marsh:  You’ve got a lot of different moving pieces as well. I think you’ve got a community. You’ve got a podcast of your own. Yeah? I mean, in addition to, you know, copywriting, you’re doing PR, and, you know, a lot of the moving pieces in the background for your clients. So there’s almost not even a title for all of the things that you’re doing.

Emily Reagan: When somebody was like, what do you do? Because I always lean into my PR experience. I knew how to write a press release and get it printed in a Podunk paper, word by word, like, that’s, that’s what I knew how to do. And that press release turned into media kits, which turned into me looking at Google Analytics, which turned into Pinterest, which turned into blogging, which turned into landing pages and funnels. So it was like, not a like, a linear thing at all. So I do, I have done some pitching and like, use the skill set over there. Ads are really easy. It’s like, you kind of want to go where, like, it’s easy and natural for you, and you almost feel kind of bad about it, because it comes so natural, you know?

Rob Marsh: But there’s, like, a trade-off with that too. Oftentimes, when something comes naturally to us, we don’t price it properly because we were like, Oh, this is easy. Like, this isn’t work, and so it must not be valuable. And so we end up staying in those lower roles even though we’re doing this higher level work.

Emily Reagan: Yeah, I think the more teams I work on, the more I see a what a hot mess. A lot of people are. They look very successful online. I mean, all of us are struggling. So even the most organized person who might look intimidating might not be creative and need your skill, and vice versa, if you’re one of those integrator organized, you know, EOS people like somebody needs the talent you have out there. And I agree it’s like really easy to undervalue your work, but isn’t that the goal to find what you’re most passionate about? What you’re good at? And what you love? What people are paying you for? I always struggled, what do I call myself? And I was kind of joking with my teammate, and I was like, I’m a unicorn. And it turns out there is such a thing as a full-stack unicorn marketer. I didn’t even know that. I was just kind of combining my PR with this, like, new world of online business, I discovered and dubbed myself a unicorn, and then it kind of became a thing, and that is part of my branding now, which is funny, because I’m very much Sporty Spice and not a sparkly unicorn girl, but it is the essence of what we’re all trying to do, like find that sweet spot for us. We all come from unique backgrounds and experiences. And I will never forget Chanti telling me that one of her first blogs she wrote was in podiatry like that was her passion? And you, you know, you’re like a health nut. You’re really into, like, a little plantar fasciitis protection like that could be like the dream business, writing content and copy for, I don’t know, that type of doctor, podiatrists.

Rob Marsh: It’s interesting… this kind of skill stacking, and how we all put it together. We’ve always called it finding your X-Factor when we’ve taught these workshops in our programs.It is the way there. We’ve said this a whole bunch of times, but like, there are over 750,000 copywriters on LinkedIn. There are over a million content writers on LinkedIn, if you add content strategists or social media strategists, there’s 2 million more of those, right? So standing out in that crowd is really hard. But when you start doing this kind of skill stacking where you’re matching this thing that you like and that thing you like, it’s pretty easy—once you have four or five things you’re combining in unique ways—to be the number one in that combination. So you don’t have to be the very best copywriter and compete with those millions, but you do have to be the very best copywriter who works in your niche, who brings to the table your three or four skills, and writes in the voice, or can mimic the voice, right? And you combine these four or five things together, that’s your X Factor, and that’s basically what you’re you’re helping your clients do as well.

Emily Reagan: And then you add in SEO, and you’re really golden.

Rob Marsh: Exactly, or AI, or whatever, yeah. The more you add in, the more unique you become.

Emily Reagan: I was reading, is it James clears book? I’m so bad at quoting people, but he talked about Atomic Habits, right? That’s James Clear, yeah? He talked about combining his masters and like, a way to stand out. Like, if you can’t compete with Michael Phelps in Olympic swimming, like, create your own create your own field. And he talked about how you combine his major in a unique way, which just made him special. Like, that’s exactly what we’re doing. You change the playing field that you’re on. When you do that, I will tell you that a lot of copywriters don’t, and because I’m implementing a lot of the work, they don’t understand design UX. How many times have I been like, if that headline doesn’t fit, or your Facebook headline doesn’t fit, because there are only so many characters, and then SEO is a big one, like, that’s never going to go away, and especially with AI like skimming everything? So right off the bat, those would be two things, but I’ll tell you this, I think I appreciate copy more as I run my team, I’m going to throw my team under the bus when I see their responses sometimes in emails and customer engagement, even if they’re just set or sending out an email as a reminder to attend an event, I see the lack of copy, knowledge and messaging in their writing, and that drives me crazy as a business owner, and I will never hire someone again who doesn’t know how to write. And I don’t I mean beyond grammar, like the copy of reminding people, why are we showing up to this happy hour for the work group? And it’s not because we are shooting the breeze and we just like to hang out and take it easy. No, like, there’s a deeper mission impact and like, reason, they’re in this community, and we’re meeting up, and all of that was lacking from these little I’m going to call them piddly, like, internal communication. And for me, that’s eye-opening. Some clients just won’t get it, but the clients who do, I mean, they’re keepers. They’re keepers.

Emily Reagan: Oh, definitely. AI and  finding a way to combine it and be more efficient. Even whether it’s in your own work, streamlining your own work so you’re not trading as much time or being able to do it in that deliverable, like we talked about with that other brand voice person I was working with, and then the AI can go into even more automations, like I was thinking about how I used to manually listen to my clients, Facebook, live, transcribe it. I’m that old, transcribe it, then create blogs from that. I mean, that was like a full day experience. I learned her business so deeply, but now I can do all of that so quickly and just deliver such a better quality. And I think, and I think AI is really where it’s going. And I don’t mean that in a way to scare people, because I do have people in my work group who are like, Oh, my God, AI is replacing me. And like, it’s really not, if you can just add it into what you’re doing. And honestly, if I have somebody I’m interviewing for my team and I know they’re using AI, I trust them more. You know, they’re not going to be like, just sending me this giant invoice of all these dumb man hours. There’s this, like something, when someone’s ahead of it and incorporating it, it shows that they’re, like, on the forefront, cutting edge, that they’re thinking about my business like, there’s a lot of trust that goes into that.

Rob Marsh: There’s also an opportunity here that I think a lot of us are missing, and that is, you know, even when a copywriter or a content writer gets feedback from the client that says, Oh, we’re using AI to create that now, well, somebody at their business still has to be using the ai, ai to do that, right? And so why them instead of you? And I think sometimes we’re afraid of having that conversation with the client saying, okay, I get it. We can use AI for that. Let me handle that. Obviously, it’s we’re not gonna be charging 20 hours for the project anymore. It’s only gonna take us an hour. But that also opens up the other hours we were working for them to do more, right, even if using AI or to bring more ideas to the table or things that they weren’t able to get to. And I just think sometimes we’re as as freelancers or contract workers, we’re afraid to have that conversation because, well, sometimes it actually is going to end up in less work for us.

Emily Reagan: Yeah, I think it’s also music to the client’s ears. And I know, you know, kind of thinking about that fractional role, what we’re missing is the oversight, the consistency and branding, and messaging like it can feel so disjointed you get all these other people doing it. So I think that when you pitch yourself to the client, you kind of show that, like quality will actually improve. And yeah, I think sometimes a lot of people are afraid, but I know from all the business owners I’ve worked with, the ones that I’ve coached, or they’ve turned around and hired, are unicorns. They all want somebody to just take the reins and get it out of their brain and, like, start, you know, spinning those plates. And so offer it. Don’t be afraid to offer it.

Rob Marsh: While we’re on that topic, let’s talk about finding clients because a lot of people are struggling with that right now for a variety of different reasons. You see a lot of clients, a lot of requests for copywriters, content writers come through your group. I know what are people looking for, and why does it feel so hard to connect with clients today? This would probably be a two-hour discussion.

Emily Reagan:  Oh, my goodness.  Okay, I want to start with we’ve had over 3,000 jobs that we’ve shared with my little work group, and I like to check the data. I was looking at the top. What are people asking? And granted, like, this isn’t like a clean data set, right? It’s people coming from marketing assistance, but the number one thing they want help with is email marketing. Like, that’s just not going away. So I think if you can offer services, or especially for somebody new, that people actually want and need, is just the best way to get your foot in the door. I feel like I see a lot of service providers who get really rigid about what they do and what they don’t do, and such a double-edged sword, you know, but when you’re getting started, it’s like, you gotta, like, fit the market demand. Like, what do people actually need? And maybe get really good at that and build off of that.

The other three, I didn’t have the data right in front of me, but social media came high up there. And I know that social from, I don’t know, a few years ago, you could just kind of post whatever and not really have any intention. But social media gets a bad rep. But you add an AI, and it’s not that hard to take a concept, sales, email, create tons of, you know, social posts off of that. So I think that would also be like a good starting service to go in there and again, meet where the demand is right. What are you seeing with the client work? I think that there is a lot of new people, if I’m in a rift for a second, starting businesses, who don’t have any right to start a business, who got sold into a dream that I just do this one digital revenue stream, and I’m going to. Be rich, and they’re not thinking about what it takes and cost to run a business, and it takes, it does take time. It takes human capital. And so they do this initial like, oh, start with very little, and then they’re not thinking about the long term, like, who they hire first, what they actually need. How do they actually sell? And so I think we are kind of recovering a little bit from that as service providers and seeing the aftermath. On the flip side, I’m just going to keep going, Rob, I was seeing a lot of this Freelancer culture, of people who didn’t make it in corporate, who didn’t really cut it, who thought it would be easy to just start this type of business over here, and they’re kind of doing us dirty too, because they’re not delivering, they’re ghosting, they’re turning in bad work or Yeah. And so it’s like we’re kind of getting, getting it from two sides. And I think it’s really hard for us right now. Just like to pick out the good clients and the good work and not let everything else, plus AI, get us down.

Emily Reagan: It’s the soft skills, 100% how you show up, how you make the client feel. What does that look like? How you communicate. It’s the soft skills that make the difference. I have a couple of people in my work group who want to niche into copywriting, and they’re a couple of them have been a little bit whiny. I hope they don’t listen to this episode, but I want to tell them, like, if you want to be hired for these services, like, you have to demonstrate that you’re good at this. And this doesn’t mean your portfolio has all the writing you’ve ever done, but it starts with your own business. And if you don’t look like a professional or somebody I can trust, like, why is anyone going to hire you to do like that sales page that you really want to charge $10,000 for. And so I think that is hard, is I don’t see people putting effort into their own business and their own marketing so that we do trust you with everything else going on.

Rob Marsh: This is such a weird ethic, like you. I mean, I think I saw, saw the start, you know, as the pandemic was going on, a lot of people had to stay home, like, hey, this stay-home thing is pretty sweet. I’m gonna, I’m gonna do a job that’s like that. And so immediately it’s like, oh, copywriter, you know, I can write. I learned how to write in second grade. You know, I can, I can do this thing. And they jumped, I mean, I’m kind of repeating what you’re saying earlier. They jumped in without the marketing knowledge without having gone through, you know, any of the formulas, or trying to teach themselves anything. They just put up the shingle and said, yeah, I can write. Obviously, a small percentage of them do and can, but writing is like any other skill, and you have to know the formulas and the frameworks. You have to know how to get somebody from where they are to where they need to go. You’ve got to be able to talk about transitions and transformation and results and all of those things. I’m preaching to you, hopefully people listening that this is helpful, but if you can do those things, then, yeah, you’re, you’re probably going to be okay. I hope somebody listening just feels good that, like, Okay, I am. I’m in the top 10% like, I’m doing well, and I can charge for that because I do that, I put that effort, and I do the research, and it’s not just like delivering fast copy. I think that’s really the difference maker.

Emily Reagan: Yeah, and then it’s just a matter of laddering up from the clients you have to clients that can afford to pay more, who have bigger problems to solve and leveraging, you know, one client to move on to the next. And, I mean, it is, it’s work that, I mean, that’s really what it you know, it’s like, it doesn’t happen by itself. People don’t find you when you’re at home, or even if you have a great website, like, you still have to put in the reps and do the work.

Referrals have always been huge for me. I was fortunate to start at a time when I didn’t need a website. There wasn’t enough of me to go around. I booked out really quickly. But I see a lot of people that think like, if I just turn on the light, I’m open for business. Clients will come. Or if I’m just good, the work will come to me, but there is this level of, I don’t want to say self-promotion, but like visibility, that you have to do. Yeah, never just start a freelance business and hide behind the keyboard, and clients land in your lap. I mean, if you’re transitioning from a career where you already have those connections, it will be more easy for you. But a lot of us are not. And so putting in the work after you do the course, or after you build your website and write beautiful copy, I think that’s really hard, is the client marketing acquisition system, like, how do you get those leads? And a lot of us, I know in my community, we don’t all want to be dancing on Tiktok to get clients. I’m never onna say never. But like, no, that’s not my style. So it’s like, it there is a level of content marketing, like building the right high authority, you know, assets that show you as an expert. It’s a little bit of the outreach, it’s the strategic partnerships, but it’s, it’s the stupid networking, right? People have to know who you are. And I know in the copywriter circle, all the business owners, and this happened with the VAs, they’re like, Who are you working with? Who do you love? And they’re just whispering and tossing names around in boxer, and that’s like, the goal is, like, how do you get your name in that conversation?

Emily Reagan: Yeah, One of the first things I did starting my business, because I knew how important it was, right, like I got to grow the audience, was I did that quiz. I did Chanti’s quiz course (Note: there is a short workshop about creating quizzes inside The Copywriter Underground), and built a quiz. It does need refinement now, yeah, but what I loved about quizzes, and what I found with my client work, was the cost per lead was really low. And, you know, there have to be levels of you have to go back and fix the messaging and just refine it, because it can attract a lot of people by, like, really narrowing it down. The quiz is really great. At one point, I was running a quiz for a client. We were getting 25-cent leads, and her quiz, we just left that ad on, is doing so well. Now, on the flip side, she’s not selling well at the end, but like, that’s on her, right? Like, that’s not me. It’s gonna point that out. But yeah, that quiz is working well.

How do I grow my list? You know what? I feel like a black kettle saying this. I really like blogging. I really like SEO. I play a good SEO game. One of the first things I did when I started being visible in my business was blogging and like, trying to really, like, dominate my industry and be a key person of influence, not necessarily that influencer that you know, you know, self-promoting Instagram influencer, but just really trying to show that I’m a leader in this space and people can come to me. So blogging has been good ads. I will always stand by ads is like the fastest way to do it. I think it’s harder. After working with copywriters, it’s hard to attract people who are sophisticated and know there’s going to be an order bump, and an upsell, and a sales sequence. And so it’s trickier, I think, for you as a copywriter. But, yeah, I don’t know. I’m just gonna fizzle out on that question. What should I do?

Rob Marsh: Well, I wanna, I wanna, actually, to go back to the idea of blogging, because you’re not the first person I’ve heard from this, although I think blogging has changed in some ways that are pretty significant since, you know, 2008 when it, you know, was really maybe at the high point when conversations actually happened on blogs and comment sections and all that and that. That still isn’t really happening, but I’m seeing a lot of people blog less on their own home pages, which you should probably still be doing because of SEO and because AI reads all of that stuff and, you know, puts that into their engines, that’s still good. But a lot of those blog posts are showing up as Facebook posts or as LinkedIn posts. Everybody goes to LinkedIn, but I’m actually, I think the algorithm in Facebook is starting to serve more and more content to people in the feed over what they used to prioritize, groups, conversations and that kind of stuff. So are you just blogging on your site, or are you sharing those posts in other ways as well?

Emily Reagan: I try to share them, but definitely blogging on my site to increase my domain authority. Like, that’s working really well. Sometimes I get my friends to do guest blogs too. Like, I want to keep the content going there. I know with, like, AI and, you know, ChatGPT, it’s a little different. Now, things are changing. I’m not the best SEO person to talk about that, but, you know, I have a blog on niches for virtual assistants, and this is my top blog, and I get a couple of 1000 every month, people just looking for, like, where do I go? And I mean, I wrote that sucker a while ago. I’ve had to go back and fix it, optimize it, monetize it. But that’s doing really well. Another funny thing is, I think my CM client right now, because I asked him, how did he find me? And he said, Google. And that’s amazing. I’ve also had somebody find me through ChatGPT because it asked, like, who are the fractional marketers that I should hire? And my name popped in, that’s because I have a strong online presence, right? And dancing on Tik-Tok. No, just kidding, but yeah, I think that the SEO one is one, if I were telling any freelance business owner or service providers, like, got a couple of core Cornerstone articles up just to demonstrate your authority and, like, thought leadership on it, on a thing or two, like, related to your service?

Rob Marsh: This is another thing, everybody listening should go try this. They should go ask chat GPT or clot, or whichever LLM you use, and say, I want to hire a copywriter or a content writer in this niche. Who would you recommend? Don’t, don’t put in your name, but put in your niche, and it’ll be really interesting, what you see. I tested that and was really happy, you know, I said, Hey, if I want to learn about copywriting or creating a copywriting business, who should I go? And it gave me four people that it recommended, one of whom was me. And I was like, Oh, amazing, awesome. We did something right. Now obviously, AI is scanning the Internet all the time, and new content comes up, and in order to keep that current I’m gonna have to continue producing content. But like you’re saying, if somebody’s not doing that on their own blog or, you know, out in the world somewhere where it can get captured, and it may not be getting captured on Facebook or LinkedIn the way that it does on your blog or, you know, in other places. So even if you’re posting there, you should probably copy all of that into your own website as well.

Emily Reagan: Yeah, if I, if I had it more together, if I had my marketing assistant doing more, I would definitely rewrite everything for medium. I would do the LinkedIn article game. Like, oh, man, oh, wait, I have a business win. Let me pop over there. Yeah, but let me tell you how I got in Business Insider. So I was stalking out, using my PR skills, my news jacking skills, I was like, stalking out the articles. And I’m like, they’re really playing a heavy SEO game. So this, like, I want you to steal this. They’re playing a heavy SEO game. You know, they’re drowning in content. Like every newspaper editor, magazine editor, and online publication, they need content, right? That’s the name of the game. So I pitched myself based on keywords alone, and said, like, you’re already doing this. This is why this is the next step. This is why your audience needs this. Basically, there were some virtual assistant articles, and I could tell they were old, but I could tell by looking at the slug that it was a keyword game. So I pitched it, and they’re like, great. Can you write it? We’ll pay you $300. Great! I would have done it for free. And it was shameless self-promotion. I was telling my story. They paid me to do it, and I’m like, what good credibility, having my own byline. That made me hot and sweaty. I couldn’t wait to tell my journalism professor. All I did was promote myself. That was the dream there, but that was me just being savvy with, like, okay, PR SEO my own writing over here, and that has helped a lot, too. But obviously, you can play the whole PR game after that and, like, use your as-seen-in feature things. But that was my first big media get, and, yeah, and it was just understanding marketing

Emily Reagan: Yeah, I’m thinking about the pitches I’m getting right now. I get pitched out the wazoo for copy help the cold ones, you know, usually people in Eastern Europe, but they always start their pitch with hope you’re doing well, and then they’re making that, like classic mistake of assuming I’m looking for help instead of just engaging, and they want to immediately offer me an audit, and they’re immediately like, you’re doing your LinkedIn all wrong, and your YouTube sucks, and your Instagram isn’t growing, and it just makes me feel like, S, H, I T, and I don’t want to read, I don’t want to watch, you know? And so I was just thinking that they should feel rejected like they did. They did do it poorly. But you know, if they were coming from a different place, and I was like, hey, like, not right now, I actually don’t need this help right now, maybe it wouldn’t sting so much, but I don’t. Obviously, I don’t even respond. But when I think it’s hard, when you do put a lot of effort into those but if you’re doing it well and you’re not doing making those mistakes like you can’t feel bad if somebody doesn’t need help at that time.

Rob Marsh: The other thing that kills me is the pitches without doing any research. So this, in the last week, this is a true story. I’ve had two different pitches from two different people at two different companies, saying, Hey, I love what you’re doing at the copywriter club, we would love to help you launch a podcast. Get your first four episodes up and live and create some social media content around that. And I’m just like, huh, how much do you love what I’m doing? If you don’t realize my number one way of showing up in the world is a podcast that’s been going on now for eight years. Do you even know who I am? Yeah. So my response back to both of them was, hey name, why don’t you Google The Copywriter Club and then get back to me? And of course, they don’t ever get back to me. If you’re going to pitch, at least know something about the company you’re pitching, the person you’re pitching. Like you said, don’t assume anything. Don’t assume they need help, that you like you’re trying to establish a relationship, a friendship, even, and that pays off six months from now or a year from now. And if you’re looking for it to pay off on Thursday, you just, you’re not going to hit right? There’s just no way it’s going to work. Or very, very often it’s not going to work. So every once in a while you’ll get lucky and that maybe that one is going to keep you going, you know, with this crazy pitch style, but most of the time it doesn’t work.

Emily Reagan: Oh my gosh, yeah, I have heard that. Like, the work we do now affects our freelance business three months from now. Think Brittany McBean told me that. But I’m like, Yeah, I see that. Like, I went into a little bit of a closet in July in my business, and then, like, I paid the price because I wasn’t doing X, Y, Z. I think about those pitches, I think what people do wrong is assume that I need the work. I get a lot, by the way, for people who are like, I’m a virtual assistant, I’ll come work for you. I’m like, if I am going to hire anyone, it’s going to be someone from my program, 100% but if we just looked at that person that were want to work with, like, as a friend, as a connection. I’m well connected. I would probably refer you, like, 10,000 times more than I actually need copywriting help her right now. And so I think, but they, I think they just get the big, like, saucer eyes and think, like, oh, you know, she’s just gonna hire me. And like, she’s, she’s my sucker. And they’re not really thinking about it as like a network expand, expansion moment.

Rob Marsh: Yeah, for sure. Networks are everything. Relationships are everything, and especially when you’re not showing up in the office or you don’t, you’re not connecting with people in real life, like you have to be doing this offline.

Emily Reagan: Yeah, for sure. I feel like we should talk about, I don’t know. I’m kind of bouncing backward, but something I am seeing in the online space is a lot of like launch agencies who offered the big ticket, 30k 50k projects, like not doing as well right now. And so I was just thinking about, well, if I were new and I was trying to get copy clients, I think, Oh, what am I trying to say here? I would just start with some of those projects that are smaller, that you can get a quick win and maybe impress them and kind of let go of the ego. Like, that’s got to be really hard if you’ve been in charge of these, you know, big website overhauls and sales pages and whatnot. But like, it can be really advantageous to go in in a different capacity and help somebody for that connection. And I see that all the time with, like, our email tech specialist, they’re like, I only do VIP days. And like, how many of us actually know? Like, I need a VIP day to fix my Active Campaign. So I have to have had to coach people in my group, like maybe for this well-connected client who just needs someone for three hours to do XYZ, you kind of acquiesce a little bit and offer a package that fits her knees. Guess who’s getting all the referrals. Now I’m thinking of Janelle in my workgroup. Janelle because she went in and helped somebody while connected, do something small. And so I’m thinking about those outreaches. Maybe they should be something a little smaller, a little more tangible, less daunting, so we can build that trust.

Rob Marsh: Yeah, getting the first win, and then being able to leverage that, I think, is is, especially if you’re starting out, you you have to do that. You have to get that first win. And yeah, leading with a big project or leading with big promises and nothing to back it up is a great way to get ignored.

Emily Reagan: What do you tell your copywriters when they’re working for big names and they’re not allowed to tell anybody? Because to me, the second I hear like, oh, Sally was in Jordan Gill’s business, and she. Helped her make millions. I’m like, I want to hire Sally, but like, how do we do that as copywriters?

Rob Marsh: So there are two things. One that I would say is, you can talk about any case study or any client anonymously. So you know, you can always say, Hey, there’s this expert in this space. Some people will get it who it is, but most people won’t, right? But also, when you’re talking to somebody one one-on-one, I think in that situation, it’s okay to say, hey, look, I will tell you who the client is, but I’m, you know, I’ve agreed not to talk about them publicly or whatever, so you can’t share that. So the clients know one on one, it’s like, oh, yeah, I did help someone at that level, you know, make that that big thing. It’s, it’s funny.

I think it was the second TCC IRL that we did. We were in Brooklyn, and Ramit Sethi came to the party. And I’m like, this is awesome. I’ve watched what he’s done for a long time. He wasn’t part of our event, and he certainly wasn’t there to endorse us, but he had friends there, and we’re just like, yeah, come and I asked him if I could get a picture with him, and he’s like, yeah, no problem. But you have to promise me you’re not going to use that, you know, like to say you’ve worked for me. Like, I’m like, I’m not going to, you know, I’m, this is totally ethical. I just want a picture with this guy that I’ve really admired or whatever. I’ve never used that picture anywhere. It’s still sitting on my hard drive. It’s that stuff. You have to honor your word to people. But there are times when you can talk about things that are, you know, maybe shouldn’t be disclosed, you know, publicly, or that kind of a thing. So I would just say, be, be super careful about it. Obviously, if you tell somebody that you’re not gonna, you know, publicize it, don’t. On the other hand, I would put in your contract and only take it out if they insist the right to talk about the project, work that you do in your own marketing. Like, that’s just should be part of all of our standard contracts. It’s like, Hey, you have all the rights of the work. Everything that I deliver is yours, entirely yours, but I reserve the right to talk about the creation process, you know, the thinking that I did, even the deliverables that I delivered. And if they say they want me to do that, and honestly, okay, I’ll do that, but that’s in that’s in my contract. And I because I want to be able to talk about how I help people, how I solve their problems.

Emily Reagan:  That makes me want to hire anyone. It’s that social proof that testimonial. I’ve done this work for so and so, and the selling is like 90% done for me. When I hear that from a copywriter.

Rob Marsh: We’re almost out of time. Emily, but where do you where do you see your business going in the future? This is what’s next for you, is really the question?

Emily Reagan:  You know, sometimes I’m like, Wait, am I just competing with Upwork? I’m like, no, no, I’m different, like having an existential crisis. There. I am really putting a lot of my effort into my membership, because that’s where I’m having the most fun and enjoyment and just trying to be more aligned. I think for the last eight years, I’ve really been just like grinding and hustling, like I kind of talked about my divorce. I could see it coming, and I knew I needed to get some ducks in a row to be able to feed my babies, and I knew I couldn’t count on the military paycheck. So I’ve been really hustling, and in that season of, probably burnout, just to be honest, like, I think I’m too, like, numb to like, admit I was probably in burnout, but I’m just trying to be really smart about that. I am trying not to do all of the things. And so I think, though, I think my membership is really what I’m focusing on this year, and just helping them up level and their own businesses. A lot of us service providers are introverts. We don’t sell well, we don’t put ourselves out there. We don’t do the visibility we need to. So I’ve been doing some things under the surface to help them with an assessment and what to focus on, and accountability, and pushing my $47 membership to be something more higher end. So I’m in that transition right now and then figuring out, how can I not live launch and still make money? Because that was exhausting last year, going through a divorce and trying to launch a course and pay for the operating expenses of my business. Now, I’m probably telling you too much right now, but I think it’s kind of insightful, because we all go through these evolutions of like, what, what’s our actual capacity? What do we love doing? And where is the money just kind of flowing, right? So I am about to rebrand my podcast. I think my new cover title will come out next week, and really leaning into the marketing freelancer, I have a top 1.5% podcast, which is crazy. That’s awesome. Yours probably is too. But it’s such like a niche audience, it feels really good, because sometimes we’re like, Oh, I’ll never be that or that. And it’s actually doing really well. So really like leaning boldly into. To this little area I’ve carved out. I mean, it started as a VA, and then I said unicorn VA, and then I said marketing assistant. And so now we’re in that next evolution of the marketing freelancer.

Rob Marsh: If somebody wants to connect to you, get on your list. Where should they go?

Emily Reagan: Yes, I have a couple of things. One, find my podcast, or you can connect with me on Instagram, and it’s Emily Reagan PR to that in the show notes, as always, thank you. I added PR because in the beginning, I started with PR services, and Emily Reagan was taken and I’ve just, like, left it and not cared about it. But honestly, if anyone’s listening to this and they’re interested in hiring a marketing assistant, referring a marketing assistant to their client. The best way to help me is to go to hireaunicorn.com. Share that. This a way for me to take a job and share it with my community and help a lot of email tech specialists, marketing assistants, and marketing managers get work, and that is really what lights me up. Like helping people make money online on their own terms, using their skills, getting paid.

Rob Marsh: Thanks, Emily for sharing so much about expanding our influence as copywriters into other marketing services. Be sure to check her out at Emily Reagan pr.com she’s Emily Reagan PR on Instagram as well, and I’ve included links in the show notes to her podcast, so that you can click through and hear my episode on her show, which should be available in the next couple of weeks.

At one point during the interview, we were talking about how to differentiate from the millions of other copywriters and content writers out there. Specifically, I mentioned that your unique combination of skills, experience, deliverables, industry, clients, pricing, and voice is a big part of how you stand out and how you become the number one person who does the thing that you do. I call this your X Factor. Putting all of that together can be a bit of a challenge, so I’ve put together a couple of resources to help you do it. If you go to the copywriter club.com, forward, slash authority, you’ll find a short workshop that steps through how you create your own authority so potential clients can trust you and hire you. That workshop is free.

When you visit the page, you’ll also have the opportunity to add on bonus bundle of additional workshops that will help you through the process of figuring out your X Factor and how to share it with the world. That bundle is just $17, and it will help you determine where to show up and the audience that wants to hear what you have to offer. Before today, these workshops were only available to members who paid $1,000 a month to join the copywriter think tank, but you get them for just $17 today, and because no one really needs another workshop to watch even at two times speed, 2x speed, I’ve created a playbook for the authority bonus bundle that walks you through the strategies in the workshop, step by step, so you can apply them in your business immediately. It may be the best value that we’ve ever offered. Be sure to check out thecopywriterclub.com/authority and then get the bonus bundle.

And, of course, all of those resources are also available inside The Copywriter Underground, along with templates, the legal contract, and more than 70 other workshops and playbooks, monthly coaching. You get all of that at thecopywriterclub.com/tcu.