TCC Podcast #414: Be a Content Archeologist with Sarah Hopkinson

Standing out as a content writer when you offer the same services as every other content writer is hard. We’re talking blog posts, case studies, white papers… But if you’re willing to go beyond the expected and find deeper problems your clients have, you can carve out a very different kind of business. For the 414th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I spoke with content strategist Sarah Hopkinson about how she found a problem that she can solve and be the only content mixologist doing what she does. If you’re a content writer who wants to solve bigger problems than writing blog posts for SEO, you’re going to like this one. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.

 

Stuff to check out:

The Pocket Guide Sarah Created for us
Ry Schwartz Podcast Episode
Everybody Writes by Anne Handley
Sarah’s website
The Copywriter Club Facebook Group
The Copywriter Underground

 

Full Transcript:

Rob Marsh:  A lot of content writers focus on serving clients who have obvious content needs. They know they need blog posts for SEO or case studies for a sales funnel. They’re solving problems that their clients know they have. And while there are plenty of opportunituies for copywriters in this space, there is a ton of competition too. Because a lot of writers, especially writers who are just starting out, will gravitate to these obvious problems and the clients who know they need these assets.

But there are deeper content needs that are a bit less obvious. And they can be a rich opportunity for the smart copywriters who can unlock them. Let me give you an example… there are hundreds of podcaster and video channel owners with months or even years of episodes full of great ideas and insights. But most podcast listeners don’t have the time to listen to every episode in order to get those insights. Take this podcast for example, if you were to listen to every episode, it would take you twelve weeks if you listened 8 hours a day to hear everything we’ve shared. But what if an enterprising content writer could unlock those insights so listeners didn’t have to put in the time, but could get the ideas in a lead magnet or PDF resource for a client. Now that’s a non-obvious content opportunity that a lot of clients have but almost no copywriters offer.

Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, and on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I’m speaking with content strategist and podcast content mixologist Sarah Hopkinson. Sarah has created a business that does exactly that—uncovers the best lost and hidden content that podcasters have in their archives, then helps her clients find new uses for those assets. Sarah has staked out a unique position in a niche with a ton of potential clients that almost no one else is serving. And I asked her how and why she did it. Stay tuned to here what she had to say…

Before we jump in with Sarah…

On this episode we’ll talk about the kind of lead magnets and other content that Sarah creates for her clients. We actually asked Sarah to go through some of our older episodes to find the very best ideas that our guests shared about finding clients. If you’d like to see what she discovered, simply visit thecopywriterclub.com/pocket. If you go to that url, you’ll be able to download a report that shares the ideas that Sarah uncovered on those older podcasts—ideas that still work today. Any way, check it out at thecopywriterclub.com/pocket

And now, let’s go to our interview with Sarah…

Sarah, welcome to The Copywriter Club Podcast. Tell us, how did you become a copywriter and a podcast content strategist?

Sarah Hopkinson: Hey Rob, it is great to be here and I’m so excited to talk to you. I got into copywriting through like many copywriters, a slightly long journey. I did a degree in French and linguistics, which really set me up for life in France, and I decided that that was my goal to move from Britain to France, so I did that. When I arrived in Nice in the south of France, I bounced around a little bit, did a few small jobs before I landed a job with a big travel company producing content for them. in English and French. So that was kind of content writing and also research, content curation. But then in 2020, the world changed quite substantially with COVID and I was made redundant. And as part of my redundancy process, it took quite a long time. So I had time to think about I wonder what I want to do next after this job. And I’d heard of copywriting before, and I started telling people that I wanted to be a copywriter until somebody said to me, Oh, great. So what is that? And I thought, what an unfair question to ask. Um, so I had to start doing research on copywriting, uh, and I found out that it still interested me. It was what I wanted to do. So that led to me creating my own business in 2021, Copyhop. Uh, and I was recommended the Copywriter Club podcast by a friend and I did the accelerator, found my niche and here we are today.

Rob Marsh: So content strategist for podcasts is something that’s a little bit different. There aren’t a lot of copywriters. Well, there are a few copywriters certainly doing podcast type work, but you’re kind of in a niche that’s pretty small and maybe a niche that you’ve carved out or kind of created on your own. So tell us, why did you choose content for podcasts?

Sarah Hopkinson: Yes, I chose it because I’ve been into podcasting for a long time just as a hobby, listening to podcasts. So when I started my business as a copywriter, I thought if there are writing services that podcasters need. And through kind of poking around on the internet and looking at the podcasters that I follow, I noticed that they had show notes. So I started selling podcast show notes on Fiverr. And I have to say as a service, it really took off in a short space of time. It got quite popular. And I had quite a regular client base who would ask me for show notes. And then they started asking me for other things. For example, mostly blog posts, but also picking out highlight quotes and writing a bit of social media copy for their podcasts. And I got great reviews about that. And it made me think, I feel like there is something here that podcasters need this service because they need to keep promoting that podcast. They want to build a community around that podcast. And they’re doing that by publishing this content in various places on the Internet. And also, you know, there’s value in a podcast episode. But if you don’t keep on advertising that one podcast episode, it kind of sits in the archives and dies. And I thought, I bet that there’s scope here to turn content that podcasters have already made into something that continues to make them value instead of it being kind of a one-time effort that brings in a few listeners and then you just shelve it and don’t go back to it. So that was the idea behind offering the services. But yeah, it was really through the help of The Accelerator that I was able to kind of shape and define what I wanted to offer to my podcasting clients.

Rob Marsh: So I’m not really intending this to be an ad for the accelerator, but talk to us a little bit about that process that you went through as you were thinking through, okay, I want to do this. How did you then say, okay, these are the services I’m going to offer. Are these the kinds of clients that I’m going to work with? What was your thinking there?

Sarah Hopkinson: I think I had kind of the kernel of the idea of there is something more here that podcasters need. But, um, I think that the program helped me to develop exactly what it was that I wanted to offer podcasters and to help me kind of shape it in my mind of working with podcasters on projects. So I think that the, you know, the support that you and Kira gave me was really valuable for me being able to do that. Um, But I think really the process around it was also thinking about it from the point of view of what suits my life and my business that I can offer as well, which was a piece of the picture that I hadn’t really put in there, but obviously it’s very important to think about that too. about what you can realistically do as an online service provider. So I think that, yeah, going through the program helped me to take something that was an idea into a full-blown website and service that I offer. Almost an online persona, really.

Rob Marsh: Some copywriters might be listening and thinking, okay, there are, I don’t know, quarter of a million, half a million podcasts out there. Maybe it’s even more than that. You probably know the numbers better than I do. And so this might be a pretty good way to get started as a copywriter. But most of us, when we think about this stuff, thinking, OK, well, I don’t really want to write show notes, you know, or, you know, the the caption that goes into social media, which is really what we see usually when it comes to, you know, writing for podcasts. So you’ve gone a lot broader than that. Talk about some of the kinds of projects that you work on and all the content that’s involved in that.

Sarah Hopkinson: Yes. So the things that you mentioned, the show notes and stuff is kind of at the lower end of the spectrum. And the kind of projects that I really enjoy working on with clients go a bit deeper than that. So instead of looking at an individual podcast episode, which is what you would do with show notes and probably with blog posts as well, I like to, with my podcasting clients, I talk to them about the entire archive of podcast episodes that they have and help them to turn it into another form of content. For example, an email series or a lead magnet. And if we’re producing, if I’m producing for them, for example, a lead magnet, it might be because they’re getting ready to sell a course or some kind of service to their podcast listeners. And therefore my lead magnet, I go through their podcast archives, looking through the lens of a theme, really. something that’s come up often in their podcast episodes across multiple episodes. And I pull those strands out and put it together in the form of some kind of downloadable PDF. But it’s really focused on the value that the podcaster shares in their podcast episodes, packaging together different information, such as what this cool guest said in this one episode compared to this expert from another episode. and putting it together in a way that delivers a lot of information to their listeners that their listeners wouldn’t necessarily have got by themselves just from tuning into an episode here and there.

Rob Marsh: Yeah, I like it. Obviously, you did something like that for us a while ago, and it’s a lead we use, we throw it out there every once in a while. And I will share the link in the show notes if anybody wants to check out that that you did. But it’s a lot of work. Like this isn’t, you know, I mean, you’ve got the listening, then you’ve got to pull out all of the ideas, and you’ve got to, you know, write it all together. So these aren’t small projects.

Sarah Hopkinson: Yes, it is quite time consuming. And sometimes it feels like stepping into somebody else’s universe, really. Because one thing that I love about the podcast is that I work with that they’re so dedicated to their subject matter. And they, you know, they care so much about it. So I really try and treat that with respect. But Yes, some of my pricing depends on, for example, how organized their podcast archives are, because if they’re organized, it’s a lot more easy for me to go in there and find the information that I’m looking for. And if it’s a bit of a jumble, it’s going to take a little while to unpick. So that can be hard to know until essentially the gloves are off. But yeah, it is a bit of a labor of love in some ways. You know, I feel like a bit of a archivists or kind of audio archaeologists going through and finding, finding little bits of information. And sometimes the podcaster will say to me, Oh, I’d forgotten that we even said that, but actually, it’s really important. So it’s difficult, but it can be very satisfying too.

Rob Marsh: I like the idea of the audio archaeologist. There’s definitely a lot of work. I mean, it’s funny when I go back and listen to our older podcasts, and we’ve had 400, I think close to 440 episodes. That’s not the official number because we’ve had a bunch of secret episodes. in between episodes and those kinds of things. But there’s a lot of content there. And I don’t even remember half of what was said, especially with those older episodes. And so there’s a lot of value in having somebody go back, find some of that stuff. Obviously, if you’ve got transcripts, you can dig in and find it. But if It’s a lot of work to go back and listen to 440 episodes that are an hour long. It’s a half a year’s work if I were going to go through every single episode and try to do that for us. So obviously you limit it a little bit when you’re in this kind of project.

Sarah Hopkinson: Yes, I do limit it. I wouldn’t listen to every single episode. That’s why the angle of the theme is quite important because That’s a good way of eliminating some of the less relevant content right from the bat. But I think that podcasting isn’t quite like social media where you really have to be publishing a lot to stay on top, but still there is a kind of a pressure of forward momentum that you need to do release episodes and keep your podcast feed fresh. So that’s where I feel like my service provides a lot of value because you can’t both prepare for, record, edit, and release new episodes, and at the same time, put all of this care and attention into the episodes that you’ve already made. Even if it’s your full time job, that’s a lot of work. That’s where I like to provide a support for the podcasters so that they can carry on doing the things that they love doing and I can do the bits that I love doing.

Rob Marsh: So you mentioned earlier, you didn’t tell us the pricing, but you said that it can vary a bit based on the organization. Outline a project for us and tell us about what you would charge for something like this. So maybe we use it for an example. the lead magnet that you created for us, it was a little while ago, so I’m guessing your prices are a little higher than they were when we paid, but what does a typical project look like from a price standpoint?

Sarah Hopkinson: That’s a good question. It depends a little bit on the scope of the project, but if I’m producing something like that lead magnet that I mentioned before, where it’s focusing on a particular theme, kind of prepping the audience for some kind of launch to come in the form of a book, then I would probably start my pricing around around $1,500, $1,600 for a fairly simple, straightforward project. And if The things that would complicate it would be more episodes to listen to or blending several themes at once. But really, I think that two is kind of the max so that it stays simple and coherent for the audience. But that’s the price point where I feel like I can dive in and get some really good quality work done. And they’ll also get value from it as it’ll help to get people onto their email list so that they can kind of click in the launch funnel.

Rob Marsh: Yeah, and that’s one of the challenges that podcasters have is you may have several hundred or several thousand listeners, but getting them onto an email list is a big challenge. And so finding that kind of content that gets people engaged. And then, of course, you’ve got the challenge of following up with a regular email, something not all podcasters do.

Sarah Hopkinson: Yes, I like to think that I’m kind of helping to provide that bridge to turn a podcast listener into somebody on your email list and then into a future client.

Rob Marsh: So I’d love to get your thoughts on this. I’ve seen some podcasters take interviews and simply publish the interview straight as a book on Amazon. Those kinds of things don’t really appeal to me. Might as well just read transcripts on a website or listen to the podcast. But what is involved? I know one of the services you provide is creating an actual e-book from this content, which is a much more substantial project. What’s involved in that, turning interviews into something that’s actually readable as a book?

Sarah Hopkinson: Well, to go back to what you were saying about just taking a transcript and kind of publishing it as a book. I think that that misses the mark because one of the hills I will die on is that people speak very differently from the way that they write. And it doesn’t, so that’s why transcripts can actually be difficult and sometimes almost painful to read. Because what makes sense out loud doesn’t make sense written down. So I think if that’s what you’re doing, just publishing a transcript, it’s probably not really going to help anybody. Fun side fact, that was one of the big discoveries from the Watergate scandal, that there were all of these transcripts of these conversations going on and the content was obviously quite shocking in nature. But the other thing that people were shocked by was that they couldn’t really understand the transcript because the conversation was kind of messy and jumbled. And you had to really hear the audio file to understand the mechanisms of how people were talking to each other, which is what our brains do all the time. 

But to go back to how you can actually make audio content valuable in written form, I think it’s about, again, about looking at the themes of the conversation, the insights that come up. So when I’m looking at a transcript, I use a couple of different AI programs just to get it nice and clean. And then take a summary of it from there. And also, perhaps the summary is AI generated. But from there, for me, it’s almost a journalistic writing process. to get the information into something that’s digestible in written form. So it takes several stages to take it from an audio recording to a written book. And also, if you’re writing something as large as a book, you need to be really kind of fleshing out the extra detail, doing the fact checking, all the contextualizing that you might not have from the interview. But yeah, you’re going to, if all you’re doing is taking something from A to Z with nothing in between, your end product isn’t going to reflect the real value that you could get from the podcast episode.

Rob Marsh: Yeah, it drives me nuts when I go back and read our transcripts as I go through. Like you said, sometimes you have half of a thought and then your brain figures out a better way to say it and so you stop and you rephrase and as this stuff is put together and piled up in a conversation on paper, it’s messy and it doesn’t make sense a lot of the time. What’s worse is for me, I say things like, you know, and um, and like so many times, and that stuff gets picked up in transcripts and also drives me crazy. having somebody who can clean that all up and, and, or, you know, being a writer who can do that yourself, it’s a really valuable service for those who want to, again, uncover content from podcasts.

Sarah Hopkinson: Yeah, people talk messily. And that doesn’t mean that it’s messy to listen to. But if you want to turn that podcast into something else, you have to you can’t just, you know, copy paste and publish. There’s, as you say, there’s an art in that, that goes into helping people get the most out of your podcast. I also like to think of it as kind of extending the podcast experience as well from something that you have in your ears. to something that really becomes part of your world, whether that’s because you’re suddenly on that podcast’s email list, or you’re following them on social media, or you got their ebook or their kind of mini guide. It helps you to kind of feel more connected with them and the subject that you both care about.

Rob Marsh: Yeah, that’s a really good point. So let me ask you about finding clients because it feels to me like a lot of podcasters, they put out a podcast, the podcast is alive and out there, and that’s how most people engage with what they’re doing. Do they always feel a need for extending content? I guess that’s a really long way of saying it feels like some of these clients may not feel like they need a content strategist or a copywriter to help them out. So how do you go about helping them see the gap there that you fill so that they’ll hire you?

Sarah Hopkinson: That’s a good question. I’ve found my most successful clients from cold pitching. With cold pitching, I do a lot of the filtering on my end to make sure that I think that I would be a good match for the client that I’m pitching to. Some of the things that I look for in particular is a podcaster who’s been going for at least a year. Um, and I also look at, uh, things that give me clues about, um, it’s not necessarily to do with how successful the podcaster is, but, um, things like if they have a team around it, if this podcast is something that’s really serious for them. So I like to work with podcasters who have the podcast as part of their business. For example, the podcast is kind of For some businesses, they’re de facto marketing that they find their own clients for their own business through that podcast. That for me would be the sign of a potentially a good client because they know that their podcast is valuable and they want to get that value from it. So yeah, the pitching process for me is actually quite intensive because I’ll be listening to their episodes. I’ll be following them online. I’ll be subscribed to their email list. Um, and if they start talking about things like a launch, that’s where I think, okay, this is a podcast that I could work with. 

So that’s, so I do a kind of a big pre-selection and then in the email conversation I have with them, which I’ll probably be outreaching to them several emails. Um, I’ll be using arguments with them around what, that they’ve already invested value in their podcast. but they’re not necessarily extracting that value back from it. So kind of putting it in monetary terms, um, to convince them that, that these are the kinds of services they need. And it’s not a service that every single podcaster would need, but for certain podcasters, it’s something that really helps them to kind of move their podcasts into the next level in terms of monetizing their content and building the community around it. And that’s where I feel like I can really help.

Rob Marsh: Yeah, as you described that process, it feels pretty intense. In our P7 client acquisition system, we walk through how do you pitch clients. I think you’ve seen some of that stuff. There’s two different kinds of pitches. There’s the MVP, which is down and dirty. It’s real quick. You find a list of people that you can send out brief emails to and connect with. you’re doing what we call the goat pitch, which is really going into understanding the client and what they need and their voice. And there’s a lot of risk in doing that because, you know, if you spend five to 10 hours, you know, on your, you know, trying to figure this stuff out, even before you send a pitch, that takes a lot of time and you’ve got to have a pretty high hit rate. So, you know, what’s in the pitch that makes people respond positively?

Sarah Hopkinson: Yes, it is kind of a high risk strategy from that perspective. I have a pitch template that I use. But the template for me is really just kind of a structure that I hang my message on. So for me, my template is, you know, in paragraph one, I’m going to open with something that’s very complimentary about their podcast that shows the underlying messages, I’ve listened to several episodes, you know, more than one episode, and then, and then I go into talking about, you know, because I’ve listened to your podcast, I know that you’ve got this launch coming up, or something else that’s important to them and also timely, that there’s some element of time pressure. And then I introduce myself as somebody who can help to alleviate that and them with that kind of time pressure with this problem that they’re dealing with. 

And then I’ll follow it up with kind of relevant testimonials, and then close out with, you know, another kind of other kinds of reasons why they should get in touch with me. And also it’s something kind of fun and lighthearted, but relevant to them, you know, if they say that they live in Chicago, that I’ll mention, you know, maybe you would hope you would go out and enjoy a great deep dish pizza tonight, something like that, like just kind of fun and light. So it’s a template, but it’s highly adaptable. And that helps me just to keep in mind what my goals are and what I think this particular podcast would respond to. I think if other people are intimidated by this kind of intensive process, I would say that it is difficult to execute because I know that I’m committing to a certain number of hours of listening to their content. But I do that in a very focused way, you know, that I’m listening always for where the opportunity is for me. So it’s a very kind of active listening process. And I would say that even though I don’t always get a positive response in the sense of great, let’s hop on a call and work together. Because the process is so personalized, I nearly always at least get a response. Nearly all of my pitches have some kind of response. And that response might be positive in some other way, as in, this isn’t for me, but I know somebody who might really like this, or this isn’t for me now, but I’m looking to do this in six months. So it’s not necessarily about getting a win right there, but it’s about opening a door and it’s the start of a relationship. And I’ve had podcasters who have come back to me and said, yes, now it’s time. Let’s go.

Rob Marsh: And when you put that much work into the front end of a relationship, it’s so much easier to maintain that the person that you’re reaching out to knows that You’re genuinely interested in at least the work that they’re doing, if not them personally. So I love this approach from a pitching standpoint. Like you said, it’s a little bit high risk and it’s intense on the front end, but the result is, honestly, it’s a network that could feed your business for years to come.

Sarah Hopkinson: Exactly. And I like to think of there being multiple touch points in the conversation. Um, and podcasting really lets you do that because I can comment on several episodes, but also I can, um, leave a review of the podcast, which I do with using my name and my business name. So I can reference like, Oh, if you, Hey, if you got a review recently, a good review, that was me. Um, so it’s, it’s just little ways of showing that your, that you really care about them as a person. And most podcasters respond to that really positively. So I think if you’re in this kind of high risk pitching strategy, look out for the other touch points as well, where you can build on this relationship and try and get some kind of positive out of it, even if it’s not the, hey, what’s your bank details, I’m going to wire you some money right now.

Rob Marsh: Yeah. So this might be a selfish question because I have a podcast, but are there things that podcasters should be doing that would make it easier to work with a content strategist somewhere down the line in order to create these kinds of assets that help uncover older podcast episodes that might have value in them or to keep them alive in some way?

Sarah Hopkinson: That’s a really good question. One thing that I advocate for is having some kind of spreadsheet where you document stats about your episode, as in episode number, episode title, maybe guest, that kind of thing, but also tagging broad topics that you covered. So for the Copywriter Club, it might be things like pitching. mindset, working with a coach. It could be email copy, SEO, things like that. So you can have those already created in like a drop down on your Google Sheet. And you can just kind of tick which ones apply. And that means that you’ve got one table or one place online where you can see everything. It is a big job to do. If you haven’t done it regularly, that’s why it’s if you If you can, it’s best to start at the beginning and do it every week. But yeah, it really helps you kind of keep tabs on those episodes and otherwise. I know because I had access to your archives, having those transcripts done and published somewhere online, not publicly, just somewhere where you have access to them, that’s kind of the beginning of it. But yeah, content tagging is really, really helpful.

Rob Marsh: That would have been fantastic advice seven years ago. Where were you?

Sarah Hopkinson: I’m sorry, I don’t have going back in time powers.

Rob Marsh: I mean, obviously we have transcripts of just about every episode that we have. So that resource is there, but that’s actually a brilliant idea to have the broad general topics in a spreadsheet. I’m kicking myself for not having thought of that before. Yeah. So, you know, podcasting world has changed a lot in the last decade. You know, there are, I think at this point, there are a lot of people saying it’s too late to start a podcast. There are too many podcasts out there. Most podcasts don’t even get you know, a hundred listens to a single episode, so is it even worth it? What would you say about all of that? I guess in a general sense, you know, is podcasting still a place where we should be? And then in maybe a very specific sense, a second question is, should more copywriters have podcasts?

Sarah Hopkinson: I speak to a lot of people in the podcasting industry and I’ve, attended podcasting conferences. And this is a conversation that happens a lot. And I think that like many other phenomena, podcasting had, you know, it started off slow, but then it had a huge boom era. And it’s a medium with a very low bar to join, which is why there was such a huge boom. You know, you don’t really even need to have a microphone to have a podcast. You can just record stuff on your phone and publish it. So the barrier to entry is very low. It’s almost nil. And I think that we are out of that phase now where anybody could start a podcast and be successful. And I think that what that’s done is it’s it means that people who want to start a podcast now, I would say to them, do it, but be intentional about it, because it’s no longer a quick win strategy. And so I think that it’s what podcasters now and podcasters of future need to remember is that your podcast has to be about something, you have to have a goal in mind of what you want that podcast to achieve for you. And that goal might not be 100% like the content that you’re talking about on every episode, but you have to know what that podcast represents in terms of either your business or personal goals. Because also with it, with the lesser quality of podcasts dying, It means that the ones that survive have to be good in some way, they have to be fulfilling a need. Or if you’re entering a category where there’s high competition, then you have to provide really high quality content, which means that it’s a lot of work. And you’re not going to be able to do that work unless you know the why behind why you’re doing it.

Rob Marsh: So yeah, so I guess the second question is, should copywriters, should we all have a podcast? Maybe not about copywriting, but focused on our niches, or is all of that work that you’re talking about, does that kind of eliminate it for most of us?

Sarah Hopkinson: I wouldn’t say every single copywriter needs to have a podcast, but I think if it’s something that you feel compelled to do, then absolutely explore it because it’s not going to cost you a ton of money to set up. It’s just going to be more of an effort in terms of the time that you put into it. So if you don’t feel like podcasting is for you, then not having a podcast won’t harm you. I don’t think that you’ll have a client who’ll say, I’ll never work with you because you don’t have a podcast. But if you think that you can see a podcast out there, you know, if you have an idea of a podcast in mind and think, oh, that would be super great, but I can’t find a podcast like that, then you can step up totally and be that person. So I think it comes down to how much it speaks to you as a genre. And I would say, for example, for me, I don’t like Instagram. It’s not something that appeals to me, which is why I don’t put a lot of effort into it. So I would view it in the same way as you’ve got to be discoverable online somewhere. It’s about choosing a place where you feel like you can flourish.

Rob Marsh: Yeah, I think that’s a great answer. There’s so much opportunity, but it is or needs to be purposeful. And there’s a lot of, you know, there’s so many not just copywriting podcasts, but podcasts out there, which you think, Oh, this is a great idea. And they get to five or six episodes and it just peters out. Maybe they’ve shared that idea and they’ve covered it and that’s okay. Um, but really extending something for longterm is, you know, it takes a lot of effort and thought.

Sarah Hopkinson: Oh, true. Well, you guys know that better than everybody, but, um, pod fade is real where you just can’t keep up with the rhythm that you’ve set yourself. As you say, there are some podcasts where it was never designed to be, you know, a weekly show forevermore. Maybe you just wanted to have a podcast where you would talk about one subject matter and you covered it. And I think that’s fine if you do that and you wrap it up and you say, you know, we’ve come to the end of the arc of this story of this subject. It’s it’s finished. But if you’re aiming for something more long term, you have to be really realistic with yourself about how you’re going to be able to sustain it. And maybe that’s why you look into getting a team around you to help you.

Rob Marsh: So while we’re talking about this, you’ve gone through this process yourself and are starting a podcast. That’s The Rumor later this month. Tell us about what that is and what’s involved in it. And from what I’ve heard, your podcast is actually a little bit more involved than the typical interview show like this one.

Sarah Hopkinson: That’s right. Yep. The rumors are true. I am starting a podcast with Nicole Hyman, who I met on the Copywriter Accelerator. She and I clicked and we had a lot in common and she came to me with this idea earlier this year and we’ve been working on it ever since and we’re about to launch, which is really exciting. So our soon to be published podcast is called the Tried It podcast, your proven pathway to a better copywriting business. And you’re right that it does involve even more work than the other podcasts out there. Because in our podcast, we take a book about an aspect of copywriting, whether that’s kind of the technical side of copywriting, or running a kind of copywriting freelance business. And over the course of one episode, we discuss that book. and what we thought about it, points that we agreed with, things that made us think about. And we choose three things each that we’ve learned from that book. And we go away and work on them in our own businesses or on our client work. And then we have a follow up episode. where we talk about what we learned from that process, whether we’re going to carry on doing these three goals, what we would recommend to other copywriters. So the idea behind it was really having a way to kind of formalize that commitment to growing as a copywriter, because there’s a lot of podcasts out there that give fantastic advice, but they don’t necessarily kind of lay out what that pathway of growing and developing your skills looks like. So in the podcast, we are really honest and transparent about the things that we do know, the things that we don’t know, how our clients received our work with the ideas that we use with them, and how other copywriters can grow their skills in a more kind of intentional way.

Rob Marsh: So tease the first episode. What’s the book that you guys are talking about in the first episode?

Sarah Hopkinson: Oh, well, the first episode, we decided we were going to go for kind of a writing Bible. We went for Everybody Writes by Anne Handley, second edition. It’s a great book if you’ve never read it, because she’s such a brilliant author and she gives really great advice about writing, which is applicable to everybody. So it’s not just for copywriters. Um, so we, we both read it separately. Um, and actually I ended up reading it almost two times all the way through because I felt like there was so much that you could get from it. And then yes, both Nicole and I made our own separate implementation goals. And then in the next episode we discussed how we got on with them and yeah, the things that we, that we learned from Anne Handley that I’m still trying to practice today.

Rob Marsh: Yeah, that’s a good starting book. I am really looking forward to tuning into this idea of a podcast. It’s different from what most copywriting podcasts are. So, yeah, like I said, the end of this month, we’re hoping for the launch and yeah, we’ll check it out.

Sarah Hopkinson: That’s right. Yes, we’re launching it with an official launch party, an online launch party, which is going to be on the 26th of September. It’s going to be live on LinkedIn. So that’s Nicole and I celebrating our achievement, kind of birthing the podcast into the world. and we’ll be releasing episodes on Tuesdays from the Tuesday after that, which is the 1st of October.

Rob Marsh: Amazing. Okay, so let me shift gears a little bit. After you went through The Copywriter Accelerator, you did some work on your own personal brand, you know, creating a website and doing a photo shoot and really, you know, from where the before was on your website to the after was a really amazing transformation. Talk about that process and why you made the choices that you did.

Sarah Hopkinson: That’s a great question, Rob. I wanted to have a website to showcase kind of my new services. And I spent a long time thinking about the theme and my brain loves kind of metaphors, analogies, and I was trying to think of a way to demonstrate visually what I do for people and Uh, after thinking about it for a long time, the idea kind of came into my head out of the blue of, um, that I’m like a podcast content mixologist because I take ingredients that are already there from your podcast episodes and shake them up in a new way, just as, you know, adding a couple of different, you know, spirits, ingredients together makes a new cocktail. Um, so I think that I also wanted to showcase with it also like my fun side and to give people something a little bit, not, not exactly aspirational, but something that would demonstrate the value that they’re going to get from it. Um, so that, that was the idea behind it. So I asked a photographer friend of mine to do the photo shoot. So that was me. investing in it a bit, but not too much because I didn’t want to spend loads and loads of money on an idea that I was still kind of testing that was still quite new. But I have to say, from having the idea to executing it and launching the website, it was quite a nerve wracking process, especially I discovered that I hated writing my own website copy. It made me feel very I don’t know, very vulnerable in a way to write about myself and to try and sell my own services. So it definitely was not as straightforward as I thought it was going to be.

Rob Marsh: Yeah, a lot of copywriters actually hire other copywriters to write their websites because, you know, it’s, well, the joke is the shoemakers’ kids have no shoes, right? When it comes to telling our own stories, for some reason, we just aren’t, I think this is a human thing, not a copywriting thing, but a human thing. We’re conditioned or maybe we evolved to try to focus on other people and on ourselves less. That’s definitely a common challenge.

Sarah Hopkinson: Yes, I definitely I’d heard of other copywriters struggling with their own copy. And I thought, oh, that’s strange. Well, you know, too bad for them, but it’ll be fine for me. And you know, I had it as an action item in my calendar one afternoon, you know, start writing website copy. And within two minutes, I was in this kind of torrent of despair. And I was like, Oh, I understand it now writing your own copy can be very difficult.

Rob Marsh: Yeah, it’s not the easiest thing. As we come to the end of our time together, I’ve got just a couple more questions. One is about AI and how artificial intelligence is impacting podcasting, transcripts, the marketing of podcasts. What are you seeing there? And I guess, what are you excited about as far as AI goes?

Sarah Hopkinson: Yeah, that’s a really good question. Because as much as we have talked about AI in the world of copywriting, and how it’s changing copywriting, there’s been parallel conversation about how AI will change podcasting. So I really feel like I’ve had it from both sides. And I think that both fields, podcasting and copywriting, is similar in that there is a lot of AI anxiety going around. But I noticed the same trends in both. The AI is swallowing the work at the end of the spectrum, which requires less brain effort, less personal touch. But there’s still so much scope for real human involvement and real human creativity. One of the AI anxieties that I had was that I was at the London podcast show in May earlier this year. Somebody played us a clip of a podcast that was 100% AI generated as in script written by ChatGPT, cover art by MidJourney, voice generated using the software. And I thought, oh, wow, this is a bit crazy. And I don’t think that that will be the future of podcasting because I think humans are still so fundamentally interested in connecting and being involved with other humans. But there are some really cool tools out there. For example, there’s an AI parroting tool where if you’re trying to, for example, get a read-write, this is more for advertising on podcasts, but if you’re trying to get an AI voice to say a particular phrase for you, like a catchphrase or something like that, you can design the voice and then you speak into the software to give it the exact inflection that you want that voice to use. And the voice will mimic your inflection. And it’s just amazing. And it saves that kind of playing around with a tool that doesn’t really understand what you mean. Say it more energetic, say it with more of a lift. So that’s a really cool tool. And there are some other good tools out there that’ll help you with summarizing content, highlighting content, which I find quite useful to use. I use Otter.ai for my transcripts, things like that. But yeah, there’s going to be a lot more personalization in podcasts in the future, which is something that’s really cool to look out for, such as little extracts of podcasts. It’ll change perhaps based on your location or the time when you’re listening. And maybe you won’t even know it, but that’ll be done by AI and it’s all there to make the podcast more relevant to you.

Rob Marsh: Yeah, that seems positive, mostly. You mentioned the completely fake podcast, script written by AI, the voices by AI. In theory, that sounds really cool and interesting, but I think ultimately, if you know that, if you know it’s not a human being, We tend to lose interest because you’re right. I have less interest in wanting to know what chat GPT thinks about something as opposed to Sarah Hopkinson—you know, the human element—is meaningful, which going back to the way you pitch, you know, the reason your pitches work is because you are creating, forging a human bond. And I guess maybe once AI can imitate that human bond perfectly, we’re in trouble. But until then, I’ve got a lot of hope around the work that we do.

Sarah Hopkinson: Thank you. I do too. And I agree. I think that there will always be a space for humans to position themselves as experts, but also experts who really care. And I think that the future of copywriting and podcasting really leans into that. The AI voice generated stuff is cool. But when I listen to that, I find I’m really just listening to the voice wondering, oh, that’s clever how the robot makes that voice. I’m not listening to the content anymore. But when you have a human who’s taken the time to share their thoughts with you on a topic they really care about. That’s where the magic is.

Rob Marsh: Yeah, I agree. We already mentioned the podcast, but what are you excited about in your own business? What’s coming up for you and what are you working on?

Sarah Hopkinson: That’s a good question. Yeah, the podcasts I’m really excited about. I’m also over the next couple of months slowly building in a new service into my business where as well as providing, for example, lead magnets for podcast launches, I want to be able to offer the launch elements as well so that a podcaster who, you know, let’s say is some kind of coach with a podcast if they want to start selling a course that I could not only help them have the lead magnet that would get people onto their email list, I would be doing the mechanisms of the launch as well. So that’s something that I am starting to work on and I’m hoping to launch it next year. So I’m really investing in training myself to be able to do that, both from the sort of learning technical point of view but also with my confidence. So I’ve just started working with a, with a business coach as well to help me deal with the anxieties that come around changes in your business.

Rob Marsh: Nice. Sarah, if somebody wants to connect with you and everybody should definitely be on your email list to, you know, get the updates as you drop podcasts and other ideas about writing for podcasts, where should they go?

Sarah Hopkinson: I’m quite active on LinkedIn, Sarah Hopkinson. My website is copyhop.co, but I would say those are the best places to find me. LinkedIn, my email list. I do have an Instagram account, but it’s pretty quiet.

Rob Marsh: As you mentioned. Thanks, Sarah. This has been awesome. I appreciate your time. 

Thanks again to Sarah Hopkinson for sharing so much about her business in this interview and some of the things going on there. I love that Sarah had to research what a copywriter does. And since we’ve been talking about uncovering excellent examples of old content that gets lost and ought to be resurfaced, I should point you to one of the oldest episodes that we’ve done, an interview with Ry Schwartz. Ry said almost the exact same thing. He was hired as a copywriter, then had to go and Google, what does a copywriter do? He shared that story in episode two of the Copywriter Club podcast. That was a long time ago, seven years ago. There’s a lot of great stuff in that episode about coaching the conversion and so many other ideas. It’s definitely worth checking out. If you can’t find it in your podcast feed, it’s online at the copywriterclub.com. Simply find the podcast tab at the top of the page. or you can just search Google for thecopyrighterclub.com and Ry Schwartz, you’ll be able to find it. 

I have to admit that I’d like to take some of the transcripts from our podcast and turn them into written books and post them on Amazon or other places where people find books. There may be AI tools that will help with that at some point, or there might even be some that are doing that today, though so far the tools that I’ve tried are less than optimal. They don’t quite give me anything that really feels like a book that I’ve written. So we’re going to see where that goes in coming months, but there’s just a huge opportunity to unlock so many of the ideas that people talk about on podcasts like ours and share them in different modalities, like books, possibly videos and other printed materials. 

Sarah mentioned as we were talking cold pitching to find her clients, we briefly mentioned our P7 client attraction system that includes lots of templates and other tools to help copywriters find and land their ideal clients. Sarah took advantage of what we call the GOAT pitch. That stands for the greatest of all time pitch. If you want to know how to create your own GOAT pitch, You can learn how to do that and see examples that we share in P7 when you go to thecopyrighterclub.com/clients. And of course you should connect with Sarah on LinkedIn and at her website, copyhop.co, where you can sign up for her weekly newsletter. And if you’re listening to this podcast week that goes live, please be sure to check out Sarah’s podcast launch this week. That’s going down on LinkedIn in just a day or two.