In this episode, we officially kick off the copywriting training with the amazing Sarah Sal. Sarah has written on Facebook ad testing, strategy, and execution for AdEspresso, Agorapulse, Blitzmetrics, Copyhackers, ActiveCampaign, AdWeek, Jon Loomer’s Power Hitters Club, and the likes. She’s even presented in Perry Marshall’s iconic 80/20 Facebook ads course.
In this introductory episode, she discusses;
Name: Sara Sal
What Sarah Does: Freelance Facebook & LinkedIn Ads Specialist at Hootsuite
Company: Sarah-sal.com
Noteworthy: With 7 figures in Facebook ads spent under her belt in 10+ years, she’s run ads for companies like ClickFunnels and Strategyzer. When she started running ads for the latter, they struggled to make $0.40 for each $1 spent on ads, and she moved them to $18 for each $1 spent.
Connect with Sarah;
💡The Importance of Empathy in Copywriting
Sarah shares a personal anecdote about her experience in a crowded marketplace in Malaysia’s Chinatown. She highlights the significance of empathy in copywriting, emphasizing the need to understand the customer’s thoughts, needs, and emotions.
💡Using Analogies in Copywriting
Sarah discusses the use of analogies in copywriting to simplify complex ideas and concepts. She explains how analogies can help readers relate to unfamiliar topics by drawing parallels to something they already understand.
💡Research and Listening in Copywriting
Sarah discusses her approach to research and listening in copywriting. She explains how she immerses herself in online communities and forums like Reddit to gain insights into the struggles, questions, and conversations of her target audience.
💡Specificity in Copywriting
Sarah discusses the importance of specificity in copywriting. She provides an example of how two hotels, the Holiday Inn and the Ritz-Carlton, both claim to offer good customer service but differentiate themselves through specific details and stories.
sarah sal 0:03
This session is going to be shorter than the following session. It’s more of a very generic one. We’re going to talk about general principle of copywriting. Then the next week, we’re going to have social media copy, email, copy, landing page sales page in that order. And I know some of you are asked to have example of b2b marketing. So we’re going to include that. I know some ask about how to write copy to promote their own product or services. So we’re going to touch on that. And it seemed like a recurring them.
How do I market myself? It’s not part of copywriting. But the last session, probably the last session, maybe we could do it earlier. I need to think about that. So we’re going to have a whole session only and only on how to market and how to promote yourself how to find clients, and so on. I see everyone joined. Well, I see there is one person still joining maybe their Wi Fi connection is not fast. So let me share my screen. I shot my camera.
sarah sal 1:31
So okay. Now
sarah sal 1:36
can Okay, I see somebody want to join? Let me just admit them. Can everyone see my screen?
sarah sal 1:48
Yes.
sarah sal 1:50
Okay. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. So, I’m going to start with a story. I was once in Malaysia, in Kuala Lumpur in Chinatown. You seen the picture how crowded it is, is super hot is super humid. People are walking very slowly on eggshell. And you have sailed people screaming in your face. Fake Belcher your fake handbag for your fake shoes for you. And the moment you walk there for 10 minutes you have, okay, I see someone when I joined, I just admitted them.
You really have a headache? Can you want to escape as fast as possible. And Silla, just desperate to get your attention are screaming louder and louder. And I see somebody want to tell me about what they sell. And I really had enough. So I just turned my back because I’m like, No, I cannot take it anymore. And basically, he put his hand on my shoulder just to grab my attention. It took a lot of self control, not to turn around and slap him on his face, because I was really in a bad mood.
On the other contrast, if somebody could read my mind that it was hot, humid, I was thirsty. And they said, Hey, we have a hydrating drink, they wouldn’t need to scream in my face to get my attention. And actually, there wasn’t the whole place only one place that was selling cold drink. And funnily enough, that place was closed. Probably that person got a lot of sales during the day that they had the luxury to close ally.
sarah sal 3:39
So we don’t want to be the pushy salesperson because that’s not copy that work. We want to be the person who if you write something, it looks like you stole somebody’s diary. Imagine your perfect customer or client or so on. Has a diary. They wrote what their life looked like and you stole that diary and you’re reading it.
It’s basically like reading the thoughts that are in their head. So once I was writing some ads about Asperger it’s some how can I put it? I don’t want to use the term medical condition. But people who have a spudger their brain is different from other people. And I know absolutely nothing about that. So what did I went I typed Reddit a spiritual struggles, right? You could change Reddit by discussion forums.
sarah sal 4:42
So I don’t know.
sarah sal 4:46
I’m basically I’m discovering this would be alright. I just only type this. So I’m going to open this. A Yeah. So I’m here on red. I’m discovering it with you. Somebody say I’m frustrated, I suck at communication, my how emotion or bad eye contact, I can hold a conversation but I get burned out, right?
So, one part of the struggle is if they have conversation with people, they get tired very quickly. And often it’s one thing then lead to another. So I don’t know when some, you might click on some of this, and you have an idea what you’re fine. Some of it you’re like, I understand nothing. Some of it like, oh, wow, this make really sense.
sarah sal 5:47
So let’s say somebody said I suck at communication, right? So I’m going back and I’m typing Reddit. Communication difficulty. And, again, I have no idea. It’s basically like one thing that leads me to find another thing. And you basically read it, I give the example of read it, but doesn’t need to be ready. Let’s say I have a client and that client, have a course have a website have a podcast interview, they have a webinar,
sarah sal 6:22
what I’m going to do is I’m just going to listen. And each time I’m listening, I’m going to have an aha moment. So I would have a white, let’s say Google Doc, where each time I have an aha moment I write it I have an organised thoughts. I just want to spend maybe one hour understanding the market, right, I don’t want to start by writing I want to understand the market because if you understand the market, your copy get way better.
In reality, you don’t try to copy you assembler it you see the the log Lego block here. It’s nearly you’re taking them and you’re putting it one above the other. That’s the same thing when you’re writing coffee. Good coffee, good coffee, good coffee is 90% listening and reading only 10%.
Speaker 1 7:14
Writing one of the book, I really really, really, really, really
sarah sal 7:20
like is Made to Stick it’s not it’s not a copywriting book, but it’s to university professor who studied what type of Idea people understand what type of Idea people remember. And if you think about it, an Idea you don’t understand you’re not going to remember it. So those are really, really, really, really good. Principle and one example one example. They made a mock trial, where two parents got divorced. And the mother was fighting for the custody of her kid, right? It’s a mock trial.
It’s not a real trial. And in one of it they played both sides saying she’s a good mother saying she’s a bad mother, right? Good mother bad mother mean nothing, right? But when they had details and by detail I mean they said if they said she’s a bad mother, they said oh my god, the kid went to school with no lunch with him. That’s painted an image painted the picture or when they said she’s a good mother. They said she made sure that the toothbrush was Mickey Mouse because her kid loves Mickey Mouse.
And they found that when they gave those vivid detail people were like way way way way way way more likely to see an image and agree in favour or against the mother so you want as much as possible to point a picture another person I really like her copies talking shrim because she right like she talk right? Get the only email anyone like email. Taste of getting paid to pay us she doesn’t write to corporate to serious non psyche substitutes line and one of the things that make you have good copy is specificity. I give you an example. You have two hotels.
You have the Holiday Inn you have the Ritz Carlton Holiday Inn, is saying we have good customer service. Ritz Carlton say the same thing. How do you know the difference? So if I go here and I tap holiday in New York, you see the price 200 Euro 100 night here, those are stupid, crazy prices. I’m just using them as an example. I don’t think 200 euros worth it to our hotel in New York. But see what happened. I’m typing holiday in New York. Now let me try Ritz Carlton in New York. You see the price is almost 10 times higher. But if you’re here, and you’re telling me this one is telling me good service, this one is telling me good service. It doesn’t tell me why this one is better.
And you want to spend more right? Now, if I look at this story, I’m going to tell the story because this is a long article. There was an American family that travelled to Bali in Indonesia. They are the the kid, one of their kids have allergy to make milk and egg. So in their suitcase, they brought a special type of milk like the kid can drink, right? But what happened? You have like a 20 hour flight. They arrived in Bali and the milk spoiled. So they go to the hotel, they say, Do you have it? If it was the Holiday Inn, they say we don’t have it. Sorry, right? No, no, no, the Ritz Carlton went to multiple shop and all of the island asking, do you have that they did not find it. But they did not stop there.
They have an executive chef from Singapore, who basically remember they saw this in his country, which is like, I don’t know, a three hour flight. And what he did is he called his mother in law. He said, You’re going to go to the nearest supermarket, buy this brand of milk, and you’re taking the first flight to Bali. Now this tell me why the service quality of Ritz Carlton extend time better than the Holiday Inn. It’s more speaking than just saying, we happen to have good service. Movie test. Imagine you’re a movie director, right? And somebody write you some copy, and you need to take that copy and turn it into a movie right? In a scene in a movie.
If I was saying she is angry. I don’t know how to film but Sam, because if I said she was angry, what does that mean? Does it mean she was screaming? Does it mean she stabbed someone? Does it mean she’s silent? Does it mean she’s crying? I have no idea. But if I said she took her shoe on, throw it in his face. Now, okay, I get the image that she’s angry. But if I’m a movie director, I can direct the scene. So try to paint an image as much as possible as if you’re giving that copy to a movie director to read it. Another thing powerful is analogies. So let’s say somebody living in Europe, they never try a fruit that called Tama real, right?
And they say How does it taste? I’m going to say it has a taste mixed between tomato and passionfruit. Right? Other people say it’s a mix between tomato and mango. So to somebody who have no idea how it tastes, I’m using analogy to explain. So if I said Palmela, for example, frog. I know it’s very popular in Asia, in Europe, some some specialised job would sell it. But 99 of European never try the Pamala fraud.
So if somebody asked me, How does it taste lie, I would say it’s like engraved fruit, but less bitter, right? So let’s say you’re writing a copy. And it’s hard to understand it’s complex, you could always ask yourself, what is an analogy for something totally different that you can use to make the copy easier to understand the other thing? People love stories. I mean, it’s so easier on our brain to read stories than to read a block of text that is abstract.
I give you an example. I wrote this post on my LinkedIn profile. I have maybe 2000 followers, something like that, right. And I had like 2138 people who have seen it so nearly almost every one have seen it. And I tell in it didn’t just say use this LinkedIn ad marketing strategy. No, no, no. I told the story of a university professor from the US who travelled to London who booked an Airbnb and basically the Airbnb was a big bathroom where they put a bed in it right? No, okay, that problem okay, imagine you’re on a holiday you’re paying gubb know how much you think about you have a nice flat only to find that you’re in your Airbnb you’re living inside of a toilet, right, and they’ve put a bed and a try. And then I use that example to, I started with that story.
sarah sal 15:11
And then I talked about an a specific ad strategy that you can use for LinkedIn. And because they use that story, people engage with them and post more people have seen it.And so on.
sarah sal 15:29
So now, I’m switching to the q&a, like I said, this session is short, just get to the point, like very generic, and the next session will be the full hour. But I mean, we could stay for a whole hour if people have questions. So let me just look at the chat box to see if there is any question a hey, hey, okay, I’m AASA, you’ll be able to screenshot this. Okay, any questions? So far? Don’t be any question. There is no stupid question. Any question? Yes, I spend time I spend time looking for two things, two things.
Some time, I might just reading a book watching a YouTube video being on social media, and I find a story I like. And I just go to Evernote and I write it like, I don’t know how I’m going to use maybe I know the analogy already made. I don’t even know how to use it. But I just write it in a file, and when I need it, I visit my file. And I’m going to be okay, I could use a story. And some time, I’m writing something and I don’t know what analogy I’m going to use. And I spend time and sometimes it come naturally to me as in. Maybe I spend 30 minutes, 60 minutes trying to find an analogy, and I don’t find and then I let the copy sleep.
And maybe when I’m going for a walk, I’m like oh my god, that would be a good story. That would be a good analogy. I use Evernote to organise stories. But you could use any other systems. To thing other notes like a story. Let’s say I’m watching a movie or a documentary and I like something, I would just put it in Evernote. Now let’s say I have a client that have a one hour webinar. And I need to write copy, I would watch the webinar have an Idea pause write the Idea put watch pause etc. Then I have a Google doc basically I have a Google doc where I call it add draft. And I just it’s a very disorganised and I just like Idea one Idea to Idea three Idea four.
And then when I finish watching the webinar, I tried to organise that and take the Idea and put them into ADS, or email for example, or landing page copy or sell copy or whatever. Myself personally, I use a lot storytelling. That’s my format. I’m not saying you could only only use storytelling, just my style. Is there cases where I don’t use it? Yes. Imagine you’re very hungry. You’re walking in the street. And there is a really nice pizzeria. Right? You don’t want that person to tell you the story of the Italian family and how they grew the tomato and what is the story of the pizza? You just basically, I’m hungry. Here’s your money.
Give me the pizza, right? There are niches that are not very storytelling. So for example, fashion Food Travel, right? Um, let’s say you’re running, you’re writing social media posts, you’re writing Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads. You look at the duress You either like it or not, you look at a picture or a video food you either like it or not. You look at a hotel video and how it’s next to the beach. You either like it or not. Those are niches that are more visual, but for everything that is more b2b with less with it that way where there is an education where there is a need for education, to change people mind to change their perspective.
I try to use storytelling as much as possible. And it’s not necessarily always all and only storytelling. If I’m telling people why they should not eat sugar, I’m not going to tell a story about somebody who ate sugar I’m going to actually let me find an example I should I should have an example here somewhere.
sarah sal 19:50
not here
sarah sal 19:59
so I once wrote an email for a health provider that is more specialised in everything that is natural medicine, so not like traditional doctor. And one thing was why sugar is super, super, super, super horrible. Okay, this is like maybe 50 Page of email. So let me find it. So here, this is not a story, right? It just saying that according to the New York time, we’re consuming 15 times more sugar than we did in 1800. out of 600 food product, 80% of them have added sugar, and actually catch up by 100 grand has more sugar than Coca Cola.
So once you add ketchup to your food, it’s nearly like if you ate more than sugar than six, chocolate coffee, this is not a story, right? It’s fact. So it’s educational. So sometimes, yes, I might tell somebody story. But sometimes it’s fact base is educational. Because if I cannot just say don’t eat sugar, because don’t eat sugar, like why I love it. No, no, no, no, I need to educate you. It needs to have fact. Do you use this story in your copies? I use it in my copy as well. I mean, actually, actually, actually, if you check my website, you would see I have some story of something with a client, I was going to keep this one till the part about writing website copy, but let me
sarah sal 21:42
go here. Because a marketing is a crowded niche. If I just said I do marketing, there is 500 People who say I do marketing. So I want to talk about this. The result I got my client, if you say I help with as I help with email copy, I help with landing page copy. There is 1 million people doing the same, right? So you want to think what is a client you worked with?
What was the outcome? And how did you do it? Right? So here I said, one client asked me for God’s sakes are what are those ads you’re running? And then said oh my god, we made 700,000 In sales, you think we could push it in 1 million right? And then I tell the story of the client and why the client didn’t like the storytelling approach and then I tell what I changed and I didn’t
sarah sal 22:38
change and actually I get people reaching out to me because I mean, I had the Singaporean beer brand reached me the other day because of that story. For example, where is it here? Oh, here you see the first slide where I talked about Kuala Lumpur China town where people are screaming in your face somebody actually read that story that analogy and said oh my god I agree with that this is my approach and marketing so yes, I do use that
sarah sal 23:11
Yeah. I do
sarah sal 23:21
any more quick. I mean, I’ll send you after the call a PDF about how to use story which is the homework to read before next session. I use them for email I use them for ad copy I use them for web copy I use them for my blog post actually
sarah sal 23:47
yeah, people love my blog post actually. book
sarah sal 23:53
I would say check copy hacker it’s not it’s not a it’s not a book. But the authority
sarah sal 24:00
on
sarah sal 24:04
copywriting is copy hacker they I mean they have an expensive course or $5,000 but they have a lot of things that are for free. I mean they have a few books for free also I think ship copy hacker check Copy Hackers
sarah sal 24:25
let me see what book Oh, you see where stellar message come from? That’s a good book. That’s a good book. Click button and so on. Yeah, Copy Hackers. Good. But but but after the call, I’m going to share one one PDF to read. Sure, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. You can ask about my career. I’m 12 Year 12 year. It takes time. It takes time. It takes time. And this is why I said we’re going to make a session only always because you want example, if I talk right now without the example and the strategy and so on. It’s going to be very abstract. So we don’t worry about this. We’re going to have a whole session only and only talking about that.
Any other questions? Otherwise, we finish earlier today and I, on Slack, I’ll put the homework of what to read on Slack. Yeah. Not here. Not yet. Because I do it week by week. I don’t have the I mean, I could just tell you the order, we’re going to have the chorus, which is today’s generate next week would be ad copy, probably, we might have like two session on ad copy, then it’s Email Copy, then it’s landing page and sale page, and also how to market yourself and your business and also how to write your own website copy. But it’s flexible, because like today, I’m getting questions I might adapt. Like today I go on Slack. At first, I never planned to talk about how to market yourself. And after I go on Slack, so then I’m like, Hey, I’m going to add that. So the outline is going to be my change.
sarah sal 26:26
With time how how long ideally should be the story. It’s not about the length,
sarah sal 26:33
right? It cannot be boring. It needs to drive a point it needs to convert people. If you think about it. Harry Potter is maybe 12 book and people are still reading it. It just how do you have copy that is not boring right? Now, if you’re writing social media posts don’t make it 20. Page long, right? If you have a sale page, you could have longer story but need to be drive to the point. So let’s say you have a story you read in it.
And you could drive to the point by making it shorter than drive to the point where I’m making the children while still using the story. I mean, at some point, I’ll give you homework to write things and then I’ll look at it and I could say this is too long. This is too short. This you need to convey this is something you need to write and get criticism on it to get a feeling for it.
sarah sal 27:29
Sure, we’ll do that.
sarah sal 27:36
Yes, yes, yes,
sarah sal 27:36
yes. 100%. Do b2b I’ll include b2b angle. The idea is you should be able to do everything b2c, or b2b, it doesn’t matter. But you’re going to have a lot of b2b example and make sure
sarah sal 27:51
to cover b2b. Good copy is
sarah sal 27:58
good copy is conversion, right? Let’s say you have an ad copy, right? Somebody’s right, let’s say you have a client that running ads. And their current ad copy is getting leads a $30, you write a new copy, and now your copy get lead a $12. That’s good copy, right? Same thing for email lists, say a client has an email list, send an email and from that email,
sarah sal 28:22
they get 100 calls or
sarah sal 28:22
100 client, you write another email. And now you get double the amount of that that’s a good copyright. At the end of the day, you need to test it against user well, you need to test it against mouseclick. If it’s an ad, if it’s email, you need to look at generated revenue. If it’s landing page, you need to look at the conversion rate. If it’s a sale page, you need to look at conversion rate and to sell. So at the end of the day, you could learn all the principle read all the book just because you do that it’s not a cooking recipe where you know, you take this ingredient, you mix it with that ingredient. And it’s delicious because the human are more complex on that you’re testing an idea.
You’re testing it against the existing sales page, landing page, email, ad copy, and you look at the result. And based on that you adapt. So I might send them write an ad and I think oh my god, it’s an amazing ad. And when I launched it, it does horribly. And then I write another one and the other I heard that as well. So sometimes it’s a question of casting but you don’t you don’t know till you test it in real life. Okay, so no more question. We finish like 20 minutes early today. And I’ll in something like 1015 minutes, I’ll give you a homework in Slack, something to read for next session. And then next week we’re going to talk about ad copy. Okay, and take care of
sarah sal 29:59
bye everyone bye bye
