Exploring the Art of Copywriting with Mary Wisniewski

[00:00:00] Speaker A: The more you write, the faster you'll get and like patterns will present themselves. But if you have time, one might say overthink it or just think through it. For journalism, I just do a bunch of interviews, sit with the notes and reflect on oh, what stood out the most to me without looking at them. And then I'll highlight and then I'll even if it's a longer story like 2000 words, I'm going to put it on paper like themes and then cut that paper up and go in. Organizational pattern of this is how it starts and then carries through. So that's the kind of story I like doing. The most fulfilling for me, but it's time intensive. [00:00:34] Speaker B: Welcome to the society Gal podcast where trailblazing female entrepreneurs and creatives come together to spark change and build their dreams. This is where your passion meets purpose and together we're crafting a future where everyone has the tools to succeed. All right, everybody, welcome to the Society Golf podcast. We are so excited to have Mary on with us today to talk all about copywriting and really just the journey of writing and her own journey and to give you, especially you copywriters and those of you who do writing as a service or for your own business, to really help you discover your own story, to find ways to refresh your own and loving what you write as well. So go ahead and introduce yourself, Mary, and we'll just go ahead and start digging in. Awesome. [00:01:29] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks for having me here today. My professional origin story is I've been a business journalist and that was my first job post college covering high end jewelry trends. And then I started covering financial services. I've been an editor. I've written for brands, to your point of copywriting. I've done big teacher stories and I've also done personal essays. So I've experimented with a lot of different forms and edited a lot of different materials. So it's been a trip. [00:01:56] Speaker B: That's awesome. We were talking before this about just the journey of writing. And I'm personally not a writer or copywriter. I've done school essays and things like that personally. But how important it is to learn this skill, even if you're not a copywriter, especially as a business owner, and just ways that you can make it not so boring. There are people out there that are writing for a living and that means we can find passion in all those things. So I want to speak to first, just like the newer copywriters out there, we have a lot of copywriters in our audience that are newer into copywriting or just writing in general for somebody else, for another business and enhancing those skills. So for them, what would you recommend on how to keep it refreshing, keep it exciting, and for someone to hone in on their skills and really understand what makes them passionate about something but really good at it as well and find that balance. Yeah. [00:02:50] Speaker A: So it's like a hard thing to do. So it depends where you publishing this? Is this for social media? Is this for the website? Are you trying to be like top of Google? Because if you're writing something where you want to rank high on Google, it's drive writing. You can see if you Google what are the best bank accounts, for example. There's sort of a formula to it. So it's not the fun kind of writing, but if you're trying to speak on behalf of a brand, it's journalism. You need to find out what is this brand, what is their voice, who are they trying to get in front of? And then you can have fun with that kind of writing. But sometimes you're going to have to write really dry stuff and it's just like, okay, it's not that exciting, but then you can also be yourself and write the way that you hope to write. Or how do you get better? Working with great editors certainly is like the best way. I remember my early years. I was like, wow, that's a lot of edits. But it made me so much stronger as a writer. And of course, reading. Read as much as you can. [00:03:47] Speaker B: So I think there's a lot of people out there that are like, I love writing. I'm going to offer as a service. I'm going to get out there and help other people. But I love how you said mentorship, like having someone that can really be by you or really just give you some mentorship around writing. I think we all need that in all aspects of our skill sets we're trying to develop, but not just only learning an online course or only just getting experience, but actually having someone who's been in it for a really long time review your work, or you get to see what they're doing and what points they're making as well. [00:04:17] Speaker A: Yeah, and there's a lot of online workshops, you can take that. There's a lot of exercises, write as much as you can within ten minutes and share it with the group for feedback. I hate that. But it's available. And for some people, I think it works really well. For me. I'm like, oh, gosh, this is making me shy, nervous. [00:04:34] Speaker B: You said earlier sometimes you have to write dry stuff. You have to write stuff that you're not super passionate about. But how do you keep that creativity up when you're writing? Because you write about what do you write about? [00:04:44] Speaker A: Again, it's called fintech. So technology, that's changing finance, which can be fun to write, but it depends where's the content? [00:04:50] Speaker B: That way that could be something you could be writing about. You developed where you love to write and research, but there's probably a lot of people that are writing about things they're not passionate about, or maybe their creativity is doubting. So how does someone really ramp up their creativity and keep it going during their writing journey? [00:05:07] Speaker A: This is the hardest thing. Sometimes I'm like, wow, look at me hit this perfectly. And then I'm like, oh no. Now I feel like really dull and boring. But for me, I have a lot of side hobbies. I like to roller skate, I like to go to just some rose workshop. These things have nothing to do with what I write about, but I find that it makes my brain go in a different direction and it keeps me curious. I find when I'm doing something really outside of my typical day, it helps me stay creative. And the other thing I'll say is, yeah, you might not be able to write something the way that you want to write it, but sometimes I have found, looking back at my work, like, I thought something was really boring, and it was sometimes, but then it set a base for me to write something really interesting later on for more of a feature story. I went in a real bleak rabbit hole of bank disclosures, for example. But it opened up an opportunity for me to write a big feature story later on because I had a very narrow set of knowledge. [00:06:03] Speaker B: And you were talking about, as far as creativity goes, about balancing writing not only just writing for the people you need to write for, but also writing for yourself. How do you think that helps the creativity side and kind of the motivation side is writing for yourself and writing for other people. [00:06:23] Speaker A: I find if I'm doing something that maybe I don't want to write, I always then am forcing myself to write something that I do want to write and something newer for me, but something I had taken classes for years ago was personal essay. So I wrote a couple of essays for LA affairs, which is like the modern love of LA times. And it was a really great outlet. It was a great outlet when I was drafting it, because I was like, oh, I'm creating the structure. As a writer, you're always deciding what stays in, what stays out, but when it's your life. It's a very different experience. It's like my brain gets entangled with all these little things and then it becomes a bit emotional. But I found like doing that then energized me to do some of the getting paid for everyday sort of writing. [00:07:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel like we have anybody else that we have. Ebbs and flows. One of my favorite points that you made was making sure that you're doing things for yourself writing wise, but also for other people and that vice versa. They're going to help each other in. [00:07:19] Speaker A: Your skill set, but you're going to. [00:07:21] Speaker B: Have a creative outlet that's not so pressured because you're getting paid kind of thing, but something that you can get really excited about and then that can bleed into your actual paid work, which again, like ebbs and flows. Maybe it's not feeling really good, so you do something else for a little bit to get that going. I feel like it can get really mundane. I'm sure certain times of just like doing the same thing or same topic or it's tedious or something like that. [00:07:44] Speaker A: Or you just feel a little stuck. Again, it depends who you're writing for. If you know your audience, the more fun you can have with it because you know what they need to know. But then hit check that box and then you can play with the words. [00:07:55] Speaker B: Let's expand on that a little bit. I love that point you made when you know the audience. I feel like a lot of people are like wanting to know the business, who they're serving, how the business is serving somebody else, but not the actual people that they're serving. So take that a little bit about how important it is to know who you're speaking to specifically for the business you're working for. [00:08:19] Speaker A: I think it matters so much because it depends. It's what details you're leaving in versus leaving out. If you're a business serving consumers, what are they going to hear about? Like the price? Why is this thing good for me? Tips and tricks for things that, like in January, everyone has new goals. There's probably in any category that you split. Fitness, health, money. That's the content people are wanting to read up on, for example. [00:08:42] Speaker B: So how do you research that? How do you figure out who exactly you're speaking to? [00:08:48] Speaker A: So if we're talking about copywriter for brand, you're going to know who your target customers are. So that would be who you're trying to profile. For traditional media, there's going to be like a press kit where this is your audience and in my experience writing for a trade audience, for example, for financial services people, they want to know what's at stake for their company. I imagine a lot of your listeners are probably more like the consumer audience. And you need to think like a magazine editor and see what are they writing about, what details are they including. And it doesn't have to be directly about the business. Maybe it's like a topic that is just useful to know about that would lead people back to the website because they're searching for X and it brings you back to the brand's website. [00:09:31] Speaker B: And I know there's a lot of people probably in our audience that are working with small businesses, but really understanding the audience and even the story of the audience, what issues are they dealing with? What are they thinking right now? What are they looking for at what time in their journey, at different times. And I think it's a lot more complex than people think as far as who the person is that you're speaking to and not just a generalized. I'm just speaking to people who want to get married. I'm just speaking to every single brand. I think that also shows off the experience of the copywriter is getting so specific with how the business is so unique to help this unique customer when it comes to copywriting. Right. I feel like it makes it way more powerful, at least the content that you put forth, right? Yeah. [00:10:18] Speaker A: Don't underestimate short form video too, as content. Like you can be writing the scripts ahead of time. So it's a different way to write, but I think that's meaningful too. And for a small business audience, I would think shorter word count matters more because people really press for time, because. [00:10:36] Speaker B: What are the type of pieces that you write? [00:10:38] Speaker A: Me? I've done it all, I think, for. [00:10:40] Speaker B: What you're really doing now. [00:10:41] Speaker A: I realized a story for magazine over the summer, and it was about Apple's savings account. And what does this mean for the future of financial services? So I'm trying to answer like, hey, this huge tech company put out a savings account. Now the pressure's on for the industry. That would be like feature story. I also do a LinkedIn newsletter, which I find is really effective for me, especially when I was freelancing, people would reach out because they wanted to work with me in some way. Now I'm doing it for my company, but I treat it as like an editor's note of a magazine. But by then it's like I interview a lot of startups and so sometimes I find out really interesting things and I just drop. Oh, these are three interesting things I found out this month. So I write it like that. [00:11:22] Speaker B: That's really cool because you said you freelanced for a little bit. What kind of things did you learn during freelancing that worked well? What doesn't work well? Tell me what? [00:11:33] Speaker A: Well, juggling when you get paid is very tricky for this because I was almost like, I'm going to just do this full time. I was like, oh, it's making me really nervous because it's like, when is payment due? I found a lot of startups were paying me through bill.com and I found that was like a really useful way to get paid for me, but that stressed me out. But it also stressed me out. How do you budget, get work? You're giving up your time, but you need to be paid also. So it's like managing that part of the process of like you take all these meetings but you're not getting paid for them until you get paid from one of them. It's like managing that. And also I found in my experience, sometimes people reached out and this is just more, I've more known in this fintech world, so people would recognize my name and want to work with me in some way. But I found some people didn't know what they wanted. They wanted to hire me for something with content in mind, but didn't know exactly what. So that was like, oh, let's figure this out together. [00:12:27] Speaker B: Finding, yeah. Having to have that expertise, working for a company specifically for a specific topic and then freelancing is, I feel like a lot of freelancing you have to, what you said, work with that person to figure out what they need. Because I totally agree. I think a lot of small businesses want copywriting help, want help with content, want help with those kinds of things, but don't know exactly who their ideal client is, don't really know exactly their brand, exactly on how they serve their clients, specifically and strongly so. I feel like as someone who is freelancing, that's part of the service is helping people dig that out. Yeah. [00:13:03] Speaker A: But also what I found out they wanted, like packages. This is a menu of things that you can get from me. But my brain hadn't historically worked that way because I've been a journalist, I'd be like, here's a story. But now it's also, oh, maybe they want a video, or maybe they want you to NC. [00:13:15] Speaker B: It gets complicated. [00:13:16] Speaker A: So just even figuring out how to price it was confusing, but also just how to outline your day. Do you reserve three or 4 hours in the morning for whatever calls. And then you go about your day and then come back to your work or when someone cancels on you, it's annoying. You're sitting there for no reason then, right? [00:13:37] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a lot of more time management. Yeah. Self employment. [00:13:44] Speaker A: But then it's so fun, too, because you're working with all kinds of people and you have this opportunity to really expand what you know. And I learned a ton from each company or person I work. [00:13:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Because you have to do research and you have to get into the topic and put yourself in their business. I've hired copywriters before, too, and they have to really just be in it, be in the business, research it, get into my brain really, with all that on who I want to speak to and everything. But I love that. I feel like, of course there's a time and a place for freelancing or getting different jobs in different industries, but I love how your journey you have freelancing that helped you, again, develop your skill, learn about all these topics, right. And really just discover and be, like you said, curious and really discover all these different ways to work and to write and different voices and things like that. So again, I know we have a lot of freelancers in here, and I think that's definitely a necessary part of the journey, I think is freelancing when you do copywriting is to really just not just have one path of, I'm writing this one thing for this one company, but having the opportunity to write for many people. [00:14:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. And then I would do it in a way where, okay, to manage time. I was like, I know this feature story is going to take really long time, so then I'm going to do a video thing, maybe do a mini podcast series. Just because two of the three are like known time sets, the feature story is not known. So you got to think about, sort of have to think backwards, how much do I need to make and how much time do I have? And then allocate projects that way? If you can do it that way, yeah. [00:15:17] Speaker B: Awesome. And another question I want to ask, which I would like to ask all copywriters, is what are your thoughts on the new AI chat? GPT I think it's really tempting for a lot of newer people freelancing, copywriting or editing or anything, because I know you've been writing for a lot longer, but what are your thoughts on that as far as if you're speaking to someone who's really tempted by that, or maybe is using it. What are your thoughts around that? And just the long term of developing their skill and things like that? [00:15:46] Speaker A: I think you can use it as a brainstorm, just like you use like Google search results as a brainstorm of, oh, here's how. Especially if you're entering a world you know less about, you need a place to start from. You can use it to mine ideas, or I think it could help you understand everything that needs to go in there or some things that need to go in the piece of writing. I do think it's important to always have your own voice. It's easy to be viewed as a copywriter. As a copywriter. But it's really not true if you work with certain people. Wow, this is like way better versus. Oh, no, this is a hot mess. So I think it's an opportunity to approach a subject in a different way. And also, I was just at this workshop and a lady was thinking about how to approach an essay she was writing, and she was talking about she was meeting her dad for the first time she was adopted, and she used chat GBT to help her craft a message to her dad. So it's just so fascinating how people are using this to navigate. Really emotional. [00:16:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. I love how you said using it for brainstorming and approaching a subject in a different way. It's a really great way to do it. Yeah, you're right. It's like Google. It really grabs information and pulls it forward for you. But I think in the long term, your skill set will grow tremendously more when you find your own voice, like you said, and not relying on things that can do things for you in a different way, but using it as a source to boost you up or get you in new ideas or enhance your copywriting. But yeah, you can get the job done, but I don't think that's the point. I think the point is whenever you're done writing a piece or something and you're just finished, you're like, I did that. It was difficult. We went up and down through this. It was hard, and then it was easy, and now I'm finished. And it was a great journey. Don't you feel like every single piece is like a journey in of itself? [00:17:27] Speaker A: I do. Especially a complicated story. I love thinking about structure and I like to think about, here's the lead, here's the ending. What emotion do I want to open up on? And then you can really spend so much time answering that question. But it's like putting a puzzle together. It's my favorite part, can you explain? [00:17:42] Speaker B: Open up. Like how do you start and get into a project? What is your creative process to get to that point of afloat? [00:17:49] Speaker A: Well, this is the way I love doing it, which is unless I have more time, it's not hit a deadline in an hour. The more you write, the faster you'll get and patterns will present themselves. But if you have time, one might say overthink it or just think through it. For journalism, I just do a bunch of interviews, sit with the notes and reflect on what stood out the most to me without looking at them, and then I'll highlight. And then if it's a longer story, like 2000 words, I'm going to put it on paper, like themes, and then cut that paper up and go. An organizational pattern of this is how it starts and then carries through. So that's the kind of story like doing the most fulfilling for me, but it's time intensive. [00:18:29] Speaker B: Yeah. So you do the interviews and then you find themes. You said themes. [00:18:33] Speaker A: And the most striking things are like the most floatable things. [00:18:37] Speaker B: And then you make that into kind of a flow. [00:18:39] Speaker A: Yeah, make it into a flow. Even for a shorter story, it could easily be 20 pages of notes. [00:18:44] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah. [00:18:49] Speaker A: If it's a shorter piece or if it's more like a copywriting of your tips and tricks or whatever, that still can take a long time. [00:18:55] Speaker B: So if you were going to approach, let's say like a blog, or if you approach that, if it's a blank slate, what would you do? [00:19:02] Speaker A: It would depend on what is the goal. And in my experience, the goal for a brand is usually like rank high, so you reach more people. So it's like Google, the thing that you're supposed to write about. Look at the articles that are written on that topic. Not to copy at all, but to get an idea of what is ranking high. Usually it's answer someone's question quickly and then get into it. But it shows you the flow of. [00:19:24] Speaker B: What is the goal. Yeah, I like that question. And if the goal is not, you. [00:19:29] Speaker A: Don'T have to rank high. The goal might just be to be informative about something that the company cares about. And that's where you could get more creative. I think you have to start with knowing why you're doing something and from there you can get probably as creative or not creative as the assignment is required. [00:19:48] Speaker B: Yeah. What is the goal and who is this for? [00:19:53] Speaker A: And if it's community building, for example, it could probably be very playful depending on the brand's tone. Right. It's not about ranking high. It's about building a voice that resonates. [00:20:02] Speaker B: With or a feeling. I like how you said that earlier was like motion. Do I want people to feel? Yeah, that could be one thing. The goal or what information do I want someone to receive or be enlightened by or inspired by? So I like that first question, what is the goal? And then what questions can you break off of that from based on the goal, say, because, yeah, I think your research and everything is so different based on what you're trying to do it for. Ranking or feeling. If it's a guide for someone or guide for a client, that's more of an informative. [00:20:33] Speaker A: Or if you're trying to inspire travel. Right. You can still be very creative with it, but there's a certain way you would treat it. [00:20:40] Speaker B: Yeah. I like the insight of your journalism, your interview process and everything. [00:20:43] Speaker A: Thank you. To me, it's the most time intensive, but it becomes very apparent what the story is if you do enough recording, whereas that's not true of other things. [00:20:54] Speaker B: I think that's a really cool. If you're listening to this and you're passionate about writing, I think Mary's a really great example of different things you could do with your skills and all these opportunities for this process. So I loved how you open up different things that you do in the writing process and what that looks like. Yeah, I love the interview process. That sounds so fun. And putting that piece together. So before we get off, I would just love to hear, based on your experience, what are some things that you wish you could have told yourself? [00:21:22] Speaker A: I think looking back when I started, I put so much pressure on myself and I was so nervous to share my writing because I was like, it's not right yet. [00:21:29] Speaker B: Get it together. [00:21:30] Speaker A: This is part of the process. [00:21:31] Speaker B: You're like, early in your career out there. [00:21:36] Speaker A: You don't have to be an expert to begin with. You just need to let people in so that you can grow as a writer. So that would be the number one. Number two, maybe you don't want to be so tied to print. I was so in love with print publications that other side of me came later of all the digital forms. But, yeah, don't limit the form. You might think you only one form, but you might find out you like. [00:22:00] Speaker B: A bunch of form. Yeah, I love it. Especially in the beginning stages where I feel like we have so much pressure in a skill set. We're learning to, we want to be expert in this one thing. So then we're just going to go for it, like college. We're going to get a degree in this even though we don't know if we really love it. We're going to just get a degree in it or we're going to get the expertise in it. But I love how you said, yeah, don't just stick with one thing and spend time discovering other things because I think that overall it's going to help you develop where you are today. And I love how you said mentor. I think that's the biggest thing. Where do you recommend finding mentors? Where can someone find a mentor or someone that can look at their work? What do you recommend as far as communities or people or spaces that people can find those mentorships or someone that can help look at their work? [00:22:44] Speaker A: Ideally it would be someone that you're working with because then it's right there in front of you. Another way. I found some of my favorite editors over the years. Just been working on stories with them, but there's writing meetups one can do, but you don't want to force it. Everybody's style is a little bit different. I think you can learn from anybody, but some people will be more for you than other people. It's like personality mashup, too. So I would build whatever social media community, whatever you're trying to write to. If there's a specific industry, follow the social media channel of their choice. I'm often on LinkedIn because financial services people are on LinkedIn. So I've built up a good network there. And have I found a mentor from that? I don't think I found an editor mentor, but I've certainly learned a lot about how to manage the business of writing from that community. [00:23:33] Speaker B: That's also important. [00:23:34] Speaker A: So I would go to social media to help. Just ask questions that might be on your mind and sign up for any writing workshops. Some are free, some are not free. Go to the bookstores. Authors that are reading, because there's going to be people who like to read and write there and network that way as well. [00:23:51] Speaker B: Having peer mentors, I think, is really huge, especially when you can find someone just like anything new, going to the gym and having a gym partner to go try new things you're so scared to try. I think it's very similar with finding peer mentors that are the same kind of stage as you. Not just people that are five years ahead of you or ten years ahead of you, but people that are at the same stage as you that you can learn together and kind of get your totally. [00:24:15] Speaker A: I benefited a lot from younger people, too. [00:24:18] Speaker B: Try this out on TikTok, maybe a similar stage than you. They're going to have totally different perspective or totally different idea or drive that. You guys can really be comfortable bouncing things off of sharing your things. Maybe they open up. I think every person is an opportunity, so they can open up opportunities to you. You can open opportunities to them. But yeah, I think if you're not working with someone and you're maybe a freelancer right now, it's finding someone who's where you're at and really looking at finding those community. I think community is the biggest thing. And I feel like as freelancers or people who are maybe a small business doing services right now, it's really easy to be at your computer and just be there and be nowhere else and maybe only be on social media, but getting out of that zone of just, I'm on my own journey. I have to do this all by myself. I think that's never a good mindset to have. It's much more complicated. Yeah, it is complicated. In writing, I feel like you have to have that feedback. [00:25:11] Speaker A: You need the feedback. But also as a writer, you're like, alone a lot. You've already hit that photo. You're already there. You're already alone enough. [00:25:18] Speaker B: Yes, there's enough of alone time. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You're already at your computer all the time for work, always looking at it and feeling lonely and feeling. When we're in our own head, we get so it takes us ten times as long sometimes because we're overthinking. I mean, especially when you're a beginner, when you're really in the beginning stage, intermediate stage, you're not as maybe advanced as you are, Mary, where you're a lot more advanced, you have a lot more experience and you know yourself a lot better. But people who maybe don't, I think it's really important that you get out of your computer zone and really just find a community of people because those people are going to push you to be way better than you are. And then you're not going to overthink things ten times over because you're going to have direct feedback, you're going to have people hyping you up and things like that. And more than ever in this day and age, you probably didn't have it when you were first starting, but now it's so accessible to find people on social media accounts, on Facebook groups. There's so many ways to find people. [00:26:11] Speaker A: I would say every industry is different like fashion. I wouldn't say this was true, but in writer world, people love being reached out to. You could connect with some really talented people, because it's not the celebrity, quote, unquote, that people naturally go to, but it's a very open community. [00:26:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. Well, thank you so much for just sharing your expertise. And I think it's so exciting that everyone can really get a peek into your process of someone being really experienced in the industry and really understand that different ways, different modalities they can write and different opportunities there are to use their skills or develop them. So thank you so much for being on here. Where can we find you and people can connect with you and see your work? [00:26:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess probably the. I feel like I'm a hype person for LinkedIn suddenly, but that's probably the easiest way. So I'm Mary Wisniewski on LinkedIn, but I'm also on Twitter. I'm on threads. I'm on. I'm slightly on TikTok, so any of my social channels are wide open. [00:27:10] Speaker B: That's awesome. Thank you so much for being on. And, yeah, go find Mary.