Ep 5: Hilariously incorrect copywriting advice with Rose Womelsdorf

Rose Womelsdorf is the Writin’ Lady-in-Chief over at Rosie the Writerer where she kicks some serious copywriting ass + BONUS – she’s hilarious.

She’s sharing her hilariously incorrect copywriting advice, “The Definitive Guide on How to Write Good” in our session and does not disappoint.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Rose’s website: https://rosiethewriterer.com

Take the brand archetype quiz: https://brooke-logan.com/quiz/

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Here’s a transcript of the episode

Brooke Logan:

We are live for a #SpotlightSunday! Our very first one with Rosie the Writerer.

 

Rose Womelsdorf:

Yeah!!!

 

Brooke Logan:

Which is such a fun name, by the way. We’re going to be talking about some awesome copywriting, fun stuff today. So first things first, let’s have Rose introduce herself and tell us a little bit about her business.

 

Rose Womelsdorf:

So my name is Rose. My last name is Womelsdorf, which sounds like a Harry Potter character or something, so I had to find like a stickier business name. Something that would stick in people’s minds a little better. I’m a real fan of puns, so here we are. My business is copywriting. I love, love, love bringing personality-packed fun stuff to brand messaging in general. Just because I, at my core, I’m a lighthearted entertainer kind of person. I was speaking with a friend a couple of months ago and she was like, who are your ideal clients? And I was like, I dunno, people like this [air dancing].

 

That’s what I resonate with and that’s where I’m coming from. I guess if you want to go into like my bigger why, providing for my family is important to me. And having the flexibility to spend time with family is really important to me. So I’ve got the whole like big picture thing. I got the funny stuff over here and then I’m heart driven, heart centered. I know that’s a really popular cliche, but anyway. But anyway, that’s a little bit about me. And then today we’re gonna talk a little bit about a pricing page that I literally looked for on Upwork today because nobody submitted copy to be critiqued or to be polished rather. So we’re going to be looking at that and then we’re just going to rattle off a couple of writing tips. So if Brooke, if you wouldn’t mind, grabbing that page that I found. Cool. Okay.

 

Brooke Logan:

Can you see it? Can I?

 

Rose Womelsdorf:

I can’t see, but I’m gonna just trust that it’s happening.

 

Brooke Logan:

If anybody’s watching, can somebody comment? It looks like somebody was a second ago, but I see it pulled up on Facebook, so we’ll go with it. Let me just say this, sorry to do this video on Father’s Day. I totally didn’t realize that it was Father’s Day when I did this. Watch the replay and if you have questions for myself or Rose, put them in there later, but I think it’s there.

 

Rose Womelsdorf:

Yeah. As you might be able to see, this is pretty bare bones. It’s literally just a website. It says, congratulations, you’re approved and it’s a pricing table. For some context, this I stumbled upon because I was like, oh crap, last minute, we need to find some copy to polish, so I took to Upwork and I found this listing that was just like, I need help with my pricing page. And that’s literally all it said. And I was like, oh, this ought to be good. There are a couple of things that jump out at me right away about this. First of all, uh, consider a different headline, maybe. Congratulations, you’re approved makes me think of junk mail and I don’t know if that’s the association they want to go with there. Might be obvious, but just think about the associations that your headlines can bring to the copy. You want to steer clear of, I mean, hey, maybe they really want to draw in the budget people, but like…

 

Brooke Logan:

Usually that’s not the goal!

 

Rose Womelsdorf:

The other associations that your copy might have in people’s minds. Next, there’s some wonkiness going on with the pricing table. I dunno if you can see down in the lower left hand or rather, just one of the fields that says access to a private members only Facebook page. I don’t know if it did it on your page or on your web browser, rather. But on mine, “page” is on a different line and so it’s, is it on? Yup. That messes up the alignment with the rest of the table. You can see that the little check marks line up and then they don’t, and then they’re kind of like halfway though.

 

Brooke Logan:

Design is important!

 

Rose Womelsdorf:

If you’re constrained by design, it’s always better to use less words, too. Well, as a rule it’s better to use less words to say what you need to say, but especially in cases like this where it’s like, yeah. Anyway. Just a quick fix there. Next, I would say get some testimonials on this page. And that feeds into my next point. This pricing page ideally should have certain elements of a sales page to it. Right now it’s literally just prices and features and that’s it. And little check marks. We want to think of this as part of the sales funnel. You don’t want your prospect get all the way to the pricing page and then say to themselves, Oh gee, I have a question about what is one feature is and click their merry way off to the FAQ page.

 

They’re like this close to buying in at this point. So you want to – even if you do it elsewhere on your site or if you had a different sales page – well I don’t know. Just treat it more like a sales page, I would say to this person. Make it easy for the prospect to buy in right then and there and make it a no brainer. And it doesn’t matter if you’ve already done this elsewhere on the site. It’s always better to revisit rather than have your prospect wandering off. So yeah, that’s my quick thing. I actually submitted it as a proposal to the client. I was like, Hi Joe, here are my thoughts. Give me a call if you need more help. Just cause I was like, well, I’m already taking notes for this for myself. Like, good luck.

 

And then next, I just want to go over – we’re just basically recycling this piece that I wrote for a friend, this copywriting thing. I’ve phrased these as jokes. “The Definitive Guide on How to Write Good.” The first thing is grammar is king. Even if it’s stifles the flow of your piece. You know, has to be perfect. Obviously that’s not true. I mean, you want your grammar to be right. You want your words to make sense in the order that they’re in. But if you have to use sentence fragments or casual language, it’s always better that there is a story that comes across and that there’s a flow to it rather than it just be like all your ducks in a row.

 

Next I put, what did I write? Oh, make it relatable. Lots of cliches. People like what they like. I mean that’s – obviously you want to make it relatable, but you don’t want to repeat the same thing that everybody’s heard. Try to strike a balance between making things relatable and then also making things fresh. I used the word heart centered on myself earlier, but obviously, if you’re going along in your market research and you see heart-centered is on like seventy bajillion other people’s pages, you might not want to use that exact same phrase over and over. Maybe use a different one?

 

The next tip I put is, Oh, use the most words possible. It’s just like eating cake. 17 slices is better than one. So that came into play even here with this guy’s pricing page. You don’t want your copy to look un-graceful with lots of words, but then also economy is better. I’m babbling on here with this live. I’m more to the point when I’m writing. But seriously…

 

Brooke Logan:

I’m the same way. I can write things so much better than I can say them. I need to think out what I’m going to say before.

 

Rose Womelsdorf:

I know. It’s like the eternal struggle. I feel so, like the opposite of graceful.

 

Brooke Logan:

No, what you’re doing awesome! I love it!

 

Rose Womelsdorf:

Oh, yay! So what was my next little joke point? Oh, it’s write sporadically because inspiration strikes infrequently so you’re just torturing yourself for no reason. So you want to get into a practice of just writing every day. If you want to be better at writing. Otherwise you should outsource your copy to me! No, but seriously, if you want to write, just get in the habit of writing regularly because it’s not like you’re gonna run out of ideas if you write every day. You know what I mean? It’s like more will cause the ball to roll down the hill.

 

Next, never show your writing to other people. Getting feedback from other humans – or worse, other writers – is terrifying and unpleasant. That’s obviously a joke. You want to bounce off of your community when you can.

 

Oh, this was a good one. Edit while writing. Keep your finished product in mind at all times and edit mercilessly. So you do want to produce a nicely edited piece at the end of it, but you don’t want to self edit so much that you don’t get your message out.

 

And there was another good gem in here. If you find yourself using words or phrases that are common, take this opportunity to replace them with fancier words to impress the reader. It’s part of my editing process – lying in this joke article. You’re going to want to edit at the end, but just make it plain and straightforward.

 

Brooke Logan:

Yeah, I know I have problems with that a lot of the time. I’ll want it to be perfect from the very beginning. So I either don’t do it at all or procrastinate forever and – the best way I’ve learned to do it, and you tell me if this is totally wrong or not, but write a shitty first draft is my go to thing. Just get it out. And then figure it out.

 

Rose Womelsdorf:

There is a person, Jacq Fisch, she hashtags #shittyfirstdrafts on Instagram. Yeah. So yeah, no, totally. Because it can be paralyzing otherwise. And I as a perfectionist myself, it can get a little intense, you know? Just let it go, let it go, let it go.

 

It’s better to have a shitty first draft or a shitty rough draft or a shitty second draft or a shitty third draft, than nothing. Because ultimately through iteration is how you grow.

 

Brooke Logan:

It’s like you get more clear as you keep going.

 

Rose Womelsdorf:

Yes, exactly. My last joke tip is avoid reading. Reserve your limited mental energy for writing. That’s not true.

 

Brooke Logan:

If you’re just now watching, these are all joke tips.

 

Rose Womelsdorf:

Yes, they’re all jokes, they’re jokes, they’re not real. They’re for John Buchan‘s, he’s got a humor copywriting zine that he’s working on so I wrote up a guide for how to write, but it’s just all wrong. Yeah, so you should definitely read widely if you want to become a better writer. I don’t know if you can tell, I’ve got like books on books, on books behind me by the shelf. Watching Beauty and the Beast as a little kid, I was just like, ah, If only I had a library or like that. You know, forget the prince and the castle, I’ll take that library. But yeah, reading can only help your writing and that puts us at 13 minutes of me chatting away.

 

Brooke Logan:

That’s perfect. Nobody wants to watch super long videos anyway. That’s one of the things I talk about a lot with branding. It’s better to be like super clear and get your message across than to ramble on. And I think you’ve covered a lot of that same exact stuff with copywriting because it’s just as important there. Get your point across concisely and clearly and you don’t need anything more. I love it.

 

Rose Womelsdorf:

Thanks for having me!

 

Brooke Logan:

Yes! Thanks. Thank you so much. If you guys do need help copyrighting – for real – you should definitely check out Rose’s website because it’s hilarious. It’s awesome. So next #SpotlightSunday next week – I forget who it is – somebody awesome, I’m sure. And we will talk again soon. You guys have a good rest of your Sunday. Happy Father’s Day to any fathers and see you later, Rose! Thank you so much!

 

Rose Womelsdorf:

Bye Brooke!

 

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Hey, I’m Brooke!

I’m a Creator archetype, INTJ, and music snob. I will fight you if you try to convince me that a MacBook is an instrument. It’s not.

But as far as this whole business thang goes… I’m basically a weird mix of creative-big-picture-thinker and analytical strategery all rolled into one.

I can help you use your unique personality to stand out BOLDLY online and attract your ideal clients like a freakin’ magnet – just by being YOU.


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