How to Create Authority Content for Your Launch

Brenna McGowan is our guest on the 354th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Brenna is a social media manager turned email copywriter and launch strategist who helps her clients implement prelaunch methods that generate greater awareness and sales. If you want to create natural momemtum before your launch, you'll want to listen to Brenna's behind-the-curtain insights. Here's what you'll find: Why Brenna transitioned from social media marketing to email marketing. How she repositioned her business in a new industry and grew an online presence.  The process she created for validating her offer and expertise.  Why she niched into prelaunch and how it can benefit the overall launch of a product or service. What’s so important about your “why?” What are you supposed to do after you pivot your business? Being good at things vs being passionate about them.  How Brenna uses the LEAP process to help entrepreneurs find their sweet spot to achieve their goals.  What’s working with prelaunch now? Why you’re really feeling overwhelmed by prelaunch and how to stop it.  How to build your email list before you launch.  Her inspiration behind creating a different style event aka The Voxer Summit. A behind-the-scenes look at her client launch based on her CASE method.  How she packages her offers and positions herself as a strategist.  What if you only have 3 hours before your next launch? The easier way to create natural momentum for your business. Tune into the episode to learn all of this and more. The people and stuff we mentioned on the  show: The Accelerator waitlist The Copywriter Think Tank Kira’s website Rob’s website Brenna's website  The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Free month of Brain.FM AI for Creative Entrepreneurs Podcast Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  If you've dreamed of building a copywriting business that earns five figures a month, there are certain types of projects that make reaching that goal a lot easier. And at the top of that list of projects is product launches, that is, helping clients sell a course or a membership or another kind of product, with a combination of strategy emails, landing pages, ads and sales pages. A single launch project can pay a good copywriter a lot of money. Hi, I'm Rob Marsh. Kira Hug:  And I'm Kira Hug. And we're the founders and hosts of the Copywriter Club podcast. Our guest for today's episode is copywriter and launch strategist Brenna McGowan. In just the past couple of years, Brenna has become a leader in the launch world, helping clients sell more and teaching copywriters and other marketers how to put together more successful launches. Rob Marsh:  But there's a lot more to a successful launch than a bunch of emails and sales pages. Brenna shared with us how she thinks about the days or weeks immediately before a launch and what you should be doing to prime your audience so that they're ready to buy when you launch. She also shared her thoughts about pivoting your business, validating offers and ethical marketing practices. We think you're going to like what you had to share. Kira Hug:  But first, and speaking of priming your audience so they're ready to buy when you launch a product, which is what we are trying to do, this is part of our pre-launch strategy, hopefully we nail it, the Copywriter Accelerator is coming up soon. The doors will be open soon. This is our signature business-building program for copywriters and content writers where we help you put together the most critical eight components of your business, the eight parts that you need in order to build a profitable business. And we've had success story after success story with some of the most internet-famous copywriters that you may have heard of, and it's coming up soon. So if you want to learn about this program and what it consists of and how it could help you in your business, you can learn more at thecopywriteraccelerator.com. Okay, let's kick off our episode with Brenna. Brenna McGowan:  I originally started off as a social media manager back in 2018, and I didn't even realize that's what I was doing. I was doing some odd jobs on the side. I was a stay-at-home mom, and I had a friend who was starting a new business and she was an esthetician, and I was like, "Hey, why don't I do your Instagram?" Which by the way, I've never done Instagram before. Why don't I do your Instagram and email marketing and you give me eyelashes? So I always joke, I started my business out of vanity. I wanted fake eyelashes. And so I started doing her social media and email marketing, and what I started to notice was that we were getting attention, and people were asking her who was doing this? And I was like, gosh, this could be a business. And so I created a business doing social media. I agonized over the logo and the website, and I announced myself on social media, on Facebook, to friends and family and got clients immediately. And it was like, it just happened really quickly. But from there, what I realized, especially because... I think what was good about that is that I just did it and I didn't overthink it, which for me, I'm a serial overthinker, but I didn't think about it too much. But I realized very quickly I hated social media management and didn't enjoy it. But what I did enjoy was the writing. And coincidentally, around this time, I had found Laura Belgray, and kind of figured out what copywriting was, and I listened to a Copywriter Club podcast. It was one with Chris Orzechowski talking about email copywriting, and I was like, I think this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to become an email copywriter. And so I transitioned at the beginning of 2019 into copywriting and haven't looked back since. Rob Marsh:  So let's talk about that transition, because doing social media and then switching to something else, there's a lot that happens there. Did you stick with the same clients and just say, "Hey, now I'm doing email", or how did you reposition your business and find new clients for this new offer? Brenna McGowan:  Yeah, it's a great question. So my clients that I got initially were not really online clients. I found them online, but they were people from my neighborhood. One was a high school friend who was now doing mortgages, things like that. My stepmom and dad own a wedding magazine, so I was helping local business owners. So I was kind of, in a way... it's funny, I don't think anyone's ever asked me this question before. I was parallel doing things. I was doing things to these local clients since I got clients immediately, but I was also creating an online presence for myself. So that is where I was able to transition slowly and say, "Hey, I know I've been doing social media and talking about social media, but really what I'm going to go and talk about now is writing." And so I slowly transitioned over. It made sense to a degree, because so much of social media, if you look down, everything is copy. So all of the copy that I was doing for my social media captions, which it was just coincidentally that it was working so well. But I was able to maneuver myself over, and I kind of find Instagram captions and even a little bit of Facebook, it's similar to email if you think about it. So I think it became a natural progression. Kira Hug:  So when you talk about creating your online presence, what specifically were you doing? What was working for you? Brenna McGowan:  Yeah, at the time, I'm thinking back, I was completely on Instagram, and I was creating content over there, so I was building a list of followers. What I wasn't doing was creating an email list, which is obviously the most important. So if I think back, I didn't actually start my email list probably until the end of 2019, even though I was calling myself an email copywriter. So I think there was a part of me that was like, "Hey, I'm doing this email copy thing and I'm helping people create email lists and write for emails, but I'm not doing the thing for myself." So at that point, I remember there was a line in the sand where I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to start my email list." Well, I had a tiny email list, but I'm going to actually do this email thing, write my list, add to my list once a week, and test things out for myself. And I think that's been the beauty of going along this journey is that I test things for myself before actually putting it out there and seeing what works and doesn't work. Rob Marsh:  Okay. So you became an email copywriter, but that's not really all that you do now. So how has your business evolved since that switch to email copywriting? Brenna McGowan:  And I love this discussion that we're having, as we're talking about pivoting and niching, and I had some little pivots along the way, and in a way I started to think about I'm almost like a serial pivoter because I have done all the things. I had a content membership for a little while. I have done workshops and offers, but what really happened is I decided... I was working on doing not just email copy. Funny enough, I think this is interesting, is that even though I called myself an email copywriter, I was getting inquiries for everything. And I probably have written more websites than anything in this career, but I started to notice when I was working with people on their launches, that I had a couple of launches that didn't go quite as well as we had hoped. And it was like, well, why? The numbers are there. There's something missing when it was the email list. And around that time, I had listened to an interview series with my friend Marissa Corcoran on the Copy Chat, and they were talking about pre-launch, and I was like, you know what? I feel like what's missing from these launches,