TCC Podcast #199: From Blogger to Copywriter with Allea Grummert

Copywriter Allea Grummert is our guest for episode 199 of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Wait… are we really about to cross the 200 episode frontier? Yep, and Allea is the perfect guest to wrap up the last 100 episodes before we make a few changes to the format. We talked to Allea about her processes, her switch from blogging to copywriting, and how she’s made so much progress in the past year. Here’s the breakdown of what we covered: •  the long road from personal finance blogger to copywriter •  her best personal finance ideas for copywriters •  why she waited so long to call herself a copywriter •  how she finds clients today (a lot of them come from conferences) •  the take-aways from Allea’s work as an implementer •  her process for working with clients—the whole thing—start to finish •  what she charges for her audits (and what makes them valuable) •  the differences between the packages she offers to clients •  how she structures the email sequences she writes •  how she segments lists for her clients to be most effective •  the CEO check-in and how it helps her grow her business •  the hard stuff she’s dealt with as she’s grown •  the things and people she’s invested in to take her business to the next level •  her advice to “writers” who aren’t yet ready to call themselves “copywriters” •  the advice from a friend that caused a panic attack •  the mindset shifts she’s made over the past year to move forward •  getting paid in advance for work that doesn’t start for a month or more •  working with a VA and how to do it so the relationship works •  her advice for list building and creating content for your list •  her experience at TCCIRL in 2019 and 2020   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Notion Val Geisler TCCIRL Allea's website Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Kira:   This episode is brought to you by the Copywriter Underground, the place to find more than 20 templates, dozens of presentations on topics like copywriting and marketing your business, a community of successful writers who share ideas and leads, and the Copywriter Club newsletter mailed directly to your home every month. Learn more at thecopywriterunderground.com. Rob:   What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes, and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That's what Kira and I do every week at the Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira:   You're invited to join the club for episode 199 as we chat with copywriter, Allea Grummert about email and why it's such a powerful platform, which email sequences are most important and what they need to accomplish, what she's done to invest in herself and grow her business, and her five-step framework for writing a welcome sequence. Kira:   Welcome, Allea. Allea:   Hello, thanks welcome to you. Kira:   Yeah. Allea:   Welcome to my living room. Kira:   Great to have you here, and let's kick this off with your story. How did you end up as a copywriter? Allea:   So, I started as a blogger. I was a personal finance blogger, and that's what everyone does on a Memorial Day weekend. Yeah, it was just a hobby of mine, and I also have a degree in advertising and public relations so blogging came for me as like a, I called it my digital playground, so I could learn and play. And not just about copywriting. In fact, I didn't call myself a copywriter until this January, but I learned about SEO and content marketing and how online businesses work. So over time though, people would come to me with questions about email marketing, and it was one of those things where it came easy to me and it didn't for others and became a service to them for them to have me do it versus them doing it themselves. Rob:   Before we get into article writing, blogging, or even copywriting, I've got to ask, what are your best personal finance tips? What should we be doing as copywriters to earn or save more money? Allea:   Well, I would always say create a budget. So I've been using mint.com since 2010. So 10 years now. It's a free service just to track all of your expenses. So what I love about it is it connects all of your bank accounts, and so I don't even check my individual statements or bank accounts. I'm only in Mint when I want to see where my money is, and I get in there probably like three times a week. So that's a big one. And then I would say set up moving money to savings as its own budget line item. So don't wait to save just with what's leftover, build that into your budget. Rob:   So what about the easy stuff? The secret weapon. Kira:   I was going to say, Rob knows I don't do budgeting. So these are already great tips for me. Thank you. Allea:   Yeah, absolutely. Anytime. I love talking about budgeting. Kira:   All right. So let's have real questions because we're not going to talk about finance. You said, "I didn't call myself a copywriter until this January." That's surprising to me because you've done so well in your business. So can you just talk a little bit about that? What was the moment where you started calling yourself a copywriter? What changed for you when you started calling yourself a copywriter? Allea:   Absolutely. So I actually started my business ... I'll rewind. I started Duett in August, 2018. And so when I started, I thought I was going to be an online business manager, just with my kind of breadth of knowledge of how online businesses work and tools. And then I got into email marketing, and I really only offered implementation services or strategy. So it was like straddling copy. I was like, "You come to me with the words and I'll put them in the email." And so I was just nervous around that. And I will say a little bit of a backstory, when I worked for an ad agency in college, I wasn't free. I was a very cheaply paid intern, but my boss or supervisor at the time, I remember writing AWK all over one of my pieces of work. It's just like, it's just awkward. And I was like, okay. And that really hurts. And so for years I avoided writing and avoided calling myself a copywriter, and because I've never seen myself as a super creative writer. Like I'm watching Jane the Virgin right now, and I'm like, "Jane, is a writer." I, on the other hand, I've always been more of the left brain side of things. And so it took my business coach kind of prodding me for a couple of months to be like, "Girlfriend, you're writing content, you're doing it." But because it didn't feel like it came from an inspired place of copywriting because it was based more on research and a solid content strategy, and the words just kind of wrote themselves, it felt like it was less about me being the writer and more just me being a communicator. Rob:   So as you've made the switch then, or you've made the adjustment to calling yourself a copywriter, what have you done in your business over the past few months to start attracting copy clients as opposed to maybe the clients you were working with before? Allea:   So, what's crazy is that the client base hasn't changed. It's been mostly me including it in my title. I'm not just an email marketing strategist, I'm also a conversion copywriter. So as I learned more about conversion copywriting in the last six or seven months and realizing that the data and all of that, that I was pulling to be able to base my strategy off of is part of copywriting. So it just gave me more confidence to be able to tie those things together. Rob:   So how were you finding clients before then? Allea:   Well, it hasn't really changed. It's all been through conferences, for the most part, until I did a podcast this past fall as an email marketing strategist expert interview for a food blogging podcast, and then I've got five leads from there, one of which has a retainer client. So otherwise in-person conferences. I started with a personal finance conference that I had gone to with my hobby blog, just paid thousands of dollars to go to conferences over the years. And so that's where I leaned in. I said, "I understand this market." I believe that's one of the first principles of Book Yourself Solid. I don't know if you've read that, but lean into the community that you're already part of. And so I just kind of pivoted. I said, "I was one of you and now I'm serving you. How can I help you? How can I make sure that people know about your message through email marketing?" Kira:   I love that you mentioned that you were on a podcast and you landed five leads from that podcast. Have you been on multiple podcasts since then, or have you noticed any other trends as far as getting new clients from podcasts? Allea:   Let me think. No, not a ton. I've been on maybe three for Duett. When I was on my personal finance blog, I probably did three or four there. So I had experience doing it and it didn't feel weird to pitch things because I knew it would be helpful. So that's actually become part of my internal marketing strategy is to reach out and pitch more podcasts for a couple of reasons, one for credibility; to be able to put it on my website, but then of course for lead gen as well. And because they live longer than a conference as well. People who maybe weren't there will see it and hear and listen as well. Kira:   Yeah, definitely. So can you share maybe some takeaways that you've pulled from your background as an online business manager and from the implementation services and strategy services you were offering before you fully dive into copy, from that expertise in that time, what do you think you're doing differently in your business as a copywriter compared to most other copywriters today? Allea:   That is a great question. I would say number one, I have a process that I follow.