TCC Podcast #441: Adding to Your Writing Skills with Emily Reagan

Yes, you write. But when it comes to marketing, you can do a lot more than that. Today, clients are looking for help from specialists like copywriters who bring more to the table. In this episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I spoke with Emily Reagan about how writers can offer additional services and expertise to their clients. Emily helps virtual assistants step up into a more helpful role as Marketing Assistants, and it's something we think more copywriters need to consider. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   Stuff we mentioned: Atomic Habits Emily’s Podcast Emily’s Instagram The Authority Framework The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  You’re a copywriter, but you can do other marketing stuff like design or email systems. Is there a need for that? This is The Copywriter Club Podcast. As a copywriter, you probably have a hand in all kinds of marketing activities—everything from the overall marketing strategy to brainstorming lead magnets, to creating and posting content, or writing and managing ads, to figuring out which email systems will help increase engagement and purchases… you probably already do a lot of this stuff. What’s more, a lot of clients want smaller, more nimble teams these days, and that means working with people who can do more of the tasks they used to depend on an entire team to get done. Some people taking on these expanded roles call themselves marketing assistants. Whether that title works for you or not isn’t important. What really matters is that there is a growing need for writers of all kinds to take on this larger, more inclusive role and contribute more, often using A.I. to bring it all together. My guest for this episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast is Emily Reagan. Emily started out offering marketing support especially related to Facebook ads, but she expanded beyond that to include copywriting and other marketing services. And she’s spent the past couple of years helping others do the same thing. We talked about the importance of adding additional marketing services to your copywriting business to make yourself more valuable—maybe even indispensable—for your clients. It’s yet another way to stand out from all the other writers out there who don’t offer clients anything extra. While we talked, Emily also shared a lot of details about her business—she works with clients and helps other writers grow their marketing skills. As she tells it, her business grew serendipitously… going from one thing to the next as it made sense. It’s not exactly a path that others can follow, but it is a strategy for finding your own path to the work you love doing. I think you’re going to like this discussion. As usual, this episode is brought to you by The Copywriter Underground. You’ve heard me talk about how we’ve recently rebuilt The Underground dashboard to make it easier to find the ideas and insights you need. But as I started recreating this new dashboard, it occurred to me that no one has time to watch more than 70 different workshops—even for those workshops that help you gain the skills and strategies you need to build your business. So I’ve taken more than 30 of those workshops on finding clients, having sales calls, using A.I., building authority on LinkedIn, and dozens of others… and I’ve created playbooks that break down the ideas in the workshops into easy-to-follow steps. Each playbook is 3-5 pages long. You can read through one and implement the ideas in minutes. And then if you want more detail, you can watch the accompanying workshop. Each playbook even includes a checklist so you don’t miss any steps and can make sure you get things done. I’m working on completing playbooks for all of the workshops and training inside The Underground. They should all be ready by the end of April. You can get the first 30 or so right now by visiting thecopywriterclub.com/tcu. And now, my interview with Emily Reagan… Hey Emily, welcome to the podcast. And let's, let's just start out by saying this is a long time coming. The last time we saw each other, it's like five years ago. And I don't know why we haven't had you on sooner than the now, but I'm glad you're here now that you're here. Yeah, tell us. Tell us your story. How did you become a copywriter? Emily Reagan: Yeah, it's been five years in the making. The last time you and I were together was right when the pandemic was happening in 2020, so it's a completely different time. And my business has changed a lot since I showed up to your conference in real life. But you know how business owners, especially the online ones, are running around like crazy, trying to wear all the hats, do all the things, and keep all the marketing and all the gardens happy? I am the person who started training the marketing assistant to help within that marketing department. It started because I was a military wife for 20 years, had this hodgepodge of journalism and PR jobs, and was just lucky to find a job only to move a year or two later. And it kind of all came together beautifully in the online space, and then I just started teaching my friends how to do it. So when I went to your conference, I wasn't officially calling myself a copywriter, but I was still finding myself doing that work. Had I known about it back in 2007 when I was freelancing my first press releases, I would have just gone all into Copyright. Marketing, but I didn't know what I didn't know. So yeah, now I train virtual assistants to be in the marketing department, because marketing, it's more fun, it's creative, it's flexible, it pays more. And that's where I'm happy. I love that, and I'm really glad we started here because so many copywriters in The Copywriter Club. People who listen to this podcast start out as VAs, and they come to that realization, wait a second, I'm doing way more here than just being an assistant. And the cream always rises. I mean, "Assistant" never would have appealed to me, so I've really struggled with my own marketing. I'm like, do I use the title: virtual assistant? Because that's the SEO word, but it's so much more. And I think the term virtual assistant is just really getting kind of dumbed down. When I get into my Kia Carnival, and I see the little button for a virtual assistant, I'm thinking of AI. And so this job title has evolved since I even started, you know, training people four years ago, and that's why I kind of went all in with the idea of a marketing assistant, because there's just so many options online, and then you start adding different skills like copy or customer service or podcasting content marketing, and you've just created a whole different type of unique specialization for yourself. So it's really fun to see how it all comes together online. Rob Marsh: So let's talk about being a marketing assistant. You just kind of listed off a bunch of the things that they might do. But let's, let's go a little bit deeper with this idea, because I really like it. I think that there's space maybe for a lot of people who have been vas, but they feel like they're doing more, but maybe they're not ready yet to call themselves a copywriter or a designer or a CMO or whatever the next thing is, there's kind of the space out there. So how do you define that marketing assistant? Emily Reagan: Yeah, and especially getting confusing when you see AI can help. You're seeing things being delegated and outsourced overseas for super cheap. So you know, all businesses have six main departments. We have operations, customer service, HR, finances, you know, accounting, product development, and then we have marketing and sales. And so this marketing, I think, where a lot of business owners get it wrong is they're trying to find a virtual assistant to do everything and save their business by Thursday and launch and video edit, you know. And so, really drilling down into what department I am in and what kind of results I am going after? A lot of us hold ourselves back, thinking we need a four-year marketing degree, and those kinds of days are a little bit over. Rob Marsh: So, if I wanted to maybe step into that newer role, do I need to know how to write copy and also use Canva and edit video for the person that I might be working with in order to get things onto reels or YouTube? What are the things that I need in my skill wheelhouse in order to be able to, you know, start calling myself a marketing assistant? Emily Reagan: I think you need to combine, like, complimentary skills, for sure. And what's interesting is, in my course, I am teaching, I say, I, you know, I'm teaching you how to grow an audience online and help your clients sell to that audience, right? And so we're nurturing, and we're selling, we're converting. And so that's kind of the role of the marketing assistant, is, which channels are we driving traffic? Like, how are we nurturing them? How are you getting them on the list? Which algorithms like, like, what? Right? So that's a little bit of the game. But in my course, I teach the tech, I teach the strategy, and I'm always saying and complimenting you. The next thing is copy. You have to learn how to sell with words. So I think anytime you can add copy to a specific or niche or even general marketing, you know, service, you are going to be sitting pretty. You'll you'll have, you know, more career flexibility. You know, easier retention with clients because clients really want that long-term help. I mean, I don't know about you, but in the online space, I'm seeing a lot of teams simplifying, streamlining, and condensing. We don't all want 20 employees in our business anymore. We're looking more at profits. The online space is changing. So if we can find someone who can offer a little bit higher value, you know, they can also, you know, charge more too. So it's figuring out,