TCC Podcast #157: Cold pitching with Laura Lopuch

Copywriter and expert cold emailer, Laura Lopuch, is our guest for the 157th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. In this interview, Kira, Rob and Laura covered a lot of ground when it comes to what to say when you're cold pitching new prospects. Here's a pretty good list of what we covered: •  the path Laura took from paralegal to copywriter •  what made her decide it was time for a job change •  how she attracted her first clients when she went out on her own •  how to cold pitch effectively •  the difference between personalization and relevance and why it matters •  the thing that no one talks about when it comes to cold emails •  what Laura does BEFORE she starts to write a cold pitch •  why you might need to indulge your inner stalker when you cold pitch •  how to tell if a potential client is ready to invest in what you can offer •  the best way to phrase the call to action so you get results •  the subject lines that work well—Laura’s “backslash secret” •  the ways a cold pitch email differs from a regular email to your list •  how she figured out the niche to focus on in her business •  the basics of a good presentation and how it all comes together •  why she doesn’t focus her mentorship on learning •  how she became a travel hacker so she could travel for free •  where Laura thinks copywriting will go in the future •  the templates she used to land +$20K in business If that seems like a lot, it is. And it's good stuff. To hear this interview, click the play button below or subscribe to The Copywriter Club Podcast using your favorite podcast app. And if you prefer to read, you can scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Crystalknows Copyhackers Shine Bootcamp MicroConf Hayley Hopson Tarzan Kay thepointsguy.com Laura's website Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: 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 157 as we chat with email copywriter, Laura Lopuch about why she loves writing emails, the worst mistakes we make when writing emails, the relevancy method and how to structure a cold pitch so potential clients become actual clients, and how she became a travel hacker. Kira:   Welcome Laura. Rob:   Hey Laura. Laura:            Thanks guys for having me. I'm very excited to be here. Kira:   Yeah, we're excited to chat and we want to kick this off with your story. So how did you end up as a copywriter? Laura:            I took a long detour through the legal field. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. You can blame Jerry Maguire and all those awesome John Grisham novels and all that kind of stuff for it. I just thought, yeah, this would be cool. I like arguing. I could be a lawyer. So I did something smart and actually took a job at a law firm to see real world experience if A, I wanted to be a lawyer, before I spent B, all that money to get a fancy dancy law degree. Fast forward a couple of years and I figured out no, I didn't want to be a lawyer. But it was a really good job and I was learning a lot. I really liked the stories. We were a civil defense law firm. For example, if you get in a car accident, we were usually the insurance for the law firm that your insurance company would hire to defend you against the plaintiff, the person who's suing you. So I got to see some really interesting cases and stories. People do some crazy, crazy stuff, let me tell you. But I got seduced by a steady paycheck and a good job, until I just couldn't take it anymore and I quit. And so at that point I was like, I don't want to go back and deal with lawyers. I was kind of tired of that industry. I knew I wanted to work for myself. I was tired of being under a boss. So I was kind of taking stock of the skills that I had. I've always been a writer. Majored in English lit and it came in really handy working at the law firm. That analysis brain type, putting things together, examining things, keeping track of details and writing killer emails to persuade people to do stuff that they really didn't want to do. Because who out there wants to actually work with a lawyer, even if it's your own lawyer? Nobody. So I was writing a lot of emails that were convincing people to do things that they really didn't want to do. Like show up and testify at trial, maybe hunt down documents from like five years ago, sort through that old closet and find some stupid document. And I was doing a lot of it by email because number one, I hate the phone. Hate the phone. Took me two weeks one time to schedule a 10-minute meeting for my job. And I was supposed to do it. It wasn't even like- Rob:   Yeah, you really hate the phone. Yeah. It was intense. Sweating, staring at the phone. I remember sitting there staring at it like it was like some monster out to eat me. It was ... Yeah. And the second reason why I used email was CYA. A very legalese term called cover your bum, basically. And you had to document everything in the law field so that it never ended up in a he said she said kind of argument. So email is the perfect medium for that. So when I struck out on my own, I figured I might as well use that skill that I've been honing for the past eight years, emails, and see if I could actually make money off of it. Turns out, you totally can. Rob:   So yeah, let's talk about that decision to bail out on the law firm because you were there for quite a while and what was the thing that made you say yeah, I've got to do this on my own, it's time? Laura:            That's a good question. I had actually quit the firm about four years before that. Gone to a different firm. I'd tried to leave before and I always got seduced back. Steady paycheck, I had a mortgage, all those real life adult things. But this time I left because of a contract dispute with my boss. And so, we had worked out a verbal agreement where there would be money after I'd worked on this case. You know, kind of a bonus of sorts. And this is actually a lesson that I have taken and applied in my own business every time I work with a client and it's something I see a lot of copywriters not doing, which makes me sad. And that's I never got our agreement in writing. So when the time came for him to pay up and actually come good on his side of the agreement, he didn't. And I got super mad and that's what finally spurred me to action, to actually quit. And for good this time. Kira:   So Laura, what did the early days of your business look like? Once you were in it and building the business, how did you get clients, how did you gain traction? Laura:            I just used cold emails. I didn't have a budget. I had like a $200 a month client when I quit. So I was forced to be as creative as possible. And I decided to use cold emails. Looking back, I don't really know what possessed me to use cold emails. But over about four months I was writing like 20 cold emails a week and sending them out and doing tons and tons of tests and then revising them based on the responses or lack of responses. I got a lot of those too. And seeing what was working and what wasn't working, until they started taking off. Rob:   So let's talk a little bit more about cold emails, because this is something that you specialize in and you even teach other people how to do it well. I think that you've had a lot of success. First of all, why should writers do cold email and second of all, how do we do it so that clients will actually say yes? Laura:            Yeah. I think actually copywriters are in the perfect position to do cold emails because you already have the writing skills that you need to put together a good email. You already know how to write well. You don't have to learn that. You already have that skill in your tool belt, so that automatically places you in the upper 1% of people who send cold emails in a really effective way. And then for the second part, how do you actually send a cold email that works? That would be, you use the relevancy method. And that is, you aim for your cold email to be as highly relevant to your recipient as you possibly can. So you're not winging it, you're actually finding out who that person is on the other side of the screen that's reading your email and how you could best pitch them using relevancy and tying your pitch into their business goals and showing them and connecting those dots in between like, here's why you should be doing this. Or here's where your gap is and here's how I can help you and here's why it matters. And you frame it all, you put it all with relevancy. Which is a little bit higher than just personalization. Which people usually think of like, adding someone's company name and first name. But being relevant is actually the secret sauce. Kira:   Can you share any examples that you've sent? Maybe even one that was relevant and did work well. And then I'd love to also hear about one that didn't work that was not relevant and fell flat. Laura:            Yeah. Definitely. Let's see, I'll start with the non-relevant one, because that's the first one that's coming to mind. Basically it's a very I centered email. So for example like, if I sent an email ... And I did this at the beginning of sending cold emails when I was first starting to get clients, trying to get them. Where it's me, me, me, I could do, I'm a copywriter, hey look at me, I can write words and I can help you. And that kind of leaves the reader going, ‘Yeah I don't really care.’ But when you write an email with them in mind,