TCC Podcast #236: Investigative Copywriting with Nicola Moors

Nicola Moors brought so much to the 236th episode of The Copywriter Club podcast. Nicola started her career as an investigative journalist who wrote about topics that are not easy for everyone to tell or to write. In her time as a journalist, she was able to gain essential skills that make her a great and sought-after copywriter today. Dive into this episode to uplevel your “interview” skills. We also talked about: How becoming a copywriter leads to more things you love. Creating a safe space for women to share stories that severely impacted their lives. The challenge of making stories unique and different from each other. Why you should never call an interview “an interview.” How to replicate someone’s voice without a brand guide and do it effectively. Mental and emotional stability when writing about mentally exhaustive topics. Why it’s vital to separate yourself from the story, so you can help people share their experiences in an impactful way. The best way to find captivating hooks that pique interest. The importance of letting people speak more than you do. The advantages of Facebook and finding your first few clients. Why backing yourself is the key to your own success. How to grow with a network of supportive copywriters in a lonely online world. How being cheeky and upfront will get you what you want and boost confidence. The truth about the stories you tell yourself and when it’s time to let them go. The back and forth of being both a procrastinator and a perfectionist. - Can they live in harmony? The better way to get testimonials and feedback. (Hint: It’s all about making it less work-like.) The plus side to being organized and putting together systems that streamline. Why it's important to celebrate your own wins as much as your clients. The secret to nailing Kira and Rob’s voice. Is it possible? The trick to making your previous clients feel special and remembered. Reversing into brick walls. - Ever done it? Be sure not to miss this episode whether it be by listening or reading the transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Nicola’s website Celeb Copywriter Brand Voice Buddy Think Tank   Full Transcript: Rob:  This probably doesn't come as a surprise, but a lot of copywriters get their start in the world of journalism, whether they earn a degree or actually work writing news stories. As reporters, they learn how to find a story that readers are interested in, how to research and find important details and how to find a hook and tell a story, all skills that we need as copywriters. This week's guest for the 236th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast is think tank member, Nicola Moors. And as you might expect from my intro, Nic was a reporter before she made the leap into copywriting. We asked her about what she learned from that experience and what she's done to grow her copywriting business so quickly since going full-time early last year. Kira:  Before we hear what Nic has to say, this podcast episode is brought to you by the Copywriter Think Tank. The think tank is our private mastermind group for copywriters and other marketers who want to challenge each other, create new revenue streams in their businesses, receive coaching from the two of us and ultimately grow to six figures or more. Up until last year we only opened the think tank once a year, but today we invite a few new members each quarter. If you've been looking for a mastermind to help you grow, email help@thecopywriterclub.com to set up an interview. Rob:  Okay, so let's jump into our interview with Nic and find out why she left the world of journalism for life as a copywriter. Nic:  The truthful story is very on-brand for me. So I think you're going to like it. So basically I was working as a journalist and one of my colleagues was always typing, always working and she had a website. I was like, ooh, and she called herself a copywriter. And I had no idea what that was. And she said that she wrote blogs for these companies and she got paid X amount to write blogs. And I thought, oh, that sounds like good because I would like to have actual money to buy more wine. Literally, I just wanted to buy more wine. And so I said to her, can I have their contact details? They didn't want to work with me, but I was really intrigued by the prospect of doing this copywriting. And I'm using air quotes now, which you guys can't see, but I had no idea what it was. And so I literally just started my business. I enrolled with the government, with HMRC, started my business. I think the next day I just started this copywriting course just to see what copywriting was about. And then it went really well. The first day I opened my business, I got a client in a Facebook group and I was so happy. So for the next 18 months, I worked as a journalist while doing copywriting on the side. So literally working evenings, weekends. And being a journalist, I was expected to work longer hours anyway. If we have a story in America or a breaking story, we have to be there to cover it. It's just part of the job. So I was working a lot of hours. And then at the end of 2019, it got to the point where I was earning enough as a copywriter to say goodbye to journalism. And so last year in February, so February 2020, I took my business full-time and became a self-employed copywriter. But literally, it started because I wanted to buy more wine and go to the pub more. But yeah, that's my story. Rob:  What's the fake story, the one that was supposed to be better than that. Nic:  I guess it probably still involved wine, but genuinely, I think people think I'm saying that to be funny, but that is literally the reason why I wanted more money and to earn more. Kira:  You couldn't afford wine at the time, or what was the deal? Nic:  I could, but where is the limit? There is no limit to wine. It was a case of, do you want to go from buying the cheapest wine, which as we all know tastes like vinegar, isn't very good. Or if you spend a couple of pounds extra, you can get some really good wine and that's a level I was aiming for. Seven pounds a bottle. Rob:  Yeah, nice. Nic:  Exactly. Rob:  So as you were telling your story, Nic, you kind of skipped over this whole reporter thing and I happen to know that you did some pretty interesting, pretty odd type stories or whatever. Tell us about your experience as a reporter. Maybe some of the stories that you chased down, but more specifically, what skills you were able to develop as a reporter that now you use in your copywriting. Nic:  Yeah, that's a good question. I like that. I mean, it wasn't until I had been a copywriter for a while that I really realized, oh, it's actually loads of things I had learned as a journalist that really translated over because as a copywriter you're not really taught how to find the hook. But just to backtrack. So when I was a journalist, I worked at a press agency here in the UK. So we wrote for all of the national magazines and newspapers. So over a dozen publications and we syndicated around the world as well. So it was our job to find stories that the magazines would want to publish, but not only find the story and convince the interviewee to speak out. Often I did quite a lot of crime stories so often it was really horrific things. I worked on acid attacks, murder stories, women who had been raped or abused by a boyfriend or whoever. So I had to convince these women to go on the record and actually speak out and tell their truth. And then not only that, but you have to find the hook to the story. So you have to dig deeper and say, okay, so this thing happened to this person, what is that one detail that is going to differentiate this crime story or this weight loss story, or this love rat story. Love rat is what we call cheating partners. Kira:  Wait. What do you call it? Nic:  It's a love rat. It's what we call it in the UK. Kira:  Love rat. Nic:  Yeah. It's a love rat story Kira:  Interesting. All right. Carry on. Nic:  Not only did we have to find this story, but we had to find that one detail that would differentiate it from all the other stories like it. Find it and then pitch it to the magazines and they would say, yes or no. But that's literally how we worked. And so knowing that I worked on a lot of hard stories, it really gave me a really good background, one, in interviewing. So I became great at getting people to open up at really often difficult topics, get them to trust me. Usually, it was over the phone. Sometimes we would do it face-to-face. Finding the hook, so what is this thing that makes this person or this story you unique. What is going to differentiate it? How does it stand out from all of the stories that you see in the magazines and newspapers? Storytelling, the features that I wrote, they're first-person real life feature. So it's literally, I did this, I did that. And so not only do you have to tell the story so that the reader can visualize it and see what's going on, you have to inject emotion. And there's a lot of showing and not telling. It's a real skill. We did newspaper articles as well, news stories, but the first-person features were really the ones that we did the most. So as well as those, which directly influenced the copying really helped, that I could translate that over to copywriting. There was also voice as well. Because we wrote for so many different publications, each one has their own style guide, but coming into a press agency, you're not told or given a style guide saying this publication writes like this or this one. And it was often really, they got as granular as some publications use double-quotes, some use singular. It's really tiny details like that,