Your Copy Isn’t the Problem—Your Value Prop Is (Here’s How to Fix It)

Jennie Wright [00:00:05]:
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Acquire podcast, where we talk about list building and lead generation, marketing, scaling, sales. And today specifically, we’re going to talk about some things to do with copywriting and value proposition, which I think is hugely important. And this whole podcast episode has come about because of a viral post I saw. And basically the post said, you know, imagine waking up tomorrow and realizing your entire website copy had been swapped out for your competitors, Right? Same services, same vibe, same voice. And the worst part, nobody noticed. And that was shocking to me. I was blown away by that.

Jennie Wright [00:00:40]:
And so when I started reading a little bit more about our guest today, I got really, really excited and I can’t wait to introduce you to Linda Malone. So, Linda, thank you so much for being here.

Linda Melone [00:00:50]:
Thanks so much for having me on.

Jennie Wright [00:00:52]:
Absolutely. And you are the founder of the copyworks, and you’re a high conversion health marketer. Oh, no, wait, you have the high conversion Health Marketer podcast. So you are absolutely in the space that I love talking to. And today I’m excited to get a little bit more into this conversation. But before I do, I have to tell everybody listening that I’m. I’m fangirling a little bit because you’ve been featured in Time and Shape and MSN Health and Self and like all these places, and here you are on my little podcast.

Linda Melone [00:01:23]:
Well, that was a long time ago. But it wasn’t even like I was featured. I wrote articles for them.

Jennie Wright [00:01:27]:
Oh.

Linda Melone [00:01:27]:
So I used to do a lot of magazine writing. So that’s a skill.

Jennie Wright [00:01:31]:
Yeah, that is a super skill back in the day. Like, way, way back, I did some. Was it catalog writing for Sears?

Linda Melone [00:01:38]:
Oh, really?

Jennie Wright [00:01:39]:
Yeah. That feels like a lifetime ago. And it was such a different style of writing too. And I was like. But it was like, that was my first early copy chops of like, you know, getting into figuring out how to write copy for marketing. It’s kind of cool.

Linda Melone [00:01:52]:
Well, the articles are more content. You know, people always say to me, oh, it’s the difference, you know, and content is very different. I did article writing for about 15 years. That’s where I ended up in all of those publications, because I just wrote for one. And it’s. It’s very. It’s a business where you very much. People, like editors will go from magazine to magazine and will take their writers with them.

Linda Melone [00:02:14]:
So that’s how I ended up, like, branching out into all these different ones. Unfortunately, a lot of those print publications are no longer wrong around selfies, around Shape. You know, I used to read those.

Jennie Wright [00:02:24]:
Back in the day. I used to buy them. They were fun. Yeah, they were good magazines. I liked them a lot. Well, I’m sorry that, that. I mean, the world has really changed when it comes to copywriting and world has changed from print media in a massive way. And so you’ve probably had to adapt.

Jennie Wright [00:02:38]:
And most of the people listening have had to adapt to a different style. I mean, I came from gold mining and exploration and so how you write. And I used to write press releases and all this kind of stuff. Can you imagine? And talking about boreholes and, you know, all this kind of stuff. And when I came over to the side, I had no idea how to talk or write because everything was so buttoned up. Like it’s, you know, been read by five people and the red lining is insane. And then to own my own business and go, wow, nobody is going to tell me how to write. And I’ve got to figure out this voice.

Jennie Wright [00:03:11]:
It’s crazy. So I’m excited to have the conversation today. I’d really like to dive in. Before we do, can you explain in your own words so people understand what a value proposition is, why it’s important, why we’re talking about it today?

Linda Melone [00:03:25]:
The biggest thing about a value proposition is it differentiates you. Like you had mentioned that viral carousel that I wrote. And that’s really what it is. If you can take your copy from your competitors and put it into your website or into your copy and it doesn’t sound any different, there’s a problem. So it means that you have not differentiated yourself. You haven’t pulled out what makes you unique. And you have to do that in order to not compete on something like price. Because if everyone’s the same and that’s when you have a commodity and it’s like, okay, well, then I guess I’m just going to start comparing, like, for what I do as a copywriter.

Linda Melone [00:04:01]:
My specialty is health and fitness because I was in that business. My differentiator is I was a personal trainer for 20 years. I had four personal training certifications. I did it and then I wrote for all the fitness magazines. So when someone comes to me and they have a fitness or health brand, they know that I know that business inside and out. And that sets me apart from someone who just, you know, can do research or get onto chat GPT because it’s a whole different thing. I used to have people that would say to me, you know, I can tell an editor would say to me, I know the difference between a writer who really knows the business, who writes an article or someone who’s just done the research, there’s just this translation that doesn’t happen and I can’t even explain what it is. But it’s like a intuitive, like if.

Linda Melone [00:04:46]:
If there’s a gap in, say, for example, a quote. And I’d have people say this to me, like, I, I trust that you can fill it in because, you know the fitness business and, you know, they don’t have to worry about being misquoted, that kind of thing. So it’s really just about separating. Like, who are you, who are you for and what do you do? And why should someone choose you over your competition is really the bottom line.

Jennie Wright [00:05:09]:
Absolutely. And that’s a really great way to explain it. And I love that you used an example. I have this happening to me all the time. So for 13 years, I’ve been doing virtual summits and nobody has done as many as me. This is my value prop. Right. I’ve done 400, I’ve produced 450 online summits.

Jennie Wright [00:05:27]:
Nobody’s produced as many as me. I don’t know anybody who has. And as a result, and I’ve done them in every industry, I can walk in and in 20 minutes I can have the entire strategy. That’s my differentiator, or it has been for many years now. Obviously, in 2023, my business started to evolve, which is fabul. And now I’m doing like CMO work and stuff, which is great. But I still do summits and it’s still my differentiator and it’s the thing that makes me stand out in a room and I love that. And I think that’s super important.

Jennie Wright [00:05:56]:
And I’m excited for the conversation because when we’re looking at, you know, and you scared the crap out of me, by the way, with that carousel. Like, I went to my website and I’m like, okay, team, we are going to go through this website and if anything sounds like it could be somebody else, we are nixing it because this is insane. Like, if somebody could. That thing really got me going and a whole bunch of other people because it’s gone viral. Right. So you made people stand up and think. And in an age where AI is so prevalent, which is also a differentiator with your value prop, because if it’s all written by AI, good luck with you. All these websites written by AI, it does start to sound like the person who just did their research and actually isn’t living it.

Linda Melone [00:06:41]:
Yeah, yeah. And I actually, I’ll confess to, like a big mistake. I made it ended up being published. But I wasn’t proud of it. When I was doing a lot of article writing and I was working with a writing coach who said, you know, you can write about. Don’t narrow yourself down to one particular niche, you know, you should. You can write for anything. And so I am really not a.

Linda Melone [00:07:03]:
It’s not that I’m not a techie person. I don’t write about tech. There’s just, there’s a whole like. It’s almost like a language that you have to know. And I had an editor approach me for a computer magazine. And I just looked this up the other day because I didn’t know if the article ever got published or not. It did. And if you look at it, it’s out there.

Linda Melone [00:07:23]:
I think it was Computer World. But I struggled through that whole article. I didn’t know the acronyms, I didn’t know people were talking to me about with terms. I had no idea. And I wrote the article. I just remember what a struggle it was. I put it together somehow and I didn’t think it would ever get published. Apparently it was good enough to publish.

Linda Melone [00:07:44]:
But that’s something that, you know, you really want to know your, you know, what you’re talking about kind of inside and out. And I forget if there was a question there. You asked me.

Jennie Wright [00:07:55]:
No, no, no, no. It’s really good. Don’t worry. We can forget the questions and just have the convo. This is my favorite type of show. I used to ghostwrite for a lot of people. I used to ghostwrite chapters for books and stuff like that. And I also would have the struggle of like, I have no clue about this, I don’t know anything about this.

Jennie Wright [00:08:15]:
And I would have to spend so much time researching and I’m. And I’m one of those people that has to know all the ins and outs and all the corners of the thing that I want to write about. And so I don’t ghostwrite anymore because it’s just I need to niche in just like you. And niching in is where we get to have that value prop that we’re talking about. So if you’re listening to this and you’re the Jack or Jill of all trades or the them of all trades. And you’re doing all the things. This is your kick in the butt to not do that. And look at focusing in on the one thing that you do incredibly well so that people will be known like you’ll be known for it.

Jennie Wright [00:08:51]:
As my partner says that you’re notorious for, like, you should be notorious for it. And I love that. Um, and I have this, like, whole list of questions to ask you that I’ve been thinking about for, like, a day. We’ll see if we actually get through these. By the way, guys, everybody, while I’m recording this, I. My back is in serious pain. So if you hear me being jovial, it’s. It’s all back meds.

Jennie Wright [00:09:11]:
Okay. Like, we’re having a good time because the meds have kicked in. Talk to me about what the biggest myth that people, I guess, believe lock, stock and barrel when it comes to copywriting for their business. Like, especially when it comes to conversion. What would you say is, like, the. The biggest faux pas or biggest myth?

Linda Melone [00:09:32]:
Well, aside from not differentiating themselves, which is always. Is always the number one thing, it’s sounding, it’s relying. I can say this now, and I wouldn’t have answered this the same way a year ago, but it’s just relying too much on AI and thinking that that’s good enough. And, you know, I see this all the time on websites because, you know, AI can only pull from what’s already been written or done or said. And sure, there’s a lot of it, but I use AI, you know, to do research, brainstorm. But when it comes to writing, it’s always comes down to me. I will never just cut. I mean, why would.

Linda Melone [00:10:08]:
I’m a copywriter. I better not be doing that. But, yeah, the biggest thing is not finding what makes you different and also not being clear in your messaging. In fact, I have five parameters I use to measure, like, a value proposition. So maybe this is helpful. Yeah, and I wish there was a cool acronym, but there isn’t for it. So I actually have it written down, I have in front of me, because I can’t remember it all the time. It should be unique.

Linda Melone [00:10:35]:
It should be desirable. So people should want. Should be specific. And this a lot of times is trying to just not put everything into one sentence, because your value prop really should be one sentence. Have it be clear. So that’s related to specific, but clear is a little bit different. So specific is like with me with the niche, and then clear is the message. And then memorable.

Linda Melone [00:10:59]:
You think about ads that you remember from even your childhood. I mean, those are things that, like, stick with you and those. That’s the ide. Ideal value prop that you want. And so what I do is I take. Like, when I first start working with a client, I always highly recommend that they have me do a value proposition audit because That’s a foundation for everything. And then every, you know, when I’m writing for them, I will constantly go back to that value prop. Is this in response? Does this make sense? And that’s just really the foundation.

Linda Melone [00:11:30]:
That’s just such a giant mistake that companies make. And that. Yeah. And just the AI that it’s not clear or memorable. And I have some examples I can give you for ones I actually created.

Jennie Wright [00:11:42]:
I would love that, actually. Yeah, please.

Linda Melone [00:11:45]:
Because this. The thing is too, to keep in mind that the value propositions, it’s not something you just sit around, especially if you’re sitting in a boardroom and you’re just trying to conjure up things. I call that. And I’ve heard this. It’s not my term, but it’s inhaling each other’s fumes like everyone’s hailing, oh, that’s a great idea.

Jennie Wright [00:12:00]:
You know, no one’s.

Linda Melone [00:12:01]:
There’s no outside input. Wow. And that’s what you need because you want somebody to really see. So I get hired for this. It takes me sometimes four to six weeks to come up with a value prop because it’s researching everything from what is being said about your business and your competitors on social media, what’s being said just everywhere, and what are your customers saying or your potential customer or past customers or clients. And so there was one wellness franchise that hired me, and when I spoke to, they wanted to differentiate themselves. And this is an Australian company. And they said, I started talking to the CEO and people that actually knew the CEO.

Linda Melone [00:12:46]:
What came across to me is that they really wanted people who had this greater purpose. It’s not just, I want to make money on a franchise. So the. The value prop I came up with that they love, this is the franchise for entrepreneurs driven by a greater purpose. It tells who it’s for entrepreneurs what it is. Franchise driven by a greater purpose. Because even the CEO says, I wake up in the morning and I think, you know, how can I help other people? I forget exactly who worded it and that. I mean, it sounds like a simple sentence, but it combines everything.

Linda Melone [00:13:22]:
You know, that it’s unique, it’s memorable, it’s simple. So, you know, that was that one. Then there was another one. This was for a functional medicine company. They’re about to launch a coaching program for people who are unable to find results with traditional medical treatment. And this was a tough one because I interviewed a lot of the people that really. They came to this functional medicine company as a last resort. So their value proposal was.

Linda Melone [00:13:48]:
And it’s the client’s name combines customized health plans and one on one coaching to succeed where traditional medicine falls short.

Jennie Wright [00:13:58]:
That’s so clear. I love it.

Linda Melone [00:13:59]:
It’s very clear. And that’s exactly what it was. It’s. Medicine’s falling short for these people. They can’t find what they need. So. And what is it? It’s a customized health plan. It’s one on one coaching.

Linda Melone [00:14:10]:
It’s everything. In fact, the CEO, when I said this, presented it, he said, we’ve been trying for two years to find a sentence that will sum up what we do. And you just did it. So that was a great validation. Those are some examples. And they sound simple, but that’s how they should sound in the end.

Jennie Wright [00:14:25]:
No, but I know what. I know how much time and effort goes behind something that sounds like that. That is work.

Linda Melone [00:14:31]:
Yeah.

Jennie Wright [00:14:32]:
You know, and it’s like it’s you washing the dishes or, you know, just driving out in the car and you’re like, oh, God, I gotta get this figured out. And you’re, you know, you’re thinking about the thing. I don’t know. Do you get the shower thoughts when it comes in?

Linda Melone [00:14:44]:
You should stare at my workout or something, you know, in the car.

Jennie Wright [00:14:48]:
Yeah, I always get. I always get really cool ideas when it comes to copywriting or when it comes to marketing, when I’m doing something completely unrelated. And it has to be. So I swim every morning. I swim about 2km every morning. And so I get a lot of thoughts in the pool, which makes it really fun to try and remember later because I’m in the pool swimming and I’m like, I can’t write this down. Uh, but yeah, it usually happens when you’re not. When you’re doing something else.

Jennie Wright [00:15:15]:
And it allows the brain to be creative, which I think is fabulous. But I’m so, I’m so incredibly in admiration of that skill of yours to be able to come up with what looks like and sounds simple. But I know is a ton of work.

Linda Melone [00:15:29]:
And, you know, it seems like I’ve had a knack for this. Like, if I wasn’t a writer, the only other thing I ever wanted to be was a chemist. I love distilling things down. Like I exceeded in chemistry. It sounds like such a bizarre.

Jennie Wright [00:15:41]:
Oh, it sounds like it’s about this good.

Linda Melone [00:15:45]:
I just love taking things apart and finding, you know, what makes us different. What. You know. And so for me, chemistry was, you know, I was looking because I, I did consider going in that. In that direction for a while, but I Just love looking at a molecule. And it sounds so geeky, but just taking it apart, what’s going to be the byproduct? What’s this? What’s going to happen? And so when someone comes to me and says we need a value prop, I get so excited because it’s like, okay, now I get to do all this. Obviously I’m an introvert.

Jennie Wright [00:16:15]:
Yeah, no, I love that. And I think be as geeky as you want. Okay, Linda? Because honestly, this is a very geeky show and the people listening are probably high fiving you, like air high fiving you because we’re all cool with the geek. And I love, I’m like you. I am very strategic. Like, I love look at, I look at things almost like, and I don’t play chess, but I look at them as like chess pieces. Like if we do this, this is the possible outcome and there’s six different moves we could make, but which one is going to get us closer to our goal and stuff like that. I love the fact that you bring this sort of chemistry styled brain to this where you’re looking at breaking things down into their simpler components and figuring out how to recombine to create what you want.

Jennie Wright [00:17:00]:
It’s almost like copywriting alchemy.

Linda Melone [00:17:03]:
Yeah. Oh, I love that. I’ve had people tell me, we’ve had whole discussions and I’ll be listening to what someone’s telling me and I’ll just say, so what you’re saying is. And I’ll just tell them in a sentence, they’ll go, yeah, that’s exactly what I said. Why did you just take 15 minutes of my time to explain this? Because I just think people need to be clearer with what they say and especially online.

Jennie Wright [00:17:26]:
100%. 100%, yeah, absolutely. Especially if you’re verbose in any way, shape or form and you can’t get that clear. And people, people are looking at headlines and taglines and they’re looking at website copy and webinars and all of it. And we’re getting that five seconds of yay or nay. And you better show up, present and then also represent yourself properly so that people can figure out who you are and what you do. Absolutely, I’m on board with that completely. And I think when you look at a lot of, a lot of websites and a lot of copy in general, and I just did this, I just wrote website copy for a company that I’m working with and we had somebody else review it from their team and the person came back with some copy and I Was like, oh, look, it’s a rocket ship emoji.

Jennie Wright [00:18:15]:
I wonder if they wrote that or asked GPT to make it better. And the copy wasn’t that great. And what I was seeing is as they were copy editing this website copy, the further down the page we got, the less fun it got. Like it was actually. It was actually going away from the company’s mission, vision, and values that we had worked on in this brand. By the end of it, I’m like, okay, this isn’t copy editing at all. We’re diluting a brand here that I’m working really, really hard on. And I had to have a very difficult conversation with those people and say, the person that’s looking at this isn’t actually doing you any favors.

Jennie Wright [00:18:55]:
They’re removing the spark.

Linda Melone [00:18:57]:
Yeah.

Jennie Wright [00:18:58]:
That makes them uniquely them and is making you sound like every other, you know, XYZ insert niche here. Copy company or company in general. And it was just. Was a sad thing to see. But I get it. I get why people do it. But I also. This is why people like yourself are so important, especially for anybody who’s looking to scale and grow.

Jennie Wright [00:19:20]:
But if you were talking to. If you were talking to the listeners here and you’re trying to tell them almost like your little placard sign that you’re holding up on the street corner that they see as they’re driving by, what would it say to get people to pay attention to what they’re doing wrong?

Linda Melone [00:19:37]:
Probably something along the lines of the. The title to that carousel. Can your copy be replaced by your competitors? Yeah, because that’s the thing, like you said, it struck you, I mean, that that carousel got over 61,000 views, which is, for me, is a lot.

Jennie Wright [00:19:54]:
Yeah, that’s a lot.

Linda Melone [00:19:54]:
So it must have really struck a chord.

Jennie Wright [00:19:56]:
Oh, it definitely is a. Is a. Definitely strikes a chord. Absolutely. I actually showed it to a couple people and. Oh, yeah, I showed it to a person who’s. Whose whole business is about sales. And I showed it to them and they’re like, oh, bleep.

Jennie Wright [00:20:10]:
Because we don’t swear on this podcast. There was a couple bleeps and they’re like, oh, my God. Okay, this, like this. This makes me scared and upset. And they were going off to their sales page because they had had somebody write it for them.

Linda Melone [00:20:22]:
Yeah.

Jennie Wright [00:20:22]:
And yeah, that’s always a thing you gotta look at. My gosh. Okay, so I know that you’re a big believer like me in testing and data, and we just talked about, like, the chemistry of copy and the Chemistry of value props. What are a few things that business owners should actually track when it comes to their website copy? When it comes to something like email performance or sales performance, that would be key indicators that they need to do more work on their value prop or their messaging in general.

Linda Melone [00:20:54]:
The one analytic that I love the most is, do you know those heat maps?

Jennie Wright [00:20:57]:
I love them, yes.

Linda Melone [00:20:59]:
Because that’s how. So if people don’t know what it is. So it’s like you. What was the one I was using for a while? I can’t remember the name of it. But it basically tracks what your website visitors are doing on your website. So you have. Why can’t I think of the name of it? Because it was such a weird name. But there’s a bunch of them out there.

Jennie Wright [00:21:19]:
Was it Hotjar?

Linda Melone [00:21:20]:
Hotjar, yeah. How does that make sense, that name? But anyway. But you can. Literally, it almost feels a little bit creepy because you are watching that person as they navigate through your site. So that is such a great way to see where are they getting stuck and where are they going back to? And they have. There’s something which I don’t, you know, I don’t know where this term came from. Rage clicking. Have you heard of this where somebody clicks repeatedly on something? No.

Linda Melone [00:21:49]:
Yes.

Jennie Wright [00:21:49]:
What the actual crap is that?

Linda Melone [00:21:52]:
Rage clicking? Like, people get really frustrated and it’s usually when they can’t find what they’re looking for. So you want to see where are they dropping off? So if they go to a particular page and then they leave, they go to a particular. They’re clicking on a certain button and they leave. Okay, that’s where you want to see. Look. A button is literally the conversion point. So that is where they’re either gonna do something. They’re taking action right there.

Linda Melone [00:22:18]:
So is that button leading them to. Maybe it’s a sales page. That’s too soon. Maybe they’re not ready for that. So if they click off at that, is there something else that you can do either on. On the button to indicate. They call it micro copy when it’s really small copy. So it’s.

Linda Melone [00:22:34]:
I don’t make up these terms so it makes sense. At least this one makes sense.

Jennie Wright [00:22:40]:
Yeah.

Linda Melone [00:22:40]:
So. But people kind of brush those things off, like, oh, just click here or learn more without really thinking about what’s on that button. So it could just be the button copy that needs to be adjusted. So that’s the one thing I highly recommend. And I think a lot of these companies, it’s not expensive or it’s Even free to get, because I had Hot Jar. I think I have it on my site still. And I’ll go in and see, you know, where people leaving. Because a lot of times, most of the time you’re not going to know why people are not clicking unless somebody tells you.

Linda Melone [00:23:11]:
I had someone recently. I had it. My website’s brand new as of like the summer. And I had someone recently say, you know, when I click on this and I forget what it even was, I get sent back to the homepage and that’s not where, you know, I wanted to go. So I have a website person. I said, can you check on this? And yeah, she fixed it. But how many people were clicking that button, not getting where they wanted to go and then just clicking off? So that’s the number one thing. But, you know, and I was going to say, if you had asked me about emails, is that the, you know, how.

Linda Melone [00:23:43]:
What’s the open rate for emails? Which is, of course, people know, you know, that’s super important because if they’re not opening your email, then they’re not seeing anything you have to say. But yeah, website page, I’d say a Hot Jar, you know, just Google Analytics. I mean, keep track of it. Don’t get obsessed with it because it varies so much. But it’s hard not to.

Jennie Wright [00:24:02]:
It is. I get. I get an email every day from Semrush and I try not to open that thing right away because Semrush. Semrush is like your. Your position on the web has increased or decreased. And I’m like, obsessed, going, how did I go down a point? What did I. What happened yesterday that I, like, actually lost a point or if it goes up a couple. Yeah, I get a little too.

Jennie Wright [00:24:23]:
I’m like, I’m not opening my Semrush email for a little while. It could still. It can sit there for a little bit.

Linda Melone [00:24:28]:
Yeah, I’ve done that with emails where I know if I think it might be bad news. It’s like, I did this. You know, it’s funny, I did this one time when it was actually, it was. I don’t know if it was spam, but the person said, and this is something I’ve advised people never to do. And I’ve seen marketers do this. The. The subject line said, how dare you? And I thought, what did I do? And this was when I used to have an online course, fitness course for women over 50. I was writing a lot of blogs.

Linda Melone [00:24:54]:
I was doing a lot of, you know, I was out there a lot. And I thought, what did I do now? I didn’t open that. I was pacing around my house for, like, the whole day. Finally, I said, okay, I think I can emotionally prepare.

Jennie Wright [00:25:07]:
I’m emotionally ready now for this. Yeah.

Linda Melone [00:25:09]:
And it was nothing but just some crap that was just. It was like a clickbaity thing you.

Jennie Wright [00:25:14]:
Had to get me to.

Linda Melone [00:25:15]:
And it had nothing to do with me personally, but here I am worrying all day, like, what did I do? Did I offend somebody? And instead of just opening it right away, of course, no. I’m going to be neurotic and just over.

Jennie Wright [00:25:26]:
It’s okay. We can enjoy our neuroses right now. We’re good. Honestly. We work in the online space. We work with our own bosses. Withers neuroses here. Okay.

Linda Melone [00:25:39]:
Yeah, it can be bad.

Jennie Wright [00:25:40]:
It is a harsh world online, but also fun because I get to meet people like you and get to have these conversations. And if you’re listening, I’m telling you, Linda looks amazing today. She’s completely on point. Her makeup makes me look like I’m coming through video from the dark ages or something. But you look fab. But let’s have one quick last question, because I know we have to wrap up, and I love this. You mentioned once that a single email sequence helped to close a $70,000 contract. I’m not asking for your secret sauce or how you did it, but I’m asking a little bit of.

Jennie Wright [00:26:16]:
Can you share a little bit of the strategy or the shift that made that possible?

Linda Melone [00:26:20]:
Sure. I mean, it was interesting because it was a SaaS company, so software as a service and the. The CEO. I mean, SaaS is typically kind of bland. You know, it’s like there’s not something very exciting, which I disagree with, by the way. I think you can make anything exciting, but, you know, you have to take the right approach. But this CEO was very open to having. He wanted humor, and I’m really good at writing funny copy.

Linda Melone [00:26:44]:
And so he said, I want to have, you know, humor in this. And so. And this has been a few years, and he’s. I think the company’s really taken off since then, but he. He sells automated accounting systems, so talk about. Yeah, that’s super exciting, right?

Jennie Wright [00:27:04]:
Yep.

Linda Melone [00:27:05]:
The thing is that people were using outdated systems from, like, the 90s. And so one of the. The emails that I wrote for him, which he laughed out loud when I presented it to him. The subject line said the 90s, called dot, dot, dot. And you open it up and it says they want their flip phone back. And their leg warmers. And I named a couple other things from the 90s. And so then I went into, you know, if you’re still using, you know, if you’re still manually doing.

Linda Melone [00:27:30]:
And then I launched into what it was. So that was one email, but there was a series of them like that. And so it was just. He took a chance on adding humor to, you know, a niche that is typically not humorous or people think, oh, you have to be really buttoned up and serious about it. And it worked. And he said, you know, I don’t know if it was one particular email. I think it was a sequence. But I only did five emails in sequence and each one was different.

Linda Melone [00:27:57]:
It wasn’t like, I don’t write emails like, hey, just following up or something. I would. Each email is separate and there’s a purpose to it. So one might be all social proof testimonials, one might be. They’re just all different so that each email is interesting and valuable on its own. And I think that’s what’s super important. And then of course you have the pitch in there, but that’s not what it’s all about. Like, you want to show the person that you have all this value that you can offer.

Linda Melone [00:28:25]:
So that was, I think, the key. But the humor. I remember when I. He opened that and he just started laughing. I said, I got this because I never know.

Jennie Wright [00:28:33]:
That is an awesome, awesome way to do it. I love that. That would absolutely get me interested. I’m. I definitely love a little bit of the, you know, a little bit of the sarcasm, a little bit of the hit over the head, the, you know, the funny stuff. I think that’s really good. It’s very clever and that’s what I love. And I think that that’s probably one of the reasons it did well.

Jennie Wright [00:28:52]:
I would absolutely be like, I don’t need accounting copy or accounting software right now, but I’m probably going to buy it because this sounds cool. You know what I mean? Because. And that’s one of the great things that I think is super cool when we look at standing out, right, and being your own, you know, being your own person. There was a. There was a girl a couple of years ago, a woman, I should say a couple years ago in the online space. And her whole Persona was sort of the, I guess what we call it, like the comic book style. So her website was. Looked very like it was coming out of a comic book.

Jennie Wright [00:29:25]:
She looked like she was like out of, you know, like the comic book. What was it? And I can’t remember the name where it was like, Betty and Archie comics or something.

Linda Melone [00:29:33]:
Oh, the Archies.

Jennie Wright [00:29:34]:
Yeah, yeah, the Archies. And she. And so that was her whole Persona. That was her whole online thing. And then overnight she changed it, and people were like, what’s going on? Like, she just completely changed it. And her website didn’t change along with it, but she started showing up differently and everything, and. And it took her a while to get her copy back, but it. To get the copy updated, it looked like.

Jennie Wright [00:29:58]:
But it was like this Persona had died. And I think it took her a long time to get her people back because she had just switched it off.

Linda Melone [00:30:07]:
Do you know why? Because this seems like an odd thing if it was working.

Jennie Wright [00:30:12]:
She was. She was really, really popular for a very, very long time. And then it seemed like she just disappeared for a while. Nobody that I knew of knew why she was gone for I. Maybe six, maybe nine months or so. And then when she came back online, she was this different, you know, look. Yeah, she had rebranded. And I think it just caused a little bit of whiplash for people that they didn’t really.

Jennie Wright [00:30:35]:
And there was no announcement as to it. There was no explanation for it. It was just like, this is the new thing. And I feel like the whiplash that it caused caused her brand to struggle and suffer. And I’m pretty sure that person actually ended up leaving the online business. I can’t find them anymore, like, at all. So, you know, I totally believe in having a rebrand, if you need a rebrand. But if you’re going to do a pivot, you need to be able to bring people along with you in the pivot, if it makes sense to bring them along with you.

Jennie Wright [00:31:05]:
And there needs to be some sort of congruency, I think, from one to the next. And there has to be an explanation or, you know, like, hey, we’re changing the way we’re doing things. This is the new norm, that kind of thing, which I find really interesting. So before we wrap this up, who are you working with now? What kind of people. What kind of companies do you love working with? What kind of clients? Just make your fun copywriting skills sing.

Linda Melone [00:31:30]:
Well, the health and fitness niche, of course, is number one, but I’m not just limited to that. I mean, currently I’m working. I just finished projects with two big ones. One was a. A healthy drink. And another, they were from another country. Now they’re marketing here in the U.S. but there’s.

Linda Melone [00:31:51]:
It’s usually like, I’m getting a lot of nutritional products, functional medicine. People come to me. I have a unusual background. I’m a Reiki master. So I know, like, energy work too. So people who want to weave that, because that usually is part of, like, functional medicine. It’s not something I talk about a lot, but if people want that approach, I know all about that too. I’m kind of all over everything, but the whole health and fitness niche is really my number one.

Linda Melone [00:32:20]:
Just because it’s easy for me as far as knowing how people operate. Like right now, I just started a project with someone who has a healthy product they’re going to market on probably on Amazon, and it’s already been established, but he wants me to kind of rebrand and talk to people who are in. Who are bodybuilders. Now he knows I’m a gym, gym rat. So he’s like, I know I was hired mainly for that because I know, I know the lingo. I know you know, I know what getting ripped means. I know what getting shredded means. I know that you don’t say that to women.

Jennie Wright [00:32:56]:
Yeah, especially women of a certain age. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, totally. That’s really, really cool. And where can people connect with you and find you if they do want to get to know you a bit?

Linda Melone [00:33:06]:
I’m very active on LinkedIn. Of course, that’s where you found me. You can reach out to me. I have my podcast, which is the high conversion health marketer, and I have a newsletter. I have a bunch of freebies on my site. There’s three resources which I’m looking to update soon. But one is power words. The other is 21 words and phrases to never say to take out of your copy immediately.

Linda Melone [00:33:29]:
It’s all marketing speak. And then the third one is how to add humor to your copy. So that’s all there.

Jennie Wright [00:33:36]:
That’s incredible. Awesome. We’re going to make sure that we have the links on the show notes. I know that one of the links that you gave us was the resources so that the power words and the 21 phrases to banish forever from your copy and the humor one, we have that for sure. And then there’s a 14 done for you high converting onboarding emails that you threw in as a product in there and then the newsletter. So we’ll have all of those in the show notes for everybody to grab. And you are incredibly active on LinkedIn. We were messaging back and forth like yesterday because my emails were going to junk.

Jennie Wright [00:34:08]:
What a pain in the arse that was. But I’m so glad that we got to have this conversation. Thank you so much, Linda, and really appreciate it.

Linda Melone [00:34:15]:
Thank you, Jenny. I appreciate you having me on.

Jennie Wright [00:34:17]:
Absolutely. It was a pleasure. And if you listen this far, thank you so much. I love and adore when people listen right to the end of these podcasts. If you have and you would love like to hear more from people like Linda and also the solo episodes that I have. Make sure you do subscribe to the podcast wherever it is that you’re listening and if there’s anything that you’re looking to do with your marketing strategy, then hit me up on Instagram, send me a DM or on LinkedIn, and let’s see if something myself and my team can help you with. Thanks so much for listening and we’ll see you all soon. Take care.

Jennie Wright [00:34:52]:
Sam.