The Magic of Copywriting for Educators

This is my favorite topic to talk about of all time. Do you know what it is? It's copywriting. It's probably because I was an eighth grade English and language arts teacher, but I live for copywriting tips and tricks and hacks. It was one of the first things that I really fell in love with when it came to online marketing. And it's one way that we have used to grow our business. And I want to share a lot of insider secrets today that many entrepreneurs don't want you to know. Some of the biggest entrepreneurs in the business, including things that I've never publicly admitted. I'm going to share with you today, but we're going to talk about the magic of copywriting for educators today. David Oglevey said, you cannot bore people into buying your product. You can only interest them into buying it. And then Mary Wells Lawrence said, the best advertising should make you nervous about what you are not buying. If you need a little information on what copywriting is and how it can improve your teacher business, stick around, you don't want to miss it. Hey teachers, welcome to your home away from the classroom. Whether you are a full-time educator just getting started and thinking about the possibilities to advance past your current base skill or you're a seasoned CEO teacher looking for extra strategies to make money online, you're in the right place. No impressive tech skills or marketing experience necessary. Just the passion and desire to transform your life by doing what you love. Leaning in to your unique teaching magic. I'm Casey Morris, a former eighth grade ELA teacher myself, Mama-to-5, teacher marketing expert and while I am the visionary behind the CEO teacher movement, this amazing community is continually being built by you. One beautiful dream at a time. Coming your way every Wednesday as an extra credit bonus exclusively for teachers, welcome to the CEO teacher podcast. Teachers now that schools out for the summer, I want to let you in on a special secret. The most successful teachers looking to make extra income online all have a few things in common. A rock salad foundation, a beautiful supportive community, and a proven path to follow. And it's time for you to be able to get it all done. And that's exactly what you're going to be doing this summer inside of the CEO teacher membership. Whether you choose to make a bigger impact in the classroom next year or you decide it's time to let the sunshine on some hidden depths of your heart and influence education in a unique and non-traditional way. The CEO teacher membership was made just for you, a vibrant educational rock star who was looking to turn their passion into profit online. The complete CEO teacher membership now includes the teacher income challenge plus over 300 on demand, bingeable lessons to help you get started creating your very own teacher business this summer. Every summer has a story and it's time that you make this one yours. When you're ready to finally make your worth and go from hashtag teacher tired to creator of your own future, this will be the moment that you always remember. All you have to do is grab your proven pathway for success or be inspired to blaze your own trail and it's all at your fingertips inside of this one stop business school for teachers. Grab your poolside summer school seat now by going to Casey Morris.com and start making extra income before we close down the doors when school starts back and break into your next school year. And we'll see you inside of the membership. All right, so let's get nerdy for just a second and talk about something that many entrepreneurs don't really want you to know about copywriting. So when I say copywriting, what I mean is is how you express what you do using your words. And when you have an online business as we do as CEO teachers, you have to be really good at expressing your words through not only verbal, you know, using the words to say verbally, but also by writing them down. And no longer can you try to bamboozle people into buying what you have or use just basic boring copywriting techniques because what you'll do is you'll just kind of blend in. And that's not what we want here. We don't want to blend folks. Our CEO teachers are shining. We want you to shine. My life is so much better when you are winning too. So I wanted to share just some insider tips and tricks. I don't know how I'm going to feel about sharing this later, but I'm going to share it because I've always been open and honest with you guys. I love to write. It's one of my favorite things. I've been writing since I was a little girl in a journal. I think it's why I'm obsessed with Taylor Swift and her ability to move people with words. I've studied people and how they've used their words to real people in, even people in history that haven't been the most likable or haven't been the most memorable. If they had the ability to move a group of people, I've been all for it. I actually, side note, just recently got a new tattoo. Imagine that. I have a lot of word tattoos. You guys know four years ago. After our first course lunch, I got the best is yet to come tattooed on my arm. And I have a quote from my favorite band on my back. And it says in my mind, I was a child and it felt good. And then I just recently got a, if you're watching on YouTube, you can see me show my new tattoo off. I've recently got words on both sides of my arms that are Taylor Swift quotes from her song Marjorie, which is written about her grandmother. And it says, never be so polite. You forget your power. Never wield such power. You forget to be polite. And those words just stuck with me so much. And I, obviously, if I like the words and I'm going to touch them on my body, but I'm telling you all this to say that copywriting is so important because it allows you to leave a lasting impression on your audience. It gives you a voice. It gives you something that people want to cling to. And that's why we always say at the end of every show, the best is yet to come. So I started studying all these people. I love Dan Sullivan. I love breakthrough copywriting by David Garfunkel. There's a lot of books. If you guys want to go into that later in an episode, I can do that. But I, I learned so much. And we started to piece together what we call our brand voice. I say a lot of things that are unique to me. I'm very southern. I say y'all. I say, let's get this party started. There's a lot of things that I have started to say throughout my years of marketing that have stuck with our audience. There's room for everyone on the playground. And so we created over the years a brand voice guide. And we use that guide with our Facebook ad marketers with our copywriters. And we now have someone on staff full time that has transformed into our very own copywriter. Tina, we love you. Tina did not go to school to be a copywriter. She did not ask to be the copywriter in our company. It's just a skill that she has learned over time. She has known me for years now. She has listened to me chat with you every single week. She has shown up in our Facebook group. She has done a lot of the coaching. And over the years, she has picked up on how I would say things. I would actually say she says them way better than I could have ever said them. And so many entrepreneurs have someone that helps them, that writes their content for them using a brand voice or a brand guide. So if you are currently your very own copywriter, which you should be in the beginning of your business, I want you to start taking the tips and tricks I'm going to share with you today. And putting together a brand voice guide over the next few years of catchphrases that you say and how your words move people. I can tell you all of the launches that flopped for us and all of them that were successful. And how the words I chose changed if we were successful or if we weren't. What words don't work for us anymore. I can tell you what things we will never say again and what things we always want to make sure that we hit on. And so using what works for you over the years, it's going to work very well in your business. And today we're going to talk about some of that magic and some of those copywriting tips and tricks that you can use to help make your very own brand voice guide as well. 73% of people admit to skimming rather than reading actual blog posts because readers are only consuming about 20% of content that they see on a page at any given moment right now. And a lot of it is just content overwhelm. People are giving out so much content that they lack this voice, this ability to be themselves, to allow people to read it in your own words. I used to get a lot of flack on my Facebook ads because teachers would say this isn't grammatically correct. And I would say I know I'm just writing like I talk and I encouraged my students to do that too. It's fun for me to be able to chat like I talk. I'm actually talking to you in my podcast voice right now. My real voice is a lot a lot more Southern and not grammatically correct. Adding the word because with a reason in your CTA or call to action can increase your click through rate by 34%. So saying something like you need to join our membership now because or you need to buy this back to school bundle because you are giving them a reason to justify their purchase can help you make more sales. 47% of people decide whether or not to open an email based on the subject line alone. We work really hard on our subject lines every year. It's one of our favorite things to do. And I want you to remember that subject lines are very important. The sweet spot for headline length is 10 to 13 words. Those numbers attract twice as much traffic. Now when I say headline length, I'm talking primarily in your blog post like what your title is going to be using a hyphen or a colon in the headline increases click through rates by 9%. Guys, this is some nerdy data that some of you may think is fluff. But these are facts. I love the fluff at times like people think is fluff because these are percentages and numbers that actually are showing what works. And I think you should write them down and try to use them in your business. Tiny tweaks to your call to actions in your copy can greatly impact conversion rates, meaning the number of people that buy. For example, a company changed the words request a quote to request pricing which netted an 166% increase in their conversions. That's really not a big of a deal, but it was a big deal. Another company said, start your free 30 day trial to start my free 30 day trial and increase their conversions by 90%. Another book that I highly recommend to help you with all this nerdy stuff is Jay Abraham's book getting everything you can out of all you've got. It really helped me to be able to to use some of the things that I'm telling you today and have them where I can like see them in a book and then apply them to my business. Okay, so let's talk about our action tips. Remember, good copywriters will include some version of these strategies when they are creating copy. Now, when I say creating copy, I just mean writing words to use and advertising. They will have a brand voice as I mentioned at the beginning of the show. So write out your brand story. Condense the things that you want people to know about you. I always encourage our students in our membership. I have an entire module on this, but to write out three pages of a story about you and then over the years, learn to condense that down into three paragraphs. And then finally, be able to tell people in one simple sentence or two. I've been working on my one sentence or two for years now, but when I got to introduce myself on the Kajabi stage a couple weeks ago, I got so people went nuts. They were so excited about what I did. I was like laughing like they're still clapping. And I was like, okay, let's go. This is exciting. And my simple pitch is I help teachers finally make their worth. We take teachers from undervalued and underpaid in the classroom to taking what they already know and love online and being able to make their worth. And it was like all but a standing ovation was so exciting because over the years, I've been able to perfect our brand voice. It's okay to use controversial language that appeals to all target audiences, students, parents, or educators. I'm actually scared of it. I don't like to be controversial. I don't like if you don't like me. I don't. I still don't. I can't help it. I don't want you not to like me. And so when you're controversial online, people can easily tell you that they don't like you. And it still stresses me out. It's still, it always stress me out. You can use controversial language if you have thicker skin than I do. Okay. Boring neutral copy speaks to absolutely no one. If I were just to say, I help teachers make money online. That's just boring. It gets lost in the crowd. Real talk will become the backbone of your business. So what are some top phrases or words you say all the time that could be used in your brand voice? I remember when we started saying I read, I think I got this idea from Jay Abraham's book, getting everything you can out of all you've got. I think don't quote me on that. But he chatted about some of the greatest people of all time and the historians and things and then the different things that they would say. I'm talking about people from Hitler to JFK to Oprah. This is a wide range of people that have moved people over the history of the world, but also they have so many similarities in how they captivate people. And I just, I nerd out over this stuff. Like when I say I am a lover of people, I genuinely, genuinely believe that. So think about some things that you could have. They call them catch phrases or sticky notes that could help bring people into your world and really resonate with you. So we say there's room for everyone on the playground. My husband actually gave me that idea about 10 years ago. And I was like, Oh, if it's so well, my business, when I would get jealous of other people or I would think someone copied me, be like, whatever, Casey, there's room for everyone on the playground. And he was so right. He was so right. Understand that copy should feel normal and informal. So people don't necessarily resonate to super formal stuff. They like conversational pieces a little bit better. When you're thinking about how to write things for your business, also highlight what makes your business unique. How does your offer stand out from the competition? What unique perspective do you bring to the space? I'm pointing to you on video, but I'm very serious about this too is that no one can do it or tell it like you have. No one's had your experience. No one's been in your shoes. You are more than just a second grade teacher or a ninth grade math teacher. I need to know what makes you you what stories in your life have you gone through? What hills have you crossed? What mountains do you still have to face? Because when you remember that your story is unique, that's when your business will begin to shine. Get your message out there even if it's in small ways. Always remember, you'll never ever hear me not say this to focus on value. What value does your resource provide to the user and outline the benefits for joining your programs like they could save you time on lesson plans and then also text features which are a great way I used to preach to my eighth graders and I'm going to preach to you now about it, but text features are so underutilized and so undervalued and they are so important. A great headline speeds directly to the reader and it grabs their attention with bold and empowering statements. Remember, this is about your audience rather than you. Your sub headlines should outline the benefits and transformations and this is how you begin to develop your elevator pitch, the one that I gave to you that I used on stage. I show you in the membership exactly how to do that, but it does just take time. Now here is the good good stuff for today's show is a great copywriters are going to use these six tools to up level their copywriting toolbox. The first one is twist a common phrase or quote make something uniquely yours and say it that makes it memorable like take the road most traveled. That could be something that catches people's attention because they're used to hearing take the road less traveled. Next is a picture is worth more than a few words. It could be a catch phrase that you become known for like the best is yet to come. I get so tickled and I love you all for this. You'll send me messages on Instagram and you're like so and so still your idea and it'll be like it'll be a planner and target. This is the best is yet to come and I was like that was totally not my phrase. I just started saying it and we all fell in love with it and we all clung to it and I say it all the time, but I didn't make it up. I just say it. I can't trademark it I don't think. So you all are so sweet when you think people steal it, but it's it's so great about it. Like that's what we want. We want people to feel like they are connected to it. It brings familiarity to your brand. We say all aboard the CEO teacher train. I don't know that I can leave my office now because you all resonate with our train and that makes me feel good. That that's a part of the brand that you feel like you are part of. Next is the one that I hate the most to up level your teacher copywriting toolbox and it is ruffle some feathers. Take a stand and use words phrases and content that are unpopular. That spice things up that get people engaged. I'm not the person to ask about this. I'm really not our copywriter will do this in the best way. Like you can spice things up without pissing people off. Can I just say that? I think that that that's me being real. I think that you just have to learn what works and what doesn't. I do not like to make people mad. It's just not in my it's it's a quality trait that I've had my whole life and I tend to say what the crowd wants to hear because I want to stay relatable. But often that can hurt you in the long run. So you still have to take a stand. But you don't have to be so in people's face that it ruffles all their feathers or it could. In fact, if you're tough-skinned and if you're ready for it, your business could go further faster by ruffling some feathers. But I want to be very clear here. I've done a lot of research on this. That sounded so like I'm smarter than anyone else about it. I'm not. I just mean like I'm just so nerdy curious about it. And it's that people that have negative things to say in their marketing will grow their business faster. But research says that their businesses don't last as long. And I think that's super important to consider is that you can be polarizing but rarely do people that ruffle others' feathers make it in the long run. So being super negative in your copywriting will help your business grow faster. But it may not withstand the long run. And that's important to know. Many times in audience will be drawn to you because you took a stand. But they don't just want to hear negative stuff all the time. It gets old real quick. Okay, next number three on the list is short informal sentences work. Don't scare your readers away and give them paragraphs and paragraphs to read on an Instagram post or on a YouTube post or on a Facebook ad. Keep them engaged and entertained. You are not writing a college paper. It's okay to say things that are conversational based skip the niche based acronyms and verbiage, especially if it's really scholarly. Spell it out in plain language. Number four on our six tools to help you with your copywriting toolbox as a teacher is optimize the content in a natural way. Strike a balance between SEO, which if you've been watching my Insta Stories this week, I hinted about a topic we are going to chat about the entire month of July. And I'm going to tell you here first. It's all about SEO and long tail keyword focused. So be sure to check all those out because that's going to help you have the biggest booming back to school season ever. And make sure that you have a balance between SEO and conversation with your copywriting. Don't overdo the optimization in certain pieces of your copy because it will sound like you are keyword stuffing. It'll be unnatural and it'll be awkward. Number five is go for a walk and get outside cheesy. We know, but the best ideas come from everywhere and creativity is inspired by a broad range of experiences. The best ideas I've ever had have been when I've been walking outside period or laying in my bed. Take a notebook with you jot down these ideas or add them to the notes app on your phone, which I love to do. If you see something that speaks to you, write it down and listen, friends. I love to relate this to religion if you are spiritual, but when you go outside or you ask God something, do you listen? Do you truly listen to what he has to say to you? Do you say, okay, God, this is what I want from you, but I'm going to listen to what you have to say. Leave your room and take a brain break to help spark new ideas. And then number six is a bonus concept for your toolkit. And that is the most important thing is fresh eyes. Get it all out of your head. Go away, come back tomorrow and edit it with a clear fresh set of eyes. Always have a rough draft and a polished product. Ask yourself these questions as you edit the next day. Did it make someone gasp? Did it spark a feeling? Does it fit my current marketing strategy? And could I use this long term or what is the shelf life of this copy? Here's one little fact that I wanted to end today's show with. Compelling copy draws 7.8 times more site traffic and produces better brand recall. So get to writing and make some progress. And remember that practice makes permanent. Thanks guys so much for listening to the CEO teacher podcast. As always remember, the best is yet to come. And maybe that has a new meaning to you now. And I'll see you next week. The most successful teachers looking to make extra income online all have a few things of common. A rock salad foundation, a beautiful supportive community, and a proven path to follow. And it's time for you to be able to get it all done. And that's exactly what you're going to be doing this summer inside of the CEO teacher membership. Whether you choose to make a bigger impact in the classroom next year or you decide it's time to let the sunshine on some hidden depths of your heart and influence education in a unique and non-traditional way. The CEO teacher membership was made just for you. The complete CEO teacher membership now includes the teacher income challenge plus over 300 on demand, bingeable lessons to help you get started creating your very own teacher business this summer. When you're ready to finally make your worth and go from hashtag teacher tired to creator of your own future, this will be the moment that you always remember. All you have to do is grab your proven pathway for success or be inspired to blaze your own trail. And it's all at your fingertips inside of this one stop business school for teachers. Grab your poolside summer school seat now by going to Casey Morris dot com and start making extra income before we close down the doors when school starts back and break into your next school year.