Communication,  copywriting,  Entrepreneurs,  Marketing,  Productivity,  Technology

Don’t Ever Create Any of Your Content From Scratch Again

How many times a day, week, month or more, are you creating content for your business?

It could be social medial content for posts, content for emails, blogs, write sales pages, optin pages, maybe notes or questions for podcast guests. Or maybe you need some scripts or templates for videos you’re going to create.

Content, content, content is the name of the game in marketing. It’s always been content, now it’s really becoming a force to grow your business.

Being successful in business, your marketing isn’t just about selling anymore. It’s about attracting, connecting, personalizing, and solving your customers’/clients’ problems.

My favorite clients are the ones that have a ton of content, even more than they know what to do with. It’s much easier to clarify where to use it, or what courses, products, services, etc., to create from it all.

The reason is – it’s already created. Some of it might need polish, a little editing, reworking, reconfiguring, and again – it’s already created.

Creating content is big business now. I just read a post where someone listed at least 3 online AI’s that will write the content for you.

Hmmmm…. I’m not so sure about that yet.

I mean, how can an AI replace you and your voice? (If you’re interested in the article, or the ai copywriting companies – hit reply and I will send it to you.)

I will admit I do use Grammarly for all my copy now. And it’s pretty smart in helping me edit and tighten up my copy. But, I’m not gonna ask it to write it for me! (At the 11th hour, I might be tempted though!)

Then there are the clients that don’t have a lot of content. Well, I definitely have a ton of resources to help them out, including writing their copy ;-).

Have you ever had to write something and you found yourself just staring at the blank page or blank screen of your device(s)?

This honestly is the worst and something I don’t wish upon you at all!

So how do you get past not creating any of your marketing content from scratch again?

You create what I call a swipe file. And you can also collect templates or create them, for which, I have MANY.) If you’re not familiar with the term, it can be a huge digital and/or physical file of social media ads, sales pages, direct mail pieces, articles, optin upsell sequences, and more.

I’ve collected these for over 15 years. It’s taking up so many gigs, I need a new hard drive that’s going to be at least 4 terabytes. (Yeah, that’s a lot of files and images.)

Let me a share a long ago and far away story – When I was in college, I majored in advertising, which was in the Journalism school, and minored in psychology (which was incredibly helpful) at Louisiana State University (L.S.U.). Did I mention I grew up in New Orleans? (This could be another fun story that I won’t digress cuz this is already getting long.)

In journalism school, I took so many advertising courses. And in one course, we needed to scour magazines for ads that we would change to make them better and get more eyeballs. (Oh and yes this was in the “ancient years” before the internet or personal computers – 1984.)

I picked out the ad and knew I could make it better. Plus, I’m a hopeless packrat – I’m including a photo of it here. Check out the pictures below. The ad is on the left and then my new somewhat improved creation is on the right. (And yes, I actually drew this myself with some nifty colored pencils! And yeah, what a novice – you can’t read the word “leaves” too well – sheesh.)


What I wanted to point out, was back then, it taught me the skill of looking at ads and copy and improving them to increase views and sales. It only took me a few decades to actually hone my skills and use them to help my clients! (There was that stint of 20 years in corporate.)

What you need to know is – I’m constantly pulling from my swipe files to help clients improve their website pages, blogs, social media posts, and more.

When it comes to ads, web pages, and copy, I’m a total geek. I love combing through Facebook ads. I’m on a lot of companies’ direct mail lists too. I love studying and saving their catalogs, postcards, and letters.

In fact, when I buy supplements from Amazon, I’ve been known to save the packaging and inserts because the copy is SO good.

I’m a total student when it comes to marketing and copy. I don’t ever have to create anything from scratch again because of the physical and virtual folders that I have saved.

You can do this too!

Let me give you a couple of tools and tactics to help you:

  1. Only swipe sales page copy, ads, home pages that you know are converting. Don’t ever swipe or copy anything if you don’t know it’s working and making them money. One way to be sure is to know your competition. And if you see an ad a lot, especially on social media, over a period of time, then it’s most probably converting. Example – anything Dan Kennedy writes to sell things. Totally recommend his Ultimate Sales Letter book. Big spenders like Tony Robbins, or any other big companies or influencers out there.
  2. Best Swipe Tool for Chrome – If you don’t use Chrome Extensions, you’re totally missing out! Click Here to access their extensions web store. Not to worry the majority of these are no charge.

    My favorite screenshot grabbers are Nimbus Capture and Web Page Screenshot. Both of these are excellent in taking screenshots of sales letters, ads, live web pages, and more. I use these ALL the time during a LIVE launch because they always take these pages down. And I store them on my computer for later use when I’m working on a new launch.
    What’s cool about these extensions is they will capture even the LONGEST sales letters ever and save them as jpegs.

    Click here for a short video on HOW to do this.
  3. Take Your Screen Grabs to the Next Level – I’d encourage you not to just take the screenshot of the sales page. I take screenshots of their WHOLE ONLINE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE (aka marketing funnel) from the optin page, to thank you page, download page, video page, order, or upsell pages.

    This has saved my bacon many times. Especially when I’m working on a complicated launch. It’s always helpful to know how they worded their guarantee or did they put testimonials on their order page? How did they position their 3 offers? And more.
  4. Looking for a Facebook Ad? Search Facebook Ads Library – This was really cool when I learned this from Frank Kern. (I bought some of his copywriting and FB courses.) If you’re looking for an ad on Facebook, no need to search Facebook or do endless scrolling to find it. Trust me, it will be fruitless. Just go here.

    Or search for Facebook/Ads/Library on Google and it will come up. When you use this tool, you can literally find any ad in your category, or from a specific person, or company. Then what I do is click on it and follow the funnel. Hello – Nimbus Capture – I need that screenshot!

One Important Note: I don’t ever plagiarize. I use these screenshots for design, positioning, and what and how they wrote their copy,. Did they do an upsell or down-sell? How did they launch their product?

Plus, I like to see the flow of their copy and their online customer experience (aka marketing funnel). These swipe files are for my eyes only to jumpstart my ideas.

I always look at them before I work on an online customer experience campaign (aka marketing funnel) or launch. I do my research and use my swipe file, my templates to inspire me and the launch process, and the copy.

This way it’s more plug-n-play. No more staring at blank screens or creating anything from scratch.

I got this idea from Dan Kennedy. He’s the swipe file master.

Not to worry if you don’t have a swipe file yet. You have time to create one.

And if you ever have a project, or want some help, email me. I’m happy to share what I can to help you.

Remember, we’re all in this together. A rising tide always floats all boats. I honestly believe there is no such thing as competition. The people that want to work with you, or attracted to your style, experience, and how you can help them.

It’s all about positioning, and of course how you market using your personality.

Click here to check out my article on Personality In Copy

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