2088 – Effective Copywriting Tips for Interior Designers with Content Vertical’s Masha Koyen

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1:05With us right now, it's Masha Coyen. Masha, you are a copywriter and messaging strategist. Your website is contentvertical.com, of which you are the founder. Masha, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks. It's my pleasure, Josh. Great to be here. Well, please do give us an overview of the work that you do. Of course. So I'm a messaging strategist and a copywriter for Content Vertical. This is a microagency for interior designers, and essentially I help interior designers lend their ideal clients through messaging strategy, through copy on their website and marketing. And that's what I do. I developed this really cool signature framework.

1:46It's called Reveal. And it's essentially I'm researching and interviewing my clients' clients to get to the pain points and their ideal, their desires in order to write copy. Yeah. Well, okay. So I'm curious about your take on the copywriting world today in the age of most business leaders very actively using AI tools. Help us navigate this world, Masha, if you can. Yeah, of course. No, and it's a great question because AI is getting bigger and bigger, but what it will not replace is that extra added element of emotional connection, which yes, AI, we should all be using AI for different purposes.

2:34But I feel like when you really try to get to know your audience, when you're interviewing your clients, when you want that strategic messaging, AI cannot simply replace that. You can certainly use that to simplify your work, to kind of use that as an aid, but it cannot just replace it because I can always tell maybe because I'm a copywriter and I'm way too close to that. But when I'm looking at various website copy and I'm like, okay, AI wrote that. I can easily tell. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously it will get better, right? And I think too that, you know, obviously if you're just taking the off the shelf output of what AI gives you, it's just, there's voice, right?

3:18And voice matters. Voice is part of our brand. Voice is, you know, what creates those mental pictures. And, you know, that's again, why I think it's critical that we're thoughtful about the words that we use and not just accept the default that maybe a first draft might be given to us. Are you anti-AI or where do you see an appropriate place in the world of copywriting for AI? I'm actually not anti-AI. I use AI for various things specifically for when it comes to researching your ideal audience because I'm all about getting to know your ideal audience because this is truly the best way to get to know your audience this is truly the best way to produce really strong marketing copy that actually connects emotionally so I use AI for things like you know I would get together a room of like a virtual room of your ideal clients I would give AI various prompts and say hey you are the interior designer of this, you are the interior designer of that.

4:24And then I would give them questions to kind of get to know them a little bit better. So AI is pretty cool at that. It kind of replaces all the other research means that you could be using and it's more difficult. Like for example, you've never worked with your ideal clients. How else can you get to know them if you want to step up your game in business and work with your premium clients? AI can help you with that because you know, it's got access to everything that has been posted and researched and published in the past. Yeah. All right. So let's talk particularly around the world that you are in.

5:02You know, obviously, if we're talking about interior designers design, what is the very common, you know, for those of us who are not in that world, can you just kind of paint a little bit a picture of what that culture is like of folks that work in that space and particularly as it relates to their ability to grow their businesses? Yeah. And it's actually, I, you know, this is my niche. I work with interior designers, but I've worked with other industries as well. And I find that they're so similar, like the challenges that you are experiencing as a service provider. So I'm sure your audience are either, you know, they have a product or they have a service, The challenges that business owners in these different industries experience are actually very similar.

5:49It is how to produce, you know, strategic, consistent marketing in your brand voice, the one that connects and lends you premium clients. So the challenges are all similar. The things that we all want are also similar. So there are a lot of different parallels and, you know, the strategies that work for interior designers will work for other service providers. Because at the end of the day, we all want our marketing to speak to those clients that we want to work with. Yeah. Masha, tell me about your work. Like when someone comes to you, what are they usually complaining about? Or where are their gaps?

6:30Or what do they need? Yeah. The biggest thing that they come to me for, so my specialty is website copywriting. So they come to me because their websites are simply not working. They build their websites. Yeah. Yeah. And make sure. And I didn't want to. I just want to. And so sorry for interrupting. So the question is not so much like they're not looking for copy. Right. There's a pain point that they're experiencing that's underneath that. They may not recognize that it is their language or their copy or how they're describing or communicating about their stuff. They just know that they have other problems.

7:03And how might they explain those problems? Yeah, the biggest thing that they say is, I am not attracting my ideal audience. That is the number one biggest pain point that they come to me with. They may not know in your own words, they may not know what exactly they need in order to solve that pain point, but they're simply not attracting. They're working with tire kickers. Their website, their marketing is kind of attracting, you know, not their ideal clients. They may not have the budgets in place that they want. And that's where I can come in. Yeah. And what does that engagement look like? Tell me about, like, how do you begin?

7:43I would imagine it probably begins with a little bit of work before you get going on, like, obviously, the research phase. Tell me about that part of it. Yeah. So as I mentioned before, I have a six step reveal framework and it all starts with research. You're absolutely right. The biggest chunk of my work is actually research and client interviews. Before I write a word of copy, I do my research. I interview your clients. So we all start with this kind of the first step in getting to know your client, getting to know their voice, getting to know their audience. Who are they trying to attract?

8:20That's the number one step. Then I'm going into competitive analysis. I'm trying to see the competitive landscape, you know, who are the main key players in your industry? What are they like? What are their messaging? What are they leading their messaging with? And then I go into client interviews, which is the biggest step in that process. I interview your clients. And here's the thing, I interview your clients not just to understand their pain points and their desires and their motivations and how do they make decisions, but also to understand the language that they use when they speak about the problems that they have.

8:57Because when I capture it, when I'm able to capture that language in your website copy, that means I'm speaking the language of your ideal clients. So that's how it works. So my process, as I said, is six steps. A lot of it is research before I write a word of copy. And only then I go into outlining the website copy and writing. For someone that may not yet be ready to engage you, let's say that they're really early stage. What are some ways that we can better ask questions so that we can figure out or communicate more in the language of our customer and not in our own language? I think a lot of us, you know, when we start a company, you know, you have to start with something.

9:39So I think a lot of what comes out generally tends to be very us focused, right? It's kind of more of like this internal doc of what our goals are, not necessarily coming from an empathic view from our ideal customers or clients. I'm sure you see that a lot when you look at these first drafts of, you know, these web presence or social media presence that your potential clients are showing. But again, back to my original question here, what are some ways that someone who is just at the self-service level right now, like what can they do? Maybe it's just how they filter when they read their own stuff.

10:18Any rules of thumb here? Yeah, absolutely. Well, first and foremost, you got to use more you and your in your website copy and your marketing messaging. Because as you said, because it's all about us. When we look at our marketing messaging, it's very tempting to just talk about yourself, talk about how you've started your business. What are the features of your service or your product? But one of the best tricks that I can give you is use you and your. Literally look at your website copy or your marketing messaging. Check it out. how do you start your sentences? If it starts with we do this, and this is how good we are, and we provide this, switch it up, like switch it up, literally rephrase that use AI, AI is great at that, you know, rephrase, but give it the prompt, you know, to say that I want to reframe this from the audience centric point of view, where you literally start your sentences with and your and it's such a simple tweak, but such an impactful tweak, tweak, what it does in your audience's eyes is when they're reading your website copy and your marketing messaging, they feel like you are speaking directly to them.

11:27You come from that empathy standpoint. It's not, it's no longer about you. It's still your service. It's still your product, but you are speaking from the audience's point of view. And that's a simple tweak. Another thing that I would recommend is on your about page. Yes. It's, you know, this is the place where we can talk about our credentials and kind of like use it as a resume, but create this relatable brand story because people connect with stories more than facts. So share your why. Help people understand why did you start this business? Create that human connection on your about page. So it's more about showing your why to your audience and make sure that it mirrors what your audience actually cares about.

12:12Yes. Wonderful. Masha, share just a little bit more. We started talking about, you know, when you're working with somebody, obviously you do with a lot of, you do a lot of research and interviews. And I would imagine what you're interviewing your happy clients, your ideal customers, like, you know, so it kind of starts with knowing who that ideal persona is and then speaking directly to that person is kind of, you know, the traditional advice, I think. and when we think about targeting is that process. So it sounds like you do that. So once that is done then, is it a matter? And here's a question I have.

12:59Do you often find yourself looking at existing copy and retrofitting or replacing what's currently there? Or do you often find yourself kind of starting a little bit more from scratch? Because I think also as founders, when we've reevaluated our copy, we've done one of two things. If I don't have much time, often it's just a little bit of retrofitting. But it's interesting because when I do take the time to do the job the right way, right? And maybe I'm working with someone who's kind of helping me with this. Often it's a complete rewrite. Like the structure, the flow, everything is completely redone.

13:45So I'm sorry, this is such a long winded question. Here we go. You know, part of this too is that, you know, sometimes maybe we start with like, if, you know, if your website was built on a template, you know, maybe you just kind of got an out of the box website and you just kind of replaced it with your own words and you followed the prompts that were kind of pre-built into the template. That's probably not the going to be the highest performing or the highest engaging way of doing that. Did you get a question out of what I just - I did, I did. My little soliloquy there? I did. And it's funny that you asked that because a lot of times when I get a request, hey, I just need to tweak my copy a little bit.

14:25I always kind of like chuckle to myself because it's usually 90 % of the time it is a complete rewrite of the website copy because you're not starting from the fundamentals. You did not ask the right questions to really, really get to know the audience And maybe when you built that website originally, two things could have happened. A, you looked at all of your competitors, all the websites out there and tried to mimic what they have, because that's what we all tend to do. Because, hey, OK, this is a great website. I kind of want to sound like that. So that's where we all start. Or you started working with everyone.

15:01And then what that means is that your website copy kind of speaks to everyone and kind of to no one. So we have to start from scratch. We have to ask the right questions of our audience. We have to identify who that ideal audience is because at the end of the day, your copy needs to speak to that one ideal client. And that's kind of like a copywriting rule out there is that your messaging has to like picture that one perfect client in your mind and make all of that messaging, all of the marketing speak to that particular client. So to answer your question, it is usually a rewrite because we have to start with the fundamentals.

15:35we have to start by identifying who your audience is, what are their pain points? What are their desires? How do they make decisions? What obstacles do they have? What kind of concerns do they have? Because then your website copy and all of your messaging has to answer a particular set of questions in the right order in order to drive all of that, all of that messaging for them to take that one single action that you want them to take. So yes, it is starting from scratch oftentimes. more often than not. Yeah. All right. Masha, your website is contentvertical.com to our friend that's been listening to our conversation.

16:13And maybe they're ready to chat with you. Maybe not. Right. So let's give them some maybe next steps if they want to either learn more about this topic or, you know, again, certainly if there are opportunities, I don't know if you have any resources or anything like that. Yeah, of course. So definitely check out my website or join me on my Instagram, Masha.copywriter. But I also have a downloadable on my website and that's how to attract your premium clients. So if you want, if this is something that you're interested in, in order, if you're up-leveling in the midst of up-leveling your audience, up-leveling your business, trying to attract that ideal client, there are a couple of strategies that I'm sharing in that download.

16:55So make sure to download. You then get on my list. And every Friday, I give you actionable tips for marketing and messaging. Yeah. All right. Again, the website, contentvertical.com. Masha Koyan, thank you so much for joining us. Really, really love the conversation. Again, to our friend that's listening, if you know anyone who is an interior designer, please share this episode with them. Send them to contentvertical.com. We love our interior designers that make the world a more beautiful place. The aesthetic makes us just feel amazing. We need them. And Masha, I'm grateful that you're helping them get connected with the folks that would really value from the impact that they can have.

17:39Masha Coyan, thank you for joining us. Thanks so much, Josh.

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