Standing out as a content writer when you offer the same services as every other content writer is hard. We’re talking blog posts, case studies, white papers… But if you’re willing to go beyond the expected and find deeper problems your clients have, you can carve out a very different kind of business. For the 414th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I spoke with content strategist Sarah Hopkinson about how she found a problem that she can solve and be the only content mixologist doing what she does. If you’re a content writer who wants to solve bigger problems than writing blog posts for SEO, you’re going to like this one. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.

Stuff to check out:

The Pocket Guide Sarah Created for us

Ry Schwartz Podcast Episode

Everybody Writes by Anne Handley

Sarah’s website

The Copywriter Club Facebook Group

The Copywriter Underground

Full Transcript:

Rob Marsh:  A lot of content writers focus on serving clients who have obvious content needs. They know they need blog posts for SEO or case studies for a sales funnel. They’re solving problems that their clients know they have. And while there are plenty of opportunituies for copywriters in this space, there is a ton of competition too. Because a lot of writers, especially writers who are just starting out, will gravitate to these obvious problems and the clients who know they need these assets.

But there are deeper content needs that are a bit less obvious. And they can be a rich opportunity for the smart copywriters who can unlock them. Let me give you an example… there are hundreds of podcaster and video channel owners with months or even years of episodes full of great ideas and insights. But most podcast listeners don’t have the time to listen to every episode in order to get those insights. Take this podcast for example, if you were to listen to every episode, it would take you twelve weeks if you listened 8 hours a day to hear everything we’ve shared. But what if an enterprising content writer could unlock those insights so listeners didn’t have to put in the time, but could get the ideas in a lead magnet or PDF resource for a client. Now that’s a non-obvious content opportunity that a lot of clients have but almost no copywriters offer.

Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, and on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I’m speaking with content strategist and podcast content mixologist Sarah Hopkinson. Sarah has created a business that does exactly that—uncovers the best lost and hidden content that podcasters have in their archives, then helps her clients find new uses for those assets. Sarah has staked out a unique position in a niche with a ton of potential clients that almost no one else is serving. And I asked her how and why she did it. Stay tuned to here what she had to say…

Before we jump in with Sarah…

On this episode we’ll talk about the kind of lead magnets and other content that Sarah creates for her clients. We actually asked Sarah to go through some of our older episodes to find the very best ideas that our guests shared about finding clients. If you’d like to see what she discovered, simply visit thecopywriterclub.com/pocket. If you go to that url, you’ll be able to download a report that shares the ideas that Sarah uncovered on those older podcasts—ideas that still work today. Any way, check it out at thecopywriterclub.com/pocket

And now, let’s go to our interview with Sarah…

Sarah, welcome to The Copywriter Club Podcast. Tell us, how did you become a copywriter and a podcast content strategist?

Sarah Hopkinson: Hey Rob, it is great to be here and I’m so excited to talk to you. I got into copywriting through like many copywriters, a slightly long journey. I did a degree in French and linguistics, which really set me up for life in France, and I decided that that was my goal to move from Britain to France, so I did that. When I arrived in Nice in the south of France, I bounced around a little bit, did a few small jobs before I landed a job with a big travel company producing content for them. in English and French. So that was kind of content writing and also research, content curation. But then in 2020, the world changed quite substantially with COVID and I was made redundant. And as part of my redundancy process, it took quite a long time. So I had time to think about I wonder what I want to do next after this job. And I’d heard of copywriting before, and I started telling people that I wanted to be a copywriter until somebody said to me, Oh, great. So what is that? And I thought, what an unfair question to ask. Um, so I had to start doing research on copywriting, uh, and I found out that it still interested me. It was what I wanted to do. So that led to me creating my own business in 2021, Copyhop. Uh, and I was recommended the Copywriter Club podcast by a friend and I did the accelerator, found my niche and here we are today.

Rob Marsh: So content strategist for podcasts is something that’s a little bit different. There aren’t a lot of copywriters. Well, there are a few copywriters certainly doing podcast type work, but you’re kind of in a niche that’s pretty small and maybe a niche that you’ve carved out or kind of created on your own. So tell us, why did you choose content for podcasts?

Sarah Hopkinson: Yes, I chose it because I’ve been into podcasting for a long time just as a hobby, listening to podcasts. So when I started my business as a copywriter, I thought if there are writing services that podcasters need. And through kind of poking around on the internet and looking at the podcasters that I follow, I noticed that they had show notes. So I started selling podcast show notes on Fiverr. And I have to say as a service, it really took off in a short space of time. It got quite popular. And I had quite a regular client base who would ask me for show notes. And then they started asking me for other things. For example, mostly blog posts, but also picking out highlight quotes and writing a bit of social media copy for their podcasts. And I got great reviews about that. And it made me think, I feel like there is something here that podcasters need this service because they need to keep promoting that podcast. They want to build a community around that podcast. And they’re doing that by publishing this content in various places on the Internet. And also, you know, there’s value in a podcast episode. But if you don’t keep on advertising that one podcast episode, it kind of sits in the archives and dies. And I thought, I bet that there’s scope here to turn content that podcasters have already made into something that continues to make them value instead of it being kind of a one-time effort that brings in a few listeners and then you just shelve it and don’t go back to it. So that was the idea behind offering the services. But yeah, it was really through the help of The Accelerator that I was able to kind of shape and define what I wanted to offer to my podcasting clients.

Rob Marsh: So I’m not really intending this to be an ad for the accelerator, but talk to us a little bit about that process that you went through as you were thinking through, okay, I want to do this. How did you then say, okay, these are the services I’m going to offer. Are these the kinds of clients that I’m going to work with? What was your thinking there?

Sarah Hopkinson: I think I had kind of the kernel of the idea of there is something more here that podcasters need. But, um, I think that the program helped me to develop exactly what it was that I wanted to offer podcasters and to help me kind of shape it in my mind of working with podcasters on projects. So I think that the, you know, the support that you and Kira gave me was really valuable for me being able to do that. Um, But I think really the process around it was also thinking about it from the point of view of what suits my life and my business that I can offer as well, which was a piece of the picture that I hadn’t really put in there, but obviously it’s very important to think about that too. about what you can realistically do as an online service provider. So I think that, yeah, going through the program helped me to take something that was an idea into a full-blown website and service that I offer. Almost an online persona, really.

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