Elizabeth McKenzie: The Email-First Strategy That’s Going to Get You BOOKED Solid

If you’ve ever felt like you were forced to focus on a platform or channel that didn’t jive with your natural inclinations for showing up with your content – this interview with Elizabeth McKenzie is for you. Think of it as a giant permission slip to centre your strategy around the platform that does feel like home for you. Today, we’re exposing Elizabeth’s content strategy, giving you a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of her email-first system.

But first, a little bit about her – Elizabeth is a marketing strategist, sales copy expert, and the founder of Write or Die—a bold, voice-first brand helping entrepreneurs master the words that make people buy. She has degrees in Marketing, Media & Comms, and Speech Pathology (plus a mini MBA to boot), she blends strategy with storytelling to help her clients write emails and sales copy that convert like hell without sounding like everyone else online. She's the creator of The Writing Room, host of the Make It Bankable podcast, and (excitingly) the author of the forthcoming romcom Bed Chemistry (coming out in Dec 2025). 

So let’s expose her, shall we?

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Links Mentioned:

• Elizabeth's Website
• Pitch Perfect: The Messaging Guide To Help You Write The Most Profitable Sentence In Your Business
• Fully Booked Challenge
• Elizabeth’s Rom-Com Debut Novel – Bed Chemistry (Coming Dec 2025)

Full Transcript – Elizabeth McKenzie EXPOSED Interview

Hailey: Thank you so much for being here. I'd love to just dive right in. I'm excited to get into this and when I asked to interview you, one of the things I love so much about your approach is this email first strategy and the fact that I had a client who did that years ago and she was writing the email first and depending on the response, turn it into social. And I've never found anyone else who does that. So really, I'm so excited when we started working together and get to hear about that. I'm another unicorn, because I love that approach. I love that strategy of I think it's just so permission giving to be able to focus on one thing. So before we get too ahead of ourselves, just kind of a background, I'd love to get the lay of the land and how did you get into copywriting? What was that initial spark and how did it turn into what it is today, this thriving copywriting business?

Elizabeth: So when I went to university, I just didn't know. I wasn't the kind of person who was in high school and knew what they wanted to be. There were a lot of people who were saying, I want to be a paramedic. And I'm thinking, how do you know you want to be a paramedic at 18 years old? I didn't know. All I knew was if I got a general business degree, I could be okay. I could figure it out. So along the way, when I went to get my Bachelor of Commerce, I decided that marketing was going to be my major. And so I majored in marketing and media communications. And it wasn't until I got into the corporate world of marketing where I was very disillusioned with being a glorified paper pusher as a marketing assistant. So along the way, I somehow fell into the blogging for money space. I somehow stumbled onto someone's blog. So this is a decade ago. This is when people were blogging and I was thinking, wow, people have the audacity to talk about stuff online and sell things. And they're not even—I was young and 20 something and I'm thinking, they're not even that good. I could do this. So I got the audacity and I started a blog and I started blogging. And it wasn't until I was thinking, okay, how do I monetize this blog that I realized that I had a specific skillset, which was marketing. And so I started in marketing coaching, and it wasn't until I had a whole bunch of clients where we were doing the strategy. I was doing the campaigns, but I had to send them off to go write it. And I was thinking, I just want to write it for you. I just want to write it for you. And so I basically went through that niche down really from marketing strategist into copywriter. Almost once I gave myself that permission that I could do it almost overnight, and I sent out an email, I remember sending out an email to my list, letting them know this is what I was doing, and I got five clients immediately. And that was the end of the copywriting story of where I pivoted from marketing strategist and coach into copywriter and then basically ran a copywriting agency for the last decade, until really the last 18 months where I've also been working with you and pivoting and that kind of stuff. So, yeah. Does that answer the question?

Hailey: That's perfect. Were you always writing as a kid? Were words always for you?

Elizabeth: Yeah, I was. It's so funny because I thought—I only have hindsight now when I look back. I remember one of these school holiday activities, my mom taking us to do a story writing class, and it was so fun. And then me finding my old English essays and so all the little things were there, but I just didn't know that there was even a career opportunity. I remember—and it's so interesting because my love for writing really showed up outside of copywriting too. I was going through a breakup at the time and started watching the Mindy Project, which I love that show. Oh my God. Then I fell in love with Mindy. I mean, I fell in love with Mindy Kaling from the office, but found the Mindy Project and I was just obsessed with her for a while and binging all of her interviews. And there was this one interview about becoming a comedy writer, and I was thinking, that's a job, that's a career you could do. She knew it, she knew it existed, and then she pursued that as a career. I was thinking, I didn't know that was a career. And so that kind of also started planting these seeds and I started screenwriting first, and now I'm putting out my debut rom-com novel in December. So on top of copywriting, all the other writing was. So I'm just writing constantly all the time.

Hailey: Yeah. Words are definitely a thing. So funny that you mention that, because now I'm thinking anytime I've had the privilege of reviewing any copy you have written, I'm thinking, I totally get Mindy Kaling vibes from that. Yes. So I love that. It's the pieces falling into place.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Yeah. She's my greatest inspiration and I even have a little dedication section in my book to her, thank you for paving the path for me. Oh, I love that. Maybe she'll see it.

Hailey: Oh my gosh. Well, switching gears to content. I'd love to know how does content currently work in your business? What do you put out on a regular or semi-regular basis?

Elizabeth: Right. So for my ride or die business, my most regular, my most consistent is emails, and I've got over the decade, I've gone through phases, but it is always minimum one a week. So I've been emailing my list at least once a week for the past 10 years. That's amazing. And yeah, and I've tried different cadences in terms of I did three times a week for a while. I'm now doing it two times a week. I think that's a really nice cadence for me. It feels I'm connecting with people at the rate that they need to connect at, in this fast paced world that we live in at the moment. And yeah. So that is my most consistent, I feel I've had maybe four months off total, ever in a decade where I didn't email my list and then I was going through another messy breakup where I was thinking, I need to just not email for a little bit. But other than that, yeah, so I would say email is my most consistent piece of content that I've created. And from my email, I will—I used to always put it into a blog post when blogging was big back then, but I kind of got a bit lazy and moved away from that when I felt blogging was a bit over. So yeah, it's always been email. My social media has been sketchy, patchy at best. I've gone through phases where people are saying, you need to show up on socials. I'm thinking, okay. But it's always been, what did I write in my email and how can I put that on my social?

Hailey: I love that when it comes to—because that's just incredible to think of. If you think about 10 years, four months, that's nothing but 10 years of doing something consistently that is just wild. Do you find that your process for creating it—you put it out at least once a week, what does that typical weekly process look? Are you very disciplined about it? Do you plan it a lot in advance? Do you just think of what you want to write that week? What does that creation look like?

Elizabeth: Yeah, so I don't—I'm not a batcher. I do not have anything scheduled for next week. I had my email go out today. I have nothing scheduled for next week. But what I really do is I understand my business objectives and my sales and marketing objectives. So I'm never just emailing people for the sake of it. I'm looking at my calendar—what am I moving? Am I moving into a launch? Am I in a nurture space? Do I need to get people ready for six months time to buy something or six weeks time to buy something? Are we in a season of pivoting? Am I in a season of I want to just sell done for you work? So it's—I always start with that business objective with every email that I send. What is my goal for this? How does this tie in directly to my business, my business objectives? And that's always been my starting point for my email. So because I have that and because I have the discipline of being able to—I've done this for a decade, I don't feel I need a lot of prep time because I kind of know that stuff the back of my hand I guess in a sense. But the strategy is always okay working backwards from my sales goals. And I think that's been the most helpful because that's the content that converts. I'm not just creating content in a vacuum for the sake of it. I'm not just showing up for the sake of it. I'm always knowing what I want to sell, what my sales goals are, what I'm working towards. And it's funny, in the decade that I've run my business, I'm working with my clients too. I mean, that is quite revolutionary, which it shouldn't be, but it is. Because when I work with clients, I'm asking, what's your sales goal? What are we working on? I don't—I'm thinking, what? How do we not know? Yeah. And even now when I'm coaching one of my clients and she's saying, oh, I have an idea for this. And before we even execute an idea, it's very much okay, tell me how this relates to your business objective. What's your objective in this? What do you want out of this? What is the goal of this? Once you can look at content through that lens, all of a sudden it becomes so much more powerful.

Hailey: Yeah. I think two reflections there. It's number one, I'm sure you've connected the pieces. The fact that you started as a marketing mentor and strategist, I'm sure that informs that practice. Right? I feel you probably bring so much richness to the copy you do because you also have that strategic lens with it. I think that's really cool and probably the second thing that I was reflecting on is probably that captures the magic of your newsletter, right? The fact that it's in the moment and what you're most excited about in that moment to write about rather than batching for three months ahead of time or a month ahead.

Elizabeth: Yeah. And it allows you to really draw on what is going on. So if you're having—I was even talking to one of my business besties the other day and she was asking, how did you brainstorm your most recent lead magnet? And I said, it came from a conversation that I had with a client. We were doing a launch debrief. She said something that snagged in my mind. And so I always encourage people, in those conversations that you're having, the sales calls are just where you can find content you are coaching, I'm sure. This isn't going to be brand new information, but there's always coaching themes when you have coaching clients and you realize everyone's saying this same thing or this one thing, this one theme keeps popping up. I've heard this one theme kind of just on replay multiple times. Those are nuggets for you to be saying, that is what you can create content around as well. So I feel there's also that kind of train to listen, or even if you are doom scrolling or you're just scrolling and you see three people saying the same thing online in your industry, it's not to go ahead and say the same thing, but it's that is a topic. What can I—how can I put my spin on that particular topic? So, yeah.

Hailey: And you have been doing this for 10 years. I'm curious, do you feel your relationship to your newsletter to content has changed from way back then to now?

Elizabeth: Oh, totally. I mean, you know, I think also the softwares have changed. Regulatory things have come in and changed. You know, people are saying, oh, we're having a—oh my God, it's so hard to get someone to open my email. Oh my, yeah. It's so hard. So of course I've had to write trends and. Look, I'll admit I have declared on a very frustrated day, email is dead. And to only take it back the next day when I'm thinking, hang on, I take that back. That's not true. So I've definitely fallen for a bit of the drama, especially over the last few years. And especially when I hear other people—not right—it's harder. But I think my biggest relationship shift with my content and email would be in relation to my business model pivot that I'm kind of in the middle of doing. So while I was running my agency style, which is gun for hire, just hire me to write your copy. You know, I didn't need much. I really only—I could send an email three times a week and just be filled with clients constantly, forever. I didn't direct people off to blog posts. I didn't have a podcast. I didn't show up on social media. Caveat. I did run—I've always run ads. In that 10 years. I've been running ads to my list. So my list is always growing. It's fresh people. There are—I'm sorry I'm getting fresh people on my list. I'm growing a community. That's the only way I really use social media. So in the pivot and—sorry, let me just back up—in that sense of selling my Done For You Work, I didn't really need a lot more than just me, my thought leadership and showcasing my skills as a writer in my emails, that served me well. Now that I'm in this stage of my life where I'm pivoting away from purely Done for you into mentoring and coaching and becoming an educator, my relationship with content needs to shift so I can highlight who I am as an educator, and that does involve a bit more long form content like podcasting and bringing that blog back and having a bit more of a mix in my content versus when I was just that gun for hire copywriting agency. Yeah. It could literally just be thought leadership with a little bit of teaching and mostly just hire me and that would work. So my relationship has shifted with content as my business model has shifted.

Hailey: That totally makes sense. Yeah. Because you are writing a book, you have a busy life, you have client projects that you work on. How do you—you gotta tell us the secret? How do you stay consistent with content? How do you prioritize that weekly newsletter and all of the other offshoot content, right? When you are doing all these other writing projects?

Elizabeth: Well, the—okay, the truth is in really busy periods of time, I have 10 years of content. I have a bank of content. So if there is nothing that I can pull from and I'm really, really busy. I can go back into my bank, I will find something, I will refresh it. I'll make it relevant for today. If I need to, I will add a new spin on it and repurpose it so I'm not starting from scratch every single time I'm writing an email. So yeah, it depends on the season. If I'm really, really busy, so for example, at the start of the year when I was in deep developmental edits for my book that I had actual due date for my publisher, there was a lot of going through my archives, finding something, and refreshing it. And the cool thing is everything still is relevant. I really love that. Going back into my archive and finding my content, I'm thinking, oh damn, that's still really good put that out there, especially in today. So I think this is a really good pause, encouragement moment for anyone listening that—and I know your mentor challenged you once to don't write new content for an entire year.

Hailey: Hyperventilating. Yes. It was very hard.

Elizabeth: Yes, I know. At one stage she was also my mentor and she was also saying, Liz, you don't need to create new content. You have enough. She's right. It's exactly. So I also went through that phase too, and it was a good—it was a good challenge because it just—I think because I was purely email first too, email does have a bit of an expiry in the inbox. If someone reads it, you can reuse that stuff six months later. It doesn't have to be—it doesn't have to be nine years later. You can resend that email six months later because people are not going back into your emails and binging it. They would a podcast or they would a blog, so I think there is, yeah, something there.

Hailey: I think that's something that I am—it baffles me—it doesn't, but it does. When people are asking, the number one question that comes up when I talk about repurposing content is, well, how often can I reshare it? I'm saying, you know, a little bit of a hard truth here is no one is that obsessed with you that they are paying attention to everything you were putting out. As much as we'd like to believe that they are, that is not—they don't, and if they do remember it, likely they're in a completely different spot that it hits different, right?

Elizabeth: And we hear the old adage that people need to hear the same message seven times for it to even hit. So if you kind of, whether you believe in the magic number seven or it's five or it's 29, I don't know what it is, but the repetition is actually super valuable. So even if someone remembers that you wrote that and then they read it again, it's through a different lens. They're processing it again, maybe that was skim reading it. Now they're picking up on something different. People need that repetition anyway. So if anything, you kind of want someone to have read it and then read it again for it to get the most out of the piece of content that you've written.

Hailey: Yes. Yeah. I mean, I've watched Gilmore Girls 13 times take different things every time. Right?

Elizabeth: I've watched the Mindy Project so much, I'm just quoting it constantly. Do you think that I'm saying, wow, how? This is crap now on the fifth rerun? No. Exactly.

Hailey: What do you think, this is probably a really hard question to think through your archive because it's so vast, but what is your favorite piece of content that you've ever created?

Elizabeth: Okay, because you said pick your darling. Okay. So there was this one piece of content I wrote. I watched this movie, Eddie the Eagle. Have you heard of Eddie The Eagle?

Hailey: Yes. Okay.

Elizabeth: It's about—it's the story of a kid in the UK who wanted to be a ski jumper, and his biggest dream was to go to the Olympics and be a ski jumper. The UK didn't have a ski jumping team, so he, long story short, he sucked. He still qualified. He went to the Olympics. He sucked, but he fulfilled his dream of going to the Olympics and Taron Egerton—do you know? I know who you're talking about, but yeah. Yeah. Names. You're surname, debatable. He plays Eddie. It's so brilliant. I think Hugh Jackman was in it. Anyway, I saw it at the movies, I was so moved by it that I wrote an email about it. I wrote a blog post about it, about how it's—not even about, he didn't, his goal wasn't to win the Olympics. His goal was just to show up to the Olympics. And his whole life was around, I just want to go to the Olympics. I just want to go to the Olympics. And he sucked. He sucked so bad, but he lost it. Didn't matter. And so I really, I thought that was so inspiring for a business owner that I turned that into a piece of content about how bad do you want to be a business owner? That it's not about your money at the end of the month. It's not about whether you sell it, or, you know, we get so caught up in these tiny numbers or these little milestones that we deem whether we're a failure or whether we're a success. But it's you've won the Olympics if you get to be a business owner. So that's kind of one of my favorite pieces. I really love to kind of draw on—yeah, draw on what's going on outside of business to talk about business a lot of the time. I think that's really, it's really fun and I think it helps people process a lot what you're trying to say as well. So that was definitely one thing that stood out when I, yeah, you sent your prep questions and I'm thinking, which one? So that was the first one that came to mind. I didn't sit there and be saying, is that really your favorite? I was more thinking, look.

Hailey: That is an impossible question. Exactly. I'm thinking, that is an impossible question, but I need to know, especially with having created so much content. Right.

Elizabeth: And it's funny because I can—I recycled it every four years now. I think I've recycled it the Olympics. Yeah. Whenever, yeah. Whenever the Olympics come out, I'm saying, let's put it out there again. It's still relevant.

Hailey: Yeah, exactly. To stay consistent or even not when it comes to your content, do you have a favorite or go-to template or system that makes content easier for you?

Elizabeth: I guess. In terms of actually writing it?

Hailey: Yeah, yeah. Anything, yeah. Behind the curtains.

Elizabeth: What, okay. What's the magic? I would say the, I call it my soft pitch email template. And it's my, it's been my go-to since the dawn of time, basically that I started business. And really, it's really focused on storytelling. So the email is tell a story, slide into some relevant information, and then you can slide into your pitch at the end, your soft pitch, which is your offer or whatever it is you want someone to do. And so every single email I've every created generally follows that formula. So I kind of know that I don't need to, I'm not having to reinvent the wheel every time that I need to show up. And also, I know it converts, I know it works and you know, it really taps into what storytelling does for us humans. So it's kind of this fad proof formula, I guess that works no matter what. And yeah, allows you to, you know, we kind of talk about content sometimes in buckets—value and thought leadership and storytelling. And we try to kind of be having this rotation, but this kind of email puts it all into one, so it has the storytelling and the connection. It has the valuable information and thought leadership in there and it has those direct sales in there as well. So that is the one kind of formula that I follow every time I show up to write an email. And you know, there's ways that you can kind of—so, you know, it's not looking very structured. There's ways that you can kind of just, you know, mold it and shape it a little bit. But that's literally what I follow every time that I show up for an email with my list. Yeah.

Hailey: And I was just going to look at the launch plan that you have and I'm thinking, literally if you are watching this the day it comes out, you can go sign up for a challenge to learn all about that process too, right? Oh yeah, yeah. The fully booked, I'll pop that link. Yeah. A fully booked challenge down there too. Because I feel—Thank you. Yeah. I just, yeah, I think everyone should have the opportunity to learn email from somebody who's done it for 10 years and who's thrived at it for so long. Yeah. Thank you. When it comes to newsletters, I'm going to narrow in—yeah—zero in on newsletters and emails specifically, but how do you know when an email is working? How do you know, this one's a hit kind of thing? Yeah.

Elizabeth: Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes you don't know until two weeks later, five weeks later after the fact. So sometimes I feel invisible when I send out those emails. Sometimes it's not, you know, we know that we can't really rely on subject line, we can't rely on open rates really anymore. I know we can rely on click throughs, but as I mentioned, you know, for the decade that I've been writing emails, I never really sent people away from my email. So I didn't really have that kind of information. But the biggest that I know is a hit are the replies, getting people to reply to my email. So not necessarily buying but replying. And I also, it's so interesting, I think a lot of people don't talk about the fact that whether or not someone opens your email or not doesn't mean that they're building this brand awareness of you. I did a study once with my clients and I, whenever a client signed up with me, I would go and analyze their email behavior with me. I love their interactions with me. Right. And they wouldn't open an email for months. Right. And then two weeks before they inquire, they would go and open my emails. The last—interesting—the last three or four emails, they would go open them and then they would hire me to work with me. So what I realized, and what I think is really important that I want people to know is that it's not even about your emails being opened, you are your name and your brand is showing up in someone's inbox. You are getting brand awareness. Every single time you send an email, whether someone opens it or not, you are still building this brand awareness that is where you are getting that exclusive line in someone's inbox that they are seeing. And you're not fighting for someone's attention. I mean, yeah, you're fighting—sure there's other people in the inbox, but you've got your exclusive line there with your name and subject lines. So that's one thing that I used to tell myself when I feel really invisible. The other thing is when I actually have conversations with people. They will always tell me, I love your emails. Your emails hook me in. They're the only, but no one's writing that to me. Right. No one's actively—the, I feel the reply of the email was huge. Maybe five years ago I used to get a lot of email replies. Now I feel we're venturing more into that silent follower unless they actually meet you and then they tell you. So even, I remember when you and I first met, you're saying, I love your emails. And I'm thinking, okay, good. Thank, every time someone tells me, I'm thinking, thank you for saying that, because I feel so invisible sometimes. But, but yeah, I would say conversations, actually having conversations with people and they're saying, I love your emails. There you are. You're one of the only emails that I read. But also recognizing if, I reckon it would happen to anyone if you did that kind of little study into where did, when did your client engage with you, and then what was their email open rates, you know? And I've even had past clients be saying, I won't open your email for months, Liz. And then I'll open the one and it hits me, and then they want to work with me again. And so what do we want to take from this? It's your body of work. It's longitudinal, I guess in the sense of this email. Emails that you're doing, we think that maybe they only have the shelf life of the week that you send it out, but potentially it's longer than we think. I don't know. What do you think?

Hailey: I think of it in the context of a launch, right? Where people want to, every time we're doing kind of a launch debrief, and yes, of course we include that metric, how many people bought from this specific email, right? I deliver that with a huge caveat of it took all these other emails leading up to it, right? So even though we know this one is the thing that made them pull the trigger or finally purchase, it wouldn't have happened likely without those pre emails or some of those pre conversations. So to try to pinpoint it and put all the pressure on one email, it doesn't work that way. Yeah.

Elizabeth: Yeah, it's your body of work. It's your body of work that it's that breadth, the emails that consistent pattern of kind of showing up. And it's so interesting too, and I can really lean into what you're saying is two years ago, two and a half years ago, I did a really big launch and it was, it was a break even launch. I'll give—it wasn't the launch of my dreams, but it's so funny. I reckon if I looked at really the ROI from that launch two years ago with the one-on-one clients, I get and I go in and track and I'm thinking, they came from that launch, the launch that said, and I'll just see Brian, I think I would've at least two XD my launch results. Now if I look at the one-on-one clients that it has brought in from people who have, who came from that launch that didn't buy in that launch period, but have now purchased two years on as well.

Hailey: Yeah, that's the really interesting thing about having a service based business while you're also having an education based business is I've never found that I need to really heavily market my one-on-one services because by marketing the education stuff, by marketing even the lead in it always fills those spots, right? Anyways.

Elizabeth: Yeah. I a hundred percent agree every time, every time I've launched something off the back of it, the one-on-ones just fill up naturally. And it's so funny when I kind of stopped launching for a while and stopped kind of selling my courses, it was harder to fill my one-on-ones—not harder, but I had to actively do it instead of it just naturally.

Hailey: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Zooming into email first strategy or email first strategy, can you break it down for us and what does that look like? How does it work? What are some of the basics or building blocks of that strategy in your business.

Elizabeth: In terms of, yeah, how I organize?

Hailey: Yeah, I think so. How do you think—

Elizabeth: I feel I'm the most disorganized person in the world.

Hailey: And maybe that's part of the magic, but I also feel you're probably more organized than you give yourself credit for because it is, you said, right. It's always supporting a bigger business objective. Right, right, right. I'm just curious how all the pieces kind of come together in getting that out the door and making sure it's aligned

Elizabeth: Right. Well, I, and I think it is different for going into a launch versus if you're in that kind of slower, showing up nurturing mode. So I guess when it's, I think the thing about email and it, email first is I feel you touched on it a bit earlier when you talked about it being permission based, I've always felt my most authentic version of self. Yeah. Showing up on email. It's always, I've always said they are willingly have opted into my world. They are willingly in my world. And so that piece has really given me the ability to unfilter myself in a way. I feel I'm still very about social too. I'm still a bit—I still get very, I feel very, very vulnerable on social media, but in my email I feel I am bringing my best self to life. So I feel, I don't know why I want to touch on that. I think I just wanted to say that that has helped unlock the type of content that actually works and actually resonates with people is because I feel I said, my most safest self to be my most real and have a real thought and have a real opinion and actually use it in my content. So I think that's, that falls into that, you know, email first because it allows me to be more unfiltered in the beginning to really come up with my content ideas. So I feel, you know, because I, there's so many emails that I wouldn't, I'd be to even want to put on social media still. Yeah. Even though I'm saying, I'm the most confident person, you know? Not really, not all the time. Definitely not when I'm being forced on someone's, you know, for you page that feels very stressful to me. But people have willingly, I, you know, and I always remind myself, people have willingly you exercise their free will to come onto my mailing list. So that really has allowed me to kind of open up how I create content and my opinions and what I say. Yeah. And so I, I mean that's a huge thing in my email, first. I love that kind of strategy.

Hailey: I'm wondering about email first strategy. I love that you—and this is a community you've cultivated. You've been so consistent showing up. And so even though replies are less as they are for everyone, right? Yeah. I'm sure—do you ever, how do you know, okay, this newsletter, there's an idea here that I want to take and turn into something else because of how it performed in email. How does that, how does that, when was the last time that happened and what is your process, how do you turn it into other, replatform it basically? Right. Okay.

Elizabeth: So when I want to re-platform it usually, my emails are pretty long, but usually I'm going to want to expand on a little bit more, so because I'm a writer, I'm always going to repurpose into words first and then take it into something else, a blog. So, and I'm still always going to go email to blog to podcast. And then maybe social media, social media still always, always last and that's optional for me. So what I would do is write my email as I normally would in that kind of storytelling format. And, you know, in that storytelling format there's intro story and then there's slide into that opinion education point that I want to make that really connects the story to have people have that aha moment, if you will. That's the thing that I would expand on the most, that aha moment when I want to turn it into a blog. So and so what I would do is start thinking about how can I add more meat to the bones of my original—I want to take a stand on unsubscribe rates. And, you know, I wrote a blog about the unsubscribe. I even created a manifesto, the unsubscribe manifesto, where I'm saying, I would love, I really want to encourage people to lean into the unsubscribes instead of be so fearful of them. So, you know, I wrote a shorter, I wrote an initial shorter email, but when it came time to do the blog, it was really adding meat to the bones. What do I want to say? How do, why is this matter? And I feel why is my biggest question that I ask almost of every line in which I write, it's why did you say that? Can you expand on that? Can you give us a justification? I feel whenever you are writing content that is positioning you as a thought leader. You need to back up what you are saying. You can't just say, you can't just have an opinion for the sake of having an opinion. I mean, you can have any opinion you want as long as you can justify what you know. This is years, it's year seven debate when we in English class, you always have to have your justification and your, and any rebuttal you need to be able to justify why you've said what you've said. So I feel I really more lean into that. I guess that thought leadership piece comes out and the education piece comes out and that explanation and just that comes out more on the blog post side of things and then, then that's easier to turn into a script for the podcast.

And then if I'm feeling it, I can, if I'm feeling it, I would usually go back to my email because that's shorter form and see what kind of one-liners I can pull and put on social media because I don't feel I need to pull all that long form stuff. Doesn't need to go on social media. It's more of that, those short, snappy, you know, short form pieces can just go on social media for example as well. You know, I just launched, you know, my new pitch, perfect lead magnet, my messaging guide, and there was that one line in the ad, you don't need to louder marketing, you need one line that makes people care. And I just took that and I was saying, that's now, I'm putting that as my thing on socials as my hook on my reel. So that did really well. That organic reel did really well. I'm thinking, wow, okay. I love it. So

Hailey: I do that pitch perfect below. I think it's worth anyone kind of checking out. And I think what's so—you always see those repurposing guides, right? Where it always starts from do a video, then turn it into five LinkedIn posts, five the an email. I love that words starts with the email. Yeah.

Elizabeth: So people start with start with a video. It's very hard to start with video. Video's the final boss level of content, in my opinion. I know, yeah.

Elizabeth: What? At least with written form you have the ability to process it and you can edit it. And especially for, I feel I'm not the only business owner who has a vulnerability issue in feeling exposure, showing up online. I think that's across the board. So if someone's telling you to start with video, that is enough to just be saying, no. Yeah, I don't want to, yeah. But yeah, if you, if you can start with the written word, I know it might feel how do I dissect my thoughts? But if you can process that on the page, you just give yourself enough time to do that. It's a bit of a, it's the confidence piece. You need to be able to put it out into the world because you've, you've had time to, you know, you can process it and you can edit a little bit and then you can remove yourself from it.

Hailey: Yeah, I am the same as you. Even though I do video first, it starts with the video script, right? It starts with the script, right. Which I write because you, I'm a writer first and foremost. So it's writing that script, which then turns into, turns into all the other things. But I mean, I have had clients where it's just their sweet spot to have a really juicy topic, five bullet points under it, and go live, and then use that as the basis for their content, which to me is wild. My eyes are doing the same thing as yours, but I hear it, but different strokes for different folks, I guess, and what works for them, right? Right. Yeah. Oh man. But yeah, I, I love, that's what I love so much is your, it feels your emails are a one-stop shop for anything that you want to turn them into. The one-liners, the subject clients, right? Yeah.

Elizabeth: Right. I, a hundred percent. I will, you know, when I'm, when I'm going through feedback for my clients, a lot of the time I, I'm always saying, oh, this one liner group for socials, oh, this one liner. You could take this out and use it. So there's so much gold that you can mine just from your email. Oh, oh, this one little, this one little section, expand on it. And that it's your whole little education piece. So there's so much that you can take from your email where you can expand, but also just take those one liners too. And I think sometimes I feel if I had to create my long form content first, I will probably also feel overwhelmed. Yeah. Because you know, there is a lot more to it. There's a lot. You do have to think a little bit more. So sometimes I do find it's easy to structure more of a shorter, mid, not so short that it's just a hook, but a mid range kind of piece. And then know, okay, this is where, this is what, this is our bones, we can expand on it, we can shrink it a little bit. But it just kind of gives you the kind of, it's almost a structural outline, if you will, when you start with the email.

Hailey: Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking that too. And the, I love what you said about processing on the page, I'm sure, right? Yeah. That it helps you get your thoughts out about what that bigger piece is before you take on that undertaking.

Elizabeth: Right, right. Yeah. And a lot of the time, I mean a lot of the time when I'm coming up with content, you know, that first idea is never the, isn't the idea that I end up writing. Yeah. You know, a lot of the time there's half a page of just processing and junk and then you finally land on the point, oh, okay, this is the thing that I want, this is the thing that lands, this is the thing that I really want to talk about. So I think it gives you that space as well to scribble, you know? I feel I mean, if I feel if I'm, yeah. If I'm confronted with okay, show up on social media, and I'm thinking, what do you, I didn't have anything to scribble. I haven't been in the thought process, the thinking part yet. What do you mean show up on social media? I don't know what, but you know, I think it just giving yourself that time to scribble is where you, where those, those best ideas will come from too. Those best content pieces.

Hailey: I'm going to bastardize this, but that Joan Didion quote of I don't know what I think until I write it. Right, right. Which makes me think of that. So it feels to me your process, and maybe some sometimes are different, but it feels to me your process is really exploratory. Allowing yourself to scribble on the idea. Yeah. And then turn that into the email. Yeah.

Elizabeth: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Right. So you I always know, okay, I'm going to want to sell X, Y, and Z, so I'm still always I know my goal, but how, what do I, how am I going to make someone feel connected to that goal? I have to scribble, yeah, I need to kind of put some, so I might start with an idea going, oh. It's kind of crap, but I'll start there. So yeah, I've always said underneath the shit is the gold, underneath the pile of shit words is the gold. And so I just feel so many people stop at the pile of shit and then either, I don't even know if they're using it. I feel a lot of people are not, because I assume everyone's still showing up, but I know a lot of people are not showing up. So a lot of people will kind of stop in those first few lines because they're thinking, this sucks, this sucks. Or I've said it before, my favorite. Right. I've said it before. Okay, cool. Use that to feel what's another way that you can say this? What's a different angle? What's, just because you've said it before, that just means that's part of your core, your core messaging. Exactly. And one thing I would say is that you're feeling a bit bored by your messaging, you've nailed your messaging. You just have to find as a symptom. That's it. Exactly. It's a sign that you are actually, oh, you've nailed the message that you need to be known for and that, you know, that's kind of that repetition, but with different kind, a different kind of flavor for it, so.

Hailey: Oh, I love that. Yeah. I, yeah. Stick with it. Yeah. And push through and explore if you're, if you don't know what to write about, just. Yeah. And you shouldn't have always have something new to say. Right. I think you, I feel right. Yeah. That comes back to that repurposing conversation. But even more than that, you have to say something, a butt load of times for it to sink in for people. You do, you do.

Elizabeth: You have to be bored of it. When you are bored of it, you're thinking, then you're okay, I think I've, I'm, I've done my job, but

Hailey: you're just saying it enough.

Elizabeth: Yeah, exactly. Then say it 10 more times, please. Yeah.

Hailey: Do you think that, what is one thing about content creation that you wish you could go back and tell baby Elizabeth 10 years ago or more than 10 years ago, when you were just starting out.

Elizabeth: Oh, this was a hard one because I, I think I've, I've always had this dance that trends will come, marketing trends will come and go, and your compelling communication will always, will always win, will always sell forever. But I feel I haven't listened to that, from time to time, I'll kind of get sucked into, the trend or an algorithm or, I'll, and I just, I just wish that people wish I could really instill that in my brain. There there is a difference between your, classic communication techniques that you know, stand the test of time and that's, you know, when I kind of look, look back. Those are the things that always have worked. And whenever I've kind of got swept away in, I don't know, someone telling me I should try something or someone trying to push their kind of formula onto me or telling me I need to do something and kind of going with it for a little bit. I always regret it. I always regret it. I always want to come back and go, ah, recenter yourself to, you know, it's, it's communication. It's how we communicate as humans. We are not evolving at the rate that the internet and our software is, we are the way we communicate and the way we communicated 50 years ago is the same way we can, it's, it's wired in our human psychology and how we communicate. And I think that. It's almost I, I think this happens for every business owner. When you're a baby business owner, you somehow seem to have the audacity to really, truly believe in yourself. Because you want to make it work no matter what. And then you kind of get five year, three to five years in and then you're when you are going to be more strategic or something and you're kind of lose yourself in it all and you kind of get swept away. Because you want to kind of grow and you want to scale and you're I don't. And then there's that reckoning of this isn't working for me. And then you kind of come back to being true to who you are and then realizing that you kind of had it right all along.

Hailey: Yeah. Yeah. That's been my experience too.

Elizabeth: Right. I feel it is every business experience. Totally. I think, you know, and obviously, you know, AI has been a huge shake up for my industry annually industry.

Hailey: I'm actually impressed we got to near the end here before we even mentioned AI. That's wild to me. I know, I know. Impressed.

Elizabeth: I know because what? Here's my stance whether you are using AI or using a copywriter, it's all that foundational stuff we talk about. It's on. That doesn't change who's doing the writing. It doesn't change. And I think that's what we really need to kind of understand is the person who would've hired a copywriter do it, or the person who's going to use AI to write it in the end still needs those foundations. We still need to understand you. Everything that we've kind of spoken about, really making sure what is our goal of this piece of content before we just throw in a bunch of prompts at them, right? All that kind of stuff. So, yeah, I think. Underneath new tech is communication, classic, classic foundational communication techniques that are just, yeah. That are going to make or break whatever you use, however you use it.

Hailey: Yeah. That's so true. One of the things, so I have a little bit of a quick fire round for you. Sure. And I'm looking at this first question and I'm laughing because I know exactly, I'm pretty sure I know what you're going to say to this first one. But if you lost all of your content platforms tomorrow, what's the first thing you'd rebuild and why?

Elizabeth: My email list. Surprise, surprise. Yeah. Yeah. I would literally, I would run ads to an email list and build my email list back up immediately. Yeah. And I would run ads because I am not on, I'm not organic on social. So the only way I can really grow my list is through paid advertising. And I, just as I have been running my email list and having an email list for a decade, I've literally almost been running ads for basically a decade as well. Yeah. So it's just been my combo.

Hailey: Social media is totally optional, but that does not mean that you don't need a way of getting in front of new eyeballs. Right. And getting new people.

Elizabeth: That a hundred percent exactly. Me organically, showing up on socials is optional, but I learned early on if I wasn't going to do it organically, I need to utilize socials in a paid way. And that was, you know, an or not a paid way, an automated way. And I was willing to pay for that automation.

Hailey: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. What is one content experiment that you're running right now?

Elizabeth: Well, I am, I'm doing that with you right now, which is instead of putting the whole entire message in an email and not having people click off, I am, you know, teasing with my email content, getting people to click off and visit my website, driving them to the blog post and the podcast. Yeah. And yeah, yeah. Trying to get, have people click off the newsletter so I can really understand their behavior. So we're really doing it from a testing point of view to understand people's behavior and mostly because that's where we are going in my business model. Again, I'm, you know, I want to align to the fact that me shifting my email strategy is a direct result of shifting my business model. Not because my email strategy wasn't working for, you know what I mean? I just want to make sure exactly, exactly. I want you to understand, if you literally are done for you, if you're a done for you service provider and you, that's what you love and that's all you want to do, you don't need a podcast, you don't need a blog, you can literally email your list. Yeah. And, and get filled with clients. So, yeah.

Hailey: Yeah. I love that experiment for you too, because I feel as, I don't think you should write a thousand word email, and I think you have a lot to say where, and people should go to that place, right? To listen to that podcast or read that long form piece of content. Yeah. I feel yeah, it's just, I would read a thousand word email from you, but maybe not everyone would, and not because you, it's a Mindy project script. Yeah.

Elizabeth: Right, right. I think, yeah, I think you're right. And I think I. This experiment has allowed me to dive deeper into being that educator. I, that identity as, I'm not just the expert. I'm also an educator and I can train and explain. And that's kind of a newish space for me because everything I've done for the past decade has kind of almost been second nature in a sense. Yeah. It's, it's just built into my expertise of what I do. So having to go through this process of okay, let's distill it. Let's talk about it. What's your f even you ask me, what's your framework? I'm thinking, know, I just do it. And it's okay, well let's, we need, you obviously have a framework.

Hailey: You have a framework, you just don't know what it is. We need to work on that. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. What is one content creation tool you cannot live without?

Elizabeth: I mean Google Docs, is that a content creation tool?

Hailey: I'm going to say yes. Because that's probably my answer too.

Elizabeth: I live in Google Docs and I have to say, I am, I am leaning into chat these days. I'm leaning into chat GPT and using it to help me in that kind of brainstorming process and maybe sometimes a little bit of that editing process too. So I would say that those two, yeah. I love it.

Hailey: What's the last business book you read? Book? What's the last fiction book you read? Give us something else.

Elizabeth: Oh, I, okay, so I'm writing my debut romcom and romcoms used to be my go-to, but I'm thinking, I can't read other people's romcoms and read my own because I'm going to just judge the crap out of myself. Yeah. So I'm now, so my adjacent is romantasy though. I just, I love it. Yeah. So I just finished reading Shield of Sparrows, which is one of the first ones in, in the, I'm writing down Instant New York Times Bestselling Next Re Majesty, Shield of Sparrows. I think that's, you know, I don't, you shoot, let me double check because. Yeah. I'm Shield of Sparrows.

Hailey: It is Shield of Sparrows. Yes. I just started the Silver Elite and Oh yeah, I finished that. Oh, I just started it. So don't tell me anything. But have you heard all of that? The hullabaloo, everyone's trying to figure out who wrote it because it's a pen name. They don't know. I know. And there's a lot of drama

Elizabeth: and then people are saying, it's AI. I'm thinking, AI, I could not write that good guy. It's, do you, are you, do you use AI? AI's not writing that good.

Hailey: I'm three chapters in. I'm thinking, I don't think, yeah, I wrote this. No, I

Elizabeth: know. The other theory is it's a whole bunch of editors that work at a publishing house kind of did it. But I was just thinking, if I was that writer, I would be so devil if someone was saying, AI, I wrote this. Mean, I get's what I mean, mean discourse. But yeah, it's, I thought it was great. I'm not here for literary, you know what I mean? I'm here for the vibes and the plot. Take me on a ride. We have to think so much in our businesses constantly. We have to make decisions constantly. We're wearing all the hats. I just want a book where you can take me for a ride.

 

Hailey: Exactly. Yeah. In one sentence, content should be blank.

 

Elizabeth: Oh. Oh, okay. Content should be opinionated. I think it needs to be opinionated. I think you, yeah. I always used to be—I used to use that word a lot. Opinion, have opinions, have an opinion, be opinionated. And I feel someone, I remember someone saying, oh, what's a different word than opinionated? Because it feels really confrontational. And I'm thinking, what do you mean? What do you mean having an opinion is confrontational? It says a lot about them, right, they're saying, what about confidence? I'm thinking, no, literally have an opinion. And I feel if, so, you know, it kind of ties back into if you see your industry talking about the same thing, that's not your opportunity. It's not about regurgitating it. Because if you regurgitate stuff, if you're saying the same thing as everyone else, then you make up the sea of sameness. But that doesn't mean that you ignore the trend. Right. You, because trends are great for, for you, for business owners to create content around. You need to find your opinion on it. You need to find your stance on it. What is the angle that you think about it? So I remember when I used to this example as a copywriter, there was a lot of talk and I don't know anymore. Is there a lot of talk about, about pages? I feel, I'm not sure. But there was this whole thing about, about pages and what is it about page, is it about them? Is it about you, da. And I was thinking, my opinion was most about pages suck because they're boring. That. My opinion wasn't about is it about you? Is it about them? It's you are not interesting. You're not being interesting. So no one cares. And so that was just an example of how you can find something to talk about in the industry. But be able to find your own opinion around it so you can be part of the conversation, but stand out and part that sea of sameness.

Hailey: I love that. Especially in today's day and age and if people are using AI. It's just, I found—have you heard that thing the worst thing you can do with AI is ask it for its opinion because it's just going to validate you and you're creating this vacuum of—agree. An echo chamber. Echo chamber. That's the word I was looking for.

Elizabeth: Yeah. I saw a TikTok of someone, I saw a TikTok the other day of someone being saying, oh, and your friend was confronting you. But you know, ChatGPT would've said, that's a really interesting question. Great. You know what I mean? It's so funny.

Hailey: I love that.

Elizabeth: Wow. That was really great. Great idea. Yeah.

Hailey: I know. It's too validating. So true. Well thank you so much for coming and chatting with me. I love this. You're welcome. And before we wrap up, where can someone find you? Where can they learn from you? I'm going to put a link to your book in there if anyone wants to check that out in the Pitch Perfect Guide, but where can they find more about you? So

Elizabeth: my website is Write or Die, www.writeordie.co. And everything is in there on that website. So you can get the Pitch Perfect guide from there as well, or join the challenge, read my blog, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, if you just come to my website, it'll direct you to what you need from there

Hailey: and get on her email list.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Hailey: yeah. That's where the good stuff is. That's where the good

Elizabeth: stuff is.

Hailey: Yeah. Thank you so much.

Elizabeth: No worries. Thanks Hailey.