How you present your products and services to your customers matters. And while most copywriters don’t overtly say they do positioning work, the reality is, any messaging project pretty much requires it. The question is, how do you do it right? For the 412th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, we talked with copywriter and product positioning expert, Kate Guerrero about the formula for positioning the products you write about in a way that makes it easy for customers to understand not only what it is, but why they need it. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.
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Stuff to check out:
Positioning by Ries and TroutFletch’s website
The Copywriter Club Facebook Group
The Copywriter Underground
Transcript:
Rob Marsh: Positioning is a marketing term coined by Al Ries and Jack Trout way back in 1969. It refers to the practice of connecting your product or service (or your client’s products or services) to a single idea in your customer’s mind. And when it’s done well, your prospects and customers associate your brand with that idea. Some examples include Volvo and safety, Apple and creativity, and Disney and magic. Although few clients ask for copywriters to position their products, this is actually a big part of what we do, whether we do it consciously or not. So I thought it might be worthwhile to talk in depth about how copywriters can do it and the impact it has for their clients.
Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, one of the founders of The Copywriter Club. And on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I interviewed copywriter and brand positioning expert Kate Guerrero. Kate is the in-house writer for Fletch, an agency that focuses almost entirely on helping their clients position themselves on their home pages. As promised, she laid out the process that she and Fletch use to help their clients identify the ideas they can stand for in the marketplace. We also talked about the differences between copywriting and messaging—what she shared pairs nicely with our interview with Justin Blackman on last week’s episode. And finally we also talked a bit about fiction writing since Kate has a manuscript she’s been shopping to major publishers. That’s a lot to cover, but we did it, and I think you’ll like the result, so stay tuned.
Before we jump in with Kate…
The next expert training happening in The Copywriter Underground is coming up soon. You probably know The Underground is our community for copywriters who are actively investing in building their business and writing skills. It includes personalized coaching for you where I give you feedback and ideas to help solve the stickiest challenges you face in your business today. There’s a massive library of business-focused training to help you grow a resilient, profitable copywriting businesss. And each month we bring you a new guest expert training that will help you make even more progress in your business.
This month our guest expert is Heather Farris who will be showing you how to use Pinterest to drive leads to your business for years after you post on that platform. Unlike Twitter where tweets disappear after a few minutes, or LinkedIn and Instagram where posts are lucky to last a day, the content you post on Pinterest is close to permanent. That’s because Pinterest is more like a search engine than social media. Any way, Heather will be sharing how to use Pinterest to drive copywriting leads to your business… it’s the kind of idea that could add new clients and thousands of dollars in new revenue for you. But to get access to these closely held strategies, you’ve got to be a member of The Copywriter Underground, which you can learn more about at thecopywriterclub.com/tcu. Jump in now so you don’t miss this or any of the other upcoming expert skill trainings.
And now, let’s go to our interview with Kate…
Kate, welcome to The Copywriter Club Podcast. You’ve heard a few episodes of the podcast, and as we like to start, I’m really curious how you became a copywriter and now specializing in product marketing.
Kate Guerrero: Yeah, absolutely. I’m so excited to be here. Love all of your guests. And this is a great opportunity for me. So my journey to copywriting was very long and winding, I think, as it is for a lot of people. I, as a kid, always wanted to be a writer. And then as I got older, was really only sort of presented with journalism, which was, I didn’t want to do that. I taught English at the high school level for a few years. I did a number of different things like educational related sales. I worked for a tutoring company… lots of different things. And then ended up being home with my kids for a time and looking for things, you know, as often we do in that stage where I could have something flexible, something just, you know, income on the side. And I started getting introduced to the world of online services.
So I dabbled in social media content, in virtual assisting and all these different things. Worked with a lot of very small entrepreneurs, mainly in the mompreneur space. So I don’t know if you’re familiar with that as much, but that was booming about seven, eight years ago. So I just sort of started dipping my toe in and figuring out what do I want to do? And it was really funny because I was sort of trying to pitch myself doing all these other services, you know, maybe I’ll do coaching, maybe I’ll do virtual assisting. And it always came back to whenever I would produce anything written, that was when it made my clients most excited. They’re like, oh, this is so good. Your writing is really good. And at that point, I was like, hmm, maybe this is the thing I actually need to do because the other tasks felt like, yeah, I can do this, but they didn’t feel like a super niche of what I’m actually really good at. So I was like, oh, well, maybe I should just say I’m a copywriter.
It was like one of those little light bulb moments that you’re like, I don’t know why it took so long to come around to that. But then I just really started networking with people just in the online space who needed blog content, just sort of anything. I was basically willing to do anything. And I could not believe how much opportunity there was. It was almost like I felt like I had tapped into one of the trades. Like if you’re a plumber or you’re an electrician, you’re guaranteed someone’s going to need your services. And I was just so surprised because I just thought, because writing comes easily to me, I just thought it sort of does to everybody. And the number of people that were like, A, I’m not good at writing, or B, I don’t want to do it, was shocking. So I was like, okay, I guess this is what I’m doing.
So I very quickly built up a freelance business. It took me a couple years to get to full time, but I wasn’t even, I actually, felt like I was more putting the brakes on it than anything else because there was just such a need. And I really did it just through kind of networking. I always say I kind of use it a barnacle strategy, which I’ve heard now is called partnerships. I just find people that are in the space, you know, sort of get to know them and their needs and then start writing for them. And then generally the referrals were enough to to keep me going.
I had a really broad slate of clients. I wrote for a curated newsletter called The Pour Over. I wrote for a social media content agency. I’ve written for a number of… partnered with web designers to do blog content. So I really at the time it was actually kind of exciting to do a lot of everything. And everybody was like, you know, you have to niche down, you have to niche down. I was like, I’m fine doing what I’m doing. Then I started working with Fletch and sort of getting into the product marketing side and I sort of saw the space that I had been pulling potential clients from was a much smaller pool. And all of a sudden there was this giant ocean of B2B clients. So it was sort of a natural flow to say, okay, there’s a lot more resources. There’s a lot more opportunity in the space and really pairing the copywriting with product marketing made a ton of sense, and particularly messaging and positioning, because it was a lot of the issues that I had seen when somebody brings a copywriter in and they say, can you rewrite our website?
So you come in and then we say, what do you want to say? What is your company? What do you want people to know about you? And very quickly, it was not a copywriting issue. It was a messaging and positioning issue. So I had run into that myself. And then when I started working with Fletch, it was like, oh, we can do this whole process from beginning to end where we hit the messaging and positioning first. What did you create? Who are you trying to serve? What is the product? And then it very seamlessly flows into like, how can we say that in a really articulate and elegant way? So I’m now just very recently full time with Fletch and just, you know, trying to just do this now. I finally, finally did it. I finally niched down. Yeah, that’s how I got to where I am today.
Rob Marsh: We are definitely going to dive into the formula that you use at Fletch, because that actually is what made me reach out to you, as I shared before we started recording. I love this formula, and I think there’s just so much here that copywriters need to understand. But before we get there, I want to ask a couple of follow-up questions about your story. You said that you couldn’t believe how much opportunity there was out there when you started reaching out and networking. writing. And there are a lot of people today who would say the opposite. They’re struggling to find those clients. They’re really struggling to find any kind of work. What do you think it was that you were doing that made it so easy for you to connect with, partner with the right people?
Kate Guerrero: I think it was because I started from a relationships standpoint. So at the time, I was really involved in this. So I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it, but I, and I don’t know how active she is anymore, but there’s a group called boss mom. So she, I don’t know if you know, Dan Malstaff.
Rob Marsh: Dans has been on the podcast. Amazing, amazing marketer.
Editor’s Note: Dana has not been on the podcast, but she spoke at TCCIRL in San Diego in 2020 and what she shared there was amazing. Rob remembered this wrong.
Kate Guerrero: She’s amazing. So that basically the commute, the fate, it was a Facebook group that she had created. I would just connect with people in it. You know, what are you working on? We did all kinds of coffee chats where you would just do a quick call. Like, what are you looking for? What am I looking for? And I think, I don’t know. I don’t know if this is like, I don’t know if this is okay to say, but like, you know, it was almost exclusively women, you know, it’s, it’s marketed obviously. Um, so it was a very relation, relationally heavy approach. So it was a ton of referrals like anytime I would meet somebody or connect to connect with someone it was always like oh I know somebody or you know, oh, do you do this and I would say That was that was really the thing. So I connected with this this woman who had a business I worked in social media for doing some social media for her for a time and then she referred me to her friend also in the area who ran this content marketing agency, and I worked for her. And I also did quite a bit of networking in real life, too. I had just another mom at school who, you know, I’m a big, like, anytime I start talking to somebody and we talk about what we do, I’m always sort of thinking, like, how could we potentially help each other? You know, like, what are you doing? What am I doing? How could we do that? So she mentioned she did writing, and I immediately was like, could we go get coffee? Like, what are you, you know? And she actually gave me some of my first blog content gigs. And I think, so I think it was a combination of the relational piece. And then I was, they always tell you, you know, to make sure that you price according to your value. And at the beginning, I was really fine with very, very low rates, not for long. I think at the beginning, I was like, I don’t know this industry. I know I’m a good writer, but I don’t really know what to do next. So I pretty much said yes to whatever. And then some of those opportunities were more fruitful than others. And some led to other opportunities that were better, but I kind of looked at it as like, I don’t know if this is like the best way to do this, but I’m just going to keep clawing my way kind of, if that makes sense.
Rob Marsh: No, it totally makes sense.
Kate Guerrero: Yes.
Rob Marsh: So obviously it’s relational and creating those relationships is a huge part of making that work. Were you doing anything to ask for referrals or was it just happening naturally as you would go through work?
Kate Guerrero: No, I did. I did ask for referrals, like particularly when and there was a lot of ebb and flow at the time. I only wanted for a little while, I only wanted part time work. And then there were certain months where I was like, you know, I want a bit more. And I would ask, you know, like, do you have anybody else who is interested in this? I did it. I did a number of cold pitches where I would just email, cold email, cold DM. those are, those are not as successful. But basically, no, I would, I would go out and, you know, reconnect with maybe somebody that I had had a call with earlier, you know, like, do you have any need for this? But now I never tried a little bit to do actually, part of this, before I got into the copywriting, I was trying to start a business selling craft kits. Basically, so it’s a way to make friends. And you know, you could get rather than a book club, you could do like a craft club.
So I had just started experimenting sort of with my own marketing, like building a presence on social media. And I’m just not good at it. I’m just really not good at it. And I know that that’s the way that works for a lot of people. I mean, that’s how Fletch built their entire businesses, you know, on building, getting out there and actually presenting content. And I just am sort of, I think I’m pretty good at finding people who are good at doing that, and then connecting them and saying, how can I support you? Like, I’m very comfortable being sort of that support person. If somebody has a strong vision, strong leadership, a lot of talent, And I think that’s a really powerful thing that not everybody knows. And I think because copywriting is such a distinct service that pairs really well with other people. So I think sort of identifying those, those, you know, the people who are like, they are really out there, making their presence making their mark and saying, like, I’ll just, I’ll just partner with you behind the scenes and do really good work. And I don’t have to be the face, you know, and for a lot of people, that’s, that’s super valuable. So I think that’s also something that worked really well.
Rob Marsh: Yeah, I see a lot of value in that. We often talk about how you don’t want to be that order taker or that partner, but if you find a relationship like that, it can remove a lot of the headaches, you know, the client finding headaches and a lot of that stuff. And it could actually work for, you know, the copywriter. Well, like yourself, like it worked for you for a while.
Kate Guerrero: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think that was a lot of, like, I would establish relationships with clients very early. Like, this is the process that we’re going to use. Everything was always very streamlined. We had a really, there was not a lot of back and forth because I really wanted, the way that I wanted to work was I just, I didn’t want to work on a business. I just wanted to do the work. I think sometimes it’s like, that’s sort of the sweet spot that not everybody realizes you can find, you know, like, you don’t necessarily, you don’t necessarily have to be building this giant business or taking orders, like there is something that’s sort of in the middle, like if you if you think somebody is doing good work, and you can support them and create this process. There was, you know, I basically just worked, like I wrote when I was working. And then that was pretty much it.
Rob Marsh: So obviously that’s the kind of relationship that you have with Fletch, although I think now you’re an employee, an actual employee, but how did that relationship develop? How did you connect with them and basically work yourself into a position in an agency?
Kate Guerrero: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, this part of the story is a little, is, uh, we don’t, we don’t often share it super publicly, but Anthony and I, so Anthony and I have been working together on a number of things over the years. We actually are related. So there’s like, but we’ve done a number of projects together. Um, for probably the past 10 years, we’ve been like, I’ve been like, when are you going to start? Cause he always has, we always knew he would start something, you know? Um, so I was like, basically, when are, when are you going to get going? So we’ve done a lot of projects together. We actually ran—during the pandemic—we were developing sort of like an online church for a while, which he shares about occasionally. So we ran like jobs to be done interviews with, with different people who are just sort of like trying to find something different during the pandemic. So we’ve done a number of projects like that over the years.
And as Fletch was growing, I was actually very resistant. He was like, you should come on board. You need to get started with this. And I kept saying, no, this is fine. My clients are fine. And he’s a very persistent person. So finally I started, I said, okay, I’ll do a couple of projects with you. And then he’s like, okay, how about you take a few more? How about you take a few more? And then really got, I just really got actually just very fascinated with the positioning and messaging piece and really saw that it really fills this gap that it was a huge illumination for me because I was like, this is where copywriters often get honestly kind of the short shrift because we are assigned to do things that are not copywriting. They are messaging. And so once I really was able to see how those fit together, then I was like, okay. And then finally over the last year, he finally convinced me to do it full time. But it’s great. I mean, it’s a great working relationship because I’ve pushed back on a lot of a lot of pieces like on, you know, differences to our process or how we relate with clients or how we interact, you know, in terms of our workflow. And I think it’s really kind of sharpened the process and made everything better. But it has been adjustment now, you know, going from like, I clocked in and clocked out. And now it’s like, I’m much more invested in the overall mission of the company. But it’s been really fun. I’m ready for it at this point. Before it was like, you know, I’m sure, I don’t know if you have kids, but when they’re little, you’re like, everything’s just kind of a roller coaster. And now I was like, okay, it’s time to, you know. move in a more targeted direction. So, yep.
Rob Marsh: Yep. I can totally relate to that family situation. And my wife may be even more because she was our stay at home caretaker for a while before she went. So you mentioned that this messaging framework was a huge illumination for you and I had the same experience. So I saw Anthony present this in a webinar maybe a year or so ago. And it was one of those things where I’m like, this is a brilliant way to talk about positioning and how to figure it out for not just for product marketing companies, but it literally works for anything. And as you said, a lot of what we get asked to do isn’t just copywriting, it’s messaging, it’s strategy. And that’s really where this framework comes in. And so I’m wondering if you would walk us through the framework that you guys use, that process, and how you actually identify the various pieces as you put it together. And I don’t know, maybe even, maybe even let, you know, we can make up a client to apply it or whatever’s the best way to talk about this.
Kate Guerrero: So basically the foundation of it is the hypothesis that the more people understand what you’re selling, the more they are likely to buy it. So basically, the idea is, you know, when you have a product or a service, people need to understand what is it. And shockingly, that’s often obscured on homepages. So we look at the idea of, you know, positioning your product in the market. What is it? Who is it for? What are the alternatives, the inferior alternatives that people are using currently and why your product is better? And basically that articulation is your positioning in the market. And then the messaging is how you share that.
So there’s lots of different places to share your positioning and express that messaging. And, you know, you can do it on social, you can do it on blogs, you can do it on podcasts and events. But we’ve decided to focus specifically on the homepage as that marketing asset as a place to really specifically say, what is it, who is it for and why is it better than the alternative? So basically that’s the process that we walk through with clients. So we start out by taking a deep dive into their current site. They generally send us a questionnaire where we ask lots of questions like, what are your struggles? One of the most typical ones is people will land on our website and they don’t understand what we do. And we have to explain, do a lot of education on what actually this is. And then after we get that, basically all of that information from them, Then we come in and in a series of workshops, we actually work through, here’s where we think, here’s a couple different options for where you can position in the marketplace.
So there’s basically two categories of how you can position yourself. And we aim for clarity and succinctness. Quickly, as you can explain to someone what it is that you do and why it’s better than the alternative, the more likely you are to have word of mouth, which is your best asset. If you want to do marketing, if you want to do one-to-many, you have to make it really easy for people to share what you do. So basically we look at, there’s two major ways to position yourself.
You can anchor yourself within a particular category that people really understand well. So we get a lot of companies right now that are working with AI in different ways, you know, obviously different ways to use AI to enhance businesses. So there are lots of different variations on the chatbot. And this is like a category that we know and understand. And it’s a really powerful way to anchor, you know, we are the chatbot for lawyers, you know. We get a lot of resistance from companies when you talk about category because they often want to say, but we’re so much more. And we say that’s exactly right, but that’s why you want to use that category as a reference point. So in the same way that ChatGPT is a chatbot, in the same way that Smarter Child was, you know, like decades ago, I don’t know if anybody remembers that bot. But it’s a way to anchor yourself in people’s understanding. So you say, you know, we are so much better than every other chatbot because we have all of the knowledge on the internet. So that’s one approach. If you have a really strong existing category that you can use as a comparative matrix, that can be a great way to go.
The other option is to anchor yourself in a use case. So this is something that someone is trying to do. This is a little bit where that jobs to be done idea sort of fits in. So you could say, you know, we use Calendly a lot as an example. So when Calendly first started, if you would say, you know, we’re a scheduler, a scheduling tool, they were one of the first. So that category didn’t really exist. So the idea would be for a company like Calendly, which they did at the beginning, was to anchor themselves in a use case. You’re trying to schedule meetings online. So that’s where you start. So basically we choose one of those general two paths, whether you want to anchor yourself on the use case or the category, and then we look at competitive alternatives. So for some companies in a super mature product category, let’s say you’re a new type of CRM, you would want to say immediately, you’re not going to explain what a CRM is or why it’s good to use a CRM because the product is, the category is so mature. You would want to say, why would, why would I use somebody new other than Salesforce or HubSpot? Similarly with the use case, you would say, are people, currently cobbling together a bunch of different scotch tape systems together, and we’re finally a solution for this use case. Or do people, you know, in the case of Calendly, like, you could, there’s lots of different ways that you could accomplish that use case. You could have intern scheduling, you could go emails back and forth.
So basically, like, what are we better than? And then that helps to determine the differentiation. So basically, like, you know, What are you for? What are you better than? And then we say that that’s actually just, that’s the foundation of the positioning. And then we say specifically, how do you do it? So we know once you say, what is it? Who is it for? What is it better than? And then we really say, rather than anchoring on, you know, a lot of people will, are proponents of saying, you know, well, it’s going to, it’s going to raise your ROI, or it’s going to increase revenue. But we look at the homepage as really like the how page. So rather than just stating those benefits, we’re going to say, here’s what we do, here’s who here’s who it’s for. And then here’s how we’re going to do it. So it’s a different approach for a lot of people. Because it really goes nitty gritty into the capabilities and features. of the product. But what we look at is that that’s why they’ve laid it on the page is to figure out what exactly it is. So that’s sort of like the broad philosophy in a nutshell.
Rob Marsh: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. When you look at a customer or client at first blush, is there a category that’s more likely to be anchored into use cases versus like an industry or some other category? I mean, I know you mentioned the CRMs. Obviously, if there’s a ton of competition, you don’t just show up and say, I’m the best. In fact, you mentioned AI. I’ve seen so many AI writing tools that literally the headline on the homepage is the same as every single one of their competitors, and they all say, write emails faster. Literally, that is the differentiator, which isn’t a differentiator at all, because everybody is saying the same thing. So I guess my question is, you know, as a client comes in, is there a natural pathway to one or the other? Or do you really need to explore to see, you know, how mature the category is, you know, what the competition looks like all of that?
Kate Guerrero: Yeah, it is really kind of exploration. We often say, we’ll create sort of two lists side by side. So let’s say if maybe you’re a tool like Airtable, you could be used for a number of different use cases, almost infinite. So if you wrote a list of Airtable’s use cases, it’s going to be extremely long. Whereas if you could list the different product categories that Airtable could be, potentially it’s like a next generation spreadsheet. there’s far fewer options for the potential category. So then we would probably steer, we would steer a company towards the one that has fewer choices. And we also talk about positioning for audiences and your positioning can change. So like when Airtable started, they, you know, basically they positioned themselves, you know, for more technical people as a particular type of spreadsheet. And then you can actually create different assets that will put the category even in a slightly different light based on who you’re talking to. So we use that as a heuristic to decide which way to go. And then we also say, when you talk to customers, what is the most productive sales conversation? Like if somebody comes in and says, I’m just cobbling together a bunch of tools and you know, like, ah, that’s an easy sell. Or if somebody comes in and they’re like, I’m using this shoddy competitor and you’re like, yeah, we’re going to nail it. So a lot of that comes into the conversation as well. just seeing where the easiest wins come in. And that’s generally a sign that that’s the position that you should take.
Rob Marsh: Thinking about the strategy behind this is really interesting to me because it seems like a lot of clients are going to want to show up and they want to own the best position, right? Like literally be, we are the best at this, or if they can, we are the only. And the reality is that’s almost never the case. New categories are very rare and they fill out pretty quickly, you know, when they do emerge. So how do you address that? You know, how do you take somebody from, well, okay, you are the best, but we’ve got to focus, you know, on one or two, I mean, I guess one of the things about positioning is that you have that single idea that you’re trying to position in the mind of the customer. That goes all the way back to recent trout in the 1960s, right? How do you navigate that conversation? And the reason I’m asking is I think this is really difficult, especially a consultant copywriter working with a client who’s not necessarily perceived as the strategist or as the agency coming to do the advice, but they’re hired to write the copy. I’m thinking about that conversation. How do we have that conversation with our clients so that we get them to that point where they’re like, okay, yeah, let’s actually talk about the options here.
Kate Guerrero: Right, right, right. So we, a lot of times, and this is interesting, because a lot of times in the calls, this will get into like business strategy, you know, and we’ll say, this is what you think you should do. But this is obviously a larger question than what to put on the homepage. But we will say, you know, we have people come in all the time. And they say, this is a platform, it can be used by so many different departments, so many different industries. And we say, can you pick the leading one and lead with that? So it’s almost like a wedge strategy. So if you are like, let’s say, a note taking tool. So like a lot of us use these note takers, the bots that come into the call. So there’s so many of them, they’re ubiquitous. So I actually have a friend who’s at a startup right now, and they are building one that’s specifically designed for lawyers. So obviously the technology can be applied to anyone, you know, any meeting online. But what they are choosing to, because of their focus on that audience, they’re choosing to highlight the specific features that differentiate them. So this notetaker bot will actually sense different signals in the conversation when different terms come up. They will actually suggest like, you know, obviously I don’t know the legal profession, but they’ll be like, this sounds like this document or, you know, like they’ll present the supporting materials or the supporting arguments that you would need in the call. So we always say to companies, like, where is your strongest offering? Who gets the most value out of what you have created? And then sometimes we will actually shrink the vision of the product. We will push them to say, like, let’s make the vision smaller. So rather than saying, like, this is a no ticker for anybody, even though it can be, you want to lead with, you know, this is a no ticker specifically. for lawyers. And the thing that we found is really powerful is that once you create that very specific example, People are very resistant to doing that because they’re like, well, it’s going to pigeonhole me.
Rob Marsh: Then the whole niching conflict.
Kate Guerrero: But the strange thing is that the more specific you are in an example, the easier it is for the audience to apply it to their own specific example. So we see this with Fletch all the time. Our website is extremely focused on B2B SaaS companies, mainly early stage, you know, that’s who we’re speaking to, speaking to their problems. But we get clients from nonprofits, we get service agencies, we get, you know, people we had, we had a veterinarian chain one time that contacted us. So just because it was so clear what we’re offering. So the specificity of the example, often lets you not only target your ideal customer, but also help people who are not your ideal customer self select if they actually need what you’re offering. So To answer your question that we generally try to find that really specific wedge point if they’re not calling it out already. We have clients who don’t really have one before, and that is by far the most challenging piece. And then sometimes we will say, like in the roadmap, you know, in your future product development, like, do you have a sense of where you could focus, you know, as this wedge strategy? We also talk about positioning for the next revenue milestone. So an example we use a lot is like Amazon. In the very early days, Jeff Bezos was like, well, I’m going to sell everything online. But we had no reference point for that. So he said, I’m going to sell books online. And that was the beginning. Even though his vision was so much larger, he artificially kept it small for a while until he eventually was able to expand. Um, so we, we will often say, you know, is there, is there a way that you can, you know, to, to get to the next revenue milestone, whether it’s 5 million, 10 million, 1 million, whatever, who do you need to focus and target and play up this very small differentiation piece in order to get that foothold. And then you can expand later.
Rob Marsh: Yeah. Okay. One of the things I really like about the way that you put all of this together is that you end up with this statement. In fact, you guys all, I think the entire team has it on their LinkedIn page kind of as the banner. And it’s, again, Everybody should go check out Kate’s LinkedIn page just to see this banner because it is a really good way to illustrate how positioning statements are written and which parts reflect the customer, the thing that you do, all of that. So at what point then do you take this research, the strategy that you’re focused on, and then start writing out these kinds of statements where it’s like, this is the thing we do. This is who we do it for. This is the category. I mean, again, the way that it’s framed on site, and I think it’s also on the Fletch website as well, or a version of it. It just makes it really easy to see how this all comes together.
Kate Guerrero: Yes. So actually, this is the part that’s been the most fascinating. So what we found was at the earlier stages, we would do all of this strategy with clients on these calls. And we would record all these information in different colored boxes, different ways to sort of visually, graphically see it. And they would be 100% on board. Yes, I want to focus on this is a notetaker for lawyers. And then we would go away, create a wireframe of the page, and actually just take those sentiments and make sentences out of them. Like literally, it’s the same stuff. Often it was almost the exact same words, but we were arranging it on the page, like copy on a website. And then we would present it to them and say like the best note taker for lawyers. And they would be like, no, I hate it. And so it was this weird thing. So you just agreed to this, yeah. We talked about this.
So it’s this weird thing that happens when people, and this is copywriters know this, It’s fine to talk about saying something. When you actually say it is when it gets pressure tested, you know? So it’s like we’re talking around and around in circles, but eventually something has to go on the page. And once they see it, all of these questions or, you know, pushback or insecurities come up. So what we’ve started doing is actually bringing in the sentences and the wireframe much earlier. So Often now what our process will be is during the calls or sometimes quickly after the calls, we will create sort of, we call it like a vomit draft, and we’ll just arrange it so it looks like a website. And we’ll say, this isn’t clever or even super clear, but something at the top will say like, this is the note taker you want if you’re a lawyer. And then we show them sort of that vomit draft and say, this is what we want to say. This is the structure, the message, the positioning. And then once we’re aligned on that, which is, it’s just always fascinating to see, like it happens almost every time that once they, you know, just seeing it in the words spark something. So then after we go back and forth and, you know, decide, is this actually where we want to be? Then we move into what we call a type draft. So basically this is what anyone really would consider good copy. So good sentence structure, economy of language, clarity, you know, just good sentences. There’s not a lot of personality there.
And then for some companies, that’s great. They want clear. I mean, that’s a perfect example of our Fletch website. There’s not a lot of personality. It’s just very simple, very clear. And then there’s an additional layer that we’ll add on for some companies that want to be, let’s say they want to be cheeky, or they want some wordplay, or they want some puns. Some companies want to be really bold, and they’ll use like, you know, maybe some, maybe some swears with the little asterisks in them, or, you know, like, there’s just different ways to be clever and fun. And that’s when we get to do that, I think that’s probably my favorite stage, because that’s really where it feels like the most, you know, decorative, you know, it’s the most fun copy. But we’ve found that that flow really helps to make sure that the message stays consistent. And then we just play around with how it sounds so we all Anthony talks about it a lot of times it’s almost like putting on clothes, you know, so you can have like a. You can have a mannequin, it’s the form that you want, and then you can put a business suit on it if you want, or you can put a clown outfit if you want, but underneath it has to be the same message.
The other thing we have seen is that when people will, the reason we structure it like this is to sort of help people understand what is copy and what is messaging, which is one of the hardest things to tease out because they are so interrelated, but they are really different. So what we found a lot of times is when people say, I don’t like the copy, it’s almost like, I don’t know if you’ve heard this analogy before, but when someone says I love you, it actually can mean a lot of different things. It can mean I’m sorry. It can mean like, you know, I miss you, all these different things. When somebody says I don’t like the copy, it can mean a lot of different things. It can mean I don’t want to compete with this, with who I’m competing with. It may mean I don’t want to be lumped into this category. It may mean I don’t really like the product that I’ve made as much as I thought I did. A lot of times it is not the actual copy.
So our process is designed to guide people in talking about what we actually want to be talking about. And when we finally get to the copy, you know, like, are we going to use, which word are we going to use? Or how do we want to structure the sentence? By the time we get to that point, that it should feel much more light and fun because we’ve already decided on those really significant and heavy pieces.
Rob Marsh: So to make sure that I’m understanding what you’re saying here correctly, the difference between messaging and copy. Messaging is the structure underneath. It’s basically the strategy. This is the stuff we need to say and copy is the how we say it.
Kate Guerrero: Yes. Yes.
Rob Marsh: Yeah. You wouldn’t frame it any differently than that.
Kate Guerrero: No. Yep. That’s it.
Rob Marsh: Okay. So I’m glad you mentioned this because as much as I love the formula, you know, that’s on the LinkedIn page, it’s on the homepage, whatever. I imagine a lot of people will look at it and say, wow, that is plain and boring. Actually, I don’t think it’s boring, but it’s very, it’s very simple and it is very plain and it is very direct and obvious what you’re saying, which is maybe why I love it. You know, just, it’s like, it’s almost like a fist to the cheek, right? It’s like, pay attention to this because this is what we are. And I can imagine that a lot of clients would look at that and say, well, I want to be more fun. You said more cheeky, more bold, maybe more professional, something like that. And so, yeah, the difference between the two I think is massive. Even though we confuse the two.
Kate Guerrero: Yes, yes, yes, yes, absolutely.
Rob Marsh: Okay. So, you know, when you’re doing this well and it’s all, you know, working, that seems to make sense. But where do people get stuck? Where do we get hung up when it comes to making this stuff work? It feels really easy to say, I help X do Y in order to get this benefit or result, you know, kind of along those frameworks. But I know it doesn’t always go smoothly. So where do we get stuck?
Kate Guerrero: Yeah. I think a lot of times it’s a clash between the grander vision versus the immediate revenue milestone that you need to hit. A lot of times we’ll work with, particularly CEOs, that’s why they’re the CEO. They have a really big idea. We’re going to be everywhere. We’re going to be serving all these different markets. We’re going to be showing up here and here and here and here. that there is a place for that broader vision. And usually that message will come in your VC conversations. It will be in your investor pitches. But what we say is where a lot of people get stuck is the homepage is generally where you want to be speaking to the people that are just going to buy what you made. So they just really need to know what it is. So decoupling those two things and understanding that you can hold a broader vision while also just presenting something very simple on your homepage, that those two things can both be true at the same time is really difficult for a lot of especially early stage companies to sort of make peace with. It’s kind of like it becomes this existential crisis sort of thing. A lot of founders look at the homepage as a representative of their company. You know what I mean? Like Wikipedia is a bad example, but this is like this is a representation of everything that we are and everything that we stand for. And we come in and say we look at the homepage as a marketing asset.
One of many, you know, we all, a lot of times we’ll point to like Apple’s homepage. If you ever, like, I don’t know if you’ve ever, the last time you’ve gone on Apple’s homepage, just a couple of weeks ago, in fact, they have, they are a great example of using the homepage as a marketing asset. So it’s like, I think right now they’re currently highlighting like computers for back to school, you know, obviously that is not the scope of Apple as a company, but they look at it as like, this is what we want to sell right now. This is what we want to hit. So that is where people get stuck a lot. The other thing is that I think we have a different perspective. A lot of people want to use very outcome-based language and benefit, like tell people that this is going to save them money, that this is going to save them time. And they like the idea of having the homepage say all of those great things rather than saying what the product does. This is sort of a philosophical difference, you know, because I think sort of the winds of marketing have changed back and forth.
But we just look at, you know, if you look at some of the best like PLG companies who are really relying on people to just click and buy, their messaging is not focused on like, save time and save money. It’s what is the thing? And relying on the audience to be able to say, yeah, if I could schedule emails, if I could schedule meetings over email, it would save me so much time. You don’t need to spend a page telling me what I would do at the time I saved. Just tell me what is the thing you’re going to speed up. So that’s where people get stuck a lot, too. Yeah, I’d say those are probably the major things.
Rob Marsh: I think some of that may come from, I mean, you mentioned like historically, that’s what websites have done. And we’ve always seen that homepage is like, okay, well, this is where we’re putting everything. And this is the page that’s going to direct everybody to wherever they go. And I like the way that you guys think about it, being a little bit more focused on that because I’m looking at Amazon’s homepage today. Books don’t even come above the fold, at least what they’re showing me. That might be different for somebody else, but I see stuff about movies. I don’t even know why I’m seeing some of this stuff because I’ve never bought any of this stuff. It’s whatever Amazon thinks is important and whatever their algorithm is saying that somebody in my seat is going to buy, right? I think a lot in speaking about copywriters here, I think a lot of copywriters struggle with this in a really big way, not necessarily for their clients, because often times we’re really good at helping our clients see the thing that they need to differentiate on. But when we put together our own websites, we struggle with this because we can serve any industry and we can write any piece of copy. I can write an email, I can write a blog post, I can write a sales page. And, you know, as you mentioned, you know, clients struggle with this whole thing and saying, yeah, we’ve got to tell our entire story. So I love the focus that you bring to this process to really pick out, okay, what’s the most important part or what’s the most important audience or what’s the most important product. And then let’s build assets for that other stuff elsewhere that doesn’t necessarily mess up our message.
Kate Guerrero: Right, right, right. Exactly.
Rob Marsh: So anyway, I love that. Okay. I want to change our discussion a little bit, you know, away from product marketing and more into just writing. You are a fiction writer. You recently even won an award for a book, you know, that I know that you’re in the process of selling all of that stuff. Tell us about your process for just writing. And I’ll tell you, part of the reason I ask is a lot of us start out thinking, “hey, I want to be a writer.” We start copywriting because that’s a way to do the thing that we love and make money out of it while maybe the book sort of percolates in our brains or sits in the drawer or whatever. And then we get home from the copywriting job where we turn off the computer and we are so tired from writing that we can’t write anymore. And yet you’re doing this at least on a part-time basis. How are you doing it? And what do you do? What’s your writing process?
Kate Guerrero: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that’s so great.
Rob Marsh: That’s a lot of stuff to throw at you at one time.
Kate Guerrero: No, I know. But I really look at it as like, at a certain point, I feel like We were told, I don’t know if this is a generational thing, but we were told either you can choose to follow your dream or you can choose to make money. And I feel like you really can do both. I look at my… day job as that is what pays the bills. Even fairly successful novelists generally do not make a full-time income. If you even look at your favorite fiction writers, most of them are teaching, they offer some sort of ancillary course, they have or they’re doing something else. Like I follow a lot of, you know, pretty, pretty, I would consider them pretty successful fiction writers. So looking at the at the fiction angle as like, this is a precious thing to me, and I don’t want to rely on it for a full time income. I think some people may have a difference of opinion there. I look at sort of like it’s almost like two sides of your brain. These are two parts of writing that I can enjoy, and they’re going to bring me different things. In terms of being able to write after you’ve written all day, it’s gotten harder. It’s gotten harder. But I think it’s just carving out the different times that work for you. So there’ll be weeks when I have a really intense workload, the projects require a lot of in-depth thought. And when it comes to the end of the day, I’m like, I just can’t generate any more words. And then I’ll work generally on the weekends on my manuscript. And then sometimes little things fall into place. You know, it’s sort of that, like the mystical nature of the creative process. Like sometimes everything just works and in an hour I’m done and it was, you know, going to take me 10 hours and my project is done and I feel still full of creativity. And then I’ll try to, you know, write up my own manuscript that evening, you know. But I think, I think leaving, leaving yourself open to like, there’s just, there’s just not one way to do it. And I really try to stay very inspired. I read a lot. I like to watch, you know, TV shows that are really inspiring to me, even like the music I’ll put on in the car, like whatever’s going to fill that bucket. And I think, too, the two different types of writing are different enough that I am able to keep them disparate, if that makes sense.
Rob Marsh: Yeah, it does. When you’re writing, do you have a favorite go-to? Are you writing short stories? Are you always working on your novel?
Kate Guerrero: My dream is to be a novelist. So I wrote a manuscript that did get an award. I pitched it to 100 agents. It got a lot of really encouraging responses, basically, of people being like, you’re just not there yet. Which has been such a really great example of like it is, it is just like fiction, I think fiction writing is one of the hardest types of writing the market is just so brutal. But it’s really taught me a lot actually, but the work that I’ve done with Fletch has taught me so much about getting started on the next manuscript in terms of positioning, because it’s a business, you know, and so there’s a huge part of if you want to sell your novel commercially, you need to say, who is this for? You know, it’s the same questions, like, what did you write? And who is it for? And my first manuscript, I was like, well, it’s a little bit of this, and it’s a little bit of that. And like, but the same as I’ve, we’ve learned with product marketing, That’s very hard to market, you know? So really making the decision this time to say, like, no, I’m going to pick a genre. I’m going to pick, like, it’s for fans of this book and this book, and really write from that lens has been super helpful. Because I do. That is my goal, is to get it commercially published. And that is one of the constraints of just, you know, if you’re going to sell it, who is going to buy it, you know? So that’s been an interesting way that it’s sort of intersected.
Rob Marsh: So have you written out a positioning statement for the previous book or for the book that you’re working on? Do you have one? And if you have, are you willing to share it?
Kate Guerrero: Oh, it is not in a shape to share. But actually, so there’s a process in the fiction world where you write a query letter, which is basically a positioning statement. So I have been working on different iterations of it as like through the process, just kind of like fine tuning. The similarities are just very, very interesting in terms of highlighting the overall positioning statement and then your capabilities and features. It’s very similar in writing a novel as well. Eventually, I will be able to share.
Rob Marsh: This whole way of thinking about books feels very James Patterson-esque to me. And I know he’s the best-selling author maybe of all time now. I’m not sure how he compares to Agatha Christie or maybe the Bible. But I think his process is very much like this is a genre book for this audience. And I mean, they even outlined their books, he and his co-writers, I think, in that way. Yeah, so obviously it’s an approach that could work for fiction, and maybe it’s a little bit more disciplined than most fiction writers tend to be.
Kate Guerrero: Well, we’ll see. I mean, we’ll see as it evolves. We’ve gone down many different paths, but it is very easy. I think also in messaging as well. We tend to always think we’re the exception. Every company is like, well, but we’re just different. And it’s like, most likely you’re not. The same general rules apply. And so I think that’s a really helpful thing to remember as a creative person, because it’s like, you can explode past these boundaries, but you have to first establish where they are.
Rob Marsh: Yeah. Okay. So, in your work, or maybe even in your fiction writing, are you using AI tools at all to help with this stuff? And if so, how are you using them?
Kate Guerrero: What’s the process? Yes. Oh my gosh. Yes. I am a big proponent of AI. I think this is the wrong approach to be scared. I think the right approach is to say, how can this help? I would say in the product marketing, copywriting for websites, I use it a lot for just like excellent sentence structure. So almost every sentence that I write, I will run it through ChatGPT a few times and say, make this more clear and concise, and then just evaluate the different versions. And then sometimes it’ll work and it’ll be perfect. Other times I will take that and sort of shape it myself. I don’t enter in anything long form because then it really loses it’s not able to keep that sharp piece. So I generally work on just a very sentence-based structure or even a phrase. You know, if you’re like, this is what I wanted to say, but I can’t nail it in, you know, like, um, and even sometimes with a sentence, you’re like, I’ve got several clauses or I have two, you know, two independent clauses together. And I know we can get this a little sharper and I’m just struggling to do it. And that’s where I feel like AI really shines, because it’ll do it for you. And then I’ll be like, no, that’s not it. Or sometimes they’ll be like, yes, that’s perfect. So I look at it as just kind of like a little assistant that really helps on that sentence structure level. I also use it a lot for fiction for brainstorming. So if I have two characters, let’s say this character has to be mad at the other one, and I can’t really figure out what should be the inciting incident. Why would they be mad at each other? And I’ll put it into AI and say, you know, I have these two characters. They need to be angry at each other. What could have happened to spark a fight? And the interesting thing is I’ve put in lots of… Because the book I’m writing now is a mystery and there’s some death in it. So you have to preface it by saying, I’m writing a novel, because otherwise the model will cut you off and say, I cannot. I cannot… And give away ways for people to die. Give away ways for people to die. But if you say you’re writing a novel… And it’s actually generated some really interesting ideas. Things that I’ve been like, oh, there was one where the character has to be bullied. And I was like, what could, you know, what could just a high school girl, what could the other girls be mean to her? And it takes, this section of the book takes place in the 1990s. So, you know, like what, what would be, I don’t remember, you know, like what were things you could be bullied about in the 90s? And there was like a great, it gave me a great list. So it’s, it’s, I look at it as just like a really, a really helpful assistant, you know, that like it’s, I’m not afraid of it replacing human writing at all. It’s just, it’s just not good enough, you know, like, and, and it is very good. But just as it’s, I have found it to be good at specific tasks, and not in a holistic general way. So that’s, that’s been my experience.
Rob Marsh: It sounds like you’re using it in similar ways that I’ve explored using it as far as writing a book. I don’t have an award for a manuscript that I’ve produced yet, but I’ve basically put in plot ideas and basically said, what would happen next? Or give me some possibilities for, like you said, the inciting incident. I tend to think through thrillers. And so I’m like, OK. who can be the bad guy, how do we increase attention, those kinds of things. Character sketches. The vice president is this guy. Tell me about his background and where he got, what created the trouble that ends up being. And I find it really helpful when you know, brainstorming that kind of stuff for sure. It also seems like you guys could take the formula that you have, you know, again, on the homepage and basically say, you know, here’s the product, here’s the audience that it serves, you know, give me 10 versions of, you know, that headline statement. Right, right, right.
Kate Guerrero: Yeah, and we have done that before. And we also have tried in calls a lot of times, what we’ll do is if someone says, you know, like, we want to be known as the blah, blah, blah, can’t think of one off the top of my head, but they were like, we want to be we want to sort of create this product category, you know, we’re the intelligent, like, we’re just looking at DocuSign says they’re the intelligent agreement management platform. So a lot of times we’ll, you know, sort of as a thought experiment, we’ll, we’ll say, you know, like, Let’s say a company is doing this, what might they be selling? And then it sort of works sometimes to reverse engineer. We look at it as sort of like the voice of the internet, you know, like Chachi Patiso. What would you imagine this sounds like? And it’s very enlightening to be like, you know, you may feel like this has a connotation, but probably the rest of the internet is going to hear it this way. So, that’s been an interesting use too.
Rob Marsh: Yeah, that is an interesting use for it. Okay, so what are you most excited about in marketing and copywriting or even just in your own career, you know, that’s coming up in the next year or two?
Kate Guerrero: Yeah. I really love the intersection with particularly marketing copywriting with creativity and then also sort of this technical side. I never thought I would be working in tech at all. But it’s really fascinating to see the types of software that is developed and the ways we can streamline things that we never would have been able to before. There’s a couple things that I’ve said I want to see if a company comes out with this. The one that I would love to have is, you know, there’s all sorts of AI powered search tools that will scan across all your business applications and unearth insights. So I want one for my personal life. So it will scan my kid’s school website and my, my, you know, the policies for my doctor. And then I can say, you know, where’s the form that I need? And it’ll just pull up. So that’s, that’s my, uh, my dream.
Rob Marsh: Yeah.
Kate Guerrero: Right. If somebody could come up with that, then, you know, maybe it tells you like what’s on your grocery list or whatever.
Rob Marsh: I can imagine that someday that thing will exist. It’s like, you know, how did I do in math in the fourth grade? And it will be able to pull up my fourth grade report card. And yeah, that kind of stuff could be really, if not useful, really interesting.
Kate Guerrero: Right, right, right, exactly. Um, and then I think, uh, I am, I am very excited about the fiction piece. I would love to, I would love to have, uh, at least a literary agent potentially, potentially working on selling a novel in the, in the next couple of years. But yeah, I think I’m excited to see what will happen in the B2B space. I think it’s, it’s always changing and, uh, it’s just, it’s every company is completely different in, in some way. So that’s been just a really fun adventure. It’s different every week.
Rob Marsh: Well, we’ll be looking for you on the bestseller list someday. Who knows when, but someday in the future.
Kate Guerrero: Someday, yep.
Rob Marsh: Kate, if somebody wants to connect with you, where should they go? Where can they learn more about you?
Kate Guerrero: LinkedIn’s probably the best. I don’t post a lot. I’m trying to get better about posting more, but I will always respond to a DM or if anybody wants to connect, I’ll pretty much connect with whoever. So that’s a good place to start. And then if you’re interested in what Fletch does, Uh, Fletch website is really helpful. And then Anthony and Rob have, you know, constantly, uh, really killer content that they’ll, they do almost every day.
Rob Marsh: So, and that’s Fletch PMM.com.
Kate Guerrero: Correct. Yep. That’s correct.
Rob Marsh: Awesome. Thanks, Kate.
Kate Guerrero: Okay. Awesome. Thanks.
Rob Marsh: Thanks to Kate Guerrero for sharing her process for identifying the elements of an effective brand position. Positioning is one of those marketing skills that makes you a better copywriter. There are some pretty famous examples of positioning that are usually talked about. You know, some of these are a little old.
One is the car rental company, Avis, which for decades lagged behind Hertz as the number two largest rental company in the United States. They used that idea of being number two as proof that they had to try harder to get a customer’s business. So their cars were cleaner. Their ashtrays were always empty. This was a time when smoking was far more common than it is today. They always had cars on the lot available for you. Trying harder was their position and it was the backing or the proof that they were the better car company. And it worked. It worked so well that they became the number one car rental company for a while, which makes it a bit harder to use that number two position.
In the same industry, you’ve probably heard the tagline for enterprise rental car, we pick you up. That’s not exactly a positioning statement, but it speaks to their position as the more convenient rental company. Enterprise ignored airports and they put their lots near car repair shops and other urban locations where their customers could easily access a rental car when they needed it.
Maybe a more contemporary example of this is Chick-fil-A, which positioned itself as an alternative to hamburgers. And the cows that are always directing you away from burger places and to Chick-fil-A restaurants is one way that that shows up in their marketing.
DuckDuckGo positions itself as the privacy alternative to Google. And similarly, lately, Apple has been positioning some of its products around privacy. VRBO, I recently saw their vacation rental company, they’ve been positioning themselves against Airbnb, saying that they only offer host free facilities. So you know, you’re not going to be sharing your vacation with somebody that you don’t know at the Airbnb location that you might buy.
There are lots of ways to position a brand or a product or a service. If you haven’t read it, you should definitely check out Reese and Trout’s book simply called Positioning. It’s an older book. It was written in the seventies and the examples are a little bit dated, but the idea is critical when it comes to messaging and copy. And I think if you’ve struggled with this or knowing what it even is, that short book will help you out.
Let me make one last mention of our workshop coming up in the next week or so. When you join The Copywriter Underground, you’ll have immediate access to these expert workshops as soon as they happen. The next one is on how to do social media marketing that lasts longer than a few minutes or a day or two. This is the kind of knowledge that’s hard to come by in the, I’ll just Google to find my answer world. Shortcut your learning curve and get the results that you want faster by joining The Copywriter Underground at thecopyrighterclub.com/tcu.
