EP62: The Secret Behind Writing Captions & Emails with Brenna McGowan — The MSL Collective
By: Michelle Glogovac
Tags: Email Marketing Tips, Entrepreneur, Copywriting, Podcast

Knowing how to write an email or caption that makes people want to hit reply is a magical gift. Copywriter magician Brenna McGowan is sharing the secrets behind what it takes to create engaging captions on social media and your emails. I truly love reading Brenna’s emails and want to reply to all of them. Brenna shares how she’s learned from her copywriting mentors, such as Laura Belgray, Chris Orzechowski, and Tarzan Kay. Grab your pen and paper because this episode is full of information and knowledge that you aren’t going to want to miss.

Let’s talk about creating engaging captions and getting specific!

What we’re talking about

From Stay-At-Home Mom To Copywriter

How To Write Engaging Emails

How To Structure Your Emails

From Stay-At-Home Mom To Copywriter

Brenna wasn’t always a content and copywriter and she gives us the cliff notes version! She spent many years as a stay-at-home mom and when her daughter went to preschool, she started taking odd jobs she could do at home. Brenna dabbled in social media management, blogging, email marketing, and writing articles. She jokes about how she even traded her services for beautiful eyelashes when her friend started an esthetician business.

After getting many compliments on the work she was doing for her friend, she considered starting a social media management business. Pretty quickly, she started doing a little bit of everything but felt that this wasn’t the right direction for her. Brenna too a look at the parts of what she was doing that she loved and decided to pivot to email copywriting.

How To Write Engaging Emails

Creating content can be tricky when you don’t know what to write, but Brenna tells us that it’s that personal touch in telling a story that engages your reader. Being yourself and being conversational is paramount to creating the like, know, and trust factor.

The first step in creating emails that will be opened is to be conversational in your copy. Next, talk about specifics in your email, not just a generic story, and show how it relates to your client. Brenna shares some examples with us on how we can build a connection.

In response to Brenna’s recent IG Live, Laura Belgray said “the more specific we are, the more universal we are.” Sometimes we think that with our specifics, people aren’t going to relate to us and that people won’t want to go to a deeper level, so we leave things more generic. The more specific we are, the more a reader can relate to our story.

Brenna has some great ideas for weekly emails including a monthly podcast recap, which helps your reader recall an episode or go back and listen to the podcast or sending a weekly invitation to listen to your podcast or any other content that you are promoting. It reminds your people that you’re out there.

How You Structure Your Content On Social Media And In Emails

Your email content translates to social media as well. The biggest difference between email and social media is selling. The point of social media is to be social, you want to get people to comment, whereas in an email you can have a very direct call to action. This is why it is important to get off social media and into your inbox. Emails should be your selling ground.

When structuring your content, mix things up. Discover what works for your reader and is resonating with them.

You should also speak to your reader the way you speak in real life, such as using contractions. On social media, break up paragraphs, to make it easier to read and use emojis or all caps to bring attention to a line and draw the eye down your content.

Once you start looking for stories, the ideas will start jumping out at you. Jot them down as they flow and reflect on the feelings they bring about. You can then connect those points with your life and figure out how to apply a story to what you are already going to share.

Are you sharing your real-life stories with your audience?

LINKS MENTIONED Brenna McGowan’s Instagram Brenna McGowan’s website Brenna McGowan’s Facebook Laura Belgray Talking Shrimp Jordan Gill Systems Saved Me Chris Orzechowski