Nick Ursborne

FEBRUARY 5, 2024

This year we’ll see some significant advances in the field of AI. And yes, some of those advances will impact our work as freelance copywriters. It’s time to lean in and get ahead of the curve. You need a plan. And that plan can’t be “Sit tight and do nothing”. The way things are, you can get ahead and profit from the rise of AI. Or you can fall behind.

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Copywriter Copywriting Freelance Copywriting Content Creation 218

Nick Ursborne

JANUARY 29, 2024

I remember when I made my big shift from offline copywriting to online copywriting… way back in 1997. One of the things that changed – had to change – was my network of contacts. For the most part, the people I knew in the offline world weren’t following me online. At least, not right away. That meant I needed to develop a new network of contacts and potential clients.

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Copywriter Copywriting Education Engineering 228

Nick Ursborne

JANUARY 22, 2024

We’ve now had over a year to become proficient with AI writing tools like ChatGPT. Many of us now use these tools to help with brainstorming, research, outlines, and first drafts. And there is no question that companies large and small are attracted by the price and productivity benefits of using AI to help produce more content at lower costs. But… Are you optimizing that copy and content for Emotional Intelligence?

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Copy Copywriter Copywriting Writing Style 216

Nick Ursborne

JANUARY 17, 2024

That’s an astonishing number. To be fair, the IMF is careful to point out that they are absolutely not saying 60% of jobs will be replaced by AI. In fact, they divide things down the middle. About 30% of jobs will be impacted in a largely positive way, through increases in productivity and improved skills. While the other 30% of jobs will be impacted in a more negative way, up to and including the loss of those jobs altogether.

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Copywriter Copywriting Writer Writing 220

Nick Ursborne

JANUARY 15, 2024

Here’s a process any copywriter can use to incorporate both AI and emotional intelligence into their sales copy. Interestingly, this process wasn’t structured and written by me. It was created by GPT-4. It even came up with our copywriter’s name… Emma. All I did was provide the prompt. That said, if you tried the exact same prompt yourself, you probably wouldn’t get quite the same result… for a couple of reasons.

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Ads Ad Copy Storytelling Copywriter 212

Nick Ursborne

JANUARY 10, 2024

My advice to every aspiring copywriter has always been, “Step one is to listen to your audience”. Put another way, “If you don’t know who you’re talking to, how can you know what to say?” When you listen to your prospects and your customers, you get a feel for the emotions they bring to the table. Identify their fears and desires, and you can speak to those emotions in your copy.

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Copywriter Copywriting Copy Ads 215

Nick Ursborne

JANUARY 4, 2024

Which comes first, AI or EI? Do you start your writing project with AI, and then tweak the outputs to make the copy more emotionally intelligent? That’s how most people do this. And it’s how I do it myself, some of the time. Start with a tool like ChatGPT to do the heavy lifting. Use it to do research for a new page, the outline, and a first draft. Once that’s done, you can add layers of more emotionally engaging copy to make the whole thing more appealing and effective.

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Copywriter Copywriting Construction Copy 219

Nick Ursborne

DECEMBER 26, 2023

Towards the end of every year, I step back, take stock, see where “I’m at”, and… more importantly… try to figure out where I’m going. This year, the stakes have never been higher. According to a survey by Neil Patel of agency NP Digital, over 60% of text content is now being created purely through AI. And 26.8% through a combination of AI and humans.

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Copywriter Copywriting Writing Sales Copy 249

Nick Ursborne

DECEMBER 14, 2023

It’s always been the case that to deliver value to a client, you need to know just 10% more than they do. I’ve been teaching this for years. Copywriters who are just launching their careers often feel nervous about not knowing enough. And then they realize that knowing just 10% more than their prospects is enough. That 10% can deliver huge value. The same is true today when it comes to AI.

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Copywriter Copywriting Freelance Agency 187

Nick Ursborne

NOVEMBER 30, 2023

Companies find it hard to resist the math of using AI to write at least some of their copy and content. There are huge productivity benefits and costs savings when you compare AI-generated work with the same tasks written by human writers. And sometimes, when writing informational content, optimized for SEO, and published in bulk, with some light human editing AI can come close to being “good enough”.

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Copy Ads Copywriter Copywriting 212

Nick Ursborne

NOVEMBER 25, 2023

Back in 1995 I published my first website. Those were the early days of the web as a place for business. That year there were just 16 million people online. It wasn’t until 1998 that the number of people using the web hit 100 million. From zero to 100 million in a little over 3 years. That rapid rate of change was deeply disruptive to traditional, bricks-and-mortar businesses.

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Writer Copywriter Copywriting IT 218

Nick Ursborne

NOVEMBER 14, 2023

There is something flat and unsatisfying about writing in a formulaic way. Academic writing. Business writing. Marketing writing. You do the work. You put the words together. You wait for pay day. As a copywriter, the least satisfying type of writing for me is when I follow some kind of template or framework. That kind of structure may reflect a “winning and proven” approach to writing an ad, landing page or sales page.

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Copywriter Copywriting Writing Landing Page 229

Nick Ursborne

NOVEMBER 1, 2023

Whether your community is on Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack, Telegram, Discord, or on some other platform, many of the challenges remain the same. If you have any history in community building, you know how fragile communities can be. Sometimes a community starts to lose momentum and energy. People run out of things to say. Or one or two members start arguing.

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Copywriter Copywriting Digital Media Communication 213

Nick Ursborne

OCTOBER 13, 2023

Back as a child, you were probably an amazing writer. All those wonderful stories swirling around in your head. Maybe you wrote some of them down. All that imagination… the adventures… the excitement. And who was the hero of these stories? You, of course! Your energy, bravery and wisdom were at the center of everything you wrote. You were at the center of your universe!

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Writing Copywriter Copywriting Sales 210

Nick Ursborne

OCTOBER 4, 2023

There are various ways to insert emotion and emotional intelligence into your work. But perhaps the easiest way to communicate emotion is to write from a perspective of personal experience. On other words, weave yourself or someone else into the narrative. Put human experience into the frame. From description to storytelling. I can give you a detailed description of how to change an inner tube if you get a puncture while out cycling.

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Storytelling Copywriter Copywriting Writing 227

Nick Ursborne

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Authenticity is about being genuine, real, and true to one’s character or brand. At its heart, it’s about radical honesty and transparency. When a person or a company manages to share their true selves, that authenticity goes a long way to connecting with their audience in a way that builds trust and a deep sense of rapport. Authenticity is a profoundly human and emotional quality.

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Writing Copywriter Copywriting Communication 245

Nick Ursborne

SEPTEMBER 22, 2023

As humans, we experience the world through our senses. We see the sun rise, listen to music, taste chocolate cake, smell the spring air, and feel the comfort of a loved one’s touch. AI tools can’t do that. They can sift through data and find examples of humans describing these senses, but they have no first-hand sensory experience. That’s a huge constraint.

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Writing Copywriter Copywriting Copy 234

Nick Ursborne

SEPTEMBER 18, 2023

Who’s opinion should you listen to? Always a tough question. Right now there are plenty of conflicting views when it comes to the future impact of AI on the careers of writers and copywriters. At one extreme, there are those who claim AI is just hype, a passing fad, and that it will never replace human writers. At the other extreme, some copywriters are worried their jobs will be completely obliterated by AI within the next few years.

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Copywriter Copywriting Copy Writer 231

Nick Ursborne

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

I use GPT-4 every day. I use it to brainstorm ideas, research topics, come up with content suggestions, and to outline longer-form content. Once I’m done researching and outlining with GPT-4, I open up Nick-4 and look for ways to add Emotional Intelligence to whatever I’m writing. (Yup, Nick-4 is me.) In other words, I’ll never just start writing based on the output of GPT-4 alone.

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Nick Ursborne

SEPTEMBER 10, 2023

The third domain of Emotional Intelligence is Social Awareness. And a big part of Social Awareness is feeling empathy for others. We feel empathy when we open our ears and our hearts, and walk in the shoes of other people. We feel what they feel. This is easier said than done. When it comes to truly understanding the feelings of someone close to us, or just like us, we can score reasonably well.

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Copywriter Copywriting Sales Copy Copy 217

Nick Ursborne

SEPTEMBER 7, 2023

Client companies are already seeing it… and they don’t like it. Freelance and in-house writers are relying too heavily on AI tools like ChatGPT to write their sales copy, content, and social media updates. The result? When you use the same tool as every other writer, you begin to churn out writing that feels generic, flat… and the same as everything else out there.

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Writer Copywriter Copywriting Sales Copy 241

Nick Ursborne

SEPTEMBER 2, 2023

AI is the big thing right now. And while tools like ChatGPT are incredible in many ways, there’s one thing they’re really, really bad at. Emotion. Bots don’t do emotion. They definitely don’t write with emotional intelligence. For a start, they have no first-hand experience of emotions. Lines of code can’t fall in love, or laugh. And they can’t feel empathy for others.

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Writing Copywriter Copywriting Persuasion 241

Nick Ursborne

AUGUST 30, 2023

Emotion is at the core of great copy. This has always been the case… before AI, before the Web, before computers. Great copy touches its readers at an emotional level. Why? Because as consumers we buy based on our feelings. We buy the car that makes us feel good. We buy the pair of shoes that makes us smile. We buy the video game that gives us pleasure.

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Copywriter Copywriting Writing Script 191

Nick Ursborne

JULY 17, 2023

By now, pretty much every writer and copywriter on the planet will have used a tool like ChatGPT as a writing assistant. Some writers use AI just to help outline their work. Others use it to complete full drafts. Other tasks that are really well suited to AI include things like brainstorming and market research. This takes us beyond just the task of writing, and can help us learn more about the products and services we’re writing about.

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Freelance Copywriter Copywriting Social Media 130

Nick Ursborne

JUNE 8, 2023

If I suggested you double the fees you charge, maybe you’d tell me that none of your clients would use you. That sounds reasonable. After all, as freelancers we don’t set out to charge less than we can. We think we know what our clients and prospects will accept, and we write up our estimates accordingly. Now I’m going to be totally unreasonable.

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Freelance Copywriter Copywriting Construction 130

Nick Ursborne

MAY 21, 2023

In common with most freelancers and entrepreneurs, I’m a risk-taker. It’s risky to run your own business. It’s risky when you have bills to pay, but no guarantee that you will be picking up new projects next month. But that’s the nature of being a freelance writer or copywriter. We take risks because we like the freelance lifestyle, and because we hope to earn more than we would as an employee.

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Nick Ursborne

MAY 15, 2023

Too many freelancers believe it’s enough to find a niche that seems “OK”, and just dive in. Not so. If you want your freelance business to be as profitable, productive and enjoyable as possible, there are five elements you need to consider. Element #1: Find a niche where competition from other freelancers is low. This is the process of finding the “gap”, which was the topic of an earlier post.

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Freelance Copywriting Copywriter Copywriting Freelance 130

Nick Ursborne

MAY 7, 2023

As a freelancer or other type of solo professional, you doubtless worry about how you can stand out among so many competitors. You write articles. You send Tweets. You keep in touch on Facebook and LinkedIn. But so does everyone else. So how can you separate yourself from the crowd? One way is to present yourself as being a little larger than life. A little out of the ordinary.

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Brand IT Freelance Copywriter 130

Nick Ursborne

APRIL 30, 2023

Many freelancers find it hard to say no. When work comes their way, they say yes to every project. They say yes to working evenings and weekends when their clients have a looming deadline. And they say yes when clients and prospects ask for a reduction in fees. In isolation, and on rare occasions, there is nothing wrong with saying yes in any of these circumstances.

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Freelance Copywriter Copywriting Projects 185

Nick Ursborne

APRIL 24, 2023

As freelancers we have to generate our own energy and momentum. We don’t have colleagues or managers to give us a quick boost. Nor do we have group meetings or off-site brainstorming days. At times we can do a great job of creating internal momentum for ourselves. At other times it becomes hard, and we feel ourselves running down, like a battery losing its charge.

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IT Freelance Copywriter Copywriting 130

Nick Ursborne

APRIL 21, 2023

As you can imagine, I’ve been playing with ChatGPT and GPT-4 for a while now. I’ve been using GPT as a brainstorming buddy, a research assistant, a first draft copy and content writer, a social media writer… and more. Honestly, it’s incredibly good. Mind-blowing really, when you consider where this technology was just a few months ago. This time I asked GPT-4 to write me a 40-page Kindle book I could publish on Amazon.

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Publisher Publishing Publishing Food 204

Nick Ursborne

APRIL 15, 2023

When I’m coaching a freelancer or solopreneur, I actually ask a lot of different questions. That’s a big part of what it means to be a good coach. Many of those questions I’ll ask during the first one or two sessions. It’s how we feel our way forward…teasing out answers that can help you break new ground. After that, we start working through the 6-week process you’ll see outlined on my coaching information page.

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Freelance Copywriter Copywriting Projects 179

Nick Ursborne

APRIL 9, 2023

My father was a farmer and a natural-born entrepreneur. I grew up watching him try various ways to expand his farm business. For example, in the photo above you can see him standing by his milk carton delivery van in the early 1960s. As far as I can tell, he was the first farmer in the UK to carton the milk from his farm, and sell the cartons from refrigerated vending machines in local towns.

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Consulting Copywriter Copywriting Projects 226

Nick Ursborne

MARCH 25, 2023

Maybe you think I’m wrong. Maybe you think we all have to compete with other freelancers. Certainly, we live and work in a competitive landscape. It’s a rare thing to have a client who is never going to be approached by other freelancers. And those companies hiring freelancers are always comparing freelancers, by skill set and by price. Even so, I don’t compete with other freelancers.

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Freelance Copywriter Copywriting Writing 211

Nick Ursborne

MARCH 19, 2023

As freelancers we have to get out there and build an audience. Many of us do this through creating our own websites, publishing newsletters, writing articles and networking on social media sites. Over time we might build up a subscriber base of a thousand, five thousand or even twenty thousand or more people. These are people who read our articles, our blog posts or even our Tweets.

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Audience Copywriter Copywriting Freelance 197

Nick Ursborne

MARCH 11, 2023

In this post I want to take a look at a simple way to balance your immediate needs and your long-term plans. Here’s what I do with my own business… At the beginning of each week I start a new page in a Word document with two columns. In the left side column I make a list of the work I need to get done in order to pay the bills and meet any other short-term deadlines or commitments.

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Copywriter Copywriting IT Freelance 180

Nick Ursborne

MARCH 3, 2023

If you’re anything like me, you’re not at your most impressive when you look in the mirror each morning. This is all fine and normal, so long as you don’t mix “morning you” with “professional you”. And yes, it matters a great deal that you create a quite separate professional persona. As a freelance writer I have gone to considerable trouble to position myself as a true expert.

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