Interview Summary

The interview featured Jamie Thompson, founder of the copywriting agency Brand New Copy. [29:22] He distinguished strategic copywriting from traditional copywriting, emphasizing that strategy—the thinking before writing—was paramount. [00:41] He detailed his five-step "BNC Method," which encompassed understanding business objectives, customer psychology, messaging hierarchy, and testing. [08:05] Thompson argued that this strategic approach was the key differentiator in an era where AI can produce "acceptable" but generic copy. [26:46] He also discussed the nuances between B2B and B2C copywriting, concluding that while the tone might differ, the underlying strategic process remained the same. [20:17] He shared his personal journey from aspiring journalist to founding his own agency. [28:21]

 

Key Points

  • Strategic copywriting was defined as the thinking that occurs before writing, focusing on positioning, structure, and psychology to align the copy with wider marketing and commercial objectives. [00:41]
  • A company's positioning—how it is perceived and what makes it unique—must be reflected in its copy to avoid sounding like competitors, a problem exacerbated by AI. [02:07]
  • Understanding customer psychology, including their journey, mindset, and emotional triggers, was crucial for persuasive writing. [06:42]
  • He cited the principle that people decide with emotion and justify with logic. [06:25]
  • He outlined his five-step "BNC Method": Brief the business case, Frame the funnel, Structure the copy, Manage the messaging, and Craft a copy. [08:05]
  • Effective copy required a clear messaging hierarchy, with the most important messages front-loaded and potential customer objections addressed proactively. [10:28]
  • He argued that AI is proficient at execution (the "output") but cannot replicate the strategic thinking, human insight, and understanding of a company's unique culture (the "input"). [27:12]
  • While B2B and B2C copywriting required different tones, the fundamental strategic process was the same, as B2B writing is still for people, not faceless corporations. [20:17]

 

Interview Transcript

Transcripts are auto-generated.

 

Kiran Kapur (host) (00:00):
Hello and welcome this week we are in the world of copywriting and if like me, your initial thought was, oh, copywriting, that's all going to be taken over by ai. My guest here is here to disabuse you of that fact.

Jamie Thomson, Brand New Copy (00:14):
For some companies it might be acceptable, but I don't work with acceptable companies. I want to work with companies that want to stand out.

Kiran Kapur (host) (00:23):
I'm very pleased to welcome Jamie Thomson, founder of Brand New Copy, an Edinburgh based copywriting agency. Jamie, welcome. Your website is great. I've spent a lot of time having a look at it and you talk a lot about strategic copywriting. What is strategic copywriting?

Jamie Thomson, Brand New Copy (00:41):
Yes, so I do spend quite a lot of time talking about strategic copywriting. So strategic copywriting, it differs from traditional copywriting in the sense that it's not so much concern with the execution and it's more about the thinking that happens before fingers hit keyboards. So it's about combining positioning, structure and psychology in a way that leads to more effective outcomes. So whereas execution is almost like the secondary part of it, the strategy is the thing that comes first. So it's the thinking behind it. And the idea is that strategic copywriting is more concerned with how the project fits into the wider marketing system, so to speak. It is about uncovering the purpose behind the copy before a word is written.

Kiran Kapur (host) (01:43):
I think that's great because so often we think about copywriting, I do it myself, you know "I need some words written on such and such. Could you just bung out 300 words?" And actually you haven't thought about the audience, what you want the audience to do, how you perhaps want them to feel. So I think you're absolutely right. Let's go through, so you said positioning, structure and psychology. So let's go through those. Where does positioning come into this?

Jamie Thomson, Brand New Copy (02:10):
So I guess effective copywriting has to reflect a company's positioning in the industry. So at the moment there's a bit of an issue with a lot of companies in the same industry sounding the same, essentially saying the same thing. And I do think AI has a bit of a part to play in that, which I'm sure will come to at some point. But essentially positioning is how a company thinks of itself and it's like what people say about the company when the company's not in the room for want of a better analogy.

Kiran Kapur (host) (02:48):
So as opposed to saying to somebody, "Can you dash me off 300 words to do something?" That'd be quite a lot of copy at the moment, wouldn't it? But "Can you dash me off something?" What would you say to the client? You would say, okay, but would you start with what are you trying to achieve or what does your company actually do? I mean, where would you start in this process?

Jamie Thomson, Brand New Copy (03:10):
Yeah, so the way that I always like to start those kind of projects is by holding a workshop of some description. Again, it depends on what the outcome is going to be, whether it's a sales page or whether it's a website for example. But I always like to start off with a workshop, doing a little bit of competitive analysis and doing a bit of an analysis on the company's current positioning and their current messaging just to see if there's any opportunities to fill gaps. Is there anyone out there that isn't doing what this company is doing? What are its unique selling points? Because these are the things that companies want to be bringing to the fore. And yeah, after a workshop we would then essentially establish a brief so that everybody knows what this project is trying to achieve. There's a lot of people who work in market and communications copywriting, and the first thing they do is to dive in and they try to work out tone of voice and they're concerned with style. And of course these things are important, but their execution and before that has to come essentially the strategy. What is the purpose? What is it trying to achieve?

Kiran Kapur (host) (04:28):
And so you talked about psychology as well, so where does that come in? I can see where psychology might come in on the execution side. I need you to do something, so I'm going to perhaps use some nudge theory to get you to do that. How does that work in the strategic side?

Jamie Thomson, Brand New Copy (04:43):
Yeah, so I think it's about being aware of the customer's journey more than anything. So if we are working on a sales page for example, it's important to know where the customer has been before they land on this page because that will determine their mindset. Are they looking for a service that's actually in short supply? Maybe they've spent half an hour on Google trying to find this specific service, in which case when they land on that sales page, they're going to be a bit frustrated, a bit tired, they just want an answer. And so if you're able to tap into the mindset of the reader before they land on the page, then it can help with the way that you structure the copy, the way that you use language, the call to action that you use. So it's about having an awareness of the customer journey and then also at the other end, where are they going to go after the sales page?

(05:44):
Nowadays people do tend to, they get three quotes and they compare competitors. So you've got to have that mindset that even if they don't buy or sign up to whatever it is that you're selling, they're probably going to go to one of your competitors. So you need to know how your service compares to that. And a lot of the time it's the way that you communicate your messages, even if the company doesn't do anything that unique, if they can communicate it in a way that taps into the reader's mindset and their psychology, that can be the thing that is the deciding factor. I guess it's about emotions and it's about building empathy. I actually listened to one of your episodes recently with Kim Arnold, and it was all about emails. And one of the things that she said was, people tend to buy using logic, but they decide using emotion. And that's so true. And to me that is the root of the psychological aspect of it. If you can tap into the reader's emotions, then you're far more likely to persuade them to fulfil whatever call to action you want them to take.

Kiran Kapur (host) (06:56):
And I think psychologically, as a copywriter as well, it's much easier to think if I sit down and write, then I've got something to show you. If I've done a workshop, there isn't anything to show you. So there's a psychology side to actually doing the work as well, isn't there of thinking, well, emotionally it's much easier to come and bring you 300 words of copy that even if I might take it apart and go, no, no, no, that's not quite right, but I've done something. So I really like the idea that you start with a workshop, you have your own BNC process, which I wanted to sort of step through. So is stage one of that process doing the workshop or are there things that you do before that?

Jamie Thomson, Brand New Copy (07:33):
Yeah, so it can start with a workshop, but essentially it's all about understanding the brief. So I understand that strategy is one of those things that it's a little bit intangible, it's quite a hard thing to explain, and a lot of people just put it down to thinking time, which it can be. There is a lot of thinking involved, but what I try to do is wrap a framework around it to help explain it to the clients that I work with and also the students that I teach copywriting to as well.

(08:05):
So yeah, the BNC method stands for the Brand New Copywriting method and there's five steps in it. (1)The first step is brief, the business case, which is all about understanding the commercial objectives behind the copy. And that could be a case of having a workshop or it could be a series of emails or a zoom call, but really just uncovering the whole purpose behind the project in the first place. (2) And the second stage is frame the funnel, which is about identifying where the copy is going to sit in the customer journey. So that's where the sort of psychological element comes into it. (3) And then the third stage is structure, the copy, which is all about messaging hierarchy. It's about understanding how the information's going to flow and what the overarching story is going to be throughout the copy. (4) And then fourth stage is manage the messaging, which is about refining tone of voice, thinking about the company's positioning, the key messages, and making sure that you have the most important messages front loaded so that that's the first thing that readers read. And making sure that you're aware of customer objections and that you are raising them before the customer gets the chance to think about them. (5) And then finally the fifth stage is craft a copy, which is the writing, the editing, the proofread, and then testing as well to make sure that it achieves what it's intended to achieve. In my experience, marketers find this really useful because it is wrapping a framework around it, it's giving them something tangible to associate strategy with.

Kiran Kapur (host) (09:47):
Yes, I think we all tend to [feel] strategy can seem very sort of very amorphous and as you say, it's just thinking time. Well actually I need to have used it productively. Okay. There were some really key words that you used there that I want to come back on. So when you said brief the business case, your phrase was commercial objectives. And I think that's so important because it's very easy in a strategy to forget that actually we're running a business here. Even if you're running a nonprofit, you've still got objectives. You may or not like the word commercial, but there will be objectives that you need. So when you are briefing the business case and you're looking at commercial objectives, what sort of objectives do you get at that stage?

Jamie Thomson, Brand New Copy (10:28):
So I guess the number one question that I always ask is what do you want this piece of copy to achieve? Are you doing it because you want to encourage clickthrough rates or because you want to improve signup rates or is it maybe more of a sort of systemic reason in that maybe people don't really understand what the business does? Then you'd be surprised at how many websites I come across that I read and I still don't really know what to do. So there's a lot of vague messaging out there and the brief, the business case stage is all about just aligning the company's objectives with what they're looking to do commercially. And I am very much a commercial copywriter. I mean copywriting, it is an art and a lot of people do refer to it as being an art, but I actually think that more important than being creative and artistic is being clear. And I think clarity aligns with commercial objectives really well because if no one understands what you're selling, then you've kind of wasted your opportunity.

Kiran Kapur (host) (11:41):
The other thing you have to remember is the time that somebody has to devote to something. I might stand in an art gallery staring at a piece of cubist art and trying to work out what it's trying to tell me, but I'm not going to do that on a website because I'm off to do something else. So I think you're right, clarity is really important. The other word you use under the structure was you talked about messaging hierarchy. So can we explore that one a bit further? What should I be thinking about when I'm thinking about a messaging hierarchy?

Jamie Thomson, Brand New Copy (12:06):
Yeah, so when it comes to messaging hierarchy, it's about understanding what you want to say and how you want to say it, but the first part is the most important part. So what is it that you actually want to see? So obviously automated writing tools, they can almost handle the second part of that. They can write in a certain tone of voice and they can write in a certain style, but it's a technology of averages. So if you're wholly reliant on chat GPT to create your messaging, it is going to make you sound like everybody else because it scrapes the web and it gives you the average of what everyone else is saying out there, which for some businesses might be fine and it could be a starting point, but messaging hierarchy needs to come from the inside out. It needs to come from the people behind the business. So essentially the messaging is all about the things that make the company unique. So things like their unique selling points, their value propositions, the quirks and the personality of the people in the company is also part of that. It's part of the company culture and that's something that chat GBT is not going to be able to replicate.

(13:27):
So the message and hierarchy considers all these things as well, but in practise it's about identifying the most important messages and placing them in a logical order. So having the main message like front and centre and then having the supporting messages further down the page. If you were writing a sales page for example,

(13:52):
And I think customer objections come into the messaging hierarchy as well, and that's something that's overlooked quite often You have to think what a customer, what their objections might be to not buying or not signing up to whatever it is that you're essentially selling. And so if you can raise them, raise those objections before the customer gets the chance to think about themselves, then that comes across in the copy and it shows people that you've really thought about who your audience is, and it provides them with reassurance. It gives them confidence that you know what you're talking about.

Kiran Kapur (host) (14:31):
Is that when copy says, 'isn't it annoying when such and such happens' and you think, ""oh yes, it's actually, and then it leads you down into, 'so this is the solution', is that where we are going with this? What sort of objections could your customer be having?

Jamie Thomson, Brand New Copy (14:47):
Yeah, essentially it is about identifying your customer pain points, understanding what they are frustrated about, or what bad experiences they've maybe had in the past or what issues is it that they're having and then introducing your product or services a solution to that. So yeah, common objections are things like cost, it's too expensive, or am I ready to commit to this? In which case it gives you the opportunity to work in urgency in your copywriting and scarcity techniques. Another common objection is, am I ready to commit to this now or should I wait till later before buying? And then as a copywriter, that gives you the opportunity to work in your scarcity tactics and to let them know that it's perhaps a limited offer or that this opportunity isn't going to be here for long,

Kiran Kapur (host) (15:53):
Or is it something about creating reassurance that says 'we're with you every step of the way'. You get that a lot actually to the extent that I no longer believe it, but something that actually says, 'no, we've made it a really simple process for you', understands that I don't necessarily have time. So one of the things we're talking about when we talk about cost, it's not necessarily a monetary cost, it can be a time cost or a brain power cost. I've turned down things recently because I haven't got the brain bandwidth to cope with that. But if they said, we'll be with you every step of the way, and this is what we're going to do and demonstrated that, maybe that would've overcome that objection.

Jamie Thomson, Brand New Copy (16:32):
Yeah, that's it. It's about making people aware that the process is simple, even if it isn't necessarily a simple process, you're essentially right in a shop front, so you don't want to get bogged down into technical details and long-winded processes. You want to make it sound as clear and simple as possible to encourage people to make that first step, which is often signing up rather than parting with money. You just want their email address, you just want them to engage with you in some way. And yeah, people are busy. They often don't have the time to read through pages or to make commitments to programmes, et cetera. But also their mental capacity as well is limited. We're bombarded with adverts every day, and so people want to see that there's a set process and that everything has been thought through. And what you're kind of doing as a copywriter is you're essentially reducing friction. You want to make it as smooth a process as possible, or at least make it sound like it is a smooth process.

Kiran Kapur (host) (17:41):
Thank you. And then the final thing you said after crafting was testing. So most of us when we are testing something out, go and find a colleague and say, could you just read through for me? I'm guessing you are going to tell me that is not a sensible method of testing.

Jamie Thomson, Brand New Copy (17:59):
Well, actually that is better than doing nothing. I would say copywriting is one of those things that it is to a certain extent, it is objective because everyone can or most people can write, and so they're likely to have an opinion on whether something is good or not. But I always think the proof is in the pudding. So going back to the strategy, if you know what you're trying to achieve, then the way of testing that is to track it and to see whether there has been an improvement in signup rates or whether that page has converted better than it was converting before. There are lots of different ways of testing copy. There are AB tests where you would have two different versions of the same message and you would track which one converts better and the one with the higher conversion rate is the one that you would end up running with long term. But even doing something as simple as sharing it internally with people and getting their feedback or sharing it with people that aren't necessarily in your business, whose opinion you trust, that's still an effective way of testing whether something will work. And it's important to differentiate between something sounding good and something actually performing. Because chat GPT will cover the sounding good part. Everything will be grammatically correct and that will sound like everything else out there, but the point is it needs to perform. And if that means running with a piece of copy that's maybe not quite as smooth or not quite as articulate as another version, then you need to go with a version that isn't quite as smooth if that's the one that's performing better.

(19:56):
Because, that's the thing, it's all about meeting those commercial objectives that we were talking about earlier. Yeah,

Kiran Kapur (host) (20:03):
So I know you work B2B and B2C, and there was a brilliant Marketoonist fairly recently. I do love the Marketoonist. He makes some lovely comments suggesting that, . And I think we do have a mindset that B2C is where the exciting stuff happens, and b2b, it's all got to be very logical and formal and what have you. Do you notice a difference in copywriting? Do you approach B2B and B2C differently?

Jamie Thomson, Brand New Copy (20:31):
Yeah, I do. Generally, the process usually starts out the same in terms of strategy. We need to know what the purpose is going to be before we start writing. But with B2C, I think there are opportunities to be a little bit more conversational and it would be important to sort of really double down on the customer pain points and to build empathy early. Whereas with B2B, there is this expectation that the tone should be slightly more professional, a little bit more corporate. However, at the end of the day, you're still talking to people, you're not writing for a faceless business because the people making the decisions are the people in the business.

(21:18):
So that's important to bear in mind. But we also need to consider the expectations of the marketplace. If you are a B2B company and you suddenly start adopting a quirky innocent smoothies type tone of voice, the chances are it's not going to land well because the type of people that are making these decisions are in the C-suite, and they're going to find that tone of voice a little bit jarring. Especially if you're selling something like financial services, there is an expectation from the industry, but the important thing to remember is you're still writing for people, so you don't need to be robotic, you don't need to use jargon. You can still be conversational and there's a sliding scale, there's a sliding scale between conversational talking to your friends and professional corporate, like report writing for example. So yeah, that would be my take on it.

Kiran Kapur (host) (22:21):
The process would be similar, so we'd still want to commercial objectives, we'd still want to frame the funnel. We'd still want to do the structuring, but you might be thinking of, and obviously you've got more people involved in the chain, so there might be more steps, I'm assuming, to the type of copy that you have to produce because the copy you produce for a finance person might be different to the copy you produce, say for the, I don't know, the marketing manager or something like that. Would that be fair?

Jamie Thomson, Brand New Copy (22:47):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's fair. The process is generally the same and the five steps are followed in the same way. I think the main difference is with B2B, it probably takes a bit longer. The process is a bit slower simply because there are more people involved and there are stakeholders to keep happy, and everyone has their own agenda as well. So as a copywriter, when you're writing BTB, a lot of the time you are taking on board feedback from a lot of different sources and you're trying to find that sweet spot that meets everybody's agenda and everybody's objectives. And if you're the one project managing it, then you can have this sort of final say in saying we're not going to be able to be everything to everybody, but I think this would be a good compromise. So process is the same, but it usually takes a bit longer because there are more people involved. When I do my workshops, I tend to prefer to have three or four people on the call, too many cooks and all that, three or four people who are the decision makers or someone who's in marketing, maybe someone who's more in the C-suite. That's a good combination because it sort of ensures that everybody's voice is heard and ultimately ends up leading to better copy that requires fewer revisions because everyone's been involved in the start.

Kiran Kapur (host) (24:23):
Yes, revisions to copy are always the interesting part, aren't they? Because we always talk about death of a thousand cuts. Somebody decides they don't like this phrase or that phrase. So presumably from your stage, if you've gone through the process beforehand, it's easier on the revision side. Would that again be fair?

Jamie Thomson, Brand New Copy (24:40):
Definitely. When people are involved in the process, they feel more of an attachment to it. They feel that they've had their say and they have more buy-in, so to speak. So because they've been involved in the process from the start, when you send them the first draught, there are usually less rounds of revisions thereafter because they understand your thinking behind the process and why you have structured the copy in this way, why you've chosen this type of language. And if you've done your job well, the first draught is usually 85% of the way they are. And the revisions are usually small tweaks, just small adjustments toward choice or factual accuracy, making sure that they're allowed to say what you've suggested, that they should say, that kind of thing. Whereas without that process as a marker, as a writer, all you're really doing is kind of guessing. You're just second guessing what you think the client wants to read and what you think the audience wants to hear. And that's when it becomes open for debate. And sometimes you end up reverse engineering the process when you jump in with words straight away. And there's a lot to be said for intuition. But when you have that structure in place, first of all, people are bought in and it usually leads to fewer revisions.

Kiran Kapur (host) (26:13):
And revisions are always the danger, always the danger point. Okay. So does AI keep you awake at night?

Jamie Thomson, Brand New Copy (26:20):
It used to keep me up. It used to keep me awake a few years ago before, I guess, before I started embracing it. Really, I think the fact is it's not going anywhere. I guess depending on which media it lets you read, it's only going to get better or the bubble is going to burst.

(26:37):
But the technology's definitely here to stay, and I am not worried about it because I've seen what it can do. And it is very good on the execution side of things. If I am an insurance company and I want a sales page written and I prompt ChatGPT, it will do it and it'll give me a sales page. And for some companies it might be acceptable, but I don't work with acceptable companies. [laughter] I want to work with companies that want to stand out. I want someone to land on a company website and say, this was really well written and I am convinced that this is the company for me. So to me, the differentiator is the strategy that goes, obviously we're talking about strategy a lot, but the strategy that comes first I think is the thing that helps determine how good the final copy is because AI, automated writing tools, ChatGPT, they can give you the output, but they can't give you the input. And that's all the thinking that goes into it first.

Kiran Kapur (host) (27:52):
That's a really good point. And I like that ""they give you the output, but not the input", I think is a great slogan. That's fantastic. Finally, before I let you go, did you plan at school that you were going to be a copywriter or have you sort of ended up here?

Jamie Thomson, Brand New Copy (28:09):
So no, I didn't plan to be a copywriter. I did plan to be a journalist, so kind of related, but didn't quite pan out that way. So yeah, I started working as a freelance journalist while I was still at university. And around the time that I graduated Johnson Press, who were the largest employer of journalists in Scotland, they started letting a lot of people go. And it was kind of around the time of the rise of social media as well, which makes me sound old. But everybody became a journalist and it became really difficult to get junior reporter roles. So the timing wasn't right. So once I graduated, I went back to working in call centres. I had done as a student, and I actually started the website in the education sector, and it was like a tutor student matching service. And I was doing all the marketing and all the copywriting for it. And actually as a result of that, other businesses in the industry started getting in touch with me to say that they liked the content I was putting out, would I be interested in writing for them? And then I suddenly discovered this thing called copywriting because I had honestly never heard of it. So I realised it was a thing that people would pay me to write, and that is how brand new copy started and it officially became a business in 2013.

Kiran Kapur (host) (29:39):
Jamie Thomson, founder of Brand New Copy. Thank you very much for your time and your insights and your expertise.

Jamie Thomson, Brand New Copy (29:45):
Thanks very much for having me. It's been a pleasure.