Weekly Round Up #127
Your once-a-week digest filled with copywriting insights, AI tips, must-read articles, pretty cool copy examples, and much more!
Welcome to the 127th edition of the Weekly Round-Up — your once-a-week digest filled with copywriting insights, AI tips, must-read articles, pretty cool copy examples, and more!
In this week’s issue:
Copy Tip: Clarity = respect
AI Tip: Opus is your strategist. Sonnet is your workhorse.
Writing for Email: A Copywriter’s Accessibility Guide (via Action Rocket)
Paid Isn’t Dead. But Your Playbooks Need an Upgrade (via MKT1)
AI Adoption Fails at the Human Level (via MarTech)
Podcast Pick: How to Enter “Flow State” on Command w/ Steven Kotler
Swipe File Additions
Job Opportunities
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Copy Tip of the Week
Unclear copy isn’t just a writing problem. It’s a respect problem.
When your brief is vague, your writer has to guess what you meant.
When your feedback is ambiguous, your editor has to guess what you want.
When your messaging is muddled, your customer has to guess what you’re selling.
And guessing is expensive! It costs time, creative energy, and trust.
Clarity removes decisions people shouldn’t have to make, and that’s true whether you’re writing for a customer or writing a brief for your team.
The principle: clarity is a form of kindness.
Write clearly, and you respect everyone downstream.
AI Insight of the Week
Opus is your strategist. Sonnet is your workhorse. Know which one the task actually requires.
Most people pick a model once and stick with it, but that’s leaving performance on the table.
Opus thinks harder. It’s better at nuanced reasoning, complex strategy, and tasks where the quality of the thinking is the output. If you’re stress-testing a positioning angle, mapping a content strategy, or working through a genuinely difficult brief — that’s something to use Opus for.
Sonnet, however, executes faster. It’s better at high-volume drafting, iteration, formatting, and tasks where speed and consistency matter more than depth. So if you’re generating subject line variants or reformatting a document, Sonnet gets you there quicker (and cheaper).
Match the model to what the task actually demands. Thinking or doing. That’s the whole framework.
Must-Read Articles
Writing for Email: A Copywriter’s Accessibility Guide (via Action Rocket)
Why I recommend it: A quick accessibility checklist for email copywriters. From writing CTAs that say what they actually do (not “click here”) to why caps and italics reduce readability for the people who need clarity most, these simple shifts make your emails work for everyone, not just the easiest audience to write for.
Paid Isn’t Dead. But Your Playbooks Need an Upgrade (via MKT1)
Why I recommend it: Paid isn’t dead, but the playbook of picking a channel and hoping for the best is. Emily Kramer makes the case for audience-first paid: enrich your accounts, load them into every platform, build suppression lists, and let paid learnings feed organic (and vice versa) instead of running them in silos.
AI Adoption Fails at the Human Level (via MarTech)
Why I recommend it: The biggest blocker to AI adoption isn’t the technology, it’s the scar tissue from every failed software rollout that came before it. This breaks down 5 psychological fears that keep leaders from saying yes (loss of control, identity threat, transition cost, shame, and past failure) and a practical framework for earning trust before you pitch the tool.
You Should Read This Too:
BIG THINK
How to Enter “Flow State” on Command w/ Steven Kotler
Why I recommend it: Flow isn’t a personality trait – it’s a neurological state you can engineer. Steven Kotler breaks down the triggers that drop you into it (complete concentration, novelty, risk, the challenge-skills sweet spot) and why the best creative work tends to happen when you stop trying to focus and start building the conditions where focus is inevitable.
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BIC
Format: Ad
Spotted By: The Ads Professor
Why I like it: Another example of how words and images can work together. Without the image, the words make no sense. Without the words, the image has no context.
STILL HERE
Format: Email
Why I like it: This didn’t feel like an email campaign – it felt more like a snippet out of a magazine. I also loved the social proof piece and how it was story-led. Wonderful!
COLUMBIA
Format: Email
Why I like it: Subject line = 🔥 But also goes to show that a headline and sub-headline are all that you need for a good apparel email.
Classifieds
Job Opportunities
That’s it for this week! If you have questions or comments — drop a note below.
✌️
Matt
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