Weekly Round Up #133
Your once-a-week digest filled with copywriting insights, AI tips, must-read articles, pretty cool copy examples, and much more!
Welcome to the 133rd 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: The Sequence Chain
AI Tip: Stop Repeating Yourself
If It Feels Interesting, It’s Material (via Psychology Meets Writing)
AI Is Not the Skill Email Marketers Need the Most (via Holistic Marketing)
Positioning in the Age of AI (via April Dunford)
Podcast Pick: The Headline Formula that Works on Every Type of Customer (via Brain Driven Brands)
Swipe File Additions
Job opportunities
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Copy Tip of the Week
Is your copy feeling… meh?
Here’s a good place to start.
Read your word creation out loud one sentence at a time. After each sentence, ask: does this give me a reason to read the next one?
The second you hit a no, stop… because that’s likely where your reader will stop too.
It doesn’t matter how sexy your next sentence is – they’re just never going to get there.
Honestly, the words were probably fine. But your order is the problem.
Here’s where chains usually break:
A sentence answers a question before curiosity builds
A paragraph explains something the reader already knew
A transition does nothing but stall (”But that’s not all...”)
A detail is true but has nothing to do with where the reader’s headed
As a marketer, I know you know this, but attention isn’t something a reader hands you all at once.
They commit one sentence at a time and you have to re-earn it every single line.
Try this on your last post or email.
Read it sentence by sentence. Mark every spot where you’d click away if you were the reader (not the writer).
That’s your sequence problem in plain sight.
Now, fix it.
AI Insight of the Week
Your best post from six months ago? It isn’t done working for you yet.
Most people think they’re running out of ideas. They’re not. They’re running out of new sentences to write, which technically isn’t the same problem.
When a post performs well, it’s rarely the phrasing that did the work. It’s the sequence. The order it moved the reader through, from the hook to the tension to the payoff.
Copy that word for word and your audience feels it, even if they can’t say why. Reuse the sequence and nobody notices, because structure is invisible.
This is where Claude earns its keep.
Paste in 3-4 of your best performing pieces. Ask it for one thing only: the structural sequence, not the sentences. What move does each paragraph make: Hook, tension, example, insight, close, whatever the shape actually is.
Then take that sequence and write a brand new post into it. New topic, new sentences, same bones.
You’re not repeating yourself.
You’re just not throwing away what already worked.
Must-Read Articles
If It Feels Interesting, It’s Material (via Psychology Meets Writing)
Why I recommend it: This feels too simple, but one of the best skills a writer can develop is that of observation. Whether you’re a marketer, a script writer, a novelist, or a good ol’ blogger, this one’s for you.
AI Is Not the Skill Email Marketers Need the Most (via Holistic Marketing)
Why I recommend it: A marketer who can ask AI for 20 subject lines is useful. One who knows which territory to explore, who’ll respond to it, and how to measure the result is irreplaceable. Kath Pay breaks down Litmus data showing companies hiring for AI skills also prioritize strategy, automation, and data analysis even more — and makes the case that prompt-writing is the visible 10% of the skillset, not the whole thing.
Positioning in the Age of AI (via April Dunford)
Why I recommend it: The competition you need to position against lives in your prospect’s head, not your roadmap. April Dunford makes the case that AI is forcing simultaneous shifts in product, competitors, and market — the same three triggers that force a positioning change, all at once. Her sharpest line: ignore fantasy future-competitors in your messaging, but never in your product roadmap. You can position one way today while building toward a different positioning tomorrow.
Podcast/Video Pick of the Week
BRAIN DRIVEN BRANDS
The Headline Formula that Works on Every Type of Customer
🎧 Listen on iTunes | Listen on Spotify
Why I recommend it: A short and simple episode in which Nate Lagos shares a simple headline formula that works for nearly any brand selling almost any product to virtually every type of customer. It’s drop the formula here, but the episode’s only 12 minutes long. You have time to listen to it, bud.
Pretty Fly Copy
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Format: Ad
Why I like it: The static headline is soooo audience-specific. “If you don’t touch receipts… our shorts are for you.” IYKYK. I guess I’m one of those people, too.
SIMPLY GOOD COFFEE
Format: Ad
Why I like it: Great social proof angle – shows demand that production just can’t keep up with. The copy’s a little long, but the angle is gold.
HOLLOW
Format: Email
Why I like it: What’s your customer’s biggest pain point? With compression socks, it’s getting them on and off. This email was made for that person. Stupid simple and let’s the customer do the talking. More evidence that you don’t need to overcomplicate everything.
Classifieds
Job Opportunities
That’s it for this week! If you have questions or comments — drop a note below.
✌️
Matt
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