Hey there.
2.5 years ago, I felt trapped in a digital marketing job at a nonprofit.
I was doing the work of an entire department and feeling exhausted, miserable, and frustrated, and the results I was getting for the organization were mediocre at best.
I applied to new marketing jobs. Got lunches with people in my network to discuss opportunities.
No luck. (Was it because my results were mediocre?)
I felt like I had no job prospects, and no hope, and no confidence.
Then I came across the book Ogilvy on Advertising. David Ogilvy was the marketing mentor I didn’t know I needed.
I read his book in two days…and for the first time, I knew exactly what I wanted to do:
Move people to meaningful action with thoughtful, conversational copy.
I started applying his lessons to my job immediately.
I interviewed more than 90 donors and students to find out what they wanted, and why they came to the organization. "Education and ideas," they said.
I asked myself, How can we create that experience of education and ideas with our marketing? How can we reflect the organization’s events and publications in the digital space?
I decided to start with the nonprofit’s newsletter.
Instead of sending a summary of what we published on the blog that week, I began curating relevant content in addition to distributing and repurposing our own, and produced a weekly newsletter inspired by The Daily Carnage.
I cleaned up the list, too, deleting subscribers who were no longer active.
Open and click rates more than doubled.
Overall engagement went up.
That year, while the rest of the nonprofit was reporting lackluster results in every other department, the CEO was proudly sharing the newsletter performance with the board and telling me I was going places.
I felt like I had discovered my super power. I felt confident for the first time in years.
A year or so later, I quit my full-time job to pursue copywriting.
I got to write ads and taglines for Huel, write web copy for amazing places like SHFT Agency and Junglr, edit and write copy for Stacked Marketer, and many others.
My favorite part about all of this?
Helping clients look like no-brainers to their customers and clients...look like relatable experts...improve their messaging and results.
Here are a few personal things about me:
Husband to an amazing wife. Father to a baby boy. They’re the best.
First degree black belt in taekwondo / hapkido.
Beverage enthusiast. Coffees and cocktails, baby.
Vinyl enthusiast. My wife and I have a monthly ritual: we take turns picking out and buying a record. Then we sit down together and have a listening sesh. It’s the best.
Introvert who likes people. I love meeting and hanging out with cool, interesting people who teach me things or challenge and motivate me to be better. If that’s you, we’re gonna have a lot of fun together.