Heather Lloyd-Martin

New Copywriters: 10 Terms and Conditions You Must Have in Every Contract 1.     I require 100% payment up front. 2.     I don’t use AI. 3.     By agreeing to this contract, you can’t accuse me of using AI through faulty AI detector readings. 4.     Add an expiration date.  5.     List client responsibilities. 6.     List your responsibilities. 7.     I am not an attorney; therefore, it is your (or the client’s) responsibility to submit all copy for legal review and/or be responsible for the copy. I cannot make any guarantees on the copy’s effectiveness, accuracy, or outcomes. 8.     I have the right to include the completed project in my professional portfolio for marketing purposes. 9.     No refunds for cancelled projects. 10.  The project fee does not cover a change in direction, scope, content, or document length. Such out-of-scope work will be quoted separately and can be completed by mutual agreement.

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Good writers wait for briefs. Great ones build the content engine. When a client says, “We need 4 blogs this month,” I don’t ask, “Cool, what keywords?” Instead ask: 🟡What stage of the journey are we targeting? 🟡What questions are sales getting stuck on? 🟡Where are the gaps in your current content? 🟡Do we have internal source material—calls, decks, feedback to pull from? Because the best content doesn’t come from chasing monthly quotas. It comes from identifying friction in the buyer journey and repurposing what already exists inside the company: → A product manager’s Loom video → A customer success email → A sales call objection → A Slack thread about what’s changing in the roadmap Once you’ve got that map, 4 blogs stop being “just blogs.” They become a mini content engine with an actual purpose.

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🌶️ Spicy hot take: I don't find it ethical to write my own testimonials and just have my client "approve" them. Is it a popular way for service providers to collect testimonials? Sure. Would I do it? Nope. As a writer, there are very few parts of my life that I'm not perpetually, mentally "scripting." My blogs, my LinkedIn content, even my Whatsapp messages. I take a lot of pride in how I word ideas. And as a marketer, I word most of them to achieve an outcome — more leads, more engagement, more readership. It would be a smart "business move" to word all my testimonials myself to reflect different skills — writing, project management, communication. "What an absolute rockstar!" my prospects would think. But it would take away the element of surprise for me. I'd never truly know how my clients felt, what stood out most to them, and why they'd recommend me. I do acknowledge that writing testimonials is a heavy ask. You have to step away from your day-to-day tasks, put yourself in a completely different headspace, and recollect all the "signals" you've had along the engagement. So I do consolidate all the feedback my clients have sent me in one place. Verbatim. That feels like an ethical win-win to me. 🔥 How do you feel about pre-written testimonials? I'd love to hear more opinions 👇

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Here's what happened with a recent client: Their content was great. High engagement. Strong brand presence. But zero leads. The problem? Wrong audience. Great content + wrong people = no sales. Why? They talked about their achievements, not their customers' problems. Here's the thing I've learned after 4+ years: Most content problems are really business problems. You don't need more tips or tricks. You need clarity on 3 things: ➡️What problem do you solve? ➡️Who has this problem? ➡️Why should they pick you? Once you nail these, the content writes itself. This approach helped my clients grow organic traffic by 60% and turn content into a lead generation machine. The secret? Strategy first, writing second.

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The best content doesn’t attract everyone. It repels first. There’s a big myth about content strategy. “Good content attracts everyone,” they say. Wrong. Good content filters. Great content polarizes. Because if your posts speak to everyone, They resonate with no one. The right people should read your words and lean in. The wrong people should scroll past without a second thought. That’s how you know your message is clear. That’s how you know your brand is strong. Your content isn’t meant to be universal. It’s meant to be magnetic. And magnets don’t just attract. They repel. So if some people don’t like your posts? Good. They weren’t your clients anyway. Content is clarity. And clarity converts. #SASSYSales

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Most ghostwriters focus on content. I focus on positioning. There’s a big difference. Content is what you post. Positioning is how people perceive you. And perception is everything on LinkedIn. You can write 20 smart posts, but if your audience still doesn’t know: → What you do → Who you serve → And why they should care… It’s not working. When I work with founders and execs, content is the output, but positioning is the engine. Here’s how we build it: 1. Voice clarity We find the tone that actually sounds like you. Professional but not robotic. Smart but not stiff. People should feel like they’re hearing from the founder—not your ghostwriter. 2. Market alignment Your content speaks to your buyers, not your peers. We identify your ICP and write posts that make them say: “This is exactly what we’ve been dealing with.” 3. Narrative control We don’t just share random thoughts. We shape perception. We tell stories that highlight credibility, spark trust, and build desire. Because this platform isn’t just about showing up. It’s about being remembered for something specific. That’s the difference between content and positioning. One fills a calendar. The other drives revenue. If you want to stop writing and start compounding, you need more than words. You need a message that sticks.

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Are you a good copywriter or a great copywriter? According to Matthew Cole: "A good copywriter uses 500 words, tells you everything you need to know about a product/service & sets a record for daily sales. A great copywriter uses 500 words, tells you absolutely nothing about the product/service & gets the same results." Some might say this is also the difference between copy produced by AI and copy written by an experienced marketing writer.

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Most people think they need more content ideas. They don't. They need better systems. You're already creating valuable content every single day. Those client conversations. Team meetings. Partnership discussions. New deals closing. The problem? There's too much friction between those moments and publishing. Multiple tools. Complex setups. Time-consuming editing processes. It's why people burnout with content and sack it off. Its not about creating more content from scratch. It's building a system that captures what you're already doing—with minimal effort. Remove the steps. Simplify the tools. Make it so easy that consistency becomes inevitable. Because sustainable content isn't about motivation. It's about removing friction. #ContentStrategy #ContentCreation #LinkedInTips #ProductivityHacks #ThoughtLeadership

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There’s a lot of talk right now about how “LLM optimization” is basically just good SEO. It’s not. Yes—there’s overlap. Yes—you still need technically sound, valuable, machine-readable content. Yes—citations and topical authority matter. But based on what we’re seeing so far in our experiments and client work at 3.7 Designs, the emphasis is different—and that changes the strategy. Here’s where we’re seeing divergence: 1. Citations matter more than links. LLMs rely heavily on brand mentions—especially from high-authority sources like reviews, media coverage, and rating sites. Getting referenced matters more than just getting linked. 2. Brand is the new authority signal. When someone asks an LLM for a recommendation, it tends to default to the safest, most well-known option. That means: reviews + reputation > pure rankings. The algorithm isn’t picking “best”—it’s picking “least likely to embarrass me.” 3. Hyper-specific content wins. People don’t search LLMs the way they search Google. They describe their exact situation. That means your content needs to address incredibly specific use cases. Long-tail search just got longer. 4. Answer the full question, not just the keyword. People are asking: “What’s the best X for Y?” or “How does A compare to B?” If your content doesn’t speak clearly to those kinds of comparisons, you're invisible—even if your SEO is strong. This isn’t a total rewrite of your strategy. But it is a shift in execution. Good SEO gets you part of the way there. But if you want to show up in AI-driven interfaces and recommendations, you’ll need to think like someone trying to be cited, trusted, and referenced—not just ranked. That means: - Know your audience - Speak clearly to specific problems - Invest in your brand—it’s your #1 asset Still testing. Still learning. But this is where things seem to be heading.

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“Nice” copy gets compliments. But it doesn’t get conversions. Here’s why: ❌ Clever words make you look good, but don’t necessarily speak to your audience. ❌ Polished phrases sound nice but they don’t, alone, push people to act. Your copy shouldn't act as portfolio piece. It’s a sales tool. Strategic copy: 1️⃣ Names your audience’s real problem. 2️⃣ Proves you understand them. 3️⃣ Points clearly to the next step. That’s what turns browsers into buyers. A quick tip to remember: Stop asking, "Does this sound good?" Start asking, "Does this inspire my preferred client to act?"

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Copywriters grab your tomatoes. You're gonna want to pelt me in a minute. Cuz here’s the hard truth about building a business that no one wants to say out loud: If you’re not marketing, you’re not selling. If you’re not selling, you don’t have a business. You have a hobby, maybe even with a website. And for a lot of brilliant women, the biggest roadblock in their business isn’t strategy, it’s silence. Not because you’re not smart enough. Not because you don’t care. Not because you're not amazing at what you do. But because you’re listening to your bratty brain telling you: “I don’t know what to say.” “It’s all been said before.” “I’m not a good writer.” “I need more clarity.” So instead of posting what you're thinking and how you're helping your clients… you freeze. You think about content all day. Edit a sentence 17 times. Scroll Facebook and Insta for “inspiration” (and end up feeling worse). You tinker with a Canva graphic. Change the font and colors a hundred times. Save a meme. And close your laptop for the day. And still, no content. No message. No money. And here’s what happens next: You start to believe you’re not cut out for this. That you need to “find your voice” before you can share anything. 👉 That maybe someone else should write your content. 😱❌️❌️❌️ POV: You’re not going to find your voice in the cupboard. Or in a Google doc from a VA. Or in someone else’s carousel. Just like you can't learn to swim by sitting in a lounge chair drinking a daiquiri... you've got to jump into the pool and start splashing around... You find your voice by using it. By writing even when it’s messy. By posting even when it’s not perfect. By developing your ideas in public. By getting feedback. And pushback. You find your voice by figuring out what YOU really believe, because you dared to put it into words. Confidence and clarity don't come first. Messy action does. If you’re not creating content, you’re not building a sustainable, scalable, legacy business. Because people don’t know you exist, and they never will. If you’re waiting for the perfect time to post, THIS is it. Speak up. Find your voice. Build your brand. And for the love of Gd, don't waste time on Canva. Just use a selfie. #businesscoach #moneycoach #wednesdaywisdom

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