Awesome People - Ep 99
Branding, Copywriting, "Writing Blind"
Hi founders and fellow VC Friends!
Each week we deliver one awesome person to your inbox. These are the people you need to know—the marketers, sales gurus, engineers, ops wizzes— who give your startup superpowers 🚀. The best part is, everyone is hireable.
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Before you meet this week’s Awesome Person, we have a quick question for you: Has Awesome People helped you find a role? We'd love to chat real quick to highlight your success story! Without further ado 👇
Please meet Talia Witherspoon, Your Copywriting Expert 📝
We met Talia through our Awesome People Collective. Currently, she works as the Lead Copywriter for Stitch Fix, the personal styling company worth $500 million. She joined Stitch Fix in 2018 and has consistently been promoted. She started as a junior contract copywriter four years ago and today she manages and mentors teams. Most recently, she worked with Keegan-Michael Key on a hilarious campaign. One little-known fact about Talia is that she is very passionate about meditation, astrology, mindset alchemy, and all things “woo-woo.”
She's trusted by everyone from her creative team to cross-functional partners to project managers. Collaborators describe her as an insightful, strategic thought partner, who gives meaningful feedback and always delivers on time.
You can hire her to lead your marketing campaigns, advise and execute client UX journeys, and market large-scale events. She’s open to both PT and FT work. She has a preference for consumer products and brands with a personal voice.
Want an intro to Talia? Respond to this email and I’ll connect you!
Talia was gracious enough to share 2 pro tips with us here ✨
First, let’s talk about branding. Crypto needs a rebrand before the next bull market. How many uninformed relatives have asked if you are helping Russian oligarchs launder money? Or told you crypto is a scam? Those issues come down to branding. Your brand gives personality to your business and sets expectations for customers. In today’s age of social media, the brand has never been more important.
There are two keys for companies when launching a branding campaign:
1. Tailor the Campaign to the Platform 🧵
Trust me, your YouTube ad will not be nearly as successful on Twitter, or Facebook, or TikTok. UX is crucial in the early-stage space and deserves its own customized treatment. Repeatedly using the same creative, fatigues the user and depresses engagement. But, a customized UX enhances the client’s journey.
At Stitch Fix, I am a lead copywriter for our ad campaigns. We run Dynamic Product Ad (DPA) campaigns, which is the go-to ad method for smart marketers. DPAs use large product collections and algorithms to target customers with the items they are most interested in.
To meet production goals, I employed the “writing blind” method. Writing blind is where you craft varied, but general copy that the DPA algorithm pairs with images created by the graphic designers. To keep our ads fresh and relevant, I batch produced large quantities of ad copy that speaks to different value propositions. This way the campaign adapts to the customer and platform. By using DPAs and the “writing blind” method, my ads became Stitch Fix’s top performers.
One of my largest campaigns for Stitch Fix was the launch for The Elevate Collection, our luxury line. We produced a variety of content from long-form Youtube videos to individual in-feed posts and stories on Instagram. I created a shoppable landing page that utilized on-figure photography as well as drip emails that leveraged customer preferences. Each post, article, and video had personalized copy to target the consumer and present the designers and collection uniquely. That is to say each piece of content was customized for the customer and the platform. And I led the entire process, which culminated with a sold out launch.
2. Don’t Let Data be the Sole Driver of Creative Decisions 🎨
Data is the driver of decision-making in today’s world. But, over-reliance on data leads to complacency and restricts the creative process. Leadership can be afraid of failure, so they refuse to take creative risks. That is why it is important to follow your convictions, sometimes even in the face of negative data.
At Stitch Fix, I have my creative team take risks and don’t let data be the sole decider in decisions. For example, I worked on an outside-the-box Covid ad campaign focused on the social and health climate. It tried to ease client concerns by encouraging clients to let us shop for them, while they stayed at home. Unfortunately, the campaign did not work on Facebook at all. But while the data was negative, I believed in the branding and convinced our marketing leadership to repurpose the content for YouTube. It outperformed every single one of our other ads for months. Due to the success of this campaign, my role within the company expanded and I began to work directly with senior management.
Want an intro to Talia? Respond to this email and I’ll connect you!
As always, please let me know if you have any questions and if you want an intro to Talia!
Stay awesome,
Julia Lipton + Will Johnson (our amazing fellow who edited this newsletter)
Founder of Awesome People Ventures & Talent
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Awesome People Continued 🤩
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