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Put a stake in the ground, trailblazing women in business & copy resource of the week
Kimberly Houston
June 02, 2024
Hey, hi, howdy, and welcome to Issue #18 of The Subhead, a bi-weekly newsletter about copywriting, marketing & media, and a look at some of the women who make it great.
Here’s what’s on deck in today’s edition:
✨ This week in freelancing
✨ Put a stake in the ground for unforgettable differentiation
✨ Trailblazing Women in Business: Aishwarya Iyer, Founder of Brightland
✨ Copy Resource of the Week: How to increase your newsletter landing page conversion rate
✨ Just for Fun
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This week in freelancing …
This week has been all about healthcare, healthcare, and more healthcare writing.
First, I wrapped up a 2000-word article about unintentional HIPAA violations (that’s the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), then I started work on an article about audit trails in healthcare. And finally … I spent the latter part of the week editing a few pages of web copy for a healthcare site.
I can’t remember the last time my project schedule was focused on just one industry for the entire week. That rarely happens!
Ok, let’s get into this week’s topics.
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Put a stake in the ground, AKA, effective differentiation
I love, love, love talking about differentiation, as you may have noticed if you read this newsletter regularly.
That’s because, A, I simply love the topic, and #2, effective differentiation is a critically important piece of whatever you do online, so that you / your business / your project doesn’t drown in a sea of sameness among all the other people who do what you do – though none of them quite as good as you, I’m sure!
When I see a great example of someone doing differentiation well, I save said example to a special Inspiration folder on my desktop.
Deeply nerdy, I know.
The latest example I found made me laugh out loud when I saw it, and made me think: “Dang! Now these folks are not afraid to be out and proud about their bold, unapologetic messaging!”
What is this example I speak of?
It’s the website of LA-based branding agency, Unusual. [Check them out! At least take a gander at their stellar home page. So, so good.]
The goal is to turn off the wrong people, and attract the right people, which I think their Home page does a brilliant job of.
The takeaway: you can go the safe route, do what everyone else is doing, and likely be commoditized and forgotten, or, you can do things differently, the way Unusual does, and leave a lasting impression.
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Trailblazing Women in Business: Aishwarya Iyer, Founder of Brightland
As someone who worked in the service industry for 10 years, held other food & wine-related jobs, and wrote a food & wine blog for a few years, I love a good woman-starts-a-food-business story.
Like this one.
Aishwarya Iyer started Los Angeles-based direct-to-consumer olive oil company, Brightland, in 2018 after a career in public relations and communications in the beauty, tech, and startup industry, putting $30,000 of her own savings into the company.
Interesting backstory: Iyer was inspired to launch Brightland after she and her husband were sickened by olive oil. As she began researching the olive oil industry, she found that 70% of the olive oils Americans consume are rancid by the time they’re used. Who knew?
To combat this, Brightland partners with small, family-run and family-owned organic farms in California that don’t use artificial preservatives or additives. Iyer says, “since the very beginning, our goal has been to provide consumers with high-quality, honest, and traceable olive oil made in the U.S., rather than sourcing our ingredients from abroad.”
The company’s product offerings include cold-pressed extra virgin olive oils, infused olive oils, vinegars, floral honey, garlic-infused pizza oil, and kitchen items.
Since I frequently mention the importance of differentiation in this newsletter, I want to point out a couple of ways Iyer’s company uses it effectively to stand out among other consumer olive oil brands:
:: They source their ingredients directly from small, family farms in California, creating a fresh, distinct taste.
:: Rather than go with the minimalist design trend, Iyer’s packaging uses exuberant colors and maximalist design as a nod to her Indian heritage.
:: The white-coated bottles not only look great, but protect the olive oil from light exposure, which if you know anything about the way light affects flavor and freshness, you’ll wonder why all olive oil brands don’t do this.
I fell completely down the rabbit hole researching Iyer and her company for this mini-profile and could easily write another couple thousand words, but this is already getting perilously close to my “keep-it-short-enough-that-they’ll-read-it-and-learn-about-a-remarkable-woman-in-business” limit. 😊
That said, you can learn more about Aishwarya Iyer and Brightland at the inline links above, and / or check out just a handful of the many articles I read to write this mini-profile here:
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Copy Resource of the Week: How to increase your newsletter landing page conversion rate
This is one of the best resources I’ve seen for writing a newsletter landing page, specifically.
It’s from Matt McGarry who writes Newsletter Operator, a weekly newsletter about, you’ll never guess … newsletters!!
It includes 10 simple steps, with examples and helpful visuals, and 20+ links to great newsletter landing pages you can use for inspiration. [The landing page examples are so darn helpful.]
Check it out here:
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Just for Fun
I wouldn’t exactly call this “fun,” but I recently watched a 3-part documentary series on Netflix called Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult. It’s … disturbing, and I haven’t been able to get it off my mind, even days later.
Briefly, it’s about (lifted directly from the internets), “TikTok dancers who are trapped in a cult masquerading as a management company called 7M.”
Check out a review from the Chicago Sun-Times if you want to learn more.
And finally, I found some truth in a few of these, which I originally read about in Amanda Natividad’s newsletter, The Menu:
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Alrighty then.
That’s all for this week, my friend.
Be well. Stay curious. See you again in two weeks, on June 16.
Warmly,
Kimberly