S4 Ep 10: Of templates and other buzzkills

Cutting Chai Stories: Write copy that feels good

Ever filled out a Mad Libs template? Those are FUN-NY.

Put an adjective here, a common noun there, and when you read it back to the group, everything's all jumbled up in the most hilarious way.

That's pretty much the only place I think templates are a good thing. (Ok, that, and Wordpress blog themes.)

When it comes to marketing and your copy, they fall FIRMLY in the buzzkill category.

That's because words are oh-so-important at conveying your meaning and building a relationship with your audience.

And borrowing someone else's words, no matter how pretty, never works in the long run.

Kinda like jamming your feet into the wrong shoes and only realizing *after* hobbling away that they're a half size too small.

A step up from templates are guides and frameworks. They offer you more wiggle room to experiment, to inject some personality into the words, and make them your own.

The other big plus? They offer you a solid foundation to get started, so you don't have to start from scratch every time.

Personally, I love writing prompts too (so much so that I give you two of them in the episode, just for fun!) -- they spark new ideas in me directly from the prompt, but also giving me tangential ideas to turn into new stories.

And if you're truly confident, you can be a juggler of words, putting them together in any order. (This is rare though, so don't worry if you're not at this point.)

Finally, a promotion I'm running:

If you have a website or landing page that you'd like MY expert eyes on, I'm doing FOUR reviews of 4 webpages for FREE. How it works is, you email me at jayati AT cuttingchaistories DOT com with the URL you'd like me to review, and any comments you have on what you're wanting feedback on in particular, if anything. I'll take a look, and review four entries and make videos of my suggestions. You get to keep the videos for life, and I get to use them on my podcast and other places.

That's it! No strings, no payment, no obligations.

And if you DO use templates, email me and let me know what you use them for and what you think about them -- I love hearing from my listeners!