Podcast

September 22, 2017

36: Jamie Jensen from Your Hot Copy on Storytelling in Marketing

If you want to show up in a captivating way online and off, you have to incorporate STORIES into your marketing, and today’s guest knows all about that. 
 
Jamie Jensen is a screenwriter, director, online business strategist, and the founder and CEO of Your Hot Copy. To date, Jamie has helped over 500 clients and customers increase their sales by as much as 900% with the power of story. And, while formulas are great, she’s all about doing business, life, and creativity YOUR way.
 
After doing time in Hollywood, working at United Talent Agency, Miramax, Mandate, and a major network television show, she bounced to make her own indie romantic comedy film Hannah Has a Ho-Phase. This project won her the Best Feature Writer award at the La Femme Film Fest in 2013. Since then, Jamie’s been combining the sizzle of Hollywood-grade story with the power of effective internet marketing to help YHC’s clients entertain and inspire their audiences to rave results.
 
Jamie holds a Bachelor’s degree in Storytelling from New York University, and a Master’s in Producing from the University of Southern California. When she’s not teaching, speaking, or writing, you can find Jamie at the yoga studio (hot, naturally), twerking up a storm at Vixen Workout, or cuddling on the couch with her partner in Queens, New York.

1:15 Jamie Jensen’s Story

Owner of a Copywriting agency called Hot Copy, Jamie always knew that she was always going to own a business and be an entrepreneur. She was born a writer and meant to be a writer. Her vision has always been working from home in a project based environment.

With a background consisting of visual writing and storytelling with multiple journals growing up, going to the Fame High School and won the student award for Mixed Media Art in Visual Art and Theatre.

She came to the realisation that story telling in a visual or textual capacity was what she was talented at and meant to do. She visited a psychic when she was 18 years’ old who told her that she would go to Los Angeles and work in television. When she started college, she created her own major by negotiating her course and designed her education with reading and learning everything on storytelling to screenwriting, narrative structure to hero’s journey. This was a vehicle to how she was going to find out how she fit in the world as someone who was artistic and hyper sensitive. Going to Peter Star Producing Program at USC – one of the only film producing programs period which focuses a lot on business and the entertainment industry. She ended up working in Hollywood (as predicted by her psychic). Her love affair with Hollywood didn’t last very long – primarily because she was working 70 hours’ week, not being paid very much and she wasn’t doing what she truly loved – writing.

 

10:25 How Did Hollywood Does Business

What Jamie learned at Grad School and during her time in Hollywood – she applies everything to business.

There’s always test screenings of movies.

The concept has to be sexy and have a level of pre awareness with your audience. This can be something that they’ve heard of already or have a movie star to bring a sense of familiarity and a trust factor. Therefore, you’re looking at things from two factors – marketability and playability which means there has to be elements of the movie that make it easy to sell – for example, the Harry Potter books which later turned into movies. It has a wide audience already existing so there is already that pre awareness.

Playability is more important – especially in the digital age because audiences can communicate their feelings on the movie at scale on social media. The opening weekend of a film indicates how successful the movie will be.

To apply this to your business, you have to know what your audience wants and cater to that and playability wise, deliver a quality product.

 

 

 

 

14:51 How to Apply “Sexiness,” in Online Business

Jamie explains that in online business, what makes it sexy is the actual person who is teaching. There is a lot of repeat information in the info product work –  different spins and similar teachings, but you chose who you chose to learn from. How to make it interesting for your target market as an entrepreneur is to gamify it and do a different spin on how to interact with your audience as a contrast to what would normally happen.

We ebb and flow through different models – the market will get tired of one model and then go back to another.

 

16:53 How Story Relates to Business

  1. Your Story

People are going to get to know you and your story. You story can be told in one sentence, a paragraph or a book, but that story is your calling card and how people know you. It’s your selling points and how you help/what you offer people. It’s also what makes you human and what makes you emotionally resonant with people. When you’re telling a truly authentic story that connects with you audience, you’re letting them in to who you really are in a very vulnerable way which is how they feel they know you. It gives your audience a trust factor and something to remember you. This is a huge piece of personal branding. The reverse of this is, you need to be familiar with your customer’s journey – what challenges, obstacles and things are they going to face along the way? Your ability to see every piece of that story and almost predict their needs at any point in their journey.

 

 

19:52 Essential Elements For A Story To Be A Story

A story is essentially is a character achieving a goal in spite of obstacles.

A story has three elements: a beginning, middle and end or set up, conflict and resolution.

There is a character, a goal and obstacles.

When you’re talking about sales copy – the obstacles are what’s getting in the way of what your customer wants. You’re helping them overcome obstacles and essentially positioning yourself as a mentor.

A good book/audiobook that guides on how to write a good story is “Sell Of A Story,” By Paul Smith.

 

23:45 Ways To Make Your Story Good For Your Audience

There are three ways to make your story Good For An Audience.

  1. Relevancy

Why does your audience care? This relates back to what do they care about and how this shows up in your story. This can be through values that you use to dictate your actions that they align with, a goal that they deeply desire themselves or feel strongly about that elicits an emotional response.

 

  1. Tension/Suspense

How do you create tension in the story and how you create suspense. You want to be creating some level of up and down. There are different ways to use story in different mediums – a book, a talk, a story from a stage to a page – the level of dramatization you can get away with changes depending on the platform you use. Use the pieces that matter the most in each platform.

 

3   .Contrast

You have to be able to put two contrasting elements together. Is this going to work out? Create opposing factors.

Jamie uses a great example of the movie Legally Blonde – the girly, fun, blonde playgirl up against the serious world of Harvard Law. Putting these things together creates an interesting experience for the audience.

 

27:58 Hypersensitive Entrepreneurs

Jamie feels that being hypersensitive is one of the things that make her good at her job, but is also one of the challenges. She feels a support system and asking for help through self-expression or reaching out to her circle is the way to manage that.  There are other ways are spirituality and meditation which is practical to her. She feels a lot of success is attributed to other people in your life who have supported you in your journey. She approaches things with gratitude in addition to her own effort and work. Things don’t get easier, you get better.

 

34:37 Learn More About Story & Copy

If you check out YourHotCopy.com , you can find everything copy and lots of helpful blog posts – related from how to tell your stories, how to make impact with them.

You can get on the list to find out whenever there are masterclasses, courses or things to learn more. It includes a Sales Pitch Check List which is free which will help ensure that the story you’re telling on your sales page is highly effective and creating the influence you want to create in your audience.

Featured In:

Book Your First or Next 

How to

10 Clients

Without Feeling Guilty for Charging What You Deserve

Learn the method I used to book $1M+ in my service-based business while working only 20 hrs a week... 

... without cold messaging strangers, building complicated funnels, or spending all day on social media.

get started ritht now

Free Training for Coaches and Online Service Providers