7 Copywriting Predictions for 2026 You Need to Hear

Curious what copywriting trends are actually worth paying attention to in 2026? With AI tools everywhere and everyone yapping about what you "MUST" do on social media, it's hard to know what's real advice versus what's just noise. 

And I'm so tired of all the noise.

That's why, in this episode of Talk Copy to Me, I'm joined by four other experienced copywriters to share our 2026 copywriting predictions with you. We're not just guessing here; we're recognizing patterns from our actual client work and what we see people sharing on social media.

You'll hear from Rebecca Tracy, Courtney Fanning, Hannah Plourd, Sam Burmeister...and me, of course. 

We're talking about the rise of done-with-you offers, why AI-written content is making people cringe, how POV and voice are becoming non-negotiable, the return of long-form content, and the role of bonuses in sales. Plus, I'm sharing why I think FAQs are about to have a major moment.

This is not an episode you want to miss!

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EPISODE 178.
Read the show notes and view the full transcript here: https://erinollila.com/copywriting-predictions-for-2026/

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Here's the info on your host, Erin Ollila
Erin Ollila believes in the power of words and how a message can inform – and even transform – its intended audience. She graduated from Fairfield University with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, and went on to co-found Spry, an award-winning online literary journal.

When Erin’s not helping her clients understand their website data or improve their website copy, you can catch her hosting the Talk Copy to Me podcast and guesting on shows such as Profit is a Choice, Mindful Marketing, The Power in Purpose, and Business-First Creatives.

Stay in touch with Erin Ollila, SEO website copywriter:
• Learn more about my VIP intensive options or just book a strategy session to get started right away
• Visit Erin's website to learn more about her business, services, and products

Transcript

0:01

I dunno about you, but I am such a sucker for predictions episodes or blog posts or anything where people are taking a guess out what to expect from the year ahead. There is something especially fun about hearing from people who are actually in the trenches, working with clients, watching trends, paying attention to what's shifting. I love hearing from them about what they think is coming next because it's not just speculation. It is then pattern recognition from people who actually are paying attention. Today. I have brought back some of my favorite copywriters who joined me last year to talk about copywriting predictions so that they can share whether their predictions came true in 2025. What they are predicting for 2026. And spoiler alert, there are some really interesting threads that run through all of these predictions. So I think this is an episode you are gonna wanna pay attention to. Welcome back. There are four incredible copywriters joining me on this episode today. Uh, all of them were actually on last year's episode where they shared reflections on. What they think that we should all expect in 2025. So today, not only do you get to hear from them about whether or not their predictions came true, but you get to hear what they think 2026 has in store for us, or at least what they think businesses are going to do in 2026 as it relates to their marketing specifically. Copy too. We've got Rebecca Tracy from the Uncaged Life, Courtney Fanning from Big Picture Copywriting, Hannah pld, who specializes in marketing strategy and storytelling. And Sam, who is from Nomad Copy, who joins us to talk about sales, psychology and conversion. And I should also say, I'm also planning to weave in a few of my own predictions through this episode because I think that there are some shifts that I see happening and some things, some I should I say again, patterns that I've been recognizing or things I've been noticing just coming up over and over again and you know, honestly. I am always nervous to share predictions. It's not my favorite thing to do. I love reading them. I don't necessarily love guessing that at them or, you know, claiming my stance, but I feel really confident about the predictions I have, and I will start with one of them right now. My first prediction for 2026 is that we are going to see a rise in done with you offers, as well as smaller entry offers from service providers specifically. Now I have on my own been offering done with you services for probably about five to eight of the years that I've been in business. So this isn't anything that's new to me, but even myself, I can see this shift in how it's affecting the work that I do. Because I took something that I've done as a service with clients that has actually had different iterations of what it looked like throughout those five or eight years., And I changed my approach to it last year. Basically I took my one-on-one, copy coaching offer, and I. Turned it into a course on website copywriting. That is a group program, if you listen to last week's episode, you'll see that I also have a additional offer that I'll be launching the end of this quarter, maybe early spring., Same thing done with you all about content creation. So again. It's something I've done many times. It is something that even. My approach to it has shifted and I'm noticing so many other people adopting it at this moment in time where they might have never offered anything done with you before and they're just testing it out or that they're adjusting their done with you offers to work in different ways, and that's because people want support, but they also want to learn and. People want to accomplish things, but they might not have the budget. They wanna be involved in the process, and honestly, they still need expert guidance. So having someone they can work alongside and they can pick their brain and that can edit or monitor or improve their ideas, strategize with them is going to be incredibly helpful. And I think a lot more service providers are going to offer that middle ground, which is the, , I'll teach you and support you while you do this instead of the just good old hire me to do it all or buy my course and figure it out yourself. Now, with that said, I'm going to shift topics slightly and we're gonna talk about something that is on everyone's mind, and that's. Ai, Rebecca Tracy from the Uncaged Life is gonna start us off, so let's hear what she has to say. Hey Erin, this is Becca from the Uncaged Life. Thank you so much for inviting me back. I'm so excited to talk about this., I had to look back at what my prediction was for 2025, , before I answered 2026.'cause I wanted to see, , just generally if I was right or if anything, , had changed significantly in the market. And for 2025, my prediction had been that people were gonna want a lot more personalization., Less automation, more conversations, more sales calls, more real feedback, more real coaching., Less kind of passive. Do it yourself. Automated style of marketing and I would say that I was right. My prediction for 2026 was actually to be something similar. And so it's funny that I said the same thing, , back in 2025, but this year, I think with so much, so many people using ai. Especially for writing and specifically,'cause we're talking about copywriting. I think that anything other than that is going to have to become a trend., I can spot AI written content a mile away. I hate it. It makes me cringe., We could go on and on about all the different things that chat GPT does that make it so predictable that it's written by ai? And I find that even when people try to edit it, you have to heavily edit that thing because it's not only the M dashes and it's not only. The like three powerful words in a row that it does, it's like the whole structure and feel of the whole thing that you might as well just start by writing it from scratch versus using ai. So I definitely think that there's gonna be a move towards, at least for the people who are smart and ahead of the game towards not using AI for their writing. So that they can stand out. I think, I know for me, and I've surveyed my audience too, , my Facebook group has about 20,000 people in it, and I've asked them, and across the board people say, when I see something that's so clear that it's written by chat, GBT, even if it's like a topic that I'm interested in, I just, I scroll by it. I don't read it 'cause I don't trust it. So yeah, I think that the people who are, , on top of it and wanting to really stand out in 2026 should be, uh, moving towards not using. Any AI and just writing from scratch. I love that Rebecca brings up AI because it is impossible to talk about copywriting in 2026 without talking about AI and what she's saying about people being able to spa ai. Well, I think we have all seen the many social media posts where people will call out m dashes or ellipses or adjectives and claim that's ai. I am. Always going to use an M dash. You cannot pry it away from my hands. I have been doing it since the days that I went to graduate school for creative, , writing. But these things get repetitive and I think Rebecca's point about how you can spot it is particularly true because we're beginning to see the same patterns over and over again, and we're losing voice and tone and. Style because an AI tool can't give us a voice and tone and style if we don't already have one ourselves., before we move away from ai, I want to stay on the topic for a moment . Because Courtney Fanning from Big Picture Copywriting has a prediction that feels like the natural next step to this conversation because if AI content is everywhere and people are tuning it out, what will make you stand out? Let's hear from Courtney. Hi, Erin Courtney here from Big Picture Copywriting. I really enjoyed looking back at my prediction from last year, and I totally stand by what I said. I think getting really strategic with your messaging and having a distinct voice is more crucial than ever in the age of ai, but it's also critical for writers because it's this really nuanced ability to read between the lines that differentiates us and our craft. So one thing I noticed this past year was that companies weren't looking to use, uh, my work to feed their AI tools. They actually came to me because they tried using AI and it was so off the mark no matter how many prompts or directions they gave it. And they realized that they needed a human to bring the nuance they were looking for. And that might change in the future, but it was really fascinating feedback to hear. I also noticed that I didn't have a single inquiry questioning whether starting with messaging work first was necessary.'cause in the past it wasn't uncommon for clients to want to dive straight into writing because they didn't wanna pay for strategy or they didn't see its value. And if you've ever written copy, that's like trying to bake a cake without looking at the ingredients list or checking whether you even have those ingredients in the pantry. Um, it kind of felt like more people were getting a glimpse of the strategic thinking that goes into good copy. And in a weird way, trying to write with AI has helped people see how digging deep into your brand and how you want to be perceived and why you do what you do gives you the conviction to have a distinct point of view. Which leads me to my copywriting prediction for 2026 POV. Married with Voice is. Queen. So if you don't have a clear point of view, you're simply a commodity competing on price. And let's be honest, that's a race to the bottom. Now having a point of view and owning a distinct brand voice go hand in hand. So your point of view could be something you care deeply about, but your voice differentiates you from someone else with the exact same POV. So for example, let's say you're an online business manager and what gets you worked up is. Bad communication and poor project management. Like when you see this, you just get itchy on your website. You could communicate this in a bold, no nonsense tone signaling to visitors that you are confident, decisive, and ready to take the reign so that they can finally stop putting out fires. Or you could take a warm collaborative tone that's more empathetic. Strategically attracting business owners who feel overwhelmed and want a trusted partner who makes them feel safe in their business. Same POV, completely different energy. So in summary, AI can mimic a lot of things, but it can't manufacture conviction and your point of view gives you something to say, whereas your voice is how you say it. So helping your clients understand this or getting really good at crafting voice yourself is going to continue to make you the kind of nuanced writer people value working with and that AI can't touch. All right. Point of view, married with voice is Queen. I'm, I'm jotting that down as a note to myself, but what Courtney said about AI not being able to manufacture conviction, that's so right. You can't AI your way into having something to say or having a distinct way of saying it, which is so important to be. Effective in our copy, in our content or any type of marketing or customer experience type of copy we create. People come to us and people are attracted to businesses because they do have conviction. They have something about them that stands out , and attracts people to them. If everything is AI and that's lost, then what happens with lead attraction and client, , attraction or nurturing? What happens when we tell stories about our business stories without some type of personality are bland and uninteresting. And this actually brings me to our next guest expert., And that's Hannah because she has a lot to say about storytelling, which she did talk about last year, and she is adding on to what she said with what she's seeing for 2026. Last year, I shared that my prediction for 2025 as a marketing strategist was that storytelling would take off and that couldn't have been more true. I've been helping people use storytelling to increase their sales from their content since 2020. And in 2025, I saw a huge influx of more people preaching storytelling for sales, and there's a reason for that. People buy from storytelling because it builds trust. It positions you as the expert, and it helps buyers believe that they can achieve results. And in 2026, that is still true. I argue that that's more true than ever. Now that AI is on the scene, people want human, people want to hear real life stories of failure and triumph. They want messy, unscripted truths and storytelling is the best way to do that. There's actually research done by cognitive psychologists that say that people remember stories up to 22 times more than facts alone. So in 2026, people are going to be used storytelling to anchor value educational based posts. Education posts are out unless they are tied together with. A client case study, a personal case study, a story that's going to help people see the education in action. And it's not only going to help people remember you, your brand better, but it's also going to help you become more visible because over 70% of people, so they follow a brand or creator based on their personality and story, not because of the tips they share. So the sooner you start using storytelling to make your brand unforgettable and be seen by more people, the sooner you're going to get more sales from your content. We've literally been telling stories since Humans Discovered Fire. If you aren't using it yet, start in 2026, and if you have any questions on how you can do that for your brand, come reach out to me. Okay, I'm gonna jump in here for a second because I completely agree with Hannah and I agreed with her last year and. I mean, my only thing that I could add to this is that I think storytelling has been important forever, but I want to add on to what she says with an additional prediction of my own. I think that businesses are going to go much harder on adopting long form content creation in 2026. I'm specifically talking about blogs, case studies, in-depth articles, the kind of content that lets you really dig into storytelling the way that Hannah is describing, because. There's a reason, and that's because storytelling needs space. You can't tell a meaningful story in 150 word Instagram caption. I mean, you can try, but you're not getting that depth that actually builds trust and positions you as an expert. Plus longer form content is incredibly important for a IO and, , a I Overviews in search, which I have a couple good episodes on., One with Emily Gertenbach and another one, , that just brings up the idea of how we should be approaching search in a time when AI generated search has changed the game. But getting back to the point, I do wanna make a note that it's not just long form content that A IO is really grasping for. It's the prioritization of comprehensive and helpful content. So if you want to show up in AI generated search results, you need substantial content that demonstrates expertise. Case studies. I absolutely do that. And case studies also naturally use the SEO keywords that you would use to rank in traditional search and again on, AI generated responses. Now, the other part is that when we have substantial content, one of the main signals. Both Google or any type of traditional search, as well as all of the aio slash g slash whatever, EI, eio o, um, excuse me, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm forever gonna say that. But what all of those are looking for is also content that. Either has expertise that backs it up or that links out to quality sites that have expertise. So when you're creating your own long form content, you can dig deep with your own personal stories. That's that on onsite expertise. And you can link out to things like stats or journal articles or whatever to actual quality sites that can back up everything you're saying. So my prediction is basically that we're gonna see a strong shift back to long form again, blogs, case studies, content that actually has room to breathe and tell a complete story. Alright, before I get too tangential here, let's move on to Sam's prediction about sales.'cause this one's really interesting. Hey, my name is Sam and I'm the founder and lead copywriter at Nomad Copy Agency. I'm a part-time nomad and full-time copywriter, which means that I write really high converting sales copy from all over the world. Last year, my prediction was that we would see solutions be framed up quicker on sales pages. We would see those solutions show up higher on sales pages. I stand by that. I have seen problem sections not go by the wayside, but get far more succinct and really good at storytelling, which means that people are able to frame up how they actually serve people faster. This year, my prediction is that we will see more bonuses instead of discounts when creating urgency around a purchase. What I mean by that is that in the past we have seen discounts as a way to encourage people to buy that they're saving money. However, we are in a trust recession and people are still spending money. They just wanna know that they're getting something really valuable for the money that they do spend. So ways that I see this happening would be buy two, get one free. Something like that. I've seen that with services where if you buy two VIP days, you'll get another one free down the road. Or if you buy yourself a photo shoot, you could bring a friend for free. That's a great way to encourage your clients or business partners to also show up to something so that you're all on the same page. I've also seen really great fast action bonuses in the last couple of years that can be used at any time throughout a sales process. This might be to get extra one-on-one time with the service provider or be invited to a private Voxer group or community, something that's truly high value, and not just throwing in everything in the kitchen sink, like a template that you haven't sold in 10 years. Ultimately, I think these bonuses are going to outperform discounts when framing up a sale because people are seeing more value and they're better for you because you get the opportunity to get in front of potential clients even more. Sam's prediction about bonuses versus discounts ties directly into what she said about the trust recession. People are willing to spend their money. They just wanna know that they're actually gonna get real value from the investment, which I think is fair. And this actually leads me to my third prediction for 2026, and it connects the idea of building trust and demonstrating value. I think we're gonna see businesses embrace FAQs in a much bigger way This year, a few years ago, I created a small FAQ product that basically taught people how to utilize FAQs strategically now I'm planning to update that this year to incorporate more a IO . But the reasons I think FAQs are gonna become more important is because of generative search optimization completely. When someone searches, how do I choose a copywriter? Or, , what's the difference between a sales page and a landing page? Those AI overviews are gonna pull from content that answers those questions clearly and comprehensively, and frequently asked questions are one of the most effective ways to do that. They are literally designed to answer questions that your ideal clients are already asking, and even if they're not asking 'em. Things they're wondering. So my prediction is that we'll see websites with robust and strategic FAQ sections, and I don't even know if it's a prediction or just a dream that I have to see people adopt FAQ more strategically this year. I'm not talking about just a couple generic questions, thrown out a contact page, but I really think that we will see an adoption of. Thoughtful search, optimize questions that address real concerns and still position you as an expert with answers, which again builds trust and confidence. So that's it, my friends. You have it. All right there. Predictions for 2026 from myself, Rebecca, Courtney, Hannah, and. Sam, and if you're noticing themes here, you're not wrong. Authenticity over ai, voice and point of view, storytelling, value over discounts, longer form content, strategic FAQs, all of these predictions are pointing toward the exact same thing. People are really craving real human, thoughtful content from businesses that they can trust. So if you're thinking about your content strategy for this year, I really think those are the threads worth paying attention to. All right. Thank you, Rebecca, Courtney, and Hannah and Sam for joining me and sharing your insights. I will make sure that both the show notes and the podcast description have information about these lovely copywriters and marketers as well as ways that you can connect with them and follow their work. See you back here next week. We'll keep talking. Copy.