30. The Most Common Copywriting Mistakes in Q1 2026

In this episode, Samantha shares the most common copy questions she got from Copy On Demand members in Q1 of 2026, straight from a private webinar she hosted just for them. Real talk: if her members are asking it, you're probably thinking it too. So she's bringing it to the podcast.

This episode covers nurture emails, freebie copy, and the sales page vs. checkout page confusion that came up after her Funnels 101 series. Samantha breaks each one down with her signature blend of specifics, story, and zero patience for vague advice.

What You'll Learn:

• What your nurture emails should include (and the one thing every single email needs, no exceptions)
• Why your freebie is probably really good, and also quietly costing you clients
• The actual difference between a sales page and a checkout page, explained with lifting shoes and her own website
• How assertive copy builds trust faster than any other tool in your arsenal
• Why copy that says what something "isn't" is confusing your readers right out of your funnel

 Resources Mentioned: 

• Funnels 101 series (start here!)
• My fav lifting shoes
•  Hire Samantha for an hour through Can You Write This For Me: https://canyouwritethisforme.com
• Grab my stickers

Connect with me:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Website

Nomad Copy Services → sales pages, emails, websites, and more.

Get on my calendar → if you’d like me to write your sales copy for you!

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Watch episodes with subtitles on my YouTube 

Nomad Copy Agency writes copy that CONVERTS for service-based businesses. Inquire about done-for-you services here.

Transcript

Samantha Burmeister 0:00

Hello friends, as many of you know, I have a membership called Copy on Demand, and inside of Copy on Demand, the members have the opportunity to submit copy to me each week for review. Every week I send them back their feedback, however they choose, whether that's in a Loom recording or in their copy document. However, because I work with dozens of people each week, I start to notice some patterns and I decided to host a webinar just for them called the Most Common copy questions that I got in quarter one of 2026. This stuff was so valuable that I am going to share it with you as well because as probably every third grade teacher ever says, if you have a question, ask it because the rest of the class is probably thinking the same thing. So today on Copy, and I am going to tell you the most common copy questions that the brilliant entrepreneurs inside of Copy on Demand ask me. And how I answer them so that you can become a better copywriter in your business as well. The three questions that I've gotten the most in Q1 of 2026 are as follows, one, what should I be sending in my nurture emails? Two, can you check my freebie copy to see if it makes sense? And three, what's the actual difference between a sales page and a checkout page? And I take a lot of responsibility for this third one because as. A listener to copy. And you know that I just finished a couple weeks ago, a Funnels 1 0 1 series, and in that I discussed checkout pages, ad nauseum, but not necessarily sales pages. So there was a little bit of confusion about what the difference is between a sales page and a checkout page. So we're gonna discuss it however, let's start with question number one. Question number one was, what should I be sending in my nurture emails? I always think about this in terms of like third grade grammar class or third grade writing class. Comes down to two things. The five Ws, who, what, where, when, why, and how. There are five Ws and n, h and two, beginning, middle, and end of a story. We wanna be talking about storytelling. First of all, a question I've gotten in the past is, wait, a Sam, what's a nurture email and a nurture email are those emails that you send to your entire list. Typically, people come onto your list because they downloaded a freebie. You send them a few get to know you. Emails that upsell into typically a low ticket offer, sometimes into a high ticket offer. And then after that, they're just hanging out on your list, so you've got an opportunity to nurture them until they're ready to buy again. So when nurturing, what a lot of people get wrong is that they don't add any links into their nurture emails, which means there's no opportunity for people to click or buy from them, which then makes writing emails seem like a chore because. They have to write to their people, but they're not getting any sales, so there's not really an incentive for you to be writing them other than these people who are maybe, hopefully probably reading your stuff but not necessarily connecting with you. So when writing your Nurture emails, I wanna make sure that everyone is doing one thing in every single email, and that is giving people a button, two click. That button can lead to an offer of yours. It can lead to your podcast, to your Instagram something, but giving them a button to click is gonna do two things. One, it's going to help your reader. It's going to help them get in the habit of clicking on what you've got, and it's going to then tell you what people find valuable. So if people are finding a link to your podcast valuable, or if people are finding a link to your offers valuable, it'll tell you that by what gets clicked the most. The other thing that button is going to do is it is going to give your email service provider data. It's going to tell them that you are trustworthy, that the humans that you as a human are sending emails to are interested. That engagement will help you land in more people's inboxes in the future rather than accidentally ending up in their spam In the email world this is called deliverability, so making sure that every single one of your nurturing emails has a button for them to click will help your deliverability. So when I say the five Ws, who, what, where, when, why, and how. If you're sitting down and you're like, well, I need to engage my list every week or two, what should I send? Think about this. Who? Who are my people? That might then help you think of an example of a client who's very similar to your best person to work with. You're your ideal audience. And tell a story about them. What do you do? This could be a random roundup. I do this every so often as well because I make the mistake of bringing people onto my list, typically through a webinar, selling them one thing, which is typically copy on demand, and then going back to regular old nurture emails. And I forget to tell them all of the other things that I do like Write done for you. Copy through VIP days and projects or through, can you write this for me? Which, if you go to, canyouwritethisforme.com. I'll make sure that that's linked in the show notes. That is where you can hire me for an hour. It's a great way to kind of test the waters and see if I'm the right copywriter for you, and also a great way to get that copy to-do list off of your hands. But because I and many of my clients tend to welcome people onto my list for one thing, share one thing, and then go back to regular schmegular nurturing people forget what I do. So it's okay to do a roundup or maybe do a series of emails reminding people what it is that you do and for whom. Next is where most of my clients do not operate on a location basis, but some of them do, especially people who are credentialed. Wellness professionals like therapists. Therapists are often only licensed in one state. So you could talk about. Things that are particular to your state. For example, if you're in Texas and you're experiencing winter weather in March or April, you can mention that it connects with your clients and says, yeah, this winter blues is really dragging on. If you're starting to think that you'd like to talk to someone, or that these problems might last longer than the flurries that we're seeing on the ground, reach out. That's a way that you could speak to where you are and where you practice. You could also think of where as, where are they in the journey and how can you meet them in the middle? So think about that and possibly doing some storytelling around that. Also think about when I have a lot of clients who work in finance and I always encourage them to do things that are really on brand. So in July you could say, Hey, did you just pay off your credit cards from Christmas time? Let's get ahead of that through some budgeting, so that you've got money for Christmas this year. See how there's an outcome we're talking about when in the year it is. So that might be a great email to send in July or in December. Somebody who works in say, either anything from finance to fitness to manifesting could say something like, start working with me now so that you start the year on the right foot. So we're talking about when in the year. We are existing. It's also a great way to be on trend is to talk about something like the Grammys or the World Series or the Super Bowl or something so that you can connect with people where they are right now, and it helps them understand that there's a real person who understands what's happening in the world on the other side of that computer. Why people should work with you. Tell stories, use testimonials. Talk about outcomes of your favorite clients. When I say tell stories, I wanna be very sure that again, we go back to this grade three principle of you are the middle of their story. You are not their punchline. So when we tell a story, we want them deciding to work with you to be the middle of the story. Let's use a finance example. We're speaking beginning, middle, end. The beginning is their problem. The Smith family just couldn't get their finances in order. It seemed like every time they saved$500, a$600 expense would come up. That's the beginning of the story. That's their problem, the middle. But then Mr. Smith found my consulting firm where we do family finance consulting, help them build a budget and create a plan so that they always stay on top of their savings goal. That's the middle. That's when they find you. The end is within six months of working together, the Smiths not only had an emergency fund set up, they also were able to pay for Christmas and their spring break vacation in cash. They're well on their way to teaching their kids better financial habits so that they grow up to be more financially responsible than their parents were at their age. That's the end of the story, is their transformation. That's a great nurture email is just tell a story about why people should work with you, what the outcomes are, and maybe even sneak in some how on what that process looks like to work with you. So that's our who, what, where, when, why, and how. We wanna do it in great storytelling where the end of the story is not So work with me please, but. We make it so obvious that you're the right person to choose to work with because other people have gotten strong outcomes as a result of working with you. The other big thing that I see is missing out on in nurture emails is the opportunity to collaborate. This could be freebie swaps. So if you know somebody in a similar industry to you, you could have them share your thing and you share their thing as long as it will provide value to your audience. This is not about providing value to a relationship between you and the other person, because that doesn't matter to your audience. Your audience wants to know how they're going to benefit from working with that person or from downloading that person's thing. I'll give you an example. I, as a copywriter, I work in marketing. If I were to start telling you about how great my personal trainer is. That would not make any sense unless that personal trainer also specifically works with people who spend way too much time at their desks. And are they specialize in working with entrepreneurs and hip flexor mobility, potentially even pelvic floor strength, because I am a woman in my thirties and most of my audience would be potentially women in their thirties. This is just an example that's not true of my audience, but you see where it would be a leap for me to start talking about personal fitness. When I work in entrepreneurship, so while my trainer might love me for getting her a bunch of clicks onto her website, my audience is gonna get really confused as to why I am talking about fitness to my list. It's a great way to create content is doing collaborations, but those collaborations have to make sense to your audience. So that's number one is what should I be sending in my nurture emails thing Number two, big question I've gotten recently is, can you check on my freebie to make sure it makes sense? So typically what happens is that people have a free thing that they send to people in exchange for getting their email address. We're gonna call it a PDF. We're gonna call it a freebie. I know there are a ton of different freebies out there, but we're gonna use this one as an example. So what happens, what I tend to see is that people set up an opt-in page and if you need a refresher on what an opt-in page, I will link the how to Write your Opt-in page Funnels 1 0 1 episode in the show notes below. But you're gonna write an opt-in page. People opt-in, you send them their first welcome email. I'll also include my podcast episode on welcome emails Below. They get the opt-in page, they get the email. The email says, click here to get the thing that you asked for. They go to your freebie and it's a whole boatload of information and it's good information because you are brilliant at what you do. So you have packaged this information up and you wanna make sure what people come to me really asking is, okay, did I package this up in a way that people find it valuable? Yes, that's thing one. That is the baseline of what your freebie should do. However. You don't wanna make the mistake that I and so many other people have made of that being the end of the journey. They've gotten value from you. They leave. You want them to understand that you know their problem well enough that you also know what questions this is going to raise and how to get those answers from you. So what I want people to do inside of their freebies is a couple of things, and it's gonna be at the top and the bottom of your freebie. You are going to add a table of contents or some version of a summary of what is going to be included, what you are going to learn in that freebie. Then underneath that, you're going to build your authority and say, I am the therapist for. Athletes in their thirties. I am the finance professional for women who are not the breadwinner in their family. I am the person, right? So this is where you build authority. You say, I know you and I know that this problem is going to be answered in the information below. However, afterwards, you're probably going to have questions about blank, fill in the blank here. When you do that, you will say, then the next step when you have these questions is to schedule a free consultation and get on my calendar. Or the next step when you have these questions is to check out these follow-up blog posts like, you'll know how to create a budget, but if you wanna do it really easily, click here to download my spreadsheet, and that's going to lead them to something paid or something more in depth where they have the opportunity to continue to stay in your world. So your freebie is probably actually really freaking good, but what it's not doing is it's not getting people to stay in your world. So when by adding a table of contents and a primary call to action before the meet of what they're combing there for, you are going to get their attention. You are giving yourself permission to sell to them, to take them to the next level. Before they ever get that value from you so that they know that you are the expert and that your expertise does not end when this document ends. Because what I often see is people only have a call to action or a CTA at the bottom of this document on the page that people are least likely to read. So by bringing a call to action to the top and saying, Hey, I know you. Because I've worked with a million people just like you. I'm gonna answer these questions, but this is what the next question is that you're gonna wanna do. You are prescriptive. You are being authoritative inside of this freebie and giving them the opportunity to click. Then when you put a call to action page at the end of your free thing. That serves as a reminder and as a second call to action. So it'll say the same thing. It's going to lead people to the same next step as the table of contents or as that primary call to action did. But it will serve as a reminder. So you are showing up twice as many times and reminding them that this is what you do for a living, and that you are the best person to help them take the next step. So that's answer number two is can you check my freebie copy to see if it makes sense? This is something people do ask me and copy on demand. I offer not just helping people edit, but helping people brainstorm, like their nurture emails, what goes in their copy, and also gut check what's already been written just for like clarity, getting that second set of eyes, almost a consultative approach. And what I see is that 90% of people in their freebies are missing the opportunity to sell and missing the opportunity, therefore, to build authority with the people who are downloading their things, which means that then when they get the rest of your nurture emails or the rest of your welcome sequence, they're confused about why you're selling something to them because they thought you just did the one thing. This is a bonus thought. Your open rate for your emails will drop off every single email until it stagnates probably between 40 and 60% depending on your audience. And. Its demographics, its size, et cetera. So you wanna get your authority out there as soon as possible. This is going to be your most clicked on email. It's going to be your most opened email. So you want to position yourself as the authority as soon as possible, because this is your opportunity to get your business and your offers in front of the most people that you ever will on any other email in your entire sequence. The third question that I get a lot is, what is the difference between a sales page and a checkout page, and when do you need one over the other? So I'm gonna give you two examples. One is a pair of shoes, the other is my own website, and I'll include the links below. So my favorite lifting shoes are called NOBULL, N-O-B-U-L-L. It sounds like I'm saying noble like nobility, but they're called NOBULL, They're lifting shoes. They are flat. They're like super, firm, and they fit me well. So for the shoes, if you go to nobull.com, you're going to see my favorite pair of lifting shoes. You'll click on outwork. I'll include the links below. If you wanna just skip right there. But you can see my favorite lifting shoe. When you go to that page, you're gonna notice some things. It's gonna have the text specs, it's gonna talk about the firmness of the shoe, and then it is a low, what's it called? A low angle. I forget what it's called, but it's going to say that it's gonna give you all of the details about the shoe because the shoe is an investment. It's like$150 to buy these shoes. Then when I decide what I want, I will then go to the checkout page. So the sales page had all of the details. The checkout page is just gonna remind me what I'm getting and it's gonna give me the opportunity to order bump, probably buy a drawstring bag, maybe some matching socks, something else that would go with these shoes. That's the difference between a sales page and a checkout page. If we wanna bring it back to the online business world, you will see my sales page for copy on demand. I will link that in the show notes as well. But copy on demand is a four figure investment for the year and because of that, because there are some details and because it's different from anything else in the industry, nobody else does something like copy on demand. Because of that, it has a pretty long sales page. It's like 10 scrolls long. And it has details about how it works. It has examples of other people's copy reviews. There's a ton of information there. Then when you click through, right now, it's on a wait list. So you won't do this if you go to copy on demand. But what typically would happen is then it says, I want in, and then it takes us to a second page that collects your credit card information and reminds you that. What's included in Copy On Demand, it is that you get weekly copy reviews from me. You get access to trainings, you get a quarterly one-on-one call with me to talk about your copy strategy, and you get discounts on all of my done for you offers and templates throughout the year. So it's gonna have some bullet points of what's included, but really the purpose of that page is to collect credit card information and help people become, go from being lurkers to being clients. So the difference between a sales page and a checkout page, sales page is gonna have all of the information. A checkout page is gonna have the checkout form and the basic information that people need to know so that they know when they actually click that button that they're buying, what they think they're buying. So the three questions were, what should I be sending in my nurture emails? Literally anything. Just tell stories like a freaking human. These are your opportunities to connect with people and position your offers so that we can start tracking things like click through rates, making sure that your email service provider trusts you and that your people are interested in what you're saying. Next was about freebie copy. What should be going in your freebie copy. Honestly, a heck ton of value. But don't forget to position yourself as an authority and as somebody who can solve not only the problem that they got the freebie for, but the next problem that they're going to have. You are preemptively answering their questions and positioning your offers as the best way to solve them. And third, the difference between the sales page and a checkout page. Finally, this is something I find myself saying to my copy on demand clients, and I want you to hear it too, is be assertive. Be assertive. I see people too often diminishing their authority or confusing their audience and they do it accidentally. Part of that is because of our culture. Most of my clients grew up in the western world where women are conditioned to be more passive. So their copy might say something like, I just want you to have the resources that you need to be successful. Don't say that. Ah, it's not about you, first of all. So I just want does not land. We want to say you need this, because again, this isn't about you and what you want. This is about what they need and what they are going to get from you. So instead of saying, I want you to have the resources say you need these resources to be successful. Another thing I see, and I think this one is a direct symptom of over leveraging AI, is to say it's not blank. So it's not another course when in fact it is a course. It might be a course plus coaching, but we'll see this like it's not just another blankety blank, it's blank. Anything that you see, if you are using ai, if you are seeing something, say it's not blank, just erase it. Up to the point that it starts saying what it is, you are not going to lose the message that way. And also from a sales psychology perspective, because this isn't about whether or not I like ai, I'm not an AI hater. I use AI in many parts of my business. I just don't tend to use it to write my copy. I'm gonna take a step back there and say, and I don't use it ever to write my copy or my client's copy. But what I see happen over and over is that we are one, diminishing our authority, which we don't wanna do. People come to us to be the authority in what it is that we're offering, and two, that the brain does not comprehend negatives. So from a sales psychology perspective, if you're telling them what it's not. You are being confusing. You are slowing down how they read so that they can stop to process and you are then running the risk because you have slowed them down of people bouncing off the page either because of clarity or confusion. Another example that I see where we're doing something very similar is one that I actually saw in Copy On Demand recently. I got their permission to share. This is their copy said, this isn't a we'll start your budget today situation. It's a, we do your entire budget in a day situation. Sounds punchy and cute, especially when I say it with a little bit of a bratty voice. But what you really wanna say here is we will set up your budget in one day. We will set you and your family up for financial success. In one day, we will blank. Just tell me what it is. Anytime you see something that says no fluff, that's literally a fluff statement. And when you're using a fluff statement to say that there's not going to be any fluff, you're diminishing your authority. You are diminishing your trust indicators because you're lying. You're giving them fluff to tell them that there won't be fluff. That's incongruous. That will set. Something off in people's brains that tells them, no, this person does not know what they're talking about. This person is not telling the truth. If something says no fluff, if it says no overwhelm, literally just delete those sentences. What's around it is probably okay to use. Another thing that I see. Is accidentally insulting your audience. So one thing I've seen recently, a lot of is saying laziness. An example would be, that's not laziness, it's just when real life happens or real life just happened, life caught up to you. We don't wanna say that Maybe your people weren't thinking that they were lazy. So that's a really wild assumption to make. When you're trying to get somebody to buy from you, we do not want to accidentally insult our audience. What we do wanna do is again, show our authority and assert ourselves as the expert in the field. So rather than saying that's not laziness, it's real life just happened, say you are powerful and you are capable of doing the thing that I teach. People love to be complimented. People love to feel safe, and when you assert your authority on them, they will feel safe enough to buy from you. So that is what I have for you today. I also turned a couple of these things into stickers, which I don't have a sales page for, but if you are interested in having these visual reminders on your desk that say, tell them what it is, not what it's not, or that the world is a better place when you sell more. If you want those stickers, reach out to me. I will create a way for you to get them. I will mail them to you with. My own stationary. So if that's interesting to you, let me know. I'm happy to get those over to you. And remember that truly the world is a better place when you sell more, when you are assertive, when you are the authority, when you are implementing these very human trust indicators into your copy, people will buy from you. And when people buy from you, they get the incredible service that you deliver. What you do is important. What you do is valuable to them. And when more people have more of you, not only do you have more money to do incredible things in your personal life with and make the world a better place, but people will have what you offer in their hands, in their brains, in their computers, and their lives will be better off because of it. So implement what I'm teaching here in the Copy End podcast. If you wanna get on the wait list so that you have direct access to my brain through Copy on demand, you can go to nomadcopyagency.com, click copy on demand up at the top, and get on the wait list. It's not available right now, and it probably won't be until we're looking at November or December. That's your peak into my business is that I'm still making that decision and I will certainly let you know. But Waitlist will get a discount and they will get early access. And we are looking at metering, the number of people who are allowed into copy on demand this year. So being on that wait list will be valuable to you if it's something that you're serious about. As always, if you have questions, reach out to me at nomadcopyagency.com on Instagram at nomad.copy. And if you would like me to write your copy for you, you can reach out on my website, nomadcopyagency.com/contact. There'll be a form and you'll get on my calendar as early as next week for our kickoff call. So with that, have a fantastic week. Happy spring. Stay hydrated, my friends. I'll see you next time.