Hi. I’m John.
I write copy that people enjoy reading.

I cobble together words, massage them with rhythm, humor, and panache, then translate them into thoughtful copywriting and on-brand messaging.

I was the on-staff copywriter for a Denver grocery for nearly 10 years.

In that time I wrote copy for well over 1,000 newsletters, as well as copy for the website, product labels, in-store posters, internal messages, the occasional newspaper or online ad, and who knows what else.

I also became The Voice for the company. That voice consisted of a light tone; an irreverent, oddball, sometimes snarky sense of humor; absolute grammatical correctness (with the occasional purposeful variance); all as a means of presenting the carefully curated product mix and array of prepared foods.

Opt-ins for the newsletters increased from 14,200 when I started to over 31,000, and open rates increased from 14-15% to a smidge over or under 30% consistently.

Why use humor

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know here, but there’s a reason every insurance company uses humor in their ads, some more successfully than others: A product as universally reviled as insurance needs something to make it not entirely unpalatable. Enter stage left: humor.

My favorites are the Geico Portrait Gallery ads.

  • They are brief (some are just 15 seconds); they include the essential message (“15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance”) all wrapped up in tight, laugh-out-loud copy; they feature dissimilar “works of art,” all hung on art gallery walls, that converse with each other via the shrewd copy; the voices are exceptionally well-matched to the “works of art”; and most significantly, they are memorable.

    I like using humor, in words and in images, as a gateway into the main message, as a means of keeping potential customers reading, and to create an image that the store is a fun place to visit.

Anatomy of a Good Email

A prominent Denver marketing professional used one of my newsletters as an example of how to structure a good email. He noted that the newsletter educates people about a select ingredient; rewards reading with little snippets of humor; provides a recipe; makes readers feel “special” by offering a discount to newsletter subscribers; entertains and informs to the end.