Not knowing what to say—or being too idea rich & time poor to clearly craft it—shouldn’t be the thing holding you back from making sales. Quite frankly, long as your last campaign or sales message isn’t winning you work, it could ALSO be losing you work. 👀
Because nope, your art—and creative brilliance—doesn’t always speak for itself. (Ouch, I know. It’s enough to make you roll your eyes back so far you can see a speck of ✨roll-on glitter✨ from 2001.) This is where we glide in, Wayfarers on/laptop in hand, with a socks-on-the-hardwood-floor slide that holds its own next to Tom Cruise in Risky Business.
Because nope, your art—and creative brilliance—doesn’t always speak for itself. (Ouch, I know. It’s enough to make you roll your eyes back so far you can see a speck of ✨roll-on glitter✨ from 2001.) This is where we glide in, Wayfarers on/laptop in hand, with a socks-on-the-hardwood-floor slide that holds its own next to Tom Cruise in Risky Business.
ot knowing what to say—or being too idea rich & time poor to clearly craft it—shouldn’t be the thing holding you back from making sales. Quite frankly, long as your last campaign or sales message isn’t winning you work, it could ALSO be losing you work. 👀
start the process now!
Campaign strategy, brand messaging, & conversion copy: we offer boutique agency services + educational resources for small businesses.🥂
When it’s time for top-shelf messaging architects,
get you some pencil-pushing brains who do it all.
GET NOTICED, GET LEADS, AND GET TO LAUNCH:
c'mon in the copy cave, we have snacks & dogs.
full-funnel
Imagery's overrated *ducks for tomatoes*—copy dictates design.
Four
✏️Human-sounding copy ftw: if we wouldn't say it, we don't write it.
Three
Good copy can't fix a bad offer—you know the *thing* itself is good
Two
You're dying to know the blindspots in your message & campaign. We'll tell you.
One
Over the years, our boutique agency’s tackled copy for internet darlings like Amy Porterfield, BossBabe, Jenna Kutcher, School of Bots, and the likes (pardon me while I bend down to pick up all the names I just dropped) but what you may not see? 💃🏻 We work on the reg—yes, daily—with ridiculously fab business owners just like you:
For stewardship of your story— sales.
and
let's arrange regular words in super cool ways.
As a working mama of 3, I'm here to show you proven strategies to help make more money with your words, so you can work from a place of rest—not hustle (& smart messaging lets you do just this).
NO.03
🌶️ I actually don’t believe in hiring a copywriter every time you need messaging: you CAN be your own best salesperson, given the right frameworks. The big guns? They know enough about copy to be dangerous—I'm here to teach you the same.
NO.02
I don’t gatekeep secrets or keep formulas to myself: Instead, I aim to have at LEAST 1 free training or tutorial for every topic I’m asked about. People have written their entire site or launch from my free stuff.
NO.01
I take a different approach than most marketers out there:
How it started,
The Devil Wears Prada hits theaters. I decide if I'm going to hang up my 🩰 pointe shoes, it's for j-school. Dad asks me to stop chronologically filing magazines under my bed because the weight of 192 glossy magazines is threatening the first floor.
Corporate marketing & PR by day, wedding calligraphy by night. TL;DR, I'm stressed, Wes proposes, we get married, & I go into partial hospitalization for an eating disorder & anxiety.
2006
2010
2016
Journalism degree 🗞️ in hand, I head out for my first job—where I meet McKenzie Lawson & Sarah Giguere, who now work for AW. #win
I peace out ✌🏼 on corporate life (love it, f'real) to do something better for my mental health. Spot the Ashlyn-sized gap in the market: sales messaging for people who love the pretty. Book out. Launch Copywriting for Creatives.
2015
how it's going
Keep going
First copywriters hired. Agency forms. Stages booked. First copy template shop launches. Take first sabbatical. Decide this is fun, why not try to grow our family, too. 👶🏻
The Copy Bar Collective membership + copy subscription service launches after THREE (yup.) years in the making to 500+ members.
2017
2020
2024
First year we hit $1M in sales, which is weird. Blame it on the gig economy explosion. Lots of tears, lots of pivots, we survive. Cult-classic AW products like Primed to Launch & the Sweet 16 Sales Page Template hit shelves.
Back to work after baby #3 & moving the business back to my hometown (& a few streets over from where F. Scott & Zelda's home). LFG!
2023
today!
GO-TO DRINK?
Greatest regret?
fave spotify playlists?
what do you collect?
personality type?
go to travel destination?
WHAT'S YOUR MOTTO?
French 75. A cuppa tea in the good china on a random Tuesday night. Good wine. Margaritas. Can I have 4 go-to's?
That I wasn't in college when yacht rock music was Top 40.
Classy cocktail, 90s country, light academia, In Nancy Meyers' Kitchen, Okay Holden Caulfield, relax.
Breton striped shirts 🇫🇷, books about Zelda Fitzgerald, books in general, antiques
ENFJ, but pretty big introvert. Never done the Enneagram test before. Artsy but analytical.
The Alabama coast, France, & being a +1 on my husband's golf course bucket list trips
"Do radiate." My ballet master growing up told us that, it reminds me of Psalms 34:5
PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE
just like the backcopies of vanity fair magazine—let's play
The
We operate as a boutique agency, which is a fancy way to say we run zone coverage 🏈 on client work and customer service: having a team ensures every deliverable is double & triple touched by other communication-strategy lovers.
STICK AROUND LONG ENOUGH & THE GERMAN SHEPHERD DOGHAIR WILL BE STUCK TO YOUR PANTS, TOO.
Meet Team
the
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meet Mckenzie >
Hey y’all! I’m Wendy, the 50/50 Peacemaker and Adventurer – a nod to all you Enneagram enthusiasts out there! 🌟 My heart beats for helping folks chase those monumental dreams, and I’m here to be the mastermind making sure Ashlyn and the whole squad keep rocking and rolling.
After tossing my cap at Ole Miss (Hotty Toddy, anyone!?), and enjoying a stint in the non-profit world, I’m setting sail on a fresh adventure—diving headfirst into my love for creative entrepreneurship. BINGO! Ashlyn Writes is the name of my game now. 🎉
When I’m not jet-setting and on the move, I call Atlanta, GA home sweet home. 🏠 Growing up in a bustling household where I’m the only gal amongst four brothers, I treasure nothing more than kickin’ it with my beloved family and friends.
EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT
Harrison
Wendy
meet Sarah >
Meet McKenzie, aka Kenz, our reigning Customer Delight Queen! With a background in counseling, she brings boundless care and support to our cherished clients. Her passion falls for jumping in feet first and helping small business owners navigate the everyday. When she's not spreading joy at AW HQ, you’ll find her enjoying time with her husband and four kids in Athens, GA.
CUSTOMER DELIGHT MANAGER
Lawson
Mckenzie
meet Rebecca >
Sarah is a copywriter & brand strategist who traded corporate marketing for non-profit communications, and circled the bend to find her place among creative entrepreneurs. She works directly with our clients and coaches our students as a go-to gal for making brands more personality-er.
A rare Orlando native, Sarah spends her free time bouncing between Disney World (she's basically Team AW's Chief Disney Ambassador), sunshine & lake life, and is just a quick drive from the house her mama grew up in—naturally, that I can get behind.
COPYWRITER & HEAD OF AGENCY
Watson
Sarah Anne
meet Wendy >
Becs is a copywriter who loves nothing more than harnessing client vibes in copy form. She'll soak up the way you talk (and the way your customers talk about YOU) and spit it back out on the (digital) page as a clear, snappy, conversion-focused snapshot of your brand.
Currently, she's living out her other calling as a wife and mama between the plains and mountains of Colorado.
copywriter & strategist
OBrien
Rebecca
We love email marketing 📧 & copy so much one time we built our own server. It's casual.
Nerd ninja skills: SEO, conversion design, offer strategy, website optimization
Cut our teeth in commercial advertising, national publication PR, & email in the days before IG even existed
You've *prob* seen our work in the wild before—we've written for prestigious pubs & clients 😎
We sic a crew of multiple writers on EVERY project (& have since 2016)
Degrees (bachelors & masters) in journalism, education, human science, & counseling.
We've got the street cred.
fine. whatever. yes hi we think reading the dictionary is fun.
Every inch of copy should be worth the price of entry (i.e., the click).
If it’s not fun to read, we don’t want it. 💅🏼 Oui, people still reading long copy, btw. They don’t read BORING copy. Even if they’re not purchasing from your email or sales page, we think it should do one of the big 4: entertain, educate, inspire, or inform. Whether they buy or not, we believe in well-placed wit, disruption, & head-turns.
We’re also kinda known for squeezing more personality out of you than you knew you had. As long as folks want your offer, we can get close in our copy by defining your Onlyness Factor & nailing your voice on paper.
Ethical marketing > all other marketing. Full stop.
There’s a reason our crest for The Copy Bar Collective membership says “logos et veritas”—for writing & TRUTH. Slick, straight up LYING marketing ploys need not apply.
We’re down to twist the knife & pull the sales psychology levers, but always remembering that there’s a human being on the other side. 🖤 We’re for making money to help people. If it can’t be proven or isn’t ethical, we won’t type it. Integrity always.
We’ll call your blind spots (even if it makes us uncomfortable). We’re down for the spicy hot take (even if it makes us unpopular). If the offer isn’t stacking up in your ecosystem, if the price seems off for industry standards, if the sequence is missing a few emails, we’re calling it on the carpet. We hear a lot of “you should call yourselves launch/business strategists, not copywriters.”
Maybe we should. But we also believe that a good copywriter always questions the narrative. Copywriters make good lawyers and lawyers make good copywriters for a reason.
We write with courage & class.
It’s the Mark Twain rule of law in action: “Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”
We're for the ruthless elimination of words that don't work.
Boom, baby.
Every word should stab.
This is where a lot of copywriter gurus get it wrong: they talk to you about aLL tHe wOrdS iNnsiDe oF yOu ... the ones waiting to get out.
Yes. Those matter. But what your dream customer is saying? How they describe their problem or desire? Hoo boy. THAT's the money shot. 🤑 We'll go get it.
Your voice matters—but your prospect’s voice matters a leetle bit more.
Visuals are kinda overrated. They matter, but they don't always get the credit card digits locked in.
We believe in aesthetics. We love art.
But we won't let your conversions die on aesthetic alone: copy should dictate the design—design's the vehicle that makes it happen.
Conversion copy should never die on the hill of “I just wanted it to be pretty.”
The Montgomery Guide
I crack open my laptop daily in my Alabama hometown. Birthplace of Zelda Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole, the Deep South city's got swagger & is a must-visit for any history buff. Here are the spots I rattle off to anyone passing through.
IF YOU EVER FIND YOURSELF IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD...
- ZELDA FITZGERALD & also my senior yearbook quote
"I don't want to live— I want to love first, and live… incidentally."
bloody mary bar at the bubbly hen
Biscuits stadium, the historic train station (it's a beut), the amphitheater (sweated a lot on that stage 🩰) ... try to catch a show or game.
The riverfront
You can hardly walk a block in this town without landing face-first in American history. This is a solemn, must-hit ... swing by the Rosa Parks statue on Dexter, too.
The Legacy Museum sites
F. Scott Fitzgerald met his bride in Montgomery at the Country Club. I own an embarrassing amount of books about the writer's wife (of first flapper fame).
F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald Museum
Cocktails
Female-owned small businesses I love, coming in hot: Interior designer Ashley Gilbreath—her interior design coffee table book is a must-have—has Parish ... which conveniently sits next to Melissa Warnke's candle shop.
in Old Cloverdale
home gifts + candles
Ravello
Martin’s Restaurant
El Rey Burito Lounge for tacos
Duh, you'll encounter the fixin's—grits, biscuits, fried okra ... etc. Hit Martin's for that. The others are faves for date nights + lunch dates with girlfriends.
Restaurants to Try
shop our trainings
book a discovery call
view our services
Totally ~*done-zo*~ with rage deleting
drafts & staring at the blinking cursor?
Step inside our copy cave.
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