We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Arianna Smith a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Arianna, thanks for joining us today. So, let’s start with trends – what are some of the largest or more impactful trends you are seeing in the industry?

The biggest trend to hit the copywriting industry is—you guessed it—AI. The shift AI has created within the copywriting industry is vast. You’ll see the early adopters who were offering AI-assisted writing prompts right away, to anti-AI writers concerned about the future of creative services and intellectual property rights.

Where do I stand? I believe that humans, with the motivation and skill, always write better than AI. When consumers read copy that’s heavily written or edited by AI, it just feels off. There’s an unconscious flatness, lacking the variation and heart that naturally comes with human writing.

As a copywriter for therapists and wellness professionals, I’m especially sensitive to this trend. Authentic connection is the basis for most of my clients’ businesses. How can I ensure that AI does not dilute their unique messaging and compromise trust?

AI has been incorporated into so many writing tools, it’s hard to avoid it completely. Each business owner gets to explore and form their unique relationship to AI writing based on what feels good and true to them. Since AI is constantly changing, we must allow for our relationship with it to change, too.

Arianna, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a conversion copywriter, content strategist, and email marketing specialist. Since 2019, I’ve helped therapists, healers, and wellness professionals in private practice craft words that sound like them, resonate with their ideal clients, and nurture their audience with heart-centered copy.
Funny story: I didn’t start my career in creative services! I’m professionally trained as a licensed mental health therapist and still maintain a small private practice seeing therapy clients.
While my copywriting business opened in 2019, my love of words and psychology blossomed when I was in college studying both psychology and linguistics. Copywriting, at its core, is simply the psychology of words. When you think about it, copywriting was an intuitive next step to expanding my career and honoring my creative strengths.
Why do my copywriting clients choose me? I’m doing on-the-ground clinical work too, and have been for a long time. I bring decades of lived experience sitting with people during their darkest moments. This translates to an embodied understanding of what people most need to hear when searching for a therapist or wellness professional. As a practicing therapist, I’m adept at translating “clini-speak” (what I call the jargon of helping professionals) into compelling words that resonate with readers.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I am, at my heart, a helper. There are so many talented and caring therapists, healers, and wellness professionals out there. While they learned a lot of amazing things in graduate school or professional training, copywriting was not one of them. Powerful copywriting is a foundational aspect of any successful private pay or scalable business, and when business owners aren’t applying the principles of authentic copy, they can be missing out on ideal clients or other business opportunities. By stepping into my role as a copywriter with a clinical background, I ensure therapists and wellness professionals increase their impact on the world through strategic messaging and heart-centered words. Whether I’m writing copy for busy group practice owners or simply inspiring a solo practitioner to find their own voice, my mission is helping people find the right healer to support them in their journey.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

Whenever I tell folks that I’m a copywriter and a licensed mental health therapist, they say, “Well, that’s an interesting combination!”. The core of this assumption is that creativity must look a certain way, like you’re a poet, artist, painter, or photographer. Creativity is much more vibrant and expansive than these traditional expressions. Therapists, healers, and wellness professionals are among the most intuitive and naturally creative people. They work with clients every single day. Each patient has their own presentation of issues, strengths, and complexities, and healers come up with an adaptive, innovative approach to help them heal. How is that not creative? Let’s expand our definition of creativity. If you don’t consider yourself “creative,” consider what you find fun, easy, or that puts you into a state of “flow.” That might be where your creative journey begins.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ariannasmith.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/writewitharianna
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecopycove
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arianna-j-smith
• Other: Join Arianna’s newsletter, The Weekly Wordsmith, for results-driven copywriting advice infused with heart.
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