#CreatorStories showcases the honest personal experiences of digital creators who monetize their knowledge of a skill and sell it on Selar. We share these stories every week to inspire you to create and sell a product out of your wealth of knowledge and be a part of the digital creator economy.

This week, we turn the lights on Emmanuel Akpe, popularly known as the Prince of Copywriting, who started selling at the age of 16 and turned the professional job past questions he had to digital products from which he made over 300,000 Naira. 

Today he has created multiple digital products from which he earns seven figures. And has built a successful brand around copywriting, sales, and marketing. 

Everyone would like to get to know Emmanuel Akpe, the Prince of Copywriting.

Can we meet Emmanuel Akpe?

I’m a copywriter, digital creator, author, and speaker. I got into the online space in 2015 and I started with Freelancing. I was writing blog articles on Fiverr, product descriptions, web content, and general SEO content. 

In 2016, I learned about copywriting and I started studying copywriting, reading books on copywriting, and following copywriting YouTube creators. Then I niched down to copywriting in 2017. 

I worked on Fiverr for two years till 2019 when I got full-time into brand and content creation, creating my own courses, training, and all of those things. I’m from Benue state. I studied Microbiology at the University of Uyo. I was part of Enactus. I was Enactus project manager and group head. 

Most people don’t know that I started selling when I was 16 after reading Secrets of the Millennial Mind, and I went on to sell almost everything you can think of in school. I sold lab coats, I wrote a book, GPA 101. I did projects for final-year students since I was in my second year in university (Laughs). I’ve been hustling. 

What was your career journey like before becoming a sales and marketing expert? Did you work at a 9 -5? 

The only 9 to 5 I did was when I was 16 after I was done with school. I taught in a primary school for a year before I got admission. That was the only time. And after that, I just realized that it wasn’t my thing. I knew from time that I was going to be in sales and marketing. I just love sales. 

When I was younger, at 16, I was selling stuff from my mom’s business. I would take orders and go and deliver them for my mom. I’ve always been into business, I love sales. Then, I moved on to selling almost everything while I was in school. Immediately after I left school, I started freelancing because I knew I loved writing. That’s why I could do projects and term papers for people. I knew I loved selling. 

So I discovered that selling and writing had a name and it was called copywriting (lol). Then  I was like, okay, this is good, let me just stay here since it’s my strength. So far, that has been one of my best decisions, to stay with copywriting. Even though these days I do more consulting and strategy while my team does the writing. 

I’m more of a mind guy, somebody who draws out strategy and what teams can do. Generally, that’s my transition. From freelancing to building my brand and now, consulting, and training.

What was your first digital product?

So someone sent me past questions for people looking for jobs. All those GMAT kinds of exams that people write before they get a job. I had a lot, and one day, I think either in 2015 or 2016, I just thought, what should I sell? 

I went to Nairaland. I started using Nairaland in 2011, so I understood how the platform worked and how powerful it was. So I created a thread and said I was going to give out free job interview questions but they should drop their emails and send me a message on WhatsApp. Lots of people sent me messages. 

Since it was free, I sent them Part 1 of the questions and told them that if they needed parts 2, 3, and 4, they should just pay 1,000 Naira. Omo! I cashed out with that (laughs). Then I noticed I wasn’t actually producing anything. That was when I got my “Eureka” moment. I was like, oh cool! I wasn’t producing anything. 

I was only resending these emails to them and making so much money during that period. That was my first taste of digital products and it really increased my confidence, because I saw it worked. 

So your first digital product was resending past questions for professional job exams?

Yeah.

How much did you make from it? 

I think I did close to N300k. I created the thread in lots of niches on Nairaland and I was just replicating it.  The offer was just too good because the questions were so much like the materials were so much for what I was offering. And then I started with free, so the trends were always at the top. Mehn! it was really cool, I don’t even know why I stopped (laughs).

What’s the average amount you make from digital products now? 

So I think I’ve made over 100 million Naira from selling digital products. I have a course, Bachelor of copywriting, which we’ve sold over 15,500 slots of the course. It’s a WhatsApp and Zoom class hosted once a month and it goes for just 5000 Naira. And funny enough, it started as something I just wanted to test.

I read something in a copywriting book then and it was more like doing something people were already used to. Students are used to Bachelor of microbiology, Bachelor of this, Bachelor of that. So if I do something called Bachelor of Copywriting (BOC), it’s going to be innovative and it’s also going to be something people would really connect with because schooling is a big thing here. 

So I decided to go with it and I wrote down the offer I had. I was going to give certificates and I was also going to do sabificate (laughs), the one where people just brag about what they know and all that (laughs). I was going to give out all my ebooks and at that time, I had written 9 ebooks. I have about 17 of them now. I made the offer very irresistible and I launched and then boom, we had 140 registration. I was like Okay? People really like this (lol). 

It was mind-blowing for me because I wanted to receive a credit alert every day. And to do that, I knew I had to create a digital product. So I created a Fiverr and Copywriting Masterclass first and sold it for 2000 naira. Do you know I did that for 50 weeks non-stop? I sold that course like mad. I was averaging around 50-100 students every week. 

The Bachelor of Copywriting (BOC) course started in 2020. After I did that, I was looking at transitioning, doing something once a month. So I was bringing in people from the Fiverr class to the BOC class. It just made sense and we started growing from 140 to 275 to 303 till we got to 600, 900, and today we have an average of 1200 students for every BOC edition. 

How did you do that? What is your sales strategy that other digital creators can employ?

For me, it’s been “Process”. I am very big on Process. I have a process for doing almost anything and I just run through my process again. So the process is what makes results predictable. If you know the process of making fried rice, you wouldn’t make jollof rice.

I’ve always been big on personal processes. My process has always been; Offer – Lead generation – Conversion. I make sure my offer is really irresistible. I mean, hundred to one. You’re giving me one naira and you’re taking 100 Naira. It’s a big thing for me. If you’re giving me one naira, I’m giving you 100 naira. And I’m not giving you cash, I’m giving you intangible value. You’re seeing the value and you’re like this guy is giving me more. So I’m big on offers and I’m big on lead generation. 

For lead generation, I have four A’s of lead generation. My audience is 19K on Instagram, 18.7K on Twitter, and close to 5,000 on Facebook. I have over 20,000 contacts on WhatsApp, I have an email list of over 20,000 people also. So, I’m big on audience. I’m growing my audience every day. Also, I’m big on ads. I run ads on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and YouTube. I also run ads with WhatsApp influencers, Facebook influencers, and Instagram Influencers. I see ads as an investment.

Next are associates, friends, students, and mentees. I’m big on people helping me. If you see my status I always ask for help. Like help me post, help me share, etc. I believe in organic virality. If people share your post, you’re reaching a warm audience because their own brand is rubbing off and you’re leveraging their own trust. 

I’m big on affiliates. I have affiliates for the BOC course. There are over 1000 of them that make over 50% selling the course. We have competitions, people get to win laptops, and iPhones in the BOC course. There are milestones. For every milestone, there is a cash prize. It’s so much about the process; Offers, Lead generation, and Conversions. Conversion is the biggest of them. I usually say lead generation without conversion will lead to hypertension. 

Also, my brand. I’m big on keeping a clean brand on the internet with no scandals. I’m careful what I say by keeping it clear. I’m also big on testimonies, urgency, scarcity, and all of those things that increase conversion. I’m big on WhatsApp conversion.  I have an autoresponder that replies to all my chats. It does lots of automation, follow-ups, etc. In general, these are all the processes I’ve used to make sales and they’ve worked. 

What is your idea about copywriting?

So copywriting is one to many. Like, it’s selling but selling one to many. There’s one to one, one to few, and one to many. For me, copywriting is selling to many people at the same time and using your words strategically to get results that are predictable.

So let me start from the bottom – a predictable result.

As a copywriter, we don’t do shadowboxing. We’ve studied human psychology and we understand what works. So a copywriter is one who already knows the kind of words that would work and the kind of words that would bring some kind of emotion.

If I say something like I love you, right, I know it brings out a different emotion from when I say you’re stupid or something. So, we know how to use the right words. 

Secondly, it means that we can reach a lot of people without just having to sell one to one. I can write an email letter and it goes to 100,000 email list subscribers and even if I just convert 10% of 100,000, That’s huge. 

So instead of selling one to one, copywriting helps you sell one to many, and then it helps you get predictable results because you’ve studied human psychology and you know the right words to use to bring about an action. That’s my personal definition of copywriting. 

How did you get started with copywriting? and how did you hack it?

Two people introduced me to the word copywriting. One was Dan Lock and the other was Caesar Namani, a very good guy.

So I was watching Dan lock’s videos back then in 2017 and one of the videos that really got me was when he was talking about how he retired at 24. And then he

talked about what he did. While watching the video, I could relate so much with him because I could see his story as my story. I mean, I just connected to Dan lock, it was like love at first hear (laughs).

I connected so easily. Lots of things he went through, I had also gone through them. I saw his trajectory. He said his first high-income skill. So I learned high-income skills and high return investment. 

High-income skill, high return investment, and highly profitable business, that’s the triangle. He mentioned copywriting. He said copywriting was a high-income skill. Copywriting, UI, UX, and web design are all high-income skills and high-income skills can pay you close to high-income professions or even more than high-income professions and high-income jobs. 

I knew I didn’t have a high-income job. I knew I didn’t have a high-income profession like medicine, law, and the rest. So I knew I had to stick with high-income skills if I needed to earn high. He said that he did copywriting. And I was like what is copywriting?

I went to check and I noticed that copywriting had to do with selling and writing. I was like, Oh my God, this is for me (lol). I know how to write and I know how to sell so I’ll stick with this. 

The next person I had in Nigeria was Caesar. Caesar was writing for his group Double your Profit Academy. He was also very good at copywriting. The way he flowed was so good. I was like, I need to stick here. 

I think I entered Copywriting when it was still a blue ocean because most people didn’t know about it. If you said copywriting then, people would take it like copyrighting books or law or something. I think I was part of the persons that actually made this concept clearly known in Nigeria. So, yeah, that was the start for me.

When did you decide it was time to build a business and brand around sales and marketing, and teaching people more about copywriting?

Two years after I discovered it. I discovered it in 2017 and I had read a lot and studied about it before I started applying for jobs on freelancing sites.  I applied for jobs on Upwork and Fiverr and I was also getting personal gigs. 

2018 was one of my best years ever, I spent so much time studying. It was NYSC year and my PPA was about once a week. So I had so much time to study books, and videos, a lot of them.

After my service year, I went fully into branding and productizing my skill. I learned from Dan Lock that there’s a ceiling to our skill or service or to how many people we can serve a day. I know that if I write 3 copies a day, I’ve really tried. 

But I can sell a copywriting course, training, or webinar to 1000 people a day. There’s no limit to what I can do once it’s a product. For me, I needed to scale, I needed to start impacting what I knew to others.

Aside from teaching people everything about sales and marketing, what else do you do?

I consult, I mentor, I travel, and I basically just love reading. My entire day is about studying. I’m a home guy, so I stay at home most times. My space is just me. My workers work remotely, so everyone knows exactly what they are to do and I’m off to reading. I read a lot. I think a lot and I sleep a lot, especially this year. I’ve slept so much this year.

I don’t have any other job. I don’t have anything else to do. It’s basically copywriting, sales, consulting, going for programs, events, traveling, speaking, and writing. This year, I should release physical books. I have over 17 ebooks but I’m thinking of merging and releasing physical books.

What advice would you give to digital creators in Africa that can help them boost their sales?

Firstly, create a Selar account. Selar has really helped me. They are disrupting the digital space in Africa. I was with Milton in Rwanda last year. He’s my very close friend. One of my best emails is “New Selar payout.” Like every day, I get a New Selar payout. Selar is an amazing product and selling there is easy. Payment is so swift. You can sell and earn in different currencies. Also, they have a very powerful Affiliate network where affiliates can sell your products.  Selar is something everybody should look at. 

Next, everyone should document their process. Most times we are quick to forget what worked and when we are starting a new project, we start afresh. So if something has worked for you, document it and try it again. If it has worked consistently, document it, that’s a process. I don’t like doing things that I won’t know the results of. I love experimenting, don’t get me wrong. But I love doing things and being sure of the results. So, document your process. Make sure that whatever you do has worked. Do it over and over again. 

Increase your reach, increase your conversions, and help people. It’s not just about the money, it’s about the people you grow with. Grow more people. I think what has really helped is that I’m so big on growing people. I’m so big on genuinely helping people make more and become better persons. So I think that’s my advice.

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You’ve heard it from the Prince of Copywriting. If you know it and can teach it, allow Selar to do the rest for you.

We have tools and features to help you make massive sales from digital products. Here’s how to get started.

• Sign up on Selar.
• Set up your online store and bank details.
• Upload your product.
• Share store link with customers and start selling.