Direct Response Copywriting Jobs in Chicago, IL (NOW HIRING)

Location: Chicago, on-site

Type: Full-time

About Crown Macro

Crown Macro is building a modern financial media and intelligence platform for self-directed traders and active investors.

We publish institutional-quality market analysis, operate a growing subscription business, and are developing software that brings together financial research, real-time market context, proprietary data, and actionable intelligence in a product built for the way investors consume information today.

The Role

We are hiring a Copywriter to own the marketing copy that converts readers into subscribers.

While your main role is to write direct response copy that sells subscriptions to our research, the role is much more than that. A Copywriter at Crown Macro is a reader, an idea generator, a student of markets, and a persuader. You are the commercial engine of the publication.

This is a production role and a thinking role at the same time. You will write three short-form marketing emails every day and one long-form asset every week, and you will be expected to know the markets well enough to find the idea behind each one yourself rather than waiting to be handed it.

Our readers are engaged in the financial markets and are looking not just for information but direction.

They range from active retail traders to professionals who trade for a living. Most have been trading through multiple market cycles and are skeptical of unnecessary hype. They respond to specificity, proof, and a genuine idea with market data.

Copy that works on an unsophisticated audience will not work here, and the wrong opening line costs you the reader permanently.

The right person understands that direct response copy is not decoration on top of a product. It is the mechanism by which the business grows, it is measured in revenue within days, and it improves only through disciplined testing and honest reading of results.

Responsibilities

• Writing, 55% of workday. Produce the assets required to launch and sustain marketing campaigns at the volume listed under Expected Output. Supervised by direct manager. Requires focused work against deadlines, the ability to interpret performance data, interview colleagues, research an unlimited number of topics, and hold voice when writing under our bylines.
• Reading and research, 25% of workday. Read all of the editorial content we produce, along with the books, research, and market coverage that support the campaign you are assigned to. Generally unsupervised. Must be able to apply that reading to current assignments to establish proof and credibility with a demanding audience.
• Project coordination, 15% of workday. Attend and organize meetings and handle the tasks that keep a campaign executing on schedule. Supervised by direct manager. Requires planning ahead, managing many moving parts, and communicating clearly across design, media, editorial, and engineering.
• Marketplace assessment, 5% of workday. Study all of the channels where our copy and our competitors' copy is currently running. Supervised by direct manager. Requires access to results data and time spent evaluating what is working in our marketplace.

Expected Output

• Two to three short-form marketing emails per day
• One long-form asset per week, rotating across promotions, landing pages, and advertorials
• Five subject line variants per short-form email, submitted for testing
• Daily video title and caption ideas based on content produced
• Monthly volume: approximately 50 short-form pieces and 4 long-form assets

Output is produced from supplied source material, including newsletter issues, video, analyst notes, and market commentary. Performance is measured on conversion, not on volume alone.

Expectations

• Establish a consistent daily production rhythm without a drop in quality between the first email of the week and the last
• Develop a deep working knowledge of our subscribers, what they already believe, and what they have already been sold by our competitors
• Build a tested library of subject lines, leads, and offers, with documented results
• Produce at least one long-form promotion that becomes a control
• Develop enough market fluency to write about a new sector or instrument without needing an analyst to explain it twice
• Establish a repeatable process for converting a single piece of editorial into multiple marketing assets across formats
• Contribute ideas that change what we sell, not only how we sell it

Who You Are

• A direct response copywriter who has written for a paying audience and can point to what your copy produced
• A constant reader who follows threads past the point you were asked to, and who is interested in markets on your own time
• Competitive, entrepreneurial, honest, energetic, and organized
• Undaunted by daily volume, because you have sustained it before and know what workflow it takes
• Able to write in someone else's voice and keep it consistent across fifty pieces a month
• Able to take editorial direction without defensiveness and give it without cruelty
• Comfortable being measured. You would rather see the conversion number and be wrong than not see it at all
• Convinced that the best promotion is built on the strongest idea, and that no amount of technique substitutes for having something real to say

Particularly Valuable Experience

• Writing direct response copy for a subscription business
• Financial publishing, investment newsletters, research platforms, fintech, or membership businesses
• Writing for sophisticated individual investors or traders
• Sustained high-volume email production
• Ghostwriting under another person's byline
• Subject line and headline testing with documented results
• Repurposing editorial and video content into marketing assets
• Working alongside media buyers and understanding how copy performs differently by channel

What This Role Is Not

• Not a content marketing or brand writing role
• Not a role where copy is judged on craft alone and never measured
• Not a role where you wait for a brief. You will be given source material and expected to find the angle
• Not a role for someone who needs a long runway before their work is evaluated. Feedback is fast, direct, and unsentimental
• Not a role for someone who treats daily volume as a reason to lower the standard

What We Offer

• A large and growing subscriber base, and copy that gets read by real market participants within hours of being written
• A differentiated product in a large and culturally relevant market
• Fast feedback, honest reading of results, and a company willing to change the offer when the data says the offer is the problem
• Competitive compensation with meaningful upside based on company and individual performance

Compensation

Highly competitive annual salary