How A Copywriter Virtually Moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma (Without Ever Leaving Her Desk)

Last year, a Marketing & Creative Communications Firm reached out asking how much I charge to write copy for a tourism website. 

Cue the excitement.

I was picturing myself strolling charming downtowns, sampling local cafes, and immersing myself in the culture of a bustling city.

Except during the discovery call I discovered it was a tourism site for the great city of…Muskogee, Oklahoma! 

Never heard of it? Cool, same same. 

Instead of an all-expenses-paid trip on the agency’s dime, I got a free cruise to the land of Google where I would spend my time desktop researching for the next three months. Thrilling.

Mind you, this was a tourism website, so my job was to make Muskogee seem like the next best option after Disney World.

I guess you could say the job of a copywriter isn’t always glamorous. But it’s always about storytelling. 

If I do my job right, I’ll have you believing I’m a born and raised Muskogee local. I’ll let you be the judge of that in a bit. 

The best part of this project was that they weren’t afraid to have a little fun with the tone and voice. 

I wasn’t only writing copy for the actual site. The assignment included several blog posts and itineraries to accompany the content. 

The fact that I was given free reign to make the copy engaging and playful was a dream. Because if I’m going to spend months virtually vacationing in a city I’ve never been to, I wasn’t about to make it boring. (Probably what Mike White said when he was writing White Lotus S3 because WTF ??)

Settling into a long-distance relationship with Muskogee and the not-so-glamorous side of tourism copywriting looked a lot like this…

• Asking ChatGPT for local recs and context about the local watering holes.

• Exploring the existing site to cover the hot tourist spots.

  • (I learned Muskogee actually holds a lot of history with fun museums to explore. It’s no Space Mountain but cool nonetheless.)

• Scrolling the city’s Instagram page to see how locals talked about and promoted local events.

• Listened to a lot of great tunes and read song lyrics for storytelling inspiration from Okie legends like, Zach Bryan, Toby Keith, Reba, and Garth Brooks…ever heard of ‘em?

• Looked up Americana style and aesthetic on Pinterest to help me get a look and feel for the culture.

  • (The vibe I found? Route 66 meets Western small town meets history meets wholesome fun for the whole family.)

• Asking a lot of clarifying questions to the agency team since they had the privilege of site visits and better knowledge of the client's main goals.

It would be a tease to explain this riveting copywriting adventure and not show off my finished work, so below are a few of my favorite pages on the newly renovated VisitMuskogee.com site. 

Next vacation destination is locked up.

Xo, The Salesgirls