That witty advertisement, that informational blog, those trending brand posts – they were all created by copywriters. Some of the most influential and brilliant people in their industry, these creative individuals bring their own, and others’ ideas to life with their words. Admittedly, this blog may seem a little biased in their favour, that’s for two reasons – because one of them is writing this, and because they truly deserve it.
Truth be told, however, they truly are essential to the marketing and advertising world. Every advertising agency, up and coming brand, trending brand, has a team of innovative, creative and remarkable copywriters. Having tooted the horn enough, let us explain what they do, what makes them who they are, and why they deserve this pedestal.
Copywriting Defined
There are many ways to define a copywriter. First and foremost, they are writers. However, it does not end there. They are creators, ideators, innovators, coordinators, and most of all, they are influencers.
Here’s how that is.
Regardless of what they are working on, be it for a client, an agency, or themselves, they must ideate, conceptualise, visualise, and present multiple concepts and ideas before they begin writing. If they happen to be working at an agency or for a brand, their job requires immense amounts of coordination, they must speak with the designers, developers, clients, and more, depending on the type of content they are working on.
Most of all, the job of a copywriter is to convince you to take action. Be it subscribing to a newsletter, exploring the offers on a website, or simply following a page on a social media platform. They work to create the perfect combination of words, capture your attention, and encourage you to take a particular action.
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The Types of Copywriting
Copywriting is a vast and varied subject, and has a plethora of types that fall within its umbrella. Explained below are the 5 major types – Marketing, Creative, SEO, Technical, and Content Copywriting.
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Marketing Copywriting:
This form is seen most often in advertising and correspondence with clients and consumers. Aimed at helping sales, and benefiting their brand or company by influencing the actions and decisions of their target group with words. Seen mostly in online advertisements, billboards, and e-mailers
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Creative Copywriting:
These writers create catchy headlines, taglines, and catchphrases to tell the consumers a story on behalf of their brand. Used to help with brand awareness, and establishing brand identity, through content and commercial advertisements.
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SEO Copywriting:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) aims towards higher visibility for brand websites on products on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). This type of copywriting requires precision and research, and is used to find and place specific keywords in the content to raise visibility.
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Technical Copywriting:
In Information Technology, Legal Services, or other highly specialised fields, to provide accurate information, the copywriter must understand the field they are writing about. This requires a technical understanding, and a technical form of execution for precision and accuracy.
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Content Copywriting:
Providing information to consumers, and giving them the power to make the purchasing decisions that will benefit them long term is called content copywriting. This is mostly seen in blogs, articles, newsletters, and other informational forms of content. This web-specific type is not highly focused on increasing scales.
These different types are often intermixed, even with many often assuming content writing and copywriting are two separate, but similar concepts. However, as explained above, content writing is another part of copywriting as a whole.
5 Essential Skills for Copywriters
Perfect your Language Skills
Being a writer requires more than creativity. To convey your brilliant ideas, you must have an airtight grasp over your language of communication. This includes grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, and even something as simple as the placement of “a” or “an”.
To write a beautiful piece of content you must be able to bring life to your idea through flawless transitions, impactful introductions and conclusions, well-conveyed points, and above all, content that consumers will enjoy.
This often translates to simplistic topics, or to breaking down complex topics. Do not hesitate to engage your target group with language, terms, and phrases that attract them, but maintain command over the basic syntax and rules of the language.
Be Adventurous
Every writer must introduce a sense of adventure into their writing. Not simply in terms of writing style, but also in the concepts and ideas they offer, as well as the way they approach every topic. Even the simplest topics leave room for exploration, and every writer must be able to embrace that entirely.
Adventure and curiosity are not limited to the subjects, or topics that a writer covers, but also their own desire to learn. Research, reading, writing, and content consumption are extremely crucial to the process of growth for any individual in a creative field. As a budding, or even an experienced professional, one must continuously work towards gaining a deeper and well-rounded understanding of their field, and expertise.
Content consumption should not be limited to your field, but to all the fields that you may work in, interact with, lean into, or even simply write about at some point in your career. This can come in the form of reading educational books, classics, watching critically acclaimed shows and films, reading the work of other experienced professionals in your field, and most importantly, staying updated on current events of all kinds.
Befriend Research
No work of art was created without observation and research. Always keep your mind open to new information and new experiences through research. When you start to work on a topic, the best way to create your flow of thought, or simply an outline, is to scour through pre-published work.
Even when you are writing about a topic that you are extremely comfortable with, it is crucial to ensure that you have the right information and facts in place. It is equally important to ensure that you are updated with recent developments in that particular topic. While you may be experienced in the world of social media applications, it is possible for a new update to roll out while you were in the process of writing a blog about it.
Research comes into place when you have decided on a subject, and begin to move forward with your approach to the topic. Be it in advertisement copy, blogs, video commercials, or any other form of copy, a well researched piece of content provides more impact.
Take Inspiration and Make it Catchy
In a world filled with creative minds, and an ever-growing database of information, it can be difficult to stand apart from the crowd. However, it is not impossible. This does not require you to break away entirely from what already exists; it simply means that you should be able to add a new perspective to the old.
Spin a new web, think out of the box, or as Tadashi says in the brilliantly written animated movie Big Hero 6 (pictured below), “Use that big brain of yours. Try a new angle.” Don’t be afraid to take what you know and give it a personal twist. Some of the best work has come from reinventions of brilliant ideas. To land a concept, all you need is a pinch of originality, and brilliant execution.
Remember to steer clear of plagiarism, mimicry, or simply copying concepts and ideas. It may not always be easy, but each of us is a combination of varied experiences and lives, and bring something different to the table, embrace that side of your creativity.
Always remember that simply writing something fresh is not enough, attracting an audience to it holds just as much weight. Make your titles, headlines, and copies something that stands out. Move people with emotion, break walls, grab their attention, change their perspective, do what it takes to show them that you are serious about what you’re selling and they should be too. Your original perspective, coupled with a brilliant headline, brings together two of the most important parts of copywriting – creativity and appealing to the audience.
Embrace Emotion and Empathy
Do not be afraid to explore emotion. Your audience does not see benefit in the robotic delivery of a sales pitch, all humans search for emotion in the people they interact with, and the objects they place in their personal space.
A photo frame holds memories, a brand identity holds friendship and trust, a song evokes a sentiment, similarly, an ad copy should bring forward an emotion. What you choose for that emotion to be, is entirely up to your product/service, and concept. However, to ignore this factor would be major folly on your part in an attempt to sell a product or service.
Empathising with the experiences and emotions of your audience will make your content relatable, and memorable to individuals. Gerald Zaltman, a Harvard Professor, stated that emotion influences 95% of the purchasing decision in most consumers. Therefore, create content that is relatable, and reaches beyond the needs, and approaches the wants and emotions of your audience.
Combining these 5 factors – language, adventure, research, inspiration, and empathy – you can potentially create the most efficient outcome. While perfecting these skills, and combining them in the work you deliver will take practice, they can be effective from the get-go.
The Impact of Copywriting
Now that you know the basics to being a good copywriter, it is crucial to understand why copywriting holds such relevance within every industry, most importantly in Digital Marketing. Listed below are 5 major impact points of copywriting, that will provide clarity:
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Telling Your Story
Good copy, and a good copywriter brings forward the story, aims, and goals of your company to your audience. It creates an emotional connection that your audience can connect with in the long run, and brings your daunting image as a major unit, to that of something personable and understandable. All human identity is made from experience, and a story creates the impression of experience, making your brand a friend, and companion, rather than a manufacturer of products or provider of services.
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Building Your Identity
Having a well-written story, allows you to establish a unique identity, and stand apart from the crowd. Allotting a uniform identity to your brand, in terms of language, copy style, concepts, or the way you interact with your audience helps you differ from your competition. Good copy brings out your identity, be it as a youthful brand, or one of royal origin, it takes your brand, and moulds into an identifiable persona.
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Building Bonds and Trust
The two earlier impact points play an irreplaceable role in establishing a bond with your target audience. As we specified earlier, emotion drives sales, and emotions come from identifiable emotional connections. It is not possible for an individual to connect with a brand, unless the brand provides a relatable and distinguishable persona. Good copy brings this persona forward, and further establishes trust through the experience that is created.
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Raising Engagement and Leads
This point follows suit by embracing the previous three, leading to yet another undeniable result. Establishing a bond, and trust with your target audience, reduces hesitation when you produce content and allows for further engagement. Good copy uses your persona and contributes shareable content, which in turn raises engagement within your audience, eventually reaching further people, and raising leads. Your copy should encourage the audience to interact with your brand further, and establish a foundation in the market.
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Inspire Action
This brings us to the most crucial part of the process. Creating your identity, a bond with your audience, and increasing engagement, brings leads to your website, or other platforms. At this point, good copy has assisted in generating leads, and more such copy can change leads into conversions with simply well written Calls-to-Action (CTAs). All these factors combined, bring your leads to the point of conversion, with simply the need to inspire the next step. Without copywriting, this would be a matter left up to fate, however, the right combination of concepts, words, and identity can change the game in your favour.
Copywriting is neither easy, nor surpassable as a factor in the process of succeeding as a brand. Acknowledging, researching, and understanding this fact can help your brand take leaps and bounds in the direction of efficient and deserving growth.
This blog attempts to provide you with this understanding. As a copywriter it will help you evaluate your role, and what you need to focus on to fulfill your potential. As a brand, it will help you understand why you need a copywriter (we are very crucial to your growth). Adopting these skills, and this important tenet into your strategy, can only lead to further development and success, and this blog simply shows you how; the next step is yours to take.
Also Read:- HOW TO WRITE A UNIQUE GUEST POST FOR DIGITAL MARKETING?
