What's a Copywriter, Anyway?

At any public mixer, the inevitable (and for me, inevitably boring) will always be asked: Is that your real hair colour?

I kid.

Of course, the truly inevitable question is “what do you do?” Most of the time I find myself reflexively answering “I’m a copywriter,” and most of the time the blank eyes and vague smile I get in return immediately make me regret doing so.

As usual, I am reminded I need a more inventive and curious job description to toss out on these occasions.  Something like, I’m “a freelance, no-bull-shit, bad-ass, writing mother-fu…” Yeah.

So what is a copywriter, anyway?

Let start with what it’s not: a person who deals in any way with copyRIGHT. This is a weirdly common misperception. “Copyright” has to do with the legal protection of creative work and preventing the unauthorized use of said work.  CopyWRITE, on the other hand, has to do with simply writing text and - if it’s done well - preventing readers from boredom or worse, tuning out entirely.

Copyblogger defines copywriting as “the art and science of strategically delivering words that get people to take some form of action…copywriters are responsible for the text on brochures, billboards, websites, emails, advertisements, catalogues and more.”

What distinguishes copywriting over other kinds of writing in this definition is that the so-called “art of persuasion” and “call to action” are fundamental. The objective is to get people to do something – you want them to purchase, opt-in or engage with a product, service or company in a meaningful way. As copyblogger puts it, a copywriter is “a salesman in print.”

Yes and no.

Given the light-speed with which internet marketing continues to evolve, this definition has become, while not quite “old-school,” no longer entirely complete either.

A new distinction has arisen between copywriters who persuade or get people to “take action” and those who simply create content - those who write to educate or enlighten.

The advent, explosion and importance of inbound marketing in particular means that copywriters are no longer only of the strictly advertising variety anymore.   Take the two prime modes of inbound marketing, blogging and brand-specific article writing. Neither has an explicit “selling” objective; they are corporate communications channels intended only to inform – specifically, to be useful, relevant and interesting.

In today’s marketplace, it doesn’t matter if you’re a one-man-show or an organizational giant like Coca-Cola, if you’ve got a business you want to grow, you pretty much have to publish brand-specific articles and/or blog.

Don’t believe me?

B2B marketers who blog receive 67% more leads than those who don’t. Not only that, but they generate leads that cost an average of 62% LESS than those generated via traditional (or outbound) advertising methods.

But wait! There’s more!

Marketers who priorize blogging are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI than non-bloggers AND those companies receive an average of 97% more links to their website. When marketers blogged daily, 82% of them earned new customers.

Whoa.

OK. So blogging is a big, essential deal and a smart business strategy. This is why good copywriters are more valuable and in demand than ever before: Not only is the internet a hungry content monster that wants (and needs) to be fed all the time, but GOOD content is harder to create today than it’s ever been before.

Why?

Because there is SO MUCH content out there already. Consider that more than 27 million pieces of content are shared across the web every single day!

Good copywriters – that is, ones who know how to stand out in a very crowded crowd – are gold for businesses both small and large. To recap, a list of the kind of work copywriters do includes (but is not limited to):

• Newsletters or e-blasts. Information for a VIP audience – VIP because they have provided their personal information in exchange for content that is generally informal, entertaining and somehow extra-special
• Blogs and articles. Generally written in an informal, educational and opinionated way, the sweet spot for Google is somewhere between 850 and 1500 words
• White papers. Not your standard government-issue white-papers, but a document specific to small and medium sized businesses ranging anywhere from 1500-2500 words. Objective and useful, white papers of this variety are informative and educational, often describing a specific problem and how it might be solved. Although selling is not the goal, it’s often the case that the problem outlined can be solved by a product or service the client sells.
• Website copy. Self explanatory, the key to good web copy is the ability to take on a clients’ unique “voice” and speak to their unique audience.
• Case studies. Short articles or stories explaining how a company’s service or product have helped its customers.
• Sales funnels. A visual explanation of the sales process from initial contact to final sale, a sales funnel could be a series of 3 to 6 emails on their own, or may include ad Facebook ad copy and lead pages as well. The idea is to lead customers from the wide and often soft-sell part of the funnel through to the narrow, hard sell piece of the funnel where a purchase is made. The technique is most successful when driven by story and emotion.
• Emails. A good email should pique interest, raise awareness and prompt an action. Although often part of a sales funnel, copywriters may also be hired to craft a series of stand alone emails either prompting customers in a variety of ways to make a purchase or leading them to engage with other brand channels, like the website, Facebook page, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
• Traditional copywriting. This includes copy for brochures, advertising, promotions and any other form of direct sales - writing that today falls under the umbrella of “outbound” marketing.

Back to the “what do you do” question. I could wrap all of the above into “I am a content writer.” While more specific than “I am a copywriter,” on the continuum of interesting it sits somewhere between “I trim the wicks of candles” and “I sweep hair. To say simply and to-the-point “I am a writer” is also fraught. People predictably get a little dreamy-eyed and assume very romantically that I write novels, short stories and/or poems. Not. Or at least not yet.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that the struggle to find the right words to describe what I do is one of the bigger problems in my life - though I'm am saying that words can sometimes be ornery little buggers to wrangle... Working with words every day, I know how it goes.

Because I’m...

...yeah. I'm a copywriter.