What is Copywriting?
Copywriting is the art of writing powerfully persuasive yet succinct copies that urge the reader to take a desired action. Great copywriting can favorably impact your conversion rate customer retention, and overall brand reputation. It can lead to an increase in leads and sales. Conversely, a bad copy can lead to increased bounce rates and even the entire digital marketing campaign failure.
For instance, if you are trying to sell a product or service to a customer, you will need to convince them of the value they would be deriving from the product.
A good copywriter would add an interesting CTA to convince the readers of the same and push them into taking the buying decision or a profitable course of action. You must know that personalized CTAs increase the likelihood of conversion by 202%, and a copy has twice the impact on landing page conversions vs. design.
Examples of copywriting content include:
- PPC landing pages
- PPC ads
- Cost-per-mile (CPM) ads
- Social media ads
- Product pages
- Website sales copy
- Sales emails
- Short Message Service (SMS)ads
- Billboards
- Digital ads
Copywriting is more a short-form content type intended to make more impact in lesser words. It has a shorter life span limited to a specific campaign or goal. Copywriting involves the use of emotional hooks such as fear, superiority, trust, happiness, and gratification. It requires a deeper understanding of the reader to be able to quickly convince them.
What is Content Writing?
Content writing is used to subtly educate or entertain the readers to pique their interest in your brand so that they check out your business website. Websites with great writers writing content for them can get up to 7.8x more traffic.
The purpose of creating content can be art, education, awareness, entertainment, advertising, etc. Content also includes photos, videos, animations, illustrations, etc., to make the copy more attractive. Content writing is not written with the intent to make a sale; it is about building an audience of potential leads and generating organic traffic.
There can be several mediums through which you can publish content, including:
- Blog Posts
- Articles
- Whitepapers
- Ebooks
- Tutorials
- Emails
- Newsletters
- News articles
- Evergreen articles
- Social media posts
- Case studies
- How-to articles
- Lists
- Interviews
- Op-ed pieces About section on the website
- Complete guides
Content writing usually follows a longer format. Articles over 3,000 words typically get 3x more traffic, 4x more shares, and 3.5x more backlinks.
What is the difference between copywriting and content writing
You will be a more productive writer when you understand the difference between copywriting and content writing and how each suits a specific business goal.
While a content writer educates, a copywriter sells
If you use only copywriting to urge customers to take action, you will lose credibility with your audience quickly since copywriting is only focused on selling. Content writing, on the other hand, educates and helps build relationships with the audience first and is more value-driven.
It is used to inform, entertain, and instruct the audience to engage them, solve their problems, and ultimately pave the way for a possible sale. Copywriting takes over from here and persuades the audience to make a sale. In short, it is ‘salesmanship in print.’
Copywriters elicit strong emotions and a sense of urgency
Copywriting mostly comes with a Call to Action (CTA) attached that would urge the people to take some kind of immediate action, whether it is signing up for a newsletter, downloading an ebook, or buying a product.
Nic Wolny, Director of Content at Super Connector Media, says, “To win the click or the sale, you must not only answer the reader’s question of ‘why this?’ but also ‘why this now?’” Copywriting, therefore, puts a sense of urgency and scarcity in the conversation to elicit a fast response from the customer.
Content writing is more focused on setting up the grounds for such conversations. It builds an engaged audience by establishing the brand as a reliable source of information and building trustworthy relationships with customers.
Content creators establish the foundation for upcoming sales
As discussed earlier, content writing builds customer relationships and doesn’t concern with selling a product or service directly. When you put out valuable information, you are taking pains to satiate the user and answer their queries – you are trying to educate them through your blogs and articles.
Businesses agree that trust-building can be effective in impacting buying decisions. Blogs can effectively maintain a sustained online presence, impacting the signups and referrals from your current and potential customers. It can help to build that trust before the direct copywriting efforts gently push the customers toward a possible sale.
Content Writers Are More Concerned With SEO
Content writing is a sustained process proven to drive inbound traffic by way of SEO. A good content writer will work on the topics relevant to your industry and business goals and create SEO-optimized content to drive traffic to your website.
The best way to identify a stellar content writer is to look for focus keywords in their writing samples. The focus keyword should be a part of the title, first header, introductory paragraphs, and subheads and repeated uniformly throughout the content copy.
The focus keyword is the main search term your page is optimized for. Whenever a user searches for this term, your blog will appear in the search results.
While content writers create long-form material, copywriters create short-form copy
Content writers write long-form content such as articles, blogs, news pieces, magazine features and cover stories, whitepapers, newsletters, books, ebooks, print magazines, television, film, podcasts, etc.
Copywriters are more focused on creating short-form content concerning postcards, sales letters, emailers, jingle lyrics, social media posts, online and offline ads, taglines, slogans, video scripts, catalogs, billboards, commercials, and web page content.
Long-term planning includes the work of content creators
Copywriters write ad copies that convert visitors into customers in a short span of time. You can view the impact that an advert has on customers through click-through rates and open rates.
Content is, however, a long-term game. The strategies are many, and when used in combination drive awareness, attract potential customers, and build relationships over a long period of time. They work similarly to White Hat SEO strategies that take time to pay off. Google algorithm updates have brought new changes, but one thing remains a constant for content – the expectation to deliver a great user experience.
Copywriters convert organic traffic into leads after being driven by content writers
Content writing attracts customers and brings organic traffic to your website. Unlike an ad or email, blogs have an extended shelf life and continue to bring in visitors for a long period of time.
Copywriting converts organic traffic to sales or leads. While there can always be an overlap, or business owners may prefer the best of the two worlds, SEO content is best at attracting organic traffic, while copywriting gets you a high conversion rate and sales.
Which is More Effective for Your Business: Content Writing or Copywriting?
Once you understand the basics of copywriting and content writing and the differences between the two, you can mark which suits your business needs better.
If you seek to get leads and conversions, copywriting should be your choice, given its persuasive capabilities. But if your product or brand is still at the awareness or discovery stage and you seek to build relationships and present yourself as a voice of authority, you should go ahead with content writing.
However, both copywriting and content writing are needed to build a successful marketing strategy.
Content writing vs. copywriting: The Skills Necessary
If you are a content writer or a copywriter, you must know that each requires a different set of skills.
A copywriter needs to understand human psychology well and should be able to use words that influence the reader’s emotions and impact their decision to take action. They also need to be experts at persuasion, sales, and marketing. The copywriter creates a wide variety of content copies. Some of the common types include:
- SEO copy,
- Ad copy,
- Landing page copy
- Webpage copy
- Billboards
- Direct Mailers
- Video scripts
- Social media posts
Content writers should be able to research extensively and create valuable content that informs, entertains, and instructs the readers. They also need to be experts at writing and SEO and understand the niche or domain they are writing for.
Content writers create a variety of writing, such as the following:
- Articles
- Blogs
- Whitepapers
- Podcasts
- Ebooks
- Press releases
- Print magazines
Once you realize what is the difference between copywriting and content writing, you become a productive writer delivering content suited to specific marketing needs.
Combining Content and Copywriting for Marketing
We already discussed that a good marketing strategy would be one that combines both content writing and copywriting. Copywriting can be great for getting people to take action, but if you keep using it repeatedly, your credibility among your audience will be affected. Your audience will think that your only purpose to connect with them is to sell your products and services.
Instead, suppose you initiate customer relationships using content-writing strategies such as blogs and articles that satisfy their queries. In that case, you will build an audience that trusts you and remains loyal to you for a long time.
You may want to go viral overnight or become an internet sensation, or you may steadily want to increase your reach among your target audience. All of these goals concern a mix of copywriting and content writing.
Suppose you created a mind-blowing blog on ‘10 things to get your digital marketing strategy right.’ This is what is content writing. Now, you want the blog to reach the maximum number of people. You craft clever social media posts and captions to get your readers interested in clicking the blog link. This is what is copywriting.
Both tiles combined should deliver value to achieve your goal of getting visitors to your website.
Conclusion
All digital marketing campaigns are dependent on great content creation. Whether it is Search Engine Optimization or paper, click advertising campaigns, or social media marketing – The marketing initiative is an opportunity for your business to connect with your target audience or increase sales. When building a successful digital marketing campaign, it is necessary to distinguish between content writing and copyrighting since both carry different purposes when you educate and persuade your audience.
FAQ
What does a copywriter do for you?
A copywriter writes persuasive copies in the form of ads, social media posts, landing pages, emails, etc., to persuade your target audience into performing a desired action, such as clicking on a link, making a purchase, or subscribing to your newsletter.
The main aim behind every copy of theirs is to increase lead generation and conversions. Thus, a copywriter would be designing a social media campaign for you or creating landing pages for your website and other types of marketing campaigns.
What does a content writer do for you?
A content writer creates content for you, including articles, blogs, press releases, whitepapers, newsletters, podcasts, and print magazines. Besides having a knack for writing and conducting extensive research, they must be experts in their niche and style to create engaging and valuable content.
Content writers produce pillar content for your website that speaks authority and helps to build trust and credibility in relationships without your target audience.
What’s the difference between copywriting and content writing?
The main difference between copywriting and content writing is the intent behind each. Content writing serves to inform, instruct, engage, and entertain the readers to create long-standing relationships and trust for the brand among the readers, whereas copywriting is done to attract more customers. This means it is written to persuade or sell to the readers.
Content writing creates valuable content that brings more organic traffic to your website, while copywriting converts this traffic into leads and sales.
What is the most effective approach to combining content with copywriting?
The most effective approach to combining content with copywriting is, of course,” less is more.” This means copywriting should be used sparingly. Even your content writing pieces must avoid fluff at all costs.
Use content writing to engage with your audience and copyrighting for all your call to action.
Content writing will help inform your audience about what you offer, and copywriting will urge them to buy the same. Also, you would need copywriting to get your customers to interact with the content you publish on your website.
When you mix content writing and copywriting in optimum proportion in your marketing strategy, you get readers to take action, get aware, opt in, and engage in word-of-mouth publicity for your brand with other people.
Could you work as a freelance copywriter?
Yes, you can work as a freelance copywriter working with different clients or agencies. As a freelance copywriter, you would be specializing in content optimized for search engines or writing Ads for social media, or even designing landing page content for a brand’s website. There’s a lot you can do as a freelance copywriter while working in tandem with the best SEO practices and helping your clients achieve maximum visibility, traffic, and conversions.
Could you work as a freelance content writer?
Yes, you can work as a freelance content writer writing independently for multiple brands. However, you must specialize your services for specific niches and domains. For instance, you may be a B2B SaaS writer writing on a project-to-project basis. You can also be employed with agencies, news portals, magazines, or any other brand.
It would be beneficial for you to build a portfolio of your previous work samples and case studies of the impact you made working for previous clients. Also, client testimonials and references can help you land great projects where you can work on various content for your clients.
What is an SEO content writer?
An SEO content writer is a content writer who specifically writes and creates content optimized for search engines. The content writer uses the right focus keywords and phrases at all the appropriate places in the blog or article and follows all the other SEO best practices so that the article ranks high in the search results and your brand attains visibility and reach.
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