What is Copywriting and How Can You Excel at It?

What is Copywriting?

Copywriting is the art of crafting words that encourage people to take action. 

Whether you’re running a print ad in a magazine, a TV commercial, or building a website, you need people to take action for your work to be successful. However, as many marketers and advertisers will tell you – getting people to take action isn’t easy. 

This is why good copy is so highly valued and the better you are at it, the more your business is going to benefit.

How Copywriting Differ from Content Writing?

In reality, copywriting and content writing cross over a lot. You’re going to be using elements of each discipline throughout your website and your marketing as a whole, but the main difference between the two is intent. 

Your copywriting is very focused on the goal of getting people to take action, whereas content writing is much more about informing, educating, and entertaining. Your content is there to build a relationship between you and your reader, and your copy should then capitalise on this relationship to elicit action. 

For example, you might be reading content like you are with this article, and it’s not unusual for a popup to appear that’s trying to get your contact details. The writing on the popup isn’t content writing like the article you’re reading, it’s copywriting that’s designed to encourage you to take an action – fill in the contact form. 

What Makes Great Copy?

It’s simple – great copy is persuasive, it gets people to take action. So, how do you go about achieving this?

We’ve talked a lot about content writing in the past, but here are some tips that are also going to help you become a better copywriter.

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Think Outside The Box – Get Past People’s Guard

We are so used to being advertised to at every turn these days that in many ways we’ve built up an immunity to it. Of course, the immunity isn’t that great because advertising still works extremely well, but it means you’ve got to be innovative and stand out from the crowd if you are going to be successful. 

You’ve got limited space to grab people’s attention with your copy which means you’ve got to quickly convey why your message matters and be willing to think outside the box to get people to take notice of what you’re trying to convey. 

Getting people to take action isn’t easy, so you’ve got to be creative with your copy. 

Understand Your Target Audience – Get Under Their Skin

We talk about this a lot when it comes to content writing, and it’s just as true for copywriting. 

It’s almost impossible to convince someone to do something if you don’t know what they want, so you’ve really got to take the time to understand the people you’re marketing to. When you understand what inspires them, the problems they need solving, and the language they respond to then your job becomes much easier. 

Luckily we have so many tools at our disposal to help us understand our audience, so make sure you’re doing your market research, building customer profiles, and engaging with your customers. 

Value Time – Maximum Input, Instant Understanding

Anything you write has to value people’s time by getting to the point. 

While your content writing is more of an opportunity to really get into the small details, your copy has to be direct and to the point, otherwise the message is going to get lost. This doesn’t mean there’s not room for creativity, it’s just about packing maximum impact into a smaller amount of words. 

You’ve got people’s attention for a limited amount of time so you want to make maximum use of it and give people valid reasons to take action. To do this, you’ve got to stay away from complicated language and industry jargon and communicate your offer in simple terms. 

Convey Value – What’s In It For Me?

When people write copy such as product description they tend to get carried away with details. Of course, you need to have details in there, but the main thing people are interested in are not the intricate details, but how those details offer them value. 

The best copy brings the details to life and shows people exactly how they can benefit.

Right at the beginning we described copywriting as the crafting of words that encourage people to take action. This is where your ability comes in because you’re not just spouting out facts, you’re creating a story that brings the best out of the facts. 

Great writers make their copy jump off the page and demonstrate exactly why people should take action. It’s not necessarily something that comes easily, but it’s something you develop with time and you become an expert at. 

When you start to improve your copywriting, you’re going to find people engage much more with your website and your conversion rates will go up greatly. 

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What is Copywriting? Takeaways You’ll Want to Use

Whether you’ve recognised it or not, you’ve been using a combination of copywriting and content writing when building your website. The main thing you need to make sure you’re focusing on is the different goals you have when writing each one. 

Although pieces such as product descriptions, home pages, and contact forms, are naturally going to focus more on encouraging people to take action, it’s important that you’re aware of what you’re trying to achieve so you can optimise what you’re doing. At the end of the day, if your website is going to be successful, then you need people to take action, and improving your copy can make a huge difference to this. 

Just like content writing, copywriting requires a thorough understanding of your target audience, and only then can you start to craft the messages that are going to resonate with your visitors. 

Once you understand your audience, then it’s important that you keep things concise, value people’s time, break down people’s natural barriers, and convey value. 

This formula might seem rigid, but it’s not. There are so many ways to do this, and often the copy that thinks outside the box can be the most effective. 

As always, if you need any help crafting your perfect copy, then we’re here to help!

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