On Copywriting
What is copywriting? Why is it important? And what makes good copywriting?
I will try to answer these questions with some words.
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Copywriting is the art of using words within advertising. Every sign, ad, billboard, webpage, TV commercial, and marketing email includes ‘copy.’ That is, words placed with the purpose to sell.
~ Apple’s webpage for the Macbook Air
Copywriting details a business’s product or service offerings on pages, their form and function, their features and benefits. Copywriting conveys company offerings using concise language or industry buzzwords, with snappy mottos and mission statements, through glittering phrases designed to intrigue interest and promote experiences.
~ Copywriting is the words paired with images within ads, or on the products themselves.
Copywriting is indirectly about strategically identifying problems - what do the customers want and why? - and directly about offering solutions, in the form of a flow of words, to said problems - here is why our product or service will satisfy their want.
In all, copywriting is an indelible component of marketing. It is writing, but with an express purpose beyond itself; it is writing for a business.
Copywriting may still be pleasurable to read, enlightening or entertaining, but the primary purpose with copywriting is always the same:
Sales.
~ Old Porsche 911 ad
So, why is copywriting important? And what makes good copywriting?
Simply, everyone needs copy. Every business requires copywriting on their landing sites, whether they be physical storefronts or digital pages. Companies use copy in emails and product or service descriptions. Major corporations hire advertising agencies to perform their copywriting duties; entrepreneurs need freelancers, if they don’t have the time or energy to get educated and do it themselves.
Copy about your enterprise, usually on your website’s initial pages, may be the very first introduction a potential customer has to your product and brand. Thusly, for that all-important first contact, you want your copywriting to be adept at genuinely illustrating what your business, your people, and your contribution to the world is all about.
~ copywriting in the physical world
Good copywriting, like with any skill or art, is variably possible depending on the format, the org, and the purpose. However, in general, from my own nascent learnings, I would name a trio of ideals all good copywriting should carry to be effective:
Concise
Clear
Cultivated
The first two speak for themselves. Shorter and simpler - conciseness - is almost always better. People don’t have a ton of time to read these days; getting your message out as efficiently as possible could be the difference between a sale or not.
Clarity is key for any business’ offerings: what are you selling (product), what does it do (features), why do the people need it (benefit)?
And by cultivated I mean well-developed around an ethos fitting uniquely to the organization and its customers. Good copywriting, above all, must understand its target audience. As a business, with your copy, you must be speaking to a single person - your target customer - and not into the mass ether.
~ Wealthfront’s homepage
~ Discord’s homepage
~ Patreon’s homepage
With these tenets in hand, good copywriting becomes possible with understanding - who is your customer and why? - and experience - campaigns launched and their end results viewed, to be improved upon with future writings.
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So, copywriting, under the umbrella of marketing - and like accounting - is a necessary component of every single business operation today {whether they know it or not!}
Two styles of copywriting to consider, both as a business owner and a consumer yourself, are direct response and branding.
Direct response copywriting typically entails email marketing and landing pages for one-off sales or promotions. Such copy is written with a direct objective in mind: turning leads to conversions. Or ‘readers’ into ‘buyers.’ Direct response copy tends to focus on immediate features and their benefits, such as a bike’s durability or a knife set’s ability to cut.
Direct response copywriting will usually follow a formulaic - and very important - model:
Headline - capture customer attention and interest
Details - what is the thing and why do they need it?
Action - seal the deal, provide the portal to purchase
~ direct response email marketing from Starbucks - limited time offer
~ direct response email marketing from Headspace - survey
~ direct response email marketing from Canvas - new products/features
~ direct response email marketing from Shake Shack - National Fry Day!
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Branding copywriting, on the other hand, is about setting a vision for a company and its business; copy for branding purposes is meant to evoke a certain persona, style or character to an organization and its products.
~ Jeep ad, with copy that is short and sweet
~ Corvette ad, punching at another brand
~ Nike ad, coopting a player’s stand for social justice
Go check out the homepage or “about” page of your favorite website to understand what branding copywriting is all about. It can set the tone of what the company’s telos is all about, its core objective or endgame as an organization. Brand copywriting is more indirect, and aims to build awareness and trust around a brand over time.
~ a Medium page expounding upon who their platform is for
Magazine ads, billboards and commercials are other good examples of brand copywriting. They each facilitate a specific image of a company and its lore: Apple is efficient, Nike is cool, Ford is tough, etc. You know these attributes for these companies as a nearly unconscious throughline of long-time marketing efforts.
~ REI ad, showcasing what their adventure gear store is all about
~ Chick-fil-a billboard, with their comedic cows
~ Mountain Dew commercial, their wackiness reaches a peak with Bryan Cranston and a The Shining (1980) reference
Not to say that a focus on branding is only for the big dogs. Brand copywriting is important for small businesses, entrepreneurs and freelancers as well. Every word we put down is a reflection of us as a brand, as the practitioner of our business and all its offerings. In that sense, this very blog is copywriting as well as content writing - by blogging about copywriting, as a copywriter, I am showcasing myself as someone that is interested in the art of copywriting itself, learning more about it to improve my own craft, with a willingness to educate anyone that may be unfamiliar.
Together, branding and direct response copywriting form the nuts and bolts of marketing campaigns.
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As both a form of constant online presence and via continuous outreach, through emails and web pages, print ads and banners that wave across social media - in all, copywriting is the art of selling your business to the world, one word at a time. ~
