A company utilizes two types of writing for its digital marketing strategies: content and copywriting. But what are the differences and similarities, and how can you use both to supercharge your business? We will answer those questions and give tips on using both to your advantage, taking your offers and content to the next level. ‘
Content writing informs readers about a concept, product, problem, or service. Content writing can be anything from long and short-form social media content like short YouTube scripts, blog posts, social media posts, ebooks, white papers, or presentations to stakeholders. If you inform someone in your writing, you can bet you are in the content writing bucket. Copywriting is a different beast altogether. Let us dive into it below.
Copywriting is writing with the sole purpose of selling, convincing, or prompting the user to action. This could involve driving your user to subscribe to your newsletter, writing product descriptions using a bulleted list, or a CTA prompting a person to click to receive a free lead magnet or mini-course.
There are several ways to improve your content writing or that of your team. We will review a few of them below, but we should first recognize that the capabilities of a content writer may or may not overlap with those of a copywriter. Content writers emphasize informing your audience. It is essential to know the auxiliary skills associated with each. Below, we will dive into the skill sets needed to be a successful copywriter.
The first thing you should learn as a content writer is story structure. This may seem odd since content writers focus on non-fiction, but if you want to connect to your audience, you must resonate with their experience. The best way to do this is by telling a story that speaks to them. Stories transfix people since we have been huddled around a campfire in front of caves millions of years ago. Storytelling makes the world go around, and as a content writer or a leader of a team of content writers, it would be wise to take this understanding to heart.
No one likes 1,000 words filled with long blocks of text. Break your text up with visual elements that correspond to and clarify your message. Put polls, infographics, and buttons in various places in the text, where it makes sense. This will help break up the text, making your content more visually appealing and offering the user’s eyes a reprieve from reading. It provides variety without taking up too much white space on the page.
Writing content requires you to know who you are writing to. Writing content is not just an extension of personal writing. You are writing for an audience. How do they sound? What are their worldviews? How do they solve problems? What problems do they have?
While similar to content writing, copywriting leans on a different set of skills. With copywriting, you want to persuade, convince, and spur to action. Because of this, you will need to exercise a different set of “writer muscles” and work to figure out what works and what does not. While analytics are essential in content writing, helping you see what resonates, you will want to dive into analytics for your conversion rates to see if your copy is compelling–impressions are not enough. Let us check out the skills required for copywriting.
This might seem counterproductive. Writers are not salespeople–right? Wrong. A copywriter is just a salesperson with a pen. Sales is the art of persuading someone to buy something, and copywriting is the same. By cross-training your copywriters or learning a bit of sales yourself, you will quickly master the tools of the craft since that is entirely what copywriting comprises. So do not hesitate to pay for that business training,
Crafting a perfect call-to-action (CTA) is the bread and butter of the copywriting field. Do not neglect to learn how to do so. There is nothing worse than an inspiring, persuasive piece of copy driven to a lackluster CTA. That could even cause you to lose clicks, conversions, and more. End your piece of copy with a unique CTA. Your customers will be spurred to action.
Copywriting components should be broken down, studied, and practiced independently by the copywriter. Headlines are the first things customers see. Hooks keep them engaged, and agitating your customer’s pain points causes them to want to resolve the ‘pain’ you have brought to the forefront of their consciousness. Study these components and master resolving them, and your copywriting will immediately make an impact.
Now that you know the difference between content and copywriting, it might be a good time to figure out if you have time to do it yourself. At FusionTech Media, we supercharge the social media, content creation, and copywriting process, giving you speedy results to keep conversions flowing. Contact us today for more details.
Our versatility and depth of knowledge about various Internet Marketing strategies allows FusionTech Media to apply best practices across multiple industries. FusionTech Media combines in-depth marketing research with creativity. We can create professional branding, a visually appealing website and an original web app specifically for your industry needs!
