Copywriting is a sales tool; Content is a growth tool; Let me explain what exactly that means. Say, for example, that you want to engage in content marketing for your business. Typically the goal of content marketing is to educate customers, provide value and ultimately increase the amount of traffic coming to a website.
Copywriting vs. content writing—it’s all the same, right?
No, they are most definitely not the same. It’s not exactly the difference between apples and oranges—more like oranges and tangerines—but close enough. For young writers looking for work, it’s incredibly important to know the differences between the two; each presents a unique set of challenges and skills to do well. Here, we pinpoint the major differences between copywriting and content writing.
Purpose
The greatest distinction between copywriting and content writing lies in its purpose. Copywriting is selling your personas on your brand; content writing is subtly telling them about it while delivering valuable content.
Copywriting is the art of selling people on an idea, brand or ideology. The best copywriting fuses the products and ideology of a brand together to create branding. Copywriting is advertorial in nature as its intent is to pitch customers to use a brand’s products and/or services.
For the Mad Men fans out there, this is what Don Draper and Peggy Olson did all the time at Sterling Cooper (or whatever agency they were with at the time). They weren’t selling products, but ideas and emotions that were tied to products, services but also experiences and the human condition.
Content writing is the art of creating content. It needs to either inform, educate or entertain; it needs to have a clear purpose and/or reason behind the piece; it needs to represent the brand’s voice; it needs to be a good read/watch/listen. The best content writing is focused on the quality of the editorial, no matter if it comes from a brand or a publisher. For brands (and some>Here’s one way to look at the two: content writing passes information along to your audience while copywriting reveals what your brand is all about.
The two, of course, do share similarities. For one thing: goals. Both copywriting and content writing ultimately seek to convert a reader into a sale or a lead. Another similarity: they both need to be well-written. What is well-written for one differs from the other, but quality writing, for whatever purposes, engages readers to keep reading.
Bottom line: The ultimate objective of copywriting is to sell an idea whereas the ultimate objective of content writing aims to create valuable content to help the audience understand your brand and generate interest.
The Job
A truism: copywriters write copy and content writers write content. If you’re confused at what this means, then you should know all shall be explained. Another distinction between copywriting and content writing lies in the job description.
A copywriter is a professional whose job is dedicated to producing copy, which is usually, but not always, shortform. This can come in many forms (see below), but the general idea is that a copywriter writes marketing material for a living. It is their trade, craft, skill—whatever you want to call it.
Now, a content writer can be anyone. She is not necessarily a professional writer, but someone who produces content. Thanks to the democratization of the internet, anyone can write now, including professionals, executives, authors, bloggers, software engineers, CEOs, brands, etc. Of course, the best content writers understand the craft of content writing, but it may not be their trade.
Bottom line: A copywriter is a professional who writes marketing copy; a content writer can be anyone producing content.
Types of Writing
A copywriter writes marketing material, a content writer writes content—but what kinds of marketing material and content? This is the last major distinction between the two.
Traditionally, copywriting was limited to advertising in the days of yester-yore (again, see Mad Men). But the internet changed the scope of what copywriters can write for beyond witty slogans. Today, the list includes, but is not limited to:
- Ads, online and off
- Slogans and taglines
- Web page content
- SEO content
- Email campaigns
- Television or radio commercial promotional and advertising scripts
- Video scripts
- Press releases
- White papers
- Catalogs
- Billboards
- Brochures
- Postcards
- Sales letters
- Direct mail letters
- Jingle lyrics
- Social media
Copywriters today see plenty of overlap with content writers and technical writers, but remember: the point is to sell you an idea as part of a marketing campaign.
Likewise, content writing has plenty of opportunities to write different kinds of content, including, but not limited to:
- Articles
- Blog posts
- Newspaper pieces
- Magazine features
- White papers
- Email newsletters
- E-books
- Books
- Print magazines
- Social media
- Podcasts
- Television
- Film
- Radio
Yep—even TV and film is considered content these days, just a different kind. (But that’s another story.)
What you really need to know is that brands of all kinds need copywriting and content writing to stay fresh, so there’s plenty of opportunities for writers out there to try their hands at both. It’s just a matter of seeing which one you have a knack for and sticking with that one.
Understand how Quietly can help play a role in your content marketing efforts.
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Speak to a Strategist TodayIn September 2017 I started working at Seeker Digital. “So what?” I hear you say. Well, joining Seeker wasn’t just the beginning of a new job, it was the start of a career.
Below, I’ve given you a run through of the first year of my transition from part-time music journalist to full-time copywriter.
Recommended reading: What The Daily Mail Can Teach Us About Good Content
Barely enough education to inform
I’m not a writer by training. I didn’t study Creative Writing, English, Journalism, or any of the other traditional topics that would build a career path towards being a copywriter. I also have no copywriting qualifications.
My undergraduate studies were in History and Politics, and I completed an MA in Russian History for my postgraduate education. After this I spent time working in finance and produced financial reports, covering areas like pensions, insurance, and investments.
But during my years working in finance I spent my evenings writing for an online music magazine. It was here that I cut my writing teeth.
Music journalism & copywriting: we ain’t so different, you & I
Why music journalism? It’s simple. I love music and I love writing. So being a music journalist makes sense. But now you’re saying to yourself: “I don’t the logic in transitioning from music journalist to copywriter.” I’ll show you the logic.
Almost every writer picks up a pen or rests their fingers on a keyboard because they love to write. But do you know what? It’s not a lot of fun being the only person reading your work. And what’s the secret to getting your work published? Write for other people.
People choose music journalism because they think every piece they write will be about their favourite band. However, like all jobs, music journalism has clients. As a music journalist your clients are your readers, the industry agents you speak with, and the brands who pay for advertising.
In copywriting, you also have readers, industry agents, and brands to please. And in order to be successful you have to write for all of them. Once I appreciated this, the transition to copywriting didn’t just make sense — it was verging on logical.
To me-to you: transferable skills, in brief
Music journalism and copywriting don’t just share a purpose – writing for other people – there are a large number of skills that are directly and indirectly transferable:
- Interviews
- Reviews
- News pieces
- Original features
- Press releases
Of these different content types, the ones which are most relevant to the briefs I complete as a copywriter are: original features and press releases. Why? Read on and I’ll explain.
If you can scribe an original feature you can write a blog post
As a copywriter, I write a lot of blog posts. These cover root subjects like content marketing, the tech industry, and social media. These branch out into an infinite number of niche and sub topics. For example, let’s take social media:
I could be asked to write a beginner’s guide to Snapchat, I might be tasked with the explaining which platform is best for a new business, or I may be told to breakdown Twitter analytics. These are just for starters.
I might be well-versed in the root subject, I may also have experience of the sub topic – hell, I could have a deeper understanding still. However, more often than not, there will be plenty of knowledge gaps and it’s my job as a copywriter to fill them.
I fill this gaps with quick, accurate, and probing research. And instead of spending hours squirreling away to invent my own opinions, I develop a unique slant on someone else’s. Now, unless you’re writing about a passion subject, that’s exactly how you write an original feature as a music journalist.
Read a press release? Writing a brand page will be a breeze
Press representatives can be anathema to music journalists. The endless emails, the shitty bands they ask you to feature, and the pointless voicemails – seriously, if I didn’t give you the answer you wanted in the email I sent then why will you get it from speaking to me?
However, PRs also provide a valuable bridge between creative writing and copywriting. How? With their press releases.
At their heart, press releases are advertising copy. They’re a clipped marketing campaign dressed in artistic sentiment. Their job is to answer a problem you have (a gap of great music to cover) and sell you their solution: the artist.
This problem and solution approach is at the heart of the pure copywriting. Where do I use it the most?
- Website landing pages
- Ecommerce product pages
- Brand ‘about’ pages
And those are just three relevant examples from a list that covers almost anything you can be asked to cover as a copywriter.
Of course, there are more nuances to what I’ve said above. However, if you first understand the problems your audience have, then angle your client’s product as the solution, you’ll have fought most of the battle. The rest is simple: let your words win the war for you.
So, what have I learned during year 1?
I could spend thousands of paragraphs explaining what I’ve learnt in year 1 as a copywriter. But that’s not the point of being a copywriter. My job is to give my reader the answer they want in the least number of words. So, here you go:
Making the transition from part-time music journalist has been the best move I could have made. Putting the hard hours spent across many years into practice has been more rewarding than I could have imagined, and this is only the beginning – Don Draper, I’m coming for you…
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