What is Copywriting & How to Become a Copywriter?
During the last few years, content has become a necessity for any modern brand. Bill Gates’s famous quote “content is the king” highlights the importance of content and copywriting, so businesses all over the world started exerting more effort and spending more on content. According to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), 91% of B2B brands use content marketing as compared with 86% of B2C brands.
Forbes recently reported, “If you want to be successful online, the only essential skill is being a good copywriter.
Copy writing is a great way to make money online because you get to do while working from home.
So, what is copywriting and how can you become a copywriter?
What is Copywriting?
Copywriters are professionals responsible for the text or copy used in marketing and promotional materials.
According to CopyBlogger, Copywriting is the art and science of strategically delivering words (whether written or spoken) that get people to take some form of action. In simple words, copywriting is the process of writing advertising promotional materials.
What is a Copywriter?
The person who provides words for a variety of assets including but not limited to: webpages, brochures, websites, emails, advertisements, product descriptions, sales letters, sales copy, catalogs, and more. It is all about getting the reader to take action. That action might be to purchase, opt-in, or engage with a product, service, or company.
Copywriting vs Content Writing.
Those two tend to be overlap and many don’t know the difference between them.
Copywriting tends to be short and direct, usually more salesy with a very clear message. The Snickers “You are not you when you are hungry“ campaign comes to mind. It positions Snickers as a a tiny snack for when you are hungry, it is not just a chocolate bar anymore.
Content writing on the other hand is more educational and tends to be longer, more in depth, and aiming to help readers. It comes in the form of blog posts, articles, scripts, and text for how to videos.
Copywriters Average Salary.
Companies are always looking to hire the best copywriters with an annual salary of $54,909 in average for full time in-house copywriters, 80% of copywriters earning between $39k – $78k per year according to data aggregated from Payscale and Salary.com.
How to Become a Copywriter?
Copywriting is a fun and interesting career path because you can do it from anywhere and it exposes you to different industries and fields which will expand your horizon. So how do you become a copywriter?
Skill Set Copywriters Need
- A good grasp of spelling, punctuation and grammar
- An eye for details
- Curiosity
- Research and copywriting skills
- The ability to capture different points of view
- Great listening skills
- Familiarity with different types of content management systems (CMS)
- Familiar with Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Steps to Become a Professional Copywriter:
Heres’ a list of the steps you need to take to become a professional copywriter:
Step (1): Understand the Basics of Copywriting
Step (2): Choose your Copywriting Niche
Step (3): Start Building your Portfolio
Step (4): Analyze the Market & Brand yourself
Step (5): Understand the Different Types of Copywriting
Let’s discuss them in details:
Step (1): Understand the Basics of Copywriting
You cannot become a copywriter (at least good one) without knowing the basics of copywriting, like:
- Strong persuasion and writing skills.
- A professional copywriter provides the right and needed information for customers during their buying journey.
- Persuade customers to take an action like visiting a website, signing up for a new app or starting a free trial for a tool.
- Use search engine optimization to enhance the company’s ranking on Google.
- Proofreading, you must proofread any piece of content at least 3 times when you are first starting out.
Step (2): Choose your Copywriting Niche
Know your customers/reader. It is very important to know the customer persona to write quality content for them.
If you are selling to everyone, you are selling to no one.
Basically, If you try to be all things to all people, you won’t be anything to anybody. You cannot make everyone happy, you are no ice-cream.
So you need to who your niche. Your niche market will help you determine your next steps. Are you creating content for men or women? What language will it be in? Is it tech related? entertainment? real estate? whatever it is you must know your readers.
Once you have identified your niche and created a customer persona you can move to the next step.
Step (3): Start Building your Portfolio
One of the best ways to showcase your previous work is by building an online portfolio or creating a personal website. And the first step to do that is by securing a domain name . And the easiest way to build your own website if you don’t have the technical skills needed is to use a website builder. Once your website is up and running you should connect it to your social media (especially your LinkedIn).
Step (4): Analyze the Market & Brand yourself
Once you have picked your niche and learned your customer persona, you should learn who your competitors are. Basically who are the other blogs/podcasts you are about to compete against. What do they offer and what do they lack? what can you di better?
A successful copywriter presents the brand as a trustworthy expert to its potential clients.
Remember, being a successful brand requires time and can be a long process, so be patient.
Pro Tip: Try and get testimonials from your clients for your next job, it always helps to have someone else backing up your work.
Step (5): Understand the Different Types of Copywriting.
You must choose which copy writing type are you going to get into? here’s a list:
- Sales pages
- Video sales script
- Emails and email marketing
- Press releases
- Social media posts and ads
- Direct mail to the target audience
- Landing pages
- Content writing for web pages
- About pages
- Case studies
- Marketing materials
- Assist in setting up the marketing strategy
- Lead magnets
Be aware while working in the above that it is all about writing copies creatively and knowing the target market and customer persona well. As a content writer your words you can make a huge difference between an okay sales campaign and an awesome one.
Types of copywriting:
Copywriters create blog posts, ads, sales pages, product descriptions, maybe podcasts or tv and radio ads, emails, flyers, and social media posts. They create content that moves people/subscribers to take the needed action. From a social media post to a landing page serve a purpose in getting the reader to do something. Let’s learn them together:
(1) Social Media Copywriting
Whether you’re building your email list, directing your followers to your website, boosting engagement, or selling a product or service, your copywriting is what will move users along their customer journey. You can your digital marketing strategy depends on it.
Your social media marketing depends in big part on your copywriting. You need to make it persuasive enough for the reader to get engaged enough that it stops scrolling and reads about your product/service.
It must have a compelling call to action (CTA) for the customer to get to your website.
(2) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Copywriting.
In SEO copywriting you need to have a basic understanding of digital marketing. Understanding how potential customers search for content and how search engines prioritize particular pieces and and web pages is vital for you as a copywriter.
As a freelance copywriter, your goal is to help increase websites rankings on search engines. To do so you need to know what keywords are, backlinks, conversion rates, taglines, alt descriptions, and researching your competitors and trying to best them.
From a writer’s perspective, it’s about having a clear and informative title, breaking up your text with relevant headings, using keywords throughout, and including appropriate links. Nothing too scary!
(3) Public Relations Copywriting.
Public relations copywriting is more delicate and more inline with the brand image. It is all about press releases and announcements. It usually follows a preset template to make sure the brand stays away from negative publicity.
(4) Technical Copywriting.
A great copywriter is someone who is an expert in their field. Technical copywriter is someone who writes marketing materials about technical topics.
A good copy should either address other experts in the field or has to be very simple if directed at the general public.
White paper copywriters are excellent example of this.
(5) B2B Copywriting.
B2B copywriters drive and convert interest into sales in a specific product/service. It is the process of lead generation and turning the opportunities into sales through the marketing funnel.
This can take the form of B2B email marketing or contracts proofreading.
(6) Advertising copywriting.
Advertising content is an important aspect of marketing when it comes to promoting your business. Ad copy informs potential customers about what makes your product or service the best available, tries to convince them to review what you offer and to make a purchase. Given that the digital advertising market share has grown and is expected to further expand, writing a catchy ad copy is the quickest way to increase traffic.
Closing Thoughts.
- Content is king and copywriting jobs are everywhere, it is not too late to get a career as a copywriter. You can get a copywriting course from platforms like Udemy or coursera, learn the online courses from home and start working from your home at your convenience.
- Every copywriter needs to have the right skills to write enticing content.
- The goal of copywriting is to customers through the door (or homepage if you are working online).
Frequently Asked Questions:
Some answers to your frequently asked questions:
What exactly does a copywriter do?
In simple words. Copywriters write interesting content to entice readers to take an action whether it is to purchase something or to visit a webpage on your website.
How do I start copywriting?
The best advice is to read this guide as it gives you detailed information on everything you need to know about copywriting. The second best advice is to take an online course and learn it in more depth.
You must have a domain name, a website, social media accounts connected together and to your website, the work ethics and desire to succeed.
Is copywriting hard to learn?
In short. No, anyone can learn copywriting if they have enough dedication and desire to learn.
