What Is Copywriting? Why Its a Big Deal!

Copywriting is usually a bit mysterious to those who are unfamiliar with it. "Is it similar to acquiring a copyright?"

If you recently heard someone describe their profession as "copywriting" and wondered, "What is copywriting? This is the manual you need.

I'll define copywriting and explain why it's so important (it's the largest industry you didn't know existed). I will also teach you the basics, which are much simpler than they sound.

What Is the Definition of Copywriting? The simplest definition of copywriting

The simplest definition of copywriting is this:

Copywriting is the process of writing words with the intent of eliciting a particular response from the reader. Copywriting is always associated with promoting or selling a business, organization, brand, product, or service, making it a form of marketing by definition.

Here are a few additional definitions of copywriting:

Copywriting is the art and science of strategically delivering words (whether written or spoken) that motivate people to take action.

Copywriting is the writing of advertising and promotional materials. Copywriters are responsible for the content on brochures, billboards, websites, emails, commercials, catalogs, and other promotional materials. Copywriting, unlike news or editorial writing, is all about convincing the reader to take action." - AWAI

"Copywriting consists of the written or spoken words used by marketers to persuade individuals to take action after reading or hearing them," according to Hubspot.

"Copywriting is the skill and occupation of writing sales promotions and other marketing materials for products, services, fundraising campaigns, and so on. It's the art of producing convincing messages that compel people to act (purchase something, ask about a service, download a free eBook, etc.)." - The Balance Small Business

Copywriting is the act or profession of writing text for advertising or other marketing purposes. Copy is written content intended to increase brand awareness and ultimately persuade a person or group to take a specific action." - Wikipedia

If you read through all of the copywriting definitions, you will notice that they all contain the same central statement.

Copywriting is writing intended to elicit a response.

Copywriting may take many different forms:

• • Advertising
• • Websites
• • Emails
• • Blog posts
• • Landing pages
• • Brochures
• • Presentations
• • Video scripts
• • Headlines
• • Product descriptions
• • Lead magnets
• • White documents
• • Etc, etc, etc

It is considered copy because it is intended to induce action.

Sometimes it is necessary to initiate an action immediately. This copywriting style is known as "direct response copywriting."

The following are examples of direct response copywriting:

• • A Twitter advertisement designed to elicit a click
• • A sign designed to convince you to take the next exit and visit the business
• • A landing page designed to get an email signup
• • An email intended to elicit a response via "reply"
• • A product description designed to encourage users to click "Add to Cart"

Occasionally, immediate action is not the objective. The reader may not be able to act immediately upon reading your copy, or immediate action may not be the primary objective. This type of copy lacks a catchy moniker, but the concept of marketing now for future results is essentially branding.

Examples of copywriting with a focus on branding include:

• • A magazine advertisement designed to introduce readers to the brand
• • A blog post intended to inform and engage the reader
• • A white paper intended to establish the authority of the brand

These types of copywriting are designed to elicit action:

• • The magazine advertisement intends for the reader to consider the brand and recall it when they are ready to make a purchase in the future.
• • The blog post encourages the reader to share the blog post, join the brand's email list, and/or make a purchase at some point.
• • The intent of the white paper is for the reader to purchase from the brand or recommend a future purchase.

This type of copywriting is not intended to elicit an immediate response, which is significant because in many marketing situations, attempting to elicit an immediate response is counterproductive.

Imagine if every blog post you read encouraged you to make an immediate purchase. Imagine if every blog post was so intent on obtaining your email address that it omitted the article's conclusion and required you to sign up in order to read it. Both branding and direct response scenarios play a critical role in the marketing process.

Why is copywriting so important?

In recent years, copywriting as a service and career option has exploded. The reason for this is straightforward. Every online business requires copywriting… and online commerce is booming. In 2021, retail e-commerce sales amounted to approximately 5.2 trillion U.S. dollars worldwide. 

This figure is forecast to grow by 56 percent over the next years, reaching about 8.1 trillion dollars by 2026. That's a 2.7 trillion increase. And every dollar of that was due to copywriting.

In the future, technology will advance to the point where writing will no longer be required to conduct business. In the same way that you can walk into a store, find the item you want, and then purchase it, often without reading the packaging, there will likely come a time in the distant future when you will be able to make online purchases without ever reading a single word.

Today, however, is not that day.

Today, you cannot complete an online transaction without reading the accompanying text. The more persuasive the copy, the more likely you are to make a purchase.

This is why copywriting is so important.

I explain why copywriting is such a high-demand, high-income skill in this article. Most individuals have difficulty communicating complex ideas through writing. Many people have difficulty communicating even the most basic ideas through writing. When your revenue depends on your ability to effectively communicate the value of your product or service in writing, it makes a great deal of sense to hire a professional in this field.

Now that we understand why it's so important, let's examine what copywriting entails.

The Four Primary Goals of Copywriting

For copywriting to be effective, it must achieve four key goals. These objectives are referred to as the AIDA framework:

1. Attention

2. Interest

3. Desire

4. Action

Let's examine each separately.

1. Captivate the Reader's Interest

You need the reader's attention for him or her to engage with your copy. Nothing else matters without the reader's attention, which is why attention is the primary objective of copywriting. Imagine it's September 27th and you are scrolling through a packed email inbox with 20 unread subject lines. Would you click this link?

[Limited Time Strategy] Send this EXACT pitch to every acquaintance you have BEFORE the end of September The answer was "Yes" for many of my email subscribers, including quite a few who do not always click on my emails. This email got a nearly 50% open rate and qualified as the most opened email of the year.

2. Provoke the Reader's Interest

After the reader has begun to read, you need to keep his or her interest to compel him or her to continue. Even if they begin reading, it does not necessarily follow that they will continue. Interest is what keeps them engaged.

3. Harness the Reader's Desires

While capturing attention and interest will get people to engage with your copy, engagement is not a goal unto itself. Engagement is simply the pre-qualifier for people to read our copy. The real goal of the copy has to do with desire and action.

First, we need to harness the reader's existing desires and connect them to our product or service. While this concept might trigger thoughts of magazine ads for diamonds and sport cars, in reality, harnessing desire is much simpler than that.

4. Persuade the Reader to Take Action

The goal of copywriting is action. You need to get capture attention. You need to provoke interest. You need to harness desire. But ultimately, the only metric that matters is, "How many readers took action?"

How many people went out and sent the copy/paste pitch I gave them in my email?

How many people actually went out and purchased the product you wrote about?

How many people actually ordered?

This is all that matters for a copywriter. Do they act on your copy? And great copywriting is written from beginning to end with action in mind.

The 10 Fundamentals of Copywriting

As the final piece of this introduction to copywriting, I want to give you my ten fundamentals for writing copy. There is a bottomless pit of copywriting tips, tactics and techniques to be found online. But to be honest, you really only need the follow fundamentals to get started, and I've found over the years that simply getting better at the fundamentals is the most effective way to improve your copywriting.

1. Start every project by identifying the target audience.

Imagine being asked to give a speech but you aren't told who the audience is. You picture a room of business owners and think through what is important to them, what sort of challenges they would resonate with, what they might find humorous, etc. Then you show up to speak and your audience is a class of 5th graders from the local elementary school.

Your speech would absolutely bomb, because it's aimed at the wrong audience. Knowing who you are speaking to is the first thing you need to identify as a copywriter. It will determine every part of your copy: the challenges you focus on, the benefits you emphasize, the personality you incorporate, etc. If you don't identify the target audience, you've already failed.

2. Start every project by also identifying the copy's objective.

Just like you need to understand who you are speaking to with your writing, you also need to understand what you are trying to accomplish by speaking to them. What do you want the reader to do after they read this copy?

Copywriting is not a passive discipline with vague goals. It's specific and intentional and designed to get results. What those intended results are needs to be clear before you write a word, or your copy won't be effective.

3. The goal of every line of copy is to get the next line read.

The #1 purpose of a line of copy is to get the reader to continue to the next line. If the reader does not continue reading, the message you want to tell them doesn't matter. The points you want to make are irrelevant. And you can forget about the action you want them to take.

Copywriting should take you longer word for word than writing a blog post, especially if you've been writing copy for less than 10 years. It's not a natural process for most people to be intentional with every word, phrase, and sentence.

That said, don't over-complicate this. Being intentional is not a particularly high bar. It just means that after you write a paragraph, look back through and ask, "Does this line move the narrative forward and motivate the reader to continue reading? " If not… change it.

4. Your customers' needs, and desires are the only thing that matters.

The main mistake that most non-copywriters make is focusing on their business, brand, or subject rather than the target audience.

When you think about your business, what you care about most probably makes no difference at all to your customers.

• • In most cases, they don't care about the income or lifestyle your business affords.
• • In most cases, they don't care about the unique technology that drives your business or how you developed it.
• • In most cases, they don't care about you or your business at all.

Like all people, they care about themselves and their own needs and desires, and your business is only of interest within the specific context of meeting those needs and desires. Your copywriting should reflect that. Everything should connect to those needs and desires, and if a piece of the message isn't relevant to those needs and desires, it should nearly always be eliminated.

5. Write like you are speaking to a friend.

There is something funny that happens when people try to write copy for the first time. They get really stiff and formal, and they fill their writing with meaningless jargon and vague phrases.

Good copy reads a lot like a well-spoken person talking to a friend. It has a casual, straightforward tone and gets to the point without rushing itself. It is not attempting to fill space. It is not attempting to sound like anything.

After you compose a chunk of copy, read it aloud and see whether you flinch. Or better yet, wait a day and have someone else read it back to you aloud. If it sounds like you are playing business, think about the main points you want to make and then imagine you are just telling those to a friend.

6. The most essential element of copy is clarity.

Most copywriters and marketers like to make a big deal about persuasion and how magical persuasive copy is, but the truth is that the most essential element of good copywriting is clarity.

Product/market fit is what sells goods. Getting people in front of something they want, or need is what sells things. The goal of the copy is simply to make it very clear to those people that the product is a great match for what they already want or need.

There is another side to copywriting that is focused on manipulation through fear and greed, and while it is great for making a quick buck, it will never help you build a brand or a business that people return to time after time. If you are working with an excellent product that customers love, you don't need persuasion, you need clarity. You need a clear, succinct message that shows the customer why the product fits their needs or desires.

7. Include what, why, where, who and how.

Part of clarity is covering all the details. It can be easy to forget about key piece of info while trying to craft a narrative and account for other copywriting tips. Make sure you identify all the information that needs to be delivered ahead of time:

• • What is the offer?
• • Why does it matter?
• • Where is it being offered?
• • Who is it being offered to?
• • How does it work?

Then look back through and make sure you hit on all of this after you have finished.

8. Incorporate proof and take your writing from the proof.

Proof is the true magic in copywriting. Anyone can say, "I'll do this for you." But if you can follow that up with data, testimonials, examples, case studies, reviews, statistics, etc., that is where you can really make your copy persuasive. Even better, take your writing directly from the proof.

"Honestly, in this guide, you have put out more concrete actionable steps that over 90% of the experts have in their materials."

Incorporate the proof into your writing whenever possible and take your writing directly from the proof angle, whenever you can.

9. Speak to the emotions and motivations behind the decision.

You might have heard that you should "sell the sizzle" and "focus on the benefits." Human beings very rarely make decisions from a purely analytical standpoint. We are an emotional species, and our emotions heavily dictate our behaviour.

As a copywriter, your job is to understand the emotions and motivations that your target audience is experiencing and then speak to those emotions and motivations. You want to connect the specifics of what you are offering to the underlying goal propelling the reader's decision making.

This can be as simple as talking about the benefits or it can be as complex as resonating around life roadblocks and frustrating challenges. Either way, think about those emotions when writing copy.

10. If you can condense or simplify it, you usually should.

"The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do." - Thomas Jefferson You have a limited amount of space and time to communicate your value and capture your reader's interest. If you can say it with less words, you usually should. If you can say it with simpler words, you usually should.

This is why literature majors usually make terrible copywriters at first. They have spent years trying to develop a writing style that is grammatically complex and uses a more extensive vocabulary. In copywriting, you want the opposite. You want to be as simple and succinct as possible.

Written by:

Henry Apaw - CTO, Full stack Designer/Developer @CopyCoach - creating campaigns and software tools for brands and ad agencies for over 13 years.

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