I had a call the other day with someone who had been referred to me for some copywriting, and his first question was, ‘What does a copywriter actually do?’
This is a great question, and a great lesson too. When you do something every day it becomes a bubble, and it can seem strange if someone isn’t as familiar with it as you are. I mean, imagine if someone didn’t know how to make a cup of tea! That’s just crazy talk, but it’s worth remembering that if you want to promote yourself and your services, you definitely need to tell people what they are.
In essence, a copywriter is a person who writes professionally. What they write can differ depending on their experience or specialism, but they will write materials designed to sell, educate or engage people with a company or brand.
Let’s take a look at a few different ways this little ol’ copywriter can support you and your business.
Blogs
Writing blogs is an increasingly popular request for a copywriter, because publishing blogs is such a brilliant way to show off your expertise. You can talk about your business and give people insights into what you do and why, you can produce ‘how to’ posts that showcase your expertise, and you can bring in a more personal element with blogs about your history, your team and your life. All of these will let people learn more about you and build that essential know, like and trust factor that converts audiences to customers.
Websites
Chances are, any website you land upon will have been written by a copywriter. As the first contact many people will have with you and your business, it’s important that your website copy is good. If you turn people off with too little or too much information, vague details, typos and bad grammar, you could lose buyers. These days Google is incredibly clever and will rank your site for relevance and readability, so getting your site to feature well in search rankings is also a great reason to use a copywriter.
Promotional materials
Although it might feel like the world is online, printed materials are far from defunct. Whether you’re after a killer one liner for your business cards, some show stopping adverts, leaflets people actually want to keep hold of or a sales catalogue for potential customers, you’ll need someone to write words that catch the eye and sell your products or services.
Social media
It’s been suggested that for every post you publish on social media, only around 3% of your audience (the people who like or follow you) will actually see it. This means that every time you post it needs to be interesting and attention grabbing so that people stop and read for a few seconds instead of simply scrolling past. Working with a copywriter means you can cut through the internet waffle and craft posts that will speak to your audience and reach new people effectively, instead of just sitting in the background.
Case studies
You are executing your brilliant skills every day and you will have a whole collection of very happy customers who can sing your praises. So let’s give them a way to do it! Having written case studies of work you have done before is a great way to show just how good you are; your expertise, the quality of your work, and most importantly what your customers think of you.
Emails and letters
You might send a regular newsletter to your email list, have a sequence of messages you send to new clients, or have a group of stakeholders to keep informed. You might have a long list of reasons for sending out emails or letters and you want them to be clear, consistent and engaging. Writing a letter might seem like a quick and easy task, but many people find it challenging to write in a way that keeps people interested, so using a copywriter ensures they are sending out concise messages without having to spend time worrying about the wording.
It’s not an exhaustive list, but these are the main types of copywriting I do for my clients week after week. I’ve also written and edited corporate reports, created summary versions of large documents, put press releases together and written video scripts (small claim to fame; I wrote the script for a voice over Jamie Theakston read many years ago).
If you need something written, a copywriter can help, and I’m a great one! Drop me a line if you’d like to find out more about how my copywriting skills can improve your business promotion.
