Copywriters are a bit like financial advisors. You know you’re going to need one for your business, but you’re not always precisely sure why.
And just like those financial advisors, copywriters and their services can provoke a little defensiveness among prospective clients. This can be motivated by:
In this post, we’re going to demystify the role of the copywriter and explain what they do, how they can help your business and the results you can expect to see.
Spoiler alert: those results might not be immediate, but they can often be transformative for businesses.
This knowledge will give you a much better idea of when to approach a copywriter and which skillset you’ll be looking for in any company providing professional copywriting services.
A copywriter is a commercial writer who uses words to help sell a product, a service or an idea. They may create messages for media channels such as websites, emails, direct mail, print brochures and blog posts.
Key elements of the copywriting services include:
Some copywriters write for consumers or the general public. They are known as ‘business to consumer’ or ‘B2C’ copywriters. Other copywriters write for fellow businesses. They are known as ‘business to business’ or ‘B2B’ copywriters.
A ‘freelance copywriter’ is a professional copywriter who provides services independent of an agency and will usually be a sole trader.
A good way to understand copywriting is to compare it to journalism.
In other words, a copywriter isn’t trying to be impartial. They are an advocate for your business in a commercial and competitive environment.
Providing the benefits of a product are targeted to the right customers, professional copywriting services are both honest and ethical.
So much for the differences. But, actually, the crossover between the copywriter and journalist’s skillset can be huge. A case in point. The Coast leadership team started our careers as journalists. As we moved into the commercial world of copywriting, we’ve found our research and interview skills, our ‘nose for a good story’ and our scrupulous fact-checking invaluable in delivering great work.
Copywriting is important for a business because good commercial writing can create a strong connection with customers. This connection can promote sales and even long-term loyalty. It can help a business stand apart from and above competitors, develop greater credibility, and ultimately succeed and grow.
Increasingly, good knowledge of search engine optimisation (SEO) is woven into copywriting. SEO content writer services can help a business feature prominently in search results and win prominence for a business compared to competitors.
An experienced digital copywriter can also do much more than drive awareness. He or she can also ‘close the deal’ for you by presenting a compelling and persuasive argument for buying. (Yes, this indeed means that high-quality copy sitting on your website can be working to make sales 24/7.)
Here’s a rundown of the kinds of projects a professional copywriting services team will typically deliver for businesses.
Content branding
This is an area hugely overlooked by smaller businesses, because it can seem a little nebulous at first glance. But get it right and it creates the copywriting hooks that all of your other marketing assets hang on. It can be invaluable.
Content branding with a copywriter – who in this scenario may work within a content marketing agency – involves developing the voice for your business. It usually includes consultancy (a ‘workshop’) to establish your:
At Coast, we deliver the results of this content branding in a Content DNA booklet. This is a document that features both guidelines and key copy assets clients can use across their media.
SEO-optimised website copywriting
Compelling website copy is the ground zero of your digital presence – you must present strong messages across your website Home, About and Services pages promoting your business.
All of this copy should be search-engine optimised by an SEO content writer, to ensure visibility on search engines. As part of their professional copywriting services, your digital copywriter will undertake keyword research, implement your copy on the website and may even handle technical SEO issues such as redirects. These days, SEO copywriting services are fundamental to copywriting – ensure your provider has these skills.
Blog writing
Your SEO-optimised website should be complemented by regular blog content, to further develop your visibility online and provide useful content to customers. A good copywriter will also be an experienced blog writer, helping you to develop a content calendar for your area of expertise. They will then write engaging posts that answer customer queries and bring more traffic and visitors.
Social profiles
While many digital copywriters don’t handle day-to-day social media, you should use their professional copywriting services to create the static assets on social profiles, such as the About and headline. This is the ‘cornerstone content’ of your LinkedIn, Google Business or Facebook profile and is a great opportunity to persuade and grow loyalty and sales.
Business documents
A copywriter will create concise and compelling sales sheets, white papers, online brochures and business tenders. In fact, it can be deadly NOT getting a copywriter involved in these documents. Amateur writers often get lost in the detail, causing readers to lose interest. A copywriter will understand the fact that, although these documents are informational in nature, their ultimate goal, however subtly, is to encourage a sale.
Print assets
Despite all reports to the contrary, print isn’t dead. A well-placed print brochure or advertisement can be a crucial asset in your sales funnel, reminding a potential client of your presence and services.
If they’re any good, seamlessly. And that’s because they’ll have enough experience with clients to know no two jobs are the same.
Here’s some scenarios that reveal how a copywriter will typically work with a business or client.
What you might have noticed from some of these scenarios is that there’s frequently much more than copywriting involved.
The copywriting world has changed fundamentally in the last 3-5 years and many experienced copywriters now offer much more than copywriting. Many ‘copywriter plus’ professionals also deliver marketing consultant services and comprehensive SEO copywriting services.
As freelance copywriters, or as members of a content marketing agency, they’ll also work seamlessly with your website developer or SEO agency. To give you an example, we work with web developers on many projects and brief them closely on layout considerations from a copy point of view. We also go into the ‘back end’ of websites and do much of the formatting ourselves (under the oversight of a designer) to keep projects moving.
For clients who need more than copywriting, we deliver content strategy services. We create comprehensive content marketing campaigns and even source web developers, SEO agencies and photographers for their project, to ensure a joined-up approach
Ultimately, a good copywriter can help you with much more than words. They will deliver the whole content marketing package, using their own skills and help from fellow professionals.
Everyone can write, right?
Wrong.
In our view, many businesses hold back their growth by saving a bit of budget and doing it themselves. The results can quickly undermine a prospective client’s trust in your abilities and credibility.
It’s true most people can write and string an attractive sentence together. But, in professional copywriting, the finished proof is the tip of the iceberg. It’s the seven-tenths that sits below – the thinking behind the content – where you get the true value for your money.
Your messages are a core asset to your business’s success. It’s how you get customers to understand what you do and why what you do is so good.
Use a professional.
At the start of this post, we compared copywriters to financial advisors. They each provoke a certain amount of confusion and distrust. Now we’re going to finish with an honest comment that we hope will help you trust the world of professional copywriting services a little bit more.
A good and ethical copywriter will not guarantee you instant results.
Perhaps not what you hoped for! But here’s the rationale. Despite what all those emails in your inbox say, marketing can be tough and results are rarely instant. It typically involves regular commitment, building a presence, and possibly some missteps along the way as you refine your approach and repivot according to new circumstances.
But good copywriting is an absolute fundamental to getting marketing right. And it will bring results in the medium to long term.
Among our own client base, our copywriting has helped increase website traffic by up to 600% and win lucrative clients. This has brought prosperity to business owners and kept large teams employed. Our clients’ investment in copywriting has been a direct contributor to business growth. (You can see many case studies confirming these success stories by following the Case Studies link in our navigation bar above.)
Coast’s own marketing is also a good case study. We’ve offered professional copywriting services for over 20 years. In that time, we’ve adapted and improved our messaging as the market and our own goals have changed. As a result, the copywriting messages on our website have generated a comfortable return to keep our founders and teams gainfully employed doing a job they love.
That’s the power of effective copywriting.
Coast provides professional copywriting and content writing services to businesses of all sizes.
Get more facts on the copywriting process by reading our posts:
How to brief a copywriter – a great guide for keeping your project on track.
20 years of running a copywriting and content marketing company – a behind-the-scenes look at what makes a successful copywriter tick.
Martin Philp is head writer at Coast Content Marketing. His Penzance-based business helps clients manage their marketing workload and increase visibility with authentic, carefully crafted content that stands out in a world of automation. Coast specialises in cyber security marketing, IT marketing and tourism marketing, and helps businesses across all sectors, including highly regulated industries. A well-known content marketing agency in Cornwall, it has many clients in the UK and abroad. Find out more about Coast's content marketing services.