What is a Copywriter? - A content writer or something else?

hitmeasap Level X⁵

October 12, 2016, 4:16 pm

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What is a Copywriter? - A content writer or something else?

I find this odd but very interesting, which is the reason I wanted to share it with you.

Copywriters (known as continuity writers in broadcasting) are used to help create direct mail pieces, taglines, jingle lyrics, web page content (although if the purpose is not ultimately promotional, its author might prefer to be called a content writer)

[Source]

The reason I used "bold" on content writer is due to the fact that I call myself a content writer. I write tons of information on a daily basis, both for free and for money. I get paid to write content. - However, I would never call myself a copywriter, as a copywriter, in my opinion, is a person who is extremely talented on writing sales letters. (I've hired multiple copywriters in the past to write sales letters for my products.)

I often don't think that I possess the necessary skills to write a good enough sales letter, which is the reason I hire others to do it for me. - That basically means, that I would never call myself a copywriter. I am a content writer.

What do you guys think? - Are these two the same? - What would you call yourself?

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TommyCarey

The most basic explanation of a copywriter that i can give you is someone who is writing an article, website content, blog posts, etc. for themselves or a client in order to increase sales through a business or website.

I never thought of myself as a copywriter, but after I researched it enough I realized that people were hiring me for exactly that. I get a lot of people that hire me to write website content, articles, blog posts, video scripts, ad content, etc. I get hired by these people and companies because I can spin my words in a way to increase the sales of their websites or physical locations

You say you're writing a lot of content, you could fall into that copywriter niche if you're optimizing the articles for conversions and not just the search engines. When I'm writing I'll always think about conversions first and optimization second. Over the years it's pretty much become second nature to me to get both the optimization and conversion going at the same time and I don't really have to go over it too much to tweak a line here and there.

To be a killer copywriter and content writer you'll need to capture the person within the first sentence, but I'm sure you know that

And if you're trying to capture them within the first few seconds of them reading, you're doing some copywriting right there

A lot of people don't even realize they are writing content to increase their conversions because they're focusing on optimization. In the end that person will usually go back over their article and rewrite the beginning because it doesn't sound catchy enough, and that's where people start to bridge the gap between just being a content writer and writing content for conversions aka a copywriter

Hopefully that make sense

Thanks,

Razzy

8 years ago