What Exactly is a Copywriter?

[Lozzer100]

Aside from agency creatives and freelancers, it’s no surprise to learn that not everyone really knows what a copywriter actually does, especially those in business. I still get several calls a year from people who have seen my ads on the Internet and want me to secure the legal rights for their logo and tagline, or something similar.

It’s not my place to mock these people, and I politely explain that I’m not a lawyer and I’m not involved in copyright. After all, you either know what a copywriter does or you don’t. When my friend’s dad, a graphic designer, suggested I would make a good copywriter when I was 15, I didn’t know what one was either.

Yet, it has occurred to me that this lack of understanding could be getting in the way of how some businesses present themselves using the written word. After all, if you want your sales letter to pull more leads and don’t know that a copywriter can help you (or if you do, how to approach one), your attempts at improving your sales could be limited.

There are several ways to describe what a copywriter does, and the dictionary definition seems the least satisfying to my mind. This is from Collins Online Dictionary:

Copywriter
NOUN
A person employed to write advertising copy (1)

Seems simple but also a little clinical doesn’t it? This definition doesn’t even hint at what I think is the artistry that goes into being a copywriter, and our ability to tap into and drive emotions. That’s why my preferred description is this, a version of legendary copywriter John E. Kennedy’s famous quote on advertising made in 1905:

“(Copywriting) is salesmanship in print.”

Or put another way, this time by advertising agency owner Judith K. Charles in 1982:

“A copywriter is a salesperson behind a typewriter.” (2)

Ok, so we’ve got over the gender bias in this last quote, and I know we all use computers these days, but you can see what I’m getting at. In its most raw form, copywriting is all about making more sales or driving specific actions, and this is where the average business owner’s ears usually prick up.

In my view, all good copywriting has a clearly defined purpose. It drives an action towards a specific outcome, such as making a sale, gaining a new lead, getting someone to request a product sample etc. Clients sometimes say to me that their copy is just for information purposes only. What’s the point of that? Surely it’s what you actually do with that information that’s important. Why produce a static page of words? It’s like employing a boring and uninterested salesperson.

When business people ask how copywriting can best help their business, I always point out that targeted copywriting should be viewed as your silent sales force, exponentially growing your business for a relatively low outlay. That’s why I also think copywriting is the single best investment that anyone can make in their business.

Well I would say that wouldn’t I, as a copywriter with over ten years' experience? Well yes, of course – but for one very important objective distinction.

Done properly, especially in the case of direct response copywriting, the results of what the copywriter produces are independently measurable. That is to say, you can’t argue with a professionally written sales letter that out pulls your existing marketing material – or equally, hide from a piece of writing that doesn’t pull the desired response. So in this sense, if copywriters are doing their job properly, they are really putting themselves on the line for your business. If their copy works – everyone’s happy. If it doesn’t, that’s usually the end of the relationship between client and copywriter. That’s why choosing an experienced copywriter helps, although none of us get it right all the time. Oh, and if you aren’t currently measuring the success of your copywriting and marketing campaigns – you don’t know what works anyway and neither does the copywriter you’re using – and you’re no doubt wasting your money.

Putting it straight, ‘a copywriter is a salesperson behind a PC’, and what they write can change your company for the better if properly measured and tested. If you don’t know what a copywriter is for, or what words mean to your company, or indeed how to measure their success – you don’t need a copywriter at all, you need a reality check. Words form the basis of everything your company is trying to achieve, and it’s sad but true that they’re nearly always an afterthought for every advertising and marketing campaign out there.

I mentioned how to employ a copywriter earlier, so let’s finish on that. A good copywriter will be easy to approach, and will talk through what you want to achieve even before they quote you on a project. Once you’ve agreed terms, they’ll then ask you lots of questions about what you want to achieve so you can meet your objectives. They’ll then get on and write your copy. It really can be (and should be), as simple as that to use words to grow your business.

Sources

1. Collins Online Dictionary, 2008
2. Robert W. Bly, “The Copywriter’s Handbook’, 3rd Edition, Owl Books, 2005

[The Copy Nazi]

You know there's this marvellous new tool called "Google". When you want to know something you just enter your query into a search box and back comes an answer in seconds. Amazing really. I just tried it with "copywriter" and this is what it returned - "Copywriting is the use of words to promote a person, business, opinion or idea."

[John_S]

A copywriter is like your very best sales person, cloned and sent to tens-of-thousands of prospects at a time. ...Never tired. ...Never bored or out of sorts, copy is like a perfect pitch from a sales person at the top of their game.

A great copywriter is a competitive strategist, giving you a clear competitive advantage over the competition. The response generated by great copy is evidence you really know your customer and how he or she thinks.

[Paul Hancox]

Excellent. I really liked Judith's definition of a copywriter... "a salesperson behind a typewriter".

The dictionary definition you quoted is a bit circular - a copywriter is someone who writes advertising copy... well, what's copy? Well, it's stuff that a copywriter writes

I view any writing that attempts to persuade someone to take action as copy... which includes landing pages designed to capture email addresses, and even articles published with the intention of encouraging people to click a link.

I appreciate that's a broader definition than some people here might like, but the only real difference is that the desired action is not directly the purchase of a product.