Amazing answer to What is Copywriting? (What Skills you need for Copywriting )

Hello friends. Do you want to understand, what is Copywriting? What are the benefits of copywriting? What skills required for a pro Copywrite?

Note: This article is bit extensive, must follow the table of content section to get answers of your question.

Copywriting is a skill & Art. A copywriter will have excellent research skills and a unique sense of writing and thinking outside the box to gain the attention of potential prospects or clients.

Copywriting is the written messaging (copy) that is used to frame the purpose of a brand, organization or individual.

Good copy drives awareness and builds connections.

Simply put, copywriter tells a story. A copywriter uses language to drive what information an individual takes in about a company.

The intention can be informative or persuasive, but it must be clear and compelling.  By E. Danielle Butler from www.evydanibooks.com

Copywriting has changed over the years. At one time copywriting meant writing sales letters and print ads.

With this new digital age, we’re living in copywriting is everything. Copywriting is writing ad copy for print media, digital media, banner ads, facebook ads, google sponsord ads ie adwords.

Copywriting is content marketing writing blogs and content meant to drive traffic, sales or conversions.

Why Copywriter will generate highest return?

Copy is advertising text. It is meant to persuade people to act. Most times, this “action” involves taking out a credit card to buy something.

Copywriters are people who write this marketing text. They’re the ones who come up with catchy slogans in advertisements.

They’re also the ones who concoct order forms, billboard and banner text, radio ads, and pretty much anything you see or hear involving advertising.

Good copywriters could sell anything through their words. That’s why they demand a pretty penny… because most of the good ones collect royalties for their work.

In the online world, the products marketed with the best copy will always sell well. Very rarely do people buy products because of its quality. Instead, what they read, see, and hear convinces them.

So as a copywriter, it’s so important to touch people’s emotions… so they can read, see and hear the benefits of acting.

The best way to strike nerves with your audience is through storytelling. People don’t jump out of their seats at facts.

They jump out when told something truly extraordinary. And that only happens when their emotions are hit. This can only happen through storytelling.

What theme & topics Copywriters should follow?

Good copy usually follows at least one of these four themes:

1. Inspirational – Motivate people to act.

2. Controversial – Inform people on a unique topic and get them to act to find out more.

3. Timely – Relate to the present and delve deeper into a relevant topic by tying in hot current events and pop culture.

4. Urgent – Speed up actions by creating suspense or stressing limited time or availability. You can even lower your prices during a special time period to add more urgency.

How to proceed once you select the theme?

Once you have your theme, you’ll need to find a topic to write about and twist it to fit the purpose and mission of your end goal. Include action verbs to get readers to do something.

Here listed some “trigger words” and topics I have found to be particularly effective because they touch people’s emotions:

These words can tie into any product idea. For example, if you’re selling printers and want to tie your copy into *health*, you can talk about how your printer works so well that it will save users heartaches, thus improving their health.

Or if you want to tie it into *money*, you can talk about how the ink cartridges work efficiently, thus saving users money.

Or, you can get *controversial* and *expose* your top competitor so that people will buy your product.

If something is free, then emphasize it by putting it in all caps. FREE!

People love FREE. So find a way to say something is FREE or comes FREE, and make it stand out.

Assume the reader is in your shoes. By that, I mean that, as a copywriter, you should use first person when suggesting your reader to purchase something.

For example, instead of having a button that says, “Subscribe Now,” say something like, “Start My Free Trial”.

When you’re not putting the reader in your shoes, you should talk to them in the second person as if they’re your sibling or significant other. Use “you” or “your” a lot. Don’t be afraid to overuse these words.

Finally, when it comes to copywriting, you *should* break some rules of grammar. Your sentences need to make sense.

They should still flow well. But it’s OK to start sentences with conjunctions (like I started this sentence with “but”) and end sentences with prepositions. Short, choppy, simple sentences are fine.

Write like you’re speaking to someone close to you… in an open, casual and fluid manner.

If you publish print content (or have a blog), your best pieces can be turned into landing pages by using the formatting guidelines I lay out in the next section and next chapter.

The best landing pages are your own best blog posts that you’ve already created.

There’s no need to go out and spend thousands of dollars to hire a copywriter to write a landing page, promotion, or order form.

Successful posts were successful for a reason. If people loved to read them as editorial, they’ll still love to read them in copy format, even if the messaging is slightly different.

How to check Readability of Copywriting?

Make the readability of your words as simple to skim as possible.

Nowadays, it’s rare for people to read anything word for word. A page with a bunch of words can be boring to look at.

There are ways you can convey your message by ‘highlighting’ the big ideas in what you’re saying.

You want to make your words ‘visually pleasing’ to the eye. This doesn’t require much extra work on your end because you will have already written the copy.

1. Bold key sentences

2. ALL CAPS URGENT INFORMATION

3. Create lists or bullets to organize information

4. Italicize ‘side’ comments

5. Underline key ideas

6. Highlight important sentences

7. Create separate sidebars or boxes for alternative topics that relate to your content

Why do People Judge Pieces by Their Headlines Like People Judge Books By Their Front Covers?

Headline writing is the first step to copy success. Headlines should include the themes and topics list in this chapter.

Be creative with headlines. A headline isn’t one phrase or sentence. It can have a pre-head before or above the main headline and then a subhead under that.

Anticipate your customers’ pains beforehand and provide an answer to those pains in the headline. Put as many key words as possible. Search engines will notice this and do free search engine optimization (SEO) for you.

What does a copywriter do?

In essence, a copywriter is a salesperson on paper and in some ways a matchmaker for B2C and B2B businesses.

A copywriter entices and persuades customers or clients to do something such as buy a product or service, download an eBook, or sign up for a newsletter.

A copywriter also matches a business’ product or service with the wants and needs of customers or clients.

What qualifications are required to be a pro copywriter?

If you want to be a pro copywriter or are a business owner who needs to hire one, these are the qualifications required.

•    Know how to write for digital and print
•    Know how to write short and long form content
•    Are familiar with style guides such as The Associated Press
Stylebook, The Business Style Handbook, Web Style Guide, The BuzzFeed
Style Guide, and more
•    Understands people
•    Understands how business works
•    Has a basic (minimum) understanding of psychology and a genuine
interest in what makes people tick
•    Understands SEO (search engine optimization) and how to use various
keyword research tools
•    Understands SEM (search engine marketing)
•    Can spot trends
•    Understands content marketing
•    Has and develops research skills
•    Has an understanding of how to educate and entertain through
copywriting
•    Knows how to write subject lines, taglines, headlines, and sub-headers
•    Knows how to interview people
•    Attends conferences, takes courses and workshops, reads, writes every day, reads and studies the work of great copywriters and marketers such as Bob Bly, Dan Kennedy, and others; reads and studies fiction writers such as Stan Lee, Stephen King, and others; and more.

What are the Benefits of copywriting?

Copywriting offers businesses and entrepreneurs many benefits. Here’s a
list.

•    Increases sales
•    Increases leads
•    Increases profits
•    Increases email subscribers
•    Increases customers or clients
•    Helps to maintain current customers and clients
•    Improves web traffic
•    Boosts local foot (brick and mortar) and web traffic
•    Increases social media followers, likes, comments, and shares
•    Increases a company or entrepreneur’s authority in their space,
resulting in opportunities such as interviews, book deals for CEOs or
professionals, speaking engagements, and more

Many think there’s a difference writing for B2C (business-to-customer) or B2B (business-to-business), but in my opinion, there isn’t because you’re writing for people.

Because one is labeled a consumer, and the other is labeled an executive or business professional, makes no difference.

You still must convince someone to take action such as buying a product or service, signing a contract, etc.

You must make a connection and provide great information that will drive a person to take action. By Amandah from Savvy-Writer