So Many Copywriters. Which Type Do YOU Need?
Yep, there are stacks of copywriters out there these days, because frankly, there’s an awful lot of word working required. But what’s your task at hand? Because just as there are different jobs, there are different types of copywriters. Here’s a handy lil’ breakdown to help you find the right one for your needs.
But first, here are six common questions answered…
What is a copywriter?
A copywriter is someone who writes words–or text –for advertising or marketing purposes, whereas, for example, there other writers that have nothing to do with sales and marketing. For example, novelists write books and journalists write press articles.
As copywriters, we create copy to either develop brand awareness or sell products, and often, this also involves getting readers to take a specific action.
2. Does a copywriter need to work with you in your business?
No. Often, copywriters like to work alone or catch up with the team as required. Speaking from my experience as a freelance copywriter, I seldom meet up with my clients but often like to speak on the phone to keep up to speed.
I spend more of my time chatting to designers over the phone. But again, we seldom do this in person. All we need is a telephone and Internet connection and we’re good to go.
3. What skills do copywriters need to have?
Copywriters need creativity, intelligence, the ability to be proactive and self-disciplined, analytical, highly inquisitive, and have a sense of humour. That’s my answer, anyway.
4. Is copywriting the same as copyright?
No! Fortunately, this seems to be more of a misunderstanding in the US than in Australia. My American colleagues tell me they’re driven crazy by folks thinking they are lawyers. Specifically, ‘copyright’ gives rights to certain creative works, like music, artwork, logos, computer programs, sound recordings, text or other such things. Copywriting is writing copy! Let’s move on.
5. Why do I need a copywriter?
Even if you are a fantabulous writer with a damn-good degree, or feel you have a way with words, you’ll still need a copywriter because copywriting is a lot more than writing pretty words. There’s a truckload of techniques involved, so it takes skills and education – and years of experience in learning how to get the right messages across.
6. What are the different types of copywriting?
Okay, let’s dive in.
SEO copywriter
Who needs one: Business/website owners in competitive industries where ranking on Google counts. This could be anyone from dentists, doctors, clothing shops, tradespeople, consultants, accountants and more.
How they help: SEO copywriters help by creating content that improves your website rankings.
An SEO copywriter uses keywords and knowledge of search engine optimisation to help improve a website’s rankings. She does this through various techniques, the most common being sewing keywords into the copy, but it’s much more than that.
First, she’ll carefully research key-phrases appropriate for the page, then there will be various sifting procedures, depending on the task at hand, and then the article needs to be planned – or loosely written. Next, she will map out the meta data, headlines, sub-headers (crossheads) alt tags, anchor text, and more. It’s quite a technique, so you most definitely want to find someone that is fully versed in the art and not one of the many copywriters that slide a few keywords into a bread-and-butter article. Pah!
Creative copywriter/blogger
Who needs one: Any business that needs fresh, interesting content - and not necessarily a direct sales page or landing page.
How they help: Bloggers give life to a website by keeping it interesting and keeping the site ranking well.
This type of copywriter creates good, interesting content to help keep readers on the page or website. Often, SEO copywriting skills are handy – then you can kill two birds with one stone, create content that the search engines love and be scintillating interesting to boot.
Web copywriter
Who needs one: Any business with a website that need content needs a web copywriter.
How they help: Web writers write content that delivers the right message for each page. It could be informative, interesting content for a blog post, and about page, useful information on the homepage of the website or it could be a landing page – if they have conversion copywriting skills.
You guessed it; a web copywriter is someone that writes for the web, be it websites, landing pages, blogs, social media or any online platform. But it’s often used to describe someone that would overhaul or write content for your website.
Conversion copywriter
Who needs one: businesses selling products or services
How they help: conversion copywriters help convince people to perform one action on a page.
A conversion copywriter is someone who strictly focuses on one thing – and that is getting the visitor to perform a particular action on the page - be it to sign up, pay a fee, volunteer or pick up the phone and call, for example.
Conversion copywriting is both art and science and requires serious study, experience and focus. And, it helps if you love it! Conversion copywriters are the ones that pack a whole lot of punch into your sales headline, the introductory text, positions of images on the page, text for CTA boxes and more. They also need to have good analytical skills for testing their work.
Social Media copywriter
Who needs one: Businesses that strongly rely on social media advertising for their business
How they help: They’re good at micro writing – meaning writing tiny, distinct messages that sell
This gig is all about writing being savvy, smart and writing snappy copy (including headlines, body copy, and calls-to-action for ads) that sells - usually Facebook or Instagram ads. The more experience in social media they have, the better – and they must be adept at running Facebook ads and understanding Facebook analytics because testing is a huge part of the job!
Direct response copywriter
Who needs one: Businesses that rely heavily on sales. Like sales are a BIG DEAL.
How they help: They are brilliant at emotionally manipulating the reader to perform a certain action
These guys are the true blue sales writers. Similar to conversion copywriters, their one job is to make the reader take a specific action. Their eyes are on the prize, and the prize is sales. They write traditional long-form letter drops, sales emails, and so on.
Technical copywriter
Who needs one: Companies that need to communicate technical information to the public.
How they help: They have a sound understanding of the technical details of your product and can seamlessly convey these messages to your readers and make them buy your product.
This job involves writing persuasive copy to promote technical products and services. The writer must have a sound knowledge of the product and be able to sell them, making it all sound smoother and simpler than it possibly is. It’s a little different from technical writing, which involves a rather laborious job of writing out technical manuals and instructions (yawn).
Ghostwriter
Who needs one: People who aren’t writers, but need an online presence – or need to present material or speeches to the public.
How they help: they work anonymously to put words into your mouth – or onto your page that you wish you could come up with yourself!
Ghostwriting is writing under the alias of someone else. It’s certainly not the way to make yourself famous, but for some, particularly the quieter types, it has its perks. (Prolly not too many Insta-snapping millennials in this line of work!) The material could be anything from blogs, opinion pieces, political speeches, or even songs.
Resume writer
Who needs one: Individuals searching for a job
How they help: They help you get a job as they know the specific requirements needed to convince your future employer.
Resume and CV writers, as the name suggests, a sound understanding of requirements and formats of resumes, cover letters and CVs.
Need a copywriter?
I’m an SEO Copywriter, web writer, conversion copywriter and blogger. I don’t do resumes or tech writing. Like to find out more?