Good copy is a core requirement for any leader, business or creator who wants their audience to care about what they have to say.
“Like anything, making the complex simple is hard. But it’s a prerequisite to getting your message across.”
Lynda Harris, CEO of Write and author of Rewrite
In its plainest definition, copywriting is any piece of written content your audience may come across that is owned by your business. This includes your website, newsletter, blog, social media posts, proposals, reports, technical documents, press releases and even your biography.
The primary goal of copywriting is to get more “yeses” – whether that means closing sales, securing funding, mobilising an idea or filling a room. Good copy does this by keeping your reader’s attention, increasing your audience size, fostering a perception of quality and care and creating loyalty to your brand.
In this post I cover the complexities involved in producing good copy and four strong reasons for outsourcing it.
Why businesses don’t like to think about copywriting
Many people find it a real challenge to communicate effectively about their work and the value it brings. In my experience, these are some of the common reasons why you might have experienced this struggle too:
- Being too close to your business. You know your product and your value proposition inside and out, but in the face of so much information, it is hard for your brain to discriminate between what your audience needs to know, and what will lose their attention.
- Being in the habit of speaking, rather than writing, about your product. You can talk to anyone about what your business is about, but when it comes to writing it down, you have to make the words work harder to keep your word count down. This involves crafting structure and distilling meaning, which is no joke – it’s a trained skill.
- Feeling daunted by the pre-work required. If your website copy is out of date, you know that updating it may involve a stocktake of how your business has evolved. This means diving deep into the mechanics and structure of your business including your processes, your people, and how your value proposition has transformed with the market.
Avoiding tasks that involve copywriting is holding your business back. It comes back to what I touched on in this article about automatic goals.
One thing that certainly won’t help you is berating yourself for not simply “doing it.” There is a reason businesses put blinders on when it comes to improving their copy. There is also a reason professional copywriters exist.
Why businesses should outsource their copy
There are a few reasons your business might consider outsourcing their copy to a copywriter.
- Copywriters bring perspective on maximising results. Having experience writing for different industries and audiences, copywriters have a panoramic perspective of the market, including cross-industry trends and buyer behaviours. This allows the best copywriters to discern the logic tree of your value offering.
- Copywriters are trained to write. Copyrighters have invested significant resources in equipping themselves to write succinctly, with empathy and impact. They have invested years of study and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars developing the analytical capabilities needed for identifying and communicating what’s important.
- Words matter more than ever. As Bo Burnham half-jokes in his Netflix special Inside, “apathy’s a tragedy and boredom is a crime.” On top of living in the information age, consumers are dealing a whole lot more content marketing vying for their attention due to the pandemic forcing every business online. Consumers’ attention span is dramatically reduced, causing them to be not only apathetic, but also flighty, impulsive, and increasingly selective. The onus is now on businesses to provide meaningful content. Clear, impactful writing is crucial to your message cutting through the noise.
- Having expert support will boost business morale. A copywriter is there to deeply understand the value you bring your audience. This process will naturally involve getting serious clarity on your offerings and your target market. which will help you feel empowered and in control. Seeing engagement increase and a higher return on your communication efforts will generate renewed excitement about what you offer, which in turn will flow into your communication.
Conclusion
In conclusion, having good copy will allow more people to read about and engage with your work, develop a relationship with your brand, and ultimately support your business. Many small businesses are unable to pour capital into advertising in today’s highly competitive business environment. Fortunately, content marketing costs far less than traditional marketing.
“Companies who communicate clearly appeal to consumers and so, without a doubt, have a competitive advantage over those who don’t or those who think they do but are really failing at it.”
If it seems like a daunting task or you don’t know why you’re hearing crickets, there’s good reason for that. A skilled copywriter can clear the gold from the muck, translate your message into content that lands, and show you how to harness the value of your words for future.
Here are 8 types of copy that you can outsource:
- Copywriting for web
- Writing marketing copy
- Social media copywriting
- Digital marketing & advertising copy
- Creative copywriting
- Product copywriting
- Blog writing
- Guest blog writing
