What is copywriting?
For the uninitiated, Mad Men trivialized the idea of Copywriting. But again, in all honesty the word “Copy” does belong to the world of media. It was originally the media agencies where the “copywriters” along with the “creative” counterparts created ads to convey a message using radio or TV. This is how we traditionally understood copy. Though the word Copy essentially comes from latin and means “giving permission to transcribe”. Having said that, in an age where we fiddle with a dozen media platforms and half a dozen content formats, the word copy no more stands for “one-liners-to-sweep-you-away” Gone are the days where a size-fits-all approach.
Product Marketers use the word copywriting more in the context of descriptive writing such as blogging, scripting et all. Irrespective of the nomenclature rules, what is often missed is the structural approach. Yes, Copywriting is fundamentally an art but there is no reason why you can’t break this down and simplify.
There are two simple yet critical things to understand -
When users visit a website, the perspective that they have is very different from what they have while scrolling through Facebook Feed. The idea is to conceptualize what you are writing and do your creative's according to what is ideal for that kind of audience. Take a step back and understand your audience and what can and will add value to your audience. Check out this infographic on how to understand your audience better. Before you hit the publish button, here are things that you need to watch out for
Pro Tip: Go away from your blog post for a few hours come back and try and read it afresh and figure it out. That does the trick most of the times.
Before we get to the point of breaking down how to write a well-written content piece, it is important to understand what makes a content compelling? The single most common which stands out is - emotional arc for the user. Are you writing something which is emotionally attracting someone that you could write about.
For all you care, you might be writing about steel pipes, but if you're writing for a certain audience which is interested in that topic, does your content trigger the “Wow” emotion Or something like “oh my God, how could I not remember this”. Here are some other pointers that will help you amplify the emotional connect:
There are bunch of tools to do this but before we jump there, here is the academic formula -
Let’s break this down:
Here are some handy tools that will simplify this battle for you:
If you don't have the time to do 25 headlines, do basic A/B testing on Twitter. When you start using different headlines on Twitter you will immediately see what kind of response a headline gets and that could be a easier starting point.
It's important that this approach should be used carefully, because you don't want to promote click baits.
When you say something in the headlines that the post actually has nothing to do with your actual content. This is nothing a poor writing practice because your bounce rate will go through the window. ClickBait never work in the long run. User Loyalty is a two way street - you need to give them first before asking them for their loyalty.
Do note that this is an endless debate. Check out Julie’s post on The Ideal Post Length
For a long time in India, student’s knowledge was judged basis the word count of an answer. Believe it or not but- it worked. Blame it on the teachers or the education system but if you are clueless about a question, pick a word from the question and write “content” covering maximum real estate on your answer sheet. In all likelihood, you will score just the same as the topper of your class.
Fast forward to 2016 - People are still trying this philosophy on the internet. Well, here is the problem - Your Readers are not like your teachers. Your readers are, well people like you and me. It’s important to not to do 1600 works of junk. There is only one rule of creating magic magic i.e - research.
Some gold rules to stick by would be:
This is the most exciting bit for a lot of writes ( More so for Upasna, as she is writing one right now). Storyboards and Story words are the latest buzzwords. Everyone wants to tell a story because stories stick, have a recall value like no one else. Storyboarding gives you a mechanism or a framework to write things in a structured way, such that people want to read. The storytelling frameworks help writers and authors to push their own boundaries as a writer and churn something unique. StoryTelling is about knowing some frameworks that will recreate your copy into its own emotional version and that is honestly how I see the future of web writing as. More on storytelling and its frameworks in the next post.
This post is an extended version of the #InConversation Podcast by Vivekk and Upasna.