What is the difference between content writing and copywriting?
Copywriting vs content writing in digital marketing- it’s all the same, right?
No, they are not the same. It’s not like a simple comparison between apples and oranges but more like tangerine and oranges. For those who are going to start their career as writers, it’s very important to know the difference between content writing and copywriting. Both have a unique set of challenges and skills to do well. Here, we will see the major differences between copywriting and content writing.
What is copywriting?
Copywriting focuses primarily on a short-term goal with big returns, generating sales. Copywriting is focused on sales letters, PPC landing pages, ads, sales emails, and more.
A copywriter is one who can create an attractive headline and CTAs to prompt consumers to take an action such as make a purchase, schedule a tour, subscribe to a service, or submit vital information like an email address for follow-up. Some of the most successful marketing campaigns in the world have come from creative copywriters.
Copywriting can easily be compared to content writing, but it uses emotional, persuasive language to appeal to the consumer to take immediate action. It may be a tall claim, but copywriting can make or break a business. Copywriting is the art of selling people on an idea, ideology, or brand. The best copywriting creates a fusion of the products and brand ideology to create branding. Copywriting is a piece of writing that intends to pitch the potential customers to use the brand’s products or services.
What is content writing?
Content writing includes social media posts, blog posts, emails, e-books, white papers, and other materials that inform, educate and entertain your audience about the topic. Content writing focus on creating productive engagement, eventually over time they’ll come to trust your brand and will be interested in your products or services.
The best content writers are so good at storytelling that they can write many posts for your blog even without mentioning your brand but still manage to attract and convert prospects. The power of this type of content is that it has the power to eventually turn the leads into a prospect, a prospect into a customer, and a customer into repeat buyers.
The best part about this type of content is that it’s free, so your content writer needs to know about SEO (search engine optimization) to make sure people can find and read your content.
Content writing is the art of creating content. It needs to either educate, inform or entertain. It needs to have a clear purpose, it needs to represent the brand, and needs to be a good read. The best content writing is focused on quality, no matter whether it comes from a publisher or a brand. For brands and some publishers, content writing does align with strategic business and marketing goals which are to attract audiences and potential customers.
Copywriting vs. Content writing
Now here’s one way to look at both of them: copywriting reveals what your brand is all about while content writing passes information along to your audience.
Earlier a copywriter was the only person to go to when it came to all or any marketing requirements but that was before the rise of the blog. Today, if your organization has a blog, you will need to ask a question to yourself if you’re writing what is the right type of content or copy according to your target personas to achieve the objective.
Blogging continues to be a priority for many marketers, many marketing professionals consider blogging as their top content marketing priority. Websites with blogs have a better chance of being well ranked on search engines. What does it mean for you? If you can find the right writer, they’ll be worth the investment. But how are copywriting and content writing different? Which one is best for you? Let’s have the answers:
- The Job– A copywriter is a professional whose job is dedicated to producing copy the general idea is that a copywriter writes marketing material. On other hand, a content writer can be anyone. They are not necessarily a professional writer, but one who produces content. You can consider a copywriter as one who writes marketing copy and a content writer who can simply produce content.
- Purpose– The biggest distinction between copywriting and content writing lies in its purpose. Copywriting is about selling your target group on your brand whereas content writing is subtly telling them about it while delivering valuable content.
- Types of Writing– A content writer creates content whereas a copywriter creates marketing material but what kinds of content or marketing material? This is the most important differentiator for the two. Earlier copywriting was limited to advertising, but the internet revolutionized the scope of what copywriters can write. Today copywriters see plenty of spill over with technical writers and content writers, but the objective is to sell an idea as part of a marketing campaign. Likewise, content writing has opportunities to write different kinds of content.
It is important for you need to keep in your mind that today brands of all kinds need copywriting and content writing to stay up to date. So, there is an ample amount of opportunity for writers out there at both. It is just a perception of which one you would prefer to stick with.
Similarities between content writing and copywriting
The two, of course, do share similarities and that is goals. Whether it is copywriting and content writing at the end, convert a reader into a sale or a lead is an objective. Another similarity between both of them is that it needs to be quality writing. The goal of copywriting is to sell whereas content writing aims for creating valuable content to inform your audience about your brand and generate interest which would later become part of their buying decisions.
Which is better copywriting or content writing?
Your blog should aim to have the best of both worlds: informative, valuable, and authoritative content with a clear CTA. You should remember that copywriting is content, but the content is not necessarily copywriting. On one hand, content writing is informative and creative and aims to be shared on the other hand copywriting is direct and focused on generating sales.