While you may feel that copywriting is something that is relevant only to people dedicated to writing sales letters for clients, I challenge you to reassess this thinking. Actually, we ALL face the opportunity to use copywriting skills, all day long. Allow me to explain…
Copywriting skills are actually exercised in so many different scenarios, many of which you likely never even considered. If you understand that copywriting is actually the skill and art of using words to influence or persuade, then if you look at it from this perspective, copywriting skills permeate so much of what we do. If you embrace this definition as I have just provided, then everything in sales that has written words is copywriting — regardless of the media.
To provide even further clarification, copywriting skills are used in the following scenarios:
- writing an email for your autoresponder series
- writing a telephone script
- writing a script for your YouTube video
- writing out a script to respond to each of your prospect’s anticipated obstacles to purchasing your product or service
- writing out the copy (ie. words/content) of your website
- writing out your ‘elevator speech’ that you will memorize and easily provide to others
- writing out the content (copy) of a direct-mail piece that you intend to send to targeted prospects
- writing out your professional bio, which often serves as a ‘first impression’ for people to decide to initiate conversation with you or not
- writing out your quick bio for your social media sites — Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc
- writing your tweets
- writing your Facebook posts
- and many, many more scenarios
So, as you can see from this list, copywriting is truly expansive of so much of the activity that we do on a daily basis. If you hadn’t thought of copywriting from this perspective, I welcome you to shift your mindset. Once you do this, you will capture the motivation to learn everything you can about copywriting!
Copywriting is actually a fun endeavor. I have been fascinated by copywriting for years. I’ve consumed innumerable courses, workshops, and have attended live trainings dedicated solely to this topic. But, don’t be disheartened by this. If you are someone who got low grades in English, don’t worry. Many of the very best copywriters, who command the highest fees, also got low grades in school. Copywriting is an entirely different art and skill.
How does copywriting differ from the writing skills that you may have learned in high school or college? In so many ways! First, copywriting is often extremely conversational. In fact, many experts encourage you to read it outloud as if you were talking. If it doesn’t sound good when you speak it, the copy must be changed. Secondly, often the grammar isn’t 100% perfect. It is actually intentionally created this way. Placement of commas, periods, and intentionally choosing conversational phrases sometimes defy the laws of proper english. However, copywriting is all about telling stories, creating influence and persuasion. If incorrect grammar gets you to this result, as effective copywriting has been known to do, this is what you should do. Achieving the result is what the game is all about.
I hope this article has stimulated you to look at copywriting under a new light. I encourage you to begin to acquire copywriting skills and awareness. There’s lots more I could share on this topic, but it’ll have to be saved for another day. For now, simply open your mind and awareness of what copywriting really is. Enjoy!