What is Copywriting?

What is Copywriting?

Copywriting is the creative process of organizing information and writing words (and sometimes suggesting concepts, structure, and visuals) used in creating effective sales and marketing documents. These include print ads, Internet banner ads, brochures, case studies, direct mail, sales letters, sale sheets, flyers, case studies, and new product announcements – and the list goes on.

Copywriters seek to inform, persuade and sell. The process sometimes goes by other names – marketing writing, sales and writing, persuasive writing, ad writing and public relations writing are just a few. Copywriting is a broad term. The words on a menu are copy. So are the words in an ad, product description, press release, annual report, announcement, invitation, package insert, sales letter, Web page, broadcast fax, CD ROM presentation, and food labels.

For the most part, copywriting is copy that sells, but sometimes the direct sales message within a marketing document isn’t obvious.

Direct mail certainly packs a deliberate sales punch. A direct mail package is designed to make an immediate buying decision, and the success of a mailing is measured by how many people from a given list respond. I can remember as a manager of the local Marie Brown’s in Bedford, Nova Scotia, my manager waiting patiently by the door and counting the number of people who came in with their coupons from the direct mail piece that he participated in.

But, of course, there are no guarantees. People may be fickle, or just not interested in what you’re selling. I have written many a news article thinking that this would be the one to light the paper I was writing for on fire only to have it dropped like a wet sponge from disinterest. It’s to no fault of the author, it’s just the way the masses read.

A lot of copywriters call copywriting “writing that sells,” but sometimes the direct sales message within a marketing document isn’t obvious. Direct mail certainly packs a deliberate sales punch. A direct mail package is designed to get you to make an immediate buying decision, and the success of a mailing is measured by how many people from a given list respond.

But marketing documents such as case studies, success stories, and features take more of a “soft sell” approach. They contain no direct “buy now” message. Still, copywriters tasked with writing any forms of marketing document, whether it be hard sell or soft sell, will use all the persuasive tools at their command in a deliberate attempt to with the hearts and minds of buyers. 

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