Copywriting is the occupation of writing content, or copy, for a specific use. Such use can be text writing for catalogs, it could be writing a script for a video or movie dialog, or it might be crafting headlines that catch the eye — either on a billboard poster, a website, or a leaflet and other sales material. Copywriting is both and artistic as well as commercial activity.
Copywriting or Copyrighting???
Writing copy, by the way, has got nothing to do with obtaining a copyright on some text, an image, logo, or video. So copyrighting something at the USPTO or any other copyright office may sound similar but is certainly not copywriting. Also, it isn’t true that most copywriters make hundreds of thousands or even millions per year! Funnily enough, there are “advisors” and “gurus on money-making” on Youtube and other fun-fairs spinning it precisely that way. Clearly, they know neither of the above. So ignore them.
While it is true that a well-run copywriting business turning out quality pieces for its clients can generate substantial profits over time, and after successfully growing through an initial starting period, copywriting is a lot of work and requires both attention to detail and also a way with words. This shouldn’t be surprising, as persons with no talent for what they’re doing are hardly ever becoming successful. Not even political correctness and other pets of the Millenial generation can sugar-coat these facts!
Talent and Business Skills for a Copywriting Business
That said, there are methods and strategies that can make copywriting worthwhile and profitable for the right person with the right talent and the right outlook on running a business. What matters more though is that these talented copywriters are the ones that produce results for their clients. They bring in sales through sales literature that engages its readers, makes them interested in the offer, and ultimately buy. No matter what the particular type of sales literature is. If it’s well-written and crafted by a copywriter who knows how to write, it’ll work. These types of sales literature can be ad copy, it can be a flyer exploring different angles on an offering in more detail, it can be catchy headlines (for example, you need multiple ones for Google Ads; these are limited to 30 characters, so require some scribbling around at that, and still need to convert), or it can even be an instruction manual. Also, blog posts written around a certain topic, usually also with using certain keywords for SEO in mind, have an increasingly large share of the overall copywriting market today.
It All Needs to Come Together
Copywriting is both part of our own business and something we would recommend to the right person to pursue as a career. The latter, clearly, requires the appropriate skillset. Outsourcing jobs to sub-contractors every now and then, we would not want to work with a person that does not fit this description or lacks the sills mentioned in the previous paragraph. The remaining talented ones, that’s the ones who are good at writing and at running their business at the same time, are your favorite copywriters to successfully, smoothly, and repeatedly work with. No doubt about it.