Copywriting and content writing are often confused to be the same thing. However, they both have different functions and purposes.
On top of that, the future of each industry is often blurry. While there is no doubt that they will each have a place in the future, there is doubt about how they will be written.
What Is Copywriting?
If you’re a writer and you’re also persuasive, then copywriting may just be your cup of tea. Copywriting is all about creating persuasive content with the intent to market or advertise for a business, product, or brand.
Copywriting can be found everywhere from scripts for commercials to pop-up ads. There are many different types of copywriting, but the three major types are:
- Marketing Copywriting
- Brand Copywriting
- Social Media Copywriting
Marketing copywriting covers a wide swath of copywriting as it covers anything that is promotional in nature, and it focuses on being engaging and converting leads.
Brand copywriting focuses on establishing a brand and a message behind that brand in the minds of consumers.
Social Media copywriting seeks to increase audience engagement on social media posts and pages.
When it comes down to it, copywriting seeks to get some reaction from its audience whether that be buying a product or simply remembering a brand in a certain light.
Responsibilities of a Copywriter
Depending on the type of copywriting, a copywriter can have a range of responsibilities. Top copywriters are typically involved in developing a marketing strategy as well as carrying it out.
Lower-level copywriters are typically told the marketing strategy and are given a certain formula to follow when writing the piece of copy.
Copywriters have to have a strong sense of what the audience, tone, and purpose of the given copywriting task is in order to effectively write engaging pieces of copy.
For example, if the audience for a commercial are kids ages 7 to 10 then the tone will probably be more light-hearted and fun. The purpose of the piece may be to get the kids to ask their parents for a toy.
A copywriter can then take that information and develop a script for a commercial that successfully engages the kids and gets them to ask their parents for a toy.
What Is Content Writing?
Content writing, on the other hand, is primarily meant to inform and engage. Blogs, newsletters, and magazines are all popular examples of content writing.
A piece of content writing is effective when it successfully informs and engages with the target audience.
The three most popular uses for content writing are:
- Business Engagement
- Personal Blogs
- Informational Content
Businesses will often have their own “blogs” that are can be full of stories, informational content, news, and more. This type of content writing is meant to increase audience engagement and bring in more potential customers through organic searches by utilizing SEO (Search Engine Optimization) best practices.
Personal blogs are meant to share the writer’s thoughts, life, or interests with the outside world. Such content is very personal and succeeds by making a personal connection with the audience.
Informational content can range from how-to guides to magazine articles. Such content succeeds by providing the audience with answers or information that they want and by utilizing SEO best practices.
SEO is critical in most forms of content writing. With there being so much information on the web, SEO gives the content writer the ability to “cut” through all that information to reach the intended audience.
Responsibilities of a Content Writer
Aside from being able to write, content writers need to know how to effectively research topics to gain the information that they need to write content.
Content writers must also have a solid understanding of SEO best practices even when it comes to writing a personal blog. This is because SEO allows the content writer to create a “map” that leads others to your content. Without that map, such content will probably not reach anyone.
Typically, content writers are given a brief about a certain subject that they are to write on. Then, the writer will learn more about the subject through research followed by them writing the actual content.
The Future of Copywriting and Content Writing
With the advances in AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology, some wonder if copywriting in particular will no longer be written by humans. As for content writing, there are already books, movie scripts, and more that AI has written.
While AI is still imperfect, smaller pieces of writing can be written by AI to the degree that the piece is typically indistinguishable from human-written pieces.
As a result, there are even some larger companies that have replaced some of their human copywriters with AI.
AI has become very versatile when it comes to writing in a certain tone or voice or following various writing forms from marketing formulas to a more “story-tale” type of writing.
Considering that businesses don’t have to pay AI to work, it only makes sense that AI will continue to take over writing roles that were traditionally held by humans.
However, that does not mean that copywriting or content writing is dead. AI lacks creativity and therefore needs guidance and a formula to follow when writing. Even more, AI is currently not able to effectively write longer pieces of content without a human “babysitting” it.
So, when it comes to developing marketing strategies, creating content without a formula to follow, and long-form pieces of content, humans will still have a direct role in the process even if that means telling the AI what to do.
Final Thoughts
All in all, copywriting and content writing both attract audiences but where copywriting seeks to persuade, content writing seeks to inform. When it comes to the future of each industry, AI will begin to take the role of writing formulated content while humans will move to a more creative and management role.