How To Clearly Differentiate Between Content Writing And Copywriting?

‘Content Writing’ and ‘Copywriting’ are the two most powerful skills that is in high demand in digital marketing. However, we often find people getting confused between these two terms. Well, you have landed on the right blog as we have unfolded the differentiating factors between the two.

Content Writing And Copywriting Explained

CONTENT WRITING

Content writing is writing with a purpose or cause. Whenever we write something and we have a purpose to achieve, then we call it content writing. There is no content writing without a purpose. Before writing a content, be clear about the purpose, define the purpose and after completing the content, try to see if you achieve that purpose or not. Also make sure that the person who is the reader understands your purpose of why you have written that particular content. Now, there could be different types of purposes. 

• The first purpose is expressing yourself. People write on social media, email, text messages, WhatsApp messages to deliver your messages. You are built to the thought process or to the thoughts of the society or the cultures in which you are trying to build connections by expressing yourself that can also be a purpose and other purpose is to inform the readers. So, you want to educate them about something or you simply want to convey a message. 
• The next purpose can be to entertain. So when we write something entertaining, we write fiction or may be even non-fiction, humor, etc. to entertain your readers. In fact, in the film industry descriptive writing is done to entertain the readers or audience. 
• Another purpose can be to persuade. So, in persuasive writing, your purpose or your objective is to convince the readers to take an action. So, maybe you want to change their mind or you simply want them to believe what you are saying or at least have a debate on the topic that you are talking about. 

So, these are four major categories of purposes. There could be multiple purposes when we write a single piece of content. One will try and achieve multiple purposes through a single piece of content. 

There is a major misconception related to content writing. The misconception is that only people who have a good number of ideas or they are very creative only can write a good piece of content. This is not true. Everyone can write well. Just like, if people have thoughts, they can think and they can speak well. Similarly, if people have thoughts they can write well. If people have an innate or inborn ability as a writer, then it is always good. Otherwise, then can also practice, then can learn principles of effective content writing. And by practicing more and more, one can become a good content writer. 

Remember that with the emergence of the digital economy, almost every field no matter what you do requires writing. In order to succeed, people seem to be good at written communication. In fact, written communication is as important as oral communication. Practically, our society has emphasized a lot on spoken communication because of technology revelation and technology, the need of the day is to have fantastic written communication. 

COPYWRITING

With the coming of digital marketing, copywriting is becoming important and popular day by day. In simple words, copywriting is the reason why people buy something. Where we can see copywriting:-

• In the caption of Facebook ads.
• In the headlines of Google ads.
• On various landing pages.

 Copywriting is intended to move you to the action. This is only the main purpose of copywriting. It is the art and craft or art and science of writing copy that sells our products or services and convinces potential customers to take action. In many ways, it is like hiring one salesman to reach all of your potential customers. A sales team contacts one customer at a time. 

A copywriter reaches all the potential customers without any delay with the help of billboards, magazine ads, sales letters, blog posts and many more. 

Some of the important parts of a complete digital marketing plan includes design, content marketing, SEO and growth hacking but copywriting serves as a glue for them that ties or binds it all together. 

Copywriting gives a meaning to the design and plays the foundation stone on the work of content marketing, SEO and growth hacking. Writing a better copy enables you to convert more readers into the target or potential customers. If you can use your piece of writing to tell a compelling story while convincing the needs of the customers for your product, there is no limit to the growth that your business can have or it can experience. 

Copywriting is writing to generate actions and conversions. In simple words, it is a set of words which will compel the reader to take some kind of action, that action can be signing up for something, registering for something, buying something, or any other sort of action that you are actually compelling someone to take using those words. 

Copywriters are usually hired by businesses in order to write landing pages, write sales letters, social media posts, etc. in order to make the readers take some sort of action. Everywhere, whether you go online or even offline, you are surrounded by copy. 

Remember that advertisement that was asking you to buy something that was copy. Remember the last Facebook ad that you saw that was asking you to register for some webinar that was copy. For example, if you are selling something and you keep talking about the product without asking people to buy it, that’s not a good copy. If you are only talking about buying that product but you are saying what this product is about or who you are selling it to and what are its benefits, then again it is a bad copy. 

A good copy often follows the AIDA formula. AIDA is basically a formula that most efficient copywriters use. AIDA formula stands for- 

A =for Attention 

I =for Interest 

D =for Desire

A =for Action

Now, everything that is actually asking you to take some sort of action, especially if it is an action that will pay the person who is advertising some money, then guess it is definitely a copy. 

Words cannot run without business and guess what every business needs i.e. a copy to sell the product that they are delivering or the services that they are offering. If you become a copywriter, you will be highly valuable to any business that you work with. 

Now, copywriting has a lot of different niches and you can choose the one that you love the most such as products, software, health, fitness, personal development, online education, coaching and the list goes on and on. 

For being a copywriter-

•  you do not really need to be able to write brilliant English, 
• you don’t really need to have a mastery of English language, 
• you just need to be able to relate to people and speak in a way that will make them want to buy the thing that you are talking about. 

To sum up, copywriting is a mix up of three things- writing, psychology and sales.

Differentiating Content Writing And Copywriting:-

If an individual is a freelance writer looking for a copywriting business, then it is absolutely critical that they should know the difference between these two forums. Knowing the difference between the two helps an individual to hire a writer that basically suits their needs and desires.

A copywriter is very different from a content writer. They often have different styles, techniques, tones, processes and even personality types. Here are the three key differences between Content Writing And Copywriting.

1. The first key difference between both of them is the purpose. Copy is written with a purpose of creating a seller. So, this might be a webinar script, a sales letter, a video sales letter, etc. Anything written with a purpose of creating a conversion over sales. On the other hand, content is written with a purpose of creating more and more engagements. So, it can be bloggers, video creators, Instagram posts, captions, images, graphics , etc. These are some pieces of content used for creating engagements. 
2. The second key difference between content writing and copywriting is the direction. Copywriting is a wonderful, actionable, prestigious, linear, intentional and ends with a singular caught action which is not only to buy or obtain. A very good copywriter will write every single sentence in a way that entices the reader to read the next sentence. Content on the other hand seems to be a very multi directional. It is like a conversation between friends, readers, community, etc.
3. The third key difference is between content writing and copywriting is the goal. Copy presents an offer. So, the goal of a good copywriter is to increase conversion rates, so as to ultimately increase revenue. Content on the other hand, creates engagement and builds brand loyalty. So, the goal of the content writer should be to get more likes, shares, comments, etc. that simply adds goodwill and value to the business.