ON COPYWRITING

Copywriter’s Hard Skills

1. FOCUS ON THE PURPOSE

What is your copy about? 

If it’s a product or service, you need to showcase its purpose, strengths and benefits.

If you’re writing about a person, give your audience a good enough reason to care about this individual: what are their accomplishments, what’s their mission?

And, most importantly, what can this product, or person do for your audience?

Who will be reading your copy? 

Before you get down to it, make sure your client gives you their target audience profile. That will define your style, tone and the way you will capture your reader’s attention. You don’t speak in the same manner with a football jock as with a teenage schoolgirl.

Why are you writing this copy? 

Any copy needs a primary goal: 

• provide helpful information
• build or boost brand awareness
• sell a product, or service 
• other 

Figure out the primary goal of your copy and the ways you will address it. Make sure you don’t stray from it.

How do you write your copy? 

You need to be able to maintain the style and tone of voice that your client’s project needs. For example, a woman can write a convincing copy about men's skincare line “on behalf“ of a hunk, using strong language, and a man can curate social networks for a female psychologist. The trick is to morph into your “role” to not come off fake.

A good copywriter should be able to use client’s marketing analytics to define:

• target audience
• product or service
• ways to reach primary goal. 

It would also be useful to study the copy of your client’s main competitors, and write better—to stand out.

1. GOOD GRAMMAR & WRITING SKILLS

Obvious things, which I, however, put second on the list. 

Spelling can be corrected, style can be brushed up, but if the copy is not built to solve the client’s problem, it can only be scrapped and written from scratch. 

III. FACT CHECKING

Being able and willing to verify data, spot fakes and use only reliable sources for your research. Very few have this skillset, even fewer care to use it, which is why we all run into so much detrimental and downright lousy copy with unverified data in search results. 

1. SEO SKILLS

A good copywriter must know the basic principles of search engine optimization:

1. Being able to createmeta tags:

• H1
• Title
• Description

2. Search for thekeywordson your own, or take instructions of an SEO specialist. Use the keywords skillfully so that the search engines don’t read your copy as spam.
3. Repurposeclient’s social media posts, website copy, etc., according to your client's request.
4. Quality control: a client can ask you to check their existing copy for plagiarism, spelling, SEO-parameters and keywords use.

Copywriter’s Soft skills

1. BE A TEAM PLAYER

Forget the cheesy commercials that portray a copywriter on a tropical beach chugging long islands and typing away at their leisure. In reality, if it’s not for a one-off, copywriters work in cooperation with editors, SEO specialists, SMM specialists, and marketers. All of them have one common goal: the copy must help the client to reach their goal. 

If a copywriter cannot play along and only brings havoc into the team effort disrespecting deadlines, being abrasive and difficult, it makes no sense, for the team or the project, to keep such an individual on board.

1. CUSTOMER SKILLS

Give your client a feeling you’re invested and well informed on the subject you are writing about. Never fake it. Do your homework and have them answer all the questions you couldn’t cover with research. 

Have the client give you their expertise on the topic. 

The SEO element of copywriting can still be a total mystery for a lot of business owners, which may lead to misunderstanding. To avoid unnecessary disputes, have “elevator pitch” ready for every major aspect of SEO that might need explanation. Use simple terms and short sentences to explain what the client doesn’t know, without dominating. 

III. RESPONSIBILITY 

When people have to choose between a brilliant flake and a reliable second-rater they are bound to choose the latter. It’s called safety, we all fall for it.

1. TIME MANAGEMENT

A good copywriter can have dozens of on-going projects, so their ability to prioritize and delegate is crucial, to meet all deadlines and not burn out. 

1. EMPATHY

Yep. Being able to put yourself in your client’s shoes, to understand what their fears and goals are, what they expect from the copy, and from their respective customer who’ll read the copy. A good copywriter is always a bit of a psychologist.