Business
Why You Should Master the Art of Copywriting
The art of copywriting is a profitable skill that will make you financially independent. With over 10,000 jobs posted daily online for the need of copywriting skills and over 5,000,000 content released on the internet every hour, the need for copywriting skills will always be valued.
What is copywriting?
Copywriting is the ability to use written words to call people to action. It is the ability to use those words to persuade, influence and engage people to take action. Whether it is to buy a product, render a service, volunteer for a work, or sponsor a project.
Copywriting is simply salesmanship in print. Being a copywriter is quite different from being a marketer. Copywriters sell offers not just products while marketers sell the products alone.
A copywriter is a salesman/saleswoman in print who makes use of strategic words to enhance sales and extend the relationship with a customer.
What do copywriters do?
Copywriters are paid to write:
Sales pages
Website content
Social media copies
Landing pages
Sales funnel
Advertising copies
Ads
Blog posts
Articles
Product descriptions
Branches of copywriting
Content marketing
Content marketing is one of the biggest branches of copywriting. It is one of the ways to get people to patronize your business.
Through content marketing, you are adding value first and nobody rejects value. Nobody buys products these days without knowing its value.
Sales letters
As you know, sales is the core of every business. Brands use sales letters which are direct sequential adverts to promote businesses. As a copywriter, you are involved in the sales part of the business so your skills are always needed when it comes to sales.
Email marketing
Email marketing involves writing content and sending these contents as emails for a call to action. People receive daily emails that contain marketing adverts of products or services. Copywriters are the ones who create the content of such emails.
Website content
Web designers or web developers do not write the content you see on various websites. They are all written by copywriters. Website content is one of the highest paying branches of copywriting.
Product description
Marketing platforms like Amazon, Alibaba, Konga Jumia, etc. advertise products and always describe these products in details online. Copywriters write these descriptions. 98% of e-commerce websites use expert copywriters to create content for their websites.
Levels of copywriting
There are about 5 different levels of copywriting. They include:
Corporate copywriting
Corporate copywriting involves writing copies, newsletters and brochures for companies. Payment is made on a salary basis. Furthermore, corporate copywriters work for companies and they don’t control their flow of income, rather the company does. This is not the best type of copywriting because your employers determine your salary and dictate how and when you work.
Freelance copywriting
Freelance copywriters work from freelancing sites such as Upwork and Fiverr. These sites advertise their works and makes it possible for companies and agencies to contact them. They have no affiliation to a particular company unlike corporate copywriters.
Moreover, freelancers can work for more than one company at a time and they are not paid on a salary basis. They get their pay immediately successfully complete any job.
Agency copywriting
This form of copywriting is one of the best. As an agency copywriter, you receive all the money that comes from getting a job done. Unlike corporate where you earn salary and freelance where the freelance website takes 20% out of your earnings. Here you have control over your flow of income and time as you are the agency and the agency is yours.
Affiliate copywriting
Affiliate copywriting does not require much stress. You become an affiliate copywriter by being affiliated to a copywriting company where you help promote their brand. You help such brand advertise and publicize their products or services and you get your share of the money from whatever the brand earns.
It is passive and you don’t actually have to do the copywriting yourself.
Celebrity copywriting
Celebrity copywriting is also known as personal brand copywriting. This is the highest level of copywriting in which your name and fame has already been built. You already have an audience you can sell to anytime and you make impact by helping fellow copywriters through trainings.
Why you should study the art of copywriting
- Copywriting is misunderstood and people tend to pay a lot of money for things they don’t understand. For example; if all women knew how to braid our hair, we wont have to visit the hairdresser’s. Majority of women don’t understand the concept of braiding so they would rather pay for the services of a hairdresser.
- Copywriters are needed every day. With over 10,000 jobs for copywriters posted online every day, copywriters will always be needed. In addition, they have a part to play in the role of sales of a company or brand.
- The art of copywriting is flexible. You can work from the comfort of your home, even your bedroom. And you get to earn in both local and foreign currencies by just using your phone or a laptop. Plus you choose the time to work and the time not to work.
- To become a copywriter, you don’t need a degree in English language or even a college degree at all. You can easily study it as an online course and read more to gain insight. Watching videos and studying previous works of copywriters are also helpful.
- You don’t need capital to become a copywriter. As long as you have a smartphone and your subscription, you’re good to go. Owning a laptop is a bonus too.
- The art of copywriting improves your life financially. Not only financially, but every other area of your life will transform for better as well. Copywriting changes the mind-set as you will no longer have time for the unnecessary things of life because you will be too busy adding value to yours.
All you need is the zeal to learn, a mentor and a smartphone/laptop.
As a copywriter, your aim is to deliver great content through your copy which prompts immediate sales. You don’t have to own the products you are marketing, there are lots of people looking for copywriters to help them use words to persuade their customers to buy their products. The art of copywriting is not a talent, it is a trainable and learnable skill.
Starting a new brand requires continual search for fresh and original ways to ensure its relevance. With the evolution of marketing, social media has become the broadest platform to display your brand as far as you can master the way it works. There are numerous ways by which you can represent your new brand on social media but in this article, I’ve highlighted the simplest of them all. Read on!
Post distinctively on every social media channel
Posting the same content on all your social media channels is not actually a bad idea but posting with the same structure is a terrible idea. All social media channels have different ways of presenting content that is exclusive to each of them. Facebook, for example, is all about information and entertainment; so you have to restructure your content to be relatable. Instagram on the other hand is known for displaying content that feeds the eyes. Structure your branded content for Instagram to be visually pleasing and of high quality. LinkedIn is a professional social media platform that adds value to people’s lives. But don’t be too serious when creating content for this platform, rather be a combination of education and entertainment. Using the above channels as examples, study every social media channel and structure your content to relate with them as you are starting a new brand.
Use CTAs
You need CTAs for all your posts as you are starting a new brand. When publishing posts for your brand, always include a “call to action”. Call to action is that link or button that gets the audience to take required action. It tells the audience the step to take and what to do in relation with the post. For example; Enjoy 40% off all size 10 blouses this month when you shop with Innove. Visit www.innovecollections.co.uk to explore our fashionably unique wears. The link is the CTA; it will take the reader directly to the online shop.
Make your posts humorous
When creating content to publicize your brand, don’t be too stuck up and overly serious. Give people a way to share a laugh with you. Like Jonah Berger says “Funny content is shared because amusement is a high arousal emotion”. Humour is a great way to portray your branded content as not being too pigeon-holed.
Use the right hashtags
Stop bombarding your brand’s posts with irrelevant hashtags. Use industry-related hashtags only and hashtags that are relevant to your business. This is a great way to promote your posts. Making use of hashtags that are exact to locations such as #Lagos, #HardrockCafe, #Ibadan, etc., are also good for promotion. This is because they serve as a way to let your customers know locations where your brand is known and also for potential customers to discover you when they search for such location-specific hashtags.
Know your competitors
Checking out whatever your competitors are up to is not a crime, but no stalking please. Both in the country and out of the country, check the contents performing the most in terms of likes and comments. By checking them out, you are keeping up with the competition and you will also be able to generate better ideas. Observe your competitors in order to discover what you have been doing wrong and where you need improvements.
Adopt the use of influencer marketing
Branded contents are on the up and up. Instead of creating your business’s content like you usually do, why not reach out to influencers. Not just any influencers, but the ones that your audience or customers trust. After reaching out, present to them your product or service that needs marketing, then get them to create content around the product or service. Make sure you fit their content into your platforms. Making use of influencers gives you access to their followers. Majority of renowned brands dig through social media especially Instagram, to find creators and influencers that can add value to their business. So why shouldn’t you do so too? Besides you have nothing to lose and your business stands to gain massive publicity.
Best alternative to Photoshop for anything related to instant designs? Canva is the ultimate. Both Canva and Photoshop are great graphic design tools for start-ups and small businesses, but one is more convenient to use than the other. This article compares Canva to Photoshop and elaborates on how Canva is the best alternative to Photoshop for small businesses.
Canva was created in 2012 by Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams, in Sydney, Australia. The platform has over 10 million monthly active users who are eager to explore their creativity.
As a small business owner, Canva is the best alternative to Photoshop for your brand. Create simple visuals, marketing materials, posters, restaurant menus, business cards, brochures, event invitations, and lots more; with Canva. You can easily share your designs directly to other social media platforms. In addition, your clients can collaborate with you on projects and designs.
Features
Canva has numerous features that are just great for small businesses. They include:
- Varieties of pre-made professional templates to choose from, though you can create your own template/layout from scratch. All you have to do is sign up, either via Google accounts or your email address. The templates and layouts are categorized according to their use.
- Collaboration and teamwork features. With Canva, you can work with teammates and clients to achieve and complete any project.
- Free and paid plans. The free plan has limited templates and you are able to collaborate with a maximum of 10 members. Free plans don’t give you access to any image, rather you pay $1 for an image or you can simply upload your own photo for editing. The paid plan has unlimited templates and you can collaborate with up to 30 members. Plus, you have access to hundreds of thousands images. Payment is $9.95 per month for a user.
- Photo filters and editing tools as well as free icons, shapes and fonts.
Pros
- It’s simple and easy to use. This partly makes it the best alternative to Photoshop.
- Canva has a free plan.
- You don’t need any design skills or a degree before you can use the platform.
- Features a massive library of free graphics.
- Does not consume resources like Photoshop.
Cons
- Printing on Canva costs higher.
Canva vs. Photoshop
Highlighted below are the 3 major points that show how Canva is the best alternative to Photoshop in 2021.
Firstly, Canva is a web-based design tool that is supported on not just the web but also on android systems and IOS. This makes it easier for users including owners of small businesses to design anywhere and at any time. Photoshop is a software that can’t be used on a smartphone unlike Canva, which can be used on any device. Thus making it easier to stay connected and updated on all your designs.
Secondly, Photoshop is quite complex and it requires prior knowledge relating to the software before usage. Canva is not like that at all. You can customize your designs yourself with ease on Canva as you don’t need any special design skills for that. All you have to do is just create! This makes it suitable for small businesses because you as a CEO become more efficient. In the sense that, the amount of time you would use to study and master Photoshop, you can use that time to do something more productive. Where Canva takes only 23 seconds to master, Photoshop takes days, if not weeks.
Lastly, Canva has both a free plan and a paid plan. As a small business owner who can’t afford to spend on graphics, you can easily choose the free plan. With the free plan, you still have access to numerous templates that can be used for your brand. Photoshop on the other hand is quite expensive and does not have a free plan like Canva.