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.
