If you are confused about content writing vs. copywriting, you have landed at the right blog. This blog post will present a detailed discussion on how both the writing styles differ in techniques and purpose.
So, without further ado, let’s dive right into the details.
What Is Content Writing?
Content writing is a marketing technique used by businesses to create content. You can do it after proper planning, in-depth research, outlining the structure, writing, reviewing, and editing to create brand personas.
Its types include blogs, articles, magazine features, eBooks, books, email newsletters, whitepapers, press releases, videos, and podcast scripts. It helps in setting the groundwork for future sales.
You can use different content writing tools to find new content ideas and quality assurance. We recommend using CoSchedule headline analyzer, Grammarly, and SEO Yoast to produce better quality content.
What Is Copywriting?
Previously, copywriting was only used in advertisements to sell a product or service, focusing on witty slogans. But, the internet has made its scope extensive.
Today, a copywriter can write catalogs, billboards, and scripts for video, podcasts, radio commercials, sales letters, and email sequences. They can produce everything required to stimulate the reader to take desirable action that is important to you and meaningful to them.
What Is the Major Difference Between Copywriting And Content Writing?
Both are marketing tools, but the main difference between copywriting and content writing is the purpose. Businesses use content writing for brand building, and copywriting generates sales.
Copywriting aims to advertise products/services or brands, focus on conversions (sales), and motivate prospects to take a specific action.
Content writing focuses on creating domain authority, building trust relationships with consumers/visitors, and creating a positive brand association.
If you are looking for professional copywriting services to have higher conversions or content writing experts to help you create your unique brand voice, WSH has got you covered. Writing Services Hub has content writing and copywriting mavens that can help your business grow in numbers using effective content marketing strategies.
Copywriting vs. Content Writing
Now we will explore more in-depth differences that set both writings apart:
1. Content Writing Informs – Copywriting Derives Action
Copywriting aims at persuasion to derive actions such as subscribing to a mailing list, downloading an eBook, purchasing a product, getting a free trial, etc. It associates with sales generated by creating a sense of urgency in the reader's mind.
However, content writing is everything else around you. It provides the information to the customer to learn more about a brand or product and form a sustainable and trustable relationship with it that can prove beneficial in the long run for customers and businesses. It also helps you in solving customer problems and concerns.
2. Content Writing Is Limitless – Copywriting Is One Directional
When working as a content writer, you are in charge of producing various content forms. Even though the goal is to create brand authority, you can still explore new ways to market your brand without taking its name and adding your voice.
Moreover, with each piece, you come across a new opportunity to discover new horizons in content writing and be unique.
A copywriter faces certain limitations since every piece they produce is directed towards a strategic and intentional single goal. And the copywriter is responsible for embodying the full voice of the brand to achieve the target.
In essence, content vs. copy - the former builds authority, and the latter creates a sense of urgency.
Another constraint that copywriters face is producing a concise copy since it generally takes the reader through a well-thought-out content mapping process. In comparison, content writing creates write ups that vary from 500 to 2000 word blogs; eBooks can even go beyond 10000 words.
3. The Expectation & Experience – Content Writer vs. Copywriter
As a copywriter, you are asked to produce landing pages, ads, webinar/marketing scripts, and sales emails. You create all these copies for a single marketing campaign directed towards a concentrated goal.
Each of these will be responsible for pushing the prospects further down the funnel to stimulate them to take a desirable action. In addition, you are expected to optimize these copies to fit together and bring out high conversion rates.
This process of strategically weaving customers’ journeys is known as content mapping.
But the experience and expectations from content writing are different. For example, you might be asked to produce fifty different articles, long social media posts, scripts, ebooks, or whitepapers.
And each of these will work as a single entity striving to increase the brand reach and interactiveness through likes, comments, and shares. Hence, every piece is expected to perform on its own.
4. Content Writing Is More Inclined Towards SEO – Copywriting Focuses on Creativity
Compared to copywriting, content writing focuses on search engine optimization more than the copy. Since the content that goes on the web aims at getting crawled and ranked by search engine algorithm.
To achieve that, keyword optimization in content is necessary and helps send Google clear signals about the blog’s content and whether it aligns with the search intent or not.
On the flip side, copywriting is rather focused on playing with the words to hit readers' emotional trigger points to achieve that single intended goal.
However, promotional marketing such as Google ads requires the copywriter to include targeted keywords in ad copy to appear on the first page and top spot; but minimal optimization and use are required.
5. Content Writing Is a Long Term Marketing Strategy Tool – Copywriting Is Used for Short Term Marketing Goals
Since content writing is about educating and informing, it is typically a part of a long-term strategy. It requires rigorous research and time to write a piece after careful keyword research, but it also provides sustainable benefits and an increased reach if regularly updated.
Contrarily, copy aims for immediate results. Therefore, it is used to achieve short-term goals. For example, it converts hundreds of sales in three months using an email sequence or getting subscribers by offering a free eBook download through a landing page. A/B testing is a well-known copywriting technique to achieve these types of targets.
6. Content Writing Generates Organic Traffic – Copywriting Focuses on Conversions
SEO optimization is done to rank on search engines. And since content writing is more SEO-focused, it is also responsible for generating organic traffic.
Converting this organic traffic into sales by effective persuasion and utilizing stimulating techniques to click on your well-thought-off call-to-action is what copywriting is all about.
Types of Copywriting
1. Website Copywriting Services
It is a process of writing content for your website to prompt action. It includes the home page, product pages, landing pages, and everything in between.
2. Ad Copywriting
It is basically a sales letter in which you highlight all the objections that the customer might have and cancel them out intelligently by listing down product/service benefits. This sales letter aims to motivate the customer to make the purchase.
3. SEO Copywriting Services
It is used where your copy is recommended to rank higher on Google to generate better results. It focuses on creating compelling, useful, and valuable copy that uses targeted keywords so that people easily find it and share it on social platforms.
4. Email Copywriting
It is a marketing technique to create persuasive email copy to encourage the subscribers to take action on the content. Email sequences are one of its examples, in which four to five email episodes are sent to the subscriber to convert into a sale within a week or two.
5. Social Media Copywriting
It is a technique to creatively craft brand messages into social media posts. Copywriters spend several days and even months converting an idea into a tagline or hashtag by closely collaborating with business representatives or clients.
6. B2B SaaS Copywriting
B2B SaaS refers to business-to-business software as a service. Copywriting aims to increase the no. of free trial signups and demo requests.
7. Creative Copywriting
It is more independent, and it targets to put the information out there in a creative way. A creative copywriter is a thinker who can make a brand stand out by creating a voice of its own.
8. Direct Response Copywriting
It is a copywriting technique that marketers use to grab customers’ attention for direct communication with them. The focus here is to compel the customer to take immediate action by creating a sense of urgency.
Content Writing Is for All Industries
Content writing also has many forms, and every industry can use it to create brand awareness among its prospects.
In the fashion industry, content writing focuses on the latest trends and fashion news, outfit descriptions, ads, and marketing campaigns for apparel, cosmetic, jewelry, and footwear brands. In addition, fashion publications also hire content writers.
Finance agencies hire content writers to educate readers about the financing and investment procedures and benefits. In the long-term, it helps the finance companies convert prospects into customers.
Conversely, real estate content writers produce content for realtors. The content discusses the property description entailing the features and benefits.
Health and fitness content writing presents clear information and guidance related to healthcare issues and tips to fitness freaks. Since it focuses on medical science, writers cannot infiltrate it with slang to evade confusing readers.
Content writing is also widely used in the educational sector. The writers are responsible for assisting students and instructors regarding educational issues in almost all subjects from Science to Mathematics and Physics to Chemistry.
Travelers search on Google and look for a solution for their traveling concerns. Which hotel to book, how to stay on a budget, what location to visit for honeymoon etc., are common search queries by travelers. Travel agencies hire content writers to write helpful articles to create credibility and trust.
Law firm content writing covers topics related to legal issues and includes recording and writing legal documentation.
In addition, the Ecommerce industry also has a high demand for content writers since, without SEO optimized product descriptions, they will fail to drive traffic to their websites.
Conclusion
This guide discussed the six major points that help content writing vs. copywriting differences stand out in the context of purpose, expectation, experience, and length.
Content is created to inform and educate readers about the brand to build trust, authority and pave the way for future sales. It is also responsible for generating organic traffic using in-depth keyword research and utilization.
On the contrary, copywriting focuses on the conversion of organic traffic. Finally, its intent towards achieving a single goal makes it short in length and uses emotionally triggering words and phrases to derive action.
Though, what we did not discuss are the similarities. So, as a bonus, here you go!
Bonus: Content writing and copywriting, despite their differences, share a common ground when it comes to:
Research – They both require the writer to perform thorough research about the target audience and the topic to make the writeup relevant and consistent.
Storytelling – Both styles emphasize making the writeup engaging and interesting, so the writer does not doze off.
Quality – Both content writing and copywriting demand a high-quality approach towards the content and despise repetitive sentences that can make the reader disinterested.
Moving forward, we enlisted several types of copywriting, including ad copy, email copy, B2B SaaS copy, direct response copy, and website copy. Additionally, we presented how content writing can benefit almost all industries.
Content writing and copywriting are essential for a business’ growth and sustainability. However, you cannot choose one as a lifetime strategy since content writing is attached to a long-term marketing strategy. Instead, you can continuously produce blogs, articles, scripts, etc., while simultaneously applying copywriting techniques to achieve your short-term sales goals.
To put it simply, one cannot replace the other, but they complement each other together.