The first time I realised that people have a misconception about copywriting was when I told my friend about my new job. Confusion seeped across his face: “Oh, I always thought you liked languages, I never knew you were into law”. I quickly took on the same look of confusion, so much so that we just stared at each other in awkward silence. “Law, you do like copyrights, right?”
“What? No, I write.”
“Write? What do you write? Like scripts and stuff?”
Needless to say, I gave my first breakdown of the responsibilities of a copywriter that day.
What we do not do:
- Advertise as a primary goal. Although we represent a company’s products or services in written form, we are not advertisers; the awareness we create is a bonus. We do not hard sell, we communicate.
- Copyright law. We are experts at referencing, but that’s as far as we are involved with legal control.
- Write poetry, film scripts or novels. No doubt we can do these things, but we tuck into those hobbies after desk hours.
What we do
- We are versatile researchers that source information and sculpt it in a way that acts as a call to action, gets the public involved, informs clients on anything they need to know about a product/service and of course, in all of this, demonstrate the expertise of the company at hand.
- We are the writers of effective sales copy and articles that implement SEO (search engine optimisation) for a wide range of industries for various channels. Compiling these articles includes content campaign strategising and brainstorming, as well as social media ADHOC work.
- We are in control of writing, carefully editing and proofreading (yes, there is a difference) blog posts, website copy, case studies, and industry reports and of course, managing an extensive and ever-growing chain of emails (this especially includes managing clients).
- We can turn complex, lengthy texts into concise, simplistic pieces that are easy to read for the general layman, without losing any important information or details; summarising like you have never seen before!
- For copywriters who are multilingual, translation is added to the list of responsibilities. However, the art of translation is far more intricate than most people imagine, thus it is not always safe to say that anyone who speaks more than one language can successfully translate between them.
We love to develop new, unique concepts that promote the standard and quality of our clients. Language can be so beautifully persuasive if you know how to use it. Being able to work with words and connecting lines like crosswords is something that copywriters are passionate about. Being able to turn this burning passion into everyday advances and self-growth is an opportunity that I am glad to have seized, and I will never let go of it.