In today’s online world, content marketing is a constant feature in business plans, becoming one of the most popular digital strategies for modern brands. While copywriting used to rule the marketing world in the days of print advertising, SEO became the early champion of the digital age. However, content marketing now generates more interest than both of them.
The problem is a lot of businesses make the mistake of thinking content marketing can replace other strategies like SEO and copywriting. However, content marketers and copywriters fill entirely different roles. Crucially, it is copywriting that pushes buyers over the finishing line and you will struggle to sell much of anything with content marketing alone.
Copywriting vs content marketing: What’s the difference?
Content marketing looks different from one brand to the next, but the general premise is the same. Your aim is to establish a relationship with potential buyers who are not ready to make the purchase yet. By delivering useful content to these people when they need it most, you can establish a connection with these people and build upon this until the time comes to make the purchase.
In today’s consumer environment, this is a crucial strategy because most people do not see ads and simply open their wallets anymore.
Copywriting is a far more traditional marketing strategy that is all about crafting messages that sell. When you are writing blog posts or creating your next webinar, this is content marketing. However, when you are writing PPC ads, calls to action (CTAs) and other elements designed to sell, this is copywriting in action.
You can think of it like this: content marketing captures and nurtures interest; copywriting makes people take action.
Copywriting services in action
In today’s content-obsessed world, it’s increasingly easy for the line between content marketing and copywriting to blur. For example, your email marketing strategy could be filled with content produced by your content marketing team, but the subject lines, calls to action and other elements that encourage people to take action are all copywriting services.
Without subject lines that convince people to open your emails, the content inside is never seen. Without CTAs that convince people to click, your emails cannot generate valuable leads. And without product/service pages that excite potential customers, none of your marketing strategies are going to generate profit.
This is the finishing line concept mentioned above and effective copywriting is responsible for getting people over it.
For a moment, let’s imagine we are taking copywriting out of your marketing strategies and only relying on content marketing. You can kiss goodbye to the following:
- Digital ads
- Print ads
- Video ads
- Product/service pages
- Landing pages
- Calls to action
- Email subject lines
- Headlines
- Slogans
- Taglines
That does not leave you with much of a marketing strategy, does it? Take copywriting out of the equation and all of the elements in your strategy that convince people to take action (and most importantly, buy) suddenly vanish.
Copywriting services in 2019
None of this takes away from the importance of content marketing. In today’s consumer landscape, you cannot throw ads at people and expect them to buy into your offer. It takes longer to guide people along the buying process and this is what content marketing is so good at.
However, when it comes to crunch time, copywriting is still what ultimately decides whether people make the purchase or take their business elsewhere. Content marketing (and every other strategy at your disposal) only works when great copywriting is there to seal the deal.