What is Copywriting?

Copywriting is everywhere.

It’s on the packaging of every product you buy.

It’s in the ads you read in newspapers and magazines—whether you read them in print or online.

It’s in the words you hear on the radio and TV.

It’s on the billboards you pass on the road and on the signs you see in store windows.

It’s the content on most websites you visit.

It’s on the podcasts you listen to. And the emails you read.

It’s the words in your favorite apps and games.

It’s on the menus at your favorite restaurants, flyers left at your door, as well as many of the letters and postcards in your mailbox.

Almost every business, non-profit, educational, political, or religious organization uses copywriting to communicate with their customers, partners, members, donors, investors, and communities. 

If you ask a copywriter to define “copywriting” they’ll probably say something like, “it’s salesmanship in print.” That’s the definition that copywriter John Kennedy gave 120 years ago.

And there’s a lot of truth to that. After all, most businesses use copy primarily to sell.

But as you can tell from our list of place copywriting shows up in the world, copywriting is much broader than that.

Here’s our definition: copywriting is using words (usually written) to start, enhance, or extend a relationship with a customer. Copywriter Andy Maslan says it this way: 

“Copywriting is the commercial activity of creating, maintaining, and deepening profitable relationships using the written word.”

It’s not just sales messages.

Copywriting includes the educational content you might find on a blog or in a white paper. It includes informational content that helps customers understand their problems better—and the solutions for them.

Today marketers often separate copywriting into narrower niches.

Educational and informational copy is often called “content writing”.

Copy in applications, games, and some websites is often called “UX copy” or “Micro Copy”.

Hard-selling copy, usually in email, sales pages and direct mail is called “Direct Response Copy.”

Other niches include social media copy, brand or advertising copy, public relations, SEO copy.

People refer to them with different names, but it’s all copywriting. Using words to start, enhance, or extend a relationship with a customer.

So throughout this course (and any other Copywriter Club course you might learn from), we use the term “copy” to refer to “the commercial activity of creating, maintaining, and deepening profitable relationships” between the people we write to and the people or brands we write for. 

Everything we share in this course can be used to improve what you write no matter whether you refer to it as copy or content.

Sound good? Cool, now let’s get on with the course.