Would you like to be a copywriter but do not understand what requirements you must have to be truly good in this field of online marketing? In a previous post we talked about the functions of copywriting, and in this one we will focus on the skills, attitudes and aptitudes that every professional should have to dedicate themselves to the subject.
Skills and abilities to be a copywriter
We could say that the copywriter is the 21st century writer who has wanted to enter the world of marketing in order to write to sell. With this objective in his hands and everything that the Internet implies at the level of knowledge, this professional must gather a wide number of aptitudes and abilities such as those mentioned below:
- Drafting: Being a true master of writing is what differentiates a good copywriter who is passionate about the world of letters from one who focuses on the mere objective of selling. Finding the balance between the art of writing and the ability to captivate a potential client is the key here. There are copybooks that focus on reproducing a master sales formula over and over again, while others have sufficient capacity in terms of writing and marketing knowledge to unleash their creativity to achieve new unique and original formulas.
- Spelling, grammar and style: It is the basis of all work focused on choosing the right words for the right time and place, in such a way that they are expressed correctly and can thus achieve their sales objective. Today, with the infoxication in which we live, where more value is given to the quantity and speed of it than to its good formulation and veracity, many people (and unfortunately professionals in the sector) do not give due importance to These elements, but once again, are what make a careful worker stand out and who is committed to quality.
- Wide lexicon: Being able to transmit messages using our language properly requires a broad knowledge of our language and vocabulary. What’s more, if you work for several countries or geographical areas with specific dialects and expressions, you must know how to adapt the language for each type of public. Nor will a sales text be the same for a professional as it is for a teenager or for a leisure topic focused on mothers. Each sector of the population or niche has its own language and way of describing things.
- Correction of texts: With all of the above, optimizing texts to the maximum from a point of view not only of efficiency but also of their linguistic correctness is another skill that every good copywriter should cultivate.
- Onpage SEO: All the texts that a copy makes for the web must be configured with a structure, links, keywords and other characteristics that allow it to be properly indexed and positioned by search engines. As professionals we will always remember that we are writing for people, not for machines/search engines, but therefore these search engines are increasingly refining their algorithm to think and search as a human brain would.
- Keywords: In relation to the above, every good copywriter should know how to locate relevant keywords for their texts, both at the level of web positioning and the capture and interpretation of information by the human eye. For example: Is it better to talk about an “expense” or an “investment”? Both words can be used in very similar or even the same contexts, however, each of them denotes a specific and differential interpretation from the perceptive point of our money as consumers.
- Communication strategies: The work of a copy must be in accordance with the communication strategy of the company, what is more, he himself should know how to interpret the general strategy for its correct application in the media and formats that correspond to him (web texts, posts, blogs, pages for sale, etc.)
- Sales strategies: Taking classic sales strategies to the online world, or creating specific strategies for this medium or a specific client, is another of the skills that a professional focused on creating sales texts should have. Although it is true that the strategy itself should be proposed by a person who is an expert in the matter, we will often find clients who are not clear on how to approach the sale and the responsibility for establishing it falls on the copy.
- Marketing strategies: All strategic knowledge about marketing will be useful to the copy to be able to think about their texts adequately on each occasion, focusing on the real needs of each client.
- Web: Managing different CMS, ways to create landing pages and other types of web structures will help copy a lot in creating 100% quality work. What’s more, having some knowledge about HTML, CSS, web design and layout will also allow you to create sales structures where, in addition to words, you can use other visual codes to your advantage to get the sale. Generally, the best thing to do is to work as a team with a designer who is in charge of the graphic part while the copy focuses on the texts, but it would not be surprising if for small projects you have to take care of everything.
- Social networks: As a copy, you should also know how to work with sales texts focused on social networks, both in image, text, video, gif or other formats, and of course, for all kinds of advertising formats that allow us.
- email marketing: It is a channel widely used to make sales funnels, so you should control it perfectly at the level of structure and texts for the sale. What kind of issues do they convert? which text structures work best? What area or part of the email is where users pay attention the most? All these questions, and more, should be answered in your head.
- blogging: Being an expert in sales texts, it should not surprise you that you have to take care of everything related to the blog of a brand or company. After all, a blog of this nature has the hidden objective of selling (the non-hidden objective is to entertain). Creating a content strategy, thinking about how to structure everything to achieve real sales, will be one of the values that you can highlight in your resume when looking for a job or in your services if you work as a freelance.
- Internet: All kinds of knowledge about the Internet, from the use that people give it throughout the world, social networks, ecommerces, new formats, advertising, web analytics… will add value to your work as a copywriter.
Attitudes of a good copywriter
In addition to the specific knowledge that as a professional you must have about the world of writing and the Internet to be a good copy, we must not forget that attitude is a key element so that you can really position yourself as a benchmark in the sector and get a good job. work, or directly your own clients if what you want is to be an independent professional.
- Communication skills: Creating a message and transferring it is something that everyone can do, but getting that message to reach the right audience properly and really have an effect and feedback is something more complicated that only people with true communication skills know how to do. One of the keys to achieving this is to think like others think and not focus on transmitting what one wants, but rather what your audience is willing to receive and understand.
- persuasive skills: Getting others to listen to you, or one step further, to get them to do what you want, is another of the especially valuable skills in a copywriting professional. Let’s not forget that since your objective is to sell, what is important is not so much that you know how to communicate as that you achieve action on the part of the potential client.
- Creativity: You could read some copywriting manuals and limit yourself to replicating what they explain (sales structures, words that sell…) but in this way you would only do what others learn for themselves. Only a copy with creative capacity will be able to generate their own knowledge about it, and thus, be able to present unique and original works to their clients.
- Empathy: Writing for others (your clients) texts to capture sales (your clients) requires a truly remarkable ability to put yourself in the place of others.
In short, copywriting is a field of professional development and specialization with a lot of future job opportunities, but it also requires great dedication and constant updating like practically any occupation related to the Internet today.