There is so much good copywriting can do for a brand or business. It is the art of creating texts and messages that get the readers to take action.
It is no wonder why copywriters are in such high demand in the marketing industry. Good copy can make or break a brand and that’s why it is crucial for many businesses to have that side of their marketing efforts 100% covered.
Types of copywriting
Copywriting is the art of putting words together in a way that will make readers take some kind of action after reading them.
There are many ways and formats in which we can see good copywriting in action.
Let’s take a look at these 10 types of copywriting.
1. B2B copywriting
This is the type of copywriting businesses use to target other businesses.
B2B = Business to Business.
Companies use this type of copywriting to educate other businesses about their products or services. B2B copywriting creates awareness mostly in the early stages of the buyer’s journey.
That is why it has great value, as it provides solutions and answers for customers looking to solve a problem they are having.
When customers are doing research to find possible solutions and are almost ready to make that purchase but are unsure, that’s when good copywriting can help them close the deal.
There are different ways businesses use B2B copywriting to promote their message:
- Blog posts
- Social Media
- Newsletters
- Brochures
B2B copywriting is also used to attract sales or to close deals. Depending on the format and the message, readers can turn into potential customers or end up buying the product for sale.
2. Content Marketing
Content marketing is aimed at creating content that is valuable to a specific audience and answering questions they might have.
The purpose of this type of copywriting is to create a variety of pieces around a topic your potential customer might be interested in.
For example, if your business is a car repair shop, the aim would be to create a lot of content around that topic with blog posts, articles, videos, or tutorials covering the most frequently asked questions.
That way you create authority and trustworthiness in a way that makes you look like the best option in the eyes of your readers.
Once you research what your target audience is looking for online, it is easier to create a strategy that covers that in different formats and pieces:
- Blog posts
- Guides
- Tutorials
- Video
- Podcasts
- Ebooks
3. Email writing
Email writing creates the right of copy for commercial and sales emails our readers get when they sign up for a newsletter, a new service, or a brand membership.
This type of copywriting is also of tremendous value as it can make an email turn into a sale.
Emails continue to be one of the most effective sales techniques nowadays. However, it is harder than ever, as we all receive hundreds of emails every day.
The message has to be very persuasive as the email you write needs a lot of actions from the recipient:
- The user has to open the email
- Read it
- Click on it
These may seem like three simple steps, but the first alone is probably the most difficult one with an open rate of 21.33% on average for all industries, according to this study by Mailchimp.
Now you see how having a reader open an email can be a huge accomplishment.
4. Website copywriting
This is the process of writing content for digital platforms like websites, landing pages, ads, or social media.
Writing for the web is completely different from writing for paper.
Digital platforms call for simpler formats, calls to action, short sentences, and content that goes straight to the point.
Offline writing offers more complex text and longer sentences, as offline readers expect a different experience when they read paper formats.
The key to writing for the web lies in appealing headlines, calls to action, and visual aids. It is also very helpful to break big chunks of text into sub-pieces and subheadings. That will make the text easier to read and understand.
5. Social Media writing
Social Media copywriting creates the copy that goes in any social media post. Depending on the platform you create your copy for, you’ll need to adapt to it.
Twitter does not work the same as Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram.
These different platforms have their own unique technical aspects that you need to know beforehand.
It all comes down to the character limitations and trend formats for each one.
- Twitter only allows 280 characters and 4 pictures in one post. This might eventually change according to this article.
- Facebook has no character limit and you can upload many pictures and video
- Instagram has no character limit and allows up to 10-image carousels, reels, and longer videos
- LinkedIn has no character limit, you can upload pictures, carousels, and videos
Companies and social media specialists usually create content for all their platforms in advance, as part of a content strategy that includes promoting their product/service on social media.
6. SEO copywriting
SEO copywriting is aimed at creating content that answers the questions your audience looks for online. SEO works by finding out what keywords your users type into the search engines whenever they wish to find something.
Once you know those key terms or phrases, you start creating content around those topics making sure your target keywords are included in your content, headlines, subheadlines, and meta tags.
That way your users find your content first in search engines and turn to your answers instead of others.
This type of copywriting requires previous research to understand what your target customers look for and are interested in.
SEO research usually includes:
- Keyword research
- Content outlines
- Content calendar
- Copywriting
7. E-commerce writing
This type of writing is used in websites and platforms that sell products or services online.
This is the copy you can see in online shops, product pages, product descriptions, offers, or landing pages.
Its main goal is to explain and inform about the benefits of the products displayed at the online shop.
An attractive and well-written product page can make your customer take the final step and make the purchase. The copy they see there has to be engaging, persuasive, and communicate in a way that appeals to your customer’s psychology.
E-commerce copywriting is effective when it uses short, strong titles and powerful calls to action.
Brevity is the key to e-commerce. Ready-to-buy users are not looking to read long pieces of text, they look for short, concise messages telling them how beneficial and easy it is to make the desired purchase.
8. Brand copywriting
Brand copywriting is the art of creating copy that speaks with your brand voice and tone. It is the way you speak to your customer as a business, as the personification of your logo, colors, and fonts.
It’s like imagining how a brand would speak it if were a person.
It is important to define how the brand talks, what expressions it uses, what vocabulary, if it’s formal or not, etc.
To define a brand’s voice it is necessary to have a brand manual and style guide. These are the tools that will guide how the brand speaks and writes.
Brand copywriting is usually present in websites, newsletters, blogs, or social media.
9. Direct-response copywriting
It prompts the reader to take immediate action after reading a text. It needs to understand the reader’s pain points and psychology and at what point of their journey on your site they are more like to take a desired action.
The tone needs to be persuasive to sound convincing to inspire the immediate action you wish. Appealing to the reader’s emotions it’s usually effective in this kind of copywriting.
Tactics like FOMO, scarcity, or urgency are usually the most effective techniques you can see in direct-response copywriting.
You need to show your reader how the product/service they are interested in is hard to get, is about to run out of stock, or is scarce.
Strong calls to action at the precise moment and place are also key to getting that desired action you want your reader to take.
10. Ads copywriting
This type of copywriting is used to create paid ads on different platforms, such as Google Ads or Social Media ads.
Paid ads usually demand a series of technical aspects such as character limit, number of headlines, descriptions, or calls to action.
Finding the right headline for an ad will impact the number of clicks it gets and the amount of money you spend on that campaign.
That is why it is key to write the exact copy that will make your target customers click. Whether they become paying customers after clicking or not will depend on what they find on the page associated with the ad, usually a landing page.
Final thoughts
Hopefully, this first approach to these different types of copywriting gives you an idea of what each and everyone does and the purposes they serve.
Here are other related topics that might be interesting:
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