Copywriting to UX Writing

Advice for marketers who are venturing into UX

First and foremost, I am a writer.

But my career and day-to-day work have looked much different from year to year.

I started off in the world of marketing, where I built up experience in long-form SEO and blog writing.

Soon, I added in copywriting for Instagram ads, landing page metadata, and everything in between.

Then I progressed to planning content strategies, managing freelance writers, and editing their work.

In the midst of all that marketing work, I had the opportunity to dabble in UX writing: a short success banner here, an error message there. I realized it was a different skill set; a brand new challenge that I really enjoyed.

After witnessing the process of addressing user experience and improving a product, I wanted to be a part of it.

Today you can find me on the UX team, writing CTA options to test or brainstorming prototype ideas in Figjam with designers.

Honestly, I really loved it all — and I get why writers can feel torn between the two disciplines. But if you’re currently in marketing and starting to feel the itch to impact a customer’s experience after the landing page, then maybe it’s time to shake things up and get into UX.

Similarities between copywriting and UX writing

I’ve discovered that, regardless of whether you operate under the Chief Marketing Officer or the VP of User Experience, you’ll probably focus on some of the same things:

• Maintaining a tone that fits with your brand
• Choosing language that’s easy to read and familiar
• Writing with a clear information hierarchy in mind
• Collaborating with designers and other teams to envision how your words will look in real life.

It’s no coincidence that the same writing practices that create a smooth user experience are also favored by search engines. So, if you’re looking to make the switch from marketing to UX writing, you’ll find that the skills you may have employed to appease Google algorithms will still apply when you’re writing for someone who’s actually using your product.

The biggest differences between copywriting and UX writing

Of course, there are some big ways in which these two fields differ.

Writers will intuitively understand the different language, tone, and skills that go into writing for product screens as opposed to Facebook campaigns. So I’ll focus on what those differences mean in practice: how your day-to-day life will look as a marketing copywriter vs. a UX writer.

Marketing writers:

• May have more creative liberty: if you like having a blank canvas and coming up with that one winning campaign idea, marketing is for you
• Write for many different platforms: whether TikTok is your jam or you’re obsessed with finding the perfect email subject line, you can specialize in a niche; or, do it all
• Lead the brand development process: writers on the marketing team are more likely to define the brand voice for the rest of the organization
• Push brand voice to its limits: Wit, humor, and edgy writing are best suited for splashy emails or tweets — they’re not often found within the microcopy of a product

UX writers:

• Do a lot of problem solving: when specific details or legal info needs to fit into a tiny pop-up with only 100 characters, UX writers are figuring out how to make it happen
• Have more technical constraints around their work: you’ll often have to plan out content with a variety of specific user states in mind, and you’ll need to think through the detailed path someone may take to reach each screen
• Put time into creating processes and establishing partnerships: since this is a pretty new discipline, UX writers often need to help the rest of the team understand the role, and how best to leverage their expertise
• Have opportunities to improve the product itself: UX writers work with designers and researchers to develop the easiest and most appealing experience possible, backed by data and real life user testing

How do I decide between marketing writing and UX writing?

When I was contemplating switching from marketing to UX, here are the things that helped me most.

Make connections: reach out to people you know in the field, or join relevant LinkedIn groups.

Learn from others: there are plenty of writers out there who have already made this decision. Do some Googling and check out articles or podcasts by people who have done both fields (the Content Rookie podcast documents one writer’s experience going from marketing to UX).

Try both: I’m a big believer in just doing the thing to figure out if you actually enjoy it. If you’re in marketing, you might be able to branch out into some UX writing projects within your current position. Or, take on a couple of freelance assignments using sites like Fiverr.

Whichever path you take, you can look forward to being challenged, and rewarded, for your love of words.