Who can become a professional copywriter?
Becoming a freelance professional copywriter is simultaneously incredibly easy and terrifyingly difficult. The easy part happens because there’s no internationally-recognised certifying body for copywriting; anyone who wants to do the work, and can get customers, can do it. This low barrier to entry means there’s a lot of competition, which brings us to the terrifyingly difficult reality of the job: it’s not for everyone.
Here’s what you don’t need to start a professional copywriting journey.
You don’t need to be a grammar snob. In fact, it’s better if you aren’t; snobbery gets in the way of loving language and how it evolves. You’ll need to have a comprehensive understanding of grammatical conventions, but you don’t need to memorise every rule or be able to list dozens of synonyms. Professional writers are always checking rules, spelling, meanings, usage, and conventions against style guides, and making intelligent decisions about how to use language.
You don’t need marketing experience to start. It can be very useful, but it’s not necessary. Of course, you will need to learn and build up experience as you go along, but it’s not an absolute prerequisite that you know all the digital marketing terminology or be able to use every single social media platform out there.
You don’t need to use flowery, poetic language. It’s a myth that creativity in writing has to be associated with elaborate language. Creativity is about finding solutions to problems; sometimes this solution means plain, simple language, and at other times it’s about pushing the boundaries of language. The most effective copy isn’t simple, short, poetic, or elaborate; the most effective copy is the one that communicates effectively in a given context.
Here’s what you do need to start a professional copywriting journey.
Empathy. You need empathy in loads. You will need to get into your audience’s minds to understand them and build relationships with them. You’ll be dealing with clients who may not be able to express their ideas clearly and you’ll have to give their unexpressed thoughts a voice. Empathy — and good listening skills — will take you very far in your professional copywriting career.
Good problem solving skills. You will need to approach a problem from multiple angles and think about how to solve it using written language; whether it’s changing someone’s mind, prompting an action, or revamping a brand.
Curiosity coupled with humility. It is essential that you have a wide, broad curiosity that spans disciplines so that you can draw from your knowledge, but this needs to come with the humility that you may not be an expert in everything. This mindset helps you to reach out across disciplines, understand the limits of your own knowledge, and seek out experts when you need to.
Being comfortable with, and interested in, language and communication. You don’t need to be the best salesperson around, nor do you need to be a star language student. But you do need to have a good level of comfort with the language in which you’re writing, with a strong interest in how language and communication work.
Read the rest of this series
What does a professional copywriter do?
A freelance professional copywriter’s skills
Why become a freelance professional copywriter?
Or, learn with us.
