4 Myths About Copywriting

I wanted to ring his neck. Staring at the back of his head, I glared silently as he railed me for my inability to shit out words into beautiful prose. Apparently, that’s what he thinks being a copywriter is all about.

Turning shit into flowers.

Of course, it’s not. As copywriters, there are a lot of myths surrounding the mystery of what we do. Below, I’ve compiled four overarching myths that I’ve had to wiggle through in my time a copywriter.

Copywriters, this is for you.
Non-copywriters, take notes.

Copywriters Just Mash Power Words Together

There’s more to copywriting than press releases, speeches, technical reports, and ghostwriting — although all those are definitely part of the job description. I really like this list of 50 things a copywriter should know. And no, it’s not just writing.

It’s:

• knowing the difference between saying too much and saying too little
• knowing how to research keywords
• writing click-worthy titles
• understanding how to make your content shareable
• using Google Analytics

The list could go on and on, but know that copywriting is more than cramming words together.

Copywriters Don’t Care About Their Audiences

Copywriters get a bad rep. We’re thought of as shameless marketers whose only priority is constantly waxing poetic about our company. But let me reorient your thinking, courtesy of this Forbes article:

It doesn’t matter what you [as a copywriter] like or think is important about your business, product, or service. All that matters is what your target audience thinks, wants, and needs.

My job isn’t to write what I or what my boss wants; it’s to tailor content to helping our audiences meet their particular goals.

Copywriters Don’t Work as a Team

Alright, sometimes I do escape to the cubicles upstairs, but that doesn’t mean copywriters aren’t team players. At my own work, I have to coordinate and consider different thoughts from strategists, designers, business developers, marketers, and programmers and transform each into something our audiences would be interested in learning.

So, in many, many ways, this requires me to be as much a designer or marketer as they people who are actually trained in those subjects!

Copywriting is Easy

True, just about anyone can connect subjects with verbs and sprinkle in some adjectives. But like I mentioned in the first myth, copywriting is so much more than that. It’s irksome when people think I can magically string together words in a blink-of-an-eye, because it adds to the assumption that all I do is write.

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