What’s the difference between content marketing and copywriting?
From a traditional marketing point of view, there’s a simple answer to the question, “what’s the difference between copywriting and content marketing?”
Content marketing means creating and sharing free valuable content to attract and convert potential customers.
Copywriting gets a reader to take a specific action, like making a purchase or subscribing to a newsletter.
Within this blog, our experienced content writers at Blue Whale Media have detailed the information about the differences between content marketing and copywriting as well as explaining the techniques you need to make your copy and content as successful as possible. You may find that there is a bit of an overlap between the terms and skills required.
What’s the main difference?
Content marketing involves resting and sharing free multimedia content across various business channels, such as blogs and social media posts. The principal aim is to attract readers to your website and encourage positive brand recognition, usually over a long period of time. Copywriting aims to directly and immediately lead the reader to a specific action, whether that’s subscribing to a newsletter or calling your business for more information. Effective copy will include a call to action and will be geared toward compelling the reader to complete that action.
Some examples of content marketing are videos, podcasts, infographics and blogs, whereas copywriting examples encompass things like direct mail, sales, pages and ads.
Content without copywriting is a waste of good content
There are some blogs and websites out there with seriously good content but only a few readers. If you’re writing great articles that people would love to read, but you’re not getting the traffic you want, the problem may be effective copywriting.
- Your headlines might be too dull; if they’re boring, they don’t give people a reason to read the rest of your writing.
- Your headlines are too cute or clever; if this is the case, you’re showing how smart you are without communicating any reader benefits.
- You haven’t explicitly thought about how your content benefits readers. Just like a product has to have benefits to the buyer, your content has to be rewarding.
- You haven’t leveraged any social proof; by marketing on social channels, you’ll more than likely gain more readers to your blog or website.
Why is content marketing so important?
What makes good content? That’s like asking what makes good writing; in reality, there’s no exact formula. While it’s vital to have effective copywriting with an SEO strategy, you’ll still need good quality content writing that assures your audience’s questions, is easy to read, cites credible sources and is useful to the reader. If your content is consistent, high-quality, and impacts the audience’s decision-making, it will be more effective than any other marketing technique.
Whatever you’re writing, you need to remember the core principles that both content marketers and copywriting use to make their words a success. While there are key differences between the goals and purposes, the awareness of how they merge together can be a vital element of the best marketing strategies. Get in touch with Blue Whale Media today for expert content marketing and copywriting.
