I know it seems like newbie questions but we all start somewhere. 1. what does it mean to copyright 2. how do you copyright 3. what are newbie mistakes and how do you avoid them
You appear confused about the differences between copywrite and copyright. Simply put a copywriter holds the copyright on his/her work. Copywrite is an industry term for words. Copyright is a legal term defining ownership.
It's basically the part of marketing where you make prospect desire your product or service using written text. It's just one part of your overall marketing strategy.
A copywriter is a person who writes content that sell. This content that sells could be in form of sales letters, magazine ads, newsletters, newspaper ads, brochures etc Copyright, as stated by others, is a legal protection of some intellectual property. It has nothing to do with facilitation of sales. A sales letter, for example, could fetch between a few hundred dollars to a thousand dollars. Why so expensive? I used to wonder too. I thought the charge for an article could be used for a sales letter. This changed when I trained as a copywriter. A copywriter has to research the market, the product, why people could buy the product(wants, desires), what they want most, their fears, likely objections etc Equipped with this information, a copywriter crafts a highly persuasive letter that embraces the emotions/feelings which could be used to close the sale. The editing part requires further research --- to find the most appropriate words. There are a lot of things to be done before a copy is finally written. This could take a week to two weeks depending on how fast a writer does his work. An article will never take that long.
All right, I'll give it a shot: 1. Copywriting (not copyrighting) is to tailor your sales messages in a way that entices your prospective customers to do something. That something could be a wide range of things, from signing up to your email list, trying a sample of your product, to referring your services to their friends. But it's basically using media to lead someone to make purchases and put money in your pocket. It's "salesmanship in print." 2. This is too complicated to address in a single forum post. However, the "classic" approach is to structure your message according to the A-I-D-A Formula. "A" stands for getting your prospect's attention. This is usually done through a compelling headline. "I" stands for piquing your prospect's interest. Basically, you describe the prospect's problem (the one your product/service will eliminate) in detail and get them nodding their head. "D" stands for desire. Here is where you start weaving in the features/benefits of your product and how it will make the prospect's problem disappear. Finally, the second "A" stands for action. All great copywriting asks the prospect to do something at the end of the ad (and gives them a reason to do it quickly). 3. First and foremost, not tracking the results of their ads and testing different headlines, appeals, etc. Another issue is trying to copy the "brand advertising" that mega-corporations use because those are the types of ads predominantly shown on TV. For 99% of the smaller businesses out there, this isn't the best way to spend advertising dollars. Thirdly, trying to write in a formal manner instead of a conversational tone. Read "Scientific Advertising" by Claude Hopkins for more insight into how copywriters go wrong. Hope this helps, Corey Pemberton
Copywriting is the act of writing copy (text) for the purpose of advertising or marketing a product, business, person, opinion or idea. The addressee (reader, listener, etc.) of the copy is meant to be persuaded to buy the product advertised for, or subscribe to the viewpoint the text shares. Copywriters are used to help create direct mail pieces, taglines, jingle lyrics, web page content (although if the purpose is not ultimately promotional, its author might prefer to be called a content writer), online ads, e-mail and other Internet content, television or radio commercial scripts, press releases, white papers, catalogs, billboards, brochures, postcards, sales letters, and other marketing communications media. Copy can also appear in social media content including blog posts, tweets, and social-networking site posts.