Did you know?
Most people, who start their career in the field of advertising or even digital marketing, start as a copywriter before moving to and branching out to a different vertical.
But for some time now, content designing has also become an entry point for many people into the world of advertising & digital marketing. To an outsider, both of them might look the same. But in reality, they both are completely opposite of each other. To understand what the subtle differences between them are, we need to first look at how at what each term means in a loose sense.
According to Wikipedia, Copywriting is the act or occupation of writing text for advertising or other forms of marketing. The product, called copy or sales copy, is written content that aims to increase brand awareness and ultimately persuade a person or group to take a particular action.
Content designing, on the other hand, is the process of planning, creating, and communicating content for the audience on the internet. It is based on data and evidence and can include written articles, images, and even videos or audios.
To summarise, content designing is web-oriented while copywriting is more offline focused. Content designing as a term has become more popular with the advent of digital media and digital marketing. I have worked with the best of agencies of the adverting industry for more than 3 decades. But never have I ever, heard about content designer before the rise of social media marketing.
Copywriting is pushing out information to the audience and customers while content designing in pulling in your customers. Content designing is making sure that your audience and customers immerse themselves in your brand.
Generally associated with words & written ads, copywriting is the art of selling people on the idea or promise of a brand. The best copywriting fuses the benefits and emotion of a brand together to create a compelling logic. Copywriters sell ideas and emotions that are tied to the products.
Content designing is more of designing and planning content that people want to consume. A content designer’s job is to research and find out about his/her audience needs and wants! They then have to plan and create engaging content accordingly.
Copywriters have to be imaginative and creative. Content designers have to be everything copywriters are and even more; they have to be research-oriented and should be on-par with all the latest market trends. While copywriting is primarily focused on a direct conversation with the customers, content designing tries to create an overall immersing experience for them.
For a copywriter, their job is to convert a reader into a prospect and finally turn that prospect into a promising client. As famed direct-mail copywriter Eugene Schwartz said when describing the task of copywriting, “Tap a single overwhelming desire existing in the hearts of thousands of people who are actively seeking to satisfy it at this very moment.”
Copywriters also need to have a good command over language for the apt expression of ideas and concepts. They should be able to trigger a strong emotional response from the audience.
Unlike copywriters, content designers are not limited to just words. They are at the liberty to play with more than just words. They use a mix of text, images, audio and video to create an interactive experience for the customers. A good content designer will give the audience all the right information about the product or service without twisting any facts. There is no scope for ambiguity in content designing. They manage to help the audience to know and understand every aspect of the product or service.
Content designing is not usually as sales-oriented as copywriting. A copywriter’s skill lies in getting people to take an action right away but a content designer crafts and tells a story or delivers valuable information in an easy-to-digest manner.
A content designer has to research their target audience before getting started. Without actually knowing the needs and requirement of the audience, a designer cannot structure the information in the right way.
Copywriting is all about translating brand strategy or brand demands concept-wise. They create the idea; the insight and the dramatic truth that has to be weaved into the marketing strategy. While content designing is creating a relationship with the audience and then nurturing it through different forms of engaging and meaningful content.
Copywriting and content designing are both informative, but copywriting focuses more on the pleasure aspect of reading. Long copies are not written, but the little that is written has a particular flow and aims to be enjoyable for the reader.
A content designer has to be tech-savvy because of the research involved in the process. They have to understand hard facts and need to have a good grip on it. A copywriter needs to be a visual thinker and relies heavily on their imagination to come up with meaningful and creative copies. Content designers, on the other hand, rely heavily upon SEO tools to understand what kind of queries their audience generally have.
Copy and content designing do share similarities. Both of them share the same goal: To ultimately convert a reader into a sales or a lead. Another similarity is that they both need to be well-structured.
The standards of what each means by being well-structured are different, but quality content that can attract readers and keep them reading is necessary for both.
