Читать книгу Start & Run a Copywriting Business - Steve Slaunwhite - Страница 6

A few of years ago, while attending a business networking event, a man introduced himself to me and asked, “What do you do?” When I explained that I’m a copywriter, he immediately launched into a long story about his nephew, a patent and trademarks lawyer. “He works with copyrights all the time,” he told me. “Perhaps you know him?” I tried, of course, to explain that I don’t copyright anything. I am a copywriter. But to no avail.

So, no, copywriting does not involve trademarks, patents, and copyright. Copywriting is a creative process of organizing information and writing words (and sometimes suggesting concepts, structure, and visuals) used in creating effective sales and marketing documents. These include print ads, Internet banner ads, brochures, case studies, direct mail, sales letters, sale sheets, flyers, case studies, and new product announcements — in fact, the list is endless.

Copywriters seek to inform, persuade, and sell. The process sometimes goes by other names — marketing writing, sales writing, persuasive writing, ad writing, and public relations writing are just a few. Sales letter guru Herschell Gordon Lewis likes to call it “force communication.” Mal Warwick, an authority on fundraising letters, refers to the process simply as “writing for results.”

My definition? When my wife comes home from work and asks me what I did that day, I often reply, “I wrote about segregated life insurance” or “I wrote about industrial imaging sensors.” So for me, copywriting is writing persuasively about products and services and the benefits they bring to the lives of customers. Tom Stoyan, author and sales coach, teaches that selling is “influencing the thinking of others to get them emotionally involved in an idea to help them make a buying decision.” Copywriting is very similar. And it’s not a bad way to spend the day.