To me, it’s startling and sad to ponder how many businesspeople today use the words copywriters and copywriting, without really understanding what they mean. Good men and women sense that they have some sort of need in their enterprise, but they lack communication skills to find out exactly what their businesses require.

The first thing that needs to be clarified is that a good copywriter is not just a writer. The profession of a writer is a very broad category that encompasses various skills. For example, there are writers who write books. These can be textbooks, fiction books, novels (adventures, romance, science fiction).

There are writers who write articles for magazines, from fashion to politics, economics, realities, and blogs. Again, each of those has their own required skills. A person can be a writer of music, whom we would call a composer. All these people are writers, but not copywriters. Copywriters fit into their own specialties.

Among the vast number of misunderstandings around the word, there are some people who think that “copywriter” means a writer who writes copyrights. That is, legal persons who help protect inventions against theft.

The best, sweet and simple definition of copywriting is, any writing that offers a product or service for sale. In any business, nothing happens unless there is a sale. No profit, no growth, no rewar

How can you find a Copywriter? 

ds. Sales is the center of all activities in a business organization. The dynamo of sales is copywriting. Even the sales force depends on this activity. The copy must first sell.

You will not find a copywriter by going to a university campus and signing up for a help wanted ad. You may make a request from a major job search organization, requiring a master’s in journalism from an Ivy league school, but you will not find your winning copywriter there. And your sales will reflect the lack of wisdom in your decision. In fact, a journalist has very specific skills for his trade, which is to investigate and report the news.

The greatest copywriter in history was David Ogilvy who was a farmer, a door to door salesman, and an apprentice chef. Is it possible to predict how good a copywriter is? The only way to answer this question is through the reflection of your sales. The money speaks louder than the resume.

Copywriters will be found to work for advertising agencies, for corporations, and freelance. Clearly, someone who has gotten a graduate degree in journalism will not have the required skills to be a copywriter. However, most newspapers, magazines, and television commercials will use agency copywriters.

The copy for this kind of industry is short, clever, even humorous. But it does not ask for a sale. Rather, it is to make you feel good.

So, what does a copywriter do?

The corporate copywriter, on the other hand, writes about the products or services of the company he works for. For example, if he works for a pharmaceutical company, he will write about a particular medication produced by this company.

His copy will contain a strong call to action. It is intended to sell the product.

The third category of writer will be the freelancer. They usually specialize in niches. They handle all areas of the copywriting or they specialize. He may write sales letters, SEO writing, white paper, all the copy in a website, newsletters, etc. Or, he can specialize in Autoresponder Email Sequence, as I do.

Direct-response copywriting is a kind of writing advertisement with a specific call to action that makes people open their wallets, checkbooks, credit cards, and buy right now. A copywriter is someone who writes advertising promotions. He is responsible for the text on brochures, websites, emails, advertisements, etc. It is everywhere – it’s a $2.3 trillion global industry.

Two kinds of ad writing

We can distinguish two kinds of sell. The soft sell is the one we find in advertisement. For instance, most supermarkets have flyers that have pictures of the goods they sell with the price. But they do not have a specific call to action. Their objective is to inform us. It’s up to the shopper to decide if he wants the specific product or not. We have here an advertisement.

Certainly, a copywriter will write your sales promotion. Does it mean you’ll sell your products like crazy and in a month, make a couple of million dollars and live in an expensive house on the beach? No! Not by a long shot. In fact, it all depends upon your product, your market, and your marketing strategy. Regardless of how good your copywriter is, it all comes down to you.

There is no doubt that you have seen in many website an offer for a free ebook in exchange for the name and email of the visitor. This free ebook is called a “Special Report.” The idea behind it, is that businesses want prospects to know, like, and trust them.

It is important for you lead magnet to have value. You have to provide worthwhile information to your prospects. This special report is used in your website to make an offer, to advertise or even used in networking situation. You can see why such document must offer value. It must be of high interest to your prospects.

Finding clients is the life blood of any business. You can find them by paying advertisements, through the search engine, or being referred to by someone. Nonetheless, you want to create a list of clients, leads, and prospects that you can stay in touch with.

A special report is by far the best tool you can have in your marketing arsenal to accomplish this. You have your website. It’s a great accomplishment. Just for that, you should congratulate yourself. In fact, a site is an asset. It has financial, marketing, and branding value. It is something you can sell as a real-estate. In fact, even the URL has financial value, based on good will.

Once you have your website, you want to include a squeeze page in it. Its purpose is to collect the name and email address of your visitors, so that you keep in touch with them. This kind of information has tremendous value for your business. Therefore, people need a reason why they’ll give you their very valuable name and email addresses. That is why you need a special report.

Start by giving away a special report to your visitors

The special report is a free downloadable E-book that would have value to your visitor. You’ll give it to him in exchange for his or her information. You cannot give to your prospect just any kind of electronic book. It has to be within the niche you’re serving. For instance, if you are into the oil energy industry, don’t give to your visitor a special report about dog obedience.

For instance, if you offer a special report on the oil energy industry. Something like, “World Economic Forecast of brent crude pricing for the next five years”. That is what would be of interest to those in the industry you’re catering. Think about the kind of information your clients would find most valuable. Based on their dialogues in conventions, symposiums, trade organizations, what kind of questions do they ask the most?

The special report should answer some of those burning questions. Unless you are addressing yourself to a very small, extremely specialized group of readers, keep in mind that the special report is not a research paper. It is not an academic thesis written after exhaustive research. There is a balance that needs to be achieved. It’s an e-book that must have value to your reader, but yet light enough not to be too brainy.

Most often, a special report is about 5 to 12 pages. It should be designed in such a way that it can be read in basically one sitting. This marketing strategy has the tremendous power to position you as an authority in your field. And in this case, your prospects will not only purchase your products or services, but will also be looking to hear from you in your emails.