Content creation covers a wide range of forms, and all the forms play an integral role in digital marketing strategy. However, content writing and copywriting are the most compelling ones regarding marketing strategy.
The two are very closely related, but their difference is significant. On the one hand, the former has the impact of grabbing the reader’s attention, while the latter convinces the reader to take action. Both are a way to drive the reader’s attention and engage the audience.
When it comes to content writing vs. copywriting, it is all about the words you put in both writing forms and the difference in purpose, the ultimate goal, and the way you present them. We will dig deeper into these two content creations to explore such differences.
What is Content Writing?
Describing the content can be anything ranging from photos and illustrations to videos and animations. Content means to create something that serves some specific purpose.
It is about creating a piece of information to generate viewers’ attention while educating them about a brand.
In B2B marketing, content writing captivates and engages the audience through articles, podcasts, newspaper writing, guides, web pages, and many more.
Unlike copywriting, content writing doesn’t aim to make a sale immediately; rather, it’s a long play. As content writing effectively drives a sale through content marketing and SEO techniques, it aims to make a sale after a few months.
While creating content, one most important things to consider is SEO; hence content writers must create content to get it ranked on SERP, and of course, it should be attractive and readable too.
Content writing can be short or long-form stories to help readers achieve the company’s marketing goals and attract potential leads.
What is Copywriting?
While content writing is to educate the readers, copywriting has a purpose that must be compelling enough to induce action.
When it comes to copywriting, its primary purpose is to advertise the brand, so it is very concise, clear, and full of action-taking words.
Copywriting is primarily meant to make sales, communicate a brand’s personality, pitch a product or service, and compel the audience to take action.
Even though copywriting has been in tradition since businesses were trying to sell their products or services, copywriting evolved as the marketing channel emerged.
It is a common drill for digital marketing, display ads, landing pages, google ads, and search ads.
But what stayed common was the motive to sell with urgency. Copywriting requires a deep understanding of your target audience and your business strategy, which is how it communicates quickly about a product or service.
In some cases, like headline ads or CTA, there is a limit of 2-3 words to hook the audience’s attention and make them believe they need to take action.
Hence in copywriting, one must be a master of words who knows how to convince a reader to take immediate action quickly.
Content Writing vs. Copywriting: Differences Explained
1. Purpose
One of the chief differences between content writing vs. copywriting is their purpose. It will come under copywriting when crafting the words for a business to sell a product. But when it comes to educating the audience or just informing them about a product, this will be done by content writers.
Copywriting aims to influence and make a sale by persuading the audience using 2-3 words to take immediate action. In contrast, the purpose of content writing is to educate the audience and pass on the information and is not concerned with writing a persuasive piece.
Regarding the comparison between content writing and copywriting, copywriting is about sales and actions, whereas content writing is for entertainment and education purposes.
2. Length
Since content writing is solely to educate and inform, it typically is lengthy and might go from 500 to 2000 words. The word range even increases if you are writing a book or guide.
However, copywriting needs to be impactful with short word limits. The idea is to use fewer words to impose urgency and take immediate action, like in CTA or taglines and headlines.
Content writing requires lots of research and knowledge around the topic and outside to make such lengthy guides. So as long as their write-up holds the reader’s attention, there is no limit to how much a content writer needs to write.
But, with copywriting, one needs to be creative with translating ideas into lesser words(2-10) with strict word counts.
3. SEO and Grammar
A content writer must have proper SEO knowledge to drive inbound traffic. Content writers always choose keywords and topics based on alignment with business and its search popularity over the internet.
In content writing, you’d always find a focus keyword around which the whole content is crafted. It’s the focus keyword for which a page is optimized, and it should be included in the page title and throughout the body copy. There are strict guidelines for content writing to create SEO-friendly content.
However, with copywriting, there is no strict adherence to SEO, but you can measure whether your copywriting skills are working by measuring the metrics like click-through rates and open rates.
Concerning grammar, it’s good practice to keep grammar mistakes minimal in all your ContentContent. However, content writing is strict with its grammar errors as it interrupts readers’ thoughts by forcing them to stop.
Whereas copywriting doesn’t require perfection in grammar, it can use incomplete sentences to grab the reader’s attention.
4. Emotions
Another difference between content writing vs. copywriting is emotions.
While copywriting invokes an emotional response, content writing doesn’t.
In copywriting, there is urgency and scarcity that demands fast action. While in content writing, there is information that will build up trust in the brand as a reliable source of information.
5. Types of Writing
Copywriters write the copy for:
- Ads
- Taglines
- Slogans
- Email campaigns
- Web page content
- Sales letters
- Video scripts
- Billboards
- Social media content
On the other hand, content writing includes longer-form of content like:
- Articles
- Press Releases
- Blog posts
- White papers
- Newspaper pieces
- Email newsletters
- Scripts
- E-books, Books
- Podcasts
6. Target
Last but not least, in content writing, the target is to drive organic traffic by building a long-lasting relationship with the audience to keep them interested in sales.
While copywriting is done for the sole purpose of converting traffic into leads as it is directly related to sales, wanting the audience to take immediate action.
However, both are closely connected, and businesses need both to succeed.
Conclusion
So, this was all about content writing vs. copywriting.
When we talk about content writing vs. copywriting, both sound similar in many aspects as they both refer to the similar meaning of content creation. However, they have some very distinguishing characteristics when it comes to the form of content creation and their purposes.
Additionally, they both play a significant role in a marketing campaign. Businesses must understand the difference between content writing and copywriting to use it wisely.
Ensure that you provide enough information to your potential leads who’ll judge your business through the content form.
