On the web, on social networks, or on traditional media, it’s still essential to write texts that capture the reader’s attention, tell something about your corporate philosophy, and “educate” the reader to understand and appreciate the differences between your offer and your competitors’.
In particular, an effective “copy” is undoubtedly one of the most powerful business tools for any company that operates in business-to-business.
In the United States, the best copywriters are almost legendary figures, often surrounded by a halo of fascination and mystery, bizarre and brilliant or shy and reserved, paid tens and tens of thousands of dollars (in addition to sales revenue premiums) to compose the texts of a letter of 4, 6, 8 or more pages.
Why is this not the case in Italy?
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First of all, because the word “copy” doesn’t convey the idea, nor there’s an Italian word to translate it effectively. What is a “copy”? Copy is the content: the texts of a letter, a web page, an e-mail, etc…
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Secondly, because a real “market” has never been created, thus nor a real request for freelance copywriters. The copy has remained confined to marketing offices and communications agencies.
It’s easy to imagine how much attention can be paid to the copy by a Product Manager with his head in a thousand other tasks, and who is still paid to be a marketer and not “the writer”.
In communication agencies, however, at least in my experience (so those agencies that follow companies for “institutional communication”), the “art” part overcomes everything, and the drafting of content is too often delegated to a young graduate newly hired. He’s typically never sold a pin and he gets by with a little ‘copy and paste … Not Gary Bencivenga!
Things are fortunately different in the agencies that create advertising subjects dedicated to the mass media. But even there the copy, rather than a storyteller who creates a sales letter capable of selling a product on its own, must be the creator of an effective slogan.
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Table of Contents
Graphics or texts?
In a world so conditioned by the laws of image, graphics undoubtedly capture our attention at first glance, but it’s then the contents – the texts – that sell. It’s for this reason that copywriting is defined as the ability to “sell in printed form”, to sell through what you write.
The effectiveness of a good copywriter is appreciated by the ability to seduce the reader, drag him into reading his business letter, and keep the attention and interest alive until the commercial proposal has been presented and argued far and wide. And the reader remains fascinated as if he were devouring the pages of a novel.
The importance of numbers
The real test of a good copywriter is in the numbers: do his mailings, his web pages, his press releases, his advertising pages, produce a measurable return?
The fundamental word here is “measurable“. Without measuring the result, we are all champions. But an extra 1% in the redemption of a mailing can mean that a campaign like this becomes a resounding success and brings profit to your company.
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