Copywriting is a big business, with thousands of freelance writers working on copy every day. It covers almost every industry and helps many people promote and sell their products. Businesses both big and small hire copywriters for a variety of writing jobs.
Over the years, as with many other industries, copywriting has evolved and continues to do so. Whether you are a seasoned copywriter or someone interested in learning more about this craft, business, and career choice, read on to find out everything about how copywriting is evolving and what the future of copy looks like.
What is Copywriting
Copywriting is a part of digital marketing. It involves writers – who are often freelance – writing persuasive or interesting articles in the hope of encouraging a consumer to buy a product. Basically, copywriters write material to try and entice potential customers, a bit like writing an advert for TV or radio – just without the funny actors!
The copy they write can be used in a variety of places. In many instances, the writing is specifically for the client’s own website or marketing campaigns, meaning it is written as a direct advert. In other cases, the writer is asked to write about a particular topic, whilst dropping mentions of a particular product or products into their article. These types of articles can be posted on blog sites or as reviews on other websites.
How Much Does it Cost?
There is no industry standard, fixed fee for copywriting. It really depends on the size of the project, the writer’s experience, and the timeframe in which it needs to be completed. With Copy AI, which will be discussed in more detail later, much of this is stripped away. If a computer can write a decent copy in half the time, the service will likely cost less. Whether you choose a bot or a human to write your copy, you will likely pay via word count. If some copy needs to be 5,000 words long, you’ll be paying far more than a short piece of 250 words, for example.
The Copywriting Career
As a copywriter, there are two main avenues people can follow; working for an agency or working freelance. In an agency, the job may be linked to a more detailed role. For example, an ad agency writer may also be asked to manage social media accounts, meet with clients, manage SEO campaigns, and look after marketing data.
As a freelancer, the job is usually more simple. Most freelance copywriters are able to specialize in one type of writing and market themselves in that way while reaching out to clients. They would likely not be involved in any other avenues of that particular client’s marketing campaign.
Either way, copywriters are great assets for businesses. Often, they are hired freelance and once a business finds a copywriter they like, they stick with them for a long time. This helps a relationship form, building trust and confidence in the writer and their end product.
The Future of Copywriting
Traditionally, copywriters have written for adverts. But, as mentioned, there are now more types of copy than ever. Writers have to be more versatile than ever by being able to write for SEO, adverts, social media, and more. Copywriters now – and in the future – need to be able to adapt quickly and learn new ways of writing. However, this isn’t the most revolutionary part about the future of copy…
AI Copywriting
Over the last few decades, digital technology has completely revolutionized the way we work. Not only do we have computers for everything but now, the computers are doing work for us! Recently, an uptick in interest in AI has completely changed the way computers interact with our work. Now, websites are offering AI-generated copywriting.
This effectively means that – if they got good enough at it – computers could take work away from many copywriters. This could be cheaper for businesses but at a disaster for the junior copywriter who is just starting out in their writing career. It may not be widespread yet, but the future of copy is almost certainly in AI.
How Does AI Copywriting Work?
“But, how does AI know what to write?!” Basically, just like any other algorithm currently at play in big tech. Instagram, for example, learns based on how long you look at each frame, what you like the most, what you ignore the most. AI copywriting bots learn in a similar way, but by analyzing masses of language.
This AI bot will have an incredibly well-written algorithm. In this algorithm, it is told to go online and read tens of thousands of examples of advertising copy. It learns the patterns of how people write as well as develops an understanding of language. That’s right, it is learning a language! The more it reads, the more it understands the association between words, the emphasis on certain words, and more. It really is incredibly clever.
Then, as a business owner, you will input some of your own data. If you were selling new laptops, for example, you may enter the product name, price, and a few keywords or facts you want to be included in the article such as hard drive power, graphics card speed, or RAM. The bot takes your info and writes you a custom piece at whatever length you specify while drawing on its learned bank of knowledge about technology and copywriting.
Benefits of AI
The main benefits of AI for businesses are speed and cost-effectiveness. If it takes a copywriter 48 hours to return the first draft of a copy to you and it takes a machine 10 minutes, you’d probably choose the machine. Plus, once the tech becomes more widely available, it will eventually massively undercut traditional – human! – writers’ pricing models.
If human writers are the past, AI is the future; as is the way in parts of many industries now like banking, gaming, and more. It does not seem that AI is quite ready to move human writers on to pastures new just yet, but when it does, it may well change the game forever.
