What is Copywriting?

To this day, I can’t believe the % of people who ask this question!

These are people who are involved in selling online in some way. Course creators, consultants looking for clients online, tech startup CEOs (damn!… double damn!), web designers, “ux experts” (intentional quotes) and many, many more.

In my opinion any business owner with a website who doesn’t pay attention or learn some copywriting is wasting so much potential revenue, sales, partnerships and possibilities of growth.

And the funny thing is I was no Indiana Jones either. I discovered copywriting completely by accident!
My stars must have aligned when I met the first online marketer in real life. I don’t even remember the first conversation about it.

You know, I don’t blame anyone though, except the name itself. “COPY”… “WRITING”. It is a seriously stupid name for a wonderful life-changing craft. It’s so bad that even if you eavesdrop on a conversation, it won’t spark any interest.

“Hey Stella, this copy is weak, we need to change it”. “Okay, I’ll get a new version… but you should know this is based on another copy that doubled conversions for a similar product line”. “That’s fine, not all of it.. just the middle bits”. “Okay let’s tweak it and test the subject lines though”

If I heard this, there is no part of me that even would want to ask questions about it. “COPY” sounds like something involving a computer data backup. Perhaps they are using Xerox machines I’d think and walk away.

For all the amazing things copywriting can do with words to a business and this world, it failed to name itself.

So what is copywriting?