What Makes Us Think We Are Copywriters?

“As soon as you learned to write, you made up stories,” begins the description of the master’s degree program in copywriting at Virginia Commonwealth University. Well, sure. So then anyone can be a copywriter?

Uh, no. Most of us can’t. And some of us who think we can need to stop messing with our organization’s copy—and leave it to the professionals. Here are four fallacious beliefs that lead us to try to write marketing copy.

1. “Everyone’s a writer”
Organization leaders and department managers do a lot of writing, so why not write the marketing copy? Because copywriting is quite different from organizational writing. Good copywriting can be defined as “a few words that get readers to act.” Organizational writing is mostly about explaining.

2. “There’s little formal training”
It’s true that there are few graduate-level programs in copywriting like the one at Virginia Commonwealth. If every copywriter had a Ph.D., most of us likely would think twice about believing we could do it just as well as the pros.

However, that doesn’t mean that copywriters aren’t highly trained. Most copywriters start as interns and work for years before they are writing for organizations such as yours.

3. “Copywriting is just writing”
“One of the worst mistakes copywriters make is to assume their job is about writing,” says Dean Rieck, considered one of the top direct mail copywriters today. “When copywriters forget that their job is to convey meaning, to connect with needs, to influence and persuade, they focus on the words alone and create, well, … crap.”

4. “Anyone can be creative”
This may be the greatest fallacy of all. Those clever slogans of just a few words—“Got Milk?” “Just Do It” and “Diamonds Are Forever” (rated by Advertising Age as the top slogan of the twentieth century)—are nothing short of brilliant: a memorable sales pitch in 2-3 words! Not everyone can do that; in fact, most everyone can’t.

Virginia Commonwealth, in attempting to describe its students, goes well beyond saying they made up stories as children. “You're an idea maker who thinks big but also has the ability to take a huge thought and make it simple,” the school states. Now that is an uncommon skill. Let’s leave copywriting to the few who truly have it.

Pentera’s marketing experts are available to help design and implement marketing strategies for you.