What's Right for Small Businesses, Copywriting or Content Marketing?

Instagram: @seasonalfriend

Up until last year, I called myself a Copywriter to all my clients.

I was primarily writing advertisements, direct mail and sales pages for small to medium-sized businesses.

That’s what copywriters do, I thought. Write ads. Sell things.

I was wrong.

At the same time, I was also participating in the growing trend of creating and sharing valuable free content to attract prospects for the same businesses.

Strategists call it content marketing. It’s using words to say something of value. Another word for it is ‘Useful Writing.’

If you are crafting content for any business, it should at least, if not entertaining and interesting, be useful.

I was attributing advertisements and sales pages to Copywriting, and blogs and podcasts to content marketing.

I thought if there were two terms, they must be two different things.

Well, not if you do it right.

In today’s world, copywriting and content marketing consistently overlap with each other. And here is why.

Content marketing without good copywriting is a waste of content, and it goes the other way around too.

The Internet has millions of useful pieces of content, but they never make to the surface.

On the other side, people consistently come across catchy posts filled with disappointment.

The trick is to combine the best of both worlds. Combining great content with strategic copywriting.

How can small businesses use this information?

Let’s say your marketing budget is $1000.

If you run ads with that money, the ads will only survive for a fixed-length time. After which, either they would disappear or become irrelevant.

On the other hand, if you invest the same sum of money in creating content (articles, podcasts, videos (or whatever that turns your crank), that money’s worth will spread its reach over months and years.

Essentially, the timeline for measuring ROI widens itself out to infinite.

Someone might discover this article three years later, love it, reach out and then buy from one of my services. And that same thing can happen tomorrow, too.

The investment in content with great copywriting compounds itself where you end up building up a massive web of content that stretches across the internet.

Not only your content becomes its brand image, but it also becomes a coupon that you could reuse to let that new paying client walk-in trough your door.

Have a question or want help with your content marketing? You can directly message me to get in touch. Seasonal Friend helps small businesses in creating useful content — the kind that helps businesses reach their goals.