The advertising universe is a mystery. At least for some. One of the biggest struggles of advertising professionals, especially copywriters apart from writing a good copy is to explain what they do for a living. When you say you are a copywriter, the people are clueless as to what it means. Their brows go in all dimensions depicting they don’t understand a thing.

Well to start with, the world of advertising is much more than a glamorous model juxtaposed in a frame with a product and put on a hoarding. A good advertisement includes a lot of elements. And one of the key elements is the copy.

What is a copy you ask? Other than what you usually know, it’s the text part of the ad where you communicate about the product. You can find a copy in print ads, digital ads, websites, brochures et al. Copy plays a major role in communicating what the ad is about, what the product does, its uses, and a lot more. All of this in as short as possible. A simple mantra to write copy is, ‘The shorter the better’. The catch is always to communicate effectively in lesser words.

At face value, the copywriter’s work is to write, but what they write is going to influence a buyer’s decision. A copy needs to be compelling to catch the reader’s attention because those are the potential consumers of the product. As it is said, copywriters are salespersons behind typewriters.

Copywriters mould a message in a fashion that speaks to the target group of the product. When a copywriter writes for an ad, she has to think like a consumer, because that gives a whole lot of clarity on the kind of message that is crafted.

So, what exactly makes a good copywriter? While there can be a lot of skills listed, there are few major ones, that can help a professional copywriter write a good copy:

Copywriting is about knowing your consumers in and out. And to know your consumers, research is your best help. It helps the copywriter understand the needs and problems of the consumers.

Excess of anything is bad and that is true for the copy too. A good copywriter knows how much information should be told in the copy, without overloading it with too much information.

Feedback is a copywriter’s best friend. The copy needs to be trimmed, cropped and edited as per the suggestions to best fit the ad’s purpose or whichever medium it is written for. Talking to the right TG is extremely important as the message crafted for them.

No typo. No grammatical error. Because it certainly takes away from a good copy. A good sentence structure with the right set of words can make a simple copy effective. Using easy to understand words yet structuring in a way that leaves an impact on its potential consumers, is the key to a good copy.

Writing copy is a tricky business. It’s an art in the making. A copywriter constantly needs to shift her thinking and her writing as per the message that is to be put forth through ads, websites, brochures, etc. More the flexible the copywriter is, the better the copy will turn out to be!