Here’s a guess. There are three possible routes that led you here.
1. You’ve been watching Mad Men.
2. You’re considering the freelance or even digital nomad lifestyle.
3. COVID-19 or a similar calamity has given your career plans an unexpected twist.
Here’s the good news. A career as a copywriter - or even just a few crazy months that you’ll always remember fondly - can be your answer to two of the above. And it’s well within your reach. In fact, you’ve probably been putting some of the skills required to good use already. So what’s involved? Time to look behind the curtain...
What is a copywriter?
How can you earn a living from writing? Let me count the ways. You can write a book, in which case you’re a novelist. You can write for a newspaper or magazine, in which case you’re a journalist. Or you can write for an advertising agency or business, in which case you’re a copywriter. There’s the distinguishing feature. Ultimately, you’re writing copy to sell a product or service or persuade someone to take a certain action.
What do copywriters write?
You are surrounded every day by copywriting, but all the writing goes on in the shadows. Thank a copywriter for the following, in descending order of cool:
Advertising slogans eg. Every little helps, Think Different
TV, cinema and radio ads
Billboards and posters
Magazine and newspaper ads
Brochures, leaflets, Direct Mail
Business emails, social media posts
Website copy
Signage, yes, signage!
The difference between copywriter and content writer
Because of the association with the advertising agency, copywriting implies working according a client brief, in pursuit of a clear purpose. Content writing, on the other hand, can be something you do independently on your own blog, for no reason other than personal expression. You can earn a living from both, however.
What are the skills required?
It hardly needs saying, but there’s one essential skill every good copywriter must have. And that is, of course, reading. Ha! Caught you there, didn’t I?
One thing that connects the most successful copywriters is that they read voraciously - and not just War and Peace or the Gary Halbert letter. Everything they can get their eyes on - it’s an obsession. Books, magazines, billboards glimpsed from a speeding train, cereal boxes, terms and conditions, great writing, terrible writing. It all goes in the word bank, and you learn from it all.
In fact, the writing is the final stretch. Do you know how long it took Terry Lovelock to come up with “Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach?” Over three months, a near breakdown, and an escape to the Atlas Mountains. Top copywriters will read up on everything they can about a product before they even think about starting the process of writing, scrunching up paper, and writing again.
But whereas you can be a terrible writer but an award-winning reporter (thank the subs for that), you can’t be a poor writer and make a living from copywriting. Your grammar has to be impeccable. Because that will give you the confidence you need to convince clients that it’s OK to start a sentence with ‘Because…’.
If you studied English literature, that’s great. It’s a natural progression - but the best copywriters write the way people talk, not write. Your predilection for extravagant turns of phrase won’t endear you to clients. Brevity will.
The other key component is ideas. The words are just the code. They’re the symbols, the slashes and dots that communicate ideas. So you have to have the ideas. Do you have a creative way of looking at things? Do you love a bit of wordplay? These are essential.
Beware the following trend...
That last point is important because it counters two trends I’ve noticed a lot recently on copywriting message boards. One is new copywriters requesting advice on what letters to copy out by hand in order to ‘learn’ copywriting. The other is for people asking for templates they can use. Yes, you’ll learn something from doing both. But you’ll end up producing formulaic copy that can’t possibly sound authentic. Develop your own voice instead.
What are the advantages of being a copywriter?
In no particular order, if you love writing, you can get paid for writing. OK, that’s #1 after all.
There’s the potential to have enormous freedom in your professional life as a freelancer.
And it’s incredibly satisfying creatively. You get to help businesses grow, bring ideas to life, and ultimately become the voice of a product or service that someone else has put their heart and soul into launching.
What are the disadvantages of being a copywriter?
That scene early on in Mad Men where Don Draper walks into a presentation unprepared, tanks badly, and comes up with ‘It’s toasted’ at the last minute for the Lucky Strike account? I’ve never seen anything like that happen, so no doubt it’s true.
The fact is, behind every great line is a huge amount of legwork, research, stress-testing and stress. You have to argue and defend your choices in front of some fairly big egos sometimes, so if you’re relying on last-minute moments of inspiration, you could well end up looking like an ass.
Which leads me onto the second part - as with any creative job, there’s a frightening amount of rejection behind every success. You have to pitch a lot, so you get knocked back relentlessly - even by clients you’ve worked for already. It’s competitive. Your job - and your value - are not always understood or appreciated. Bear in mind that most of your clients and colleagues will tell you more than once that they can do your job.
By extension, that means you’ve got to make friends with amends. I think it was the great David Ogilvy who said that the hardest part of producing a great ad was knowing when to leave it alone. You’ll often feel as if the best version of a campaign was the one the client passed over for a safer compromise.
Finally, although it’s part of a profession that is by no means averse to lavishing itself with awards and praise, there are no famous copywriters. Oh I know what you’re going to say - but what about Bill Bernbach, Dave Trott, Leo Burnett, Eugene Schwartz and so on. Are you ready for my reply? They’re not famous. Jake Paul and the ‘Cash me outside’ girl are famous. 99% of people will never care who wrote the jingle or tagline that they can’t get off their mind.
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