This shouldn’t be a thing, but unfortunately it is.
When businesses shop for a new website, the vast majority make the mistake of focusing all their energy and funding on design, and the copywriting becomes an afterthought. This is the biggest barrier to digital marketing success.
Why?
It’s not that great design isn’t important, it’s just not what converts browsers into buyers. It’s also not what gets prospects on to your site in the first place.
It’s not enough to have a good-looking site with quality UX, your messaging needs to be right, it needs to be professional, and it will ultimately be what dictates the results that you get.
UX and pretty pictures don’t create a buying action, words do.
“You need to budget for both, not one or the other. Equally, would-be effective copy is useless without strong design to show it off.”
Copywriting first
The copy should come first, then your designer can create a site around the information that needs to be present and your key messaging. Combined in this way, professional copywriting and design will yield vastly improved results.
Get a copywriter first. Work closely with them to define:
1. What your tone of voice is as a business
If your business were a person, what would it be like? Funny, witty, sarcastic, blunt, quiet, geeky, technical, authoritarian?
2. What you stand for
What aspect of your offering do you want your customers to take on board and believe in as much as you do? What makes you unique, quirky, and just downright better? Why should they choose you?
3. Your buyer persona(s). In as much detail as possible
Age, gender, fears, frustrations, hopes, inspirations, dreams, social standing, job title, industry, income, net worth, how they spend free time and where, style, personality, lifestyle, beliefs etc. or if it’s a business itself, their firmographics – number of staff, turnover, location, industry, structure, background, with a specific problem/need, age, culture etc.
4. What problems you are solving for them. How do you make their life better?
People and businesses buy both things they need and things they want. Ask yourself if you need to appeal to the rational or the emotional minds of your audience.
5. What your passions are as a business. Why do you do what you do?
You need to tell your story. Humans love stories, they create a connection, they build your brand, and ultimately they will win you business. Lay it all out, be real and relatable. Customers will reward you with their loyalty and trust.
This is a hugely valuable process to get all your future marketing right and it’s something we take every new client through here at Pearson Brown Marketing.
Your designer will like this approach
Find a talented copywriter, go through this process, and they will produce you compelling copy to get results. Your designer will love this too. It will give them a clear creative direction to design you a site that will flow correctly, take customers on an effective pre-defined journey, without them having to guess what and how much content you will provide them with.
Find a designer that can create a great user experience around the copy, not someone who uses rigid templates and drops copy in as an afterthought.
So, let’s re-frame the discussion
We shouldn’t have to have a title that states copywriting vs design. They aren’t competing things; they need to work in tandem if you want an effective website that your target humans will love as much as Google.
You need to budget for both, not one or the other. Equally, would-be effective copy is useless without strong design to show it off.
We mentioned Google
What’s your strategy to get people on to your fancy new website?
If SEO is to play any part at all, that’s another tick in the box for paying your copywriting more attention or hiring a professional copywriter.
At the nucleus of any successful digital marketing strategy is media you own — which almost always is in the form of content. Your website copy, blog posts, landing pages, e-books, product descriptions, brochures, leaflets etc. are all owned media. It’s your content.
Content helps bring people to your website in the first place through SEO, it helps convert your website visitors into leads and customers, and it improves your presence in today’s online world in a broad way.
Having a new website built is your opportunity to create a bulk load of owned media to bolster all your digital marketing efforts.
Whatever the goals you have for your website or your overarching digital marketing strategy, you’ll want to incorporate owned content. We can help.
We can help you understand who you are, who your customers are, what your messaging should be, and how to put it across. We can help you understand the content that you need, and we can produce quality output to improve your results. If you don’t have a designer yet, that’s fine. We work with plenty of highly skilled designers for different projects and can take care of your entire project for you.
Contact us here, or email me directly at matthew.brown@pearson-brown.co.uk. It would be great to talk to you about your project.
– Matthew Brown, founder & director
