It will not be incorrect to say that the web has emerged as the most colossal marketing platform in contemporary times. Today, businesses are as flourishing and strong as their presence on the web. The key is to engage and persuade the target audience among web users in billions. This is where copywriting comes into the picture. Copywriters take your business among a large target audience and drive them to take action. That is a massive responsibility, given how crucial online marketing is for businesses.
As per an article by Entrepreneur Media, more than 4.5 billion people visit the web every day. To add, the blogs published on WordPress each day are well in excess of 70 million. This gives you an idea of the magnitude of the target audience you have on the web. We are talking about an audience in billions here! So, given how important the role of copywriters is, your business needs copywriters with uncompromising qualities. You need people who can think outside the box, influence the audience with written copies and deliver value. As long as your brand delivers value to potential customers, you have a great chance of converting them.
The bottom line is, you need copywriters who are exceptional and performance-driven. For that, you will have to refine your hiring strategies to hire nothing else but the best. In this blog, we look at the most critical skills that you need to look for in candidates for copywriting positions. A good copywriter can benefit your business in multifaceted ways. On the other hand, a misfit can concede the competitive advantage to others. You would never want that to happen, would you? Hence, let us get going. Let us delve deeper into the qualities you should look for in a copywriter.
Salient skills for evaluating copywriting candidates
- Exquisite writing skills
Along with a strong marketing acumen, a copywriter should have fascinating writing skills. Writing compelling copies to move people into action is not everyone’s cup of tea. It takes some writing brilliance and versatility to do that and It takes a special writing charm to add information, value, empathy, and call for action in the minimum possible words.
Besides, people may become disinterested in a brand if there are grammar errors in content. A lot of people are quite particular when it comes to grammar. So, in addition to creating relatable content, a copywriter should have a good hold over other aspects too. These include grammar, vocabulary, and the knack to create content with great readability.
- Exciting Curiosity
An ideal copywriter should be driven by passion and curiosity. He should be keen to learn something new every day and should then exhibit it in his work. Imagine how much of a positive difference a curious and liberated copywriter can make to your marketing approach! He will be keen to learn about his target audience. Further, he will be interested in raising the bar of creativity and add new dimensions to his writing.
Curiosity in itself is a great teacher that is a part of active learning strategies in every sphere of life. As long as an individual is curious and open to learning, he will keep tweaking his potential. So, curiosity should be a criterion for hiring copywriters. There are multifarious ways in which you can judge candidates for their curiosity.
- Overwhelming creativity
Writers are hired because they know how to think outside the box. If it was about plain and monotonous writing, you can outsource it to anyone. But you know how imperative it is to create stellar content that attracts audiences and appeals to their trust and loyalty. For that, your brand needs a creative copywriter. Creativity, according to LinkedIn Learning, is a paramount skill across all domains. The need for creativity gets even bigger in marketing and copywriting.
People are interested in authentic, engaging, and unique content. For someone who is not creative enough, that could be too much for the asking. It is, in fact, hard to explain the significance of creativity in words. It can do incredible things to an organization and bring priceless ideas to the discussion table. The more creative your copywriters are, the greater will be the competitive edge. Creativity is and will always be one of the top employability skills.
- Skills for insightful research
Besides creativity and independent thinking, copywriting demands detailed research. It is significant for copywriters to have enough information and resources at their disposal. That is going to take a lot of research on the web and even through print media. For that, a copywriter should have the skills to analyze and skim the resources at hand.
Besides, a copywriter needs to upgrade his marketing knowledge with every new trend. Even that requires extensive research to understand the implications and impacts of the latest trends. Creativity or curiosity cannot always compensate for the lack of knowledge or research. All these verticals need to dwell parallel to each other. That is what will make a copywriter competent. Your marketing campaigns will have a lot to do with your copywriters’ competence!
- Understanding of target audience
This is an important skill from the purview of copywriters. Their work is to engage, attract and persuade the target audience. For that, they need to understand the preferences of each segment of the audience. Can anyone engage the audience without knowing what the audience wants? For instance, millennials may have a different set of expectations from a brand. On the other hand, the Gen Z shoppers may have preferences that are poles apart.
So, a detailed understanding of the intricacies of the target audience is important. This will give a brand the flexibility to create different content for different segments of the audience. This will need critical thinking and analytical skills. Any writer or any artist, for that matter, should have a connection with his audience. This connection depends on his ability to understand his audience. It is a romantic equation that he needs to build between the brand and the audience.
- The ability to deliver value
No brand can convert prospects into achievements unless they deliver value to the audience. Hence, the experiences extended to customers and potential customers are salient to a brand. With his creativity, writing skills, and agility, a copywriter needs to create value propositions.
A copywriter’s work is the reflection of the tone and voice of your business. He is meant to win a sense of authority for your business through his skills. The purpose is to deliver value and win customer trust and loyalty. Hence, the ideal candidate will be the one who has a knack for delivering value. You can judge for value based on a candidate’s emotional intelligence of EQ skills. People with high EQ have a better chance of connecting with a larger audience.
To encapsulate, copywriters are the heart and soul of your online marketing strategies. Content is your greatest asset in terms of taking your brand to the next level. Hence, you need people who are skillful, smart and know how to reinvent old things even if there is nothing new on offer. You need copywriters who can rethink and reimagine things to impress web users with their written copies. You need people who can invent great ideas even in the midst of hopelessness. For that, the above skills are desirable or, in fact, indispensable. As long as your copywriters have these skills, nothing can stop your brand from scaling new heights.