Everything You Need to Know About Copy vs Content
Do You Need, a Copywriter or a Content Writer?
The short answer...Well, it depends on your goals. Do you want to sell more products or services, earn new business and grow existing, attract new patients, drive traffic, increase marketing efforts, and/or focus more on informing your reader? The other short answer… all copy can be content, all content can’t be copy.
All options allow you to build a connection with your reader through digital communication. And both medical copywriting and content writing are perfectly capable of providing accurate, well-researched, science-backed, ethical information.
Copywriting
Copywriting is writing based on in-depth research of consumer behavior, buyer personas, social proof, and marketing trends to drive business conversions. Through storytelling, it builds relationships in a way that connects with your reader on a human and emotional level. Copywriters use SEO techniques for keywords and formatting to increase website visibility in search engines.
Copy is the workhorse of a marketing strategy. It can be short or long and it always has some kind of call-to-action [CTA].
Examples of CTAs
A call-to-action is simply asking your audience to take the next step. The next step might look like:
Sign/join now
Buy
Follow us here…
Get your free trial
Book an appointment with…
Claim your 20% off now
Share with a friend
Tell us what you think
Once you’ve built the relationship and established trust, you can go ahead and urge them to take a next step.
Content writing
Content writing is also a coveted skill. Content writing is typically thought of as informative, journalistic writing in long-form. Likewise, content writers dive into market, scholarly, and consumer research to create engaging content. While a content writer also has the job of building trust and informing the reader, they’re less focused on converting the audience in some kind of self-selecting-opt-in-join-now kind of way, see CTAs listed above. Content does not require a CTA.
Content writing is found mostly in explanatory blogs or articles, ebooks, newsletters, white papers, and social captions.
Where is copy used?
Copy is versatile and comes in many forms. Copy works on your website, landing pages, and sales pages. In your email blasts, campaigns, and newsletters. Products need polished copy too. Boring copy, lacking description, is not eye candy.
It also can be used when writing blogs —though blogs tend to lean towards being more informative than biased or persuasive. Adding a CTA to blog makes it copy.
If the writing urges the reader to take action, even if it’s not an immediate action, then it’s considered copy. An email nurture sequence that gently guides a prospect through a series of emails until they arrive at the final destination of downloading your ebook or purchasing your supplements or skincare products would be an example of this.
How does copy fit in my practice?
There’s a continuum of sales ‘intent’ when it comes to copy. The ultimate goal of copy is to sell more products and services, earn more business, make more money and increase the bottom line. Sales tactics are different for each industry.
Does ‘sales’ feel like a dirty word to you? It shouldn’t. Copy or sales writing doesn’t have to be pushy or overt. In a medical practice setting, sales should be an honest representation of what the practice offers. People can’t purchase if they don’t know what’s for sale.
Medical copywriting is more about keeping a trusted connection with the patient. It focuses on sharing accurate, science-backed medical information through blogs, email, and social. It also shares details about the office and team, highlighting relevant treatments, promos, and events.
It’s crucial to provide patients with information on treatments, services and products that they need and want to make them feel or look better and improve the quality of their life in some way.
You, as the physician, and the medical staff can only deliver so much information to the patient during an office visit. Your copy is the opportunity to provide more in-depth, relevant information when the timing is better, in a casual environment like an inbox, video, website or social.
If it’s not being persuasive then how’s it working for medical practices?
Copy is designed to delight the reader, relate to the reader, engage and tell a story. This interaction can happen in emails, newsletters, social captions, and more, as stated above.
Copy builds a relationship with the ‘shopper’ who is shopping around. They’re looking at you, the practice down the road with the Botox deal for $2/unit less, and a practice a little further away, that a friend recommended. So your communication, if you have any, needs to have a little something different like...personality. If you don’t have an outreach program, now’s the time to start. And if it’s mediocre at best, now’s the time for a change. There’s nothing mediocre about the care you give and the way you connect with your patients should showcase that fact.
When you make an effort to connect, it shows and is more likely to be reciprocated.
Copy works to solve a problem and provide honest and relevant solutions to the audience, your patient. It delivers value by sharing your knowledge and expertise. If it’s doing its job correctly, it can ask for a CTA.
If you want to know how you can polish up your current copy or you’re ready to improve how you connect with your patients outside the walls, contact me.