The Goals of Copy and Content—Similarities You Need To Know

Imagine ordering food at an expensive, new restaurant. You wait twenty minutes and it finally arrives. The smell is intoxicating and you’re itching to chow down. But wait, you don’t have any utensils. The waiter left and your food is getting cold. This is a disaster! 

Having good content without quality copywriting is like this situation: no matter how wonderful the “food” is, there’s no point if you can’t reach it.

Today we’re looking at the differences between copy and content— and why you need both to be successful.

Ignore the fact that finger food exists.

The Goal of Content Is To Build Trust

The purpose of content is to educate, entertain, or provide information. Anything from blogs to videos to podcasts is all content. 

Most consumers go through a research phase before committing to a product or service. If a company gives away free information to help consumers through that phase, it seats that company as an authority in their field. 

It takes most consumers several interactions with content before they make a decision. This is why content is considered a soft sell— whoever is doing the content creation is playing the long game.

The Goal of Copy Is To Get People To Take Action. 

I’m not talking about pitchforks and riots. Taking action can mean something simple like signing up for a newsletter. Copy is any word written to convey a marketing message. The purpose is to get the message across so people do something about it. Copy is meant to be somewhat invisible— if it reads like an advertisement viewers will tune it out. 

Product descriptions, headlines, the paragraphs written on a website’s homepage— that’s all copy.

Where It Overlaps and Where It Doesn’t

Whether it's content or copy, you’re going to have an objective, an audience, and a service.

The objective with copy is to get people to do something— follow, subscribe, make a purchase. With content the objective is usually to inform or educate, or in other words, to build a relationship.

The audience should be the same for both your copy and content. Don’t attract magicians if your product is for rock climbers (unless you have a very specific niche, and in that case, please invite me to your product launch).

Your service answers the standard who, what, when, where, why, and how questions. Who are you? What are you selling? How are you qualified? So on and so forth.

The way you convey the service will look different depending on the writing. Let’s use a SCUBA diving agency as an example.

With copy you are not only answering these questions, but conveying hidden benefits of your service. As a SCUBA agency, you don’t just sell dives— you sell time with your family, an unforgettable experience, and a connection with the sea. You hit the standard questions and pepper in the benefits.

Your content may look like answering common questions new divers have. Maybe you’re writing articles about each dive site. Perhaps you’re telling stories of people who went diving with you and what new customers can expect. The content gives away information while plugging the dive agency. The standard questions are answered along the way.

When Marketing, You Can’t Have One Without the Other

You need both copy and content. They go together like yin and yang, peanut butter and jelly, Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart.

One could argue that written content is technically copy over time, but that’s a discussion for another day. Interested in seeing both in action? Check out my homepage for examples of copy and my other blog posts for content.