Content Writing vs Copywriting: 5 Key Differences

Copy sells and content educates. There’s more to content writing and copywriting than this commonly used differentiator. 

Both the writing forms are similar in some ways and different in others. From the writing style to their goals, a lot changes when we look at each form individually. 

Using any one of the two for your business without knowing the difference can lead to you hiring the wrong person or spending unnecessarily.

Today, I’ll share: 

• Key differences between content writing and copywriting.
• The different techniques used for each form.
• What makes them similar?
• Which one is more suitable for your business?

At the end of this article, you’ll know whether to choose content writing or copywriting for your business needs. 

What is Content writing?

The goal of content writing is to inform and educate the readers. It’s a research-driven writing form. 

A good piece of content writing includes:

Research: When creating valuable content, the first step is research. Around 7.5 million blogs are published each year. If you want to stand out, your foundation needs to be strong. In the case of content writing, that foundation is research. 

The research process includes:

• Analyzing the existing content
• Finding content gaps
• Finding original sources to cite
• Curating and tailoring your unique experience
• Collecting data from industry experts and customers/audience

For example: Hubspot’s State of marketing report for 2024. It includes well-researched data from their own experience and industry knowledge from experts. 

SEO: If research is the backbone, SEO is the nervous system. SEO is the process of including proper phrases and practices to get your content the right eyeballs. 

The ultimate goal of every published piece of content is to reach the ideal audience. With SEO, you ensure your content’s visibility on search engines. 

For example: Continuing the example of Hubspot’s marketing report. It’s the first organic search for the keyword. That’s SEO done right for you.

Educational/valuable content: The audience wants real content that solves problems, informs, or entertains. Simply put, they want content that leaves them at least a percent better than before reading it. Anything less, and the audience and, in turn, the search engines discard the content. 

Engagement with the brand: Due to the informative and entertaining nature of content writing, it’s a top priority for businesses wanting to create a personal brand. Content writing should engage the audience with strong visualization and storytelling, personal writing tone, examples, etc.

Creating familiarity with the brand: Content writing also serves as a medium to familiarize the audience with your business. Every piece of content helps the audience learn more about your business and what you offer/what makes you stand out. 

Audience-centric: As the main purpose of content writing is to make information accessible to the audience and solve their problems, you must create audience-centric content. Your audience is the hero of the story. Your business is just a guide. The content should revolve around the audience and make them feel, “This is just what I wanted!”

Suggested Reading: Best AI Content Writing Tools (Under $50)

Forms of Content Writing

Blogs: They’re often informative, conversational, and opinion-based content published frequently on websites. Blogs cover a wide array of topics and a prime factor of generating traffic for the website.

E-books: Often used as a lead magnet or a freebie, e-books are a great way to extend value and get the audience from a viewer to an engaging lead. They usually cover a sub-topic of your niche in depth. They’re also a major medium of earning passive income. 
For example: An ebook on blog titles will contain every detail for crafting attention-grabbing titles. 

Press releases: They’re official statements or announcements issued by organizations to the media. They follow a specific format and are designed to attract journalistic attention.

Email newsletters: They’re a great way to nurture leads and customers. These are emails released weekly or bi-weekly to the audience who have shared their email with you. Email newsletters are usually how-to guides, regular updates of your business, or informational content that enrich the audience. 

Social media posts: Short, impactful content designed for platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. It aims to capture attention quickly and encourage engagement.

What is Copywriting?

Copywriting aims to get the audience to take a certain action. The persuasive text or “copy” is written such that it:

• Prompts a purchase decision
• Leads to a specific conversion
• Makes the readers take the next logical step

The key characteristics of copywriting are:

Persuasion: Copywriting’s fundamental goal is to persuade the reader or audience to perform a particular action, such as buying a product or signing up for a service. But the persuasion shouldn’t feel like hard selling. It should always have the audience’s benefits at heart. 

Commercial element: The final goal of a copy is to take a commercial action. It could be registrations, sales, signups, or anything else—but it’s aimed at getting benefited commercially. 

Clear Call-to-Action (CTA): A strong CTA is imperative for the audience to take commercial action. The CTA acts as a final push, not leaving any stone unturned regarding what you want the audience to do next. 

Emotional resonance: Your copy accomplishes its purpose when you know what the audience wants to buy and what makes them decide. To understand that, you need to understand your audience’s emotions correctly. An understanding of psychology is necessary to write a persuasive copy.

Concise and direct: Copywriting is concise and to the point. It conveys the message clearly and avoids unnecessary details, keeping the reader’s attention.

Benefits-oriented: People never buy the features; they buy the benefits. Imagine you’re buying a mat for your dog.

Consider the difference between these two descriptions for a dog mat:

You won’t buy an ad telling you about how it uses elements like cotton or phosphorus. What the mat is made of doesn’t matter to you till it gets the job done. You’d buy the product that tells you you only need to clean the mat once a month. 

Copy that focuses on benefits sales. 

Common Forms of Copywriting

Ads: Ads are print and digital media’s most common copywriting form. Consider them a direct form of copywriting since their purpose is clearly to persuade the audience to buy. Ads can be found on various platforms, including social media, search engines, websites, and traditional media like TV and radio. Effective ad copy often employs a concise and compelling writing style.

Here’s an example of an Instagram ad by Sugar Cosmetics.

Social media content: It’s similar to what we saw in the content writing forms. Social media content focuses on creating crisp and clear captions, posts, video content, etc., to build a brand and attract and engage the audience.

Email marketing copy: It’s written for email campaigns, newsletters, and promotional emails, focusing on persuading recipients to click through and take a specific action. It’s similar to the email newsletters we discussed above. But these emails are more on the sales end of the spectrum. 

Here’s an example of a marketing email from Wix.

Product descriptions: Found on e-commerce platforms, product descriptions highlight features and benefits, aiming to convince the reader to buy. 

For example: Amazon does an excellent job of promoting their products with a benefits-first product description. It includes:

• Details about the product
• How it helps you
• Images and videos for better understanding
• User ratings and reviews

Sales/landing pages: They’re standalone web pages focused on a specific product, service, or offer. These pages typically include compelling headlines, engaging content, testimonials, and a clear call to action. The goal is to guide visitors through the sales funnel and encourage them to make a purchase or take a desired action.

Brochures: They’re printed or digital marketing materials providing information about a company, product, or service. They often combine text and visuals for a comprehensive overview. This format may cover company background, product/service details, benefits, and contact information. 

Content Writing vs Copywriting: Key Differences

Let’s get straight into the differences between content writing and copywriting. So you know when to use them for your business. 

Goal

The outcome of content writing is to: 

• Help the readers identify a problem they’re facing
• Provide an actionable solution to that problem.
• Help them understand why that solution is the best for them.
• Clarify any objections they might have about implementing the solutions. 
• Provide them with proven results, data, case studies, and research to go in-depth of the problem. 

On the other hand, copywriting aims to get the readers to: 

• Sign up for an event/class/webinar
• Purchase a product/service
• Click a button, etc.

To put it in other words, content writing aims to guide your readers to your solution. Meanwhile, copywriting encourages them to invest in your solution.

Content Length

Usually, content writing has a larger word count and length than copywriting. 

Blogs, articles, e-books, etc., usually range from 4000 to 5000 words. It’s because the goal is in-depth knowledge and information about the topic at hand.

Copywriting is often smaller in length. Social media content and ads are even a couple of sentences long. Since the aim is to get the readers’ attention quickly and engross them, the content is snappier. 

However, that doesn’t imply a copy is always short. Landing pages are longer than other forms of copy. They include features of the product, benefits, testimonials, details about the business, case studies, FAQs, video tutorials, etc. 

Copywriter Matt Barker says the longer the landing page, the more sales you secure. 

The Tone of Writing

The tone is what you’d see if you were to personify the written text. Will you see a guide/tutor helping you or a smart salesman giving you the best deals?

For content writing, the tone is engaging, informative yet friendly, and guiding. For copywriting, the tone is persuasive, enticing, and direct. 

Emotions

Though humans justify their decisions as logic, they often let emotions take the decisions. What sort of emotions your content or copy evokes also determines their success. 

Content should evoke a feeling of relief, trust, and confidence. A copy that works makes the readers feel eagerness, FOMO, curiosity, anticipation, etc. 

Target Audience

It’s not easy to simply draw a line between the target audience for content writing and copywriting. 

To keep things simple, content writing caters to an audience in all stages of the buyer’s journey (The complete funnel).

For example: Consider a college student, Matt, who writes well. He doesn’t know yet how to turn this hobby into a paying skill. One day, he comes upon a blog, “How to start a side hustle as a college student.” The blog talks about becoming a freelance content writer and earning a decent amount of money. That gets Matt thinking he could turn his hobby into a profitable skill.

Now, Matt has gone from the problem-unaware stage to the problem-aware stage. 

He dives deep into understanding how to learn professional content writing. His search history is filled with: “What is content writing?” “How to become a content writer?” “How much is a content writer paid?” 

You get it.

It’s time to search for the best solution: “Best content writing courses.”

Boom! He sees the best courses, finds one, and SOLD!

Note that all this is still content writing. Content writing appears at every level of the buyer’s journey. 

Let’s flip this example and imagine that Matt sees an ad for a content writing course on Instagram. It won’t go into the informational details about the course. A tagline, a description, and a CTA would be the least it’ll have. 

Why? Because it’s a copy—solely written to generate sales. It targets only the buyers in their decision-making stage. 

Matt will most likely see this Instagram ad after going through some top-of-the-funnel content about content writing. 

Metrics to Measure Success

Content writing success is measured with the following: 

• Monthly traffic: Indicates the overall reach and popularity of your content. More views suggest higher visibility and potential audience engagement.
• Unique page views: Measures the actual number of individuals who visited your content, providing insight into your audience size.
• Time spent on page: Longer durations imply that the material is valuable and retains the audience’s interest.
• Bounce rate: A high bounce rate means readers didn’t find the information interesting or useful.
• Social shares and engagement: Reflects how well your content resonates with the audience and its social media impact.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): Measures the effectiveness of your content in prompting users to take the next step.
• Search engine ranking: Determines if the search engine algorithms find your content useful and the best solution for the keyword.
• Customer feedback: Provides qualitative insights into audience perception and areas for improvement.

Copywriting success depends on the following:

• Conversion rate: Indicate the effectiveness of the copy in driving user actions.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): Reflects the ability of the copy to capture attention and prompt engagement.
• Sales: Directly ties the effectiveness of the copy to business outcomes.
• Brand sentiment: Shows how the copy influences the audience’s perception of the brand.
• Return on Investment (ROI): Assesses the financial impact of the copywriting efforts.
• Lead generation: Measures the effectiveness of the copy in attracting potential customers.
• Customer feedback: Provides qualitative insights into customer perception and potential areas for improvement.

Copy-Content Convergence

We discussed customer feedback, CTR, social media content, and email newsletters in regard to both content and copywriting. 

We also saw blogs as the bottom-of-the-funnel content in Matt’s example.

It shows that copy and content are not completely inseparable. 

So, where do they converge?

• SEO: It binds all content forms together. To get eyeballs on your content, you need SEO. Using proper target keywords and understanding and implementing the techniques of SEO to get your content ranked or copy visible is a must.

• Value for time: Whether your content is to educate or to prompt sales, it’ll fail if it fails to deliver value in exchange for the time readers invest. That makes content and copywriting similar—both should provide value, not fluff.
• Engagement: If the audience yawns when reading your copy or scratches their heads trying to make sense of your content, they’re as good as waste. The sign of good content writing is the trust it builds with the audience. It makes them return for more, believing their problems will be answered. Similarly, a good copy promises to intrigue, engage, and entice the audience, finally making them click the action button.
• Inform and sale: Finally, content writing also sells along with informing. Copy also informs along with selling.

Consider this example: 

The article on the best car seats for kids is indeed guiding you to the best buying decision. 

It has a top picks section with links to the sales pages. You’ll find the product reviews that help increase sales. 

Another example is Ahrefs. In the article “How to conduct competitive research,” they’re educating the reader while using their product. It’s automatically promoting their product without directly doing any copywriting. 

On the other hand, when the landing page for SurferSEO talks about its benefits, isn’t it educating the audience about the tool? Every piece of copy educates you before it convinces you to buy the product. 

You see, all these examples clearly prove that even content can sell and copy can persuade. 

How do you Choose What’s Better for Your Business?

It depends on the specific goals, audience, and the nature of your products or services. Revisit your business objectives and marketing goals. 

Content writing is the ideal choice if you aim to educate your audience, build a loyal customer base, and increase engagement. 

On the other hand, if your goal is direct sales or lead generation, copywriting is the way to go.

Realistically, you need both content and copywriting to some extent to scale your business. In today’s era, where content is king, it’s what rules the kingdom of your business. 

So, how do you integrate both content and copywriting in your business?

How to Integrate Content Writing and Copywriting for Your Business? 

A blend of content writing and copywriting often proves to be the most successful business approach. Valuable content develops trust and creates loyal audiences, while persuasive copies convert prospects into customers. Together, they create a balanced, robust content strategy. 

Today, customers trust the brands that are omnipresent on all social media channels and build trust through content. Your selling copy needs a solid informative and educational content strategy. 

At the same time, you can’t only keep educating the audience. It needs to lead to sales. That’s where copywriting adds the monetization aspect to your informative content. 

Too much emphasis on selling could drive your audience away, while not enough promotional content could impact your conversion rates. Continually test and adjust, ensuring you add value and meet your business objectives. 

With the right balance, you can cultivate an engaged audience while driving actions that impact your bottom line.

What Pays More? Content Writing or Copywriting?

Generally, copywriting pays more than content writing. Since copywriting is directly tied to sales and conversions, skilled copywriters who generate a higher ROI often demand higher pay.

However, that doesn’t undermine the role of a content writer. Content writing is valuable for building brand authority, engaging audiences, and improving SEO. Simply put, well-developed content increases the chances of your copywriting success. 

So, deciding which one pays more isn’t a black-and-white answer. However, understanding what contributes to each format’s success and what each writer brings to the table can help you determine the rates. 

Here’s what you can consider when deciding the pay:

1. Impact of conversions
2. Your business goals
3. Writer’s Expertise
4. ROI Focus

You can even hire writers who specialize in both formats. Honestly, every writer should be aware of both the content and copywriting. But some specialize in only one while others focus on both. Whom you hire also determines how much you’d have to pay.

Final Take on the Difference Between Content Writing and Copywriting

Now you know that both formats have some similarities and differences. But any business will benefit the most when the two are used together. Remember, the objective is not about choosing content writing over copywriting or vice versa. It’s about applying their unique strengths in harmony to achieve your business goals.

Frequently Asked Questions

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