A Lesson About Copywriting For Non-English Speakers.
And for every writer.
I had been a Creative Writer for a radio station for eight years before this pandemic hit. All I did was write commercials for them. Otherwise, being a Copywriter.
When I was learning to be a Copywriter both in Broadcasting school and upgrading my skills during the pandemic (I wanted to write for the web as well), I did learn a few things. One is that copywriting is writing to sell with a target market in mind.
For those of you who are not entrepreneurs, a target market is a population of people you are selling to, e.g., parents, seniors, business people, etc. Of course, this also includes age, where they live, and other life experiences as well.
I know the difference between B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Customer or Consumer) copywriting. The last B2B commercial that I did was for an App company that wanted me to do an ad targeting those working behind the scenes in Movies and Television.
An Email.
Yesterday, I received an email on my freelance website from a fellow writer from South America. However, she did mention that she has noticed a lot of grammatical errors (Which is bad for a website) and that my writing is more Colloquial and not Business English.
I know that my grammar is not that great. No writer’s grammar is perfect. Even very famous authors. I do use Grammarly and I will fix that, no problem. I am glad that this person mentioned that.
And by the way, I can write about other people’s products or services, but I have a hard time selling myself. It’s hard to talk about what you can offer yourself as a Freelance Copywriter. And I am not the only Copywriter who has this problem. So if anyone can help me with my website, please let me know in the comments and I’ll give you the URL.
She also gave me her email address and website. I did respond to her on my website to explain something that she wrote that shocked me.
The One Thing She Wrote That Did Shock Me.
The only thing that I have a problem with regarding this email is her writing that most of my writing is Colloquial (Conversational) English and not Business. That is a problem because Copywriting is all about selling to a particular audience.
You wouldn’t want to write about all things IT to a teenage girl who’s only interested in texting her friends all the time, for example.
So not all Copywriting is about business. Another example of copywriting is someone wanting me to help write a description of a product on Amazon. Or write posts on their social media page selling their items. Or, in my case, writing commercials for radio/podcast and TV/YouTube. So Copywriting is for all mediums.
Otherwise, for those of you whose English is a second language, copywriting does involve lots of conversational English, not the business kind. The reason is that you want to connect to the audience, whether B2C or B2B, on an emotional level. Yes, emotions like frustration, excitement, and passion are all huge parts of copywriting. You want to sell to people; the psychology is the key. That’s the way you want to get people to respond to your call to action. Business English does not involve any emotions at all.
But you can use some Business English.
The only time that you can use Business English in Copywriting is when you are working with B2B. I am going to use the example of IT again. If an IT company has a Zoom Conference that they want other IT professionals to attend, Business English will do the best there. Other than that, you can still use conversational English for B2B sales.
The Reason to use Conversational English in Copywriting.
The big reason that all Copywriters use conversational English is that they want their client’s target market to understand what they are selling and buy it. I mean that there are certain things that business people know that the average person doesn’t. There are certain things that seniors can relate to that young adults don’t. You get the idea.
I am going to use my example of the App Company that I have written for earlier. I have worked a bit behind the scenes in movies and TV, so I know what it is like doing those jobs. The commercial was for a scheduling app for that industry because they might need, for example, a sound person at the last minute and go to the app to see who is available right away. Since some people in the Entertainment Industry don’t understand digital tech lingo, conversational English is used to sell that app.
What is the Point?
If you are an English as a second language speaker who wants to be a Copywriter, the type of English you use depends on your client’s target market. That’s what Copywriting is all about. The same goes for those who want to be Freelancers and Entrepreneurs. Or if you’re going to create a podcast or a YouTube video.
By the way, this person did leave their email and web address in their communication to me. So if you want to write to their about this, I can give their information if you want to.
For that Person Who Emailed Me This Issue.
I hope that you are reading this and learning something new. Of course, you made me think about changing the template of my website to make it more fun. And I am going to correct the grammar when I have time. But if you are a copywriter or starting your freelance business, you might want to take some classes on it. Here’s one I recommend from Udemy: The Complete Copywriting Course : Write to Sell Like a Pro | Udemy. You might want to also join Tam’s Copy Kooks Club on Facebook or her website, Copy Kooks. This is for me to prove that you don’t necessarily need to write in Business English when you are trying to sell something.
