Copywriting vs Content Marketing: What's the difference?
Content, content, content. There's so many different types, but what's the difference between copywriting and content marketing? They do go hand in hand but are completely different. The difference between the two is that one can exist without the other. Copywriting can exist as a standalone skill, the very backbone of everything media-related - taglines, body text etc.
Content marketing, on the other hand, very much relies on copywriting but is more of an 'all seeing' marketing technique. Creating, distributing, attracting and engaging. The content that is produced off the back of a content marketing strategy (where audience is defined) is designed to both attract and attain customers. Copywriting is a core step that goes into content marketing strategies.
In my view, content marketing is a throwback to early advertising. One quite famous piece is Theodore MacManus' Cadillac advert in 1915. He was a copywriter who played on peoples' imaginations. His advert builds brand and isn't product heavy. It's a great example of what we're doing now.
Great content looks like…… a story
Always Coca Cola? Well, apparently, as Coca Cola is still riding the wave of its brand content's successes and has made sure its marketing (brand marketing) always resembles a story.
Branded content produced by brand journalists is something we're going to see a lot of in 2014, making way for people who have backgrounds in journalism, writing and storytelling.
Last year Coca Cola released its checklist for content that successfully tells a story, something it did really well with its 'Journey' website, an entirely rebranded version of Coca Cola's site which was given an editorial, magazine-like format and the quality of the content was high and compelling, including blog and video content.
What's interesting is the people behind the campaign all had backgrounds in journalism. Coca Cola released these tips for others looking to improve their content marketing or storytelling efforts:
"We have started to recruit conversation managers, coders, creators, photographers and film makers into our marketing teams so that we can develop content that is both agile and excellent."
More recently, high street retailer M&S has recruited journalists to look after its revamped website. These journalists will be producing content for the life and style section.
Indeed the future of good content looks remarkably like good journalism.
