Content Marketer vs Copywriter: Who Should I Hire?

Calistus Mbachu
5 min readNov 20, 2018

Which of these experts should I hire when looking to create site contents? The answer to this question depends on what type of contents you need and their purpose.

In this day and age, content marketing is one of the best strategies to employ when publicising a new business, product or service. Complementarily, copywriting tactics push the readers to take action.

To better understand whom to hire between a Content Marketer and a Copywriter, it is necessary to understand where their expertise lies.

Who is a Content Marketer?

A content marketer is a person who engages in the creation of contents for marketing purpose for businesses, products or services. Basically, the Marketer designs online marketing materials intended to create awareness and stimulate clients / customers’ interest about a particular product / service.

Examples of these materials are:

  • Blog posts
  • Videos
  • E-books
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletters
  • Social media posts
  • White Papers

Who is a Copywriter?

A Copywriter is a person that engages in creating contents for advertisement and publicity for businesses, products or services. In a nutshell, a Copywriter ensures that the content created leads target audience / reader into taking action, subsequently leading to sales.

Examples of what a Copywriter creates are:

  • Ad designs
  • Title page creation
  • SEO techniques adherence
  • Product, service and company’s description
  • ‘Welcome’ and ‘Thank you’ messages

Comparing a Content Marketer and a Copywriter

A Content Marketer and a Copywriter are similar to one another, in the sense that, they both produce content aimed at advancing a course of action. In general, writing contents is the main job of both, but the type of content they write is what separates them from each other.

Differences between a Content Marketer and a Copywriter

Content marketing and copywriting are two different lines of expertise. A Content Marketer writes to inform, recommend and gets you to know, while a Copywriter sells, persuades, directs and gets you to take action.

So, it can be said that:

  • A Content Marketer informs, while a Copywriter sells.
  • A Content Marketer recommends, while a Copywriter persuades.
  • A Content Marketer wants you to know, while a Copywriter wants you to take action.
  • While a Content Marketer writes long content, a Copywriter’s content is usually short and direct.

Making a choice in different scenarios

Given different scenarios, how do you know which to hire between the two experts? For the purpose of clarity, I have listed four different scenarios to elevate your understanding and know how to choose the right expert for your business.

Scenario 1: Sending out ‘for sale’ newsletters

In this scenario, you are thinking of sending out information to sell a product / service to the existing customers on your email list. Some of them may have bought something previously, and some may be new subscribers.

So, who do you hire? For this scenario, you will need the service of a Copywriter. Since the job of a Copywriter is to persuade, you will need persuasive content that can get your subscribers to buy.

Scenario 2: Designing home, promotion or service page

Every home and product page should focus on persuading the visitor to take action on first visit. So, outstanding description of your business and what it offers is needed, in addition to a solid call to action.

In essence, you will need the service of a Copywriter here. However, if you want longer content on these pages, then go for both experts, but assign different tasks.

Scenario 3: Attracting audience to your site

This is the work of a Content Marketer. The Marketer will use series of channels and tools to draw the attention of target audience to the site. This will be by providing engaging contents showcasing the features of your business, products or services.

Scenario 4: Launching and announcing new products / services

In this scenario, you have to employ both experts. The Content Marketer will take care of creating new blog posts informing and recommending the new products / service to your audience. In addition, the Marketer sends product annoucement message to your list.

A Copywriter, on the other hand, will design ads embedded to the posts to push readers in taking action.

Hiring both Content Marketer and Copywriter

The work of both are complimentary to each other. A valued content without copy, is incomplete. Likewise, a well crafted copy without valued content is incomplete.

Imagine an instance where you publish a very interesting article with no call to action. It may serve as a loss to your business. Why? You provided content that serves a purpose or solves problems, but with no lead generated through the article. With a strong call to action, you may get the readers to act.

In many situations, an interested reader may want to do more when satisfied with your content. Without providing how to do so, you are basically losing out on keeping clients / customers for your business.

Knowing when to hire

If you are an expert in this field of marketing, you surely know how to choose between a Content Marketer and a Copywriter. But there cases when you need to take some steps back and hire any of these experts

You may wonder: how on earth should an expert hire someone else for what he / she knows? Sometimes, an expert does need extra hand. To put it plainly, experts are always in need of fresh ideas in order to keep pushing ahead.

So, should this be the case, it will be better to think deeper, and you may need an expert for one or more of the reasons listed in these two articles below:

Summary

Having a valuable content is vital if you want to keep readers from coming back to you web pages. For this reason, you need to understand which expert will solve your issues correctly and when to hire any of them.

But getting the right expert is one aspect. Another aspect is attracting readers through organic search channel. For this, getting web pages to appear on search engines is the way to go. To learn more about search engine optimisation processes, read my SEO checklist to know more.

And in case of any questions or need a writer for your web pages, do not hesitate to contact me. I am always available to assist in getting your site up and running.

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