An inter­est­ing debate is rag­ing among copy­writ­ers and con­tent devel­op­ers about the dif­fer­ences, if any, between writ­ing copy for the web ver­sus writ­ing content.

Pro­lific copy­writer Nick Usborne con­ducted a sur­vey with his newslet­ter read­ers to dis­cover how many among them are copy­writ­ers, and how many are con­tent writers.

The result was split three ways: one-​​third copy­writ­ers, one-​​third con­tent writ­ers, and the final third both.

Actual titles aside, I think the results may be mis­lead­ing. Rea­son is, I believe all online copy is con­tent but not all con­tent is copy. Try­ing to dis­tin­guish the two is a problem.

Most web design­ers, web­mas­ters, and con­tent writ­ers develop text for web­sites in a way to edu­cate vis­i­tors. They hold the notion that “con­tent is king,” “con­tent increases search engine rank­ings,” “con­tent makes a web­site sticky,” and so on. That’s all fine and good.

But I believe con­tent fails when it strives only at inform­ing the reader, and thus lacks impor­tant ele­ments that take her “by the hand” and com­pels her to do some­thing — any­thing, includ­ing the sim­ple act of read­ing the con­tent in the first place.

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“Suc­cess in mar­ket­ing is sim­ple … Find the right mes­sage, use the right media, and deliver it to the right mar­ket.” — Cre­ator of “Mag­netic Mar­ket­ing,” Dan Kennedy, who’se my men­tor and the inspi­ra­tion behind this book.

Wel­come to “The 10 Com­mand­ments of Power Posi­tion­ing!” The fol­low­ing book is packed full of pow­er­ful mar­ket­ing secrets that will help you and your busi­ness enhance its image and increase its busi­ness… Effortlessly!

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The fol­low­ing is prob­a­bly the great­est com­mand­ment in “Power Positioning.”

Now that we’ve talked about lead gen­er­a­tion adver­tis­ing, the next step is where to adver­tise. And the trick to hav­ing as many pre-​​qualified prospects come for­ward is to have your ad noticed and read by such a spe­cific group of peo­ple as much, as often, and as effec­tively as pos­si­ble. Gen­eral pub­li­ca­tions won’t do that and they cost a lot of money… That’s cost-​​per-​​lead money.

Spe­cial­ized pub­li­ca­tions, on the other hand, have the dis­tinc­tion of appeal­ing to a spe­cific audi­ence and thus increase the chances of it being noticed as well as read. Why? If one news­pa­per has a read­er­ship of 100,000 but only 25,000 fits into your demo­graph­ics, where another has only 40,000 read­ers but all of which fits into your demo­graph­ics (because the pub­li­ca­tion is spe­cial­ized), which one do you think will give you the great­est response?

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The sever­est test of an adver­tis­ing man is in sell­ing goods by mail. But that is a school from which he must grad­u­ate before he can hope for suc­cess. There cost and result are imme­di­ately appar­ent. False the­o­ries melt away like snowflakes in the sun. The adver­tis­ing is prof­itable or it is not, clearly on the face of returns. Fig­ures which do not lie tell one at once the mer­its of an ad.

This puts men on their met­tle. All guess­work is elim­i­nated. Every mis­take is con­spic­u­ous. One quickly loses his con­ceit by learn­ing how often his judg­ment errs — often nine times in ten.

There one learns that adver­tis­ing must be done on a sci­en­tific basis to have any fair chance of suc­cess. And he learns that every wasted dol­lar adds to the cost of results. Here is a tough effi­ciency and econ­omy under a mas­ter who can’t be fooled. Then, and only then, is he apt to apply the same prin­ci­ples and keys to all advertising.

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To prop­erly under­stand adver­tis­ing or to learn even its rudi­ments one must start with the right con­cep­tion. Adver­tis­ing is sales­man­ship. Its prin­ci­ples are the prin­ci­ples of sales­man­ship. Suc­cesses and fail­ures in both lines are due to like causes. Thus every adver­tis­ing ques­tion should be answered by the salesman’s standards.

Let us empha­size that point. The only pur­pose of adver­tis­ing is to make sales. It is prof­itable or unprof­itable accord­ing to its actual sales.

It is not for gen­eral effect. It is not to keep your name before the peo­ple. It is not pri­mar­ily to aid your other sales­men. Treat it as a sales­man. Force it to jus­tify itself. Com­pare it with other sales­men. Fig­ure its cost and result. Accept no excuses which good sales­men do not make. Then you will not go far wrong.

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Here’s a reprint of an answer I gave a stu­dent in another forum who asked:

“Long copy? Or short copy?”

1. Long copy ver­sus short copy has been the sin­gle great­est debate since the begin­ning of the print­ing press. But long copy always out­per­forms short copy. Don’t be long for the sake of being long. Be long for the sake of pro­vid­ing as much infor­ma­tion as is needed to make the sale — and not one word more.

2. Peo­ple object to read­ing copy because: a) they are not tar­geted and b) the copy is bor­ing. “Length” is the excuse because it’s a com­mon cur­rency. “Bor­ing” is sub­jec­tive. “Long” is objec­tive. When copy starts to bore you, you nat­u­rally are inclined to say it’s “too long.” It’s too long because of the fact that it started to drag, caus­ing the reader to lose interest.

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