MarketingProfs Issues Report on the State of Digital Copywriting

Leading Marketing Hub, MarketingProfs, has issued an in-depth report detailing the challenges that marketers and content creators face when it comes to digital copywriting, Write House can reveal.

According to the report a high proportion (60%) of marketers and content creators state that a ‘lack of understanding about what good copy is’ represents the biggest challenge of digital copywriting.

Other challenges affecting the production of good digital copy include: work overload/lack of staff (55%), finding skilled writers (51%), meeting SEO requirements (44%), input from stakeholders (40%), lack of writing guidelines (37%), insufficient time to check copy (34%), and no copywriting training (31%).

Other key findings from the report, titled ‘The State of Digital Copywriting’, which was compiled following a survey of 365 marketers, copywriters, content editors, content strategists and consultants, predominantly based in the UK, revealed the following:

Copywriting Activity

• 74% of respondents check and proof copy before it goes live
• 58% use language and style guidelines
• Only 32% have a standard content structure format for their writing
• Just 19% train all their content creators in web writing

Source: Marketingprofs.com

Workflow

• 52% of respondents write copy on demand, in response to business needs
• Just 18% roll out copy according to a content plan, and only 9.8% always use a creative brief
• 43% have, on average, 1-2 stakeholders who need to sign off on a key piece of web copy, and 42% have 3-5 stakeholders
• 42% of time is spent creating content, and the rest is spent planning, delivering, and governing it

Source: Marketingprofs.com

Measurement

• 56% of respondents measure the effectiveness of copy by unique visits or page views
• 48% measure effectiveness by looking at conversions
• 20% aren't measuring the effectiveness of their copy at all

Source: Marketingprofs.com

Write House, Wolverhampton, understands that the majority of responses within the research came from marketers (20.7%), followed by copywriters (10.6%), content editors (9.8%), consultants (3.9%) and content strategists (3.6%).

Write House founder and copywriter, Daniel Waldron, commented: “The report gives copywriters and marketers valuable insight into the habits of copywriters and a glimpse into the state of digital copywriting as a whole. This information will enable the Write House copywriting service to improve its own standards therefore, the research is welcomed.”

Copywriting News - Google Criticised for Lazy Copywriting Call-Out Line – Write House Reports

In the promotion of its new Chromebook Pixel laptop, search engine giant Google has been criticised for lacklustre copywriting efforts.

One copywriting commentator branded Google’s efforts “lazy and stupid”. Often revered for their ability to produce compelling copy regarding their hardware, Google copywriters came under scrutiny based on just one line within the product description of their new state of the art 

laptop.

So what’s got copywriters riled? After going to all the effort to describe the laptop’s “0.55mm layer of touch-enabled Gorilla® Glass fused directly to the screen, which provides smooth touch interactions while preserving picture clarity.”

And,

“Pixel is machined from an anodized aluminium alloy to a tight tolerance, leaving nothing extraneous or distracting: vents are hidden, screws invisible, and stereo speakers seamlessly tucked away beneath the backlit keyboard.”

Google went on to describe the laptop’s ‘light bar’ and here’s where copywriters criticise Google’s lazy efforts. In describing the light bar Google simply said: “Just because it looks cool.”

In a statement from one copywriting expert, he said: “The line is simply lazy and cynical, it sells a product to clients admirably in the first instance and then shatters the whole perception of the product with one piece of lazy, ‘can’t be bothered’ copy. In this instance it would have been better to say nothing at all.”

No comment was made by Google.