The world of creative writing provides writers, marketers and even companies with multiple ways to engage in customized and powerful storytelling practices. It allows them to focus on curating content that will not only attract the consumer, but also an opportunity to showcase feelings, emotions and creativity in their writing.

We like to see these opportunities as blank canvases and you, as the creator, hold the power to develop engaging brand stories and interesting content.

Before you get into the in-depth reading of copy, content and copywriting used interchangeably throughout the article, let’s do a quick recap on the copy vs. content conundrum.

Content is material that is created to educate, inform or entertain your readers.

Copy, on the other hand, is a type of written content aimed to promote or sell your company’s products or services to your target audiences.

While content writing can be a creative and fun process, editing your creative materials can be a little more tedious. Imagine “free-writing” for your readers without considering grammatical errors, tone, vocabulary, sentence structure and more. Your content would come out naturally, or freely, but it most likely wouldn’t make much sense and would contain more than a handful of errors. Do that with your company materials and you would lose your audience – an outcome all businesses want to avoid.

Paying attention to every written detail is impossible. Instead, we developed a quick checklist to help you “dot all your I’s and cross all your T’s.”

So, let’s get down to business.

1 Have you checked for spelling errors?

Your content should be error-free and easy to comprehend. When writing, make sure that you are paying attention to important details such as spelling. A company blog or other written collateral that is laced with spelling errors can be dangerous and can raise questions about your company’s lack of attention to detail, validity, professionalism and more. It can also lead to losing a sale or a potential customer before the relationship has even started.

You can easily remedy this by:

• Proofreading your content. Take a break and then go back and review the material. Print it out if it helps. Read it slowly. You’ll be surprised how easily you overlooked some minor errors.

• Have other team members read your work. Having fresh or new eyes to review material helps.

• For larger projects and campaigns, it may help to connect with a professional who offers writing and editing services. This is especially helpful for any digital or print materials that will be shared with a larger audience.

2 Is your content grammatically correct?

Writing in today’s world has become more casual, allowing you to leverage slang, buzz words and funny content in order to keep audiences absorbed with what they are reading. And, let’s not overlook the popularity of shortening words and using emojis in today’s social media environment. Customer-facing material needs to be easy to comprehend, and most importantly, grammatically correct.

Effective use of grammar is an important aspect of content writing and should be prioritized. Grammar is a set of rules that supports sentence structures. Keep in mind while forming sentences, it is helpful to understand the application of those rules because they can differ from region to region. For example, some companies prefer the oxford comma and some do not.

Tiny details, such as the ones mentioned above, can assist with better SEO results and ensure your content is targeted to the right audience.

3 Is your material easy to understand?

You want to be cognizant of the content that you produce for your readers. Easy-to-understand sentences will have more engagement than complicated ones filled with jargon or hard words. For example, how many of you understand this sentence completely? “​​The rules of quotidian face-to-face life are suspended or even inverted in a carnivalesque of norms.”

Let’s be honest. How many of you had to google the definition of at least one of those words?

When proofing your content, ask yourself, “will readers easily know what I am trying to say?” “Is the copy easy enough for folks to identify our brand?” And, most importantly, “Is a clear message being communicated by our content?”

4 Are you using compelling titles and headers?

A title is one of the first aspects of an article that a reader comes across. It is a make-or-break moment since the title needs to be compelling enough for the reader to look at the piece in the first place. Use this to your advantage by ensuring that your titles are concise and interesting. Grab their attention. Entice them with something that will be useful.

Additionally, incorporating specific keywords into the title can help grab readers' attention. It will also help your copy stand out in online searches. Titles, headers and sub-headers also help provide readers with an insight or summary of what the following material is about. Leveraging headers to divide your content into sections accompanied by supporting images will prompt the readers to continue reading.

Today’s competitive environment calls for original and authentic promotions that speaks to an audience. Promoting your company's products and services can be challenging and stressful, but good content writing drives audiences to take action. At The Hopkins Creative Group, we work with your business to create and tailor copy that achieves results. Schedule a complimentary consultation with us today.