The majority (60%) of marketers and content creators say one of their biggest digital copywriting challenges is that "people just don't get what good copy is," according to a recent report by Sticky Content, an agency based in the United Kingdom.
Among other challenges to creating good digital copy are the following:
- 55% have too much to do/not enough people.
- 51% having problems finding skilled writers.
- 44% have difficulty meeting SEO requirements.
- 40% do not obtain input from stakeholders.
- 37% lack writing guidelines.
- 34% have insufficient time to check copy.
- 31% have no copywriting training.
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Below, additional key findings from the report, The State of Digital Copywriting, which was based on a survey of 365 marketers, copywriters, content editors, content strategists, and consultants, the majority of whom are based in the UK.
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.
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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.
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Measurement
- 56% of respondents measure the effectiveness of copy by by unique visits or pageviews.
- 48% measure effectiveness by looking at conversions.
- 20% aren't measuring the effectiveness of their copy at all.
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About the research: The report was based on a survey of 365 respondents, the majority of whom are based in the United Kingdom. The largest number of respondents are marketers (20.7%), followed copywriters (10.6%), content editors (9.8%), consultants (3.9%), and content strategists (3.6%).
COMMENTARY: Unless you are a large enterprise organization, you are probably juggling several balls simultaneously, and this includes doing your regular job, whatever that might be, and creating digital copy for your company website, blog, forum or social network(s). Most of the time it is a "rush job," or getting something online as quickly as possible, without regard to its correctness or construction. Misspellings are the most common mistake, and this is followed by poor grammar. I have even found these type of errors in the digital content of some of the major digital content publishers. I won't mention any names. I often find the mistakes, and correct them before they appear on my blog.
Courtesy of an article dated July 30, 2013 appearing in MarketingProfs
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