A copywriting rationale is a formal document that justifies a particular piece of copywriting. You can use it to show senior staff what made them choose your company and what you proposed in your bid.
It is generally used by a copywriter in a print shop to justify the work they have done on a project. In this tutorial, we will show you how to write a proper rationale document for your copywriting portfolio.
Overview
You are probably already familiar with the concept of a marketing portfolio. These are the various pieces of marketing material that you have created and which exist in some form in digital or physical format. A marketing portfolio might include things like websites, blogs, landing pages, e-books, or even apps. While a marketing portfolio tends to be focused on the digital side of things, a copywriting portfolio could just as easily include print materials (e.g. brochures, posters, or annual reports) and possibly even a few videos. Anything that you can think of that could be considered as marketing material is fair game.
The Difference In Focus
The first thing to note is that a marketing portfolio is more broad in scope. That is because marketers often have the additional responsibility of overseeing all of the marketing activities of the company. They might be termed the ‘advertiser-in-chief’. They are responsible for setting the direction of the company and for measuring the effectiveness of all of its marketing activities. This includes things like setting budgets and measuring the results of marketing campaigns.
In contrast, a copywriting portfolio is much more narrowly focused. A copywriter’s responsibility is to create content for, and to optimize the performance of, individual products and services. So, the work that they do is inherently more specific. While there will certainly be some overlap between the work of a copywriter and that of a marketer, the primary focus of each discipline is very different.
Product Research
A lot of copywriting is done for public relations purposes. That is because the customer is often nowhere near the stage of the buying process when the copy is written. In other words, they aren’t actively considering whether or not to purchase the product. So, a PR agency might create some marketing material for a company, only to have the job taken over by a copywriter once the strategy and content of the material has been decided upon.
If you are responsible for the research and drafting of an executive summary or overview of a complex piece of new technology, you will need to ensure that the information is presented clearly and concisely. That means researching the existing benchmarks and comparing them to the specifications of the new product. It also requires you to have a clear understanding of what the product is and what it does. This includes having familiarity with the underlying technology and with the objectives and motivations of the people who developed the product.
Content Strategy
A content strategy is a plan that documents the information that will be offered on your website or blog. This includes everything from deciding what types of content you will offer (e.g. how-to articles, FAQs, case studies, etc.), to the design and implementation of the content itself.
In order to create a comprehensive content strategy for your copywriting project, you will need to begin by answering three critical questions:
- What problem are you solving?
- For which customer are you solving the problem?
- How are you solving the problem?
The first question is answered by defining the problem that the customer is facing. If you are providing online web content, then this is what the customer is searching for. If you are creating a product guide, then this is what the customer is looking for when they choose that product.
The second question is answered by defining the customer for whom you are creating the content. You must understand the target audience’s needs and the environment in which they will find your content. A copywriter who specializes in e-commerce will know exactly which products they should be writing about and how those products fit into the customers’ purchase journey. A public relations professional might understand the marketing needs of a luxury goods company.
The third question is answered by defining how you are solving the problem. When customers come to your site or blog, they expect to find the information that they are looking for. So, you need to establish clear goals for what you want the reader to know or do after reading your content.
With a clear understanding of the problem, the customer, and the goal of the content, you can begin to write your plan. That will be your content strategy.
Keywords And Keyphrase Analysis
Apart from the obvious function of attracting relevant traffic via popular keywords, a good keyphrase analysis will also identify words and phrases that are more relevant to your content than to the content of your competitors’ websites. As noted, the goal of your content is to draw relevant traffic to your site. A keyphrase analysis will help you choose the right keywords and will highlight words and phrases that you should use in your copy and on your site. If you are a small business owner looking to attract customers from the UK, for example, you might want to focus on UK-related keywords and key phrases (e.g. ‘Sale UK’, ‘buy UK clothes’, ‘affordable luxury brands UK’, ‘Luxury Brand UK’, etc.).
On the other hand, if you are writing for a foreign audience, you might want to search for English-related keywords and key phrases (e.g. ‘online store English’, ‘online buying English’, ‘English shopping’, ‘online English shopping’, etc.).
Writing The Rationeat
Once you have completed your product research and you have defined the problem that you are solving, the next step is to flesh out the solution. That is, you will need to write down all of the different ways that you are going to approach the problem.
It is often helpful to write down all of the various options that you have considered. As a writer, you will have come up with many different solutions to the problem. Some of them might even be excellent. Once you have all of these different ideas, you can begin to pick out the most suitable solution for the particular project.
Keep in mind that though they have similar functions, a marketer and a copywriter are quite unlike. The work of each discipline can be quite different. A marketer will devise a plan and then implement it. A copywriter will get to work writing the materials that were decided upon in the strategy phase. When creating a rationale document for your copywriting project, make sure that you differentiate between the work that you have done and the work that you will do. The first part of the document should focus on what you have done, while the latter part should focus on what you will do.