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How do I Become a Marketing Writer?

Sheri Cyprus
Sheri Cyprus

If you want to become a marketing writer, your ultimate goal is to be able to persuade your audience to take the desired action; this may be to place an order, sign up for a newsletter or click on a website link for more information. A marketing writer is called a copywriter. Writing clear, concise copy that relates to the wants and needs of the target audience is a must for copywriter marketing jobs. If you want to write in a marketing agency environment, you will likely need a degree in English, advertising, journalism or communication. General liberal arts or other degrees may be accepted if the aspiring marketing writer can prove his or her talent.

Since copywriting is about persuasive communication, you're going to have to sell your skills to prospective employers if you hope to become a marketing writer. If you feel too modest about doing this, then marketing writing isn't the career for you. You have to be able to sell yourself as a talented, creative writer who commands results from the target audience or you are very likely to lose out to the typically intense competition for copywriting jobs. It's not wise to try and become a copywriter because you've heard the income can be high; it can, but at the same time, many marketing writing jobs pay low until you prove your skills and this may take years.

Marketing writers must learn to write persuasive copy.
Marketing writers must learn to write persuasive copy.

Persuading, convincing and promoting should feel natural to you if you aspire to become a marketing writer; some of the world's best copywriters have a background in sales. Essentially, marketing writing is selling, although it isn't always obvious. For instance, article marketing requires the writer to create informative, communicative articles that relate to a certain product or subject but don't directly promote it.

The purpose of article marketing is to establish a knowledgeable image such as to encourage customer leads for a lawyer by writing helpful pieces on legal matters of interest to his or her potential clients. The articles may appear on the lawyer's website as well as in Internet article directory websites with a link back to the attorney's site. In addition to persuasive writing, your sentence structure, grammar, spelling and every other written detail must be accurate.

Study the type of marketing writing you hope to do; notice which words seem to work and which techniques don't. An important thing to remember if you hope to become a marketing writer is to be results-oriented. Although marketing encompasses advertising, it's more results-focused. Some advertising agencies thrive on awards for creativity, but in marketing it's the results that count and are what is measured. For example, if a marketing writer creates a promotional mailing for a nonprofit organization, a careful count of how many customers mailed back the requested response is made; you want to build a reputation of being able to write compelling, communicative copy that gets top results.

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    • Marketing writers must learn to write persuasive copy.
      By: JohnKwan
      Marketing writers must learn to write persuasive copy.