Content or copy - what's the difference?

You’re on a train from Pisa to Florence and strike up a conversation with a stranger. Freja from Denmark, as it turns out. Once the two of you are done waxing poetic about the marvels of Tuscany, she asks what you do. How long do you take to answer?

A second, if you’re my dad. “I’m an electrician,” he’d say. Pretty straightforward. But suppose you do the same as me. You’d hesitate for a bit. Are you a copywriter or a content writer? Or do you just say you’re a freelance writer and let Freja ask some more questions if she likes? Sure, you could also tell her that you’re an electrician, but she seems really nice, so why fib?

Some of us do stuff you can’t sum up in a word. If you tell people you write for a living, they’re bound to ask what you write. But how useful are labels? Couldn’t you write all sorts of things? Like copy and content?

Google what the difference is between the two and you’ll find something like “Copy aims to sell, content wants to educate.” If you dig a bit deeper, you’ll come across a bunch of articles that insist the two are like chalk and cheese. “You do one or the other,” the authors pontificate. But surely the two sometimes intersect? (That’s two Latin verbs in back-to-back sentences. Cool, eh?)

Copy can be informative, and content can be persuasive. No, make it should. A travel agency’s ad - copy - wants people to book a holiday, but it may also teach them something about exotic freshwater fish. A white paper - content - tells the reader loads about the subject, while nudging them into making a decision. Both prompt you to act, but only if they meet your needs. You expect them to serve you.

Now, it may be different for insiders and those looking to find someone to do their writing for them: they see labels as shortcuts. ‘Copywriter’ tells them you specialise in, say, sales pages while ‘content writer’ implies that you write blog articles or social media posts. But again, who says you can’t do both? Also, copy is sometimes defined as “written content used in advertising”. So, maybe copy is just a type of content after all?

Crikey! It looks like I can’t answer the question I asked in the title of this article. That means I’ve broken a basic rule of copywriting: your headline is a promise which the rest of the text must deliver on. Sorry about that. But hey, you’re on your way to beautiful Florence, and Freja is so much fun to talk to. Enjoy your trip!