Business owners and marketing teams frequently reach out to me, asking for help with their copywriting. They walk into our intro call expecting to talk about the “writing” deliverables—website copy, email sequences, product descriptions. What they don’t realize is that writing is maybe 5% of what I actually do.
The other 95%? That’s research and strategic thinking.
When someone says they need copywriting help, what they often really need is a messaging strategy, first. They haven’t figured out what to say yet, so asking someone to write compelling copy is like asking a personal chef to make dinner without knowing what’s in the pantry.
Most people think copywriting and messaging are the same thing, but they’re not. One is strategy, and the other is implementation.
→ Messaging is the strategic talking points you use to control how your brand is perceived.
→ Copywriting is the implementation or execution piece that brings your messaging strategy to life.
What Is Messaging Strategy?
Messaging is the big-picture work that happens before anyone writes a single word. It’s your brand’s core beliefs, values, and the overarching narrative that connects with your audience on an emotional level. This includes your Purpose, Perception, Personality, Promotion, and Position (the BP 5Ps).
Your brand messaging strategy answers questions like:
- What do we stand for?
- Why do we exist beyond making money?
- What ideas do we want people to associate with our brand?
- How do we want to be perceived in the market?
- What’s our competitive advantage?
This work lives in strategy documents and brand guidelines. It’s not necessarily the stuff that goes directly on your website, but it’s the foundation that makes everything else possible.
How Copywriting Brings Strategy to Life
Copywriting takes those strategic messaging pillars and translates them into headlines, product descriptions, website copy, email subject lines, and calls-to-action that get people to take action.
If you want your messaging to convey something, copywriting turns that thing into “sound bites” your specific audience will actually respond to.
But copywriting isn’t just about stringing together pretty sentences. A good copywriter spends most of their time researching your audience, understanding their pain points, and figuring out how they actually talk about their problems. Then they translate your messaging into copy that mimics your target audience’s inner monologue.
Why AI Struggles To Replace Human-Crafted Messaging Development and Copywriting Implementation
I’ve watched fellow business owners take their brand decks and dump them into ChatGPT, asking it to “write an email sequence”. The result is always soulless, polished-to-death content devoid of personality and nuance.
AI can be a valuable sparring partner to help refine your messaging strategy. Going back and forth with a chatbot can help you get clearer direction on what you’re trying to say. But when it comes to implementation, AI-generated copy still feels dead behind the eyes.
It struggles with writing copy because writing requires a nuanced understanding of human psychology, cultural context, and the subtle art of situational persuasion. These are distinctly human calculations AI hasn’t been able to replicate.
We assume the AI output is “right” because it sounds polished, but, as my good friend and brand and marketing strategist Jamie Cox says, “polished isn’t always what brands should be going for.”
Let me repeat that:
“Polished isn’t always what brands should be going for.”
Copywriting that sounds like the modern-day human, but is edited for context and clarity, is the goal. Not perfection.
Getting the Order of Operations Right
If you’re working with different specialists or trying to DIY your brand content, the order you take matters more than you think.
ORDER OF OPERATIONS:
Brand Strategy → Messaging Strategy → Copywriting → Design → Development.
A good copywriter should develop your messaging strategy first. That’s part of their job and how they figure out what to write. They’re not just performing dictation; they’re doing the strategic work to understand your audience and competitive landscape.
If you’re working with a brand strategist or graphic designer, make sure to hire them in the correct order so their work can build off of the person before them. (Please note: Visual brand guidelines are for visuals only and are not going to translate into compelling copy. The adjectives, “Modern, Clean, and Approachable,” aren’t going to help me write a hook-worthy headline for a specific product or service.)
Messaging tells you what to say. Copywriting tells you how to say it.
Neither works without the other, and both require strategic thinking that most people underestimate.
If your marketing feels scattered or your copy isn’t converting, you’re probably missing one piece of this puzzle. Maybe you’ve got great copy that doesn’t connect because the messaging foundation is weak. Or maybe you’ve got a solid strategy that never translates into compelling content.
The fix isn’t more “power words” or a revised “copy bank”. It’s understanding that good copy starts with good strategy, and good strategy requires someone who knows how to bridge the gap between what you want to say and how your audience needs to hear it.
When messaging and copywriting work together, people read your website and think, “It’s like you were in my head!” That’s exactly what you’re going for.
✏️When you’re ready to hire a freelance copywriter…
BRAND MESSAGING – A brand strategy intensive to help you dial in your brand and your messaging.
WEBSITE COPYWRITING – Let me articulate your brand story, co-create your brand messaging, and translate it into powerful web copy that converts.
SALES PAGE COPY – Long-form sales page copy that moves people to buy your courses and offers without giving them (and you) the ick.
COPY TUNE-UP + EDITING – Perfect for the DIYer on a budget. Button up your copy with a professional diagnosis and copy edits before hitting publish.
