Content Marketing, Storytelling and Copywriting

Content marketing, Storytelling and Copywriting are not the same thing and should not be confused at all!

In this article we will briefly explain the three concepts and highlight the main differences.

The context

The growing importance of Content Marketing, Storytelling and Copywriting is intricately linked to the digitization of traditional marketing activities. With the evolution of the role of the user and consumer on the web that has gone from passive viewer to active viewer, content marketing and inbound marketing have become increasingly important. The growth of attention to corporate storytelling and copywriting are a direct consequence of this. However, there is a great confusion between the three concepts today, so we must clarify matters!

What is Content Marketing

It refers to all the techniques to create content, whether textual or visual, related to a brand or a company, that can educate and involve potential customers about a topic or product, retaining them, increasing the brand awareness and indirectly sales.

The importance of Content Marketing revolves around the figure of the customer, making it the main objective towards which the promotion of its product/service is directed. In addition, unlike traditional advertising activities, Content Marketing does not offer its content by highlighting its commercial purposes; on the contrary, the ultimate goal is to retain the potential customer, capturing its interest and building relationships that can last over time, subsequently favoring the increase in sales and user traffic, brand awareness, customer loyalty and retention rate. So while traditional advertising tends to distract the user from other activities to attract him to his promotion and sales business, Content Marketing aims instead to capture its attention naturally, as Craig Davis, former creative director at J. Walter Thompson, confirms:

“We need to stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what people are interested in”.

If you want to know more about Content Marketing, please read also: Content Marketing: attract, engage, and retain your target  and Content Marketing platforms: the best 10 tools for us

What is Storytelling

Storytelling is the art of telling stories and creating a persuasive communication strategy, and when used in the company it takes the name of Corporate Storytelling. 

Storytelling is the fundamental element on which the entire content marketing strategy is built for a brand and serves both to convey all the company’s messages with a view to coherent and integrated communication, transmitting the brand’s image, mission, vision and values to the target audience.

If you want to know more about Storytelling, please read also: Corporate Storytelling, key driver for brand communication and Storytelling books: the top 20 in our opinion

What is Copywriting

Copywriting, in general, can be defined as the activity of writing texts, especially those of an advertising type, but not only, with the main objective of attracting, capturing, and maintaining the attention of the target audience to achieve its business objectives.

If you want to know more about Copywriting, please read more: The importance of copywriting as key resource for brands,  Copywriting platforms: the best 10 tools for startups,  Copywriting for startups: review of Contents.com tool, Copywriting websites for startups: review of Melascrivi tool  and Copywriting for startups: review of Textbroker tool

Content Marketing, Storytelling and Copywriting: differences

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach that essentially aims to create connection with the audience you want to reach, helping customers understand the brand, generating interest in it and what it proposes. How do you do that? Telling a story!

And here it is that the link with storytelling that is the art of telling stories is evident.

Copywriting is the art of writing, so it is a concept intimately linked to the previous one, but copywriting is more than this. Copywriting is not only linked to storytelling but have a more wide range of applications.

So if the three concepts of copywriting, storytelling and content marketing are intricately linked, they do not have the same meaning and you don’t have to mess up.

Conclusions

We hope this article was helpful to you and helped you clarify some doubts!

For more information read also the related white paper that you find on this page Digital Marketing for Startups