I am someone who will probably lose every verbal arguments or even a fist fight. I am always the quiet one in the room. At times, when I tried to open my mouth, I usually put my foot into it or had people talked over me. However, I can hold my own when it comes to writing a convincing letter, email, or a phrase to get my points across and I have done that many times with success!

You go through life, trying to find that one thing that will make you “whole” so speak. For me, what I hated the most and avoided it at all cost has become what I love to do the most. It is writing! Putting my thoughts into words. You can edit what you wrote, but once it comes out of your mouth, you can’t edit. Like the saying goes, “It is better to be thought of as fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubts forever.”

So for me, the next evolution in my life’s journey is venturing into copywriting. I always introduced myself as a “Jack of all trades – master of none” kind of guy. Even one of my former bosses, using baseball analogy, called me his utility player. That was meant as a compliment! Yeah I know, my feeling were hurt then. His reasoning was that I could put on different hats and hit the ground running. Still a utility player in baseball doesn’t get noticed or paid much!

Here’s an interesting fact about me: I once introduced myself in a meeting with software consultant as a Janitorial Engineer. Yes I did and you should see those guys’ jaws dropped in that room! I felt like my data analyst job was mundane, low visibility but a required cog in wheel. Just like a janitor. Much respect to all the janitorial engineers everywhere!

In simple term, it is the act of using words and maybe visual to target audiences into “buying” something. Copywriting is a tools used by marketing or PR departments to promote their products or agenda. Unless you are completely living off the grid, we are all targets of copywriting in our daily life whether we noticed it or not. Checking your emails will exposed you to copywriting material. Watching a TV commercial, it is there.  Youtube? – Of course!  It comes in many form and known to different sectors by different names. For example, what we call advertisement, it is a product of copywriting. Clickbaits, that’s another product of  copywriting. 

The goal of a copywriter is to get the reader to react positively especially in a monetary way, such as buying, subscribing, clicking on a link, or walking through the door. It is using the power of persuasion and therefore, generally associated with marketing.  I am surecopywriters purists or even anyone remotely involved in the copywriting industry will disagree with what I just mentioned.  That’s okay.  I am just going to stretch the definition to fit my narratives.

 My Stretched Definition

You see, in the past, even before I overcome my fear of writing, I have always been coming up with ideas for writing articles, catchy names for businesses with accompany slogans. Here are some examples: