Contented Manager

30 services

Sales Copywriting and Campaigns

Words whose only job is to get a decision.

Illustrated character Ray Delgado“Here's what it costs and here's what it does.”

What is copywriting and campaigns?

Copywriting is writing whose only job is to get a specific decision from a specific reader: click, reply, sign up, book, buy, or come back. It is judged by what the reader does next, not by whether it reads well, though it usually reads well because anything that slows the reader down costs a decision. A blog post can succeed by being read. Copy has not succeeded until something happens.

In practice it covers every place where a business asks for an action. The sales page and the offer on it. The ad that earns the click and the page that has to keep the promise the ad made. The email that goes to the people who said they wanted to hear from you. The social post that starts a conversation with a buyer who has never heard of you. And the small pieces around the edges, the button label, the form hint, the checkout screen, where a surprising number of decisions are lost.

The output for you is copy with a measurable purpose stated before it is written, so you can tell within a few weeks whether it did its job, and copy written to be tested, so the version that works can replace the one that does not.

Sounds familiar?

  • “We get clicks and no conversions.”
  • “The ads cost more every month and return less.”
  • “Our emails go out and nothing measurable happens.”

What I do in copywriting and campaigns

Every piece of copy I write starts with three things settled in writing: who the reader is, what one action we want from them, and how we will count it. Then the writing, then a plan for testing it.

Sales copy

Direct response copy is the discipline the rest of this group comes from: writing judged by whether it got a response. Conversion copy applies it to the pages you already have where visitors are supposed to act and do not. Offer copy states what someone gets, what it costs and why now, the piece most service pages are missing. Promotional copy describes a sale, a launch or an event in one readable pass. Sales sheets give a salesperson one page to leave behind, brochure copy is written for print rather than pasted from the website, and flyer and leaflet copy carries one message and one instruction for a reader who gives it six seconds.

Advertising

Advertising copy is the line that earns the click, written together with the page behind it so the two make the same promise. Search ad copy is written per ad group, so each ad answers the exact phrase that triggered it. Display and social ad copy is for people who were not looking for you, so it earns attention before it asks. Campaign copy carries one idea across the ad, the landing page and the follow-up email.

Email

Email is the one channel you own outright. Email newsletters are the regular issue that keeps a list warm. Welcome sequences are the first five emails a new subscriber gets, when attention is highest. Lead nurture sequences are for buyers who are interested but not ready, which is most of them; drip campaigns are the broader automated series that keep working after you stop thinking about them. Re-engagement campaigns wake a list that has gone quiet without getting you marked as spam. Launch and announcement emails are sequenced so the news lands in order rather than all at once. Subject lines and preview text decide whether the rest is read, so I write and test them as a separate job. An email calendar is the sending plan, built around your list's tolerance and the consent rules in Canadian anti-spam law, which I work within on every list I touch.

Social

A social content strategy decides which platforms deserve your time and what to say on each, and usually drops one. LinkedIn posts get their own service because that is where most business buying conversations now start. Social copywriting is captions and posts written for the platform rather than recycled from the blog. Profile and bio copy is the two hundred characters that decide whether a stranger follows. A social calendar plans posts in batches so the account survives a busy fortnight, and founder social posts are written in your voice for your personal account.

The small pieces that decide it

Calls to action are four words that carry a large share of the result and are usually written last. Form copy is the labels and hints on every field, where a clearer label does more than removing a field. Signup and checkout copy is the last screen before the money, and where most of it is lost. Abandoned cart copy recovers customers who had already decided to buy, and onboarding copy is what a new customer is told first, written so they keep it.

How it is delivered

Fixed price, agreed in writing before anything starts, naming the pieces, the revision rounds and the measure of success. Most copy projects take one to three weeks; an email sequence or a campaign takes three to five. You own every word, and you get the test plan with the copy. The pricing page shows how quoting works. When the copy needs someone to run it month after month, that is content operations, priced separately.

What I do not sell here

Media buying, ad account management, and email platform administration. I write the ads and the emails and hand them over with a test plan; I do not run the ad spend or manage your sending platform, and I will say so on the first call. I also do not sell manipulative countdown timers, fake scarcity, purchased email lists, or copy that promises a result nobody can measure.

Everything under Copywriting and Campaigns

30 services in 5 groups. Most people need three or four of them, not all 30 — part of the job is working out which.

On this page

  1. What it is
  2. What I do
  3. Sales copy (7)
  4. Advertising (4)
  5. Email (8)
  6. Social (6)
  7. The small pieces that decide it (5)
  8. Vocabulary (26)
  9. Word game

Ask about copywriting & campaigns

Sales copy

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Advertising

4 services

Email

8 services

Social

6 services

The small pieces that decide it

5 services

Copywriting and Campaigns vocabulary

The 26 terms you will meet in a proposal, a report or a meeting about copywriting and campaigns, each in one or two plain sentences. Link to any of them.

Direct response
Writing that asks the reader to do one thing now and is judged only by whether they did it. The parent discipline of every service on this page.
Conversion
The moment a reader does the thing a page was built for: books, buys, signs up or asks a question. Counting conversions is how copy gets judged.
Offer
What the reader gets, what it costs, what is included, and why they should act now rather than later. The part most pages forget to state plainly.
Call to action also: CTA
The words that tell the reader what to do next: the button label, the link text, the last line of the email. Usually four words, usually written last.
Headline
The first line a reader sees, and the one that decides whether they read the second. On most pages it does more work than everything below it.
Hook
The opening line of a social post or an ad, written to stop a reader who was scrolling past. Without one the rest of the post is never seen.
Social proof
Evidence that other people have already bought and were glad they did: named reviews, client logos, case studies, numbers with a source. It answers "who else trusts you".
Urgency
A real reason to act now rather than later: a deadline, limited places, a price that rises on a date. Invented urgency is noticed and costs trust.
Message match
The ad and the page it leads to making the same promise in the same words. When they differ, the reader assumes they have landed in the wrong place and leaves.
Ad group
A small set of search ads that share one theme of search phrases. Copy is written per ad group so each ad answers the exact phrase that triggered it.
Campaign
One idea, one offer and one audience carried across every channel for a fixed period, with a start date, an end date and a number that says whether it worked.
Landing page
A page built for one source of visitors and one action, with the navigation stripped out so there is nothing to do but act or leave.
Above the fold
What a reader sees before scrolling. On a phone that is the headline, one sentence and a button, so those three carry the whole first impression.
Subject line
The line shown in the inbox before an email is opened. With the preview text beside it, it decides whether the email is read at all.
Preview text also: preheader
The short snippet an inbox shows after the subject line. Written on purpose, it is a second subject line; left alone, it shows "view in browser".
Welcome sequence
The first few emails a new subscriber receives, sent automatically over a week or two, while their attention is highest and before the newsletter takes over.
Drip campaign also: automated sequence
A series of emails sent automatically at set intervals after a trigger, such as a signup or a download, so the follow-up happens without anyone remembering to send it.
Nurture
Keeping in touch with someone who is interested but not ready to buy, with useful emails spaced out over weeks, so that when they are ready they think of you first.
Segment
A part of an email list that shares something, such as what they bought or how they signed up, so they can be sent a different message from everyone else.
Deliverability
Whether an email reaches the inbox at all, rather than the spam folder or nowhere. Affected by list quality, sending habits and how often people complain.
Unsubscribe
The link that lets a reader leave the list in one click. Required on every commercial email, and a healthier signal than a reader who stays and never opens.
Sales sheet also: one-pager
One printed or PDF page a salesperson leaves behind or attaches to an email: what it is, who it is for, what it costs and how to buy.
Microcopy
The small pieces of text on a form, a button, an error message or a checkout screen. Individually tiny, together they decide whether a customer finishes.
Friction
Anything that makes the next step harder than it needs to be: an unclear label, an extra field, a surprise cost. Copy removes friction by explaining or by cutting.
Abandoned cart
A shopping basket a customer filled and then left without paying. The follow-up email that brings them back is some of the best-earning copy a shop can send.

Test yourself on copywriting and campaigns

Four short games built from the vocabulary above. Nothing is recorded, nobody is watching, and the glossary is right there if you get stuck.

The word games need JavaScript. The glossary above has every term they use.

How it actually runs

The same four steps whatever the work is.

  1. A conversation

    Half an hour. What you sell, who buys it, and what is not working. No charge and no deck.

  2. A fixed number

    Scope and price in writing before anything starts. It does not change without you agreeing first.

  3. The work

    I do it, or I coach your person through it, or I bring in and manage the specialist it needs.

  4. Something you keep

    Every engagement ends with a document, a system or a trained person — not a dependency on me.

What usually comes with this

Three things that sit next to copywriting and campaigns often enough to be worth a look.

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