531. Copywriting, two ways ✌️
531. Copywriting, two ways ✌️
How to blend brand storytelling and conversion copywriting onto your website
Hellooo 👋 So happy to have you here. I’m Kevan. I have spent 15+ years as a head of marketing for some cool tech startups. Now I’ve co-founded a brand storytelling business called Bonfire. We do coaching, advisory, and content. If you identify with creativity and marketing, we’d love for you to join us.
What kind of website are we writing here?
Part of the process of bringing a brand to life is writing an amazing website.
Your website is one of the most obvious manifestations of your brand. (Apart from your cool swag.)
So it’s really important which words you choose to put on the site. And guess what: The words don’t have to be just the plain vanilla words about literally what your business does. Tell a story! Paint a picture! Describe some benefits! Let your copywriting team work their magic.
When I’m making a website, I like to start with the words before the design. Here’s why:
Copywriting helps you clarify the story you want to tell across your website.
Copywriting helps set the hierarchy of the information that needs to be included.
Copywriting helps determine the path that someone will take from page to page.
Note: Some business do design before copywriting. What rebels!
So, you just set a copywriter loose and let them do their thing, right? Well, not so fast. Before you get into the actual writing of words, it’s important that everyone is aligned on what type of words you’re looking for. There have been many projects I’ve worked on where the copywriting begged for something more creative and narrative but the team wanted something more concrete and simple. The opposite has been true, too, where a page called for just the facts but the expectation was to tell a story.
My best advice for web copy is to think of it as two different flavors: 1) brand storytelling and 2) conversion copywriting.
1 - Brand storytelling
This type of writing is concerned with emotional appeal and resonance. The text might be a little bit long, a little bit narrative, but it works to hook the visitor into exploring the brand more and more. Brand storytelling should clearly communicate who the brand is for (and who it isn’t).
2 - Conversion copywriting
This type of writing focuses on getting people to take action. It’s often more bare bones and just-the-facts-ma’am. Conversion copywriting’s full focus is a click—be that a product signup, a purchase, a button, or a link.
With these two types in mind, let’s look through some neat examples of both types, and maybe you’ll be inspired as you look through your own site!
(Big thanks to Marketing Examples and Great Landing Page Copy and my own bookmarks for some of these.)
Examples of brand storytelling
Examples of conversion copywriting
Coda (the website itself is more vanilla than this pretty great search ad copy)
About this newsletter …
Hi, I’m Kevan, a marketing exec based in Boise, Idaho, who specializes in startup marketing and brand-building. I previously built brands at Oyster, Buffer, and Vox. Now I am cofounder at Bonfire, a brand storytelling company.
Each week on this substack, I share playbooks, case studies, stories, and links from inside the startup marketing world. Not yet subscribed? No worries. You can check out the archive, or sign up below:
Thank you for being here! 🙇♂️
I’m lucky to count folks from great brands like these (and many more) as part of this newsletter community.
