This is such an exciting and relevant topic in the world of modern-day professional copywriting. While I have been planning on writing about this topic for a while, I feel there is no better time to write honestly about ethical copywriting than in a world populated with AI blog writers. Let’s dive in and see what’s what.

What is ethical copywriting?

There are many ways to look at the idea of ethics in copywriting. I won’t dive into all of them, or we’d be here for, like, 10 years. Here are the specifics of ethical copywriting that should be at the forefront of the content industry.

• Keeping the end goal in mind:  When searching for a copywriter, clients have a specific goal in mind. For example, a client wants a CTA-rich page that entices readers to convert into sales. While it’s perfectly normal for a client to focus on conversions, the end goal is also important: the reader’s interest. Are you writing for the reader or the search engine? Sometimes, clients are too fixated on the latter and ignore the former, which is unethical copywriting.

• Understanding the realistic limits: Like any other part of marketing, a webpage can only do so much. The same goes for the avenue of content writing with blog posts and email newsletters. A client may feel that the writer is doing a bad job if their web page doesn’t see a significant increase in views and clickthroughs. Or only 1 or 2 people open a newsletter. While these metrics can be helpful to see what is working and what isn’t, a copywriter or content writer is only part of the equation. That’s also why clients need to have realistic limits on their writer. Unless they state otherwise, a business writer isn’t necessarily an SEO expert, a social media writer, or a public relations expert. They are one essential part of a digital marketing team and are not directly responsible for a web page or newsletter conversion.

• Seeing your writer as human: A client wants the job done yesterday, wants it to be a certain length with a certain keyword density, and a specific focus on short sentences, and so on. In addition, the reader needs to feel seen and heard. Oh, and any revisions should be done even quicker. A professional writer will give a budget and an expected turnaround time for the work. The client is unhappy with either or both things and decides to go with someone cheaper, faster, or even forego the human entirely using an AI engine. This ignores the writer’s reasons for why the deadline and budget are set as they are. A client may not see that all of these details take time, energy, and effort, and all of that has to come back around somehow.

Is ethical copywriting important?

As you likely have already guessed or known, ethical copywriting is more important now than it ever was. While there is a time and place for AI, high-end, empathetic content is certainly not it! A professional writer will be able to do a job a million times better than a machine when the end goal is to create content for humans first and foremost. And, that highly trained, experienced writer should be compensated fairly for that professionalism and service.

I’m so interested to hear what all of you think! Do you feel the same? Is this something you want to know more about? Please share below!