I read this article in Brandweek that had an interview with copywriter Karen Gedney. I wasn't sure where the article was going based on the title, but she is dead on the mark with her observations.
I completely agree with Karen's positions on items, but I think the best dirty secret of online copywriting is...
Online direct response copywriting is the same as the old offline direct response copywriting.
Karen does an excellent job in the article of pointing this out with actual examples. The media is different, but the techniques and strategies one uses to motivate a person to do something are not any different. There are definately some tweaks you must adapt to in terms of technology limitations and media differences, but at the end of the day the way you motivate someone online with "online direct marketing copywriting" is the way you have always motivated them from a copywriting and direct response point of view.
All the people that have come out and published books about online copywriting are simply taking old ideas and re-packaging them. That is not innovation. Now if you decide you need someone that can do both direct response copywriting and SEO copywriting, now you may have something and need someone with a different skill set. You need a skilled direct response marketing and SEO copywriter. That combined skill set is not shared by all good direct response copywriters.
There are some extremely good direct response copywriters out there, but they don't necessarily have the SEO skills to give a company the double bang they do often need in an online environment. However if you don't require the SEO angle on your copy, perhaps because it is an email marketing campaign or you use other advertising like pay to click ads to drive traffic then hiring the best direct response copywriter you can find regardless of their SEO skills makes great sense.
The bottomline is just don't get sucked into the belief that online copywriting outside of the exception I noted above is somehow different to the point that you can't use a good copywriter, even one that doesn't advertise being an "online copywriter" a good direct response copywriter regardless of his/her background in online promotions is worth their weight in gold.
