Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as an advertising writer and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.
An Advertising Writer has the primary responsibility of writing content for advertisements for different media such as TV, radio, and print using different formats. He/she has the duty to interpret account briefs and compose content such as catchphrases, tweets, slogans, TV scripts and radio adverts.
Other associated duties include producing clear and original messages and scripts to present to clients or colleagues; finding out more about the client, target audience and the competitors; liaising with other team members and the client to evaluate the advertising requirements; revising the ad copy depending on the feedback; monitoring the effectiveness of the ad campaign and may supervise junior staff from time to time.
Core Skills Required to be an Advertising Writer
Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.
Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.
An advertising writer should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.
Writing Skills:
Written Communication involves the interaction that makes use of the written word with precision and logic making it the very common form of business communication.
An Advertising Writer must necessarily learn and stay updated on effective written communication skills that involve the construction of a logical argument, note taking, editing and summarizing as well as incorporating new ways of writing presentations.
Innovation:
Innovation is the process of translating new invention into a service that creates value or brings better solutions that meet the requirements.
An Advertising Writer ought to introduce innovation in their business to help save time and money giving a competitive advantage to grow and adapt the business in today's marketplace as well as creating more efficient processes and ideas with a likelihood for your business to succeed.
Delegation:
Delegation is assigning responsibility or authority to another person a junior or subordinate to carry out specific activities while remaining accountable for the outcome.
An Advertising Writer must be equipped with skills on how to make the delegation work correctly to save the organization time and money and to allow the subordinate make wise decisions, skills, and motivation to become better and grow the company.
Planning and Scheduling:
Planning and Scheduling are the act of establishing a plan for a set of tasks that needs to be completed and including when they should be done.
An Advertising Writer needs creativity in balancing both planning and scheduling by clearing defining what and how activities will be carried out by when and who in particular to ensure there are a clear flow and accountability to every staff.
Enthusiasm:
Enthusiasm is an intense enjoyment or a lively interest in a certain thing with a zest and a strong belief that can be felt by those around you.
An Advertising Writer ought to be enthusiastic as well as create a friendly atmosphere that makes the staff comfortable with the surroundings, with the other employees to create a less passive working place.
Conceptual Thinking:
Conceptual Thinking is the ability to recognize a situation or problem by identifying patterns or connections while addressing the underlying issues.
An Advertising Writer must be a conceptual thinker who has a keen understanding of why things have to be done the way they are; he has to think at an abstract level and apply his insights to the situation across all facets to compete in the diverse and growing economy.
Personal Drive:
Personal Drive is a combination of desire and energy in its simplest form directed at achieving a goal in whatever you have set your heart to accomplish.
An Advertising Writer needs to creatively design ways that drive the staff to carry out their work without wasting time by helping them understand and develop their self-motivation skills that assist them to take control of many different viewpoints of their life.
Long Range Planning:
Long Range Planning is setting long-term goals and objectives for your business or project to ensure its growth and sustainability is reached by all the employees.
An Advertising Writer needs creativity in defining long-term goals that ought to be proactive, putting together a full employee focused management strategy that analyzes the major initiatives and translates them into functional goals that employees handle.
Organizational Skills:
Organizational Skills is the ability to make use of time, energy and resources available in the most efficient manner to achieve their goal.
An Advertising Writer should organize the work for the employees to ensure overall organization, planning, time management, scheduling, coordinating resources and meeting deadlines is handled most efficiently by each employee for both personal and professional growth.
Quantity of Work:
The quantity of Work is the amount of work accomplished by an employee against the expectations set by the employer.
An Advertising Writer should be keen to monitor an employee's job performance by comparing it to the standard work measurements that are often given at various intervals while evaluating the production to tell when to refresh a worker's skills or address any behavioral factors.
Hard Skills Required to be an Advertising Writer
Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.
Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.
An advertising writer should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.