Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a senior copywriter and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.

A Senior Copywriter leads the creative team in producing ad copies that assist clients to achieve their goals by producing a clear message from even the most challenging brief. He/she generates original content for advertising, promoting and educating the consumers about the goods and/or services of the organization.

Other related duties include analyzing the needs of the client for the products or services being promoted, producing an original ad copy and tailor it to the client's needs and the audience, liaise with product managers and design departments to create the copy, develop creative strategies to meet the campaign objectives, oversee the copies produced by team member and give feedback if required and give clients exciting and fresh ideas.

Core Skills Required to be a Senior Copywriter

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.

A senior copywriter 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.

A Senior Copywriter 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.

Motivating others:

Motivating is using persuasion, incentives and mental or physical stimulants to influence the way people think or behave individually or in groups.

A Senior Copywriter ought to learn how to tap into the employee's enthusiasm as well as motivate the staff not just with money but with a motivation that comes through the daily relationship with each employee and creating an environment that fosters employee engagement and motivation.

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.

A Senior Copywriter 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.

A Senior Copywriter 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.

A Senior Copywriter 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.

A Senior Copywriter 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.

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.

A Senior Copywriter 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.

Analytical Skills:

Analytical Skills is the ability to collect and analyze information, solve problems and make decisions according to the policies and regulations of the business.

A Senior Copywriter should hire employees who use clear, logical steps and excellent judgment to understand an issue from all angles before executing an action depending on the objective and the methodical approaches to benefit a company's productivity.

Computer Skills:

Computer Skills are the necessary computer working skills that each employee need to have while seeking to get admitted into the professional world.

A Senior Copywriter ought to be technologically oriented and hire employees with strong computer skills because they fare better in the job market than their tech-challenged counterparts bringing a high level of quality employees in the job seeking category.

Technical Skills:

Technical Skills are the abilities and knowledge mostly related to mechanical, IT, scientific and mathematical needed to perform specific tasks in the workplace.

A Senior Copywriter ought to hire employees with particular talents and expertise that helps them perform certain duties and jobs that other skills like soft skills cannot perform to grow both the business and the employee and bring in productivity.

Hard Skills Required to be a Senior Copywriter

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.

A senior copywriter should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.

Senior Copywriter: Hard skills list

Administrative
Analysis
Author Meetings
Blogging
Budgeting
Business Storytelling
Communications
Computers
Content Development
Content Management
Content Management Systems (CMS)
Content Review
Contracts
Copyright Laws
Copywriting
Copy Editing
Creative Writing
Desktop Publishing Software
Developmental Editing
Devise Structure
Digital Content Editing
Digital Media
Distribution
Drafting
Editing
Editorial
Electronic Design Specifications
Eliminating Jargon
Establishing Tone
Fact Checking
Feature Writing
Final Manuscript Production
Formatting
Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation
Grant Proposals (write grant proposals)
HTML
Identifying Audience
Identifying Theme
InDesign
Indexing
Interpersonal
Interviewing Techniques
Journalism
Journalist Ethics
Language
Layout Creation
Line-by-line Editing
Magazine Writing
Manuscript Creation
Marketing Communications
Marking Color Breaks
Marking Head Levels
Mark-Ups
Mechanics of Style
Media Writing
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Word or Word Processing
Mock-Ups
Newsletters
News Writing
Online Editing
Online Research
On-line Search Techniques
Page Layout and Composition Techniques
Pagination
Presentation Writing
Print Writing
Project Editing
Project Management
Proofreading
Proofreading symbols
Proposal Writing
Publishing formats and Technologies
Research
Report Writing
Revising
Rewriting
Rhetorical Triangle
Rough Manuscript Edits
Social Media
Social Media Marketing
Spelling
Story Development
Strong Vocabulary
Structure
Structural Editing
Style
Style Manuals
Stylistic Editing
Substantive Editing
Technical Writing
Terminology
Tone
Typesetting
Vandyke Checking
Verbal Communications
Vocabulary
Voice
Web Content Writing
Web Publishing
WordPress
Working Sketches
Written Communications
Writing
Writing & Procedures & Documentations

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