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JOURNEY TO ICP
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Once upon a time, there was a third-year student named Bao Ngoc, who loves to go on adventures. Therefore, she dediced to went on a 12-weeks trip to Interdisciplinary Communication Project land to explore new things, solve tricky problems, and improve herself. Here, she has the chance to meet new people who shares the same passion with her and form alliances. Together Ngoc and her team went on the quest to achieve the client's request throughout 12 weeks.
Oh, I almost forget to introduce. I am Bao Ngoc, the story narrative and also the character in this story. Are you curious to know how I have improved myself related to my career path during ICP?
The wait is over. Let's find out now, shall we?
HOW TO BE A PROFESSIONAL COPYWRITER?
As I mentioned in my professional aspirations that I want to become a Copywriter in the future. Copywriters are the wizards that cast a spell on ‘language’- an unspoken form to become alive; notably, they are the story ‘seller’ with the ability to change how people think, feel and act (D&AD - Creative Advertising, Design and Digital 2015).
Figure 1: Copywriter duties and responsibilities
In the agency, copywriters are the ‘partner in crime’ with the art director to develop advertising campaigns. By understanding the creative brief, the copywriter is responsible for all promotional material and writes the content that can be used by the service or brand (Kumar 2017). Specifically, they produce content for social media, involve creating slogans and headlines for the posters, writing scripts for television commercials (TVC) (Adamko n.d.).
Figure 2: Besides generating ideas, these are four skills that need to be achieved to become a great Copywriter
KEY approaches for Copywriter to CREATE COPY THAT ENGAGE
Storytelling
Using the ‘Star, Story, Solution’ approach, starts with how the main character is having some issues then develops the story with the scenario that makes them feel related to the character. Then, the solution arrives and shows how the character worked through their issue using the product or service offered by the client (Hernandez 2016).
As scrolling through the copywriter practitioner's portfolio, I’ve found out some of the strengths that they applied in their portfolio resulting in increasing credibility with the client in the industry.
Figure 3: TJ Sie- a copywriter practitioner’s portfolio
Figure 4: Amanda Deverajan- a copywriter practitioner’s portfolio
By looking at the inspirations from the practitioners, I’ve listed down the strengths and weaknesses of my digital portfolio in comparison to them.
STRENGTHS
- Clear evidence of the ability to engage and network with industry (evidence to support skills, personality, role)
- Have some evidences of the project that I’ve worked
WEAKNESSES
- Did not showcase clearly my projects specifically to copywriting on the homepage.
- Lack of evidence of freelance work and possibly winning awards, prizes, certifications.
REFLECTION
In the copywriting field, it is important to have a headline that has less than 6 words. I have applied the ‘headline rules’ in the digital portfolio to create an irresistible invitation to the readers and encourage them to click and view more.
I also include the AIDCA approach for my digital portfolio.
First, I get the attention of the readers by making a bold statement about myself.
By including all the requisite information about my background, experience and planning strategies in the home page, it helps the clients to feel interested in how I can become more relevant in the industry and create desire for them.
After going through all the sections about me and my work, the portfolio convinces the clients along with the call to action, encouraging them to contact me as a potential employer.
#4 TUTORIALS THAT I FOUND HELPFUL FOR MY COPYWRITING SKILLS
By watching the tutorials and reading the blogs, I’ve understood that using short sentences equals better copy as it helps the reader digest and remembers the message better. Nobody would like to read a copy that is too lengthy. This helps me learn that writing content on social media should focus on key points that I want to convey rather than a long leading sentence.
Moreover, the Copyblogger blog posts provide me with many tricks on how to create ‘killer’ content as understanding “Show, don’t tell” is one of the most crucial rules in storytelling. Using details can make my copy more memorable, provokes emotions, and provides a better experience for readers (Glatch 2020).
In the ICP project, I am the Account Manager who is responsible for client contacts and working with the rest of our agency team. I choose this position rather than a copywriter because I want to take this opportunity to learn more about the strategist side and become a bold communicator.
Many people perceive that Account Executive and Copywriter are two different roles, one is the strategy and the other is more creative. However, there are some traits that Account and Copywriter share as Copywriter also needs to learn how to accept feedback.
In comparison with myself before taking ICP, I'm becoming a more insightful person. While communicating with clients, I understand that I shouldn’t be biased because the clients will choose the most feasible idea to execute, not the creative/ favorite one. Before, I tend to be overwhelmed with the number of tasks after feedback. After becoming the one who continuously contacts the clients, I’ve learned to be well-prepared to present clients with our team process and ideas. Having an agenda with defined objectives enables me to keep track of the client about our team process with detailed and transparent key points (MBO Partners 2020). By actively getting feedback from clients, I can adapt the changes regarding the deliverables that earn the clients’ compliments after we showcase our RMIT Graduation Audition 2021 project.
Figure 5: My meeting agenda with clients to reconfirm about the previous feedbacks and our changes.
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Figure 6: While discussing with my team, I tend to present my ideas first, then everyone will point out what's good and what needs to improve.
Having sensitive traits, doing the task under pressure is my weakness. As we have little time until the project showcases with many uncompleted tasks, I set the soft deadline for everyone to finish their tasks so we can revise and submit the deadline on time. However, we couldn’t manage our time effectively resulting in missing the soft deadline. Consequently, I couldn’t contact the clients asking for feedback of the draft video.
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Figure 7: As the campus closed down during Christmas week, we had to filming all the footages urgently in 3 days. I was the monitor during the Production stage, ensuring all the scenes were filmed, keep track of the equipments. Also, I have learned a new filming skill.
Doing the task under high pressure made me stressful with experiences overnight revising the tasks. However, panicking and rushing everyone to complete the tasks won’t bring the best outcome. The performance of a team needs a careful control of these emotions as team members must understand their emotions and use them (TBAE Team 2013). Going through ups and downs with my team who shares different personality traits taught me to trust my teammates and their ability more. I need to adjust my emotions by lowering down my expectations for my team, maintaining the harmony in a group.
Figure 8: We stayed overnight for 2 days to finalized the promotional video and the design materials
By looking through blog on how to handling tasks under high pressure, these are some recommendations to manage my emotions better
Staying calm enables me to take steps to accomplish the tasks, even in high-demanding and rough situations (McGowan 2015).
Stay focused on what needs to be accomplished to complete my regular responsibilities (McGowan 2015).
Motivate and encourage my teammates by restructuring the team's workload or arranging bonding moments (Mind Tools n.db).
Another thing that I learn is that it is necessary to have a back-up role in a team as Porter (2005) discusses that having a back-up role can increase team performance. In this case, I am the back-up copywriter for Thao My as she had to do the web developer task during the Project Showcase phase. By using experiences regarding managing social media pages, I took part in executing content strategy and the copy for the contents of Graduation Audition.
Understanding the importance of having a back-up role is crucial to become a flexible person in the team. A significant benefit of becoming a back-up Copywriter is that I have adapted and learned how to build creative and relevant contents to attract the artistry people. For the future, as working in an agency requires high flexibility while working under a team, I can develop my problem-solving skills by understanding this new insight.
Finally, understanding the User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) in design is valuable to me in creating a good online portfolio. For my first online portfolio, I put too much emphasis on words, therefore, the website tends to be boring and lacks interaction between the users and the website.
As UX design addresses all aspects that would improve user interface with a harmony of visual, texts and audio, I need to think about how my portfolio can build credibility towards potential clients in the industry, encouraging them to contact me after looking at my digital portfolio. Philips (n,d.) discusses that UX portfolios should not be a collection of all past work but rather be explicit about your skills/ process, and the most highlighted projects.
Figure 9: The 7 Factors that Influence User Experience
These are the changes for my online portfolio
BEFORE
Plain homepage
Putting all the experiences in the homepage
Briefly discuss my skills related to Copywriter
after
Rearrange my homepage, adding a brief description about myself, encourage visitor to scroll down to check my portfolio
Choose the most recent and outstanding projects that I have done to present.
Showing my problem-solving skills by evaluating my strengths and weaknesses to deliver value to potential clients
FUTURE PLANNING
After completing 12 weeks of ICP, I have gained many valuable insights that can be applied to my future career. Learning new skills from becoming an Account Executive helps me to improve my strategic perspective, including managing the relationship with clients. This has contributed significantly to me as an insightful copywriter in the future that can persuade the audiences. I believe that the list of skills I have mentioned above, together with my willingness to learn attitude, will lead me to a bright future.
Looking back at my previous Self-doxing, I’ve improved my time management skills by creating a proper To Do List and prioritizing the more important tasks. In terms of creating a captivating online portfolio to “sell myself”, I have adjusted my portfolio to be more relevant to the industry by showcasing my projects, visualizing the portfolio with clear goals, and planning. Also, I’ve gained more interpersonal skills regarding collaborating within a team with strong integrated thinking to provide the best outcomes for the clients. After the course finished, I would gladly showcase our project for the ICP course on social media, evaluate how I have grown thanks to the project.
PLAN TO adapt myself into a copywiter
1
Improve active listening skills by preparing a detailed agenda and questions whenever having a meeting, avoid being passive in conversation
2
Investigate the prize-winning campaigns through case studies to understand in-depth about the trends and industry preferences
3
Asking myself the questions: "What are you great at?", "What could you become great at when it comes to copywriting?". By doing that, I can find the intersection between what I liked to do and what I could produce efficently
4
Practice makes perfect. Digging into blogs that experts in producing copy to learn how to make a persuasive copy.
5
As I love watching movies in my free time, I can practice my writing skills by evaluating and writing a short movie review or any topic reviews. Also, by reading 'copy hackers' blog, I can learn from the previous experiences and gradually produce contents that can reach readers.
6
Get a freelance job related to copywriting to strengthen my skills.
7
Setting clear objectives for myself and focus on the goal of become a Copywriter after graduation.
8
PLAN B: If the plan above doesn't work, I will consider apply as an Account Intern first. As being an Account requires to work with the Creative team, obtaining the managing experiences with the insightful impact of creativity will help me extend my knowledge. After the internship ends, I can be more confident to apply for the Copywriter position of an advertising agency.
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