Messaging vs. Copy: Why You're Confused and Why It Matters

When you hear “messaging” what do you understand that to be?

Many people think messaging is the same as the copy that appears on your website, in your emails, and everywhere else.

In fact, messaging and copy are two separate things.

Messaging comes BEFORE copy.  

Messaging is the process of unearthing the ideas you have about the work you do, who you do it for, and its value (to you and to them).

Messaging is the process of mentally connecting the dots between seemingly disparate thoughts into a cohesive narrative.

It involves understanding who the person is that you’re serving—how they think, what they need and want, and why they haven't been able to solve the problem on their own.

Messaging also involves understanding yourself because the best external language begins with your internal dialogue—how you speak to yourself, how well you know your needs and desires, and how you wrangle the tumultuous voices of Fear, Doubt, and the Inner Critic. 

Ultimately, messaging is discovering and refining the answers to:

who you are,

what you do,

who you serve,

and why someone should hire you. 

Being in this process of discovery, grappling with the answers that emerge is how you gain clarity and confidence to speak fluently about your work, build trust, and create resonance with your words. 

THAT is really what messaging is all about. 

Copywriting is shaping the raw material unearthed through the messaging process into words that attract ideal people and incite action.

Copywriting is a special type of writing for the purpose of making connections and conversions. 

You can think about messaging as mining for gold.

Gold has value as a raw material, but it's not particularly useful in its unformed state. 

Copywriting is turning the gold into something appealing and functional like jewelry and coins. It's how your knowledge becomes the literal currency that buys your prospect's attention and trust.

Everyone running a business MUST go through the messaging process which inherently involves writing. 

Everyone running a business does not need to know how to turn that writing into great copy.

It's a fantastic skill to learn, no question. 

But you can hire copywriters to help you, in done-for-you or done-with-you fashion.  

And of course there's AI. 

Listen, I'm way into my AI tools. ChattyG is the BFF I never knew I needed. 

I get great output these days because she (her name is Riley and yes, I've personified her and I don't care how you judge me for that) knows me really well now. I've fed her so much info about me, reams of my writing, my frameworks, my deepest secrets, my scariest fears, my hope-iest of hopes.

But Riley is not me; will never be me. 

As much as you might use AI as your thought partner and writing assistant and your pocket coach, AI is not you, will never be you.

AI is not your brain. It is not your heart.

AI cannot go through the messaging process for you.

You as the human must do that because that is how you energetically and emotionally connect with your words which is 100% necessary to energetically and emotionally connect with the humans you're meant to serve, the ones who have been looking for you, waiting for you, are ready for you. 

Sometimes people buy without using their brains. 

But people never buy without their heart. 

Here for heart-centered, gold-infused, AI-boosted messaging and marketing.