Can the roles of strategy and writing be combined?

The strategist burst into my office, full of purpose and urgency.

“Got a sec?” he asked. “We need some quick copywriting help.”

I was an agency copywriter, and it was years before I’d even think of starting my own firm. I paused my work of staring out the window and daydreaming about country songs and billboards and Thoreau (day-in-the-life of a copywriter!). “Sure thing,” I said.

He showed me a CTA button on a web page his team was working on. “What should it say, ‘Contact Us’ or ‘Let’s Talk’?”

I gave him my verdict (“Let’s Talk” of course) and he thanked me profusely. Too profusely, I thought.

While it was oddly satisfying to so easily become the agency hero, I’ve wondered ever since why the jobs of strategy and writing are so siloed. The strategy and writing phases of the content development process should absolutely be distinct, so that writers are always working from thorough strategic inputs that have been vetted and approved by the client. But strategists who have at least some confidence in their writing, and know how to tell a good story, have a distinct advantage over those who don’t.

The best strategists have storytelling aptitude.

At its essence, being a strategist is a creative act. You have to imagine there’s something out there that’s better than the obvious answer. You have to fumble in the dark until you find the light. It’s the same process writers use to find the right headlines, hooks, and stories.

Copywriters and content writers who move into strategy roles bring unique talents to the job. They can play a role that’s a mix of agency planner and creative director, where the work of understanding the market and customer is all in service of telling the best possible story and getting the best possible results for the client.

Sometimes, the best writer for the project is actually the strategist.

There are times when it’s not a matter of switching from a writing role to a strategy role (or vice versa), but learning and embracing both. In fact, a strategist with a writing background can sometimes be the best choice for a project’s writing phase. Set them loose on a content writing project they’ve developed the strategy for, and their combination of skills and talents can be a truly beautiful thing to behold. Their strategic work directly informs their creative concepting and storytelling. And everything they learn during the writing phase feeds back into their next strategy assignment.

Storytelling requires deep empathy. So does strategy.

Strategists possess excellent research and analytic skills, but the very best of them are so good at understanding audiences that they can seem almost psychic. Chalk it up to their willingness to search until they find the emotional truth of the story, just like writers do. They don’t stop once they’ve identified customer demographics and psychographics. Instead, they keep digging until they understand what truly motivates their audience.

Sure, they can turn these insights over to a great writer to channel them into a powerful story. But every once in a while, the strategist is the great writer that the story needs. And the story’s even more powerful because of it.