If many in our industry are to be believed, copy is somewhat of a optional extra when it comes to marcoms. Or maybe a necessary evil. To be tolerated as long as it doesn't exceed 30 words or so. Of course you see this most in advertising which has become increasingly image-led over the years. Direct mail still resists, bolstered by the mountains of evidence that copy drives response. And then there's web.
Look at the usability studies and you'll see that effective web copy is a case of less is more. Unfortunately many designers seem to take this as an excuse to design layouts allowing not 30 words, but 30 characters of copy – even on highly complex products. Rather than helping to structure the message, all too often copy is seen as the stuff that simply replaces the lorem ipsum in the design.
This is nuts.
It's copy, more often than not, that visitors to a site are looking for. It's copy that sells products, services and ideas. Copy is a core part of the experience. This is especially so in B2B where complex arguments must be communicated efficiently, powerfully and elegantly.
This is not a call to have endless scrolling copy on every page you serve. Good copy can achieve its aims in surprisingly few words.
So just as an experiment, on the next site you create – start with the copy.