Do Not Hire a Copywriter
Posted 12-04-2008 at 12:07 PM by Robert Plank
Tags copywriter, copywriting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyNZpyK31sg
You should avoid paying an expensive copywriter and try to write your own copy for three reasons. First of all, when you hire a copywriter, you are hiring a stranger so you have no idea about their skill or work ethics. Second, many strangers on the Internet are lazy so you might end up waiting weeks or months for your sales letter to be ready. Finally, you have to take into account that copywriters are expensive.
Any time you hire a freelancer on the Internet, you are taking a big risk. Whether it is an article writer, programmer, or copywriter, you are giving someone money in exchange for a product that might not be workable. Most people are willing to give $100 to an article writer or $500 to a programmer, but $5000 for a single sales letter to an unproven copywriter for a sales letter that might not even be complete? Forget about it.
Another factor you need to take into account is laziness. It is true that most freelance sites allow people to rate and review the writers, but I have seen copywriter after copywriter fall into the trap of taking on too many clients once they become successful. After a few good $5000 jobs, it is easy to think the business will scale up. Even the best copywriters cannot take on ten new jobs at once, by themselves.
Finally, there is the cost factor, which relates to the strangers and laziness points above. If you consider that the average product costs $500 to $1500 to create, graphics cost $50 to $300, and copywriting costs $500 to $2500, most infoproducts cost $2,675 to create... not including web hosting and advertising. That means every time you put out a report or an e-course, that product must generate $2,675 before you make a single penny.
If your product is priced at 7 dollars, you need 382 sales, just to break even.
On the other hand, if you can write your own copy, even the most basic copy, the cost of developing your product drops to the $550 to $1800 range, for an average cost of $1175.
Before you tell yourself that a professional copywriter can do a much better job at selling than you, consider the fact that a random copywriter has never seen or even used your product. You, on the other hand, probably know it inside and out. So if you can make your best effort at writing your own copy using what you know, you can always get copywriting critiques, both free and paid, to improve on what you have already written, than rely on a stranger to write all the copy for you.
Get the exact step by step formula to write a sales letter in five minutes or less, complete with easy to use worksheets and plug-n-play headlines, offers, stories, and guarantees... http://www.fiveminutecopywriting.com
You should avoid paying an expensive copywriter and try to write your own copy for three reasons. First of all, when you hire a copywriter, you are hiring a stranger so you have no idea about their skill or work ethics. Second, many strangers on the Internet are lazy so you might end up waiting weeks or months for your sales letter to be ready. Finally, you have to take into account that copywriters are expensive.
Any time you hire a freelancer on the Internet, you are taking a big risk. Whether it is an article writer, programmer, or copywriter, you are giving someone money in exchange for a product that might not be workable. Most people are willing to give $100 to an article writer or $500 to a programmer, but $5000 for a single sales letter to an unproven copywriter for a sales letter that might not even be complete? Forget about it.
Another factor you need to take into account is laziness. It is true that most freelance sites allow people to rate and review the writers, but I have seen copywriter after copywriter fall into the trap of taking on too many clients once they become successful. After a few good $5000 jobs, it is easy to think the business will scale up. Even the best copywriters cannot take on ten new jobs at once, by themselves.
Finally, there is the cost factor, which relates to the strangers and laziness points above. If you consider that the average product costs $500 to $1500 to create, graphics cost $50 to $300, and copywriting costs $500 to $2500, most infoproducts cost $2,675 to create... not including web hosting and advertising. That means every time you put out a report or an e-course, that product must generate $2,675 before you make a single penny.
If your product is priced at 7 dollars, you need 382 sales, just to break even.
On the other hand, if you can write your own copy, even the most basic copy, the cost of developing your product drops to the $550 to $1800 range, for an average cost of $1175.
Before you tell yourself that a professional copywriter can do a much better job at selling than you, consider the fact that a random copywriter has never seen or even used your product. You, on the other hand, probably know it inside and out. So if you can make your best effort at writing your own copy using what you know, you can always get copywriting critiques, both free and paid, to improve on what you have already written, than rely on a stranger to write all the copy for you.
Get the exact step by step formula to write a sales letter in five minutes or less, complete with easy to use worksheets and plug-n-play headlines, offers, stories, and guarantees... http://www.fiveminutecopywriting.com
Total Comments 2
Comments
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You bring up some good points, but you left out the other side of the coin.
Keep in mind that everyone does not want to learn or write copy. That's just reality. Secondly, it's money well spent if you do your homework and your conversions increase. I'm a marketer and a copywriter and I still hire other copywriters sometimes because of time or to see if their copy converts better.
I can't tell you how many clients of mine attempted to write their own copy, even after studying it, and fell flat on their face. Sure, over time they could have fixed their conversions but in the interim, hiring a competent copywriter was the smart choice. It all situation-based.Posted 12-04-2008 at 07:33 PM by Rod Cortez
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That's a good point, some people just aren't meant to be writers. But even if you wrote the worst sales copy imaginable, you could still give the copywriter an idea of what you wanted. That's a lot better than just saying, here's my product... sell this. That's why I mentioned the improving it by critiques in the article.
I'm definitely not against hiring copywriters (I do it now and then) but people just starting out... shouldn't be wasting that $5000. But I agree with all your points, Ron.Posted 12-05-2008 at 11:28 AM by Robert Plank
