Is it worth to hire a copywriter?

[dave.]

I'm nearly ready with my first product in the IM niche and was thinking about hiring a professional copywriter to do the hard job for me, since I'm not speaking english very well. However, I've no clue about the prices, so could you please tell me, how much a sales letter for an IM product will approximately cost me? Is it worth to hire a real expert?

Of course, I'm not asking for concrete numbers, just to get some idea I can calculate with.

Thanks!

[nobodyspecial]

Depends upon your offer.

A mediocre copywriter with a fantastic offer will probably be profitable.

A poor offer with a great copywriter will probably be unprofitable.

What is your offer?

Copywriters can run from $200 to $20,000.

[Cherilyn Woodhouse]

It is usually worth having a copywriter look it over and give you a quote... If you don't have a decent offer, any copywriter worth their salt will turn you down and tell you why, so you know what you can do to improve your product.

$200 will get you a copywriter, yes. Not the best one, by far - but they should be typing on an English keyboard by this point. $20,000 really isn't necessary unless you think you can drive enough traffic to recoup that cost, which most IMers simply can't. I would aim for the $1000-2000 range and you should do OK, not going overboard with spending but getting decent copy for your investment.

On the other hand, some great warrior copywriters have WSO's all the time under that price point... My recent one was under $500 - so you never know.

- Cherilyn

[myob]

We have often charged up to $10,000 for marketing letters, but rates are all over the place as mentioned here previously. You might try contacting a marketing major at a local college for a low cost or even free sales letter. See my sig. We will write your ad for you free if you order our advertising.

[Scott Murdaugh]

Copy is critical. It can literally make or break your sales.

If you're lucky, you might be able to find a great copywriter with tons of experience under his belt just trying to build a reputation in a certain forum for reasonable prices.

Good luck!

-Scott

[dave.]

Thank you for all your answers. To be honest, I haven't thought that a single salespage can be so expensive.

[MikeHumphreys]

Originally Posted by dave.

Thank you for all your answers. To be honest, I haven't thought that a single salespage can be so expensive.

A client told me that when he hired me earlier this year to write a direct mail piece for him. It went on to make over $100K in sales in the first month alone.

Now I write all of his sales copy for him.

Hiring a copywriting is not an expense. It's an investment in your business.

No copywriter hits a home run every time. If they did, they'd charge about $10 million per sales letter (minimum).

Sometimes what they write might do badly. BUT if your copywriter hits a home run for you then the sky is the limit on how much you can make. And the experienced (and expensive) copywriters will usually work with their clients to get underperforming sales letters back into the profitable zone.

Hope that helps,

Mike

[AndrewCavanagh]

The average rate for an online sales letter according to a survey of copywriters is $2,500 to $3,500.

If you want an online sales letter that converts I'd be very cautious of any copywriter charging less than $1,500 and regardless of the fee you'll want to do your homework and ask for some referrals from happy clients (contact them and see what they say about the copywriter and his copy).

Generally speaking if you have any reasonable amount of traffic hiring a copywriter is a no brainer.

A good copywriter will get you at least double the conversion rate over a poor copywriter (yourself) so you do the math:

20,000 visitors/$20 product/1% conversion = $4,000 in sales
20,000 visitors/$20 product/2% conversion = $8,000 in sales

$4,000 extra sales.

If you have a digital product most of that will be net profit so paying a copywriter $2,500 you'd be up $1,500 and every visitor after that first 20,000 is doubling your sales and profits.

You just need to look at your own expected traffic figures and see how long it will take you to break even on the investment of hiring a copywriter.

That will give you a good idea of how much you can afford to pay too.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

[Sarah Harvey]

It's true what a lot of people said in their posts, but they seem to forget one thing.

Some people can have years of experience as a writer and are good at what they do. However, by joining a new forum like this they would at some point offer their services very reasonably.

It goes to show you that most people equal price with quality. Lesson learned in my life time... judge for yourself if that is the case. Do not assume because someone charges $1,500 for a letter that they are good. I have seen a few crappy ones in my day that is claimed to be 'so-great!'

The best writer to find in this world is the one that loves writing- and treats it as a business and as a passion. You are more apt to find cheaper rates then and good quality.

A few years back I needed an art piece for my band's album and I specialize in something specific when it comes to art...so I needed something different. I simply searched through the internet and found someone who is well-renowned for their art in their particular subject.

I wrote him a beautiful letter and a week later I had the art piece in my hands. Nothing paid for and I had to do nothing on my part. I never deceived him either. He still showcases my piece as one of his art pieces since I agreed to let him do it.

With the right words and the right attitude you can achieve a lot. In this case, he was a passionate person about his art and it took one person (me) to identify with him on a personal level and he was more than happy to paint it for me.

If you are lucky you will find someone who is passionate about writing to do it for you for next to nothing.

Good luck!

[MaskedMarketer]

yes its worth it if it provides a good ROI.. Of course its not just the sales letter as it is your offer, the product, and industry your in that also matters.. Your sales letter is your sales army out 24/7 pitching your offer.. It would be wise to have a well written sales..

[dave.]

Originally Posted by AndrewCavanagh

The average rate for an online sales letter according to a survey of copywriters is $2,500 to $3,500.

If you want an online sales letter that converts I'd be very cautious of any copywriter charging less than $1,500 and regardless of the fee you'll want to do your homework and ask for some referrals from happy clients (contact them and see what they say about the copywriter and his copy).

Generally speaking if you have any reasonable amount of traffic hiring a copywriter is a no brainer.

A good copywriter will get you at least double the conversion rate over a poor copywriter (yourself) so you do the math:

20,000 visitors/$20 product/1% conversion = $4,000 in sales
20,000 visitors/$20 product/2% conversion = $8,000 in sales

$4,000 extra sales.

If you have a digital product most of that will be net profit so paying a copywriter $2,500 you'd be up $1,500 and every visitor after that first 20,000 is doubling your sales and profits.

You just need to look at your own expected traffic figures and see how long it will take you to break even on the investment of hiring a copywriter.

That will give you a good idea of how much you can afford to pay too.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

It's true, but since it would be my first product, I can't predict how much traffic would I get (I have no JV's or a huge list, because I was active in a totally different niche until now). Therefore I don't want to risk that amount of money at first. Perhaps I rather hire a cheaper copywriter, and if I can get big traffic to it, I'll hire an expert to improve my conversions.

[cfloyd]

I'm not a great copy writer this is one reason I'm here is to learn.

But I would have to say it's worth every penny.

Bad copy can cause all your hard work to go right down the drain.

I know that many people have paid 10's of thousands of dollars for good copy, so I would have to say depending on your product and budget would depend on where you go for a good writer.

I saw some good advice above and I think you might just find someone here.

I say in your situation -hire a copywriter.

Cindy

[SeanIM]

I don't have credentials like most of the copywriters here but I do know how to re-tweak landing pages that convert so I consider it a close cousin to your question/issue...

A client of mine who lost his Google arbitrage business in the big smackdown began trying to sell leads through normal affiliate offers...he was spending 30 dollars to make 30 dollars when he came knocking on my door.

By changing the headline, font face, color and 2-3 other minor things he increased his business model to spending 30 to making over a 100 in return.

I'm certain good ad copy is worth it's weight in gold...I've seen evidence of this quite a few times.

Please don't try to put garlic in your cheesecake recipe. Let the guy (or gal) that knows how to cook good adcopy do their work and make more happy customers/sales.

[Rebecca Dean]

Okay, forgive me for tooting my own horn a bit... but it's for a good point.

My last client said that his wife and him were both wary of hiring a copywriter. But once they saw the sales letter I wrote for them, they knew they had made the right choice because they could not have produced anywhere near the same copy.

The reason why is I have spent considerable amounts of time studying and writing sales copy.

But you can answer this question for yourself. Write your own sales copy. See how many sales you make. Then invest in a good copywriter and never look back. ha ha ha.

And by the way, I do only charge $997. That's because I'm building my portfolio right now. But please do not be wary of me because I have my $6,000 per project copywriter brother (Stephen Dean) guiding me every step of the way. ha ha ha.

Take care and I hope you are convinced by all the posts here that yes, hiring a copywriter is more than worth it.



Rebecca

[erinwrites]

Hiring a copywriter is definitely in your best interest if you are not a writer yourself. Like others have said, it is your sales letter/site copy that will sell your product so you want to make sure it is top notch. I have to disagree, however, with those that say more money will automatically buy you a better product. There are plenty of fantastic copywriters out there who, for whatever reason, aren't charging thousands of dollars for their products (I'm one of them).

There are plenty of us who are happy to work out sale prices and really work with you to give you the product that you need. I will say, though, that you shouldn't go too far in your attempts to save money because if you put price ahead of the product then you run the risk of getting something that not only won't make you any money but will eventually cost you money when you have to get it rewritten.

One way to find a great copywriter is to find a sales letter that you like, something that you would like your sales letter to emulate and find out who wrote it! Or, you know, you could just hire me

Good luck!

[KBunn]

I agree with what erinwrites said above. If you have no experience as a trained writer yourself, it is important that you find a quality copywriter. While I say experienced, that does not neccessarily have to mean expenssive. There are plenty of writers willing to work at reasonable prices for the amount of work involoved.

Since you mentioned that you are not speaking English well, I assume that you are from a different country. If you are trying to market your new product in the United States or to native English speakers, it is imperative that you hire someone who can write in proper American English.

Good luck to you with your new product, and in whatever decision you make.

[zapseo]

I recently had an interchange with another internet marketer, someone who I saw come into the copywriting forum (on the old Warrior Forum) and ask for advice.

His copy was pretty crappy at the time.

I've watched him, over time, improve -- to the point that he is quite good.

But he writes for himself and does well for himself as an internet marketer.

Recently, we had a discussion about what is important in copy. With every statement he made, I countered with something that I feel "trumps" copy. And he agreed.

Copy is ONE piece in a business strategy.

And time is the invariable piece you have to deal with.

So, for instance -- is it more important to spend time, effort and money on testing? Or would you be better off spending that time giving dynamite customer service ?

Is deciding between 20 point red Tahoma or 20 point blue/red Impact more important than having your clients and customers raving about how you care?

Let me point out that word-of-mouth can be a very powerful business promoter. And last I checked, fonts don't speak.

Someone mentioned offer. Offer is definitely important.

So is market research.

If you have identified a ravenously hungry crowd, what you write almost doesn't matter. Although "proof" elements might be.

It's all about prioritization.

If you want to spend $1000 for a "sales page" (the last one I wrote is between 30-40 screens -- so $1000 would be about $25-$33/"page".) without doing adequate market research, you're probably throwing money down the toilet. And that doesn't even begin to include the market perspective, marketing savvy, ability to provide a unique angle and slant that also came as part of the package.

Now, that said, that long of a sales page should probably cost in the multi-thousands.

You may not need a 30-40 page salesletter -- initially.

As someone pointed out (Cherilyn, I believe) -- the amount of traffic you can send to a page can also be a determining factor.

And there seems to be more emphasis on "writing" here in this thread, which seems odd to me. Especially since some of those writing had obvious grammatical errors or whose writing was not clear.

Copywriting is about salesmanship -- pure and simple. It is, in the famous and oft-quote words of John E. Kennedy "Salesmanship in print."

Salesmanship USES words -- but it's about something quite different. It's about making connections with people and their deep needs and desires and positioning your product as the means, the solution, to achieving those deep needs and desires. Words -- writing -- are simply the conduit for making those connections.

Ultimately.

But there are a lot of steps in between. How you determine those deep needs. How you take product features and turn them into benefits. How you take those benefits and connect so deeply with the reader that they feel understood, that they trust you, that they say "this is somebody who really "gets" who I am and what I need" -- so that they believe you when you say "this is what you need, it will solve your problem."

Tall order?

Yup.

Do you need copy?

Or something else?

Live JoyFully!

Judy Kettenhofen, Profit Strategist/Copywriter
NextDay Copy

[tommen]

I would say that it is worth to hire a copywriter in some cases.It´s good to get a new view on things and a different writing style is refreshing for your readers.If English is not your mother tongue, then hiring a copywriter will get rid of the typos and spelling mistakes that can make you look stupid.

[dave.]

Of course, if I would write it myself, I would ask some of my friends to correct my mistakes. So the main point I wanted to higlight is, that does a real copywriter use such better, more effective words then I would, that it would be worth to pay a lot of money for it? Because I'm not sure that I want to pay $10.000 for a 1-2% better conversation rate, since I don't have any clue about how successful the product itself would be.

You don't even have to answer, I know it myself: TESTING, TESTING AND TESTING

But as I see, there are a lot of good writers for a few hundred bucks.