Is it worth to hire a copywriter?

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