Copywriters....do they get it? or do they get YOU?

Comes down to how targeted your visitors are, just to be sure you can get you old page back up and see if it does better, if it does then you should probably handle future editings yourself.

You don't give nearly enough information for comment.

How qualified was this copywriter? How did you determine his/her qualifications? What the hell was a copywriter doing tweaking graphics? You say the cost was a 'little high' but don't even hint at the actual price you paid.

You don't mention the product or niche. The only thing I'd suggest with what you have told us is that you go back to your original copy. But wait, you didn't mention how you were doing before either. Any psychics out there?

Sorry Travlinguy...

I didn't want to get too specific because I don;t want to FLAME anyone but here are a few more details.

The niche is "how to Make wine"

The copywriter has their own site and supposedly has 20 years experience with good references.

To me - if I pay someone $500 or $1000 or even $2000 for a rewrite, I would expect astounding results.

(now that you mention it - a psychic would have saved me a lot of money)

Depends a lot on traffic so best bet would have been to split test it with your original copy. I think I would have even made that type of deal with the copywriter that his copy would have beat out yours. Giving him a opportunity to maybe switch a few headlines. If it doesn't beat your original I don't feel you should have to pay full price.

You hired the wrong writer. That's all.

Next time you'll have different criteria.

Er if they were YOUR suggestions he did the rewrite to and that killed the sales then your suggestions can't have been all that good.

But I agree with you.

If the traffic is the same (which is another issue you want to be sure of) and you're paying a copywriter to do a rewrite then yes you should expect an increase in conversions...especially when you calculate over a large enough sample...over 1,000 hits for example.

Chances are it's a combination of:

# Your suggestions not being what was needed to increase conversions and

# The copywriter not being skilled enough to know how to increase conversions or not being brave enough to suggest the changes that he thinks needs to be made to increase conversions.


Good copywriters aren't cheap and you often do have to do some groundwork to find someone who knows what he's doing.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

Winebuddy...send me a PM with your sales page and I'll take a look.
Is all your traffic to the sales page going through your lead gen page (free book) first?

Without seeing the old and current url, I'm guessing the CW worked without considering that all your affiliate hops were pre-selling the old page, not the new one?

If it was a completely different selling concept or USP then there's bound to be a major disconnect. However if it was the same concept and message then that's more puzzling.

One thing does jump out at me though. This bit:

You didn't hire a copywriter, you hired a web designer. Two different things. They may have called themselves a copywriter but really copy is a whole different animal from graphics.

A copywriter will indeed seek to control the graphics, to advise or outright insist that you don't mess up their salesletter but that's about it. I only know of one copywriter, whom I believe is good, who is also a graphics whizz.

Then of course there is the CKB problem ("client knows best") which plagues many a good letter/landing page. You see, a copywriter has to make 3 sales each time. First they have to sell themselves to you, the client. Then they have to sell the letter to... you, the client.

THEN they get a chance to shift your product or service.

You're the filter.

You said you thought the price was high, despite it being at the lower end of the market. If you argued on price you put your CW on the defensive, which often results in "vanilla" copy (well it did with me in the early days!), that's blameless, polished and doesn't sell.

You say he polished YOUR work to what in YOUR opinion was more compelling. Yet results show it wasn't. When you took the reins completely... it bombed completely.

As such I strongly suspect you had a far greater influence and input into the letter than was wise. You paid that money for expertise, not to tell him what to do.

You say, with surprise, that he was mad at you but you didn't say why?

Why was he mad?

I'm going to take a wild guess and say he was mad along the lines of "Well that's what you insisted on, innit!"?

OK, that's enough picking on you, delicious as it is to do that someone else's client...

Let's get contructive. Step 1: analyize your 1st letter, what is it saying, what's the overall message, theme or concept?

Step 2: How did the rewrite change that? Make notes.

Step 3: Hire another copywriter. You've already upset the 1st one.

Step 4: Show them each attempt, with your notes.

Step 5: Leave them the heck alone.


There ya go, the simple 5 step plan to sanity and sales.

Best of luck!


B.

PS: Every single copywriter ever, has had at least one bomb in their career. Usually several but they don't get mentioned so much...

Mike,

Incidentally, as an affiliate I was researching the "wine making"
niche a few months ago and ran across your page, while it
was launching, and sent you a note because you didn't have
it all together yet.

On curiosity if you are the same guy I searched again.

Your page has browser issues that are probably hurting response.

I run a browser not a lot of people use, and have several installed
on my machine to test cross-browser compatibility issues. While
my browser's behavior is not what your typical user would perhaps
experience on more common browsers, your site's poor performance
with my browser is an alert that it may do odd things with others
as well.


The copy may be far from the only issue hurting response - because
your background loads first, and the white section where your
content appears loads afterwards. I haven't seen this happen
so awkwardly very often.

Also you pop-over doesn't work the way you would want it to.