Looking to Team up with some Copywriters!

Question to graphics people who want to team up with copywriters: What have you tested and what controls have you beaten?

For the lightning elimination round: Show (or mention or ...heck, even make up an interesting couple paragraphs explaining your take on) an advertorial layout and/or sales infographic.

Decorating a sales page isn't the same thing as designing one. A good many copywriters have CS. What they want is someone who can demonstrate they have studied response design results and know what increases response ...and what lowers it.

Just googled Kerning and Leading.

COOL IMAGES> NICE

Not the subtlest things though. lololololol.

Direct response graphics for copywriter are a different animal from "...people out there who aren't interested in creating graphics ..."

Graphics people, in general, gravitate towards that which lowers response. They don't feel that way. But feelings about one's work do not translate into results.

There are a hundred common ways to lower response with graphics, and only a few ways to increase them. Copywriters do not want to learn you discovered the hundred-and-first way to lower response.

Finally, the magnetic pull of graphics artists seems to be a disdain for commerce. Sure, yeah, they stoop to engage in it -- but most feel they have a higher calling.

To those people the very concept of learning what pulls is just money grubbing (...yuck) commerce. If you're better than all that, you won't study any of that.

A good many copywriters who create their own graphics have to because the graphics people run off the rails so often, in so many ingenius ways, it just doesn't work.

Read: Why Your Site Doesn't Need to be Pretty The only thing the unanoumous approval of graphics gets is lower response ...once you put the person whose vote was left out back into the loop.

There is a somwhat well known book copywriters are familiar with, "Which Headline Pulled Best." There is no version for graphics and design. It would be a nice companion piece, and I suspect the demand is there.

One reaon is it simply never enters into the consiousness of a graphics person to test. There is something the business types get all worked up about "out there," they call them customers. Graphics people have heard the term. They vaguely feel what they do elevates the customer experience from the mundane humdrum of human existence. But it is several levels of abstraction removed from having a notion of what makes a cash register ring. Hence the Fiverr-fodder price tacked on.

And, I almost forgot, your insight for today is...

They could all be wiped out tomorrow with one of those online generators where you type in your headline, and sub head, then select from a drop down "Michael Fortin Style," or whatever, the width, type sizing, and it generates a graphic. (Perhaps markup. Perhaps not) There are tons of the awful kind of graphic generator out there.

Alas, such an item is all but unfindable. Pity, that. If only there were people looking for opportunites and competitive advantage. ...And a site for them all to gather. A real pity.

Money grubbing people. Entrepreneur wannabes. IMers looking for a bonus. ...a lure. ...linkbait and traffic. ...You just make me all frowny and sad -- unfortunately it is because you people also seem to have some issues with commerce you have to work out as well.

Hskrdoo, I'm sorry you got kind of a rough response to your post. You did have a good idea about finding people to team up with to build your business.

These guys are right about the fact that real copywriters care about conversions and would want some kind of testing and track record behind your graphics work.

But, hang in there. There are plenty of others hanging out in this forum who don't seem to know or care much yet about conversions and may be willing to partner up with you while you do some research and testing.

First off, it's an okay assumption when you are making your pitch. It is not okay to leave it out of your pitch.

The graphics could test out as not hurting sales, as well. That is not the same as contributing anything to sales.

Finally, as with the suggestions on kerning and leading, you have to make very sure what you are doing isn't leaving anything out. You think you're doing everything just like those examples, but that may not be a correct assumption.

Hint: You may want to change the wording used within your examples for better results.

Kerning and leading are not exactly secrets of the narrow realm of copywriting. It's not something a copywriter looking to hire is going to want to look over your shoulder and monitor or send back for revision. If they have to do that, they're better off doing it for themselves.

Point being, stop looking at the end result without reading what copywriters' books on graphics and layout are saying. You make an awful lot of mistakes trying to jump to the back of the book by looking at examples and infering from that.


Reading:

Type & Layout: Are You Communicating or Just... Old School.