How much should I budget for a decent sales page?

Also...

Pricepoint...
ROI...

I mean, I'd say a minimum of $5K for a decent page. But a lower pricepoint with no launch strategy might not support that.

Just don't go for the lowest price you find. And learn copy techniques. So at least if you get a bad page you can tweak it yourself to make it better.

You forgot a digit. I was just talking to someone who is close friends with Carlton and they said John charges $1800 for video critiques.

Dennis...

I believe you about respecting what we do. And I'm happy to hear that.

With all honesty, you can get a good $2,500 letter if you find the right guy. Of all my students I only have one that charges that little.

But remember... there are some copywriters who get 10 times that amount too. Obviously the idea of how much money you can actually make is important when deciding who to hire.

Like ray said... it's an investment. is $5K a lot when you end up making 100K? I don't think so. What about paying 15K and you bring home $130K? It's pretty cheap when you look at it that way.

But... if you're expecting to make 20K, it makes little sense to invest half of it in a copywriter.

$5K... $10K or even $15K is nothing as long as it makes enough sales to much more than cover the cost. It in effect cost you nothing and made you a lot.

But... spending $1,000 on a sales letter that makes you $0... that bargain just cost you a minimum of $1,000.

So basically... I'm going a long way around to say you were right. You should probably just learn copy and write your own letters.

Now you've added a new dimension. I didn't get the impression from your
question that you were looking for a one page letter. I thought you were
interested in a sales letter.

Sorry if I got the wrong impression.

-Ray Edwards

Why is he using a "who else" headline?

I see some active copywriters here say that's "out of style" to some past copy critiques here.

I agree! Most copywriters may be tired of a certain format or headline style
but this doesn't mean that the target market is. Sometimes we have to get
out of the ring in order to see the real fight.

"Who Else ..." still works even if most copywriters are tired of seeing it.

Caveat: |Simply because a famous copywriter is using a headline doesn't
mean that it's the best choice. Mechanics often have the worst vehicles
because they know they can fix them any time.

-Ray Edwards

You'll wind up paying alot more than a one-time fee. Otherwise, any great copywriter will take one of the other 9 offers he's got instead of yours.

It's a SELLERS market for great (even for many of the good) copywriters. We have more people who want our help than we can handle. That's why you rarely hear of copywriters being cut-throat with each other like many marketers can be.

What provisions are being put in place to prevent the client from not paying after they've gotten the sales copy? Even with the best legal contracts, not everyone will keep their end of the deal and pay up.

Personally, I'd require 4X my normal one-time fee put in an escrow account before I'd consider touching a deal like this. It's not worth the aggrevation to chase down slow pays or no pays... not when I have plenty of other people willing to pay my $5K fee.

Depends on the amount of traffic... the quality of traffic source... what your targeting process is for identifying the most appropriate prospects... what's the offer being made, etc, etc, etc, etc.

Take the offer being made. I just discovered a client who's copy was converting around 4% decided to raise the product price from $97 to $397. Then they were surprised when sales went dead-cold... and blamed the copy.

Mind you, the only thing that changed was he bumped the price too high for the perceived value of the product.

I know of another copywriter who had a client do the same damn thing for a home study course.

Frankly, unless the copywriter has complete control over the entire marketing campaign, product offer, and running the show, it's WAY too easy for things to get messed up, unless you're partnered with a very experienced marketer.

1. How about saving the money up until you have enough to hire a very good copywriter?

2. Or hiring a less expensive copywriter initially... taking the sales you make and save them until you can hire a more expensive copywriter.

3. Or hire them to do a critique of your copy, pointing out where it needs improvement?

This is probably the best piece of advice you've given in this post. Copywriting is the most expensive thing to outsource. It's also the most important online skill to develop (or hire) for developing an online business.

Hope that clears things up a bit,

Mike

Three problems with that...

1. Most marketers do not want a profit sharing situation. They want to buy what they buy and move on.

2. The copywriter has little if any control over the rest of the sales process. The traffic and such. Let's say the letter is to get people to dial an 800 number to be "closed," I have no idea how good your closers are.

3. In the few instances where I had this type of arrangement, I was screwed royally. It seems that no matter how much help people need up front, when thetime comes to share, they don't want to pay.

Who does that make more sense to? How does the copywriter know that you'll send a decent amount of traffic to the page? Most big league copywriters will charge an upfront fee and receive a percentage of sales.

You're never going to get a decent copywriter to rent out his work to you, that's ridiculous.

But if you don't understand how to tell good from bad...how are you going to "tweak it as you go?"

Sure, you can learn it yourself but that takes a long time. It's either time or money you lose, but at least with a good copywriter you're more likely to get that money back...and then some.

I'm sure you would. But there are a lot of people out there who won't...or rather can't.

Let's face it - if you don't have money to hire to good copywriter, you probably also won't have the money to market the product properly.

That means somebody could give you the best copy in the world for free, but you still may not be able to put it to good use. So where's the money to pay the copywriter now?

And then, who would want to get into a performance type deal with a newbie marketer? What's the guarantee he will pay?

It is alright if you are a big company with a huge customer base, and have a solid track record of paying copywriters properly. But even these companies pay an upfront fee besides royalties.

And the biggest drawback of doing performance type deals with newbie marketers is that when THEY have failed to market the product properly and it isn't selling well...the first thing they will say is that the copy isn't working.

So my suggestion: Never, never do commission type deals with people you don't know and haven't worked with before.

The bottom line is copy comes third in importance behind your list and your offer.

Unless the copywriter has control over the list and offer (basically the entire marketing system) then why should he take on a large proportion of the risk?

But all of this licensing stuff is moot anyway.

Good copywriters have plenty of work available.

There's no need to take on any extra risk.

The only copywriters who take these kinds of deals need the work, and that's rarely a good sign.

Anyone with a bit of experience knows better, cause just about every experienced copywriter (including myself) has been bitten by one of these deals in the past when the marketer didn't fulfill his end of the bargain.

You want a decent salesletter? Pay a decent copywriter a decent amount of money. It's the decent thing to do

How much to budget?

I've not seen anyone charging less than $3k that I'd let loose on anything more serious than WSO copy or a $7 ebook.