Copywriting Help! Apology

These are questions that people with sound judgement -- educated by poor judgement -- only come to understand after a long hard road.

Let me put it this way: The less you know, the more it costs. Somebody who has done their research will know they want a squeeze page, perhaps has taken a stab at developing a USP, and delved into their house list (customer database) to put together a profile of a target customer.

Perhaps they've calculated lifetime customer value and segmented their customer base.

They also have ads that worked, ads that didn't, because they track and test. They have good, solid testimonials of the kind a copywriter can actually use, because they know Jake D; Primrose, Idaho isn't convincing.

You'll know the media you want to target. The format you'll use. The associated costs, like postage, list rental, media buys, web hosting, and have a general good hunch when the guy isn't leaning on vendors to get you better bang for your buck.

So, if the gal or guy you hire can pretty much walk in and start writing, you can get an educated client reward of, say, a grand off. So maybe $1,500 to $2500, depending on project details.

The less detail, the less reliable the pricing will be. Projects written in quicksand can't be reliably priced -- even when somebody lowballs you just to get the job. Pricing will be as elastic as the project. Want to change your mind every three hours? No problem -- you will be billed accordingly.

Changing the project every time you read something new isn't going to save you money.

Otherwise, when they have to drag every tidbit out of you and the process is an excruciating ordeal, you get the reverse. Say twice whatever that first figure turns out to be. If the copywriter has to do the marketing, strategy, generate testimonials, restructure the product or service, reshoot video, conduct customer research and so on ...you pay for that. But you have a clearer, more complete picture of just who your customer is afterwards.

You have a lot of control over the price you pay. But it depends upon being an educated client.

As I have oft explained before, you can even get away with a pay for performance deal. Lots of people come here suggesting one. They just betray an absolute tone deafness for proposals, ignorance of constructing a win-win deal, and not a flicker of thought that anybody good doesn't need the money.

The instant these wiseguys start with "If you were any good, you'd do it for free" they betray themselves. Not as ignorant about copywriting. Ignorant and disdainful of the basics of commerce and negotiation.

Want to do a pay-for-performance deal? Fine. Structure one and present it for consideration. But also know, the people worth hiring will be able to read between the lines and draw a sometimes uncanny accurate picture of the kind of business you're proposing to give them.

You can hire without being an expert copywriter. You can't if you're a naive business person.

I have my little list. Others have theirs. All developed on the other side of the table through mirror opposite unfortunate circumstance.

That's what they pay me for.