Disturbing trend in the copywriting world

Interesting article from John... thanks for sharing it Ewen.

Sorry I disagree: They wouldn't charge what they charge if their clients didn't feel their time and expertise was worth their quoted fees.

Back to the article...

The interesting thing I've heard from talking to some of my direct response contacts is the mourning over the loss of experienced talent in the last 4-5 years.

Copywriters like Gary Halbert (R.I.P.), John Carlton (reportedly retired), Gary Bencivenga (retired), and Clayton Makepeace (retired) had decades of in-the-trenches experience that is extremely hard to replace. Others like Doberman Dan have opted to build their own direct response business instead of writing for clients.

Then there's another group of highly skilled copywriters who have chosen to specialize in other niches or media. They have no interest in working with major mailers or direct response companies for a variety of reasons.

I think there's a good number of copywriters for hire with the potential to become top-gun copywriters... but they're not there yet. It's going to take time and more in-the-trenches experience to get there.

Anyways, that's my opinion on it so please take it as such.

Take care,

Mike

I'm fairly sure that was a joke, a bad one maybe, but a joke nonetheless.

Yeah, it's kind of suspicious that he'd write an article like this when his whole business is based around direct-response copywriting...

If what you two are saying is true, I say, great positioning.

Setting the buying criteria is a tried and true technique. Who better than a copywriter to use it?!

Alex

When is setting the buying criteria not obvious? Or an apples to oranges comparison? Or any other common persuasion tactic?

To copywriters, they're always obvious.

It is of course the market that decides whether a particular tactic we use in any given situation is effective or too obvious.

Alex

I read John Newt's website, well part of it through about 3am this morning. Was a little too tired to write my response, what I thought of it on this thread after - sorry. Thanks though for bringing it to our attention Ewen.

However, for the majority of freelance copywriters his words are hardly I think representative of the industry as a whole. These ramblings after all are just one man's opinion and it was blatantly obvious on reading the linked to page all the way through that his opinion was by no means an impartial neutral statement. It is just one guys experience, which truth be told, I think should be taken with a grain of salt.

It's patently obvious from reading this through it's just a positioning exercise. 'Don't hire anyone else. Don't trust anyone else. Exclusively trust me instead. I'm the only one who can deliver the results you need'. He mentions all of these other copywriters but nobody has any way of knowing who these other copywriters are. It's just story weaving.

Having said that, I did read through entirely his health promo sales letter last night which had me chuckling away. The guy certainly knows how to write. His use of written psychology worked on a very basic primal instinct - the flight or fight complex whilst excluding nobody at all from the promotion in question. Basic elementary stuff but very well put together. Plenty of statistical facts to back up the supplements credibility.

Will read the rest of his website through a little later this afternoon.

Finally, it's good to see a few copywriters coming out of the woodwork on this thread. Alex Cohen long time no see, how the hec are you? What have you been up to lately? And Daniel Scott, Mike Humphreys, good to see the pair of you again too.

Dare I say it Mal as well. You wasn't the only one to pick up on that typo, although I suspect it was intentional since it was the only one on the whole page. His spelling overall is absolutely spot on. Trust you of all people to pick up on it lol.

Warmest regards,


Mark Andrews

Dave, do you get the same numbers as John quoted in his post where he says:

"I mentioned that I had spent the last couple of years hiring top copywriters and found we could count on about one winner out of three promotions from the best of them."

He goes on to say a couple other business owners found the same ratio so I wondered if that number is accurate for your business.

Wow. What a piece of fiction.

You may indeed lose money on early attempts to nail a promotion. It's called: the price of doing business.

And the idea you learned nothing in those earlier attempts is on you. If you can't see at least some of what's gone wrong, then you're a big part of the problem. And shame on you if you then move on to another writer and expect them to somehow spare you the cost of further testing and refining of your advertising and marketing materials.

What? We're supposed to absorb the cost of you doing business?

You're riding the horse the wrong way, Lone Ranger.

Because you have zero patience to nurture talent, it's the writer's fault you go all ADHD bouncing around trying to find some rarer-than-a-unicorn home-run hitter?

I don't think so, Kemo Sabe.

Use whatever analogy you want: sports, interpersonal relationships, politics ... whatever. You're doing very well indeed to hit .333 ... in any endeavor.

What you are paying for with retainers is asking a writer to set aside the time and effort to do their level best to take your business to the promised land.

And royalties? They're a non-factor unless a writer hits the thing out of the park.

You're looking for a guarantee? A hearty guffaw to you. It simply doesn't work that way. But best effort attempt? Reasonable rewrites? Running splits (and more) to find the sweet spot? Yes, yes, and yes.

But the idea ANY writer, on any given project, can simply sit down and write "the control," is utter horsepucky.

And so the implication becomes one of writers somehow holding back, or not focusing hard enough, or are misrepresenting how "good" they are?

Not hardly, Tonto.

What do you think we writers are doing? Sandbagging? Being purposely lazy? Just so you have to pay three times to get the return YOU think you should get from a single promo?

Talk about delusional selfishness. Are we really supposed to work for nothing while you get free testing and myriad ideas out of the deal?

What this Newtson chap's clearly attempting is "I'm different" positioning. Other writers are shysters and somehow he's got the "right" way figured out. All the while knowing full well he'll rarely (if ever) beat the same 1 out of 3 numbers any other dedicated, experienced, and engaged copywriter would achieve.

We all must position our efforts for maximum return. But to impugn your fellow writers in this purposely negative and convoluted manner is despicable.

Sure, it was as long as a "sales letter". Whew!

Well, when you read the About page, you can say that the guy does have some credibility.

But he has got ONE big flaw that almost four out of five copywriters have (on an average, for the average ones) - EXAGGERATION! No comments on whether it worked or not.

For instance, does he really pay $25000 to every copywriter for each world stirring copy he writes? Then, maybe PayScale - Salary Comparison, Salary Survey, Search Wages is a big fat liar. And remember, the average annual income of an American is around $30,000.

Moreover, you will bomb at times. It's the return on investment (ROI) that matters. And it applies to copywriters as well. We are not Gods, are we?

And regarding the whole Agora approach, I want to say something.

Recently, I was hired by this financial company, Equitymaster - Get Unbiased Equity Research and Analysis on Indian Stocks and Share Market Updates For Investing in India.. And as you already guessed, the CEO preferred the Agora approach to the copywriting pursuits. He was building an in-house team, of which I was one.

Yes, yes, there was a copy chief too (he was crap!).

I can tell you something for sure, this Agora approach never works. I felt stifled and sort of started to lose my creativity, just for the fact that my copy was not to be approved not only by my client (one person), but rather by five or six persons (including the other members of the team, who probably didn't know what they were doing).

I left the company last month. Well, I am free and looking for work now, anyway.

But the thing is, I can tell you that a freelance copywriter works much more efficiently than an in-house staff. Period.

Am I speaking too much?

@Rezbi, Just tell them the story of Hopkins and Slitz beer and ask them if they would rather be number 10 in sales.

Yes, it's the right professional conduct to meet your promised deadlines.

But it's not always that simple.

You may book it so it's the only thing on your schedule in a given month... but guess what happens if one client takes weeks to get back to you on any copy changes they want on what you wrote? It overlaps on your already booked project with another client.

One major mailer I wrote for, the person reviewing my copy took 3 weeks to get back to me. That was after I followed up nicely by both phone and email more than once.

Because they took 3 weeks to get back to me, the original time line was completely thrown off. In all fairness, I could not blow another promised client deadline because of their slow turnaround. So I had to work them back into my schedule, working on their requested changes as I was able.

One thing that companies sometimes overlook IMHO...

An employee collects a flat yearly salary. Pretty much the same thing for an in-house copywriter, regardless of how many pieces of copy they write in a given year. The exception for in-house copywriters is if the company they work for pays royalties... then they have the potential to make more than a flat salary.

Not counting royalties, a freelance copywriter only gets paid for the time they've booked with projects... any gaps in their schedule means they're not making money during those days/weeks/months.

Savvy full-time freelance copywriters try to book their schedules in advance so there are no gaps in the schedule... it maximizes their potential yearly income.

Unfortunately, when a project runs over schedule -- and its not always because the copywriter can't budget their time correctly -- then it causes delays. And the least disruptive way to handle it is to minimize the delay to just that project and not other clients too.

My 3 cents,

Mike

P.S. A number of years ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing A-List copywriter Doug D'Anna for my Market Your Copy website. As part of the hour pitch-free interview, Doug mentions missed deadlines.

His advice was if an A-Lister blows a deadline then the client is best served to wait on the copy.

Reason being that the vast majority of the time the copywriter is either doing more research or continuing to refine it so that it meets their high standards before they're willing to send it to their client.

You can listen to my interview of Doug online here for fr*ee:

http://www.marketyourcopy.com/doug/index.html

Everything Colm said is 100% accurate.

Furthermore, John is a friend of mine. And a buddy of mine has worked with John - I can vouch he pays very, very well.

Exclusivity with clients or being in-house is kind of the way to go.

Angel

Colm,

I would suggest that there is a distinct possibility that the in-house writers do better because they've already incorporated -- at the level of unconsciousness -- "how Agora promotions are written."

IOW, the time-tested honored pieces that Agora has tested that work with HOW THEY SELL.

Because, let's face it -- there are a number of factors that enter in here: from the font of the type, to what is on the outside envelope, to the size of the font ... ALL play a role.

HOW they play that role will be known almost on an innate basis by the experienced in-house copywriters because they've been exposed to Agora winners and Agora losers -- time after time after time.

A winning promotion consists of many moving pieces, of which the copy is just one piece. A freelancer will have a handicap against experienced in-house writers for some of the same reasons that experienced in-house writers will do better than the newer writers. And that's primarily because they will have a greater understanding of those other parts, how they work, how they fit together.

Live JoyFully!

Judy