What You’re REALLY Paying for When You Hire a Web Copywriter

There’s quite a bit of chatter in the freelance set about rates and how to quote and what the client is really paying for in the end, and copywriters are no exception. (Whether they consider themselves “freelancers” or not is beside the point.) While it’s healthy and perhaps helpful to discuss these things in the online space, I have to wonder how many of our clients and prospective clients are reading this stuff with genuine interest. I mean, are we getting at the pain here? Do business owners and entrepreneurs actually spend a measurable amount of their precious time asking existential questions about freelance pricing strategy? Seriously?

The problem remains that marketers around the web continue to pine for this elusive “standard” way of doing things, a template-in-the-sky that will finally whip our cohorts into shape, so that gee, they can stop making all the “good ones” look bad.

Again … seriously?

Look, some days when clients are nipping at my heels and prospects are asking for quotes, I would love to rely on on a canned way of doing things. It would be so much tidier. I could stop sweating the details of a quote. I could stop asking difficult questions. I could stop trying to predict with 99% certainty that THIS project won’t go out of scope and that THIS client will behave exactly as he said he would, never asking for anything unusual or out of step with the template.

Fact is, when you’re in marketing, nothing happens like you think it will. Marketing–including copywriting–is one part science, one part art, and one part magic. The science can be learned. The art can be honed. The magic? You got me there. Sometimes the magic happens in a blink, and sometimes the magic happens only after a lot of blood, sweat and tears. It all depends on the very non-standard variables that come into play when dealing with business folks who themselves are not 100% sure about this marketing game or how to play it and for the most part, are quite irrational (as they should be … they’re human, remember?)

Dirty Little Copywriting Secret: Seasoned copywriters charge more not just because they know they’re “good” and have the portfolios to prove it. That’s only half the story. Seasoned copywriters charge more to account for all the messy B.S. out-of-scope stuff that inevitably bubbles up during the life of a project, whether anyone wants it to or not.

Not that we need to make uncomplicated things complicated either. Much of our marketing can be streamlined. Much can be practiced and repeated without costly reinvention.

Yet if you’re an entrepreneur who sells those less tangible things like coaching, consulting, or some other service that can’t be properly quantified, you’re asking for more than some enticing word candy to dress up a product description. Though I’d argue that even if your requirement is to sell more widgets, a good copywriter will offer an opportunity to do more than boost conversions from x per cent to y per cent. A good copywriter should consider your voice, your long term goals for your business and indeed the psychology of your deep need to KEEP ON being and entrepreneur.

If this sounds rather esoteric, stick with me.

When you hire a copywriter, you think you’re paying someone to simply help you get more business, the assumption being that, by acquiring some great copy for your website, you WILL get more business, all things being equal of course.

The “all things being equal” though makes the first assumption pretty far fetched when you think about it. Can you really ever point to great web copy as THE reason for getting more sales? Might you ever be able to know FOR SURE if it was a contributing factor? Hmm …

In my world, with my clients, by MY standards (and theirs), here is what you’re paying for when you hire a web copywriter:

1) The opportunity to improve your marketing ROI. No one in the marketing equation behaves 100% rationally; moreover, economics dictate that we cannot allocate resources optimally 100% of the time. As such, cause and effect can never be pinned down with 100% accuracy. From the business owner who hires the copywriter to the web designer who creates the container that will house the copy to the copywriter himself to the folks who might buy something from said business owner … every person along the way both consumes and shapes marketing. There is no “right copy.” There is only opportunity to assist the conversion process, and that often requires testing and re-testing different combinations of different variables.

2) The opportunity to connect more deeply with your market. No matter how savvy you are in your business, I can almost guarantee that the copywriting process (okay, MY copywriting process) will uncover gaps in your understanding. You think you get your market. You think you’re saying something that resonates. You think your offer is second to none. But you’ve been head down a long time focusing on yourself and the machinery of your biz. It’s impossible NOT to lose some perspective. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve helped clients excavate a goldmine of understanding before I’ve written a single word of copy.

3) The opportunity to play bigger. Most people don’t think about this when they hire a web copywriter, because hey, if you wanted a business coach you’d hire a business coach, right? Yet nothing forces entrepreneurial rigor like putting your value promise into words. Most professional writers and authors will tell you that to write is to think. I say that to copywrite is to think bigger about yourself, your potential and what you’re trying to sell. The most compelling copy–including copy that converts–pushes past perceived limitations and forces clients to refine their product or service to better align with what the market needs and what the business can deliver.

When someone asks me for a quote to write their web copy, you bet it would be nice to point them to my rates page and say, “Here, take your pick and tell me when you want to start.” Fact is, it doesn’t matter how carefully I outline project scope or how thoroughly I’ve interviewed the client, sh*t still happens during the course of a project that no one can reasonably be expected to predict.

My job as a copywriter goes far beyond cooking up word candy for your web pages, all while watching an egg timer. When you hire a (really good) web copywriter, you’re investing in a unique opportunity to uncover and communicate the very highest level of value you can offer to the people who want it most.

That’s hard to put a price on.