Quote: (11-23-2014 05:15 PM)Goldin Boy Wrote:
Great advice Vigo, +1 from me.
Wanted to add to the testimonial thing: If you can get a link to the person's website and a headshot. It makes it look more legitimate than having a paragraph with someone's name under it.
A question: I'm planning on becoming a full-time writing ASAP. Website and portfolio are in the works. Thinking long-term as a writer there's only 24 hrs in a day so there's a limit to how much I can earn(without raising rates). I want to farm out assignments to other writers without explicitly telling clients.
Have you every outsourced your projects? If no, why not? If yes, how did you find writers? How much did you skim off the fees? Were there every any problems?
Thanks Goldin Boy, appreciate it, man. Good point about the testimonials--that's why so many people online now are using their real names and pics for their own stuff. It humanizes the product and the process, and provides greater social proof. Part of copywriting and branding is trying to come across as a trusted friend with the solution to a problem. The more you can connect with the prospect on a personal level, almost like you're sitting in a bar with them, the better. It's another game parallel in the copywriting world--shocking, I know...
As far as outsourcing goes, I haven't tried to outsource anything as of yet--for that same reason above, my copy is, for better or worse, connected to my "brand." After being in the Writer's Digest course, and just generally seeing the quality of work from some newbies out there, I figure it's more trouble to take them under my wing, edit their stuff (to the point of bordering on a re-write), get them up to speed to my standards, and (maybe most importantly) to trust them to do the legwork to get inside the prospect's head. Research is, in a lot of ways, more important than the copy itself, since it's so much easier to write effective copy once you're on the prospect's level, speaking their language, and in his mind. Honestly, right now, I don't think it's worth the trouble to instill this same work ethic among the "get rich quick" crowd--I'm more focused on continuing to improve my craft and increasing my rates until I'm among the "top earners" in the field.
Now, that's not to say that I'd
never try it--once you can charge $10,000 a sales letter plus royalties, then it's much more worthwhile to take on cubs and teach them the ropes, especially if you can bank $4,000 of that repeatedly after a while. I'd get the added benefit of feeling better by helping more like-minded guys out, too--that's an important angle to me, but not at the expense of all of my free time--after all, that's a big part of the reason I got in the business in the first place. But if I was so inclined, I could just write my own course, put it up online, and achieve the same benefit (helping like-minded newbies) without all of the administrative headaches. I'm tooling around with that very idea, but it would take a few months to get it off the ground, and I'm still researching--we'll see if it makes sense.
Does that answer your question? Hope it does, man--let me know if I forgot anything or if it just brings up more questions.
@thirty-six: For sure--pop culture and consumerism rarely have anything to do with copywriting, at least from my frame. I think Carlton advocates keeping up-to-date on pop culture in his book so that you have more material to draw upon in your sales letters and build better rapport, but generally, it's not necessary unless you're targeting a really broad audience.
The most important things in copywriting are:
1) Know Your Prospect. Be able to connect with them, use their language, know what keeps them up at night, what kinds of problems they have, etc., and;
2) Solve One of Those "Keeps Them Up At Night Problems" They Have.
I'm not big on consumerism, either, but I square this away by focusing on the "helping people with problems" aspect of the whole process. Provided the products that you're working with aren't horrendous, know that there's a market for most products out there--your job is to connect with that market through your words, and (maybe) offer your client some ideas to connect with that market via driving traffic to your sales page. I feel a lot better about selling the above-mentioned fat fuck in Nebraska a solid "lose weight fast" product if there's good advice in there. If he doesn't have the willpower to use it properly...well...that's on him.
Hope this helps, guys. As always, let me know if you have any questions.
Vigo