Why are copywriters so expensive?

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If you’ve ever thought about hiring a copywriter to write your website words or emails, then nearly had a heart attack when the quote or proposal came through, then you’ll want to read this to understand why copywriters charge what they charge. Read on to find out why copywriters are so expensive!

Why are copywriters SO expensive?

You may have heard that copywriting is a key piece to making sales for your business, and that is the truth.  If you have no idea what copywriting is, it’s the words on a website, in an email, on brochures, in marketing materials, spoken words on radio ads… any words that are used to talk about a business or their products.  And there’s a very good reason why a copywriter, who is worth their weight, charges good money for their words.

Copywriting is the foundation of all marketing for businesses

If you’ve ever seen Mad Men on Netflix you’ll know that Don Draper is the ad man that creates magic.  Copywriters are just like Don. We’re not people who just write words, we’re the ones that do the deep research to understand the motivations behind why people buy things.

We learn the language of sales, from our mentors and from the mouths of the customers we stalk/ research as we harness Voice of Customer Data to reflect back exactly what a customer is thinking about a product, brand or service.

The words a business uses to sell their products are the foundation to their whole positioning in their market and it’s not by accident that some businesses succeed and others don’t.

Of course there are several other elements that go into making a business successful, and you can read about that here, but copywriting is one of the most important elements to consider when you’re putting your offers out there.  

And when it comes to design...design and copywriting can be a match made in heaven but, if I dare say, copywriting is more important than design. Although I’m sure designers would argue with me on that point!

The craft of copywriting

You CAN learn copywriting quickly but IT IS, indeed, a craft. The more you do it the better you get, not just because you need “10,000 hours” to perfect it but also because you have spent time in the trenches seeing what works, testing and trialling different marketing messages and angles for the perfect pitch.

Copywriters invest in ourselves to learn this craft, and much like acting, continuing to learn is how we get better at our craft. So we invest time, money and energy into learning every nuance or writing persuasive copy so that we’re more than copywriters. We’re message makers and persuasion artists, with buckets of empathy, that can have a tremendous impact on the bottom line of a business.

Some of the best copywriters can command up to six figures for an expertly written sales letter. Some of these sales letters have been responsible for generating millions in revenue for the brands that have hired them. So that’s just a little context on the value of copywriters and why your idea of “expensive” might need to be redefined.

Also you might want to consider how much it costs to learn a skill like copywriting.  For me, I’ve invested well over $25k in the last two years in my copywriting business. And to be honest, that’s probably a drop in the ocean for how much some veteran copywriters have invested in their craft. 

The fact that I’ve been willing to invest that kind of money and my time to learn this thing called copywriting, and that I get results, means that my words are worth it... damn it (*hair flick).

Why copywriters don’t (or shouldn’t) charge by the hour

There’s a story about a woman in a cafe in Paris who recognised the man sitting next to her as Picasso.  She leaned over to compliment him and asked if he could quickly draw her portrait.  He rather expertly whipped out his pen and sketched her image on a napkin. Before he handed it to her, he asked her for a large sum of money.
She snorted at him and said… “but that only took you a minute to draw” and he replied…

“No, madam, it took me 40 years”.

The message of the story is that no matter how long it takes someone to write copy, you’re not paying for the time it takes them to write (or even research), you are paying them for their expertise.

I’ve heard this from clients too...

“But, can you just write me a quick headline?”...or  “It’s just a quick ad, shouldn’t take you more than half an hour”

On that point, I’d like you to watch this...

For copywriters, we don’t switch our timers on at the point we sit down to write. We are constantly mulling over our projects, researching new angles, following the rabbit down a new hole to reveal ideas and angles that can create magic. Should I turn my Toggl timer on for the time I’m spent in my bath thinking of how to position your product? 

So no, I don’t charge by the hour.

Now of course you may think the two points counter each other – the Picasso story and the Spiderman drawing – but they both point to the same idea of “you get what you pay for”.

You can get a priceless work of art for the time it took to draw breath, or a well crafted, expert-led result that takes time to hone from study and research. Imagine the price tag if Picasso had spent an hour doing that napkin drawing?

The other side of the coin is that you can’t expect great results from a quickly thrown together headline. Of course, you may hit the jackpot if that headline turns out to be a winner, but in that case wouldn’t that headline be worth WAY more than 3 minutes of a copywriters time?

What’s the return on investment for hiring a copywriter?

I’ve already mentioned that some campaigns can generate millions of dollars.  For my own work, emails I’ve written over a period of 9 months have pulled in over $2.5M in revenue. So if you were to look at the cost to hire me for that and work out the return on investment that would be a 8680% return.

Not bad right?

But yes, I was not solely responsible for all of that revenue, everything else in the business also moved the needle towards those sales, but you get the idea that your return on investment COULD yield a massive return when you consider hiring a great copywriter.

It’s a little more difficult to attribute the ROI on website copy, but when you consider that your website is your store front, then you need to make sure that the words on your site strongly position your business, brand and products as the ideal solution to your customers' problems so they are enticed to enter the store and have a look round.

You’ve also got to consider other returns other than money. 

If you’re a busy CEO of an e-commerce business you probably don’t have the time to sit and write conversion focus copy so that your business makes sales.  Even though that is the purpose of your business (as well as creating impact with the good you’re doing).

Your time is worth more than that. You’re the navigator of the ship so you need to steer the ship right and hire in your sailors and deck hands to manage all the moving pieces in your business – including a copywriter.

Also the  writing piece may not be your zone of genius. Why spend hours tearing your hair out writing copy that you know will never be as good as someone you can hire... just to save yourself some money. That doesn’t make good business sense!

But then again, maybe you should learn to write copy? Do you have $25k and two years to learn? Sorry, that seems a little snide. Of course you can learn copywriting for less than that if it’s for your own business, investing in a copywriting business is another level completely.

When should you hire a copywriter and when should you learn copywriting?

You should consider hiring a copywriter if you know you can’t write the words yourself and have no desire to learn either.  If your juices flow from managing your business, or from creating your products or from pulling the right people together to make things work… that should be where you focus your time and energy.

Also, if time is of the essence to get your website up or your email autoresponders making sales on autopilot then, again, maybe it’s time to hire a copywriter.

However if you have time to put some effort and energy into your business and want to learn the art of copywriting then it’s a skill that will be the biggest asset to your business. 

How to find a good copywriter

Finding a good copywriter isn’t that difficult. You need to go where copywriters hang out or you need to get a referral from someone you know. That’s it. 

You’re looking at one here.

And I’m connected with a lot of copywriters in several fields.  You see, being a copywriter doesn’t mean you can or should write any copy project that comes your way.  Ecommerce is my thing – that means digital or physical.  There are many copywriters out there specialising in different niched markets so it’s always good to ask.

And writing a great copy, doesn’t always make someone a great person to work with.  Reliability and communication is one of the most important aspects of hiring anyone to help you in your business. So you need to look for someone with great results and a passion for delivering what they say they will deliver.

Get in touch if you need some advice about finding a copywriter by filling out the form on my contact page.

That hopefully clears up some of the questions you have about why copywriters are expensive.  

… because we’re worth it.

[end scene].