Don’t Hire a Copywriter Until You Answer These Questions
July 29, 2008
Not everybody should hire a copywriter.
To see if you’re ready, answer these questions and read the explanations that follow.
Question #1: Are you already making sales?
The copywriter’s job is to improve response to an offer.
If your offer hasn’t produced any sales yet, what can be improved? Professionally written sales copy can’t multiply zero and get anything else except zero.
Claude Hopkins, one of the earliest fathers of modern advertising, says this in his book Scientific Advertising: “The reason for most of the non-successes in advertising is trying to sell people what they do not want.” p. 225
Do not even think of hiring a copywriter unless you are confident the market wants what you’re offering. A good way to do this is use low-cost and no-cost methods to promote your product or service. Then measure the response.
If people buy, then it may be time to hire a copywriter to help you multiply the results.
Question #2: Can you risk some money?
Copywriters are highly paid because what they do usually more than pays for itself.
Still, not every effort is a success. Among many winning promotions, there are a handful of failures.
When you hire a copywriter, you are making an investment. Of course, your goal is to make back more than your investment — and you very well may get an amazing ROI.
But there is a chance that your investment won’t pay off like you expect. Which is why you shouldn’t hire a copywriter unless you have some money to risk. You will have to decide whether the risk is worth it.
Question #3: Do you test ad copy?
Want to practically guarantee the success of your ad, sales letter, or offer? If so, there’s only one way to do it: testing.
A test seeks to discover what the market responds to best. For instance, perhaps you test headline “A” against headline “B.” The results show headline “B” converts 4% of prospects into customers, while headline “A” converts only 2%.
If you had relied on your preferences, you might have chosen the losing version, thereby sacrificing half of all the profits you could have earned.
Here’s why you should test your ad copy. First, it gives you solid insight into what really works. And, secondly, whenever there is a disagreement between you and your copywriter (or anybody within your company), testing serves as a non-biased way of discovering the truth.
Before you hire a copywriter, be committed to testing. It is the only scientific way to prove out what works and what doesn’t.
So how did you do? If you answered all three questions correctly, congratulations. You have an uncommon understanding of copywriting and advertising — and would probably benefit from hiring a copywriter.
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