Why You Should Always Shop Around
Earlier in the week I had my car serviced and was relieved of £200 for the privilege. However, this was not before I had rung around several garages to get the best price I could find. The quotes I received ranged wildly, the most expensive coming in at an outrageous £390! (A bit steep considering I drive a humble Fiat Punto!)
The justification for this? Each garage I rang informed me that this particular service (36,000 miles) was a massive one, which would involve a lot of labour and the the change of parts, which would be done by ‘trained’ technicians using ‘genuine’ parts. (I have to have the car serviced at a main dealer as it is still under warranty, otherwise it would have been down to the local independent garage, quicker than you can say Copify.com!) Eventually, after some haggling, I managed to find an official dealer who would do the job for £200.
Bear with me, I’m going somewhere with this…
Anyway, after receiving the invoice for the service I could see that the charge for parts, namely oil, filters and plugs came to a whopping £25, meaning that the cost of labour to fit/replace these parts came to £175. Now I don’t know too much about cars, but what I do know is that if I had paid the £390 quoted by one garage then I would have received more or less the same work from the same ‘trained’ technicians and the same ‘genuine’ parts as all of the other garages.
The point I’m trying to make is this. Different businesses charge differently for providing the same services. The same principle applies to Copify. You will find plenty of copywriters who will happily charge you 3, 4 or even 5x the amount you would pay from us. Would the quality of work or the end result reflect this? Probably not.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:13 am
In some cases, perhaps you wouldn’t see much difference in the quality of the work. But in most situations, you definitely would.
The copywriters who charge more will bother to to learn about your brand, its customers and the aims of the project. They’ll offer their valuable input into the brief, analysing it properly and making useful suggestions which can improve the overall quality of the work. They’ll make sure that have a full understanding of your aims, so that their copy helps to achieve these as best it can.
That “expensive” copywriter will spend time with you on the phone, replying to emails, maybe even meeting you, to build up a strong working relationship which will pay dividends in the quality of the work.
Once they’ve delivered the copy, they’ll be happy to stop and explain why they did something a certain way. They’ll edit things if the text doesn’t seem quite right and tweak it to make sure it fits your website properly.
They’ve got heaps of experience and because they’ve worked on many brands that are a lot like yours, you’ll get to benefit from that experience.
That’s why it costs more.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:32 am
“Would the quality of work or the end result reflect this? Probably not. ” – LOL.
Writing copy and fixing cars are very different. There is only one way to change the oil, or replace a worn out part. Copy can be written in wildly different ways by people with wildly varying levels of ability. So if you choose the £20 per hour copywriter instead of the £40 per hour copywriter, expect lower quality copy in return.
I think Copify fills a need, but it’s wrong to pretend that copy is just copy. It’s not. There’s great copy, good copy, mediocre copy and terrible copy. You get what you pay for.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:55 am
@ Leif LOL? Great to see we can still have an adult debate without resorting to teenage slang. We would never suggest that copy is just copy. We fully understand the importance of getting the right words, which is why we place such a heavy emphasis on writing a detailed brief:
http://www.copify.com/pages/how_to_write_a_brief
February 10th, 2010 at 11:34 am
If you share some examples of the work produced through Copify, everyone will be able to judge the price/quality balance for themselves.
February 10th, 2010 at 11:43 am
Tom, we will be providing samples in due course.
February 10th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
@ Martin – So can your copywriters speak with their clients? Or is contact restricted to the brief provided?
February 10th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
@ Leif, at the moment there isn’t the functionality for clients to talk directly to copywriters other than through their brief. This is something we are currently considering.
February 10th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
With respect Martin, you seem to be moving the goalposts every day whilst at the same time doing professional copywriters everywhere who are not on your books a disservice. You started out saying that Copify exists for those clients that don’t demand the highest standards, but now you’re suggesting that your standards are as high and your service much, much cheaper. Which is it to be?
You say above “You will find plenty of copywriters who will happily charge you 3, 4 or even 5x the amount you would pay from us. Would the quality of work or the end result reflect this? Probably not”. In your vast experience of nearly three years have you honestly come to that conclusion? Do you really believe that a writer on 3p a word with a brief to deliver 1,000 words is going to spend the same amount of time on a job as one being paid the proper going rate?
By all means pick up those jobs where you claim companies aren’t bothered about high standards, but don’t slag off an entire industry by claiming that the quality of our output will invariably be the same as those who charge more. Time spent researching, liaising with the client, building an ongoing knowledge of the subject matter and organisation concerned and regularly communicating with them are factored into most writer’s rates and even at your premium rate I believe your clients will struggle to get anywhere near that level of service. To make such a brash claim is frankly insulting, which is why there has been all the furore since your launch.
February 10th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
It doesn’t seem like anything we say or do will convince certain people that we are not the devil incarnate. But just for the hell of it (no pun intended) here’s my response.
Allow me to elaborate on the analogy of car servicing I have used above. As I stated, I know diddly squat about cars and for all I know, the mechanics I paid could have been sat around drinking tea all day and laughing all the way to the bank with my £200. However, I now have my service stamp, which means I am happy. This is the same approach that many agencies will take. As long as they have their unit of content to populate a web page, or to syndicate around the internet, they are happy.
Do I advocate this approach? No. Can I see that it is what people want? Yes. Give the people what the people want. That’s the golden rule for success in any business. You’re a copywriter, so you already knew that, right?
Some businesses will be completely single minded about their copy and go through everything with a fine tooth-comb. Others will say:
“I don’t care what you do, as long as I’m at the top of Google/getting more enquiries/making more money.”
That is the reality of the situation. There will still be a demand for what copywriters like you do. There will always be clients who like having their hand held, that isn’t likely to change. As I have said before, if you’re confident in the quality of your own service, you have nothing to worry about do you?
Copywriting by its very nature is subjective. We have never said that we are better than you, or anyone else. I think it’s a bit rich that you are accusing us of slagging people off. It is people such as yourself who are taking the high ground, even though you haven’t even read any of the work produced on the site. In fact, most of the unfounded comments about our service amount to little more than slander.
Not one of the so called ‘professionals’ who have criticised our service have:
A) Offered me anything by way of a creditable portfolio to suggest that they have worked with any high profile clients (apart from their local butcher, baker and candlestick maker.) You may have 20 years experience in the game, but show me a decent set of clients and I’ll start taking you more seriously.
B) Offered a sensible or realistic approach to pricing per word.
C) Offered an example of their own rates and what exactly clients are getting for the money.
Maybe we are being brash, but we’re not going to apologise for it. We have a model that works and are confident that it can be a success.
P.S This took me 30 minutes to write, and at c450 words I make that £18, not bad going eh?