Posted on Tuesday, 27th October 2009 by CopywritingCat
Clients often call me when they’re experiencing a website disaster. Here’s what two kinds of disasters look like and how you can recover.
Disaster Scenario #1: You hired a designer or developer. You hired a copywriter too. Now you’ve got great copy but the website has been delayed…and delayed. You’re still running with your old, ugly site after six months. (I’ve seen people wait as long as two years.)
Fix for Scenario #1: Start screaming. These days you can have a good-enough website up and running in a matter of days. You can have a great website up and running in less than a month. You need more than a day or two if (a) your designer has a backlog and you must work with this one designer or (b) you keep changing your requirements or you haven’t given clear specs to your designer.
Scenario #2: You paid thousands of dollars for a beautiful site. Visitors compliment you on how gorgeous the site looks but you’re not seeing meaningful results - conversions and new clients.
Fix for Scenario #2: Ask yourself, “What’s a new client worth?” Let’s say you’re an attorney. You charge $5000 to plan a complicated estate. Or you charge $2500 to work on a real estate case. Once you get the client, you’ll probably also do more work for them and you will get referrals. So one new client might be worth $2500 - $10,000.
Now figure out how much you earn per hour. Don’t just focus on billable hours. Think about time you could spend marketing your service or developing new products. Multiply this dollar amount by 20 hours. That’s probably what it will take for you to revise the content of your site.
With these numbers in hand, start talking to professional copywriters. I’m always surprised when prospective clients want to invest, say, $300 for copy on a $10,000 website. That’s like buying a Porsche, with all the bells and whistles, and leaving it out on the street because you don’t want to pay for a garage.
Can a copywriter help avert disaster? Learn more at http://www.FreeCopyTips.com
What’s your website disaster story? Share below!
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Posted in Internet Markting for Newbies, Professional Services Marketing, copywriting, website marketing
