The False Economy of Cheap Copy
Or why good writing costs real money.
If you’re looking to hire a copy or content writer, you’ve probably come across an agency like this. It seems like a good deal, right?
They’re offering services for a few hundred dollars that freelance copywriters (myself included) charge well into the thousands for. They present themselves professionally and their website is packed with positive client testimonials. On the surface, there’s little reason to be suspicious.
Except, remember the old proverb: “You pay peanuts, you get monkeys”? Yeah, that.
How can I be so sure?
I’ll let you in on a secret — once upon a time I freelanced for a content mill* so I’m all too familiar with what they try to pass off as “high quality content”. Not to mention their shady employment practices, but that’s a story for another blog post.
*an agency offering bargain-basement copy/content writing services.
Thankfully those days are well behind me, but somehow the content mill I worked for — and many others — are still in business. Which means people are still being scammed into buying their subpar services.
To illustrate quite how subpar, I’m going to walk you through a side-by-side comparison of the content mill versus what I now offer clients to show you exactly the level of service and the quality of copy you can expect to receive in each case.
Copywriting prices in context
Before we dig into the details, it’s important to put the prices content mills pay their writers into perspective.
I present to you exhibit A:
Here’s the original tweet and some excellent replies.
I’m not great with numbers but you only need a basic grasp of maths to know the prices quoted above are appallingly low for any job, let alone a highly skilled one.
Working to those rates, you’d have to write roughly 550 words per hour, eight hours a day to earn the equivalent of the UK living wage — the minimum income necessary for a person to meet their basic needs.
To match the average day rate of a UK freelance copywriter (£349, as reported by the Procopywriters Survey 2019) you’d have to write a whacking 23,267 words in a single day. That’s roughly a quarter of the word count of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. A feat I hope we can all agree is nigh on impossible.
At the moment, I’m writing a series of longform pieces for a client and averaging about 2,000 words a day. Clean, lean, well-edited, thoroughly-researched words. Any more than this and I find the balance tips and the quality starts to suffer.
Therein lies the false economy of cheap copy and the crux of the problem. Sure, you get more words for your money, but the quality of those words is questionable at best.
Content mill vs professional copywriter
Now we’ve put those rates in context, let’s jump into the comparison of my services versus those offered by a content mill. Specifically, I’m going to look at website copywriting.
Disclaimer:
When I found myself working for a content mill, I’d spent more than two years as an in-house digital copywriter. Given the time and correct resources, I had the skills and expertise to produce top notch web copy.
However, low pay and tight deadlines from the content mill meant I couldn’t afford the luxury of writing good copy. It was a numbers game — I needed to write words to pay the bills.
Price and timeframe
Up first for discussion is the price and timeframe for a website copywriting project. “Professional copywriter” refers to what I offer, and I know a lot of other copywriters are roughly similar.
Price
- Content mill: £499 for a 10-page “custom design”, “professionally copywritten” website*.
- Professional copywriter: from £2,000 for website copy (no design or development services).
*I was paid £10 per page. Averaging at 300 words a page, that’s £0.03 per word — not as low as the rates quoted earlier but still grim.
Timeframe
- Content mill: full website build done within a week. For copywriting, it was 24 hours turnaround for less than 10 pages, 48 hours for more than 10 pages.
- Professional copywriter: two to three weeks for copy, depending on the size of the website.
Just going by the above information you’d be forgiven for thinking the content mill was the obvious winner. However, as you’re about to see, dig a little deeper and the cracks start to show.
Research
Each website copywriting project starts with a research and discovery phase. Here’s how the content mill compares to my own process.
Content mill
Clients had to fill out a short questionnaire about their business, the results of which were sent to me. Generally, this was no more than a few hundred words of very basic information — location, brief description of services/products, years in operation, etc.
Nothing about strategy, tone of voice, key messages and all the other information needed to write decent web copy.
I was also given a list of keywords to use (one primary and three secondary per page) and links to websites of the client’s main competitors.
Professional copywriter
Before writing any copy, I always go through an in-depth discovery and research process — any copywriter worth their salt will do the same.
First, I gather basic information on a project to put together a proposal and quote. Here’s an example of the questions I might ask at this point — already more detail than I ever got from the content mill.
Once my proposal and quote have been accepted, the next stage is a kick-off meeting which is — as one of my clients put it — best described as a friendly interrogation.
It’s more fun than it sounds. Honest.
I’ll ask about tone of voice, key messages, style, audience and strategy. The objectives the copy needs to achieve, the problems it needs to solve, and how its success will be measured. These points are important, remember them.
I’ll also research a client’s customers and competitors, along with any brands whose copy the client admires and, of course, keywords for SEO — although these days this is less of a consideration.
This process can take anywhere between six to ten hours, sometimes considerably more.
Writing
Once the research is done, it’s time to get down to the business of writing copy. Here’s what that process looked like at the content mill compared to what I do now.
Content mill
As I’ve already said, at the content mill my primary aim was to write quickly to earn money — I had bills to pay, a life to live and a business I was trying to start. I’d aim to write two web pages an hour but probably averaged about one and a half.
Each page was broken down into sections, for which I was given a brief description. Something like: “Services, similar to this — [link to a page on a competitor’s website]”. I was expected to recycle copy from the link I’d been sent and add in the required keywords.
Plagiarism, in other words. With a sprinkle of keyword stuffing for good measure.
Interestingly, Codeless commissioned work from five popular content mills and found high levels of plagiarism in most of the content they produced, suggesting the problem is endemic. But I digress.
Once I’d got the words (and keywords) down on the page there would be just enough time for a quick spell check before moving on to the next.
I didn’t feel good about doing this sort of work, in fact, it made my soul cry. But at the time it felt like I didn’t have many options. Sadly, most other freelancers I’ve spoken to have been in a similar boat at some point in their careers.
Professional copywriter
Now, thankfully, my writing process is a little different. I spend much longer working on each page — a couple of hours at the very least but it wouldn’t be unusual to spend half a day making sure I get it just right.
I allow myself the time and space to put the copywriting skills and expertise I’ve collected over the years to good use. Something impossible to do if you’ve barely enough time to get the words down on a page.
Once I’ve reviewed my research (see above) and consulted my trusty copywriting swipe file for inspiration, the first draft usually comes pretty quickly. But these are just raw words — I redraft and finesse the copy multiple times until it’s perfect.
I’m a big fan of Copyhackers’ Seven Sweeps editing process. That’s right, seven separate sweeps, each focusing on a different aspect of the copy. Much better than the lone spell check my content mill copy was treated to.
Depending on the project, I might write the copy in a wireframe (using Photoshop, since you asked) or upload it onto a staging site to see it in situ. Making sure the words work with the design of a website is hugely important to ensuring their efficacy.
Back at the content mill, all work was completed in Word docs and I didn’t have a clue what the websites I was writing for were going to look like. Although I have a sneaking suspicion they were all from a generic template with the colours changed.
Revisions and review
A website copywriting project doesn’t end when the final draft is finished — revisions and reviews are equally important parts of the process.
Content mill
Cards on the table here, I’ve no idea what happened to my copy once I’d submitted it to the account manager at the content mill. I never got any feedback, so either the words were plugged straight into the website without input from the client or revisions were made by the account manager (with no copywriting experience). Neither are desirable options.
I also don’t know what was offered in terms of post-launch review so I can’t comment on this either. However, since neither I nor any of the other outsourced copywriters were involved, I’d hazard a guess at it not being particularly valuable.
Professional copywriter
My project quotes always cover two rounds of revisions, within the scope of the original brief. I like to gather feedback face to face (or via video call) so we can have a proper discussion and work together to get the copy to a place we’re both happy with.
My quotes also cover a follow-up review three months or so after launch. I’ll usually have access to Google Analytics to see how the website is performing but I’ll also want to hear the client’s point of view.
Have they seen an upturn in enquiries? Are these from qualified leads? Are there any queries from prospects or customers the copy isn’t answering? And so on and so forth (I ask A LOT of questions).
This review might highlight further changes and fine-tuning needed to get the copy performing at its very best and meeting the objectives outlined way back in our kick-off meeting — remember them?
Objectives and results
My whole copywriting process is about objectives and results — that’s what my clients are paying for.
At the content mill, I was only ever writing words to fill spaces. There were no goals to be achieved or problems to be solved. They could have saved themselves the paltry fee they were paying me and stuffed their websites full of lorem ipsum, it would have been about as effective.
(I might be exaggerating here, but you get my point).
That’s the value of professional (read — expensive) copywriters like me and my lovely colleagues of the ProCopywriters Network.
When we’re paid properly and our skills are respected, we can help you solve your marketing problems, connect with your ideal customers and make your wildest business dreams come true.
Pay us peanuts and you’ll get a big pile of monkey poo.
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If you’d like to hire me to write copy for your website, I’m currently taking bookings for projects in 2020. Don’t hang around though, I book up fast.
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What if, with the best will in the world, you simply can’t afford to hire a top-class copywriter? Here are some suggestions about what to do next.
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This article was originally published on felicitywild.com.
