What utter claptrap!!!
I am at my wits end with people who tout this nonsense and trust me, it’s worse when it comes from other professional copywriters.
The irony is a full blown article is written to emphasise the point that copywriting is dead. How does that work? Make a bold sweeping statement, then follow it up with an article, unbelievable.
Here’s what copywriting is – it’s evolving!!!
The Fad
Just because it doesn’t conform to the SEO mantra anymore does not make it dead. How long I’ve waited for the day that Google began to penalise keyword stuffed articles. At last it is has arrived.
Keyword stuffed articles were always going to be a fad. Let’s face it they were never going to last! I mean nonsensical articles that would not even afford the attention of a dolphin (presuming dolphins could read), let alone human beings.
Finally the copywriting world has returned to reality, writing for people. Slowly but surely, quality content has once again started to infiltrate Google. The mighty search engine God (I affectionately refer to as Googlezilla) began to realise that wannabe writers were essentially posting c**p on the web.
At best, it was keyword stuffed pointless drivel that mocked the very art of copywriting. At worst, plagiarism became rife, with cut and paste jobs and duplicated content tarnishing the copywriting profession.
The $2 copywriter
The demise in quality content led to the emergence of the $2 copywriter, basically writers who scan the web, take snippets from another person’s work, mash it together and finally pass it off as their own.
Or they attempt to write in a language that’s not their own, resulting in broken nonsensical sentences barely relevant to the topic they’re trying to address.
The $2 copywriter has proven to be problematic, even with some Write House clients, some of whom have defected to the dark side, swayed by the price tag only to discover that there’s a reason these wannabe writers only charge $2.
A friend of mine once came out with a quote that has stuck with me, ‘you buy cheap, you buy twice’, and this applies to the $2 copywriter.
Yes we understand your business needs to save money, but why shirk the gal or guy who can deliver you content that increases conversions, sales and revenue?
Investing in a quality copywriter often results in a return on investment 10 times your original outlay. You might pay £80 per page for web copy, but what if that investment turned that £80 page into an £800 a day, revenue generating beast?
Copywriting is alive
Yes it’s taking a few hits along the way with every person who can hold a pen, or type, thinking ‘I can write’. But, copywriting is more than just words on a page, it’s a psychology. There’s no one writing style fits all.
Copywriting is very much alive, you just have to look past all the ‘noise’ to find those real gems that bring words to life for the sake of your requirements.
Thanks for reading! Leave your comments below. Tell me you agree or I’m stark raving mad…
Daniel Waldron.
Daniel…
Well said.
“Copywriting, like good manners, is not dead, merely mortally wounded.”
As long as there are prospects who want to read, there will be room (need) for great copy!
Peter T. Britton
The Write Answers
Your blog here shows what goes for a $100 article these days!
Let me share my thoughts with you.
Price does not decide QUALITY. Price is a product of currency value and living costs.
Oh! I totally forgot to mention that a person can write a great article in a language “not his own” if he so practices it. Not every Englishman is a born Shakespeare!
Bad illogical article overall.
Peter, thank you so much for your comment.
Ron. Thanks so much for your comment, too. It’s great that not everyone just agrees as I do like a good debate.
Firstly, thanks very much for suggesting that this blog would go for $100, but I can assure you my blog rates are no where near that high.
I do disagree that ‘price does not decide quality,’ after all I find it highly unlikely that a $2 dollar copywriter will invest the time and effort into researching a piece, but at the same time I can agree that you can end up with a quality article for $2.
However, it has usually been copied from someone who has invested the required time and effort.
It’s interesting that you dismiss the article as bad and illogical given that there are many voices declaring that copywriting is dead. I’d be interested to know what prompted that comment.
Thanks for your time, though it really is appreciated and it’s great to get a different perspective.
Peter, what’s your take on Ron’s comment?
Hi Dan,
You are bang on mate..!! But pray,could you let me in on who exactly wrote an obituary for copywriters in the first place.I don’t think Copywriting is dead;perhaps it’s just changed it’s garb.There always will be a great deal of difference between the peddler & the marketer.The peddler will always sell cheap;both in terms of content as well as price.The marketer will sell solutions.
The copywriter is thriving;but we are in the age of laissez-faire’. Hence,market forces will determine the price that a copywriter can command for his or her content.
No. You’re not crazy. However, the pundits heralding the demise of copywriters may have a point. Perhaps not in the way one might think, though.
The “need” for copywriters is not dead, as you suggest, but the craft may be suffering from a terminal malady. In my experience, (And I know many others in the business who support this.) the copywriter no longer writes. The process, or craft, has been replaced by a multi-stage deconstruction of the copywriter’s contribution. From first keystroke to final layout.
One could argue that I’m just a bad writer. Fair enough. But I’m not alone in this opinion. You’re correct, hack $2 copywriting services are scuttling the profession and working to render copywriting obsolete. But it’s more than that.
Even though no one really disputes the value of analytics for gauging the efficacy of marketing initiatives and executions, concentrating more on computers than customers will eventually kill the message and the messengers.
For the most part, if you’re looking for the safe, prosaic, timid, repetitive, reactionary marketing speak that pervades print and online advertising, then the critics are right. Companies might actually be better off to rely on a computer algorithm to write content. There are already programs that can write “copy” for 500 ads in the time it takes a copywriter to hit two letters on the keyboard. Sure, they read like a Babblefish translation, but…
Further, if every marketing manager, every B2B business lead, and every other member of the creative-by-committee team (and this includes copywriters) continues to overcook or dumb down their content based on the faulty, foolish assumption that THEY are the amalgamated embodiment of all their consumers… and if every piece of creative has to endure a small war of conflicting subjective opinions well BEFORE it reaches its target, then indeed, the usefulness of the copywriter is in serious question.
This may be a necessary evil. I’m not saying it‘s right or wrong, just that (unfortunately for us copywriters) it is increasingly becoming reality.