Why Is It So Hard to Sell Copywriting?

In the new edition of the Elated Extra ( http://www.elated.com/newsletter/ ), I wonder why it's so hard to get clients to agree to employing a copywriter. Is it pride, or simple cheapness that prevents this?

If you have any tips to get clients to see the light, please share them here!

Simon

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ELATED : )
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Simon,

I really enjoyed reading this article, thanks.

Personally, I most times the client only being cheap, deceiving themselves that they are cutting costs. Some clients are humble enough to admit that a professional copywriter could do a lot better, yet they claim they can't afford the additional cost.

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http://www.mauconline.net

Hi guys! Awesome article in the newsletter. One of the things, «techy stuff» apart, that I would really like to discuss, because this, copyright, copyrighting, is a area where I would like to invest some of me.
I also write my blogs, to sharp out my language skills, and I don't mean just at a grammatical level, and I really would love to know more about this. When I lived in UK I was just «polishing» my medium knowledge about a foreign language, English, but, if you feel that in UK (or Australia, never remember who is from where from the two of you! Sorry) it is hard to tell the client that you need a good copyrighter, imagine here in Portugal, where not even in school we are pointed out to that.

I knew that from myself a long time ago, and I would like to do some sort of post-graduation on that subject, since I am already an unemployed designer (communication designer, and, if in the beginning we had, at university, both Portuguese and English, in a 5 year course/graduation, imagine now, in a 3 year course due to the Bologne Declaration where they removed ?? languages from the curriculum!).

Relating this to your reality, I don't know where Mauco is from, what can you tell me/suggest to learn/know a bit more about this subject? I would like to specialize myself in this area because I really feel, for quite some years, that it is a «blank» area.

I really loved the original post. Awesome topic... Let's bring it on!

Cheers from Portugal

Márcio Guerra

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There are only 2 infinite things, the universe and mens stupidity, and Im not sure about the first one!

Or something like it...
By Albert Einstein

Hi Márcio,

English is the official language in my country/schools ( pardon the gramatical errors in my last post )

Why not try looking into doing an online course in English? I did a search on Google, and I think www.learn-english-online.org/ might be a good place to start.

Back to the topic. I think if you brush up on your english language skills, that should suffice for writing your personal blog. But professional copywriting is a different ball game entirely. That's why Simon rightly mentioned in the article that its 'perfectly acceptable to farm this out to a professional'.

Cheers,
Mauco

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http://www.mauconline.net

Hi again.
Really because of that, I don't feel I have any problems writing or having conversations or reading in English. Precisely because of the copyrighting stuff I mentioned some specific course or so, not just an English one. Had lots of years of that in the school, lived in UK almost 6 months... I think I am fine. I participate in forums like this (nowadays pretty much only this one, I guess!) and since I like copyright I felt so excited about the original text in the newsletter.

So, let's bring this thing up, give us some examples please.

Cheers from Portugal,

Márcio Guerra

--
There are only 2 infinite things, the universe and mens stupidity, and Im not sure about the first one!

Or something like it...
By Albert Einstein

Hi Márcio,

Thanks for the clarification. I think you've raised a good question: Can anyone suggest where we can learn more about copywriting?

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http://www.mauconline.net

As you guys have already pointed out, writing copy for the Web is a very specialist art form! The main points that I see over and over again are:

1) Use short paragraphs, with no more than one thought/idea per paragraph.

2) Write using simpler English than you would for print (this mainly applies to writing sales/marketing copy, but you could argue it applies to all Web copy).

3) Use bullets to get key points across.

4) Break up text with images and other elements.

5) Bold important words and phrases.

6) Be concise. Go through your copy after you've written it and remove all unnecessary words and ideas. Then go through and do it again.

7) Use succinct, attention-grabbing headlines and meaningful, relevant subheadings.

8) Wrap up the page content with a summary.

The key thing on the Web is to write copy that is brief, scannable, and gets the main points across quickly.

--
Matt Doyle, Elated
3rd Edition of my jQuery Mobile book out now! Learn to build mobile web apps. Free sample chapter: http://store.elated.com/

Hi guys! Those seem quite very interesting points. I recognize, really, some of them applied here at Elated. It is nice to see it like that.
Can I suggest some sort of tutorial to it, some links to some "bibliography" or so. I don't know for sure if you use that word, but in Portuguese we do, to relate the source of some information, in written documents/school works.

Cheers...

Márcio Guerra

--
There are only 2 infinite things, the universe and mens stupidity, and Im not sure about the first one!

Or something like it...
By Albert Einstein

@Márcio: Thanks for the compliment.

Good idea about writing a tutorial on this. I'll add it to my list of tutorials to write!

Matt

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Matt Doyle, Elated
3rd Edition of my jQuery Mobile book out now! Learn to build mobile web apps. Free sample chapter: http://store.elated.com/

Hi again. To ask is a lot easier than to do. Whenever you have time, of course!

Cheers from Portugal

Márcio Guerra

--
There are only 2 infinite things, the universe and mens stupidity, and Im not sure about the first one!

Or something like it...
By Albert Einstein

[quote]Can anyone suggest where we can learn more about copywriting? [/quote]

http://www.highrankings.com/seo-writing
http://www.highrankings.com/seo-copywriting

http://www.marketingwords.com/

--
Chris.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
http://webmaster-talk.eu/