THE PERILS OF COST ESTIMATES FOR COPYWRITING
February 17th, 2018
It’s not that we are complaining… because being asked for a cost estimate for copywriting is always a positive thing. But how on earth do we price it? How long is a piece of string?
Penning a piece of copy is never that straightforward and to our peril we’ve learnt the hard way.
Here are a few of our thoughts and learnings:
Charging by the word: To be avoided like the plague. It leaves no room for thought or concept. Or the legwork and the convoluting twists and turns of client feedback. Instead, the copywriter becomes a laboratory rat churning out words and not necessarily quality. Let’s face it, sometimes less is more. Bespoke and factory copywriting are world’s apart.
Charging by the page: What is a page? With a nice large font size, let’s say 72 pt for good measure, this blows the page metric out of the water. Just don’t do it. We don’t. We won’t.
Charging per project: This is our most common request. Especially from an ad agency or branding agency who understandably want to keep their profit margins and costs in control. And who can blame them?
There are both risks and rewards to this. If the brief is a bit on the vague side then it’s akin to staring down a large tunnel, not knowing how long it will take to get to the other side.
The journey ahead could be a walk in the park – nailing the brief, a happy and convergent client and a swift payment. However, it could be a tunnel of hell punctuated by horror and torturous delay – the creative brief morphing into a hybrid monster due to a client’s change of mind, long dark waits for client feedback, the copy turning into a Frankenstein of mind-churning proportions because everybody on the client team wanted to graft on their own two pennies-worth. And if this is not enough legwork, then consider how you also failed to figure the time required to get the concept right. Because it’s intangible, clients often don’t give a great concept the worth it deserves.
At the end of the day, once you are in the tunnel there’s no going back. Shut up and put up, or have the strength of character to communicate honestly if it unreasonably goes beyond the call of duty. At Word we’ve been lucky as many of our clients have been reasonable in these situations. So, thanks.
Then finally, there is the common remark. The ‘here we go again’, toe-curling comment:
“Your cost seems a bit on the high side, we can get it cheaper with other copywriters around town.”
AT THE END OF THE DAY YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.
Things can always be procured cheaper, but at what cost? Great copy is like booking into a luxurious five-star hotel – you get slick concept, intelligent and considered style and a personalised and thoughtful service that is second to none.
Most of all, you will get the peace of mind that it will be done properly with background research which yields a genuine understanding of your brand or subject area.
If you only want to stump up a backpacker hostel rate, then expect basic and intermittent running words, probably impregnated with the odd non-native speaker glitch, and a one-size-fits-all slip shod mediocrity that is all too common in this region of the world.
DON’T SAY WE DIDN’T WARN YOU.
So dear clients, next time you ask us for a cost estimate please be patient. Be kind. Take into account our abject fear of dark tunnels, but most of all our honest commitment to putting in the legwork and thought to deliver you impeccable five-star copy which is bang on brand. We’re good. The best. Honestly. You should call us.
