How to quadruple your business - the three levels of copywriting
25 January 2008‘Copy’ has various levels of value. You can divide copy into a basic three-level hierarchy:
1. Business copy: writing and editing for books, magazines and website content. This is the kind of writing done by writers on trade magazines, in-house staff etc.
2. Promotional copy: the copywriter turns a piece of writing into sales language for a direct mail pack, website or leaflet etc. This is where ‘copy’ turn into ‘revenue’.
3. Marketing copy: the copywriter is in partnership with the business owners with a brief to increase sales and profits
What a copywriter is paid – level one
At the first level, the copywriter is paid per thousand words, anything from £120 up to £300. It depends mostly on the number of writers around who can produce copy on the subject. Niche writers can charge more. The articles you see on the Subscriptions Strategy website and in In Circulation magazine are business copy. So is most of the subscription promotions that you see in magazines and on websites
What a copywriter is paid – level two
Level two writers are paid per assignment, and the fee will be around £1,800 to £4,000 depending on the subject matter, size of job and what the resulting income is worth to the business. There are a number of promotions on this website that fall into this category, and you can see an example sales letter by registering for our confidential area (it’s free).
What a copywriter is paid – level three
At level three, the marketing copywriter acts in partnership with the business owners, who recognise the need for high-level marketing expertise. The writer takes an ongoing fee and / or a percentage of the income generated. That can be anything from £000s to £millions, depending on the turnover and profits achieved by his work.
There is another kind of copywriter who works in an advertising agency. His costs fall within an overall agency creative and production fee that includes many other things. This article isn’t about them – they work in a rarified atmosphere more akin to show business.
Example sales letters
It would not be wise for me to illustrate lots of example promotions at level two or three. I could fill around 1,000 pages with copy I have provided over the years to publishers, charities and other organisations. The problem is that a copy treatment and headline I create for one product can, and will, be used by a competing copywriter for his own clients. It can also be used by in-house writers in a company. To prove the point, I can tell you that the example promotions found here on the Subscriptions Strategy website are downloaded and viewed far more than any other item, simply because of their value.
Like any copywriter, I borrow ideas from others. But usually I create a concept for a promotion by examining the market the product exists in. To show what I mean by this, and how it works in practice click on the link below and look at the pdf promotion for a Capitol One credit card. I will use this leaflet to illustrate how a top level three ‘marketing copywriter’ works.
Capital One credit card – the brief
Let us suppose the marketing consultant copywriter person (me) has been asked to quadruple Capitol One’s credit card business over the next quarter. For this, I will receive 5% of net income, which would give me a fee of $104 million.
Remember – I could run this same exercise for almost any publisher or charity, but I’m demonstrating outside my usual sphere of consultancy so I don’t have to worry about these ideas being stolen and used for nothing.
To put your mind at rest, Capital One is an American company and its net income was $522 million for the fourth quarter, a 54.8 percent increase, year over year. They can afford my fee out of the extra $1,558 million my ideas will bring in.
Currently, Capitol One is competing with dozens of other credit card companies by juggling credit limits, offers, interest rates and target markets. The leaflet can be viewed here:
Capitol One is attempting to make its business more profitable by:
1. Timing its mailing in January, when money is traditionally at its tightest
2. Targeting young people around 20 years old
3. Charging an astonishing 34.9% interest rate. At that rate, an item costing £200 would take more than 6 years to pay off if the minimum payment is paid each month. To compare, Tesco’s credit card offers a 16.9% interest rate. Virgin credit card offers a 14.9% interest rate
4. Offering a credit limit of £2,500, which will then be increased on the fourth statement
5. Offering a choice of eight card designs the prospect can chose from. There is a tiger, a monkey, a funny pig and a dog etc.
How will I quadruple the credit card business for Capital One?
To quadruple the income for the Capital One credit card may sound like a tall order. What could I possibly put in the leaflet to boost response four times? The answer is that the card design choice is all wrong. Monkeys and pigs may be cute, but I wouldn’t go the cute road for this kind of money card. The person who created this graphic idea has little or no contact with the relevant age group – and, as always, the prospect has the answer.
I would partner with select companies to create a series of cards that would immediately lift the business and create the kind of publicity Richard Branson always seems to achieve. Richard Branson is the best example we have of someone who can raise a brand’s awareness overnight. This is why companies go into partnership with him.
It doesn’t need a huge marketing department to win huge business. Take a look:
Capital One credit card redesign
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