Tag: World’s Best Copywriting Secrets

The Biggest Myth About Copywriting Royalties by Bob Bly

Nelson Tan Leave a comment

The other day a client, JM, suggested that, instead of my usual flat fee for copywriting, he would compensate me based on performance. Specifically, I would get a royalty based on sales.

He explained, “If you are paid based on results, wouldn’t you be incentivized to work harder and do a better job?”

I told JM the fallacy in his thinking: It implies that, for clients not paying a performance-based bonus, I do sub-par work.

“And that’s ridiculous,” I told him. The truth is: I write the absolute best piece of copy I can on every job I get, whether the fee is flat or royalty-based, high or low.

Why do I pull out all stops on every copywriting assignment I get, regardless of method or amount of compensation? For 3 reasons.

First, to do otherwise would be irresponsible, unethical, and, in my opinion, cheating the client.

Second, the better the copy I write, the more repeat business and referrals I get. And it helps build my reputation.

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Yes, I know a few writers who say they are only happy if they are getting a royalty based on sales or another performance metric.

The flat fees I charge are not outrageously high, but they are not cheap either. So I feel well compensated working for the fees I earn. I may not be getting rich, but I earn a comfortable living.

Here is the primary situation in which I think a royalty makes sense: the client will be testing and tweaking the promotion on an ongoing basis, and they want me available to help with this.

That tweaking and ongoing testing is not covered in the flat fee I charged to write the copy.

So the client would have to pay more money for additional copywriting they require.

Except, if the promotion is paying me a royalty, I have an incentive to tinker and tweak

Freelancers, Put Your Clients First! by Bob Bly

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A couple of weeks ago I got an e-mail from HG, a freelancer I hired to write an e-book for my info-marketing business.

HG complained, “Bob, this project has just taken a lot more time and energy than expected. I need to move onto other things. I just want to finish and get paid at this time.”

I must tell you that this is a piss-poor attitude and I would hesitate to use HG for another project.

Here’s my reply to HG: “As I said in a recent talk at the AWAI Boot Camp, you must always put the client first. You always do the best job you can no matter what you are getting paid.

“I am not happy to hear you just want to finish and be done with it. If you want to get paid, I expect your entire manuscript to be excellent, as was the first chapter of your first draft.”

Here’s the thing I have discovered in 35 years of freelancing…

You rarely feel that the fee you are getting is perfect for the amount of work and degree of difficulty in any assignment.

Either you are working too hard for too little money, or the project is easier than you expected and you are being paid perhaps too well.
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My experience is that it all balances out, and my rule is: it doesn’t matter.

Whichever the case, I always do the very best job I can on every assignment, no matter how much or how little I am getting paid.

And I would never tell a client “I have to move on.” You move on when you have completed the project to the customer’s satisfaction. Not when you are tired of it or have other things to do.

Can you imagine hiring a contractor for an agreed-upon fee to remodel your kitchen, and when you are not satisfied, having him tell you he incorrectly estimated the time and labor…and therefore will not finish the job to your satisfaction because he has to “move on”?

The only way to succeed in business is to put the client first.

In fact, the real secret to outrageous business success is not to give the client his money’s worth…but to give him more than his money’s worth, more than he has any right to expect.

Bob Bly is the author of “World’s Best Copywriting Secrets” and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him “America’s top copywriter”.

When It Comes To Setting Goals, Get Real by Bob Bly

Nelson Tan Leave a comment

Napoleon Hill famously wrote: “Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

Earl Nightingale similarly said, “We become what we think about.”

This is the biggest load of horse hooey since the Law of Attraction.

Just because you want something doesn’t mean you can have or do it.

For instance, today I will start conceiving and believing that I will replace Jeter as the next Yankees captain.

I’ll let you know how that goes.

I think NYU professor Tamsin Shaw sees things much more clearly than Hill or Nightingale.
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In the New York Review of Books (10/9/14, p. 4), she writes that what we do and become is largely guided by “our internal dispositions and talents, our inborn nature.”

In other words, we achieve in areas we are good at, like, and have a natural aptitude and talent for.

The people I know who are successful all pursued activities that they were naturally inclined to do and enjoyed.

Instead of just wishing, believing, and conceiving, ask yourself: what do you like? What are you good at? What do other people say you do well?

And most important of all, what do you absolutely love to do more than anything else?

Next to my family, the greatest plus in my life is that I have a job

Straight Talk About Copywriting Royalties by Bob Bly

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Subscriber MC writes: “I would like you to address the subject of getting people to pay you royalties. I assume this can become a problem for many direct response copywriters.”

A royalty is a fee paid to copywriters based on the performance of the promotion they wrote.

There are all kinds of arrangements. But the most typical online is a percentage of net sales, which is often 2-3%.

For direct mail, the royalty is a fee paid per package mailed, usually 2 to 3 cents.

But really, you and the client can negotiate whatever the two of you can agree to.

For instance, one client agreed to pay me a flat cash bonus of $6,000 if my DM package beat his control, which it did.

Another offered a flat royalty of $3,750 every time they mailed the package.

Many clients, especially small and amateur, offer to pay you a percentage of sales in lieu of a fee.

These deals you should stay away from, because you are betting on something you have no control over.

For instance, what if the client picks the wrong mailing list, changes your copy so that the promotion doesn’t perform, or never runs the promotion? It happens.

The preferred arrangement among top copywriters and top clients is the writer’s usual flat fee PLUS a bonus royalty.

Why would a client pay you both your regular fee and a royalty on top of that?

Some clients pay the royalty on top of the regular fee because they think it motivates the writer to do a better job.
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Others do it because they want the writer to have a financial incentive to keep his promotion as the control by doing tweaks and updates for no additional fee.

Notice that above I referred to “top clients” paying royalties.

For the most part, only direct response marketers pay royalties, because direct response is the only marketing channel where sales generated by your copy can be measured precisely down to the penny.

Most local car dealers can’t easily tell on any given day how many customers were driven to the showroom by your billboard or radio spot, so how could they pay a percentage of sales to you?

But if you write a landing page for a direct marketer selling a home study course, you know exactly the revenue it produced.

That’s why most copywriting clients do not pay royalties: they cannot measure the sales results of their advertising.

Clients who usually do not pay royalties include business-to-business marketers, Fortune 1000 corporations, brand advertisers, ad agencies, local businesses, and small businesses.

The only clients who pay royalties on a regular basis are (a) major direct marketers like Agora Publishing and Weiss Research and (b) smaller but very successful, profitable, and experienced direct marketers, mainly online these days.

Copywriter John Carlton advises marketers not to do royalty agreements with copywriters on the first job.

“It may sound great to push off part of the fee to result-oriented royalties paid later,” says John. “But you need to remember that you’re just beginning your relationship with this writer.”

It’s John’s opinion that a good copywriter will usually not even propose royalties on the first job, because he doesn’t know or trust you any more than you do him.

Bob Bly is the author of “World’s Best Copywriting Secrets” and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him “America’s top copywriter”.