Copywriters are at risk of becoming a commodity service provider.

As proof, during a search I stumbled across a pay-per-click ad today offering online writing services.

Specifically, the ad promised “unique custom-written SEO web content.”

What do you think they charge for 500 words of custom content (total, not per word), including optimization of the page?

A–$5,000.
B–$500.
C–$50.
D–$5.

In my 6/14/09 post, I invited a debate on which works best — long copy vs. short copy.

But superstar copywriter John Carlton doesn’t thinks there’s much of a debate to be had.

“If I woke up tomorrow and realized the universe had changed in such a way that a decent sales pitch no longer required persuasion, proof, credibility, offers, and all the other classic ingredients, I’d be the first one writing short copy,” writes John in Early to Rise (6/20/09).

John disputes the Web 2.0 evangelists, who claim that you can create sales with just a smidgen of copy here and there, like dabs of gray ink in the colorful wonder of an over-designed web page.

“I don’t write long copy because I like long copy,” asserts John. “I write long copy because that’s what works.”

His formula for writing effective long copy promotions:

1–Start at the beginning of your sales message.
2–Cover the points your prospect needs to hear to make a decision.
3–Urge him toward the right decision — to buy your product.
4–Close with panache.

“When you can do that in a few terse sentences or in a single, brief, whiz-bang video, let me know,” concludes John. “I’m not holding my breath.”

Do you want to let John know that you AGREE with him — and that, online and offline, long copy is still king, even in this era of online video, Twitter, YouTube, sound bytes, Susan Boyle, and child-like attention spans?

Or can you offer arguments and evidence to prove John wrong by showing that short copy sites, videos, and the like can sometimes clobber long copy?

What say you?

Source: Early to Rise, 6/20/09.

If you sink money into starting an Internet marketing, copywriting, or other small business, and you aren’t successful, will the government write a check to tide you over until you turn a profit? Not on your life.

So why should they do it for car manufacturers and banks? The answer, of course, is that they should not.

As Ed Konecnik points out in a letter to NYC’s Libertarian newspaper Serf City (vol. 5, no. 1, p. 2): “Success is a result of manuy factors. By eliminating the consequences of failure, we inspire and encourage mediocrity.”

Plus, a government bail-out of big business is just grossly unfair to small business. If we run our businesses poorly, we are out of business. Why should the same rules not apply to large corporations and financial institutions?

“In the real world, bankruptcy and failure are options that serve to cleanse and filter out incompetence,” writes Konecnik.

In an article in The Weekly Standard (5/18/09, p. 39), John Podhoretz puts forth an odd thesis: namely, that the less a writer knows about his topic, the better.

His article focuses on one specific type of writer, professional film critics, whom he says are a dying breed, as more and more newspapers lay off their film critics, and movie goers turn to film blogs instead of the newspaper for movie reviews.

“This deprofessionalization is probably the best thing that could have happened to film criticism,” Podhoretz writes, noting that to write moview reviews “requires nothing but an interesting sensibility.”

He goes on to say that an education in film-making is not only unnecessary for writing movie reviews but may actually be detrimental:

“The more self-consciously educated one is in the field — by which I mean the more obscure the storehouse of cinematic knowledge a critic has — the less likely it is that one will have anything interesting to say to an ordinary person.”

Funny, but I thought a “storehouse of knowledge” was a PREREQUISITE for writing intelligently on any subject, whether it’s Internet marketing, copywriting, popular science, or film.

But Podhoretz seems to argue that the less you know about the subject you write about, the better.

His reasoning: your reader also knows little, so your ignorance will enable you to write at the reader’s level of knowledge and interest.

When you write, do you strive to continually gain more knowledge of the subjects you write about? (That’s my approach.)

Or does Podhoretz’s notion of keeping the writer ignorant so he is the reader’s peer make some sort of sense to you?

(And I can see where it might; e.g., most scientists are notoriously bad popular science writers because they write for other scientists, not the general public.)

ST, a newbie, asked me the other day: “How do I make sure my online customers don’t violate my copyright by making illegal copies of my e-book?”

Scroll to the bottom of this post to see the notice I post prominently on the copyright page of all my e-books. You have my permission to use it.

What else do you guys do to stop your PDF products from being copied and passed around without payment to you?

Or do you not even worry about it and let it happen freely?

———————————————————————————–
This is NOT a free e-book!

Purchase of this e-book entitles the buyer to keep one copy on his or her computer AND to print out one copy only.

Printing out more than one copy or distributing it electronically is prohibited by international and U.S. copyright laws and treaties, and would subject the offending party to penalties of up to $100,000 per copy distributed.
—————————————————————————————-

The debate over long vs. short copy rages on, and a recent Copy Chasers column in BtoB magazine (6/8/09, p. 26) declares that — at least in B2B advertising — short copy is the winner.

“In an age when 140-character messages seem to push the limits of the human attention span, it’s best to keep things as short and sweet as Twitter,” the column advises.

“Brevity is always welcome in B2B advertising, as decision-makers need to think fast. Advertisers that can concisely convey a message have a distinct advantage over those that force readers to slog through text.”

On the surface, this seems sensible:

1–Businesspeople are busy, and don’t have a lot of time to read.

2–Therefore, they will respond better to short copy than to long copy.

And today, any product information they need is posted on the advertiser’s web site, the URL for which can be featured prominently in the ad.

Yet in consumer advertising, there are still some advertisers who hit home runs with long-copy space ads.

Two that come to mind are the Institute for Children’s Literature (“We’re looking for people to write children’s books”) and The Teaching Company (“The Great Courses”).

So … is BtoB right –and (at least for B2B) is long copy advertising dead at last?

Or can a long copy ad, in some cases, do a better selling job than Madison Avenue’s minimalist approach to body copy?

What say you?

“Break-even” is the response rate a direct mail must generate to produce sales revenues equal to the cost of the mailing.

But what is that response rate for your mailing? It depends on 5 factors:

* Postage.
* Printing.
* Letter shop charges.
* List rental cost.
* Price of product being sold.
* Cost of goods for product.

You can input these factors here and have my free DM ROI software instantly calculate the response rate you need to achieve break-even:

www.dmresponsecalculator.com

Did you know that your web site can actually have different positions in Google — depending on who is searching for them!

?Several things can account for differences in search engine position results,? says my SEO guru Ed Taylor. ?One factor is the Google server (data center) that is accessed. Google has many data centers around the world and they often have slightly different rankings.?

Another factor affecting the results you see in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) is the location of your PC. According to Ed, the organic rankings can also be affected by the computer’s location. This is very evident on searches that Google deems of a local nature (i.e. a dentist). In the case of local searches, very often the Google Map setting will appear with a group of listings specific to the local area.

Ranking differences can also result from the searcher?s computer settings. Computers that are logged into a Google account often display different ranking results that than those that are not. These results are influenced by the web sites the searcher has visited in the past.

Action step: when checking your site ranking on Google, has several people in different locations search on your keyword and let you know where you appear.