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Not everyone can write good.
Take it from me not everyone should be writing copy. Luckily this is a blog article, so I am not held to the same standards as an ad or a marketing piece. It happens time and time again. ” Oh, no thanks, we will handle the copy on our end”. If your organization has the good sense to realize that outside talent is required for design, why isn’t professional copywriting equally important? Is it to save a little money or is it the belief that no one can tell your story better than you can? In my experience, it is a little of both, which ends up costing the organization more in the end.
Ok, you want to save a little money on that recruitment mailer. Sounds like a good idea in theory, but let’s explore it a little more.
Why are you doing a recruitment piece in the first place? I would ask, are members leaving or do they see the value in becoming a member? These are bigger questions that I ask our clients regularly, but we’ll save these for another time. If you have a very important task of raising member enrollment so why would you cut corners to attempt to save a few bucks. A very qualified freelance writer will charge around $75 - $150 per hour or an agency will charge $125 on up depending on the size and reputation. When you figure in design, printing, mailing and postage, copywriting is a small fraction of the overall project cost. An average sized direct mail piece may take up to 20 hours to successful write. At a rate of $125 per hour, this translates into $2500.00. When talking about something as critical as recruiting new members or retaining current members, this is a small price to pay for a successful campaign.
Maybe it’s not the money that is preventing your organization from utilizing professional copywriters, maybe it’s you.
The association world is comprised of highly educated professional people. Here in lies the problem. These are people that probably have a very good grasp of the English language so naturally they think writing would be well within their capabilities. However, writing for an advertisement, a member recruitment piece or for the web all require a specialized skill and years of experience to be done successfully. A good copywriter can weave a theme into the copy without beating people over the head with it. They can infuse the writing with some underlying organizational goals and can create a concept that is carried throughout the piece. This takes creativity and talent that the average association professional does not posses (no offense). The numerous pieces of collateral, PR, direct mail, branding, and e-content that the average association or professional society generates per year is staggering. Each of these touchpoints have a specific set of requirements. Writing copy for an ad is entirely different than writing copy for the web or an online newsletter. Only a skilled wordsmith has the ability to craft a multitude of pieces that work on their own and within a larger communications plan.
In the examples above, writing your own copy actually costs the organization more in the long run. Each piece will have a significantly lower success rate than had it been professionally written and since each piece is less successful you will have to generate even more poorly written pieces to attempt to achieve your goals.