What Goes into a Copywriting Project?
All too often, I receive a message from someone asking for a quote on a copywriting project and and then get ghosted when I respond.
I'd consider myself to have pretty reasonably pricing in comparison to others in my field, and taking into account the work that goes into writing good copy.
But do others see this value?
I thought it would be useful to give a little bit of insight into the typical processes of a copywriter (or at least, this copywriter…)
Getting started
Once it's been confirmed that I'm onboard to work on a project, rates and timelines have been confirmed and everyone is happy, then the real work begins.
The first step that I take is research, and I think this is one of the areas that quite often isn’t taken into account when thinking about how long it takes someone to write a certain number of words.
If you think of a 1,000 word blog for example, that roughly 2 sides of A4, so a fair bit of writing.
Before I even get started on the writing, I need to do my research into the blog topic – what have other people written about this? Is it in the news? How are the public responding? Is this something completely new that not many people have talked about yet? What other companies are talking about topics like this?
This usually takes around 4 hours to complete, and also gives me a good basis for my next task – deciding on hierarchy and headers.
The nitty gritty
Something else that a lot of people don’t realise about copywriters is that we don’t just need to be good at writing, we need to be good at SEO.
This is especially prevalent when we’re working on blogs or web copywriting – if we can’t structure our work in a way which makes it easy for Google to read, it’s pretty useless to you!
Structuring and setting out the layout for a blog can take minutes or up to an hour, depending on the topic and length. Only once this is done do I actually get started on the writing.
I would consider myself reasonably lucky in that I can usually get the first draft of a 1,000 word blog written in about 2 hours. This includes consulting with my research notes and ensuring that anything I’ve discussed with the client is included.
Once the first draft is complete, the editing begins!
Editing a 1,000 word blog will usually take me an hour, again depending on a number of different factors. Once I’m happy with it, I’ll make sure that all the spelling and grammar is correct and then send it over to the client for their review.
There may be a few edits that the client wants to include, so this could take another hour or so depending on the feedback. Only after all their edits are completed and they’ve given the sign-off do I consider my job done.
How long does it take in total?
As a bit of a TL;DR, my estimates for writing a 1,000 word blog from start to finish sit at around 5 hours max, although this tends to be lower if I’ve worked with the client previously and can cut down my research stage to an extent.
When I give someone a quote for £200, I’d say this is actually pretty reasonable!
There’s a whole lot of misunderstanding out there about marketing in general, and copywriting is no exception. When you’re paying for a service, you’re not just paying for the number of words on a page, but also for the expert’s time and experience.
The role of a copywriter is to help improve your sales, and unfortunately, this isn’t something which always comes cheap.