Why Cheap Doesn’t Work in Copywriting or Marketing

Kassia Kroszer said, in response to Porter Anderson’s questions about her manifesto on ebooks titled A Reader’s Bill of Rights, that cheap self-publishing doesn’t harm the industry but the individual:

For self-published authors, they aren’t really driving the cost of the market down as much as they are driving their own worth down. It’s pretty clear that readers are happily paying higher prices for quality books, though there is a tolerance point. I cannot say if these authors feel their pricing is worth it to them — I guess some will offer up an emphatic yes. Me? I disagree.

via Writing on the Ether | Jane Friedman.

I agree with Kroszer, because history has proven this out time and again in multiple industries and products. You can buy cheap shoes that fall apart in one season or shoes that last decades. You can buy the services of a tax accountant who misses your deductions and lands you in an audit without support, or pay a pro to do it right. You can hire a cheap copywriter off Craigslist and get cheap copy that doesn’t present your business well and doesn’t sell (and is often riddled with errors), or pay a reputable writer to do it right the first time.

Quality costs money. People know this, and they make a conscious decision to buy the best they can afford for those things that matter to them.

If you’re a freelancer, and you set your price low to attract new business, you’ll only attract clients that don’t value what you do. They’ll never pay more for future projects, and even if your work is impeccable, they’ll view it as shoddy for the very reason that you’ve led them to believe it isn’t worth much.

If you’re hiring a freelancer or consultant for a project, think about how important this project is to your business. If you’re not willing to pay the going rate for quality work, then perhaps this isn’t a project you should bother with at all. Perhaps your budget should go into a project that really is important.

Because the only thing worse than bad marketing or bad copy is lots of bad marketing or bad copy.

Post Tagged with , , ,