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Just because you can hire a copywriter doesn’t mean you should.

To see if you’re ready, answer these questions and read the explanations that follow.

Question #1: Are you getting sales?

The copywriter’s primary job is to increase response… to get more sales from the same amount of potential prospects.

If a product or service has not yet attracted customers, then there is nothing to improve. Zero multiplied by anything else is still zero.

Famous ad man, Claude Hopkins, says this in Scientific Advertising: “The reason for most of the non-successes in advertising is trying to sell people what they do not want.” p. 225

Before you invest in a copywriter, make sure your market wants what you are offering. Use low-risk methods to sell the product or service yourself. See how the market responds.

If you get sales, then you may want to hire a copywriter to improve your response.

Question #2: Do you have money to risk?

Copywriters are highly paid because what they do usually more than pays for itself.

Still, no copywriter in history has batted a thousand. There will always be an occasional “dud” among dozens of winning promotions.

Hiring a copywriter is like any other investment. You hope to get your money back — with an increase in profits — as quickly as possible. And you could get 1,000% ROI or more.

Naturally, your investment could fail to produce the kind of response you want. Which is why it’s important for you to have some money to risk. After that, the decision of hiring a copywriter is up to you.

Question #3: Do you test ad copy?

There is only one way to guarantee the success of any ad, sales letter, or promotion. That is to test.

The whole purpose of testing is to determine what works best in the real world. For instance, you might test two different guarantees. One converts 2% of all prospects into customers. But the other one converts 4%, twice as much.

If you had not tested, and you had “gone with your gut,” you might have chosen the less effective version — and given up half of the potential revenue!

Testing does two things. First, it proves what works best. And, in cases where your opinion differs from your copywriter (or anybody else), it serves as the court where you can obtain a verdict.

Before you hire a copywriter, be committed to testing. It is the only scientific way to prove out what works and what doesn’t.

Did you pass the “test?” If so, congratulations. Not only do you have an uncommon understanding about the nature of copywriting, you would probably do well to hire a copywriter.

Tags: Copywriting