Last week, after a disappointing run-in with my hairdresser, I wrote about 10 additional services copywriters can offer to their clients.
Copywriter Leah Luong wrote in to get some clarification on strategy #8:
“As a newbie copywriter, I really enjoyed this email. At least they don’t make you into meat pies these days! (Sweeney Todd reference).
“I have a question about #8 The Dreaded Touch Up – How do I know if I should take the gig? In what situations should I run for the hills?”
The Dreaded Touch-Up is when the client comes to you and says, “We have this copy… It’s great, just needs to be touched up a bit.”
Like I wrote in that post last week, I normally avoid this kind of job — but there are cases when it makes sense to take it on. And Leah is asking what those cases are.
Before I give you my opinion, let me tell you about the four types of copywriting clients.
This comes from A-list copywriter Bob Bly, who says clients can fall into one of four categories: arrogant, ignorant, both, or neither.
Says Bob, it’s ok to work with arrogant clients. They know just as much or more about marketing as you do.
It’s also ok to work with ignorant clients. They defer to your opinion and let you take the lead.
What’s NOT ok is working with clients who are both arrogant and ignorant. These folks don’t know much about marketing (“This hairball of a sales letter is almost perfect, just needs some jazzing up”) but they are inflexible in their ignorance (“It absolutely shouldn’t take you more than 2 hours MAX to fix this mess up”).
So the first step of the Acceptable Touch-Up is to make sure you’re not dealing with clients who are both ignorant and arrogant.
Which, by default, leaves you with clients who are just ignorant.
Not ignorant in general.
Just ignorant of what needs to be done to fix their existing copy.
That’s why you, as the copywriter, should take charge and set expectations.
So in the case I referred to last week, I looked over the sales letter, and I found the few things — headline, lead, a couple of bullets — that I thought would make the biggest improvement if changed.
And I told the client, “I’ll write a new headline, new lead, and change these bullets for you, all for the reasonable price of whatever. Does that work for you?”
They agreed. So it made sense for me to take the job. And they were happy with the result, because it was exactly what I said I would do.
That’s my best advice when it comes to dealing with the Dreaded Touch-Up.
In case you’ve got other questions about how to deal with copywriting clients in various situations, you might be interested in the following: