Dutton & Co Internet Marketing Blog

Hey Guys,

As an Internet Marketer, I often try to outsource some of the boring tasks that I don’t find stimulating.

One of the tasks I regularly outsource is article writing, especially with subjects that I don’t feel all that passionate about.

I have a small group of subcontractors that I use regularly because they provide high quality work at a fair price – and their great to work with so we have a mutually beneficial business relationship.

My inbox is often cluttered with sales emails from other firms offering content writing services and occasionally I’ll reply to one or two of them to get an idea of what they can provide and how the company operates.

This is the story of one such encounter with seooverture dot com:

It started with the following email hitting my inbox:

Hi,

Hope you are well.

I am [Name Witheld], Business Development Manager.

We are an Online Marketing firm with over 3 years experience in the domain.

I was on your site and can see you are an online service provider.

Content in any Online Marketing Campaign is one of the most crucial factors to make the campaign a success. However, in most cases the content is not good either in terms of user perspective or in terms of search engines.

Allow me to offer you our Web Copywriting Services. We work hard to deliver a hassle free and time bound copywriting service to our clients so that they don’t have to wait forever for a content piece. Do let me know if your views are in line with mine and you are facing such a situation with your current service provider.

I look forward to your response.

Kind Regards,

[Name Witheld]

Looking at the quality of language and grammar  in this first email, it’s almost certain that that the writers first language is not English. This isn’t usually a problem as the person doing the selling is not usually the person doing the article writing but if you’re offering writing services, it would make sense to ensure that your own writing is up to scratch.

I replied with:

How much would you charge for a 1000 word article?

Dan

To which, I got the response:

Hi Dan,

We are extremely sorry for late response please accept our heartiest greetings for the day !

Dan, our main charge is $400 for 1000 words article but this is our special offer to you that if you are going to get 10 or more than 10 article then we will give you 10% discount on each article. Please see bellow to know more detail about our packages–

$50 for 100 words
$ 100 for 200 words
$ 150 for 300 words
$175 for 400 words
$200 for 500 words
$400 for 1000 words
Dan, Our article content will be fresh and 100% unique, you can not find any types of duplicity in that content. Here i am still waiting for your positive response please do confirm me if you are interested with our services.

You have a great day ahead !

[Name Witheld]

Wow! 400 bucks for a single article! Do people actually pay this amount? I, myself, pay around $30-$50 for top-quality 1000-word articles and know it’s possible to get them even cheaper, so I was a little flabbergasted by this quote, so I told them:

Whoooaaa! That’s well expensive lol!

And they replied:

It is negotiable if you are ready to work with us. if we want to chat you then have you any live chat ID? is it possible to online chatting with you?

[Name Witheld]

After seeing the initial quote, I’d decided that I definitely did NOT want to work with them. They’re either totally unrealistic or go around conning people that don’t know any better – I wish I’d earned $2.50 per word for every article I wrote lol. Either way, I couldn’t work with them, so I said:

No I don’t think so – your initial quote is quite ridiculous – it’s beyond belief that anyone would pay that!

To which they replied:

ok, it will may be negotiable but may i know what should be cost for 1000 words article according to you ?

If it is possible then come on skype and add me by searching ranjan988 or email me your live chat ID if you have.

[Name Witheld]

To be honest, I’m not sure why I replied to this – I’d usually just ignore it and get on with important stuff, but instead I told them:

Less than $50

And the reply I got was:

Either you are joking or you do not need any types of content.
For 1000 words content we will charge you minimum $150, yes one thing we can that if you order for more than 10 content then the charges will be %100 per content.

Waiting for you confirmation.

[Name Witheld]

I was slightly annoyed by this response, partly because they were calling me a joker/timewaster, partly because I couldn’t understand the latter part of the sentence and partly because they’d dropped their initial quote by $250 – why didn’t they just give me a realistic quote in the first place? I responded with:

I think I’ll continue to pay less than $50 for my 1000 word articles, thank you.

As you have dropped your price from $400 to $150, I feel that you are the one that is joking. Please do not contact me again.

Dan

A few days later, they informed me:

Hi Dan,
Accept our heartiest greetings for the day and hope you are doing well.
Daniel, i have discussed with our director and content writing team and we are agree to your terms. Finally we are ready to write 1000 words content in $50, so if you are ready then please send me a confirmation email, here i am waiting for your quick confirmation.
You have a great day ahead !
[Name Witheld]

So, they’ve now quoted an eighth of the price that they originally quoted. Ridiculous!

I’m all for businesses trying to get the best price they can and the negotiation of a fair price for all parties involved but I cannot work with someone that so obviously tries to fleece me out of my hard-earned money.

I won’t be responding to them again – and SEO Overture (if you’re reading) please do not contact me again.